At Salisbury Bishop Osmund (1078-99) is stated to have "got together a quantity of books, for he himself did not disdain either to write books or to bind them after they had been written"[246]; but the library, as elsewhere, was a work of the fifteenth century. The foundation is very clearly recorded in an act of the Chapter, dated 15 January, 1444-45. The members present decide that as it is desirable, "for divers reasons, to have certain schools suitable for lectures, together with a library for the safe keeping of books and the convenience of those who wish to study therein—which library up to the present time they have been without—such schools and library shall be built as soon as possible over one side of the cloister of the church, at the cost of William [Ayscough] now Bishop of Salisbury, the Dean, and the Canons of the aforesaid church[247]." Accordingly, a building was erected, extending over the whole length of the east cloister, conveniently approached by the staircase at the south-west corner of the south transept, which originally led only to the roof. This library was curtailed to its present dimensions, and otherwise altered, in consequence of a Chapter Order dated 25 November, 1758, part of which I proceed to quote:
That the southern part of the library be taken down as far as the partitions within which the manuscripts are placed, the whole being found much too heavy to be properly supported by the Cloysters, which were never designed originally to bear so great a weight.
That the roof of the northern part of the library (where the Theological lecture antiently used to be given by the Chancellor of the Church) be taken down; the walls lowered, and a new and lighter roof be placed in its room; and that the same be fitted up in a neat and convenient manner for the reception of the present books and any others which shall hereafter be added to them.
The appearance of the library, as the execution of the above order left it, will be understood from the view ([fig. 41]), taken from the roof of an adjoining alley of the cloister. Internally the room is 66 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 12 ft. 9 in. high. It has a flat plaster ceiling, part of the "new and lighter roof" imposed on the lowered walls in 1758. The fittings are wholly modern.
The library attached to S. Paul's Cathedral, London, by which I mean the medieval cathedral commonly called Old S. Paul's, was in a similar position. Its history is succinctly recorded by Dugdale. After describing the cemetery called Pardon Church Hawgh, with the cloister that surrounded it, he proceeds:
The Library.
Over the East quadrant of the before mentioned Cloyster, was a fair Library built, at the costs of Walter Shiryngton, Chancelour of the Duchy of Lancaster in King Henry the 6th's time: But in the year MDXLIX. 10. Apr. both Chapell, Cloyster, and Monuments, excepting onely that side where the Library was, were pulled down to the ground, by the appointment of Edward Duke of Somerset, then Lord Protector to King Edward 6. and the materialls carried into the Strand, towards the building of that stately fabrick called Somerset-House, which he then erected; the ground where they stood being afterwards converted into a Garden, for the Pettie Canons[248].