By permission of Father Ingold a few of his illustrations of clerical ex-libris are inserted here, namely, those of Quiqueran de Beaujeu, of Joan de Montmeau, of François Jannart, and the simple little stamp illustrated below, which was used by the priests for marking the books in their own collection in the College of Lyons.
Father Ingold complains, however, that in most of the ancient abbeys and monasteries in France the officials who had charge of the books were content simply to inscribe the name of the establishment in MS. on the title-pages, and did not use book-plates. He gives a long list of these inscriptions (all in Latin), some of which contain allusions to interesting historical and bibliographical facts; but as all these entries are written in, they cannot be considered ex-libris in the sense that we attach to the expression.
A work of the greatest utility to those interested in the study of ecclesiastical book-plates is the “Catalogue des Incunables de la Bibliothèque Publique de Besançon,” par Auguste Castan. This was a posthumous book, published in 1893, by J. Dodivers, Grande Rue, Besançon.
The author was Conservateur de la Bibliothèque de Besançon, a position which gave him ample opportunities for the pursuit of bibliographical studies, to which he devoted his life. The library of Besançon is particularly rich in unique early printed books, and in MSS. It contains no less than 985 volumes or pamphlets, printed during the fifteenth century, amongst which are examples of the rarest works from the early printing offices of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland.
These are all fully described by Mons. Castan, who gives biographical accounts of their printers, the watermarks on their paper, their bindings, notes concerning their former owners, and, what is more to our purpose, descriptions of the ex-libris found in them.
Of these there appear to be about 500, all being carefully indexed, but the confusing French practice is adopted of including manuscript entries of ownership amongst what we term book-plates.
