In spite of civil strife and foreign complications, the taste for literature made great strides during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the very natural consequence of an increased demand for, and supply of, books. And the curious thing is that book-collecting was gradually passing away from the monks, and becoming exceedingly popular with the laity. 'Flocks and fleeces, crops and herds, gardens and orchards, the wine of the winecup, are the only books and studies of the monks.' The Franciscans, who (like the Dominicans) came to England in 1224, were expressly forbidden 'the possession of books or the necessary materials for study.' When Roger Bacon joined this order, he was deprived of his books. St. Francis himself, it seems, was once 'tempted to possess books'—by honest means, let us hope, although the point is not quite clear—and he almost yielded to the temptation, but finally decided that it would be sinful. The plague of books seems to have troubled this poor saint's soul, for he hoped that the day would come when men would throw their books out of the window as rubbish.
In proof of the theory that laymen at a very early period became book-collectors, the most interesting example which we can quote is that of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in 1315, and who bequeathed his library to Bordesley Abbey, Worcestershire, where it had already been deposited during his lifetime. Beginning with this preamble, 'A tus iceux qe ceste lettre verront ou orrount. Guy de Beauchamp, Comte de Warr. Saluz en Deu. Nous avoir bayle e en lagarde le Abbé e le covent de Bordesleye, lesse a demorer a touz jours les Romaunces de souz nomes; ces est assaveyr,' the bequest recites, with great minuteness, a remarkably interesting list of books. This list ('escrites ou Bordesleye le premer jour de may, le an du regñ le Roy Edwd trentime quart') is in the Lambeth Library, but it is reprinted by Todd in his 'Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer,' pp. 161, 162. This list is of more than ordinary interest, chiefly because the collection formed by a layman gives us a very good insight into the class of books which the early nobility of England read, or, at all events, collected. Religious books, of course, formed the background of the library, but there were many romances, such, for instance, as those of King Arthur, of 'Josep alb Arimathie e deu Seint Grael,' of 'Troies,' etc. There was also a book 'De Phisik et de Surgie.'
This collection contained between forty and fifty volumes, in which was included pretty nearly the entire range of human knowledge as it then extended. It is well to remember in connection with this bequest that, at the same time, or, more correctly, in 1300, the academical library of Oxford consisted of a few tracts kept in chests under St. Mary's Church.
With the greatest book-collector of this period, Richard de Bury (1287-1345), the author of the 'Philobiblon,' unfortunately, we have little to do, as his book expeditions appear to have been confined almost entirely to foreign countries. He collected books from every source open to him, and wrote of his passion with a warmth of eloquence of which even Cicero might have been proud. His most important book transaction, which comes within the purview of the present volume, relates to the gift by an Abbot of St. Albans of four volumes to De Bury, then Clerk of the Privy Seal, viz., Terence, Virgil, Quintilian, and Hieronymus against Rufinus. In addition to these, the Abbot sold him thirty-two other books for fifty pounds of silver. When De Bury became Bishop this 'gift' troubled his conscience, and he restored several of the books which had come into his possession in a perfectly honest and legitimate manner, whilst others were secured from the Bishop's executors. One of the volumes acquired in the latter manner is now in the British Museum. It is a large folio MS. on the works of John of Salisbury, and bears upon it a note to the effect that it was written by Simon (Abbot of St. Albans, 1167-1183), and another to the following effect: 'Hunc librum venditum Domino Ricardo de Biry Episcopo Dunelmensi emit Michael Abbas Sancti Albani ab executoribus predicti episcopi anno Domini millesimo ccco xlvto circa purificationem Beate Virginis.'
The catalogue of the library of the Benedictine monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, in the Cottonian Collection, British Museum, and printed for the first time at length in Edward's 'Memoirs of Libraries' (i. 122-235), is a remarkable list of the most extensive collection of books at that time in this country. It was formed at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century. This library was well furnished with works in science and history, and particularly so with the classics—Aristotle, Cicero, Lucan, Plato, Suetonius, Seneca, Terence, and Virgil. The extreme probability is that London was the highway through which the greater part of this and other early libraries passed. If, early in the fifteenth century, the book-hunter in London possessed few opportunities of purchasing books, he would have found several very good libraries which were open to his inspection. There was, for example, a very considerable collection in the Franciscan monastery, which once stood on the site now occupied by Christ's Hospital, Newgate Street. The first stone of this monastery was laid in October, 1421, amid much pomp, by the then Lord Mayor, Sir Richard Whittington, who gave £400 in books. It was covered in before the winter of 1422, and completed in three years, and furnished with books. From Stow's 'Survey' we learn that one hundred marks were expended on the transcription of the works of Nicholas de Lira, to be chained in the library, and of which cost John Frensile remitted 20s. One of the chained books, 'The Lectures of Hostiensis,' cost five marks. From another source we learn that a Carmelite friar named John Wallden bequeathed to this library as many MSS. as were worth 2,000 pieces of gold.
Anthony à Wood refers to the oft-repeated charge of the book-covetousness of the mendicant friars, which, in fact, was carried to such an extreme 'that wise men looked upon it as an injury to laymen, who therefore found a difficulty to get any books.' Of the same period, there is a very curious anecdote in Rymer's 'Fœdera' about taking off the duty upon six barrels of books sent by a Roman cardinal to the Prior of the conventual church of St. Trinity, Norwich. These barrels, which lay at the Custom-house, were imported duty free.
Neither the book-hunger of the mendicant friars, nor the difficulties which surrounded the importation of books, appears to have militated greatly against the growing passion. We have the name, and only the name, of a very famous book-hunter—John of Boston—of the first decade of the fifteenth century, whose labours, however, have been completely blotted out of existence by the dispersed monasteries. But there were many other collectors whose memories have been handed down to us in a more tangible form, even if their collections of books are almost as abstract and indefinite as that of John of Boston. During the first quarter of the fifteenth century, we have quite a considerable little group of royal book-collectors—Henry IV., Henry V., and his brothers, John, Duke of Bedford, and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. The last-named was undoubtedly the most enthusiastic bibliophile of the four, but whilst his extensive gifts of books to the University of Oxford may be said to have formed the foundation of the library there, they were in the following century destroyed by the mob. A few examples of his gifts are now preserved in the British Museum and at Oxford. His books were estimated at a very high figure, the value placed on 120 of them (out of the total of 600) being no less than £1,000. The memory of the Duke of Bedford's library is best perpetuated by the famous Bedford Missal, or Book of Hours, perhaps the most splendid example of fifteenth-century illustration. It is now in the British Museum, where it has been since 1852. The history of this missal, perhaps the most interesting in existence, is too well known to be dealt with here (see p. [109]).
Henry V. was undoubtedly fond of books. Rymer refers to two petitions to the Council after the King's death for the return of valuable books of history, borrowed by him of the Countess of Westmoreland, and of the priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, and not returned, though one of them had been directed to be delivered to its owner by the King's last will. The elegantly illuminated copy of Lydgate's 'Hystory, Sege, and Destruccion of Troye,' 1513, in the Bodleian, is doubtless the copy which Lydgate gave to Henry V. At Cambridge there is the MS. of a French translation of Cardinal Bonaventure's 'Life of Christ,' with the note 'this wasse sumtyme Kinge Henri the fifeth his booke,' etc.