Fig. 15 Ezra writing the Law. Frontispiece to the Codex Amiatinus. In the background is a press with open doors. The picture was probably drawn in the middle of the sixth century A.D.

THE
CARE OF BOOKS

London: C. J. CLAY and SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE,
Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET.

Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Bombay: E. SEYMOUR HALE.

[All Rights reserved.]

THE
CARE OF BOOKS

An Essay on the
Development of Libraries and
their Fittings, from the earliest times to
the end of the Eighteenth Century

By

John Willis Clark, M.A., F.S.A.

Registrary of the University
and formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE
at the University Press
1901

Cambridge:
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

FRANCISCO AIDANO GASQUET
MONACHO BENEDICTINO
D.D.
MAGISTRO DISCIPULUS

PREFACE.

When engaged in editing and completing The Architectural History of the University and Colleges of Cambridge, I devoted much time and attention to the essay called The Library. The subject was entirely new; and the more I looked into it, the more convinced did I become that it would well repay fuller investigation than was then possible. For instance, I felt certain that the Customs affecting monastic libraries would, if one could only discover them, throw considerable light on collegiate statutes relating to the same subject.

The Architectural History having been published, I had leisure to study libraries from my new point of view; and, while thus engaged, I fortunately met with the admirable paper by Dom Gasquet which he modestly calls Some Notes on Medieval Monastic Libraries. This brief essay—it occupies only 20 pages—opened my eyes to the possibilities that lay before me, and I gladly place on record here the debt I owe to the historian to whom I have dedicated this book.

When I had the honour of delivering the Rede Lecture before the University of Cambridge in June 1894, I attempted a reconstruction of the monastic library, shewing its relationship, through its fittings, to the collegiate libraries of Oxford and Cambridge; and I was also able, following the example set by Dom Gasquet in the above-mentioned essay, to indicate the value of illuminated manuscripts as illustrating the life of a medieval student or scribe. In my lectures as Sandars Reader in Bibliography, delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1900, I developed the subject still further, extending the scope of my enquiries so as to include the libraries of Greece and Rome.

In writing my present book I have availed myself freely of the three works above mentioned. At the same time I have incorporated much fresh material; and I am glad to take this opportunity of stating, that, with the single exception of the Escõrial, I have personally examined and measured every building which I have had occasion to describe; and many of the illustrations are from my own sketches.

I call my book an Essay, because I wish to indicate that it is only an attempt to deal, in a summary fashion, with an extremely wide and interesting subject—a subject, too, which might easily be subdivided into separate heads each capable of more elaborate treatment. For instance, with regard to libraries in Religious Houses, I hope to see a book written, dealing not merely with the way in which the books were cared for, but with the subjects most generally studied, as indicated to us by the catalogues which have survived.

A research such as I have had to undertake has naturally involved the co-operation of numerous librarians and others both in England and on the Continent. From all these officials I have experienced unfailing courtesy and kindness, and I beg them to accept this collective expression of my gratitude. To some, however, I am under such particular obligations, that I wish to mention them by name.

In the first place I have to thank my friends Dr Jackson of Trinity College, Dr Sandys of S. John's College, Dr James of King's College, and F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A., University Librarian, for their kind help in reading proofs and making suggestions. Dr Sandys devoted much time to the revision of the first chapter. As my work deals largely with monastic institutions it is almost needless to say that I have consulted and received efficient help from my old friend W. H. St John Hope, M.A., Assistant Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries.

My researches in Rome were made easy to me by the unfailing kindness and ready help accorded on every occasion by Father C. J. Ehrle, S.J., Prefect of the Vatican Library. My best thanks are also due to Signor Rodolfo Lanciani, to Professor Petersen of the German Archeological Institute, Rome, and to Signor Guido Biagi of the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence. At Milan Monsignor Ceriani of the Ambrosian Library was so kind as to have the library photographed for my use.

The courteous officials who administer the great libraries of Paris with so much ability, have assisted me in all my researches. I wish specially to thank in this place M. Léopold Delisle and M. Léon Dorez of the Bibliothèque Nationale; M. A. Franklin of the Bibliothèque Mazarine; M. H. Martin of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal; and M. A. Peraté, Sous-Conservateur du Château de Versailles.

I have also to thank Señor Ricardo Velasquez for his beautiful elevation of the bookcases in the Escõrial Library; Father J. van den Gheyn, S.J., of the Royal Library, Brussels, for his trouble in shewing me, and allowing me to have photographed, several MSS. from the library under his charge; my friends Mr T. G. Jackson, R.A., Architect, for lending me his section of Bishop Cobham's library at Oxford; E. W. B. Nicholson, M.A., Librarian, and Falconer Madan, M.A., Sub-Librarian, in the Bodleian Library, for information respecting the building and its contents; Mr F. E. Bickley of the British Museum for much help in finding and examining MSS.; and Lionel Cust, M.A., Director of the National Portrait Gallery, for general direction and encouragement.

Messrs Macmillan have allowed me to use three illustrations which appear in the first chapter; Mr Murray has given the same permission for the woodcut of the carrells at Gloucester; and Messrs Blades for the representation of James Leaver's book-press.

Lastly I wish to thank the staff of the University Press for using their best efforts to produce the work rapidly and well, and for many acts of personal kindness to myself.

JOHN WILLIS CLARK.

Scroope House,
Cambridge,
September 23rd, 1901.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE CARE OF BOOKS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION. ASSYRIAN RECORD-ROOMS. LIBRARIES IN GREECE, ALEXANDRIA, PERGAMON, ROME. THEIR SIZE, USE, CONTEXTS, AND FITTINGS. ARMARIA OR PRESSES. THE VATICAN LIBRARY OF SIXTUS V. A TYPE OF AN ANCIENT ROMAN LIBRARY.

I propose, in the following Essay, to trace the methods adopted by man in different ages and countries to preserve, to use, and to make accessible to others, those objects, of whatever material, on which he has recorded his thoughts. In this investigation I shall include the position, the size, and the arrangement, of the rooms in which these treasures were deposited, with the progressive development of fittings, catalogues, and other appliances, whether defensive, or to facilitate use. But, though I shall have to trace out these matters in some detail, I shall try to eschew mere antiquarianism, and to impart human interest, so far as possible, to a research which might otherwise exhaust the patience of my readers. Bibliography, it must be understood, will be wholly excluded. From my special point of view books are simply things to be taken care of: even their external features concern me only so far as they modify the methods adopted for arrangement and preservation. I must dismiss the subject-matter of the volumes which filled the libraries of former days with a brevity of which I deeply regret the necessity. I shall point out the pains taken to sort the books under various comprehensive heads; but I shall not enumerate the authors which fall under this or that division.

The earliest repositories of books were connected with temples or palaces, either because priests under all civilisations have been par excellence the learned class, while despots have patronised art and literature; or because such a position was thought to offer greater security.

I will begin with Assyria, where the record-rooms, or we might almost say the library, in the palace of Assur-bani-pal, King of Nineveh, were discovered by Mr Layard in 1850 at Kouyunjik, on the Tigris, opposite Mosul. The plan ([fig. 1]), taken from Mr Layard's work[1], will shew, better than a long description, the position of these rooms, and their relation to the rest of the building—which is believed to date from about 700 b.c. The long passage (No. xlix) is one of the entrances to the palace. Passing thence along the narrower passage (No. xlii) the explorers soon reached a doorway (E), which led them into a large hall (No. xxix), whence a second doorway (F) brought them into a chamber (No. xxxviii). On the north side of this room were two doorways (G. G), each "formed by two colossal bas-reliefs of Dagon, the fish-god." "The first doorway," says Mr Layard, "guarded by the fish-gods, led into two small chambers opening into each other, and once panelled with bas-reliefs, the greater part of which had been destroyed. I shall call these chambers 'the chambers of records,' for, like 'the house of the rolls' or records, which Darius ordered to be searched for the decree of Cyrus concerning the building of the Temple of Jerusalem[2], they appear to have contained the decrees of the Assyrian kings, as well as the archives of the empire."

Mr Layard was led to this conclusion by finding, in these rooms, enormous quantities of inscribed tablets and cylinders of baked clay. "To a height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with them; some entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments, probably by the falling in of the upper part of the building.... These documents appear to be of various kinds. Many are historical records of wars, and distant expeditions undertaken by the Assyrians; some seem to be royal decrees, and are stamped with the name of a king, the son of Esarhaddon; others again ... contain lists of the gods, and probably a register of offerings made in their temples[3]."

So far Mr Layard. Subsequent researches have shewn that these two small rooms—they were 27 feet and 23 feet long respectively, with a uniform breadth of 20 feet—contained the literature as well as the official documents of Assyria. The tablets have been sorted under the following heads: History; Law; Science; Magic; Dogma; Legends: and it has been shewn (1) that there was a special functionary to take charge of them; (2) that they were arranged in series, with special precautions for keeping the tablets forming a particular series in their proper sequence; (3) that there was a general catalogue, and probably a class-catalogue as well[4].

Excavations in other parts of Assyria have added valuable information to Layard's first discovery. Dr Wallis Budge, of the British Museum, whom I have to thank for much kind assistance, tells me that "Kouyunjik is hardly a good example of a Mesopotamian library, for it is certain that the tablets were thrown about out of their proper places when the city was captured by the Medes about b.c. 609. The tablets were kept on shelves.... When I was digging at Derr some years ago we found the what I call 'Record Chamber,' and we saw the tablets lying in situ on slate shelves. There were, however, not many literary tablets there, for the chamber was meant to hold the commercial documents relating to the local temple...." Dr Budge concludes his letter with this very important sentence: "We have no definite proof of what I am going to say now, but I believe that the bilingual[5] lists, which Assur-bani-pal had drawn up for his library at Nineveh, were intended 'for the use of students.'"

To this suggestion I would add the following. Does not the position of these two rooms, easily accessible from the entrance to the palace, shew that their contents might be consulted by persons who were denied admission to the more private apartments? And further, does not the presence of the god Dagon at the entrance indicate that the library was under the protection of the deity as well as of the sovereign?

As a pendant to these Assyrian discoveries I may mention the vague rumour echoed by Athenæus of extensive libraries collected in the sixth century before our era by Polycrates[6], tyrant of Samos, and Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens, the latter collection, according to Aulus Gellius[7], having been accessible to all who cared to use it. It must be admitted that these stories are of doubtful authenticity; and further, that we have no details of the way in which books were cared for in Greece during the golden age of her literature. This dearth of information is the more tantalizing as it is obvious that private libraries must have existed in a city so cultivated as Athens; and we do, in fact, find a few notices which tell us that such was the case. Xenophon[8], for instance, speaks of the number of volumes in the possession of Euthydemus, a follower of Socrates; and Athenæus records, in the passage to which I have already alluded, the names of several book-collectors, among whom are Euripides and Aristotle.

An allusion to the poet's bibliographical tastes has been detected in the scene of The Frogs of Aristophanes, where Æschylus and Euripides are weighing verses against each other in the presence of Dionysus. Æschylus exclaims:

[και] μηκετ' εμοιγε κατ' επος, αλλ' ες τον σταθμον
αυτος τα παιδι', ἡ γυνη, κηφισοφων,
εμβας καθησθω συλλαβων τα βιβλια,
εγω δε δυ' επη των εμων ερω μονον.

Come, no more single lines—let him bring all,
His wife, his children, his Cephisophon,
His books and everything, himself to boot—
I'll counterpoise them with a couple of lines[9].

With regard to Aristotle Strabo has preserved a tradition that he "was the first who made a collection of books, and taught the kings of Egypt how to arrange a library[10]"—words which may be taken to mean that Aristotle was the first to work out the arrangement of books on a definite system which was afterwards adopted by the Ptolemies at Alexandria.

These notices are extremely disappointing. They merely serve to shew that collections of books did exist in Greece; but they give us no indication of either their extent or their arrangement. It was left to the Emperor Hadrian to build the first public library at Athens, to which, as it was naturally constructed on a Roman design, I shall return after I have described those from which it was in all probability imitated.

But, if what may be termed Greece in Europe declines to give us information, that other Greece which extended itself to Asia Minor and to Egypt—Greater Greece it would be called in modern times—supplies us with a type of library-organisation which has been of far-reaching influence.

After the death of Alexander the Great (b.c. 323) a Greek dynasty, that of the Ptolemies, established itself at Alexandria, and another Greek dynasty at Pergamon. Both were distinguished—like Italian despots of the Renaissance—for the splendour and the culture of their courts, and they rivalled one another in the extent and richness of their libraries; but, if we are to believe Strabo, the library at Pergamon was not begun until the reign of Eumenes II. (b.c. 197-159), or 126 years after that at Alexandria[11].

The libraries at Alexandria (for there were two)—though far more celebrated and more extensive than the library at Pergamon—need not, from my point of view, detain us for more than a moment, for we are told very little about their position, and nothing about their arrangement. The site of the earliest, the foundation of which is ascribed to Ptolemy the Second (b.c. 285-247), must undoubtedly be sought for within the circuit of the royal palace, which was in the fashionable quarter of the city called Brucheion. This palace was a vast enceinte, not a separate building, and, as Strabo, who visited Alexandria 24 b.c., says,

Within the precincts of the palace is the Museum. It has a colonnade, a lecture-room, and a vast establishment where the men of letters who share the use of the Museum take their meals together. This College has a common revenue; and is managed by a priest who is over the Museum, an officer formerly appointed by the kings of Egypt, but, at the present time, by the Emperor[12].

That the older of the two libraries must have been in some way connected with these buildings seems to me certain from two considerations. First, a ruler who took so keen an interest in books as Ptolemy, would assuredly have kept his treasures under his own eye; and, secondly, he would hardly have placed them at a distance from the spot where the learned men of Alexandria held their meetings[13].

At some period subsequent to the foundation of Ptolemy's first library, a second, called the daughter of the first[14], was established in connexion with the Temple of Serapis, a magnificent structure in the quarter Rhacôtis, adorned so lavishly with colonnades, statuary, and other architectural enrichments, that the historian Ammianus Marcellinus declares that nothing in the world could equal it, except the Roman Capitol[15].

This brief notice of the libraries of Alexandria shews that the earlier of the two, besides being in a building dedicated to the Muses, was also connected in all probability with a palace, and the second with a temple. If we now turn to Pergamon, we shall find the library associated with the temple and [τεμενος] of Athena.

The founder selected for the site of his city a lofty and precipitous hill, about a thousand feet above the sea-level. The rocky plateau which forms the summit is divided into three gigantic steps or terraces. On the highest, which occupies the northern end of the hill, the royal palace is believed to have been built. On the next terrace, to the south, was the temple of Athena; and on the third, the altar of Zeus. External to those three groups of buildings, partly on the edge of the hill, partly on its sides, were the rest of the public buildings. The lower slopes were probably occupied in ancient times, as at present, by the houses of the citizens.

These magnificent structures, which won for Pergamon the distinction of being "by far the noblest city in Asia minor[16]," were in the main due to Eumenes the Second, who, during his reign of nearly forty years (b.c. 197-159), was enabled, by the wise policy of supporting the Romans, to transform his petty state into a powerful monarchy. The construction of a library is especially referred to him by Strabo[17], and from the statement of Vitruvius that it was built for the delight of the world at large (in communem delectationem), we may infer that it was intended to be public[18]. That he was an energetic book-collector, under whose direction a large staff of scribes was perpetually at work, may be gathered from the well-known story that his bibliographical rival at Alexandria, exasperated by his activity and success, conceived the ingenious device of crippling his endeavours by forbidding the exportation of papyrus. Eumenes, however, says the chronicler, was equal to the occasion, and defeated the scheme by inventing parchment[19]. It is probable that Eumenes not only began but completed the library, for in less than a quarter of a century after his death (b.c. 133) the last of his descendants bequeathed the city and state of Pergamon to the Romans. It is improbable that they would do much to increase the library, though they evidently took care of it, for ninety years later, when Mark Antony is said to have given it to Cleopatra, the number of works in it amounted to two hundred thousand[20].

The site of the acropolis of Pergamon was thoroughly explored between 1878 and 1886 at the expense of the German Government; and in the course of their researches the archeologists employed discovered certain rooms which they believe to have been originally appropriated to the library. I have had the accompanying ground-plan ([fig. 2]) reduced from one of their plates, and have condensed my description of the locality from that given in their work[21]. I have also derived much valuable information from a paper published by Alexander Conze in 1884[22].

Of the temple of Athena only the foundations remain, but its extent and position can be readily ascertained. The enclosure, paved with slabs of marble, was entered at the south-east corner. It was open to the west and to the south, where the ground falls away precipitously, but on the east and north it was bounded by a cloister in two floors. The pillars of this cloister were Doric on the ground-floor, Ionic above. The height of those in the lower range, measured from base to top of capital, was about 16 feet, of those in the upper range about 9 feet.

This enclosure had a mean length of about 240 feet, with a mean breadth of 162 feet[23]. The north cloister was 37 feet broad, and was divided down the centre by a row of columns. The east cloister was of about half this width, and was undivided.

On the north side of the north cloister, the German explorers found four rooms, which they believe to have been assigned to library purposes. The platform of rock on which these chambers stood was nearly 20 feet above the level of the floor of the enclosure, and they could only be entered from the upper cloister. Of these rooms the easternmost is the largest, being 42 feet long, by 49 feet broad. Westward of it are three others, somewhat narrower, having a uniform width of 39 feet. The easternmost of these three rooms is also the smallest, being only 23 feet long; while the two next have a uniform length of about 33 feet.

At the south-west corner of this building, but on a lower level, and not accessible from it, other rooms were found, the use of which is uncertain.

We will now return to the eastern room. The foundations of a narrow platform or bench extended along the eastern, northern, and western sides, and in the centre of the northern side there was a mass of stone-work which had evidently formed the base for a statue ([fig. 2], A). The discovery of a torso of a statue of Athena[24] in this very room indicated what statue had occupied this commanding position, and also what had probably been the use of the room.

This theory was confirmed by the discovery in the north wall of two rows of holes in the stone-work, one above the other, which had evidently been made for the reception of brackets, or battens, or other supports for shelves[25], or some piece of furniture. The lower of these two rows was carried along the east wall as well as along the north wall. Further, stones were found bearing the names of Herodotus, Alcæus, Timotheus of Miletus, and Homer, evidently the designations of portrait-busts or portrait-medallions; and also, two titles of comedies.

Lastly, the very position of these rooms in connexion with the colonnade indicates their use. It will be observed that the colonnade on the north side of the area is twice as wide as that on the east side—a peculiarity which is sufficient of itself to prove that it must have been intended for some other purpose than as a mere covered way. But, if it be remembered that libraries in the ancient world were usually connected with colonnades (as was probably the case at the Serapeum at Alexandria, and was certainly the case at Rome, as I shall proceed to shew) a reason is found for this dignified construction, and a strong confirmation is afforded for the theory that the rooms beyond it once contained the famous library.

When the Romans had taken possession of Pergamon, those who had charge of the city would become familiar with the library; and it seems to me almost certain that, when the necessity for establishing a public library at Rome had been recognised, the splendid structure at Pergamon would be turned to as a model. But, if I mistake not, Roman architecture had received an influence from Pergamon long before this event occurred. What this was I will mention presently.

No public library was established in Rome until the reign of Augustus. Julius Cæsar had intended to build one on the largest possible scale, and had gone so far as to commission Varro to collect books for it[26]; but it was reserved for C. Asinius Pollio, general, lawyer, orator, poet, the friend of Virgil and Horace, to devote to this purpose the spoils he had obtained in his Illyrian campaign, b.c. 39. In the striking words of Pliny "he was the first to make men's talents public property (ingenia hominum rem publicam fecit)" The same writer tells us that he also introduced the fashion of decorating libraries with busts of departed authors, and that Varro was the only living writer whose portrait was admitted[27]. Pollio is further credited, by Suetonius, with having built an atrium libertatis[28], in which Isidore, a writer of the seventh century, probably quoting a lost work of Suetonius, places the library, with the additional information, that the collection contained Greek as well as Latin books[29].

The work of Pollio is recorded among the acts of generosity which Augustus suggested to others. But before long the emperor turned his own attention to libraries, and enriched his capital with two splendid structures which may be taken as types of Roman libraries,—the library of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, and that in the Campus Martius called after Octavia, sister to the emperor. I will take the latter first.

The Porticus Octaviæ, or, as it was sometimes called, the Opera Octaviæ, must have been one of the most magnificent structures in Rome ([fig. 3]). It stood in the Campus Martius, near the Theatre of Marcellus, between the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber. A double colonnade surrounded an area which measured 443 feet by 377 feet, with Jani, or four-faced archways, at the four corners, and on the side next the Tiber a double hexastyle porch, which, with a few fragments of the colonnade, still exists in a fairly good state of preservation[30]. Within this space were two temples, one of Jupiter, the other of Juno, a curia or hall, in which the Senate frequently met, a schola or "Conversation Hall[31]," and two libraries, the one of Greek, the other of Latin books. The area and buildings were crowded with masterpieces in bronze and marble.

This structure was originally built by Quintus Metellus, about 146 b.c.[32]. One of the temples was due to his own liberality, the other had been erected by Domitius Lepidus, b.c. 179. Now twenty years before, Metellus had fought in a successful campaign against Perseus king of Macedonia, in which the Romans had been assisted by Eumenes II.: and in b.c. 148, as Prætor, he received Macedonia as his province. Is it not possible that on one or other of these occasions he may have visited Pergamon, and, when designing his buildings in Rome, have copied what he had seen there? Again, in b.c. 157, Crates of Mallus, a distinguished grammarian, was sent from Pergamon as ambassador to Rome, and, being laid up there by an accident, gave lectures on grammar, in the course of which he could hardly have failed to mention the new library[33].

The buildings of Metellus were altered, if not entirely rebuilt, by Augustus, b.c. 33, out of the proceeds of his victorious campaign against the Dalmatians; with the additional structures above enumerated. The schola is believed to have stood behind the temples, and the libraries behind the schola, with the curia between them[34]. Thus the colonnades, which Metellus had restricted to the two temples, came at last to serve the double purpose for which they were originally intended in connexion with a library as well as with a temple.

The temple and area of Apollo on the Palatine Hill, which Augustus began b.c. 36 and dedicated b.c. 28, exhibit an arrangement precisely similar to that of the Porticus Octaviæ. The size was nearly the same[35], and the structures included in the area were intended to serve the same purposes. The temple stood in the middle of a large open peristyle, connected with which were two libraries, one for Greek, the other for Latin books; and between them, used perhaps as a reading-room or vestibule, was a hall in which Augustus occasionally convened the Senate. It contained a colossal statue of Apollo, made of gilt bronze; and on its walls were portrait-reliefs of celebrated writers, in the form of medallions, in the same material[36].

Of the other public libraries of Rome—of which there are said to have been in all twenty-six—I need mention only three as possessing some peculiarity to which I shall have to draw attention. Of these the first was established by Tiberius in his palace, at no great distance from the library of Apollo; the second and third by Vespasian and Trajan in their Fora, connected in the one with the temple of Peace, and in the other with the temple dedicated in honour of Trajan himself.

Of the first two of these libraries we have no information; but in the case of the third we are more fortunate. The Forum of Trajan ([fig. 4]) was excavated by order of Napoleon I., and the extent of its buildings, with their relation to one another, is therefore known with approximate accuracy. The Greek and Latin libraries stood to the right and left of the small court between the Basilica Ulpia and the Templum Divi Trajani, the centre of which was marked by the existing Column. They were entered from this court, each through a portico of five inter-columniations. The rooms, measured internally, were about 60 feet long, by 45 feet broad.

At this point I must mention, parenthetically, the library built by Hadrian at Athens. Pausanias records it in the following passage:

Hadrian also built for the Athenians a temple of Hera and Panhellenian Zeus, and a sanctuary common to all the gods. But most splendid of all are one hundred columns; walls and colonnades alike are made of Phrygian marble. Here, too, is a building adorned with a gilded roof and alabaster and also with statues and paintings: books are stored in it. There is also a gymnasium named after Hadrian; it too has one hundred columns from the quarries of Libya[37].

A building called the Stoa of Hadrian, a ground-plan of which ([fig. 5]) I borrow from Miss Harrison's Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens, has been identified with part at least of that which Pausanias describes in the above passage. A lofty wall, built of large square blocks of Pentelic marble, faced on the west side by a row of Corinthian columns, enclosed a quadrangular court, measuring 328 feet from east to west, by 250 feet from north to south. This court, entered through a sort of propylæa on the west side (N), was surrounded by a cloister or colonnade 27 feet wide, and containing 100 columns. None of those columns are standing, but their number can be accurately calculated from the marks of the bases still to be seen on the eastern side of the quadrangle.

Within this area are the remains of a building of uncertain use, and at present only partially excavated.

On the east side a row of five chambers, of which that in the centre was the largest, opened off from the colonnade[38].

AE, KI. Pier-arcade of the medieval church of the Panagia.
B. North-east angle of this church, of Roman work.
B, C, D, F. Portions of the Roman building which preceded the church.
L, M. Reservoirs.
N. Propylæa through which the court was entered.

If the ground plan of this structure ([fig. 5]) be compared with that of the precinct of Athena and library at Pergamon ([fig. 2]), a striking similarity between them will at once be recognised; and, whatever may have been the destination of the building within the cloistered area, there can, I think, be little doubt that the library was contained in the five rooms beyond its limits to the east. They must have been entered from the cloister, much as those at Pergamon were. It is possible that Hadrian may himself have visited Pergamon, for Trajan had built an imperial residence there; but, even if he did not do this, he would accept the type from the great libraries built at Rome by Augustus. It should be mentioned that S. Jerome specially commemorates this library among Hadrian's works at Athens, and says that it was of remarkable construction (miri operis)[39].

From this brief digression I return to the public libraries of Rome. In the first place those built by Augustus had a regular organisation. There appears to have been a general director called Procurator Bibliothecarum Augusti[40]; and subordinate officers for each division: that is to say, one for the Greek books, one for the Latin books. These facts are derived from inscriptions found in Columbaria. Secondly, it may be concluded that they were used not merely for reading and reference, but as meeting-places for literary men.

The Palatine libraries evidently contained a large collection of old and new books; and I think it is quite certain that new books, as soon as published, were placed there, unless there was some special reason to the contrary. Otherwise there would be no point in the lines in which Ovid makes his book—sent from Pontus after his banishment—deplore its exclusion. The book is supposed to climb from the Forum to the temple of Apollo:

Signa peregrinis ubi sunt alterna columnis
Belides et stricto barbarus ense pater
Quæque viri docto veteres cœpere novique
Pectore lecturis inspicienda patent.
Quærebam fratres exceptis scilicet illis
Quos suus optaret non genuisse parens;
Quærentem frustra custos e sedibus illis
Præpositus sancto iussit abire loco[41].

Where, set between each pair of columns from some foreign quarry, are statues of the Danaids, and their barbarous father with drawn sword; and where whatever the minds of men of old or men of to-day have imagined, is laid open for a reader's use. I sought my brethren, save those of course whom their father would fain have never begotten; and, while I was seeking for them in vain, he who was set over the room bade me leave that holy ground.

The second couplet can only mean that old books and new books were alike to be found there. The general nature of the collection, and its extent, may be further gathered from the advice which Horace gives to his friend Celsus:

Quid mihi Celsus agit? monitus multumque monendus
Privatas ut quærat opes, et tangere vitet
Scripta Palatinus quæcunque recepit Apollo[42].

What is my friend Celsus about? he who has been reminded, and must still be reminded again and again, that he should draw upon his own resources, and be careful to avoid the multifarious writings which Palatine Apollo has taken under his charge.

A man might say now-a-days, "Trust to your own wits, and don't go so often to the library of the British Museum."

Aulus Gellius, who lived a.d. 117-180, speaks of "sitting with a party of friends in the library of the palace of Tiberius, when a book happened to be taken down with the title M. Catonis Nepotis," and they began asking one another who this M. Cato Nepos might be[43]. This library contained also public records[44].

The same writer tells a story of a grammatical difficulty which was to be settled by reference to a book in templo Pacis, in the forum of Vespasian; and again, when a particular book was wanted, "we hunted for it diligently," he says, "and, when we had found it in the temple of Peace, we read it[45]."

The library in the forum of Trajan, often called Bibliotheca Ulpia, was apparently the Public Record Office of Rome. Aulus Gellius mentions that some decrees of former prætors had fallen in his way there when he was looking for something else, and that he had been allowed to read them[46]; and a statement of Vopiscus is still more conclusive as to the nature of its contents. It tells us, moreover, something about the arrangement. In his life of the Emperor Tacitus (Sept. a.d. 275—Apr. 276) Vopiscus says:

And lest anybody should think that I have given too hasty a credence to a Greek or Latin author, the Ulpian Library has in its sixth press (armarium) an ivory volume (librum elephantinum) in which the following decree of the Senate, signed by Tacitus with his own hand, is recorded, etc.[47]

Again, in his life of the Emperor Aurelian, the same writer records how his friend Junius Tiberianus, prefect of the city, had urged him to undertake the task, and had assured him that: "even the linen-books (libri lintei) shall be brought out of the Ulpian library for your use[48]."

Books could occasionally be borrowed from a public library, but whether from one of those in the city of Rome, I cannot say. The scene of the story which proves this is laid by Aulus Gellius at Tibur (Tivoli), where the library was in the temple of Hercules—another instance of the care of a library being entrusted to a temple. Aulus Gellius and some friends of his were assembled in a rich man's villa there at the hottest season of the year. They were drinking melted snow, a proceeding against which one of the party, a peripatetic philosopher, vehemently protested, urging against the practice the authority of numerous physicians and of Aristotle himself. But none the less the party went on drinking snow-water. Whereupon "he fetched a treatise by Aristotle out of the library of Tibur, which was then very conveniently accommodated in the temple of Hercules, and brought it to us, saying——[49]." But I need not finish the quotation, as it has no bearing on my special subject.

It is probable that numerous collections of books had been got together by individuals in Rome, before it occurred to Augustus and his friends to erect public libraries. One such library, that belonging to the rich and luxurious Lucullus, has been noticed as follows by Plutarch[50]:

His procedure in regard to books was interesting and remarkable. He collected fine copies in large numbers; and if he was splendid in their acquisition, he was more so in their use. His libraries were accessible to all, and the adjoining colonnades and reading-rooms were freely open to Greeks, who, gladly escaping from the routine of business, resorted thither for familiar converse, as to a shelter presided over by the Muses.

The Romans were not slow in following the example set by Lucullus; and a library presently became indispensable in every house, whether the owner cared for reading or not. This fashionable craze is denounced by Seneca (writing about a.d. 49) in a vehement outburst of indignation, which contains so many valuable facts about library arrangement, that I will give a free translation of it.

Outlay upon studies, best of all outlays, is reasonable so long only as it is kept within certain limits. What is the use of books and libraries innumerable, if scarce in a lifetime the master reads the titles? A student is burdened by a crowd of authors, not instructed; and it is far better to devote yourself to a few, than to lose your way among a multitude.

Forty thousand books were burnt at Alexandria. I leave others to praise this splendid monument of royal opulence, as for example Livy, who regards it as "a noble work of royal taste and royal thoughtfulness." It was not taste, it was not thoughtfulness, it was learned extravagance—nay not even learned, for they had bought their books for the sake of show, not for the sake of learning—just as with many who are ignorant even of the lowest branches of learning books are not instruments of study, but ornaments of dining-rooms. Procure then as many books as will suffice for use; but not a single one for show. You will reply: "Outlay on such objects is preferable to extravagance on plate or paintings." Excess in all directions is bad. Why should you excuse a man who wishes to possess book-presses inlaid with arbor-vitæ wood or ivory: who gathers together masses of authors either unknown or discredited; who yawns among his thousands of books; and who derives his chief delight from their edges and their tickets?

You will find then in the libraries of the most arrant idlers all that orators or historians have written—book-cases built up as high as the ceiling. Nowadays a library takes rank with a bathroom as a necessary ornament of a house. I could forgive such ideas, if they were due to extravagant desire for learning. As it is, these productions of men whose genius we revere, paid for at a high price, with their portraits ranged in line above them, are got together to adorn and beautify a wall[51].

A library was discovered in Rome by Signor Lanciani in 1883 while excavating a house of the 4th century on the Esquiline in the modern Via dello Statuto. I will narrate the discovery in his own words.

I was struck, one afternoon, with the appearance of a rather spacious hall [it was about 23 feet long by 15 feet broad], the walls of which were plain and unornamented up to a certain height, but beautifully decorated above in stucco-work. The decoration consisted of fluted pilasters, five feet apart from centre to centre, enclosing a plain square surface, in the middle of which there were medallions, also in stucco-work, two feet in diameter. As always happens in these cases, the frame was the only well-preserved portion of the medallions. Of the images surrounded by the frames, of the medallions themselves, absolutely nothing was left in situ, except a few fragments piled up at the foot of the wall, which, however, could be identified as having been representations of human faces. My hope that, at last, after fifteen years of excavations, I had succeeded in discovering a library, was confirmed beyond any doubt by a legend, written, or rather painted, in bright red colour on one of the frames. There was but one name polonivs thyan ..., but this name told more plainly the purpose of the apartment than if I had discovered there the actual bookshelves and their contents[52].

When I had the pleasure of meeting Signor Lanciani in Rome in April, 1898, he most kindly gave me his own sketch of the pilasters and medallion, taken at the moment of discovery. I am therefore able to reproduce exactly ([fig. 6]) one compartment of the wall of the library above described. The height of the blank wall below the stucco-work, against which the furniture containing the books stood, has been laid down as about 3 feet 6 inches, on the authority of Professor Middleton[53]. The remains of the medallion are still to be seen in the Museo del Orto Botanico, Rome. The person commemorated is obviously Apollonius Tyaneus, a Pythagorean philosopher and wonderworker, said to have been born about four years before the Christian era.

Fig. 6. Elevation of a single compartment of the wall of the Library discovered in Rome, 1883. From notes and measurements made by Signor Lanciani and Prof. Middleton.

A similar room was discovered at Herculaneum in 1754. A full account of the discovery was drawn up at once by Signor Paderni, keeper of the Herculaneum Museum, and addressed to Thomas Hollis, Esq., by whom it was submitted to the Royal Society. I will extract, from this and subsequent letters, the passages that bear upon my subject.

Naples, 27 April, 1754.

... The place where they are digging, at present, is under Il Bosco di Sant' Agostino.... All the buildings discover'd in this site are noble; ... in one there has been found an entire library, compos'd of volumes of the Egyptian Papyrus, of which there have been taken out about 250....[54]

To the same.

18 October, 1754.

... As yet we have only entered into one room, the floor of which is formed of mosaic work, not unelegant. It appears to have been a library, adorned with presses, inlaid with different sorts of wood, disposed in rows; at the top of which were cornices, as in our own times.

I was buried in this spot more than twelve days, to carry off the volumes found there; many of which were so perished, that it was impossible to remove them. Those which I took away amounted to the number of three hundred and thirty-seven, all of them at present uncapable of being opened. These are all written in Greek characters. While I was busy in this work I observed a large bundle, which, from the size, I imagined must contain more than a single volume. I tried with the utmost care to get it out, but could not, from the damp and weight of it. However I perceived that it consisted of about 18 volumes, each of which was in length a palm and three Neapolitan inches, being the largest hitherto discovered. They were wrapped about with the bark of a tree and covered at each end with a piece of wood. All these were written in Latin, as appears by a few words which broke off from them. I was in hopes to have got something out of them, but they are in a worse condition than the Greek[55]....

From Sir J. Gray, Bart.

29 October, 1754.

... They have lately met with more rolls of Papyri of different lengths and sizes, some with the Umbilicus remaining in them: the greater part are Greek in small capitals.... The Epicurean Philosophy is the subject of another fragment.

A small bust of Epicurus, with his name in Greek characters, was found in the same room, and was possibly the ornament of that part of the library where the writings in favour of his principles were kept; and it may also be supposed that some other heads of philosophers found in the same room were placed with the same taste and propriety[56].

Between 1758 and 1763, the place was visited by Winckelmann, who wrote long letters in Italian, describing what he saw, to Consigliere Bianconi, Physician to the King of Saxony. One of these, dated 1762, gives the following account of the library:

Ii luogo in cui per la prima volta caddero sott' occhio, fu una piccola stanza nella villa d'Ercolano di cui parlammo sopra, la cui lunghezza due uomini colle braccia distese potevano misurare. Tutto all' intorno del muro vi erano degli scaffali quali si vedono ordinariamente negli archivi ad altezza d' uomo, e nel mezzo della stanza v' era un altro scaffale simile o tavola per tenervi scritture, e tale da potervi girare intorno. Il legno di questa tavola era ridotto a carboni, e cadde, come è facile ad imaginarselo, tutta in pezzi quando si toccò. Alcuni di questi rotoli di papiri si trovarono involti insieme con carta più grossolana, di quella qualità che gli antichi chiamavano emporetica, e questi probabilmente formavano le parti ed i libri d' un' opera intiera[57]....

The place in which they [the rolls] were first seen was a small room in the villa at Herculaneum of which we spoke above, the length of which could be covered by two men with their arms extended. All round the wall there were book-cases such as are commonly seen in record-rooms, of a man's height, and in the middle of the room there was another similar book-case or table to hold writings, of such a size that one could go round it. The wood of this table was reduced to charcoal, and, as may easily be imagined, fell all to pieces when it was touched. Some of these papyrus rolls were found fastened together with paper of coarser texture, of that quality which the ancients called emporetica, and these probably formed the parts and books of an entire work.

The information which these observers have given us amounts to this: the room was about 12 feet long, with a floor of mosaic. Against the walls stood presses, of a man's height, inlaid with different sorts of wood, disposed in rows, with cornices at the top; and there was also a table, or press, in the centre of the room. Most of the rolls were separate, but a bundle of eighteen was found "wrapped about with the bark of a tree, and covered at each end with a piece of wood." A room so small as this could hardly have been intended for study. It must rather have been the place where the books were put away after they had been read elsewhere.

Before I quit this part of my subject, I should like to mention one other building, as its arrangements throw light on the question of fitting up libraries and record-offices. I allude to the structure built by Vespasian, a.d. 78, to contain the documents relating to his restoration of the city of Rome. It stood at the south-west corner of the Forum of Peace, and what now exists of it is known as the Church of SS. Cosma e Damiano.

The general arrangement and relation to adjoining structures will be understood from the plan ([fig. 7]). The room was about 125 feet long by 65 feet broad, with two entrances, one on the north-west, from the Forum Pacis, through a hexastyle portico ([fig. 7]. 2), the other on the north-east, through a square-headed doorway of travertine which still exists (ibid. 1) together with a considerable portion of a massive wall of Vespasian's time. After a restoration by Caracalla the building came to be called Templum Sacræ Urbis. It was first consecrated as a church by pope Felix IV. (526-530), but he did little more than connect it with the Heroon Romuli (ibid. 5), and build the apse (ibid. 4).

Fig. 8. Part of the internal wall of the Record-House of Vespasian. Reduced from a sketch taken in the 16th century by Pirro Ligorio.

The whole building was mercilessly mutilated by pope Urban VIII. in 1632; but fortunately a drawing of the interior had been made by Pirro Ligorio in the second half of the sixteenth century, when the original treatment of the walls was practically intact. I give a reduced copy of a small portion of this drawing ([fig. 8]). As Lanciani says:

The walls were divided into three horizontal bands by finely cut cornices. The upper band was occupied by the windows; the lower was simply lined with marble slabs covered by the bookcases ... which contained the ... records ...; the middle one was incrusted with tarsia-work of the rarest kinds of marble with panels representing panoplies, the wolf with the infant founders of Rome, and other allegorical scenes[58].

I explained at the beginning of this chapter that my subject is the care of books, not books themselves; but, at the point which we have now reached in regard to Roman libraries, it is necessary to make a few remarks about their contents. It must be remembered, in the first place, that those who fitted them up had to deal with rolls (volumina), probably of papyrus, but possibly of parchment; and that a book, as we understand the word, the Latin equivalent for which was codex, did not come into general use until long after the Christian era. Some points about these rolls require notice.

The length and the width of the roll depended on the taste or convenience of the writer[59]. The contents were written in columns, the lines of which ran parallel to the long dimension[60], and the reader, holding the roll in both hands, rolled up the part he had finished with his left hand, and unrolled the unread portion with his right. This way of dealing with the roll is well shewn in the accompanying illustration ([fig. 9]) reduced from a fresco at Pompeii[61]. In most examples the two halves of the roll are turned inwards, as for instance in the well-known statue of Demosthenes in the Vatican[62]. The end of the roll was fastened to a stick (usually referred to as umbilicus or umbilici). It is obvious that this word ought properly to denote the ends of the stick only, but it was constantly applied to the whole stick, and not to a part of it, as for instance in the following lines:

... deus nam me vetat
Inceptos olim promissum carmen iambos
Ad umbilicum adducere[63].

... for heaven forbids me to cover the scroll down to the stick with the iambic lines I had begun a song promised long ago to the world.

Fig. 9. A reader with a roll: from a fresco at Pompeii.

These sticks were sometimes painted or gilt, and furnished with projecting knobs (cornua) similarly decorated, intended to serve both as an ornament, and as a contrivance to keep the ends of the roll even, while it was being rolled up. The sides of the long dimension of the roll (frontes) were carefully cut, so as to be perfectly symmetrical, and afterwards smoothed with pumice-stone and coloured. A ticket (index or titulus, in Greek σιλλυβος or [σιττυβος]), made of a piece of papyrus or parchment, was fastened to the edge of the roll in such a way that it hung out over one or other of the ends. As Ovid says:

Cetera turba palam titulos ostendet apertos
Et sua detecta nomina fronte geret[64].

The others will flaunt their titles openly, and carry their names on an uncovered edge.

The roll was kept closed by strings or straps (lora), usually of some bright colour[65]; and if it was specially precious, an envelope which the Greeks called a jacket (διφθερα[66]), made of parchment or some other substance, was provided. Says Martial:

Perfer Atestinæ nondum vulgata Sabinæ
Carmina, purpurea sed modo culta toga[67].

Convey to Sabina at Ateste these verses. They have not yet been published, and have been but lately dressed in a purple garment.

Martial has combined in a single epigram most of the ornaments with which rolls could be decorated. This I will quote next, premising that the oil of cedar, or arbor-vitæ, mentioned in the second line not only imparted an agreeable yellow colour, but was held to be an antiseptic[68].

Faustini fugis in sinum? sapisti.
Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus
Et frontis gemino decens honore
Pictis luxurieris umbilicis,
Et te purpura delicata velet,
Et cocco rubeat superbus index[69].

His book had selected the bibliomaniac Faustinus as a patron. Now, says the poet, you shall be anointed with oil of cedar; you shall revel in the decoration of both your sets of edges; your sticks shall be painted; your covering shall be purple, and your ticket scarlet.

When a number of rolls had to be carried from one place to another, they were put into a box (scrinium or capsa). This receptacle was cylindrical in shape, not unlike a modern hat-box[70]. It was carried by a flexible handle, attached to a ring on each side; and the lid was held down by what looks very like a modern lock. The eighteen rolls, found in a bundle at Herculaneum, had doubtless been kept in a similar receptacle.

My illustration ([fig. 10]) is from a fresco at Herculaneum. It will be noticed that each roll is furnished with a ticket (titulus). At the feet of the statue of Demosthenes already referred to, and of that of Sophocles, are capsæ, both of which show the flexible handles.

Fig. 10. Book-box or capsa.

I will next collect the information available respecting the fittings used in Roman libraries. I admit that it is scattered and imperfect; but legitimate deductions may, I think, be arrived at from it, which will give us tolerably certain ideas of the appearance of one of those collections.

The words used to designate such fittings are: nidus; forulus, or more usually foruli; loculamenta; pluteus; pegmata.

Nidus needs no explanation. It can only mean a pigeon-hole. Martial uses it of a bookseller, at whose shop his own poems may be bought.

De primo dabit alterove nido
Rasum pumice purpuraque cultum
Denaris tibi quinque Martialem[71].

Out of his first or second pigeon-hole, polished with pumice stone, and smart with a purple covering, for five denarii he will give you Martial.

In a subsequent epigram the word occurs with reference to a private library, to which the poet is sending a copy of his works.

Ruris bibliotheca delicati,
Vicinam videt unde lector urbem,
Inter carmina sanctiora si quis
Lascivæ fuerit locus Thaliæ,
Hos nido licet inseras vel imo
Septem quos tibi misimus libellos[72].

O library of that well-appointed villa whence a reader can see the City near at hand—if among more serious poems there be any room for the wanton Muse of Comedy, you may place these seven little books I send you even in your lowest pigeon-hole.

Forulus or foruli occurs in the following passages. Suetonius, after describing the building of the temple of the Palatine Apollo by Augustus, adds, "he placed the Sibylline books in two gilt receptacles (forulis) under the base of the statue of Palatine Apollo"[73]; and Juvenal, enumerating the gifts that a rich man is sure to receive if burnt out of house and home, says,

Hic libros dabit, et forulos, mediamque Minervam[74].

The word is of uncertain derivation, but forus, of which it is clearly the diminutive, is used by Virgil for the cells of bees:

Complebuntque foros et floribus horrea texent[75].

The above-quoted passage of Juvenal may therefore be rendered: "Another will give books, and cells to put them in, and a statue of Minerva for the middle of the room."

The word loculamentum is explained in a passage of Columella, in which he gives directions for the making of dovecotes:

Let small stakes be placed close together, with planks laid across them to carry cells (loculamenta) for the birds to build their nests in, or sets of pigeon-holes made of earthenware[76].

In a second passage he uses the same word for a beehive[77]; Vegetius, a writer on veterinary surgery, uses it for the socket of a horse's tooth[78]; and Vitruvius, in a more general way, for a case to contain a small piece of machinery[79]. Generally, the word may be taken to signify a long narrow box, open at one end, and, like nidus and forulus, may be translated "pigeon-hole." Seneca, again, applies the word to books in the passage I have already translated, and in a singularly instructive manner. "You will find," he says, "in the libraries of the most arrant idlers all that orators or historians have written—bookcases (loculamenta) built up as high as the ceiling[80]."

Pegmata, for the word generally occurs in the plural, are, as the name implies, things fixed together, usually planks of wood framed into a platform, and used in theatres to carry pieces of scenery or performers up and down. As applied to books "shelves" are probably meant: an interpretation borne out by the Digest, in which it is stated that "window-frames and pegmata are included in the purchase of a house[81]." They were therefore what we should call "fixtures."

A pluteus was a machine used by infantry for protection in the field: and hence the word is applied to any fence, or boarding to form the limit or edge of anything, as a table or a bed. Plutei were not attached so closely to the walls as pegmata, for in the Digest they are classed with nets to keep out birds, mats, awnings, and the like, and are not to be regarded as part and parcel of a house[82]. Juvenal uses the word for a shelf in his second Satire, where he is denouncing pretenders to knowledge:

Indocti primum, quamquam plena omnia gypso
Chrysippi invenias, nam perfectissimus horum est
Si quis Aristotelem similem vel Pittacon emit
Et iubet archetypos pluteum servare Cleanthas[83].

In the first place they are dunces, though you find their houses full of plaster figures of Chrysippus: for a man of this sort is not fully equipped until he buys a likeness of Aristotle or Pittacus, and bids a shelf take care of original portraits of Cleanthes.

This investigation has shewn that three of the words applied to the preservation of books, namely, nidus, forulus, and loculamentum, may be rendered by the English "pigeon-hole"; and that pegma and pluteus mean contrivances of wood which may be rendered by the English "shelving." It is quite clear that pegmata could be run up with great rapidity, from a very graphic account in Cicero's letters of the rearrangement of his library. He begins by writing to his friend Atticus as follows:

I wish you would send me any two fellows out of your library, for Tyrannio to make use of as pasters, and assistants in other matters. Remind them to bring some vellum with them to make those titles (indices) which you Greeks, I believe, call [σιλλυβοι]. You are not to do this if it is inconvenient to you[84]....

In the next letter he says:

Your men have made my library gay with their carpentry-work and their titles (constructione et sillybis). I wish you would commend them[85].

When all is completed he writes:

Now that Tyrannio has arranged my books, a new spirit has been infused into my house. In this matter the help of your men Dionysius and Menophilus has been invaluable. Nothing could look neater than those shelves of yours (illa tua pegmata), since they smartened up my books with their titles[86].

No other words than those I have been discussing are, so far as I know, applied by the best writers to the storage of books; and, after a careful study of the passages in which they occur, I conclude that, so long as rolls only had to be accommodated, private libraries in Rome were fitted with rows of shelves standing against the walls (plutei), or fixed to them (pegmata). The space between these horizontal shelves was subdivided by vertical divisions into pigeon-holes (nidi, foruli, loculamenta), and it may be conjectured that the width of these pigeon-holes would vary in accordance with the number of rolls included in a single work. That such receptacles were the common furniture of a library is proved, I think, by such evidence as the epigram of Martial quoted above, in which he tells his friend that if he will accept his poems, he may "put them even in the lowest pigeon-hole (nido vel imo)," as we should say, "on the bottom shelf"; and by the language of Seneca when he sneers at the "pigeon-holes (loculamenta) carried up to the ceiling."

The height of the woodwork varied, of course, with individual taste. In the library on the Esquiline the height was only three feet six inches; at Herculaneum about six feet.

I can find no hint of any doors, or curtains, in front of the pigeon-holes. That the ends of the rolls (frontes) were visible, is, I think, quite clear from what Cicero says of his own library after the construction of his shelves (pegmata); and the various devices for making rolls attractive seem to me to prove that they were intended to be seen.

A representation of rolls arranged on the system which I have attempted to describe, occurs on a piece of sculpture ([fig. 11]) found at Neumagen near Trèves in the seventeenth century, among the ruins of a fortified camp attributed to Constantine the Great[87]. Two divisions, full of rolls, are shewn, from which a man, presumably the librarian, is selecting one. The ends of the rolls are furnished with tickets.

Fig. 11. A Roman taking down a roll from its place in a library.

The system of pigeon-holes terminated, in all probability, in a cornice. The explorers of Herculaneum depose to the discovery of such an ornament there.

The wall-space above the book-cases was decorated with the likenesses of celebrated authors—either philosophers, if the owner of the library wished to bring into prominence his adhesion to one of the fashionable systems—or authors, dead and living, or personal friends. This obvious form of decoration was, in all probability, used at Pergamon[88]; Pollio, as we have seen, introduced it into Rome: and Pliny, who calls it a novelty (novitium inventum), deposes to its general adoption[89]. We are not told how these portraits were commonly treated—whether they were busts standing clear of the wall on the book-cases; or bracketed against the wall; or forming part of its decoration, in plaster-work or distemper. A suitable inscription accompanied them. Martial has preserved for us a charming specimen of one of these complimentary stanzas—for such they undoubtedly would be in the case of a contemporary—to be placed beneath his own portrait in a friend's library:

Hoc tibi sub nostra breve carmen imagine vivat
Quam non obscuris iungis, Avite, viris:
Ille ego sum nulli nugarum laude secundus,
Quem non miraris, sed puto, lector, amas.
Maiores maiora sonent: mihi parva locuto
Sufficit in vestras sæpe redire manus[90].

Placed, with my betters, on your study-wall
Let these few lines, Avitus, me recall:
To foremost rank in trifles I was raised;
I think men loved me, though they never praised.
Let greater poets greater themes profess:
My modest lines seek but the hand's caress
That tells me, reader, of thy tenderness.

The beautiful alto-relievo in the Lateran Museum, Rome, representing an actor selecting a mask, contains a contrivance for reading a roll ([fig. 12]) which may have been usual in libraries and elsewhere, though I have not met with another instance of it. A vertical support attached to the table on which two masks and a MS. are lying, carries a desk with a rim along its lower edge and one of its sides. The roll is partially opened, the closed portion lying towards the left side of the desk, next the rim. The roll may be supposed to contain the actor's part[91].

It is much to be regretted that we have no definite information as to the way in which the great public libraries built by Augustus were fitted up; but I see no reason for supposing that their fittings differed from those of private libraries.

Fig. 12. Desk to support a roll while it is being read.

When books (codices), of a shape similar to that with which modern librarians have to deal, had to be accommodated as well as rolls, it is manifest that rectangular spaces not more than a few inches wide would be singularly inconvenient. They were therefore discarded in favour of a press (armarium), a piece of furniture which would hold rolls (volumina) as well as books (codices), and was in fact, as I shall shew, used for both purposes. The word (armarium) occurs commonly in Cicero, and other writers of the best period, for a piece of furniture in which valuables of all kinds, and household gear, were stowed away; and Vitruvius[92] uses it for a book-case. A critic, he says, "produced from certain presses an infinite number of rolls." In later Latin writers—that is from the middle of the first century a.d.—no other word, speaking generally, occurs.

The jurist Ulpian, who died a.d. 228, in a discussion as to what is comprised under the term liber, decides in favour of including all rolls (volumina) of whatever material, and then considers the question whether codices come under the same category or not—thereby shewing that in his day both forms of books were in use. Again, when a library (bibliotheca) has been bequeathed, it is questioned whether the bequest includes merely the press or presses (armarium vel armaria), or the books as well[93].

The Ulpian Library, or rather Libraries, in Trajan's Forum, built about 114 a.d.[94], were fitted up with presses, as we learn from the passage in Vopiscus which I have already quoted; and when the ruins of the section of that library which stood next to the Quirinal Hill were excavated by the French, a very interesting trace of one of these presses was discovered. Nibby, the Roman antiquary, thus describes it:

Beyond the above-mentioned bases [of the columns in the portico] some remains of the inside of the room became visible on the right. They consisted of a piece of curtain-wall, admirably constructed of brick, part of the side-wall, with a rectangular niche of large size in the form of a press (in foggia di armadio). One ascended to this by three steps, with a landing-place in front of them, on which it was possible to stand with ease. On the sides of this niche there still exist traces of the hinges, on which the panels and the wickets, probably of bronze, rested[95].

It seems to me that we have here an early instance, perhaps the earliest, of those presses in the thickness of the wall which were so common afterwards in the monasteries and in private libraries also. A similar press, on a smaller scale, is described by the younger Pliny: "My bedroom," he says, "has a press let into the wall which does duty as a library, and holds books not merely to be read, but read over and over again[96]."

It must not, however, be supposed that cupboards were always, or even usually, sunk into the wall in Roman times. They were detached pieces of furniture, not unlike the wardrobes in which ladies hang their dresses at the present day, except that they were fitted with a certain number of horizontal shelves, and were used for various purposes according to the requirements of their owners. For instance, there is a sarcophagus in the Museo Nazionale at Rome, on which is represented a shoemaker at work. In front of him is a cupboard, exactly like those I am about to describe, on the top of which several pairs of shoes are set out.

I can, however, produce three representations of such presses being used by the Romans to contain books.

The first occurs on a marble sarcophagus ([fig. 13]), now in the garden of the Villa Balestra, Rome, where I had the good fortune to find it in 1898[97]; and Professor Petersen, of the German Archaeological School, was so kind as to have it photographed for me. He assigns the work to about 200 a.d.

Fig. 13. A Roman reading a roll in front of a press (armarium). From a photograph of a sarcophagus in the garden of the Villa Balestra. Rome.

In the central portion, 21 in. high, by 15½ in. wide, is a seated figure, reading a roll. In front of him is a cupboard, the doors of which are open. It is fitted with two shelves, on the uppermost of which are eight rolls, the ends of which are turned to the spectator. On the next shelf is something which looks like a dish or shallow cup. The lower part of the press is solid. Perhaps a second cupboard is intended. Above, it is finished off with a cornice, on which rests a very puzzling object. There are a few faint lines on the marble, which Professor Petersen believes are intended to represent surgical instruments, and so to indicate the profession of the seated figure[98]. There is a Greek inscription on the sarcophagus, but it merely warns posterity not to disturb the bones of the deceased[99].

The second representation ([fig. 14]) is from the tomb of Galla Placidia, at Ravenna. It occurs in a mosaic on the wall of the chapel in which she was buried, a.d. 449[100]; and was presumably executed before that date. The press closely resembles the one on the Roman sarcophagus, but it is evidently intended to indicate a taller piece of furniture, and it terminates in a pediment. There are two shelves, on which lie the four Gospels, each as a separate codex, indicated by the name of the Evangelist above it. This press rests upon a stout frame, the legs of which are kept in position by a cross-piece nearly as thick as themselves.

Fig. 14. Press containing the four Gospels. From a mosaic above the tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia at Ravenna.

The third representation of an armarium ([fig. 15]) occurs in the manuscript of the Vulgate now in the Laurentian Library at Florence, known as the Codex Amiatinus, from the Cistercian convent of Monte Amiata in Tuscany, where it was preserved for several centuries[101]. The thorough investigation to which this manuscript has lately been subjected shews that it was written in England, at Wearmouth or Jarrow, but possibly by an Italian scribe, before a.d. 716, in which year it was taken to Rome, as a present to the Pope. The first quaternion, however, on one of the leaves of which the above representation occurs, is probably older; and it may have belonged to a certain Codex grandior mentioned by Cassiodorus, and possibly written under his direction[102].

The picture ([fig. 15]), which appears as the frontispiece to this work, shews Ezra writing the law. On the margin of the vellum, in a hand which is considered to be later than that of the MS., are the words:

Codicibus sacris hostili clade pervstis
Esdra deo fervens hoc reparavit opus.

Behind him is a press (armarium) with open doors. The lower portion, below these doors, is filled in with panels which are either inlaid or painted, so that the frame on which it is supported is not visible, as in the Ravenna example. The bottom of the press proper is used as a shelf, on which lie a volume and two objects, one of which probably represents a case for pens, while the other is certainly an inkhorn. Above this are four shelves, on each of which lie two volumes. These volumes have their titles written on their backs, but they are difficult to make out, and my artist has not cared to risk mistakes by attempting to reproduce them. The words, beginning at the left hand corner of the top-shelf, are:

The frame-work of the press above the doors is ornamented in the same style as the panels below, and the whole is surmounted by a low pyramid, on the side of which facing the spectator is a cross, beneath which are two peacocks drinking from a water-trough.

I regret that I could not place this remarkable drawing before my readers in the rich colouring of the original. The press is of a reddish brown: the books are bound in crimson. Ezra is clad in green, with a crimson robe. The background is gold. The border is blue, between an inner and outer band of silver. The outermost band of all is vermilion.

I formerly thought that this book-press might represent those in use in England at the beginning of the eighth century; but, if the above attribution to Cassiodorus be accurate, it must be accounted another Italian example. It bears a general similarity to the Ravenna book-press, as might be expected, when it is remembered that Cassiodorus held office under Theodoric and his successors, and resided at Ravenna till he was nearly seventy years old.

The foundation of Christianity did not alter what I may call the Roman conception of a library in any essential particular. The philosophers and authors of Greece and Rome may have occasionally found themselves in company with, or even supplanted by, the doctors of the Church; but in other respects, for the first seven centuries, at least, of our era, the learned furnished their libraries according to the old fashion, though with an ever increasing luxury of material. Boethius, whose Consolation of Philosophy was written a.d. 525, makes Philosophy speak of the "walls of a library adorned with ivory and glass[104]"; and Isidore, Bishop of Seville a.d. 600-636, records that "the best architects object to gilded ceilings in libraries, and to any other marble than cipollino for the floor, because the glitter of gold is hurtful to the eyes, while the green of cipollino is restful to them[105]."

A few examples of such libraries may be cited; but, before doing so, I must mention the Record-Office (Archivum), erected by Pope Damasus (366-384). It was connected with the Basilica of S. Lawrence, which Damasus built in the Campus Martius, near the theatre of Pompey. On the front of the Basilica, over the main entrance, was an inscription, which ended with the three following lines:

ARCHIVIS FATEOR VOLUI NOVA CONDERE TECTA ADDERE PRÆTEREA DEXTRA LÆVAQUE COLUMNAS QUÆ DAMASI TENEANT PROPRIUM PER SÆCULA NOMEN.

I confess that I have wished to build a new abode for Archives; and to add columns on the right and left to preserve the name of Damasus for ever.

These enigmatical verses contain all that we know, or are ever likely to know, respecting this building, which is called chartarium ecclesiæ Romanæ by S. Jerome[106], and unquestionably held the official documents of the Latin Church until they were removed to the Lateran in the seventh century. The whole building, or group of buildings, was destroyed in 1486 by Cardinal Raphael Riario, the dissolute nephew of Sixtus IV., to make room for his new palace, now called Palazzo della Cancelleria, and the church was rebuilt on a new site. The connexion with Pope Damasus is maintained by the name, S. Lorenzo in Damaso. No plan of the old buildings, or contemporary record of their arrangement, appears to exist. My only reason for drawing attention to a structure which has no real connexion with my subject is that the illustrious De Rossi considers that in the second line of the above quotation the word column signifies colonnades; and that Damasus took as his model one of the great pagan libraries of Rome which, in its turn, had been derived from the typical library at Pergamon[107]. According to this view he began by building, in the centre of the area selected, a basilica, or hall of basilican type, dedicated to S. Lawrence; and then added, on the north and south sides, a colonnade or loggia from which the rooms occupied by the records would be readily accessible. This opinion is also held by Signor Lanciani, who follows De Rossi without hesitation. I am unwilling to accept a theory which seems to me to have no facts to support it; and find it safer to believe that the line in question refers either to the aisles of the basilica, or to such a portico in front of it as may be seen at San Clemente and other early churches.

A letter to Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons in a.d. 441, from a correspondent named Rusticus, gives a charming picture of a library which he had visited in his young days, say about a.d. 400:

I am reminded of what I read years ago, hastily, as a boy does, in the library of a man who was learned in secular literature. There were there portraits of Orators and also of Poets worked in mosaic, or in wax of different colours, or in plaster, and under each the master of the house had placed inscriptions noting their characteristics; but, when he came to a poet of acknowledged merit, as for instance, Virgil, he began as follows:

Virgilium vatem melius sua carmina laudant;
In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbræ
Lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet,
Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.

Virgil's own lines most fitly Virgil praise:
As long as rivers run into the deep,
As long as shadows o'er the hillside sweep,
As long as stars in heaven's fair pastures graze,
So long shall live your honour, name, and praise.[108]

Agapetus, who was chosen Pope in 535, and lived for barely a year, had intended, in conjunction with Cassiodorus, to found a college for teachers of Christian doctrine. He selected for this purpose a house on the Cælian Hill, afterwards occupied by S. Gregory, and by him turned into a monastery. Agapetus had made some progress with the scheme, so far as the library attached to the house was concerned, for the author of the Einsiedlen MS., who visited Rome in the ninth century, saw the following inscription "in the library of S. Gregory"—i.e. in the library attached to the Church of San Gregorio Magno.

SANCTORVM VENERANDA COHORS SEDET ORDINE LONGO
DIVINAE LEGIS MYSTICA DICTA DOCENS
HOS INTER RESIDENS AGAPETVS IVRE SACERDOS
CODICIBVS PVLCHRVM CONDIDIT ARTE LOCVM
GRATIA PAR CVNCTIS SANCTVS LABOR OMNIBVS VNVS
DISSONA VERBA QVIDEM SED TAMEN VNA FIDES

Here sits in long array a reverend troop
Teaching the mystic truths of law divine:
'Mid these by right takes Agapetus place
Who built to guard his books this fair abode.
All toil alike, all equal grace enjoy—
Their words are different, but their faith the same.

These lines undoubtedly imply that there was on the walls a long series of portraits of the Fathers of the Church, including that of Agapetus himself, who had won his right to a place among them by building a sumptuous home for their works[109].

The design of Agapetus, interrupted by death, was carried forward by his friend Cassiodorus, at a place in South Italy called Vivarium, near his own native town Squillace. Shortly after his final retirement from court, a.d. 538, Cassiodorus established there a brotherhood, which, for a time at least, must have been a formidable rival to that of S. Benedict. A library held a prominent place in his conception of what was needed for their common life. He says little about its size or composition, but much rhetoric is expended on the contrivances by which its usefulness and attractiveness were to be increased. A staff of bookbinders was to clothe the manuscripts in decorous attire; self-supplying lamps were to light nocturnal workers; sundials by day, and water-clocks by night, enabled them to regulate their hours. Here also was a scriptorium, and it appears probable that between the exertions of Cassiodorus and his friend Eugippius, South Italy was well supplied with manuscripts[110].

These attempts to snatch from oblivion libraries which, though probably according to our ideas insignificant, were centres of culture in the darkest of dark ages, will be illustrated by the fuller information that has come down to us respecting the library of Isidore, Bishop of Seville 600-636. The "verses composed by himself for his own presses," to quote the oldest manuscript containing them[111], have been preserved, with the names of the writers under whose portraits they were inscribed.

There were fourteen presses, arranged as follows:

These writers are probably those whom Isidore specially admired, or had some particular reason for commemorating. The first seven are obvious types of theologians, and the presses over which they presided were doubtless filled not merely with their own works, but with bibles, commentaries, and works on Divinity in general. Eusebius and Orosius are types of ecclesiastical historians; Theodosius, Paulus, and Gaius, of jurists; Cosmas, Damian, etc. of physicians. But the Christian poets Prudentius to Sedulius could hardly have needed two presses to contain their works; nor Gregory the Great the whole of one. Lastly, Leander, Isidore's elder brother, could only owe his place in the series to fraternal affection. I conjecture that these portraits were simply commemorative; and that the presses beneath them contained the books on subjects not suggested by the rest of the portraits, as for example, secular literature, in which Isidore was a proficient.

The sets of verses[112] begin with three elegiac couplets headed Titulus Bibliothece, probably placed over the door of entrance.

Sunt hic plura sacra, sunt hic mundalia plura:
Ex his si qua placent carmina, tolle, lege.
Prata vides, plena spinis, et copia florum;
Si non vis spinas sumere, sume rosas.
Hic geminæ radiant veneranda volumina legis;
Condita sunt pariter hic nova cum veteri.

Here sacred books with worldly books combine;
If poets please you, read them; they are thine.
My meads are full of thorns, but flowers are there;
If thorns displease, let roses be your share.
Here both the Laws in tomes revered behold;
Here what is new is stored, and what is old.

The authors selected are disposed of either in a single couplet, or in several couplets, according to the writer's taste. I will quote the lines on S. Augustine:

Mentitur qui [te] totum legisse fatetur:
An quis cuneta tua lector habere potest?
Namque voluminibus mille, Augustine, refulges,
Testantur libri, quod loquor ipse, tui.
Quamvis multorum placeat prudentia libris,
Si Augustinus adest, sufficit ipse tibi.

They lie who to have read thee through profess;
Could any reader all thy works possess?
A thousand scrolls thy ample gifts display;
Thy own books prove, Augustine, what I say.
Though other writers charm with varied lore,
Who hath Augustine need have nothing more.

The series concludes with some lines "To an Intruder (ad Interventorem)," the last couplet of which is too good to be omitted:

Non patitur quenquam coram se scriba loquentem;
Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras.

A writer and a talker can't agree:
Hence, idle chatterer; 'tis no place for thee.

Fig. 16. Great Hall of the Vatican Library, looking west.

With these three examples I conclude the section of my work which deals with what may be called the pagan conception of a library in the fulness of its later development. Unfortunately, no enthusiast of those distant times has handed down to us a complete description of his library, and we are obliged to take a detail from one account, and a detail from another, and so piece the picture together for ourselves. What I may call "the pigeon-hole system," suitable for rolls only, was replaced by presses which could contain rolls if required, and certainly did (as shewn ([fig. 13]) on the sarcophagus of the Villa Balestra), but which were specially designed for codices. These presses were sometimes plain, sometimes richly ornamented, according to the taste or the means of the owner. With the same limitations the floor, the walls, and possibly the roof also were decorated. Further, it was evidently intended that the room selected for books should be used for no other purpose; and, as the books were hidden from view in their presses, the library-note, if I may be allowed the expression, was struck by numerous inscriptions, and by portraits in various materials, representing either authors whose works were on the shelves, or men distinguished in other ways, or friends and relations of the owner of the house.

The Roman conception of a library was realised by Pope Sixtus V., in 1587[113], when the present Vatican Library was commenced from the design of the architect Fontana. I am not aware that there is any contemporary record to prove that either the Pope or his advisers contemplated this direct imitation; but it is evident, from the most cursory inspection of the large room ([fig. 16]), that the main features of a Roman library are before us[114]; and perhaps, having regard to the tendency of the Renaissance, especially in Italy, it would be unreasonable to expect a different design in such a place, and at such a period.

This noble hall—probably the most splendid apartment ever assigned to library-purposes—spans the Cortile del Belvedere from east to west, and is entered at each end from the galleries connecting the Belvedere with the Vatican palace. It is 184 feet long, and 57 feet wide, divided into two by six piers, on which rest simple quadripartite vaults. The north and south walls are each pierced with seven large windows. No books are visible. They are contained in plain wooden presses 7 feet high and 2 feet deep, set round the piers, and against the walls between the windows. The arrangement of these presses will be understood from the general view ([fig. 16]), and from the view of a single press open ([fig. 17]).

In the decoration, with which every portion of the walls and vaults is covered, Roman methods are reproduced, but with a difference. The great writers of antiquity are conspicuous by their absence; but the development of the human race is commemorated by the presence of those to whom the invention of letters is traditionally ascribed; the walls are covered with frescoes representing the foundation of the great libraries which instructed the world, and the assemblies of the Councils which established the Church; the vaults record the benefits conferred on Rome by Sixtus V., in a series of historical views, one above each window; and over these again are stately figures, each embodying some sacred abstraction—"Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers"—with angels swinging censers, and graceful nymphs, and laughing satyrs—a strange combination of paganism and Christianity—amid wreaths of flowers, and arabesques twining round the groups and over every vacant space, partly framing, partly hiding, the heraldic devices which commemorate Sixtus and his family:—a web of lovely forms and brilliant colours, combined in an intricate and yet orderly confusion.

It may be questioned whether such a room as this was ever intended for study. The marble floor, the gorgeous decoration, the absence of all appliances for work in the shape of desks, tables, chairs, suggest a place for show rather than for use. The great libraries of the Augustan age, on the other hand, seem, so far as we can judge, to have been used as meeting-places and reading-rooms for learned and unlearned alike. In general arrangement and appearance, however, the Vatican Library must closely resemble its imperial predecessors.

Fig. 17. A single press in the Vatican Library, open. From a photograph.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 2 vols., 8vo. Lond. 1853. Vol. II., p. 343.

[2] Ezra, vi. I.

[3] Mr Layard gives a view of the interior of one of these rooms (p. 345) after it had been cleared of rubbish.

[4] La Bibliothèque du Palais de Ninive, par M. Joachim Menant. 8vo. Paris, 1880, p. 32.

[5] The two languages are the ancient Sumerian and the more modern Assyrian.

[6] Athenæus, Book 1., Chap. 4.

[7] Noct. Att. Book VII., Chap. 17. Libros Athenis disciplinarum liberalium publice ad legendum præbendos primus posuisse dicitur Pisistratus tyrannus.

[8] Xenophon, Memorabilia, Book IV., Chap. 2.

[9] Aristoph. Ranæ, 1407-1410, translated by J. H. Frere. The passage has been quoted by Castellani, Biblioteche nell' Antichità, 8vo., Bologna, 1884, pp. 7, 8, and many others.

[10] Strabo, ed. Kramer, Berlin, 8vo., 1852, Book XIII., Chap. I, § 54. [πρωτος] ὡν ἱσμεν συναγαγων βιβλια, και διδαξας τους εν Αιγυπτω βασιλεας βιβλιοθηκης συνταξιν.

[11] Book xiii., Chap. 4, § 2.

[12] Book xvii., Chap. 1, § 8.

[των] δε βασιλειων μερος εστι και το Μουσειον, εχον περιπατων και εξεδραν και οικον μεγαν, εν πς το συσσιτιον των μετεχοντων του Μουσειον φιλολογων ανδρων εστι δε τη συνοδω ταυτη και χρηματα κοινα και ιερευς ο επι τω Μονσειω, τεταγμενος τοτε μεν υπο των Βασιλεων νυν δ υπο Καισαρος.

[13] One of the anonymous lives of Apollonius Rhodius states that he presided over the Museum Libraries ([των] βιβλιοθηκων τον Μουσειον ).

[14] Epiphanius, De Pond. et Mens., Chap. 12. [ετι] δε υστερον και ετερα εγενετο βιβλιοθηκη εν τω Σερατειω, μικροτερα τες πρωτης, ητις θυγατηρ ωνομασθη αυτης.

[15] Ammianus Marcellinus, Book xxii., Chap. 16, § 12. Atriis columnariis amplissimis et spirantibus signorum figmentis ita est exornatum, ut post Capitolium quo se venerabilis Roma in æternum attollit, nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosius cernat. See also Aphthonius, Progymn. c. xii. ed. Walz, Rhetores Græci, i. 106.

[16] Pliny, Hist. Nat., Book v., Chap. 30. Longeque clarissimum Asiæ Pergamum.

[17] Strabo, Book xiii., Chap. 4, § 2. After recounting the successful policy of Eumenes II. towards the Romans, he proceeds: [κατεσκενασε] δε οντος την πολιν, και το Νικηφοριον αλσει κατεφυτευσε, και αναθηματα και βιβλιοθηκας και την επι τοσονδε κατοικιαν του Περγαμον την νυν ουσαν εκεινος προσεφιλοκαλησε.

[18] De Architectura, Book vii., Præfatio. The passage is quoted in the next note.

[19] Pliny, Hist. Nat., Book xiii., Chap. 11. Mox æmulatione circa bibliothecas regum Ptolemæi et Eumenis, supprimente chartas Ptolemæo, idem Varro membranas Pergami tradidit repertas. Vitruvius, on the other hand (ut supra) makes Ptolemy found the library at Alexandria as a rival to that at Pergamon. Reges Attalici magnis philologiæ dulcedinibus inducti cum egregiam bibliothecam Pergami ad communem delectationem instituissent, tune item Ptolemæus, infinito zelo cupiditatisque incitatus studio, non minoribus industriis ad eundem modum contenderat Alexandriæ comparare.

[20] Plutarch, Antonius, Chap. 57. To a list of accusations against Antony for his subservience to Cleopatra, is added the fact: [χαρισασθαι] μεν αυτη τας εκ Περγáμον βιβλιοθηκας, εν αις εικοσι μυριαδες βιβλων απλων ησαν.

[21] Altertümer von Pergamon, Fol., Berlin, 1885, Band 11. Das Heiligtum der Athena Polias Nikephoros, von Richard Bohn. The ground-plan ([fig. 2]) is reduced from Plate III. in that volume.

[22] Die Pergamenische Bibliothek. Sitzungsberichte der Königl. Preuss. Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 1884, ii. 1259-1270.

[23] In my first lecture as Sandars Reader at Cambridge in the Lent Term, 1900, I pointed out that this enclosure was of about the same size as Nevile's Court at Trinity College, if to the central area there we add the width of one of the cloisters; and that the temple of Athena was of exactly the same width as the Hall, but about 15 feet shorter. Nevile's Court is 230 feet long from the inside of the pillars supporting the Library to the wall of the Hall; and it has a mean breadth of 137 feet. If the width of the cloister, 20 feet, be added to this, we get 157 feet in lieu of the 162 feet at Pergamon.

[24] Now in the Royal Museum, Berlin.

[25] Similar sockets have been discovered in the walls of the chambers connected with the Stoa of King Attalus at Athens. These chambers are thought to have been shops, and the sockets to have supported shelves on which wares were exposed for sale. Conze, ut supra, p. 1260; Adler, Die Stoa des Königs Attalos zu Athen, Berlin, 1874; Murray's Handbook for Greece, ed. 1884, 1. p. 255.

[26] Suetonius, Cæsar, Chap. 44.

[27] Pliny, Nat. Hist., Book vii., Chap. 30; Book xxxv., Chap. 2.

[28] Suetonius, Augustus, Chap. 29.

[29] Isidore, Origines, Book vi., Chap. 5.

[30] Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, ed. 1897, p. 471. Middleton, Ancient Rome, 1892, ii. 204, 205.

[31] Nibby, Roma Antica, p. 601. [Augusto] vi aggiunse un luogo per conversare chiamato Schola.

[32] Vell. Pat., Book 1., Chap. II. Hic est Metellus Macedonicus qui porticus quæ fuere circumdatæ duabus ædibus sine inscriptione positis, quæ nunc Octaviæ porticibus ambiuntur, fecerat.

[33] Suet. De Illustr. Gramm. c. 2.

[34] Middleton, Ancient Rome, 1892, ii. 205.

[35] I have taken these dimensions from Middleton's Plan of the Palatine Hill (ut supra, p. 156), but until the site has been excavated they must be more or less conjectural.

[36] Middleton, Ibid., I. 185-188. The evidence for the portraits rests on the following passage in the Annals of Tacitus ii. 37, where he is relating how Hortalus, grandson of the orator Hortensius, being reduced to poverty, came with his four children to the Senate: "igitur quatuor filiis ante limen curiæ adstantibus, loco sententiæ, cum in Palatio senatus haberetur, modo Hortensii inter oratores sitam imaginem, modo Augusti, intuens, ad hunc modum cœpit."

[37] Pausanias, Attica, Book I., Chap. 18, § 9, ed. J. G. Frazer, Vol. I., p. 26.

[38] The above description is derived from Miss Harrison's book, ut supra, pp. 195-198; Pausanias, ed. J. G. Frazer, Vol. II., pp. 184, 185.

[39] Eusebius, Chronicon, ed. Schöne, Vol. ii., p. 167.

[40] Middleton, Ancient Rome, i. 186.

[41] Tristia, iii. 59.

[42] Epist., i. 3. 17.

[43] Noctes Atticæ, v. 21. 9.

[44] Vopiscus, Hist. Aug. Script., ii. 637.

[45] Aulus Gellius, ut supra, xvi. 8. 2.

[46] Ibid., xi. 17. 1.

[47] Flavii Vopisci Tacitus, c. 8.

[48] Id., Aurelianus, c. 1.

[49] Noctes Atticæ, xix. 5.

[50] Plutarch, Lucullus, Chap. xlii. [Σπονδης] δ' αξια και λογου τα περι την των βιβλιων κατασκευην. και γαρ πολλα, και γεγραμμενα καλως, συνηγε, η τε χρησις ην φιλοτιμοτερα της κτησεως, ανειμενων πασι των βιβλιοθηκων, και των περι αυτας περιπατων και σχολαοτηρλων ακωλυτως υποδεχομενων τους Ελληνας, ωσπερ εις Μουσων τι καταγωγιον εκεισε φοιτωντας και συνδιημερευοντας αλληλοις, απο των αλλων χρειων ασμενως αποτρεχοντας.

[51] De Tranquillitate Animi, Chap. IX. Studiorum quoque quæ liberalissima impensa est, tamdiu rationem habet quamdiu modum. Quo innumerabiles libros et bibliothecas quarum dominus vix tota vita indices perlegit? onerat discentem turba, non instruit, multoque satius est paucis te auctoribus tradere, quam errare per multos. Quadraginta milia librorum Alexandriæ arserunt: pulcherrimum regiæ opulentiæ monumentum alius laudaverit, sicut et Livius, qui elegantiæ regum curæque egregium id opus ait fuisse: non fuit elegantia illud aut cura, sed studiosa luxuria, immo ne studiosa quidem, quoniam non in studium sed in spectaculum comparaverant sicut plerisque ignaris etiam servilium literarum libri non studiorum instrumenta sed cœnationum ornamenta sunt. Paretur itaque librorum quantum satis sit, nihil in adparatum. "Honestius" inquis "hoc impensis quas in Corinthia pictasque tabulas effuderim." Vitiosum est ubique quod nimium est. Quid habes cur ignoscas homini armaria citro atque ebore captanti, corpora conquirenti aut ignotorum auctorum aut improbatorum et inter tot milia librorum oscitanti, cui voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent titulique? Apud desidiosissimos ergo videbis quicquid orationum historiarumque est, tecto tenus exstructa loculamenta. Iam enim inter balnearia et thermas bibliotheca quoque ut necessarium domus ornamentum expolitur. Ignoscerem plane, si studiorum nimia cupidine oriretur: nunc ista conquisita, cum imaginibus suis descripta, sacrorum opera ingeniorum in speciem et cultum parietum comparantur. With this passage may be compared Lucian's tract: [Ηρος] απαιδευτον και πολλα βιβλια ωνουμενον. My friend Mr F. Darwin in informs me that the Latin citrus, or Greek κεδρος, is the coniferous tree called Thuia articulata = Callitris quadrivalvis. See Helm, Kulturpflanzen, Berl. 1894. Engl. Trans, p. 431.

[52] Lanciani, Ancient Rome, 8vo. 1888, p. 193.

[53] Ancient Rome, ed. 1892, ii. 254.

[54] Phil. Trans., Vol. xlviii., Pt 2, p. 634.

[55] Ibid., p. 821.

[56] Ibid., p. 825.

[57] Opere di G. G. Winckelmann, Prato, 1831, vii. 197.

[58] Lanciani, Ruins of Ancient Rome, pp. 213-217. He describes and figures Ligorio's elevation, from MS. Vat. 3439, in Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma, Ann. x. Ser. ii., 1882. pp. 29-54. See also Middleton, Ancient Rome, 1892, ii. 15-19. The plan of Rome called the Capitoline Plan, because it is now preserved in the Museum of the Capitol, was fixed to the north-east wall ([fig. 7]. 3).

[59] The average length of a roll may be taken at 20-30 ft.; the width at 9-11 in. See The Palæography of Greek Papyri, by F. G. Kenyon, Oxf. 1899, Chap. ii.

[60] The breadth of these columns from left to right was not great, and their length was considerably shorter than the width of the roll, as a margin was left at the top and bottom.

[61] Antichità di Ercolano, Fol. Napoli, 1779. Vol. v., Tavola 55, p. 243.

[62] In this statue the roll is a restoration, but a perfectly correct one. It is original, and slightly different, in the replica of the statue at Knowle Park, Sevenoaks, Kent. See a paper on this statue by J. E. Sandys. Litt.D. in Mélanges Weil, 1898. pp. 423-428.

[63] Horace, Epodes, xiv. 5-8. Comp. Martial, Epigrams, iv. 89. Ohe! libelle, Iam pervenimus usque ad umbilicos.

[64] Tristia, i. i. 109.

[65] Catullus (xxii. 7) says of a roll which had been got up with special smartness:

Novi umbilici, lora rubra, membrana
Directa plumbo, et pumice omnia æquata.

[66] Lucian, Adv. Indoct., Chap. 16.

[67] Epigrams, x. 93.

[68] My friend M. R. James, Litt.D., of King's College, has kindly given me the following note: In the apocryphal Assumption of Moses Joshua is told to 'cedar' Moses' words (= rolls), and to lay them up in Jerusalem: "quos ordinabis et chedriabis et repones in vasis fictilibus in loco quem fecit [Deus] ab initio creaturæ orbis terrarum." Assump. Mos., ed. Charles, I. 17. See also Dueange, s.v. Cedria. Vitruvius (II. ix. 13) says: "ex cedro oleum quod cedreum dicitur nascitur, quo reliquæ res cum sint unctæ, uti etiam libri, a tineis et earie non læduntur." See above, [p. 22].

[69] Epigrams, iii. ii. 6.

[70] Ovid (Tristia, i. i. 105) addressing his book, says:

Cum tamen in nostrum fueris penetrale receptus
Contigerisque tuam, scrinia curva, domum.

[71] Epigrams, i. 117.

[72] Epigrams, vii. 17.

[73] Suet. Aug. 31. Libros Sibyllinos condidit duobus forulis auratis sub Palatini Apollinis basi.

[74] Sat. iii. 219.

[75] Georg. iv. 250.

[76] De Re Rustica, viii. 8. Paxillis adactis tabulæ superponantur; quæ vel loculamenta quibus nidificent aves, vel fictilia columbaria, recipiant.

[77] Ibid., ix. 12. 2. The writer, having described bees swarming, proceeds: protinus custos novum loculamentum in hoc præparatum perlinat intrinsecus prædictis herbis ... tum manibus aut etiam trulla congregatas apes recondat, atque ... diligenter compositum et illitum vas ... patiatur in eodem loco esse dum advesperascat. Primo deinde crepusculo transferat et reponat in ordinem reliquarum alvorum.

[78] Vegetius, Art. Vet., iii. 32. Si iumento loculamenta dentium vel dentes doluerint.

[79] Vitruvius, De Arch., ed. Schneider, x. 9. Insuper autem ad capsum redæ loculamentum firmiter figatur habens tympanum versatile in cultro collocatum, etc.

[80] Dr. Sandys, in his edition of Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, 1893, p. 174, has shewn that in the office of the public clerk a similar contrivance was used, called [επιστυλιον]: "a shelf supporting a series of pigeon-holes, and itself supported by wooden pedestals."

[81] Ulpian, Digest, 33. 7. 12. In emptionem domus et specularia et pegmata cedere solent, sive in æditiciis sint posita, sive ad tempus detracta.

[82] Ibid., 29. 1. 17. Reticuli circa columnas, plutei circa parietes, item cilicia, vela, ædium non sunt.

[83] Sat. II. 4. I do not think that these lines refer to a library. The whole house, not a single room in it, is full of plaster busts of philosophers.

[84] Ep. cv. (ed. Billerbeck); Ad Att. iv. 4, p. 2.

[85] Ep. cvi. (ibid.); Ad Att. iv. 5.

[86] Ep. cxi. (ibid.); Ad Att. iv. 8.

[87] This cut is given in Antiquitatum et Annalium Trevirensium libri XXV. Auctoribus RR. PP. Soc. Jesu P. Christophoro Browero, et P. Jacobo Masenio. 2 v. fol. Leodii, 1670. It is headed: Schema voluminum in bibliothecam (sic) ordine olim digestorum Noviomagi in loco Castrorum Constantini M. hodiedum in lapide reperto excisum. See also C. G. Schwarz, De Ornamentis Librorum, 4to, Lips. 1756, pp. 86, 172, 231, and Tab. II., fig. 4. I learnt this reference from Sir E. M. Thompson's Handbook of Greek and Latin Palæography, ed. 2, 1894, p. 57, note. The Director of the Museum at Trèves informs me that all the antiquities discovered at Neumagen were destroyed in the seventeenth century.

[88] See above, [p. 11.]

[89] Ibid., [p. 12.]

[90] Epigrams, Lib. ix. Introduction.

[91] The whole relief is figured in Seyffert, Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, ed. Nettleship and Sandys, p. 649.

[92] De Architectura, Lib. vii, Pref. [Aristophanes] e certis amiariis infinita volumina eduxit.

[93] Digesta Justiniani Augusti, ed. Mommsen. 8vo. Berlin, 1870. Vol. ii. p. 88. Book XXXII. 52.

[94] This is the date of the Columna cochlis. Middleton's Rome, ii. 24 note.

[95] Nibby, Roma Antica, 8vo. Roma, 1839, p. 188.

[96] Epist. II. 17. 8. Parieti eius [cubiculi mei] in bibliothecæ speciem armarium insertum est quod non legendos libros sed lectitandos capit.

[97] I should not have known of the existence of this sarcophagus had it not been figured, accurately enough on the whole, in Le Palais de Scaurus, by Mazois, published at Paris in 1822. The sarcophagus had passed through the hands of several collectors since Mazois figured it, and I had a long and amusing search for it.

[98] Mittheilungen des K. D. Archaeologischen Instituts Rom, 1900, Band xv. p. 171. Der Sarkophag eines Arztes.

[99] The inscription is printed in full in Antike Bilderwerke in Rom ... beschrieben von Friedrich Matz., und F. von Duhn, 3 vols., 8vo. Leipzig, 1881, Vol. ii. p. 346, No. 3127^*.

[100] Garrucci, Arte Christiana, Vol. IV. p. 39. It would appear from some curious drawings on glass figured by Garrucci, ut supra Pl. 490, that the Jews used presses of similar design in their synagogues to contain the rolls of the law.

[101] The original of this picture is 18 in. high by 9-3/4 in. broad, including the border. It could not be photographed, and therefore, through the kind offices of Miss G. Dixon, and Signor Biagi, Librarian of the Laurentian Library, the services of a thoroughly capable artist, Professor Attilio Formilli, were secured to make an exact copy in water colours. This he has done with singular taste and skill. My figure has been reduced from this copy. The press has also been figured in outline by Garrucci, Arte Christiana, Vol. iii., Pl. 126.

[102] The romantic story of the Codex Amiatinus is fully narrated by Mr H. J. White in Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, 8vo. Oxf. 1890, ii. pp. 273-308.

[103] The Octateuch, or, the five books of Moses, with the addition of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.

[104] Consol. Philosoph., Book I. Ch. 5. Nec bibliothecæ potius comptos ebore ac vitro parietes quam tuæ mentis sedem requiro.

[105] Origines, Book VI. Ch. ii. Cum peritiores architecti neque aurea lacunaria ponenda in bibliothecis putent neque pavimenta alia quam a Carysteo marmore, quod auri fulgor hebetat et Carystei viriditas reficiat oculos.

[106] Apol. adv. Rufinum, ii. 20: Opera, ed. Vallarsi, ii. 549.

[107] De Origine Historia Indicibus scrinii et bibliothecæ Sedis Apostolicæ commentatio Ioannis Baptistæ de Rossi.... 4to. Romæ, 1886, Chapter v. A brief, but accurate, summary of his account will be found in Lanciani's Ancient Rome, 8vo. 1888, pp. 187-190. Father C. J. Ehrle has given me much help on this difficult question.

[108] Sidonii Apollinaris Opera, ed. Sirmondi. 4to. Paris, 1652. Notes, p. 33. The words of this letter, which I have translated very freely, are as follows:

Sed dum hæc tacitus mecum revolvo, occurrit mihi quod in Bibliotheca studiosi sæcularium litterarum puer quondam, ut se ætatis illius curiositas habet, prætereundo legissem. Nam cum supra memoratæ ædis ordinator ac dominus, inter expressas lapillis aut ceris discoloribus, formatasque effigies vel Oratorum vel etiam Poetarum specialia singulorum autotypis epigrammata subdidisset; ubi ad præiudicati eloquii venit poetam, hoc modo orsus est.

The last three lines of the inscription are from the Æneid, Book I. 607. I owe the most important part of the translation of Rusticus to Lanciani, ut supra, p. 196: that of Virgil is by Professor Conington.

[109] I have taken the text of the inscription, and my account of Agapetus and his work, from De Rossi, ut supra, Chap. viii. p. lv.

[110] Cassiodorus, De Inst. Div. Litt. Chap. XXX. pp. 1145, 46. Ed. Migne. De Rossi, ut supra.

[111] Versus qui scripti sunt in armaria sua ab ipso [Isidoro] compositi. Cod. Vat. Pal. 1877, a MS. which came from Lorch in Germany. De Rossi, ut supra. Chap. VII.

[112] Isidori Opera Omnia, 410. Rome, 1803. Vol. vii. p. 179.

[113] See Hen. Stevenson, Topografia e Monumenti di Roma nelle Pitture a fresco di Sisto V. della Biblioteca Vaticana, p. 7; in Al Sommo Pontefice Leone XIII. Omaggio Giubilare della Biblioteca Vaticana, Fol. Rome, 1881.

[114] Signor Lanciani (Ancient Rome, p. 195) was the first to suggest a comparison between the Vatican Library and those of ancient Rome.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I.

DECORATION OF THE VATICAN LIBRARY.

The system of decoration carried out in this Library, of which I have just given a summary description, is so interesting, and bears evidence of so much care and thought, that I subjoin a detailed account of it, which, by the kindness of Father Ehrle, prefect of the Library, I was enabled to draw up during my late visits to Rome. The diagrammatic ground-plan ([fig. 18]) which accompanies this description, if studied in conjunction with the general view ([fig. 16]), will make the relation of the subjects to each other perfectly clear. The visitor is supposed to enter the Library from the vestibule at the east end; and the notation of the piers, windows, wall-frescoes, etc., begins from the same end. Further, the visitor is supposed to examine the east face of each pier first, and then to turn to the left.

I will begin with the figures on the central piers and half-piers. These figures are painted in fresco, of heroic size: and over their heads are the letters which they are supposed to have invented.

1. PILASTER AGAINST EAST WALL.

Adam.

A tall stalwart figure dressed in short chiton. He holds an apple in his left hand, and a mattock in his right.

Adam divinitus edoctus primus scientiarum et litterarum inventor.

2. FIRST PIER.

(a) Abraham.
Abraham Syras et Chaldaicas litteras invenit.
(b) The Sons of Seth.
Filii Seth columnis duabus rerum cœlestium disciplinam inscribunt.
(c) Esdras.
Esdras novas Hebraeorum litteras invenit.
(d) Moses.
Moyses antiquas Hebraicas litteras invenit.

On the cornice of the presses round this pier are the following inscriptions:

(a) Doctrina bona dabit gratiam. Prov. xiii. 15.
(b) Volo vos sapientes esse in bono. Rom. xvi. 19.
(c) Impius ignorat scientiam. Prov. xxix. 7.
(d) Cor sapientis quærit doctrinam. Prov. xv. 14.

3. SECOND PIER.

(a) Mercury.
Mercurius Thovt Ægyptiis sacras litteras conscripsit.
(b) Isis.
Isis regina Ægyptiarum litterarum inventrix.
(c) Menon.
Menon Phoroneo æqualis litteras in Ægypto invenit.
(d) Hercules.
Hercules ægyptius Phrygias litteras invenit.
On the cornice of the presses:
(a) Recedere a malo intelligentia. Job xxviii. 28.
(b) Timere Deum ipsa est sapientia. Job xxviii. 22.
(c) Faciendi plures libros nullus est finis. Eccl. xii. 12.
(d) Dat scientiam intelligentibus disciplinam. Dan. xi. 12.

4. THIRD PIER.

(a) Phoenix.
Phoenix litteras Phoenicibus tradidit.
(b) Cecrops.
Cecrops Diphyes primus Atheniensium rex Græcarum litterarum auctor.
(c) Linus.
Linus Thebanus litterarum Græcarum inventor.
(d) Cadmus.
Cadmus Phœnicis frater litteras xvi in Græciam intulit.
On the cornice of the presses:
(a) In malevolam animam non introibit sapientia. Sap. i. 4.
(b) Habentes solatio sanctos libros. 1 Mach. xii. 9.
(c) Cor rectum inquirit scientiam. Prov. xxvii. 12.
(d) Sapientiam qui abiicit infelix est. Sap. iii. 14.

5. FOURTH PIER.

(a) Pythagoras.
Pythagoras. Y. litteram ad humanæ vitæ exemplum invenit.
(b) Palamedes.
Palamedes bello Troiano Græcis litteris quattuor adiecit.
(c) Simonides.
Simonides Melicus quattuor Græcarum litterarum inventor.
(d) Epicharmus.
Epicharmus Siculus duas Græcas addidit litteras.
On the cornice of the presses:
(a) Qui evitat discere incidet in mala. Prov. vii. 16.
(b) Non glorietur sapiens in sapientia sua. Ier. ix. 23.
(c) Si quis indiget sapientia postulet a Deo. Iac. i. 15.
(d) Melior est sapientia cunctis pretiosissimis. Prov. viii. 11.

6. FIFTH PIER.

(a) Evander.
Evander Carment. F. aborigines litteras docuit.
(b) Nicostrata.
Nicostrata Carmenta latinarum litterarum inventrix.
(c) Demaratus.
Demaratus Corinthius etruscarum litterarum auctor.
(d) Claudius.
Claudius imperator tres novas litteras adinvenit.
On the cornice of the presses:
(a) Non erudietur qui non est sapiens in bono. Eccl. xxi. 24.
(b) Viri intelligentes loquantur mihi. Iac. xxxiv. 34.
(c) Non peribit consilium a sapienti. Ier. xviii. 18.
(d) Sapientiam atque doctrinam stulti despiciunt. Prov. i. 17.

7. SIXTH PIER.

(a) Chrysostom.
S. Io. Chrysostomus litterarum Armenicarum auctor.
(b) Vlphilas.
Vlphilas Episcopus Gothorum litteras invenit.

(c) Cyril.
S. Cyrillus aliarum Illyricarum litterarum auctor.
(d) Jerome.
S. Hieronymus litterarum Illyricarum inventor.
On the cornice of the presses:
(a) Scientia inflat charitas vero ædificat. Cor. viii. 1.
(b) Sapere ad sobrietatem. Rom. xii. 3.
(c) Vir sapiens fortis et vir doctus robustus. Prov. xxiv. 5.
(d) Ubi non est scientia animæ non est bonum. Prov. xix. 2.

8. PILASTER AGAINST WEST WALL.

Christ.

Our Lord is seated. Over His Head Α, Ω; in His
Hand an open book: Ego sum Α et Ω; principium et
finis. At His Feet: Iesus Christus summus magister, cælestis doctrinæ
auctor.

On Christ's right hand is a Pope, standing, with triple cross and tiara.
Christi Domini vicarius.
On Christ's left hand is an Emperor, also standing, with crown, sword,
blue mantle.
Ecclesiæ defensor.

I will now pass to the decoration of the walls. On the south wall, between the windows, are representations of famous libraries; on the north wall, of the eight general Councils of the Church. Each space is ornamented with a broad border, like a picture-frame. In the centre above is the general title of the subject or subjects below: e.g. Bibliotheca Romanorum; and beneath each picture is an inscription describing the special subject. Above each window, on the vault, is a large picture, to commemorate the benefits conferred by Sixtus V. on Rome and on the world. I will describe the libraries first, beginning as before at the east end of the room.

I. SIXTUS V. AND THE ARCHITECT FONTANA.

(Right of Entrance.)

Sixtus V. Pont. M. Bibliothecæ Vaticanæ aedificationem prescribit.

The Pope is seated. Fontana, a pair of compasses in his right hand, is on one knee, exhibiting the plan of the intended library.

II. MOSES ENTRUSTS THE TABLES OF THE LAW TO THE LEVITES.

(Left of Entrance.)

Moyses librum legis Levitis in tabernaculo reponendum tradit.

Moses hands a large folio to a Levite, behind whom more Levites are standing. Soldiers, etc., stand behind Moses. Tents in background.

III. BIBLIOTHECA HEBRÆA.

(On first wall-space south side.)

Esdras sacerdos et scriba Bibliothecam sacram restituit.

Ezra, attired in a costume that is almost Roman, stands in the centre of the picture, his back half turned to the spectator. An official is pointing to a press full of books. Porters are bringing in others.

IV. BIBLIOTHECA BABYLONICA.

(Two pictures.)

(a) The education of Daniel in Babylon.

Daniel et socii linguam scientiamque Chaldæorum ediscunt.

Daniel and other young men are writing and reading at a table on the right of the picture. A group of elderly men in front of them to the left. Behind these is a lofty chair and desk, beneath which is a table at which a group of boys are reading and writing. In the background a set of book-shelves with a desk, quite modern in style.

(b) The search for the decree of Cyrus.

Cyri decretum de templi restauratione Darii iussu perquiritur.

Darius, crowned, his back half turned to the spectator, is giving orders to several young men, who are taking books out of an armarium—evidently copied from one of the Vatican book-cupboards.

V. BIBLIOTHECA ATHENIENSIS.

(Two pictures.)

(a) Pisistratus arranges a library at Athens.

Pisistratus primus apud Græcos publicam bibliothecam instituit.

Pisistratus, in armour, over which is a blue mantle, is giving orders to an old man who kneels before him, holding an open book. Behind the old man attendants are placing books on desks—others are reading. Behind Pisistratus is a group of officers, and behind them again a book-press without doors, and a row of open books on the top.

(b) Restoration of the library by Seleucus.

Seleucus bibliothecam a Xerxe asportatam referendam curat.

Servants are bringing in books which are being hastily packed into cases. In the background is seen the sea, with a ship; and the door of the palace. A picture full of life and movement.

VI. BIBLIOTHECA ALEXANDRINA.

(Two pictures.)

(a) Ptolemy organises the library at Alexandria.

Ptolemæus ingenti bibliotheca instructa Hebreorum libros concupiscit.

Ptolemy, a dignified figure in a royal habit, stands in the centre. He is addressing an elderly man who stands on his right. Behind him are three porches, within which are seen desks and readers. In the central porch are closed presses, with rows of folios on the top. Below are desks, at which readers are seated, their backs turned to the presses.

(b) The Seventy Translators bring their work to Ptolemy.

LXXII interpretes ab Eleazaro missi sacros libros Ptolemæo reddunt.

Ptolemy is seated on a throne to right of spectator with courtiers on his right and left. The messengers kneel before him, and hand him volumes.

VII. BIBLIOTHECA ROMANORUM.

(a) Tarquin receives the Sibylline Books.

Tarquinius Superbus libros Sibyllinos tres aliis a muliere incensis tantidem emit.

Tarquin, seated in the centre of the picture, receives three volumes from an aged and dignified woman. In front a lighted brazier in which the other books are burning.

(b) Augustus opens the Palatine library.

Augustus Cæs. Palatina Bibliotheca magnifice ornata viros litteratos fovet.

Augustus, in armour, with imperial mantle, crown and sceptre, stands left of centre. An old man seated at his feet is writing from his dictation. Left of the Emperor are five desks; with five closed books lying on the top of each. These desks are very probably intended to represent those of the Vatican Library as arranged by Sixtus IV. Two men, crowned with laurel, are standing behind the last desk, conversing. Behind them again is a book-case of three shelves between a pair of columns. Books are lying on their sides on these shelves. Beneath the shelves is a desk, with books open upon it, and others on their sides beneath it.

VIII. BIBLIOTHECA HIEROSOLIMITANA.

Alexander, Bishop and Martyr, collects a library at Jerusalem.

S. Alexander Episc. et Mart. Decio Imp. in magna temporum acerbitate sacrorum scriptorum libros Hierosolymis congregat.

A picture full of movement, occupying the whole space between two windows. The saint is in the centre of the picture, seated. Young men are bringing in the books, and placing them on shelves.

IX. BIBLIOTHECA CÆSARIENSIS.

Pamphilus, Priest and Martyr, collects a library at Cæsarea.

S. Pamphilus Presb. et Mart. admirandæ sanctitatis et doctrinæ Cæsareæ sacram bibliothecam conficit multos libros sua manu describit.

Pamphilus, in centre of picture, is giving orders to porters who are bringing in a basket of books. On his left a large table at which a scribe is writing. S. Jerome, seated in right corner of picture, is apparently dictating to the scribe. Behind them is a large book-case on the shelves of which books lie on their sides; others are being laid on the top by a man standing on a ladder. In the left of the picture is a table covered with a green cloth, on which book-binders are at work. In front of this table a carpenter is preparing boards. In background, seen through a large window, is a view of Cæsarea.

X. BIBLIOTHECA APOSTOLORUM.

S. Peter orders the safe-keeping of books.

S. Petrus sacrorum librorum thesaurum in Romana ecclesia perpetuo asservari jubet.

S. Peter is standing before an altar on which are books and a cross. In front doctors are writing at a low table.

[A small picture between window and west wall.]

XI. BIBLIOTHECA PONTIFICUM.

The successors of S. Peter carry on the library-tradition.

Romani pontifices apostolicam bibliothecam magno studio amplificant atque illustrant.

A pope, his left hand resting on a book, is earnestly conversing with a cardinal, whose back is half turned to the spectator. Another pope, with three aged men, in background.

[A small picture on west wall.]

We will now return to the east end of the room, and take the representations of Councils, painted on the east and north walls, in chronological order.

I. II. CONCILIUM NICAENUM I.

(On east wall.)

The first Council held at Nicæa, a.d. 325.

S. Silvestro PP. Constantino Mag. imp. Christus dei Filius patri consubstantialis declaratur Arii impietas condemnatur.

The burning of the books of Arius.

Ex decreto concilii Constantinus Imp. libros Arianorum comburi iubet.

III. CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM I.

The first Council held at Constantinople, a.d. 381.

S. Damaso PP. et Theodosio sen. imp. Spiritus Sancti divinitas propugnatur nefaria Macedonii hæresis extinguitur.

IV. CONCILIUM EPHESINUM.

The Council held at Ephesus, a.d. 431.

S. Cælestino PP. et Theodosio Jun. Imp. Nestorius Christum dividens damnatur, B. Maria Virgo dei genetrix prædicatur.

V. CONCILIUM CHALCEDONENSE.

The Council held at Chalcedon, a.d. 451.

S. Leone magno PP. et Marciano Imp. infelix Eutyches vnam tantum in Christo post incarnationem naturam asserens confutatur.

VI. CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM II.

The second Council held at Constantinople, a.d. 553.

Vigilio Papa et Iustiniano Imp. contentiones de tribus capitibus sedantur Origenis errores refelluntur.

VII. CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM III.

The third Council held at Constantinople, a.d. 680.

S. Agathone Papa Constantino pogonato Imp. monothelitæ hæretici vnam tantum in Christo voluntatem docentes exploduntur.

VIII. CONCILIUM NICAENUM II.

The second Council held at Nicæa, a.d. 787.

Hadriano papa Constantino Irenes F. imp. impii iconomachi reiiciuntur sacrarum imaginum veneratio confirmatur.

IX. X. CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM IV.

The fourth Council held at Constantinople, a.d. 869.

Hadriano papa et Basilio imp. S. Ignatius patriarcha Constant. in suam sedem pulso Photio restituitur.

The burning of the books of Photius.

Ex decreto concilii Basilius Imp. chirographa Photii et conciliab. acta comburi iubet.

In conclusion I will enumerate the series of eighteen large pictures on the side-walls and in the lunettes at each end of the room, representing, with some few exceptions, the benefits conferred on Rome by Sixtus. The most important of these pictures are above the windows ([fig. 16]), of which there are seven on each side-wall. A Latin couplet above the picture records the subject, and allegorical figures of heroic size, one on each side, further indicate the idea which it is intended to convey.

The series begins at the east end of the room, over the door.

I. Procession of Sixtus to his coronation.

Hic tria Sixte tuo capiti diademata dantur
Sed quantum in cœlis te diadema manet.
Electio Sacra. Manifestatio.

On the left of this, over the First Nicene Council, is

II. Coronation of Sixtus, with façade of old S. Peter's.

Ad templum antipodes Sixtum comitantur euntem
Jamque novus Pastor pascit ovile novum.
Honor. Dignitas.

With the following picture the series on the south wall begins, above the windows:

III. An allegorical tableau. A lion with a human face, and a thunder-bolt in his right paw, stands on a green hill. A flock of sheep is feeding around.

Alcides partem Italiæ prædone redemit
Sed totam Sixtus: dic mihi major uter.
Justitia. Castigatio.

IV. The obelisk in front of old S. Peter's. The dome rising behind.

Dum stabit motus nullis Obeliscus ab Euris
Sixte tuum stabit nomen honosque tuus.
Religio. Munificentia.

V. An allegorical tableau. A tree loaded with fruits, up which a lion is trying to climb. A flock of sheep beneath.

Temporibus Sixti redeunt Saturnia regna
Et pleno cornu copia fundit opes.
Charitas. Liberalitas.

VI. A Columna Cochlis surmounted by a statue.

Ut vinclis tenuit Petrum sic alta columna
Sustinet; hinc decus est dedecus unde fuit.
Sublimatio. Mutatio.

VII. A crowd assembled in front of a church.

Sixtus regnum iniens indicit publica vota
Ponderis o quanti vota fuisse vides.
Salus Generis Humani. Pietas Religionis.

VIII. The Lateran Palace, with the Baptistery and Obelisk.

Quintus restituit Laterana palatia Sixtus
Atque obelum medias transtulit ante foras.
Sanatio. Purgatio.

IX. A fountain erected by Sixtus.

Fons felix celebri notus super æthera versu
Romulea passim jugis in urbe fuit.
Miseratio. Benignitas.

The next two pictures are above the arches leading from the west end of the library into the corridor:

X. Panorama of Rome as altered by Sixtus.

Dum rectas ad templa vias sanctissima pandit
Ipse sibi Sixtus pandit ad astra viam.
Lætificatio. Nobilitas.

XI. An allegorical representation of the Tiara, with adoring worshippers.

Virgo intacta manet nec vivit adultera conjux
Castaque nunc Roma est quæ fuit ante salax.
Castitas. Defensio.

With the following picture the series on the north wall begins:

XII. Section of S. Peter's, with the dome.

Virginis absistit mirari templa Dianæ;
Qui fanum hoc intrat Virgo Maria tuum.
Æquiparatio. Potestas.

XIII. The Obelisk in the Circus of Nero.

Maximus est obelus circus quem maximus olim
Condidit et Sixtus maximus inde trahit.
Reædificatio. Cognito veri dei.

XIV. The Tiber, with the Ponte Sisto, and the Ospedale di Santo Spirito.

Quæris cur tota non sit mendicus in Urbe:
Tecta parat Sixtus suppeditatque cibos.
Clementia. Operatio bona.

XV. A similar view.

Jure Antoninum paulo vis Sixte subesse
Nam vere hic pius est impius ille pius.
Electio sacra. Vera gloria.

XVI. A similar view, with the Obelisk.

Transfers Sixte pium transferre an dignior alter
Transferri an vero dignior alter erat.
Recognitio. Gratitudo.

XVII. The Obelisk, now in front of S. Peter's, before it was removed.

Qui Regum tumulis obeliscus serviit olim
Ad cunas Christi tu pie Sixte locas.
Oblatio. Devotio.

XVIII. A fleet at sea.

Instruit hic Sixtus classes quibus æquora purget
Et Solymos victos sub sua jura trahat.
Providentia. Securitas.

CHAPTER II.

CHRISTIAN LIBRARIES CONNECTED WITH CHURCHES. USE OF THE APSE. MONASTIC COMMUNITIES. S. PACHOMIUS. S. BENEDICT AND HIS SUCCESSORS. EACH HOUSE HAD A LIBRARY. ANNUAL AUDIT OF BOOKS. LOAN ON SECURITY. MODES OF PROTECTION. CURSES. PRAYERS FOR DONORS. ENDOWMENT OF LIBRARIES. USE OF THE CLOISTER. DEVELOPMENT OF CISTERCIAN BOOK-ROOM. COMMON PRESS. CARRELLS. GLASS.

The evidence collected in the last chapter shews that what I have there called the Roman conception of a library was maintained, even by Christian ecclesiastics, during many centuries of our era. I have next to trace the beginning and the development of another class of libraries, directly connected with Christianity. We shall find that the books intended for the use of the new communities were stored in or near the places where they met for service, just as in the most ancient times the safe-keeping of similar treasures had been entrusted to temples.

It is easy to see how this came about. The necessary service-books would be placed in the hands of the ecclesiastic who had charge of the building in which the congregation assembled. To these volumes—which at first were doubtless regarded in the same light as vestments or sacred vessels—treatises intended for edification or instruction would be gradually added, and so the nucleus of a library would be formed.

The existence of such libraries does not rest on inference only. There are numerous allusions to them in the Fathers and other writers; S. Jerome, for instance, advises a correspondent to consult church-libraries, as though every church possessed one[115]. As however the allusions to them are general, and say nothing about extent or arrangement, this part of my subject need not detain us long[116].

The earliest collection of which I have discovered any record is that got together at Jerusalem, by Bishop Alexander, who died a.d. 250. Eusebius, when writing his Ecclesiastical History some eighty years later, describes this library as a storehouse of historical records, which he had himself used with advantage in the composition of his work[117]. A still more important collection existed at Cæsarea in Palestine. S. Jerome says distinctly that it was founded by Pamphilus, "a man who in zeal for the acquisition of a library wished to take rank with Demetrius Phalereus and Pisistratus[118]." As Pamphilus suffered martyrdom in a.d. 309, this library must have been got together soon after that at Jerusalem. It is described as not only extensive, but remarkable for the importance of the manuscripts it contained. Here was the supposed Hebrew original of S. Matthew's Gospel[119], and most of the works of Origen, got together by the pious care of Pamphilus, who had been his pupil and devoted admirer. S. Jerome himself worked in this library, and collated there the manuscripts which Origen had used when preparing his Hexapla[120]. At Cirta the church and the library were evidently in the same building, from the way in which they are spoken of in the account of the persecution of a.d. 303-304. "The officers," we are told, "went into the building (domus) where the Christians were in the habit of meeting." There they took an inventory of the plate and vestments. "But," proceeds the narrative, "when they came to the library, the presses there were found empty[121]." Augustine, on his deathbed, a.d. 430, gave directions that "the library of the church [at Hippo], and all the manuscripts, should be carefully preserved by those who came after him[122]."

Further, there appears to be good reason for believing that when a church had a triple apse, the lateral apses were separated off by a curtain or a door, the one to contain the sacred vessels, the other the books. This view, which has been elaborated by De Rossi in explanation of three recesses in the thickness of the wall of the apse of a small private oratory discovered in Rome in 1876[123], is chiefly supported by the language of Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, who lived from about a.d. 353 to a.d. 431. He describes a basilica erected by himself at Nola in honour of S. Felix, martyr, as having "an apse divided into three (apsidem trichoram)[124]"; and in a subsequent passage, after stating that there are to be two recesses, one to the right, the other to the left of the apse, he adds, "these verses indicate the use of each[125]," and gives the following couplets, with their headings:

On the right of the Apse.

Hic locus est veneranda penus qua conditur, et qua
Ponitur alma sacri pompa ministerii.

Here are the sacred vessels stored, and here
The peaceful trappings of our holy rites.

On the left of the same.

Si quem sancta tenet meditandi in lege voluntas
Hic poterit residens sacris intendere libris.

Here he whose thoughts are on the laws of God
May sit and ponder over holy books.

As De Rossi explains, the first of the two niches was intended to contain the vessels and furniture of the altar; the second was reserved for the safe-keeping of the sacred books. The word trichora, in Greek [τριχω], is used by later writers to designate a three-fold division of any object—as for instance, by Dioscorides, of the seed-pod of the acacia[126].

Whether this theory of the use of the apse be accurate or fanciful, the purely Christian libraries to which I have alluded were undoubtedly connected, more or less closely, with churches; and I submit that the libraries which in the Middle Ages were connected with cathedrals and collegiate churches are their lineal descendants.

I have next to consider the libraries formed by monastic communities, the origin of which may be traced to very early times. Among the Christians of the first three centuries there were enthusiasts who, discontented with the luxurious life they led in the populous cities along the coasts of Africa and Syria, fled into the Egyptian deserts, there to lead a life of rigorous self-denial and religious contemplation. These hermits were presently joined by other hermits, and small communities were gradually formed, with a regular organization that foreshadowed the Rules and Customs of the later monastic life. Those who governed these primitive monasteries soon realised the fact that without books their inmates would relapse into barbarism, and libraries were got together. The Rule of S. Pachomius (a.d. 292-345), whose monastery was at Tabennisi near Denderah in Upper Egypt, provides that the books of the House are to be kept in a cupboard (fenestra) in the thickness of the wall. Any brother who wanted a book might have one for a week, at the end of which he was bound to return it. No brother might leave a book open when he went to church or to meals. In the evening the officer called "the Second," that is, the second in command, was to take charge of the books, count them, and lock them up.[127]

These provisions, insisted upon at a very early date, form a suitable introduction to the most important section of my subject—the care of books by the Monastic Orders. With them book-preserving and book-producing were reduced to a system, and in their libraries—the public libraries of the Middle Ages—literature found a home, until the invention of printing handed over to the world at large the duties which had been so well discharged by special communities. This investigation is full of difficulty; and, though I hope to arrive at some definite conclusions respecting the position, size, dimensions, and fittings of monastic libraries, I must admit that my results depend to a certain extent on analogy and inference. It should be remembered that in England the monasteries were swept away more than three centuries ago by a sudden catastrophe, and that those who destroyed them were far too busy with their own affairs to place on record the aspect or the plan of what they were wrecking. In France again, though little more than a century has elapsed since her monasteries were overwhelmed by the Revolution, and though descriptions and views of many of her great religious houses have been preserved, and much has been done in the way of editing catalogues of their manuscripts, there is still a lamentable dearth of information on my particular subject.

I shall begin by quoting some passages from the Rules and Customs of the different Orders, which shew (1) that reading was encouraged and enforced by S. Benedict himself, with whom the monastic life, as we conceive it, may be said to have originated; (2) that subsequently, as Order after Order was founded, a steady development of feeling with regard to books, and an ever-increasing care for their safe-keeping, can be traced.

The Rule of S. Benedict was made public early in the sixth century; and the later Orders were but offshoots of the Benedictine tree, either using his Rule or basing their own statutes upon it. It will therefore be desirable to begin this research by examining what S. Benedict said on the subject of study, and I will translate a few lines from the 48th chapter of his Rule, Of daily manual labour.

Idleness is the enemy of the soul; hence brethren ought, at certain seasons, to occupy themselves with manual labour, and again, at certain hours, with holy reading....

Between Easter and the calends of October let them apply themselves to reading from the fourth hour till near the sixth hour.

From the calends of October to the beginning of Lent let them apply themselves to reading until the second hour.... During Lent, let them apply themselves to reading from morning until the end of the third hour ... and, in these days of Lent, let them receive a book apiece from the library, and read it straight through. These books are to be given out at the beginning of Lent[128].

In this passage the library—by which a book-press is probably to be understood—is specially mentioned. In other words, at that early date the formation of a collection of books was contemplated, large enough to supply the community with a volume apiece, without counting the service-books required for use in the church.

The Benedictine Order flourished and increased abundantly for more than four centuries, until, about a.d. 912, the order of Cluni was established. It was so called from the celebrated abbey near Mâcon in Burgundy, which, though not the first house of the Order in point of date, became subsequently the first in extent, wealth, and reputation. As a stricter observance of the Rule of S. Benedict was the main object which the founder of this Order had in view, the Benedictine directions respecting study are maintained and developed. The Customs prescribe the following regulations for books:

On the second day of Lent the only passage of the Rule to be read in Chapter is that concerning the observance of Lent.

Then shall be read aloud a note (brevis) of the books which a year before had been given out to brethren for their reading. When a brother's name is called, he rises, and returns the book that had been given to him; and if it should happen that he has not read it through, he is to ask forgiveness for his want of diligence.

A carpet on which those books are to be laid out is to be put down in the Chapter-House; and the titles of those which are distributed to brethren afresh are to be noted, for which purpose a tablet is to be made of somewhat larger size than usual[129].

In a subsequent chapter it is directed that the books are to be entrusted to the official "who is called Precentor and Armarius, because he usually has charge of the library, which is also called the armarium (press)[130]. This arrangement shews that up to this date all the books, whether service-books or not, were regarded as belonging to the church.

I come next to the decrees given to the English Benedictines by Archbishop Lanfranc in or about 1070. "We send you" he says "the Customs of our Order in writing, selected from the Customs of those houses (cœnobia) which are in our day of the highest authority in the monastic order[131]." The section relating to books is so interesting that I will translate it.

On the Monday after the first Sunday in Lent ... before the brethren go in to Chapter, the librarian (custos librorum) ought to have all the books brought together into the Chapter-House and laid out on a carpet, except those which had been given out for reading during the past year: these the brethren ought to bring with them as they come into Chapter, each carrying his book in his hand. Of this they ought to have had notice given to them by the aforesaid librarian on the preceding day in Chapter. Then let the passage in the Rule of S. Benedict about the observance of Lent be read, and a discourse be preached upon it. Next let the librarian read a document (breve) setting forth the names of the brethren who have had books during the past year; and let each brother, when he hears his own name pronounced, return the book which had been entrusted to him for reading; and let him who is conscious of not having read the book through which he had received, fall down on his face, confess his fault, and pray for forgiveness.

Then let the aforesaid librarian hand to each brother another book for reading; and when the books have been distributed in order, let the aforesaid librarian in the same Chapter put on record the names of the books, and of those who receive them[132].

It is, I think, certain that when Lanfranc was writing this passage the Cluniac Customs must have been before him[133]. It should be noted that the librarian is not defined otherwise than as "keeper of the books," but we learn from the Customs of Benedictine houses subsequent to Lanfranc's time that this duty was discharged by the Precentor, as in the Cluniac Customs. For instance, in the Customs of the Benedictine house at Abingdon, in Berkshire, drawn up near the end of the twelfth century, we read:

The precentor shall keep clean the presses belonging to the boys and the novices, and all others in which the books of the convent are stored, repair them when they are broken, provide coverings for the books in the library, and make good any damage done to them[134].

The precentor cannot sell, or give away, or pledge any books; nor can he lend any except on deposit of a pledge, of equal or greater value than the book itself. It is safer to fall back on a pledge, than to proceed against an individual. Moreover he may not lend except to neighbouring churches, or to persons of conspicuous worth[135].

The Customs of the Abbey of Evesham in Worcestershire give the same directions in a slightly different form.

It is part of the precentor's duty to entrust to the younger monks the care of the presses, and to keep them in repair: whenever the convent is sitting in cloister, he is to go round the cloister as soon as the bell has sounded, and replace the books, in case any brother through carelessness should have forgotten to do so.

He is to take charge of all the books in the monastery, and have them in his keeping, provided his carefulness and knowledge be such that they may be entrusted to him. No one is to take a book out unless it be entered on his roll: nor is any book to be lent to any one without a proper and sufficient voucher, and this too is to be set down on his roll[136].

The Carthusians—the second offshoot of the Benedictine tree (1084)—also preserved the primitive tradition of study. They not only read themselves, but were actively employed in writing books for others. In the chapter of their statutes which deals with the furniture allowed to each "tenant of a cell (incola celle)"—(for in this community each brother lived apart, with his sitting-room, bed-room, and plot of garden-ground)—all the articles needful for writing are enumerated, "for nearly all those whom we adopt we teach, if possible, to write," and then the writer passes on to books.

Moreover he—[the tenant of the cell]—receives two books out of the press for reading. He is admonished to take the utmost care and pains that they be not soiled by smoke or dust or dirt of any kind; for it is our wish that books, as being the perpetual food of our souls, should be most jealously guarded, and most carefully produced, that we, who cannot preach the word of God with our lips, may preach it with our hands[137].

They did, however, on occasion lend books, for it is provided that when books are lent no one shall retain them contrary to the will of the lenders[138]. It would be interesting to know how this rule was enforced.

The Cistercian Order—founded 1128—adopted the Benedictine Rule, and with it the obligation of study and writing. Moreover, in their anxiety to take due care of their books, they went further than their predecessors; for they entrusted them to a special officer, instead of to the precentor, and they admitted a special room to contain them into the ground-plan of their houses.

At a later point I shall return to the interesting subject of the Cistercian book-room. For the present I must content myself with translating from their Customs the passage relating to books. It occurs in Chapter cxv., Of the precentor and his assistant. After describing his various duties, the writer proceeds:

With regard to the production and safe-keeping of charters and books, the abbat is to consider to whom he shall entrust this duty.

The officer so appointed may go as far as the doors of the writing-rooms when he wants to hand in or to take out a book, but he may not go inside. In the same way for books in common use, as for instance antiphoners, hymnals, graduals, lectionaries [etc.], and those which are read in the Prater and at Collation, he may go as far as the door of the novices, and of the sick, and of the writers, and then ask for what he wants by a sign, but he may not go further unless he have been commanded by the abbat. When Collation is over it is his duty to close the press, and during the period of labour, of sleep, and of meals, and while vespers are being sung, to keep it locked[139].

The Customs of the Augustinian Order are exceedingly full on the subject of books. I will translate part of the 14th chapter of the Customs in use at Barnwell[140], near Cambridge. It is headed: Of the safe keeping of the books, and of the office of Librarian (armarius). As the passage occurs also in the Customs as observed in France and in Belgium, it may be taken, I presume, to represent the general practice of the Order.

The Librarian, who is called also Precentor, is to take charge of the books of the church; all which he ought to keep and to know under their separate titles; and he should frequently examine them carefully to prevent any damage or injury from insects or decay. He ought also, at the beginning of Lent, in each year, to shew them to the convent in Chapter, when the souls of those who have given them to the church, or of the brethren who have written them, and laboured over them, ought to be absolved, and a service in convent be held over them. He ought also to hand to the brethren the books which they see occasion to use, and to enter on his roll the titles of the books, and the names of those who receive them. These, when required, are bound to give surety for the volumes they receive; nor may they lend them to others, whether known or unknown, without having first obtained permission from the Librarian. Nor ought the Librarian himself to lend books unless he receive a pledge of equal value; and then he ought to enter on his roll the name of the borrower, the title of the book lent, and the pledge taken. The larger and more valuable books he ought not to lend to anyone, known or unknown, without permission of the Prelate....

Books which are to be kept at hand for daily use, whether for singing or reading, ought to be in some common place, to which all the brethren can have easy access for inspection, and selection of anything which seems to them suitable. The books, therefore, ought not to be carried away into chambers, or into corners outside the Cloister or the Church. The Librarian ought frequently to dust the books carefully, to repair them, and to point them, lest brethren should find any error or hindrance in the daily service of the church, whether in singing or in reading. No other brother ought to erase or change anything in the books unless he have obtained the consent of the Librarian....

The press in which the books are kept ought to be lined inside with wood, that the damp of the walls may not moisten or stain the books. This press should be divided vertically as well as horizontally by sundry shelves on which the books may be ranged so as to be separated from one another; for fear they be packed so close as to injure each other or delay those who want them[141].

Further, as the books ought to be mended, pointed, and taken care of by the Librarian, so ought they to be properly bound by him.

The Order of Prémontré—better known as the Premonstratensians, or reformed Augustinians—repeat the essential part of these directions in their statute, Of the Librarian (armarius), with this addition, that it is to be part of the librarian's duty to provide for the borrowing of books for the use of the House, as well as for lending[142].

Lastly, the Friars, though property was forbidden, and S. Francis would not allow his disciples to own so much as a psalter or a breviary[143], soon found that books were a necessity, and the severity of early discipline was relaxed in favour of a library. S. Francis died in 1226, and only thirty-four years afterwards, among the constitutions adopted by a General Chapter of the Order held at Narbonne 10 June, 1260, are several provisions relating to books. They are of no great importance, taken by themselves, but their appearance at so early a date proves that books had become indispensable. It is enacted that no brother may write books, or have them written, for sale; nor may the chief officer of a province venture to keep books without leave obtained from the chief officer of the whole Order; no brother may keep the books assigned to him, unless they are altogether the property of the Order—and so forth[144]. A century later, when Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, was writing his Philobiblon (completed 24 January, 1344-45), he could say of them and the other friars—whom, be it remembered, he, as a regular, would regard with scant favour—

But whenever it happened that we turned aside to the cities and places where the Mendicants had their convents we did not disdain to visit their libraries and any other repositories of books; nay there we found heaped up amidst the utmost poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. We discovered in their fardels and baskets not only crumbs falling from the master's table for the dogs, but the shewbread without leaven and the bread of angels having in it all that is delicious; and indeed the garners of Joseph full of corn, and all the spoil of the Egyptians and the very precious gifts which Queen Sheba brought to Solomon.

These men are as ants ever preparing their meat in the summer, and ingenious bees continually fabricating cells of honey.... And to pay due regard to truth ... although they lately at the eleventh hour have entered the Lord's vineyard ..., they have added more in this brief hour to the stock of the sacred books than all the other vinedressers; following in the footsteps of Paul, the last to be called but the first in preaching, who spread the gospel of Christ more widely than all others[145].

At Assisi, the parent house of the Franciscan Order, there was a library of considerable extent, many volumes of which still exist, with a catalogue drawn up in 1381.

At this point I will resume the conclusions which may be deduced from this examination of the Benedictine Rule and the Customs founded upon it.

In the first place they all assume the existence of a library. S. Benedict contents himself with general directions about study. The Cluniacs put the books in charge of the precentor, who is to be called also armarius, and they prescribe an annual audit of them, with the assignment of a single volume to each brother, on the security of a written attestation of the fact. These regulations were adopted by the Benedictines, with fuller rules for the librarian, who is still precentor also. He is to keep both presses and books in repair, and personally to supervise the daily use of the manuscripts, restoring to their proper places those that brethren may have been reading. Among these rules permission to lend books on receipt of a pledge first makes its appearance. The Carthusians maintain the principle of lending. Each brother might have two books, and he is to be specially careful to keep them clean. The Cistercians appoint a special officer to have charge of the books, about the safety of which great care is to be taken, and at certain times of the day he is to lock the press. The Augustinians and the Premonstratensians follow the Cluniacs and Benedictines: but the Premonstratensians direct their librarian to take note of the books that the House borrows as well as of those that it lends; and they adopt the Cistercian precaution about his opening and locking the press.

Secondly, by the time that Lanfranc was writing his statutes for English Benedictines, it was evidently contemplated that the number of books would have exceeded the number of brethren, for the keeper of the books is directed to bring all the books of the House into Chapter, and after that the brethren, one by one, are to bring in the books which they have borrowed[146]. Among the books belonging to the House there were probably some service-books; but, from the language used, it appears to me that we may fairly conclude that by the end of the eleventh century Benedictine Houses had two sets of books: (1) those which were distributed among the brethren; (2) those which were kept in some safe place, as part of the possessions of the House: or, to adopt modern phrases, that they had a lending library and a library of reference.

Thirdly, it is evident that the loan of books to persons in general, on adequate security, began at a very early date. On this account I have already ventured to call monastic libraries the public libraries of the Middle Ages. As time went on, the practice was developed, and at last became general. It was even enjoined upon monks as a duty by their ecclesiastical superiors. In 1212 a Council which met at Paris made the following decree, but I am not able to say whether it was accepted out of France:

We forbid those who belong to a religious Order, to formulate any vow against lending their books to those who are in need of them; seeing that to lend is enumerated among the principal works of mercy.

After careful consideration, let some books be kept in the House for the use of brethren; others, according to the decision of the abbat, be lent to those who are in need of them, the rights of the House being safe-guarded.

From the present date no book is to be retained under pain of incurring a curse [for its alienation], and we declare all such curses to be of no effect[147].

In the same century many volumes were bequeathed to the Augustinian House of S. Victor, Paris, on the express condition that they should be so lent[148]. It is almost needless to add that one abbey was continually lending to another, either for reading or for copying[149].

Houses which lent liberally would probably be the first to relax discipline so far as to admit strangers to their libraries; and in the sixteenth and following centuries the libraries of the Benedictine House of S. Germain des Près, Paris, as well as the already mentioned House of S. Victor, were open to all comers on certain days in the week.

When we try to realise the feelings with which monastic communities regarded books, it must always be remembered that they had a paternal interest in them. In many cases they had been written in the very House in which they were afterwards read from generation to generation: and if not, they had probably been procured by the exchange of some work so written. In fact, if a book was not a son of the House, it was at least a nephew.

The conviction that books were a possession with which no convent could dispense, appears in many medieval writers. The whole matter is summed up in the phrase, written about 1170, "claustrum sine armario, castrum sine armamentario[150]," an epigram which I will not spoil by trying to translate it; and even more clearly in the passionate utterances of Thomas à Kempis on the desolate condition of priest and convent without books[151]. The "round of creation" is explored for similes to enforce this truth. A priest so situated is like a horse without bridle, a ship without oars, a writer without pens, a bird without wings, etc.; while the House is like a kitchen without stewpans, a table without food, a well without water, a river without fish—and many other things which I have no space to mention.

Evidence of the solicitude with which they protected their treasures is not wanting. The very mode of holding a manuscript was prescribed, if not by law, at least by general custom. "When the religious are engaged in reading in cloister or in church," says an Order of the General Benedictine Chapter, "they shall if possible hold the books in their left hands, wrapped in the sleeve of their tunics, and resting on their knees; their right hands shall be uncovered with which to hold and turn the leaves of the aforesaid books[152]." In a manuscript at Monte Cassino[153] is the practical injunction

Quisquis quem tetigerit
Sit illi lota manus;

and at the same House the possession of handkerchiefs—which were evidently regarded as effeminate inventions—is specially excused on the ground that they would be useful—among other things—"for wrapping round the manuscripts which brethren handle[154]." Of similar import is the distich at the end of a fine manuscript formerly in the library of S. Victor:

Qui servare libris preciosis nescit honorem
Illius a manibus sit procul iste liber[155].

With these injunctions may be compared a note in a fourteenth century manuscript from the same library:

Whoever pursues his studies in this book, should be careful to handle the leaves gently and delicately, so as to avoid tearing them by reason of their thinness; and let him imitate the example of Jesus Christ, who, when he had quietly opened the book of Isaiah and read therein attentively, rolled it up with reverence, and gave it again to the minister[156];

and the advice of Thomas à Kempis to the youthful students for whose benefit he composed the treatise called Doctrinale Juvenum which I have already quoted:

Take thou a book into thine hands as Simeon the Just took the Child Jesus into his arms to carry him and kiss him. And when thou hast finished reading, close the book and give thanks for every word out of the mouth of God; because in the Lord's field thou hast found a hidden treasure[157].

In a similar strain a writer or copyist entreats readers to be careful of his work—work which has cost him an amount of pains that they cannot realise. It is impossible to translate the original exactly, but I hope that I have given the meaning with tolerable clearness:

I beseech you, my friend, when you are reading my book to keep your hands behind its back, for fear you should do mischief to the text by some sudden movement; for a man who knows nothing about writing thinks that it is no concern of his. Whereas to a writer the last line is as sweet as port is to a sailor. Three fingers hold the pen, but the whole body toils. Thanks be to God. I Warembert wrote this book in God's name. Thanks be to God. Amen[158].

Entreaties so gentle and so pathetic as these are seldom met with; but curses—in the same strain probably as those to which the Council of Paris took exception—are extremely common. In fact, in some Houses, a manuscript invariably ended with an imprecation—more or less severe, according to the writer's taste[159]. I will append a few specimens.

This book belongs to S. Maximin at his monastery of Micy, which abbat Peter caused to be written, and with his own labour corrected and punctuated, and on Holy Thursday dedicated to God and S. Maximin on the altar of S. Stephen, with this imprecation that he who should take it away from thence by what device soever, with the intention of not restoring it, should incur damnation with the traitor Judas, with Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate. Amen[160].

Should anyone by craft or any device whatever abstract this book from this place [Jumièges] may his soul suffer, in retribution for what he has done, and may his name be erased from the book of the living and not be recorded among the Blessed[161].

A simpler form of imprecation occurs very frequently in manuscripts belonging to S. Alban's:

This book belongs to S. Alban. May whosoever steals it from him or destroys its title be anathema. Amen[162].

A similar form of words occurs at the Cistercian House of Clairvaux, a great school of writing like S. Alban's, but whether it habitually protected its manuscripts in this manner I am unable to say:

May whoever steals or alienates this manuscript, or scratches out its title, be anathema. Amen[163].

A very curious form of curse occurs in one of the manuscripts of Christ Church, Canterbury. The writer repents of his severity in the last sentence.

May whoever destroys this title, or by gift or sale or loan or exchange or theft or by any other device knowingly alienates this book from the aforesaid Christ Church, incur in this life the malediction of Jesus Christ and of the most glorious Virgin His Mother, and of Blessed Thomas, Martyr. Should however it please Christ, who is patron of Christ Church, may his soul be saved in the Day of Judgment[164].

Lastly, I will quote a specimen in verse, from a breviary now in the library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge:

Wher so ever y be come over all
I belonge to the Chapell of gunvylle hall:
He shal be cursed by the grate sentens
That felonsly faryth and berith me thens.
And whether he bere me in pooke or sekke,
For me he shall be hanged by the nekke,
(I am so well beknown of dyverse men)
But I be restored theder agen[165].

On the other hand, the gift of books to a monastery was gratefully recorded and enumerated among the good deeds of their donors. Among the Augustinians such gifts, and the labour expended upon books in general, was the subject of a special service[166].

It is not uncommon to find a monastic library regularly endowed with part of the annual revenue of the House. For instance, at Corbie, the librarian received 10 sous from each of the higher, and 5 sous from each of the inferior officers, together with a certain number of bushels of corn from lands specially set apart for the purpose. This was confirmed by a bull of Pope Alexander III. (1166-1179)[167]. A similar arrangement was made at the library of S. Martin des Champs, Paris, in 1261[168]. At the Benedictine Abbey of Fleury, near Orleans, in 1146, it was agreed in chapter on the proposition of the abbat, that in each year on S. Benedict's winter festival (21 March), he and the priors subordinate to him, together with the officers of the House, should all contribute "to the repair of our books, the preparation of new ones, and the purchase of parchment." The name of each contributor, and the sum that he was to give, are recorded[169]. At the Benedictine Monastery of Ely Bishop Nigel (1133-1174) granted the tithe of certain churches in the diocese "as a perpetual alms to the scriptorium of the church of Ely for the purpose of making and repairing the books of the said church[170]." The books referred to were probably, in the first instance, service-books; but the number required of these could hardly have been sufficient to occupy the whole time of the scribes, and the library would doubtless derive benefit from their labours. The scriptorium at S. Alban's was also specially endowed.

We must next consider the answer to the following questions: In what part of their Houses did the Monastic Orders bestow their books? and what pieces of furniture did they use? The answer to the first of these questions is a very curious one, when we consider what our climate is, and indeed what the climate of the whole of Europe is, during the winter months. The centre of the monastic life was the cloister. Brethren were not allowed to congregate in any other part of the conventual buildings, except when they went into the frater, or dining-hall, for their meals, or at certain hours in certain seasons into the warming-house (calefactorium). In the cloister accordingly they kept their books; and there they wrote and studied, or conducted the schooling of the novices and choir-boys, in winter and in summer alike.

It is obvious that their work must have been at the mercy of the elements during many months of the year, and some important proofs that such was the case can be quoted. Cuthbert, Abbat of Wearmouth and Jarrow in the second half of the eighth century, excuses himself to a correspondent for not having sent him all the works of Bede which he had asked for, on the ground that the intense cold of the previous winter had paralysed the hands of his scribes[171]; Ordericus Vitalis, who wrote in the first half of the twelfth century, closes the fourth book of his Ecclesiastical History with a lament that he must lay aside his work for the winter[172]; and a monk of Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire has recorded his discomforts in a Latin couplet which seems to imply that in a place so inconvenient as a cloister all seasons were equally destructive of serious work:

In vento minime pluvia nive sole sedere
Possumus in claustro nec scribere neque studere[173].

As we sit here in tempest in rain snow and sun
Nor writing nor reading in cloister is done.

But, when circumstances were more propitious, plenty of good work that was of permanent value could be done in a cloister. A charming picture has come down to us of the literary activity that prevailed in the Abbey of S. Martin at Tournai at the end of the eleventh century, when Abbat Odo was giving an impulse to the writing of MSS. "When you entered the cloister," says his chronicler, "you could generally see a dozen young monks seated on chairs, and silently writing at desks of careful and artistic design. With their help, he got accurate copies made of all Jerome's commentaries on the Prophets, of the works of Blessed Gregory, and of all the treatises he could find of Augustine, Ambrose, Isidore, and Anselm; so that the like of his library was not to be found in any of the neighbouring churches; and those attached to them used generally to ask for our copies for the correction of their own[174]."

The second question cannot be answered so readily. We must begin by examining, in some detail, the expressions used to denote furniture in the various documents that deal with conventual libraries.

S. Pachomius places his books in a cupboard (fenestra); S. Benedict uses only the general term, library (bibliotheca), which may mean either a room or a piece of furniture; and the word press (armarium), with which we become so familiar afterwards, does not make its appearance till near the end of the eleventh century. Lanfranc does not use it, but as I have shewn that he based his statutes, at least to some extent, on the Cluniac Customs, and as they identify the library (bibliotheca) with the press (armarium), and call the librarian, termed by Lanfranc the keeper of the books, the keeper of the press (armarius), we may safely assume that the books to which Lanfranc refers were housed in a similar piece of furniture. Moreover, in Benedictine houses of later date, as for instance at Abingdon and Evesham, the word is constantly employed.

I pointed out in the first chapter that the word press (armarium) was used by the Romans to signify both a detached piece of furniture and a recess in a wall into which such a contrivance might be inserted[175]. The same use obtained in medieval times[176], and the passage quoted above from the Augustinian customs[177] shews that the book-press there contemplated was a recess lined with wood and subdivided so as to keep the books separate.

The books to be accommodated in a monastery, even of large size, could not at its origin have been numerous[178], and would easily have been contained in a single receptacle. This, I conceive, was that recess in the wall which is so frequently found between the Chapter-House and the door into the church at the end of the east pane of the cloister. In many monastic ruins this recess is still open, and, by a slight effort of imagination, can be restored to its pristine use. Elsewhere it is filled in, having been abandoned by the monks themselves in favour of a fresh contrivance. The recess I am speaking of was called the common press (armarium commune), or common cloister-press (commune armarium claustri); and it contained the books appointed for the general use of the community (communes libri).

A press of this description ([fig. 19]) is still to be seen in excellent preservation at the Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova in Central Italy, near Terracina, which I visited in the spring of 1900. This house may be dated 1187-1208[179]. The press is in the west wall of the south transept ([fig. 21]), close to the door leading to the church. It measures 4 ft. 3 in. wide, by 3 ft. 6 in. high; and is raised 2 ft. 3 in. above the floor of the cloister. It is lined with slabs of stone; but the hinges are not strong enough to have carried doors of any material heavier than wood; and I conjecture that the shelf also was of the same material. Stone is plentiful in that part of Italy, but wood, especially in large pieces, would have to be brought from a distance. Hence its removal, as soon as the cupboard was not required for the purpose for which it was constructed.

Fig. 19. Press in the cloister at the Cistercian Abbey of Fossa Nuova.

Two recesses, evidently intended for the same purpose, are to be seen in the east walk of the cloister of Worcester Cathedral, formerly a Benedictine monastery. They are between the Chapter-House and the passage leading to the treasury and other rooms. Each recess is square-headed, 6 ft. 9 in. high, 2 ft. 6 in. deep, and 11 ft. broad ([fig. 20]). In front of the recesses is a bench-table, 13 in. broad and 16 in. high. This book-press was in use so late as 1518, when a book bought by the Prior was "delyvered to y^e cloyster awmery[180]."

As books multiplied ampler accommodation for them became necessary; and, as they were to be read in cloister, it was obvious that the new presses or cases must either be placed in the cloister or be easily accessible from it. The time had not yet come when the collection could be divided, and be placed partly in the cloister, partly in a separate and sometimes distant room. This want of book-room was supplied in two ways. In Benedictine and possibly in Cluniac houses the books were stored in detached wooden presses, which I shall describe presently; but the Cistercians adopted a different method. At the beginning of the twelfth century, when that Order was founded, the need of additional book-space had been fully realised; and, consequently, in their houses we meet with a special room set apart for books. But the conservative spirit which governed monastic usage, and discouraged any deviation from the lines of the primitive plan, made them keep the press in the wall close to the door of the church; and, in addition to this, they cut off a piece from the west end of the sacristy, which usually intervened between the south transept and the Chapter-House, and fitted it up for books. This was done at Fossa Nuova. The groundplan ([fig. 21]) shews the press which I have already figured, and the book-room between the transept and the Chapter-House, adjoining the sacristy. It is 14 ft. long by 10 ft. broad, with a recess in its north wall which perhaps once contained another press.

There is a similar book-room at Kirkstall Abbey near Leeds, built about 1150. The plan ([fig. 22], A) shews its relation to the adjoining structures. The armarium commune (ibid. B) is a little to the north of the room, as at Fossa Nuova. A room in a similar position, and destined no doubt to the same use, is to be seen at Beaulieu, Hayles, Jervaulx, Netley, Tintern, Croxden, and Roche.

A, book-room: B, armarium commune.

The catalogue of the books at the Abbey of Meaux in Holderness[181], founded about the middle of the 12th century, has fortunately been preserved; and it tells us not only what books were kept in one of these rooms, but how they were arranged. After the contents of the presses in the church, which contained chiefly service-books, we come to the "common press in the cloister (commune almarium claustri)." On the shelf over the door (in suprema theca[182] supra ostium) were four psalters. The framer of the catalogue then passes to the opposite end of the room, and, beginning with the top shelf (suprema theca opposita), enumerates 37 volumes. Next, he deals with the rest of the books, which, he tells us, were in other shelves, marked with the letters of the alphabet (in aliis thecis distinctis per alphabetum). If I understand the catalogue correctly, there were eleven of these divisions, each containing an average of about 25 volumes. The total number of volumes in the collection was 316.

Again, the catalogue of the House of White Canons at Titchfield in Hampshire, dated 1400, shews that the books were kept in a small room, on sets of shelves called columpnæ, set against the walls. The catalogue begins as follows:

There are in the Library at Tychefeld four cases to set books on; two of which, namely the first and the second, are on the eastern side. The third is on the south side; and the fourth is on the north side. Each of these has eight shelves [etc.][183].

Nor was this book-closet confined to Cistercian Houses. In the Cluniac Priory at Much Wenlock in Shropshire there is a long narrow room on the west side of the south transept, opening to the cloister by three arches, which could hardly have been put to any other purpose. It is obvious that no study could have gone forward in such places; they must have been intended for security only.

As time went on, and further room for books became necessary, it was provided, at least in some Cistercian Houses, by cutting off two rectangular spaces from the west end of the Chapter-House. There is a good example of this treatment to be seen at Furness Abbey, built 1150—1200. The following description is borrowed from Mr W. H. St John Hope's architectural history of the buildings.

From the transept southwards the whole of the existing work is of later date, and distinctly advanced character. The ground storey is pierced with five large and elaborate round-headed doorways with good moldings and labels, with a delicate dog-tooth ornament. Three of these next the transept form a group....

The central arch opened, through a vestibule, into the Chapter House. The others open into large square recesses or chambers, with ashlar walls, and rubble barrel-vaults springing from chamfered imposts on each side. In the northern chamber the vault is kept low and segmental, on account of the passage above it of the dorter stair to the church.... The southern chamber has a high pointed vault. Neither chamber has had doors, but the northern has holes in the inner jamb, suggestive of a grate of some kind, of uncertain date.

The chambers just described probably contained the library, in wooden presses arranged round the walls[184].

To illustrate this description a portion of Mr Hope's plan of Furness Abbey ([fig. 23]) is appended. Each room was about 13 ft. square.

Fig. 24. Arches in south wall of Church at Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire, once possibly used as book-presses.

Rooms in a similar position are to be seen at Calder Abbey[185] in Cumberland, a daughter-house to Furness; and at Fountains Abbey there are clear indications that the western angles of the Chapter-House were partitioned off at some period subsequent to its construction, probably for a similar purpose. As the Chapter-House was entered from the cloister through three large round-headed arches, each of the rooms thus formed could be entered directly from the cloister, the central arch being reserved for the Chapter-House itself. The arrangement therefore became exactly similar to that at Furness. Mr Hope thinks that the series of arches in the church wall at Beaulieu in Hampshire, two of which are here shewn ([fig. 24]), may have been used for a like purpose[186]. There is a similar series of arches at Hayles, a daughter-house to Beaulieu; and in the south cloister of Chester Cathedral there are six recesses of early Norman design, which, if not sepulchral, may once have contained books.

The use of the Chapter-House and its neighbourhood as the place in which books should be kept is one of the most curious features of the Cistercian life. The east walk of the cloister, into which the Chapter-House usually opened, must have been one of the most frequented parts of the House, and yet it seems to have been deliberately chosen not merely for keeping books, but for reading them. At Clairvaux, so late as 1709, the authors of the Voyage Littéraire record the following arrangement:

Le grand cloître ... est voûté et vitré. Les religieux y doivent garder un perpetuel silence. Dans le côté du chapitre il y a des livres enchaînez sur des pupitres de bois, dans lesquels les religieux peuvent venir faire des lectures lorsqu'ils veulent[187].

A similar arrangement obtained at Citeaux[188].

Having traced the development of the Cistercian book-closet, from a simple recess in the wall to a pair of more or less spacious rooms at the west end of the Chapter-House, I return to my starting-point, and proceed to discuss the arrangement adopted by the Benedictines. They must have experienced the inconvenience arising from want of space more acutely than the Cistercians, being more addicted to study and the production of books. They made no attempt, however, to provide space by structural changes or additions to their Houses, but were content with wooden presses in the cloister for their books, and small wooden studies, called carrells, for the readers and writers.

The uniformity which governed monastic usage was so strict that the practice of almost any large monastery may be taken as a type of what was done elsewhere. Hence, when we find a full record of the way in which books were used in the great Benedictine House at Durham, we may rest assured that, mutatis mutandis, we have got a good general idea of the whole subject. I will therefore begin by quoting a passage from that valuable work The Rites of Durham, a description of the House drawn up after the Reformation by some one who had known it well in other days, premising only that it represents the final arrangements adopted by the Order, and takes no account of the steps that led to them.

In the north syde of the Cloister, from the corner over against the Church dour to the corner over againste the Dorter dour, was all fynely glased from the hight to the sole within a litle of the grownd into the Cloister garth. And in every wyndowe iij Pewes or Carrells, where every one of the old Monks had his carrell, severall by himselfe, that, when they had dyned, they dyd resorte to that place of Cloister, and there studyed upon there books, every one in his carrell, all the after nonne, unto evensong tyme. This was there exercise every daie.

All there pewes or carrells was all fynely wainscotted and verie close, all but the forepart, which had carved wourke that gave light in at ther carrell doures of wainscott. And in every carrell was a deske to lye there bookes on. And the carrells was no greater then from one stanchell of the wyndowe to another.

And over against the carrells against the church wall did stande certaine great almeries [or cupbords] of waynscott all full of bookes, wherein did lye as well the old auncyent written Doctors of the Church as other prophane authors with dyverse other holie mens wourks, so that every one dyd studye what Doctor pleased them best, havinge the Librarie at all tymes to goe studie in besydes there carrells.[189]

At Durham the monastic buildings stood to the south of the church, and the library-walk of the cloister was that walk, or alley, or pane, or syde (for all these words are used), which had the church to the north of it. The library was placed there partly for the sake of warmth, partly to secure greater privacy. At Canterbury and at Gloucester, where the church was to the south of the conventual buildings, the library-walk of the cloister was still the walk next to the church, the other walks, as Mr Hope has pointed out to me, being apparently kept clear for the Sunday procession.

I propose to explain the system indicated in the above quotation by reference to a plan of the cloister at Westminster Abbey, drawn by my friend Mr J. T. Micklethwaite ([fig. 25])[190], and by quotations from his notes upon it. At Durham every vestige of ancient arrangement has been so completely destroyed that it is better to go to another House, where less mischief has been done, and it happens fortunately that, so far as the position of the cloister with reference to the church is concerned, Westminster is the exact counterpart of Durham. I will consider first the last paragraph of my quotation from the Rites of Durham, that namely which deals with the presses for books, there called "almeries or cupbords."

Mr Micklethwaite shews that the two bays at the north end of the west walk of the cloister, and the second bay from the west in the north walk ([fig. 25], nos. 1, 2, 4), were appropriated to the novices, by the existence of several sets of nine holes, evidently cut by boys in their idle moods for the playing of some game. Similar holes have been found at Canterbury, Gloucester, and elsewhere. Next he points out that "the nosing of the wall-bench for six feet of the third bay from the west in the north walk, and in the whole of the fourth and fifth bays, and nearly all the sixth, has been cut away flush with the riser, as if some large pieces of furniture had been placed there (ibid. nos. 5, 5, 5, 5). These were evidently bookcases." Eastward of these indications of bookcases "the bases of the vaulting-shafts are cut in a way which seems to shew that there was a double screen there (ibid. nos. 6, 6), or perhaps there were bookcases arranged so as to form a screen, which is, I think, very likely. Beyond this screen to the right are appearances in the wall [next the cloister-garth] which seem to indicate a blocked-up locker, but they are rather doubtful. And on the left is a large double locker blocked (ibid. 7), and the blocking appears to be ancient. This locker is of the date of the wall (Edw. I.), and may have been an additional book-closet provided, because that on the other side of the church-door [to be described presently] had become too small, and [was] blocked up when the larger bookcases were made opposite the carrells[191]."

Lastly, at the risk of some repetition, I will quote a passage from a letter which Mr Micklethwaite was so good as to write to me on this subject, as it brings out some additional points, and states the whole question with great clearness. After describing the position of the bookcases, he proceeds:

There was thus a space, the width of the bench, between the back of the case and the cloister-wall, which would help to keep things dry. Whether the floor was boarded we cannot now tell, but there is evidence that this part of the cloister was cut off from the rest by screens of some sort at both ends, which would make it a long gallery lighted on one side, and with bookcases ranged along the other, not unlike Wren's at Lincoln. The windows must have been glazed; indeed remains of the glazing existed to the end of the 17th century; and there were within my memory marks of fittings along the windows-side which I did not then understand, but which, if they still existed, would I have no doubt tell us something of the carrells. A "thorough restoration" has taken away every trace of them.

The "bookcase on the other side of the church door" mentioned above was in the northernmost bay of the east cloister. Mr Micklethwaite says of it:

"Entering the cloister from the church by the east cloister door (ibid. no. 8), we find on our left hand a very broad bench against the wall, extending as far as the entrance to the Chapter-House (ibid. 10). In the most northern bay the wall-arcade, instead of being brought down by shafts as in the others, is stopped off at the springing by original brackets, as if to allow of some large piece of furniture being placed against the wall. Here, I believe, stood in the thirteenth century the armarium commune, or common bookcase (ibid. 9). At Durham there is a Norman arched recess in the same place, not mentioned by the writer of the Rites, because before his time its use had ceased, books having become more numerous, and being provided for elsewhere[192]."

These notes enable us to imagine what this library was like. It was about 80 feet long by 15 feet broad, extending along four bays of the cloister. It was cut off by a screen at one end, and possibly at the other also; the book-presses stood against the wall, opposite to the windows, which were probably glazed, as we know those at Durham were; and there might have been a wooden floor. Further, the older monks sat in "carrells," as we learn from the custumary of Abbat Ware, who was in office 1258-83. The writer is speaking of the novices, and says that after they have attained a certain degree of proficiency they may sit in cloister, and "be allowed to glance at books taken out of the presses (armaria) belonging to the older monks. But they must not be permitted as yet to write or to have carrells[193]."

Whatever may have been the discomfort of this library according to our ideas, there is good reason for believing that it was in use till 1591, when Dean Williams fitted up part of the Dorter as a library for the use of the Dean and Canons[194].

The practice of placing the book-press in the cloister obtained with equal force in France, for the Benedictines who wrote the Voyage Littéraire, and who would of course be well acquainted with what was usual in their own Order, remark with surprise when they visit the ancient abbey of Cruas on the Rhone, that the press is in the church.

On voit encore dans l'eglise l'armoire où on enfermoit les livres, contre la coûtume des autres monastères de l'ordre, qui avoient cette armoire dans le cloître. On y lit ces vers d'un caractère qui peut avoir cinq cent ans:

Pastor jejunat qui libros non coadunat
Nec panem præbet subjectis quem dare debet[195].

A shepherd starves whose store of books is low:
Nor can he on his flock their due bestow.

No example of an English book-press has survived, so far as I know, but it would be rash to say that none exists; nor have I been so fortunate as to find one in France, though I have taken a great deal of pains to obtain information on the subject. In default of a press made specially to hold books, I must content myself with representations of two well-known pieces of furniture—both preserved in French churches.

The first ([fig. 26]) stands in the upper sacristy of the Cathedral of Bayeux, over the south transept. The name usually given to it, le Chartrier de Bayeux, implies that it was made to hold documents. M. Viollet-le-Duc does not accept this view, but considers that it contained reliquaries, with which he probably would not object to associate other articles of church-plate.

Fig. 26. Part of the ancient press in Bayeux Cathedral, called Le Chartrier de Bayeux. From a photograph.

Fig. 27. Press in the church at Obazine, Central France. From a photograph.

It is of oak, very coarse, rough, and massive. It is 9 ft. 3 inches high, from floor to top, 17 ft. 2 inches long—(it was originally 3 ft. longer)—and 3 ft. deep. There are two rows of cupboards each 3 ft. 8 inches high, with massive doors that still preserve their original ironwork. The whole piece of furniture has once been painted, indications of which still exist, but the subjects can no longer be made out. M. Viollet-le-Duc[196], who possibly saw the paintings when they were in a better state of preservation than when I examined them in 1896, decides that they once represented the translation of relics.

My second example ([fig. 27]) is in the church of Obazine in Central France (Département de la Corrèze). It is far simpler and ruder than the press in Bayeux Cathedral; and the style of ornamentation employed indicates a somewhat earlier date; though M, Viollet-le-Duc places the construction of both in the first years of the 13th century. It is 6 ft. 7 in. high, by 7 ft. broad, and 2 ft. 7 in. deep. The material is oak, which still bears a few traces of having once been painted[197].

These pieces of furniture were certainly not made specially for books; but, as they belong to a period when the monastic system was in full, vigorous, life, it is at least probable that they resemble those used by monks to contain their books. I have shewn in the previous chapter that in ancient Rome the press used for books was essentially the same as that used for very different purposes; and I submit that it is unnecessary to suppose that monastic carpenters would invent a special piece of furniture to hold books. They would take the armarium that was in daily use, and adapt it to their own purposes.

Before I leave this part of my subject I must mention that there is a third press in the Church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris. It stands in a small room over the south end of the west porch, which may once have been a muniment room. It was probably made about a century later than those which I have figured. In arrangement it bears a general resemblance to the example from Bayeux. It consists of six cupboards arranged in two tiers, the lower of which is raised to the level of a bench which extends along the whole length of the piece of furniture, with its ends mortised into those of the cupboards. The seat of this bench lifts up, so as to form an additional receptacle for books or papers[198].

The curious wooden contrivances called carrells, which are mentioned in the above quotation from the Rites of Durham, have of course entirely disappeared. Nothing is said about their height; but in breadth each of them was equal to the distance from the middle of one mullion of a window to the middle of the next; it was made of wainscot, and had a door of open carved work by which it was entered from the cloister. This arrangement was doubtless part of the systematic supervision of brother by brother that was customary in a monastery. Even the aged, though engaged in study, were not to be left to their own devices. I have carefully measured the windows at Durham ([fig. 28]); and, though they have been a good deal altered, I suppose the mullions are in their original places. If this be so the carrells could not have been more than 2 ft. 9 in. wide, and the occupant would have found but little room to spare. There are eleven windows, so that thirty-three monks could have been accommodated, on the supposition that all were fitted with carrells.

Fig. 28. Groundplan of one of the windows in the cloister of Durham Cathedral.

In the south cloister at Gloucester there is a splendid series of twenty stone carrells ([fig. 29]), built between 1370 and 1412. Each carrell is 4 ft. wide, 19 in. deep, and 6 ft. 9 in. high, lighted by a small window of two lights; but as figures do not give a very vivid idea of size, and as I could not find any one else to do what I wanted, I borrowed a chair from the church and a folio from the library, and sat down to read, as one of the monks might have done six centuries ago ([fig. 30]). There is no trace of any woodwork appertaining to these carrells; or of any book-press having ever stood near them. The easternmost carrell, however, differs a good deal from the others, and it may have been used as a book-closet. There is a bench-table along the wall of the church opposite to the carrells; but it does not appear to have been cut away to make room for book-presses, as at Westminster. The south alley appears to have been shut off at the east end, and also at the west end, by a screen[199].

Fig. 29. Range of carrells in the south cloister at Gloucester Cathedral. (From Mr Murray's Handbook to the Western Cathedrals.)

This drawing will help us to understand the arrangement of the wooden carrells used at Durham and elsewhere. Each carrell must have closely resembled a modern sentry-box, with this difference, that one side was formed by a light of the window looking into the cloister-garth, opposite to which was the door of entrance. This, I imagine, would be of no great height; and moreover was made of open work, partly that the work of the occupant might be supervised, partly to let as much light as possible pass through into the cloister-library. The seat would be on one side of the carrell and the desk on the other, the latter being so arranged that the light would enter on the reader's left hand.

Fig. 30. A single carrell, Gloucester Cathedral.

Carrells seem to have been usual in monasteries from very early times, not to have been introduced at a comparatively late date in order to ensure greater comfort. The earliest passage referring to them is that which I have already quoted[200], shewing that they were in use at Westminster between 1258 and 1283; at Bury S. Edmunds the destruction of the carrells is mentioned among other outrages in a riot in 1327[201]; they occur at Evesham between 1367 and 1379[202]; at Abingdon in 1383-84[203]; and at Christ Church, Canterbury, it is recorded among the good deeds of Prior Sellyng (1472-94), that in the south alley of the cloister "novos Textus quos Carolos ex novo vocamus perdecentes fecit"; words which Professor Willis renders "constructed there very convenient framed contrivances which are now-a-days called carols[204]." Their use—at any rate in some Houses—is evident from an injunction among the Customs of S. Augustine's, Canterbury, to the effect that the cellarer and others who rarely sit in cloister might not have carrells, nor in fact any brother unless he be able to help the community by copying or illuminating, or at least by adding musical notation[205]. They were in fact devices to provide a certain amount of privacy for literary work in Houses where there was no Scriptorium or writing-room. At Durham, according to the author of Rites, they were used exclusively for reading.

The above-mentioned Customs of S. Augustine's, written between 1310 and 1344, give a valuable contemporary picture of the organization of one of the more important cloister-libraries. The care of the presses is to be entrusted to the Precentor and his subordinate, called the Succentor. The former is to have a seat in front of the press—which doubtless stood against the wall—and his carrell is to stand at no great distance, on the stone between the piers of the arches next the cloister-garth. The Succentor is to have his seat and his carrell on the bench near the press—by which the bench which commonly ran along the cloister-wall is obviously meant. These arrangements are made "in order that these two officers, or at least one of them, may always be at hand to satisfy brethren who make any demand upon their time[206]." In other words, they were the librarian and sub-librarian, who were to be always ready to answer questions. It is clear that brethren were not allowed to handle the books as they pleased.

The cloister at Durham, or at least that part of it which was used as a library, was glazed; but whether with white glass or stained glass we are not informed. So obvious a device for increasing both the comfort and the beauty of a much-frequented part of the monastic buildings was doubtless adopted in many other Houses. At Bury S. Edmunds part at least of the cloister had "painted windows representing the sun, moon and stars and the occupations of the months"; at Christ Church, Canterbury, Prior Sellyng (1472-94) "had the south walk of the cloister glazed for the use of the studious brethren"; at Peterborough the windows of the cloister

were all compleat and fair, adorned with glass of excellent painting: In the South Cloyster was the History of the Old Testament: In the East Cloyster of the New: In the North Cloyster the Figures of the successive Kings from King Peada: In the West Cloyster was the History from the first foundation of the Monastery of King Peada, to the restoring of it by King Edgar. Every window had at the bottom the explanation of the History thus in Verse[207].

At Westminster, as recorded above, traces of the insertion of glass have been observed.

In later times, when regular libraries had been built for the monasteries, a special series of portraits occasionally appeared in glass, on a system similar to that worked out in other materials in Roman and post-Roman libraries; and sometimes, in other libraries, subjects are to be met with instead of portraits, to indicate the nature of the works standing near them. But I cannot say whether cloister-glass was ever treated in this way.

FOOTNOTES:

[115] Epist. XLIX. § 3. Ad Pammachium. Revolve omnium quos supra memoravi commentarios, et ecclesiarum bibliothecis fruere et magis concito gradu ad optata coeptaque pervenies.

[116] I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the article "Libraries," in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, and to the references there given.

[117] Hist. Eccl. VI. 20. [ηκμαζον] δε κατα τουτο πλειους λογιοι και εκκλησιαστικοι ανδρες ων και επιστολας ας προς αλληλους διεχαραττον ετι νυν σωζομενας ενρειν ευπορον αι και εις ημας εφυλαχθησαν εν τη κατα την Αιλιαν βιβλιοθηκη προς του τηνικαδε την αυτοθι διεποντος παροικιαν Αλεξανδρου επισκευασθειοη, αφ' ἡς και αυτοι τας υλας της μετα χειρας υποθεσεως επι ταυτο συναγαγειν δεδυνημεθα.

[118] Epist. xxxiv., Ad Marcellum. De aliquot locis Psalmi cxxvi. Migne, Vol. XXII. 448.

[119] Ibid. De Viris Illustribus, Chap. 3. Migne, Vol. XXIII. 613. Porro ipsum Hebraicum habetur usque hodie in Cæsariensi bibliotheca quam Pamphilus martyr studiose confecit.

[120] Comment. in Titum, Chap. 3, v. 9. Unde et nobis curæ fuit omnes Veteris Legis libros quos vir doctus Adamantius in Hexapla digesserat de Cæsariensi bibliotheca descriptos ex ipsis authenticis emendare.

[121] Optatus: De schismate Donatistarum. Fol. Paris, 1702. App. p. 167.

[122] Augustini Opera, Paris, 1838, xi. p. 102.

[123] Bullettino di Archeologia Christiana, Serie terza, 1876, p. 48.

[124] Epist. xxxii. § 10 (ed. Migne, Vol. LXI. p. 335). Basilica igitur illa ... reliquiis apostolorum et martyrum intra apsidem trichoram sub altaria sacratis.

[125] Ibid. § 13. Cum duabus dextra lævaque conchulis intra spatiosum sui ambitum apsis sinuata laxetur, una earum immolanti hostias jubilationis antistiti parat; altera post sacerdotem capaci sinu receptat orantes ... § 16. In secretariis vero duobus quæ supra dixi circa apsidem esse hi versus indicant officia singulorum.

[126] Book I. Chap. 2. De Acacia. [φερει] σπερμα εν θυλακοις συνεζευγμενοις τριχωροις η τετραχωροις. Comp. also Book IV. Chap. 167. The use of the apse is discussed by Lenoir, Architecture Monastique, 4to. Paris, 1852, Vol. I. p. 111.

[127] Holsten, Codex Regularum, fol. 1759, 1. Regula S. Pachomii, No. c. p. 31. Nemo vadens ad collectam aut ad vescendum dimittat codicem non ligatum. Codices qui in fenestra id est intrinsecus parietis reponuntur ad vesperum erunt sub manu secundi qui numerabit eos et ex more concludet. The word fenestra is illustrated by a previous section of the Rule, No. lxxxii. p. 30. Nullus habebit separatim mordacem pavulam ad evellendas spinas si forte calcaverit absque Præposito domus et secundo: pendeatque in fenestra in qua codices collocantur. Ducange says that the word is used for the small cupboard in which the Sacrament was reserved. Here it is evidently a recess in the wall closed by a door—like one of the later armaria. On Pachomius and his foundation see The Lausiac History of Palladius, by Dom Cuthbert Butler, Camb. 1898, and esp. p. 234.

[128] Benedicti Regula Monachorum, ed. E. Woelfflin, Leipzig, Teubner, 1895.

[129] De secunda feria quadragesimæ. In capitulo nequaquam alia Regulæ sententia legitur quam quæ est de quadragesimâ. Recitatur quoque Brevis librorum qui anno præterito sunt ad legendum fratribus erogati. Cum quilibet frater nominatur, surgit, et librum sibi datum reddit: et si eum forte non perlegerit, pro indiligentiâ veniam petit. Est autem unus tapes ibi constratus super quem illi libri ponuntur, de quibus iterum quanti dantur, dantur cum Brevi; et ad hoc est una tabula aliquantulum major facta. Antiquiores Consuetudines Cluniacensis Monasterii. Lib. I. Cap. LII. D'Achery, Spicilegium, ed. 1723, I. 667.

[130] Ibid. Lib. III. Cap. X. Ibid. 690. De Præcentore et Armario. Præcentor et Armarius Armarii nomen obtinuit eo quod in ejus manu solet esse Bibliotheca quæ et in alio nomine Armarium appellatur.

[131] Reyner. Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, fol. 1626. App. Part iii. p. 211. As Lanfranc styles himself in the prologue Bishop of Rouen, these decrees must have been issued between August 1067 and August 1070, when he was made Archbishop of Canterbury.

[132] Reyner, Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, fol. 1626. App. Part iii. p. 216.

[133] I am aware that the Customs printed by D'Achery are dated 1110; but it need not be assumed that they were written in that year. Similar directions are to be found among the Veteres Consuetudines of the Benedictine Abbey of S. Benoit sur Loire, or Fleury, founded a.d. 625. Floriacensis vetus Bibliotheca, 8vo. Lyons, 1605, p. 394.

[134] Cantor almaria puerorum juvenum et alia in quibus libri conventus reponentur innovabit fracta præparabit [reparabit?] pannos librorum bibliothecæ reperiet fracturas librorum reficiet. Chronicon monasterii de Abingdon (De obedientariis Abbendoniæ). Rolls Series, ii. 371.

[135] Cantor non potest libros vendere dare vel impignorare. Cantor non potest libros accommodare nisi pignore, quod tanti vel majoris fuerit, reposito. Tutius est pignori incumbere quam in personam agere. Hoc autem licet facere tantum vicinis ecclesiis vel excellentibus personis. Ibid. pp. 373, 374.

[136] Mon. Angl. II. 39. The last sentence runs as follows in the original: Nullus librum capiat nisi scribatur in rotulo ejus; nee alicui liber aliquis mutuo tradatur absque competenti et sufficienti memoriali, et hoc ponatur in rotulo ipsius. I owe this quotation and the last to Father Gasquet's Some Notes on Medieval Monastic Libraries, 1891, p. 10.

[137] Adhuc etiam libros ad legendum de armario accipit duos quibus omnem diligentiam curamque prebere monetur ne fumo ne puluere vel alia qualibet sorde maculentur; Libros quippe tanquam sempiternum animarum nostrarum cibum cautissime custodiri et studiosissime volumus fieri vt qui ore non possumus dei verbum manibus predicemus. Guigonis, Prioris Carthusiæ, Statuta. Fol. Basle, 1510. Statuta Antiqua, Part 2, Cap. xvi. § 9.

[138] Libros cum commodantur nullus contra commodantium retineat voluntatem. Ibid. Cap. xxxii. § 16.

[139] Les Monuments primitifs de la Règle Cistercienne, par Ph. Guignard, 8vo. Dijon, 1878, p. 237.

[140] The Observances in use at the Augustinian Priory of S. Giles and S. Andrew at Barnwell: ed. J. W. Clark. 8vo. Camb., 1897, p. 15. This passage also occurs in the Customs of the Augustinian House at Grönendaal near Brussels. MS. in the Royal Library, Brussels, fol. 53 v^o. De Armario.

[141] As I know of no other passage in a medieval writer which describes an armarium, I transcribe the original text: Armarium, in quo libri reponuntur, intrinsecus ligno vestitum esse debet ne humor parietum libros humectet vel inficiat. In quo eciam diversi ordines seorsum et deorsum distincti esse debent, in quibus libri separatim collocari possint, et distingui abinvicem, ne nimia compressio ipsis libris noceat, vel querenti moram inuectat.

[142] Statuta primaria Præmonstratensis Ordinis, Cap. vii. ap. Le Paige, Bibliotheca Præm. Ord. fol. Paris, 1633, p. 803. The words are: Ad Armarium pertinet libros custodire, et si sciverit emendare; Armarium librorum, cum necesse fuerit, claudere et aperire ... libros mutuo accipere cum necesse fuerit et nostros quærentibus commodare sed non sine licentia Abbatis vel Prioris absente Abbate et non sine memoriali competenti.

[143] The delightful story of S. Francis and the brother who wished for a psalter of his own is told in the Speculum Perfectionis, ed. Sabatier, 8vo. Paris, 1898, p. 11.

[144] These Constitutions have been printed by Father F. Ehrle in a paper called Die ältesten Redactionen der Generalconstitutionen des Franziskanerordens, in "Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters," Band vi. pp. 1-138. The passages cited above will be found on p. 111.

[145] The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury. ed. E. C. Thomas, 8vo. Lond. 1888, p. 203.

[146] In the Cluniac Customs those volumes only which had been assigned to particular brethren are to be laid on the carpet. It is difficult to understand the reason for this formal assignment of a book to each brother who chose to ask for one. As brethren in those early times had no separate cubicles or cells, it could hardly imply more than a precaution against the difficulty of two brethren requiring the use of the same volume. Possibly the whole intention was disciplinary, to ensure study as prescribed by the Rule.

[147] Delisle, Bibl. de l'École des Chartes, Ser. 3, Vol. I. p. 225. Interdicimus inter alia viris religiosis, ne emittant juramentum de non commodando libros suos indigentibus, cum commodare inter præcipua misericordiæ opera computetur. Sed, adhibita consideratione diligenti, alii in domo ad opus fratrum retineantur; alii secundum providentiam abbatis, cum indemnitate domus, indigentibus commodentur. Et a modo nullus liber sub anathemate teneatur, et omnia predicta anathemata absolvimus. Labbe, Concilia, xi. 69.

[148] Delisle, Cab. des Manuscrits, ii. 226.

[149] M. Delisle (ut supra, ii. 124) cites an inscription in one of the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris: "Liber iste de Corbeia: sed prestaverunt nobis usque Pascha."

[150] Mabillon, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, Vol. 1. p. 151.

[151] Opera Thomæ a Campis, fol. 1523. Fol. xlvii. 7. The passage occurs in his Doctrinale Juvenum, Cap. v.

[152] Medieval Monastic Libraries: by F. A. Gasquet, p. 15. The passage translated above occurs in a Custumary of S. Augustine's, Canterbury, MSS. Cotton, Faustina, c. xii. fol. 196 b.

[153] Cat. Monte Cassino, ii. 299.

[154] Theodmarus Cassinensis to Charlemagne, ap. Hæften, Disquisitiones Monasticæ, fol. 1644, p. 1088.

[155] Delisle, ut supra, ii. 227.

[156] Delisle, ut supra, ii. 227. Tu, quicunque studebis in hoc libro, prospice, et leviter atque dulciter tractes folia, ut cavere possis rupturam propter ipsorum tenuitatem; et imitare doctrinam Jesu Christi, qui cum modeste aperuisset librum Ysaie et attente legisset, tandem reverenter complicuit ac ministro reddidit. This injunction occurs, in substance, in the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, ed. Thomas, p. 241.

[157] Opera Thomæ a Campis, fol. 1523. Fol. XLVII.

[158] Amice qui legis, retro digitis teneas, ne subito litteras deleas, quia ille homo qui nescit scribere nullum se putat habere laborem; quia sicut navigantibus dulcis est portus, ita scriptori novissimus versus. Calamus tribus digitis continetur, totum corpus laborat. Deo gratias. Ego, in Dei nomine, Vuarembertus scripsi. Deo gratias. From a MS. in the Bibl. Nat. Paris (MS. Lat. 12296) from the Abbey of Corbie: "les caractères dénotent l'époque carlovingienne." Delisle, ut supra, ii. 121.

[159] On the curse invariably used at S. Victor's, see Delisle, ut supra, ii. 227 note.

[160] Hic est liber Sancti Maximini Miciacensis monasterii, quem Petrus abbas scribere jussit et proprio labore providit atque distinxit, et die cænæ domini super sacrum altare sancti Stephani Deo et sancto Maximino habendum obtulit, sub hujusmodi voto ut quisquis eum inde aliquo ingenio non reddituius abstulerit, cum Juda proditore, Anna et Caiapha atque Pilato damnationem accipiat. Amen. From a Benedictine House at Saint Mesmin, Loiret. Delisle, ut supra, iii. 384. M. Delisle considers that the words "providit atque distinxit" mean "a été revue et ponctuée."

[161] Quem si quis vel dolo seu quoquo modo isti loco substraxerit anime sue propter quod fecerit detrimentum patiatur, atque de libro viventium deleatur et cum iustis non scribatur. From the Missal of Robert of Jumièges, ed. H. Bradshaw Soc., 8vo. 1896, p. 316.

[162] Hic est liber sancti Albani quem qui ei abstulerit aut titulum deleverit anathema sit. Amen. I owe this quotation to the kindness of my friend Dr James.

[163] Cat. des MSS. des Departements, 4to. Vol. I. p. 128 (No. 255).

[164] Quicunque hunc titulum aboleverit vel a prefata ecclesia Christi dono vel vendicione vel accommodacione vel mutacione vel furto vel quocunque alio modo hunc librum scienter alienaverit malediccionem Ihesu Christi et gloriosissime Virginis matris ejus et beati Thome martiris habeat ipse in vita presenti. Ita tamen quod si Christo placeat qui est patronus ecclesie Christi eius spiritus salvus in die judicii fiat. Given to me by Dr James, from a MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

[165] I have to thank my friend Dr Venn for this quotation. He tells me that it was first pointed out by Dr Swete in The Caian. ii. p. 127.

[166] See above, [p. 71.]

[167] Delisle, ut supra, ii. 124.

[168] Ibid. p. 239.

[169] Ibid. p. 365. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, I. 283.

[170] Supplement to Bentham's Ely, by Wm Stevenson, 4to. 1817, p. 51. I have to thank my friend the Rev. J. H. Crosby, Minor Canon of Ely Cathedral, for a transcript of Bp Nigel's deed.

[171] Monumenta Moguntina, ed. Jaffé, 8vo. Berlin, 1866, in Bibl. Rer. Germ. Vol. iii. p. 301; quoted in Bede's works, ed. Plummer, p. xx.

[172] See Church's S. Anselm, ed. 1885, p. 48. The words are: Nunc hyemali frigore rigens, aliis occupationibus vacabo, præsentemque libellum hic terminare fatigatus decerno. Redeunte vero placidi veris sereno, etc. Hist. Eccl. Pars ii. lib. iv.

[173] This couplet, written on the fly-leaf of a MS. in the library of the University of Cambridge (Hh. vi. ii), was pointed out to me by my friend F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A., Librarian.

[174] Herimanni liber de restauratione S. Martini Tornacensis: ap. Pertz, Mon. Germ. xiv. 313.

[175] See above, [p. 37.]

[176] See Dictionnaire du Mobilier, par Henri Havard, s. v. Armoire, and the passages there quoted.

[177] See above, [p. 71.]

[178] The Cistercian Customs prescribe the possession of nine volumes at least, chiefly service-books, before a house can be founded. Documents, p. 253.

[179] Origines Françaises de l'Architecture Gothique en Italie, par G. Enlart, 8vo. Paris, 1894. p. 9. This valuable work contains a full and accurate description, copiously illustrated, of Fossa Nuova and other abbeys in remote parts of Italy.

[180] The Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester, by John Noake, Lond., 1866, p. 414.

[181] Chronica monasterii de Melsa. Rolls Series, Vol. III. App. p. lxxxiii.

[182] The word theca signified in classical Latin a case or receptacle in which any object was kept. In medieval Latin it was specially used (fide Ducange) for the chest in which the bodies or bones or relics of saints, were kept. In this catalogue it is obvious that it may mean either a shelf or a cupboard.

[183] Sunt enim in libraria de Tychefeld quatuor columpnæ pro libris imponendis, unde in orientali fronte due sunt videlicet prima et secunda. In latere vero australi est tercia. Et in latere boreali est quarta. Et earum singule octo habent gradus [etc.].

[184] Trans. Cumb. and West. Antiq. and Archæol. Soc. Vol. XVI. p. 259. I take this opportunity of thanking my friend Mr Hope for allowing me to use his plan of Furness Abbey, and also for pointing out to me the evolution of the Cistercian book-rooms which I have done my best to describe in the text.

[185] Calder Abbey: its Ruins and its History. By A. G. Loftie, M.A.

[186] Mr Hope tells me that he has lately re-examined these recesses, and failed to discover traces of furniture or fittings of any kind within them.

[187] Voyage Littéraire, Paris, 1717, Vol. I. p. 101.

[188] Cat. des Manuscrits des Bibliothèques Publiques de France. Departements, Tom. V. Catalogue des Manuscrits de Citeaux, No. 635 (p. 405). Parvus liber incathenatus ad analogium cathedre ex opposito capituli.

[189] The Rites of Durham, ed. Surtees Soc. 1844, p. 70.

[190] Notes on the Abbey Buildings of Westminster, Arch. Journ. xxxiii. pp. 15-49.

[191] Notes on the Abbey Buildings of Westminster, Arch. Journ. xxxiii. pp. 21, 22.

[192] Notes on the Abbey Buildings of Westminster, Arch. Journ. xxxiii. p. 16.

[193] MSS, Mus. Brit. MSS. Cotton, Otho. c. xi. fol. 84.

[194] See a paper by myself in Camb. Ant. Soc. Proc. and Comm. ix. pp. 47-56.

[195] Voyage Littéraire, ed. 1717. Part i. 297.

[196] Dictionnaire du Mobilier, s. v. Armoire.

[197] Viollet-le-Duc, ut supra, p. 4, where full details of the press at Obazine are given. The photograph from which my illustration has been made was specially taken for my use through the kind help of my friend Dr James, who had seen the press in 1899.

[198] Viollet-le-Duc, ut supra, p. 14. I have myself examined this press. My friend Mr Hope informs me that there is a press of this character in the nether vestry at S. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, described by him in Inventories of the parish church of S. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, Norf. and Norw. Archæol. Soc, xiv. p. 29.

[199] See Mr Hope's Notes on the Benedictine Abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester, in Records of Gloucester Cathedral, 1897, p. 23.

[200] See above, [p. 93.]

[201] Memorials of S. Edmund's Abbey, Rolls Series, ii. 327. The writer is describing the mischief done by the rioters of 1327: Deinde claustrum ingressi, cistulas, id est caroles, et armariola fregerunt, et libros et omnia in eis inventa similiter asportaverunt. I owe this quotation to Dr James, On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury, Camb. Ant. Soc. Octav. Publ. No. xxviii. p. 158.

[202] Liber Evesham, Hen. Bradshaw Soc. 1893, p. 196. Abbat Ombresleye (1367-79) built "paginam illam claustri contiguam ecclesie ubi carolæ fratrum consistunt."

[203] Accounts of the Obedientiaries of Abingdon Abbey, ed. Camden Society, 1892, p. 47. "Expense circa sedilia claustri" is the heading of an account for wood bought and for carpenter's work. The sum spent was £2. 15s. 3d.

[204] Arch. Hist. of the Conventual Buildings of the Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury. By R. Willis. 8vo, Lond. 1869, p. 45.

[205] MSS. Mus. Brit. MSS. Cotton, Faustina, c. xii., fol. 149. De karulis in claustro habendis hanc consideracionem habere debent quibus committitur claustri tutela ut videlicet celerarius seu alii fratres qui raro in claustro resident suas karulas in claustro non habeant, set nec aliqui fratres nisi in scribendo vel illuminando aut tantum notando communitati aut et sibimet ipsis proficere sciant.

[206] MSS. Mus. Brit. MSS. Cotton, Faustina, c. xii., fol. 145. ... precentorem et succentorem quibus committitur armariorum custodia. Cantor habebit cathedram suam ante armarium in claustro stantem et carulam suam iuxta desuper lapidem inter columpnas. Succentor vero super scannum iuxta armarium carulam et sedem suam habebit, ut hii duo vel saltem unus eorum possint semper esse parati ad respondendum fratribus seruicium petentibus.

[207] History of the Church of Peterburgh. By Symon Gunton: fol. 1686, p. 103. The author gives the subjects and legends of nine windows. I owe this quotation to the kindness of Mr Hope.

CHAPTER III.

INCREASE OF MONASTIC COLLECTIONS. S. RIQUIER, BOBBIO, DURHAM, CANTERBURY. BOOKS KEPT IN OTHER PLACES THAN THE CLOISTER. EXPEDIENTS FOR HOUSING THEM AT DURHAM, CITEAUX, AND ELSEWHERE. SEPARATE LIBRARIES BUILT IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY AT DURHAM, S. ALBANS, CITEAUX, CLAIRVAUX, ETC. GRADUAL EXTENSION OF LIBRARY AT S. GERMAIN DES PRÈS. LIBRARIES ATTACHED TO CATHEDRALS. LINCOLN, SALISBURY, WELLS, NOYON, ROUEN, ETC.

In the last chapter I attempted to describe the way in which the Monastic Orders provided for the safe keeping of their books, so long as their collections were not larger than could be accommodated in a press or presses in the cloister, or in the small rooms used by the Cistercians for the same purpose. I have now to carry the investigation a step farther, and to shew how books were treated when a separate library was built.

It must not be supposed that an extensive collection of books was regarded as indispensable in all monastic establishments. In many Houses, partly from lack of funds, partly from an indisposition to study, the books were probably limited to those required for the services and for the daily life of the brethren. In other places, on the contrary, where the fashion of book-collecting had been set from very early days, by some abbat or prior more learned or more active than his fellows; and where brethren in consequence had learnt to take a pride in their books, whether they read them or not, a large collection was got together at a date when even a royal library could be contained in a single chest of very modest dimensions. For instance, when an inventory of the possessions of the Benedictine House of S. Riquier near Abbeville was made at the request of Louis le Débonnaire in 831 a.d., it was found that the library contained 250 volumes; and a note at the end of the catalogue informs us that if the different treatises had been entered separately, the number of entries would have exceeded five hundred, as many books were frequently bound in a single volume. The works in this library are roughly sorted under the headings Divinity, Grammar, History and Geography, Sermons, Service-books[208]. A similar collection existed at S. Gall at the same period[209]. In the next century we find nearly seven hundred manuscripts in a Benedictine monastery at Bobbio in north Italy[210]; and nearly six hundred in a House belonging to the same order at Lorsch in Germany[211]. At Durham, also a Benedictine House, a catalogue made early in the twelfth century contains three hundred and sixty-six titles[212]; but, as at S. Riquier, the number of works probably exceeded six or seven hundred.

These instances, which I have purposely selected from different parts of Europe, and which could easily have been increased, are sufficient to indicate the rapidity with which books could be, and in fact were accumulated, when the taste for such collections had once been set. Year by year, slowly yet surely, by purchase, by gift, by bequest, by the zeal of the staff of writers whom the precentor drilled and kept at work, the number grew, till in certain Houses it reached dimensions which must have embarrassed those responsible for its bestowal. At Christ Church, Canterbury, for instance, the catalogue made by Henry de Estria, Prior 1285-1331, enumerates about 1850 manuscripts[213].

It must gradually have become impossible to accommodate such collections as these according to the old method, even supposing it was desirable to do so. There were doubtless many duplicates, and manuscripts of value requiring special care. Consequently we find that places other than the cloister were used to keep books in. At Durham, for instance, the catalogues made at the end of the fourteenth century enumerate (1) "the books in the common press at Durham in sundry places in the cloister" (386 volumes)[214]; (2) "the books in the common press at Durham in the Spendment" (408 volumes)[215]; (3) "the inner library at Durham called Spendment" (87 volumes)[216]; (4) "the books for reading in the frater which lie in the press near the entrance to the farmery" (17 volumes)[217]; (5) "the books in the common press of the novices at Durham in the cloister" (23 volumes)[218]. Of the above catalogues the first obviously deals with the contents of the great "almeries of wainscot" which stood in the cloister; the second and third with the books for which no room could be found there, and which in consequence had been transferred to a room on the west side of the cloister, where wages were paid and accounts settled. In the Rites of Durham it is termed the treasure-house or chancery. It was divided into two by a grate of iron, behind which sat the officer who made the payments. The books seem to have been kept partly in the outer half of the room, partly within this grate.

At Citeaux, the parent-house of the Cistercian order, a large and wealthy monastery in Burgundy, the books were still more scattered, as appears from the catalogue[219] drawn up by John de Cirey, abbat at the end of the fifteenth century, now preserved, with 312 of the manuscripts enumerated in it, in the public library of Dijon.

This catalogue, written on vellum, in double columns, with initial letters in red and blue alternately, records the titles of 1200 mss and printed books; but the number of the latter is not great. It is headed:

Inventory of the books at Citeaux, in the diocese of Chalons, made by us, brother John, abbat of the said House, in the year of our Lord 1480, after we had caused the said books to be set to rights, bound, and covered, at a vast expense, by the labour of two and often three binders, employed continuously during two years[220].

This heading is succeeded by the following statement:

And first of the books now standing (existencium) in the library of the dorter, which we have arranged as it is, because the room had been for a long time useless, and formerly served as a tailory and vestry, ... but for two years or nearly so nothing or very little had been put there[221].

A bird's-eye view of Citeaux, dated 1674, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, shews a small building between the Frater and the Dorter, which M. Viollet-le-Duc, who has reproduced[222] part of it, letters "staircase to the dorter." The room in question was probably at the top of this staircase, and the arrangements which I am about to discuss shew beyond all question that the Dorter was at one end of it and the Frater at the other.

There were six bookcases, called benches (banche), evidently corresponding to the sedilia or "seats" mentioned in many English medieval catalogues. The writer takes the bookcases in order, beginning as follows:

The third and fifth banche, containing respectively 75 volumes and 68 volumes, are described in identical language; but the descriptions of the 4th and 6th differ sufficiently to make quotation necessary:

It seems to me that the first banca was set against the Dorter wall, so that it faced the Frater; and that it consisted of two shelves only, the second of which is spoken of as a line (linea)[223]. The second, third, and fifth banche were detached pieces of furniture, with two shelves on each side. I cannot explain why the fourth is described in such different language. It is just possible that only one shelf on each side may have been occupied by books when the catalogue was compiled. I conjecture that the sixth stood against the Frater wall, thus facing the Dorter, and that it consisted of a shelf, with a desk below it, and a second shelf of books below that again.

Besides these cases there were other receptacles for books called cupboards (armaria) and also some chests. These are noted in the following terms:

Secuntur libri existentes in armariis librarie.
In primo armario de latere versus refectorium (36 vols.).
In secundo armario (53 vols.).
In tertio armario (24 vols.).
Sequuntur libri existentes in cofro seu archa juxta gradus ascensus ad vestiarium in libraria (46 vols.).
In quadam cista juxta analogium de latere refectorii (9 vols.).

The total of the MSS. stored in this room amounts to 509. In addition to these the catalogue next enumerates "Books of the choir, church, and cloister (53 vols.); Books taken out of the library for the daily use of the convent (29 vols.); Books chained on desks (super analogiis) before the Chapter-House (5 vols.); on the second desk (5 vols.); on the third desk (4 vols.); on the fifth desk (4 vols.); Books taken out of the library partly to be placed in the cloister, partly to be divided among the brethren (27 vols.); Books on the small desks in the cloister (5 vols.); Books to be read publicly in convent or to be divided among the brethren for private reading (99 vols.)." These different collections of MSS., added together, make a total of 740 volumes, which seem to have been scattered over the House, wherever a spare corner could be found for them.

The inconvenience of such an arrangement, or want of arrangement, is obvious; and it must have caused much friction in the House. We can imagine the officer in charge of the finances resenting the intrusion of his brother of the library with an asperity not wholly in accordance with fraternal charity. And yet, so strong is the tendency of human nature to put up with whatever exists, rather than be at the trouble of changing it, no effectual steps in the way of remedy were taken until the fifteenth century. In that century, however, we find that in most of the large monasteries a special room was constructed to hold books. Reading went forward, as heretofore, in the cloister, and I conceive that the books stored in the new library were mainly intended for loan or for reference. As at Durham, the monks could go there when they chose.

These conventual libraries were usually built over some existing building, or over the cloister. Sometimes, especially in France, the library appears as an additional storey added to any building with walls strong enough to bear it; sometimes again as a detached building. I will cite a few examples of libraries in these different positions.

At Christ Church, Canterbury, a library, about 60 ft. long by 22 ft. broad, was built by Archbishop Chichele between 1414 and 1443, over the Prior's Chapel[224], and William Sellyng (Prior 1472-1494) "adorned [it] with beautiful wainscot, and also furnished it with certain volumes chiefly for the use of those addicted to study, whom he zealously and generously encouraged and patronised[225]."

At Durham Prior Wessyngton, about 1446, either built or thoroughly repaired and refitted a room over the old sacristy, between the Chapter-House and the south Transept, or, as the Rites say, "betwixt the Chapter House and the Te Deum wyndowe, being well replenished with ould written Docters and other histories and ecclesiasticall writers[226]." Wessyngton's work must have been extensive and thorough, for it cost, including the repairs of the books, £90. 16s. 0d.[227]—at least £1100 or £1200 at the present value of money. The position of this library will be understood from the illustration ([fig. 31]). The room is 44 ft. 10 in. long, by 18 ft. wide, with a window at each end, 13 ft. wide, of five lights, and a very rough roof of oak, resting on plain stone corbels.

Fig. 31. Library at Durham, built by Prior Wessyngton about 1446.

At Gloucester the library is in a similar position, but the date of its construction is uncertain. It has been described as follows by Mr Hope:

The library is an interesting room of fourteenth century date, retaining much of its original open roof. The north side has eleven windows, each of two square-headed lights and perfectly plain.... [There are no windows on the south side.] The large end windows are late perpendicular, each of seven lights with a transom. There are other alterations, such as the beautiful wooden corbels from which the roof springs, which are probably contemporary with the work of the cloister when the western stair to the library was built, and the room altered.

At Winchester a precisely similar position was selected between the Chapter-House and the south transept, above a passage leading from the cloister to the ground at the south-east end of the church.

At the Benedictine House of S. Albans the library was begun in 1452 by John Whethamstede, Prior, and completed in the following year at the cost of £150[228]—a sum which represents about £2000 at the present day—but the position has not been recorded.

At Worcester, also Benedictine, it seems probable that the library occupied from very early times the long, narrow room over the south aisle of the nave to which it was restored in 1866. This room, which extends from the transept to the west end of the church, is 130 ft. 7 in. long, 19 ft. 6 in. wide, and 8 ft. 6 in. high on the south side. It is lighted by twelve windows, eleven of which are of two lights each, and that nearest to the transept of three lights. The room is approached by a circular stone staircase at the south-west angle of the cathedral, access to which is from the outside only[229].

At Bury S. Edmund's abbat William Curteys (1429-45) built a library, on an unknown site: but his work is worth commemorating, as another instance of the great fifteenth century movement in monasteries for providing special rooms to contain books.

At S. Victor, Paris, an Augustinian House, the library was built between 1501 and 1508, I believe over the sacristy; at Grönendaal, near Brussels, also Augustinian, it was built over the whole length of the north cloister (a distance of 175 feet), so that its windows faced the south.

Fig. 32. Library of the Grey Friars House, London, commonly called Christ's Hospital. From Trollope's History.

The Franciscan House in London, commonly called Christ's Hospital, had a noble library, founded 21 October, 1421, by Sir Richard Whittington, mercer and Lord Mayor of London. By Christmas Day in the following year the building was roofed in; and before three years were over it was floored, plastered, glazed, furnished with desks and wainscot, and stocked with books. The cost was £556. 16s. 8d.; of which £400 was paid by Whittington, and the rest by Thomas Wynchelsey, one of the brethren, and his friends[230]. It extended over the whole of one alley of the cloister ([fig. 32]). Stow tells us that it was 129 ft. long, by 31 ft. broad[231]; and, according to the letters patent of Henry VIII., dated 13 January, 1547, by which the site was conveyed to the City of London, it contained "28 Desks and 28 Double Settles of Wainscot[232]."

I have recounted the expedients to which the monks of Citeaux were reduced when their books had become too numerous for the cloister. I will now describe their permanent library. This is shewn in the bird's-eye view dated 1674 to which I have already referred, and also in a second similar view, dated 1718, preserved in the archives of the town of Dijon[233], where I had the good fortune to discover it in 1894. It is accompanied by a plan of the whole monastery, and also by a special plan[234] of the library ([fig. 35]). The buildings had by this time been a good deal altered, and partly rebuilt in the classical style of the late renaissance; but in these changes the library had been respected. I reproduce ([fig. 33]) the portion of the view containing it and the adjoining structures, together with the corresponding ground-plan ([fig. 34]).

The authors of the Voyage Littéraire, Fathers Martène and Durand, who visited Citeaux in 1710, thus describe this library:

Citeaux sent sa grande maison et son chef d'ordre. Tout y est grand, beau et magnifique, mais d'une magnificence qui ne blesse point la simplicité religieuse....

Les trois cloîtres sont proportionnez au reste des bâtimens. Dans l'un de ces cloîtres on voit de petites cellules comme à Clervaux, qu'on appelle les écritoires, parce que les anciens moines y écrivoient des livres. La bibliothèque est au dessus; le vaisseau est grand, voûté, et bien percé. Il y a bon fonds de livres imprimez sur toutes sortes de matières, et sept ou huit cent manuscrits, dont la plupart sont des ouvrages des pères de l'église[235].

The ground-plan ([fig. 34]) shews the writing-rooms or scriptoria, apparently six in number, eastward of the church; and the bird's-eye view ([fig. 33]) the library built over them. Unfortunately we know nothing of the date of its construction. It occupied the greater part of the north side of a cloister called "petit cloître" or Farmery Cloister, from the large building on the east side originally built as a Farmery ([fig. 33], B). It was approached by a newel-stair at its south-west corner ([fig. 35]). This stair gave access to a vestibule, in which, on the west, was a door leading into a room called small library (petite bibliothèque), apparently built over one of the chapels at the east end of the church ([fig. 34]). The destination of this room is not known. The library proper was about 83 feet long by 25 feet broad[236], vaulted, and lighted by six windows in the north and south walls. There was probably an east window also, but as explained above, it was intended, when this plan was drawn, to build a new gallery for books at this end of the older structure.

I proceed next to the library at Clairvaux, a House which may be called the eldest daughter of Citeaux, having been founded by S. Bernard in 1115. This library was built in a position precisely similar to that at Citeaux, namely, eastward of the church, on the north side of the second cloister, over the Scriptoria. Begun in 1495, it was completed in 1503; and was evidently regarded as a work of singular beauty, over which the House ought to rejoice, for the building of it is commemorated in the following stanzas written on the first leaf of a catalogue made between 1496 and 1509, and now preserved in the library at Troyes[237]:

La construction de cette librairie.

Jadis se fist cette construction
Par bons ouvriers subtilz et plains de sens
L'an qu'on disoit de l'incarnation
Nonante cinq avec mil quatre cens.

Et tant y fut besongnié de courage
En pierre, en bois, et autre fourniture
Qu'après peu d'ans achevé fut louvrage
Murs et piliers et voulte et couverture.

Puis en après l'an mil v^c et trois
Y furent mis les livres des docteurs:
Le doux Jésus qui pendit en la croix
Doint paradis aux dévotz fondateurs.

Amen.

We fortunately possess a minute description of Clairvaux, written, soon after the completion of the new library, by the secretary to the Queen of Sicily, who came there 13 July, 1517, and was taken, apparently, through every part of the monastery[238]. The account of the library is as follows:

Et de ce même costé [dudit cloistre] sont xiiii estudes où les religieulx escripvent et estudient, lesquelles sont très belles, et au dessus d'icelles estudes est la neufve librairerie, à laquelle l'on va par une vis large et haulte estant audict cloistre, laquelle librairie contient de longeur lxiii passées, et de largeur xvii passées.

En icelle y a quarante huic banctz, et en chacun banc quatre poulpitres fournys de livres de touttes sciences, et principallement en théologie, dont la pluspart desdicts livres sont en parchemin et escript à la main, richement historiez et enluminez.

L'édiffice de ladicte librairie est magnificque et massonnée, et bien esclairé de deux costez de belles grandes fenestres, bien vitrés, ayant regard sur ledict cloistre et cimitière des Abbez. La couverture est de plomb et semblablement de ladite église et cloistre, et tous les pilliers bouttans d'iceulx édiffices couverts de plomb.

Le devant d'icelle librairie est moult richement orné et entaillé par le bas de collunnes d'estranges façons, et par le hault de riches feuillaiges, pinacles et tabernacles, garnis de grandes ymaiges, qui décorent et embelissent ledict édifice. La vis, par laquelle on y monte, est à six pans, larges pour y monter trois hommes de front, et couronné à l'entour de cleres voyes de massonerie. Ladicte librairerie est toute pavée de petits carreaulx à diverses figures.

It will be interesting to place by the side of this description a second, written nearly two hundred years later, by the authors of the Voyage Littéraire, who visited Clairvaux in the spring of 1709:

Le grand cloître ... est voûté et vitré. Les religieux y doivent garder un perpétuel silence. Dans le côté du chapitre il y a des livres enchaînez sur des pupitres de bois, dans lesquels les religieux peuvent venir faire des lectures lorsqu'ils veulent....

Du grand cloître on entre dans le cloître du colloque, ainsi appellé, parce qu'il est permis aux religieux d'y parler. Il y a dans ce cloître douze ou quinze petites cellules tout d'un rang, où les religieux écrivoient autrefois des livres: c'est pourquoy on les appelle encore aujourd'hui les écritoires. Au-dessus de ces cellules est la bibliothèque, dont le vaisseau est grand, voûté, bien percé, et rempli d'un grand nombre de manuscrits, attachez avec des chaînes sur des pupitres, mais il y a peu de livres imprimez[239].

The plan of the substruction of this new library, as shewn on the ground-plan of Clairvaux given by Viollet Le Duc[240], is exactly the same as that of Citeaux ([fig. 33]) but on a larger scale. The library itself, as there, was approached by a newel stair at its south-west corner. This stair was hexagonal, and of a diameter sufficient to allow three men to ascend at the same time. The library was of great extent—being about 206 feet long by 56 feet broad—if the dimensions given in the above account be correct, and if I am right in supposing a pace (passée) to be equivalent to a modern mètre; vaulted, and well lighted. The Queen's secretary seems to have been specially struck by the beauty, the size, and the decoration of the windows. The floor was paved with encaustic tiles.

It will be interesting to note how, in some Houses, the library slowly expanded itself, occupying, one after another, every coign of vantage-ground. An excellent example of this growth is to be found in the abbey of Saint Germain des Près, Paris; and fortunately there are several views, taken at different periods before the Revolution, on which the gradual extension of the library can be readily traced. I append a portion of two of these. The first ([fig. 36]), dated 1687, shews the library over the south walk of the cloister, where it was placed in 1555. It must not, however, be supposed that no library existed before this. On the contrary, the House seems to have had one from the first foundation, and so early as the thirteenth century it could be consulted by strangers, and books borrowed from it. The second view ([fig. 37]), dated 1724, shews a still further extension of the library. It has now invaded the west side of the cloister, which has received an upper storey; and even the external appearance of the venerable Frater, which was respected when nearly all the rest of the buildings were rebuilt in a classical style, has been sacrificed to a similar gallery. The united lengths of these three rooms must have been little short of 384 feet. This library was at the disposal of all scholars who desired to use it. When the Revolution came it contained more than 49,000 printed books, and 7000 manuscripts[241].

I now pass to Cathedrals, which vied with monasteries in the possession of a library; and, as might be expected, the two sets of buildings throw light on each other. I regret that it has now become impossible to discover the site or the extent of such a library as that of York, which was well stocked with books so early as the middle of the eighth century; or of that of Notre Dame de Paris, which was a centre of instruction as well as of learning; but some good examples of capitular libraries can be found in other places; and, like those of the monasteries, they were for the most part built in the fifteenth century. I will begin with the library of Lincoln Cathedral, part of which is still in existence[242].

The Cathedral of Lincoln was founded at the close of the eleventh century, and in the middle of the twelfth we find the books belonging to it kept in a press (armarium). We learn this from the heading of a list[243] of them when placed in the charge of Hamo, Chancellor 1150-1182, written on the first page of a copy of the Vulgate, the first volume in the collection:

Quando Hamoni cancellario cancellaria data fuit et librorum cura commissa, hos in armario invenit libros et sub custodia sua recepit, scilicet:

Bibliothecam in duobus voluminibus [etc.].

The list which follows enumerates 42 volumes, together with a map of the world. To this small collection there were added in Hamo's time, either by his own gift or by that of other benefactors, 31 volumes more; so that before his death the press contained 73 volumes, probably a large collection for that period. Besides these, there were service-books in the charge of the bursar (thesaurarius), and song-books in that of the precentor. The three collections were probably kept in the church.

The first indication of a separate room to contain books is afforded by the gift of a volume by Philip Repyndon, Bishop 1405-1419, in which year he resigned. It is given after his resignation, "to the new library to be built within the Church of Lincoln." Again, Thomas Duffield, formerly Chancellor, who died in 1426, bequeathed another book "to the new library of the aforesaid church." The erection of the new library may therefore be placed between 1419 and 1426.

A catalogue, now in the muniment room at Lincoln, which, on internal evidence, may be dated about 1450, enumerates 107 works, of which 77 (more or less) have been identified as still in the library. The heading, which I will translate, refers to a chaining of the books which had recently taken place, possibly after the construction of the cases which I shall describe in a subsequent chapter.

It is to be noted that in this indenture are enumerated all the books in the library of the church of blessed Mary of Lincoln which have lately been secured with locks and chains; of which indenture one part is stitched into the end of the black book of the aforesaid church, and the other part remains in ...[244].

The library—a timber structure—was placed over the northern half of the east walk of the cloister. At present only three bays at the north end remain; but there were originally two bays more, at the south end, between the existing structure and the Chapter-House. These were destroyed in 1789, when the following Chapter Order was made (7 May):

That the old Library adjoining to the Chapter House shall be taken down, and the part of the Cloysters under it new leaded and the walls compleated, and the Stair case therto removed, and a new Stair Case made, agreable to a plan and estimate of the Expence thereof.

I will now briefly describe the room, with the assistance of the plan ([fig. 38])[245], and the view of the interior ([fig. 39]).

Fig. 39. Interior of the Old Library, Lincoln Cathedral. The open door leads into Dean Honywood's Library, as described in [Chapter VIII].

The walls are 9 ft. 8 in. high, from the floor to the top of the wall-plate. They are divided into bays, each 7 ft. 9 in. wide, by vertical shafts, from which, at a height of 5 ft. 9 in. from the ground, spring the braces which support the tiebeams of the roof. These are massive beams of oak, slightly arched, and molded on their under-surface. Their position is indicated by dotted lines on the plan ([fig. 38]). The whole roof is a splendid specimen of fifteenth century work, enriched with carving in the finest style of execution. There is a bold ornament in the centre of each tiebeam; and at the foot of the central joist in each bay, which is wider than the rest, and molded, while the others are plain, there is an angel, projecting horizontally from the wall. The purlin, again, is molded, and where it intersects the central joist a subject is carved: an angel playing on a musical instrument—a bird—a rose—a grotesque figure—and the like. Below the wall-plate is a cornice, 12 in. deep, ornamented with a row of quatrefoils above a row of battlements. Beneath these there is a groove, which seems to indicate that the walls were once panelled or plastered.

It is probable that there was originally a row of equidistant windows in the east and west walls, one to each bay on each side; but of these, if they ever existed, no trace remains. There must also have been a window at the north end, and probably one at the south end also. The present windows are plainly modern. The room is known to have suffered from a fire, which tradition assigns to 1609; and probably the original windows were changed during the repairs rendered necessary at that time.

It is not easy to decide how this library was approached. It has been suggested that the stone newel stair at the north-west corner of the Chapter-House was used for this purpose; but, if that be the case, how are we to explain the words in the above order "the Stair Case thereto removed"; and an item which occurs in the Cathedral Accounts for 1789, "taking down the old stairs, strings, and banisters, 14s."? It appeared to me, when examining the building, that there had been originally a door on the east side, now replaced by a window, as shewn on the plan ([fig. 38]). Possibly the staircase destroyed in 1789 led to this door, which was conveniently situated in the centre of a bay. The staircase built in 1789 is the one still existing at the north-east corner of the old library ([fig. 40], A).

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].

Fig. 41. Exterior of the Library at Salisbury Cathedral, looking north-east.

Nothing is known of the dimensions or arrangement of the above room; but, as it was over a cloister, it must have been long and narrow, like that which still exists in a similar position at Wells Cathedral, which I will briefly mention next.

The Chapter Library at Wells Cathedral occupies the south end of a long, narrow room over the east pane of the cloister, approached by a spiral staircase from the south transept. This room is about 162 feet long by 12 feet wide; the portion assigned to the library is about 106 feet long ([fig. 42]). The roof was originally divided into 13 spaces by oak principals, very slightly arched, resting on stone corbels. There were two windows on each side to each space. In the part fitted up as a library the principals have been plastered over to imitate stone, and the joists between them concealed by a ceiling. There is a tradition that this room was fitted up as a library in 1472. The present fittings, which I shall have occasion to mention in a subsequent chapter, were put up when the library was refitted and stocked with books after the Restoration[249].

These four examples—at Lincoln, Salisbury, S. Paul's, and Wells—are typical of Cathedral libraries built over a cloister. I will next notice some that were detached.

The library of Lichfield Cathedral[250] stood on the north side of the cathedral, west of the north door, at some little distance from the church ([fig. 43]). It was begun in 1489, when Thomas Heywood, dean, "gave £40 towards building a library of brick," and completed in 1493. It was about 60 feet long by 15 feet wide, approached by a flight of stairs. As the Chapter Order (9 December, 1757) which authorised its destruction speaks of the "Library, Chapter Clerk's House, and Cloisters," I suspect that it stood on a colonnade, after the manner of the beautiful structure at Noyon, a cathedral town in eastern France, at no great distance from Amiens.

This library—which I have carefully examined on two occasions—was built in pursuance of the following Order of the Chapter, 16 November, 1506.

Le 16. iour de Nouembre audit an, l'affaire de la Librairie se remet sus. Le sieur Doyen offre cent francs pour cet œuure. Et le 20. iour de Nouembre, ouy le Maistre de Fabrique et Commissaires à ce deputez, fut arrestée le long de l'allée qui meine de l'Eglise à la porte Corbaut; et à cet effect sera tiré le bois à ce necessaire de nos forests, et se fera ladite Librairie suiuant le pourtrait ou patron exhibé au Chapitre le sixiesme iour de Mars 1506. Le Bailly de Chapitre donne cent sols pour ce bastiment, à condition qu'il en aura une clef[251].

This library ([fig. 44]) is, so far as I know, an unique specimen of a library built wholly of wood, supported on wooden pillars with stone bases, so that it is raised about 10 feet above the stone floor on which they rest, probably for the sake of dryness. There is a legend that a market used to be held there; but at present the spaces between the pillars have been filled in on the south side. The one here represented ([fig. 45]) stands on the north side, in a small yard between the library and the cathedral.

Fig. 44. Chapter-Library at Noyon, France.

The site selected for the building is on the south side of the choir of the cathedral, with its longest axis north and south. It measures 72 feet in length by 17 feet in width between walls, but was originally longer, a piece having been cut off at the south end, where the entrance now is, and where the library is now terminated by a stone wall of classical character. Tradition places the entrance at the opposite end, by means of an external staircase; an arrangement which would have been more convenient for the members of the Chapter, as they could have approached it through their vestry, which is on the south side of the choir. There are now nine windows on the east side—originally there were at least ten; but none on the west side, and it is doubtful if there ever were any, as they would be rendered useless by the proximity of other structures. The fittings are modern and without interest.

Fig. 45. A single pillar of the cloister beneath the Chapter Library at Noyon.

At Bayeux also the Chapter-library is a detached building—of stone, in two floors, about 40 feet long by 26 feet wide, but I have not been able to discover the date at which it was built; and at York a detached library was built 1421-22 at the south-west corner of the south transept. This building, in two floors, the upper of which appears to have held the books, is still in existence.

The Cathedral library at Troyes, built by Bishop Louis Raguier between 1477 and 1479, to replace an older structure, was in an unusual position, and arranged in an unusual manner. It abutted against the south-east angle of the south transept, from which it could be entered. It was nearly square, being 30 feet long by 24 feet broad; and the vault was supported on a central pillar, from which radiated the six desks which contained the books ([fig. 46]). It was called La Theologale, because lectures on theology were given in it, as in the library at Salisbury. The desks were taken down in 1706, and the whole structure swept away in 1841-42, by the Departmental Architect, in the course of "a thorough restoration[252]."

A, B, C, D, Library; E, Entrance from vestibule in front of south transept door. The room on the east side of this passage was used to keep records in.

At this point I cannot refrain from mentioning a somewhat anomalous library-foundation at Worcester, due to the zeal of Bishop Carpenter (1444-76), though both structure and foundation have been long since swept away[253]. In 1464 he built and endowed a library in connexion with the charnel-house or chapel of S. Thomas, martyr, a detached building on the north side of the cathedral. The deed in which this foundation is recorded contains so many interesting particulars that I will state briefly the most important points insisted upon[254].

The Bishop begins by stating that by ancient arrangement the sacrist of the cathedral, assisted by a chaplain, is bound to celebrate mass daily in the charnel-house or chapel aforesaid, to keep it in repair, and to supply it with ornaments and vestments. For this purpose an annual endowment of 15 marks has been provided. He then describes his own foundation.

In accordance with the intention of his predecessors, and actuated by a desire to increase the knowledge of our holy faith, he has built a library in the aforesaid charnel-house, and caused certain books to be chained therein. Further, lest these volumes should be left uncared for, and so be damaged or abstracted, he has caused a dwelling-house for a master or keeper of the said books to be erected at the end of the said library; and he has conferred on the said keeper a new stipend, in addition to the old stipend of 15 marks.

This keeper must be a graduate in theology, and a good preacher. He is to live in the said chantry, and say mass daily in the chapel thereof. He is to take care of all the books in the library, which he is to open on every week-day for two hours before None, and for two hours after None, to all who wish to enter for the purpose of study. He is to explain hard and doubtful passages of scripture when asked to do so, and once in every week to deliver a public lecture in the library. Moreover on Holy Thursday he is to preach in the cathedral, or at the cross in the burial-ground.

Further, in order to prevent any book being alienated, or carried away, or stolen from the library, a tripartite list of all the books is to be made, wherein the true value of each is to be set down. One of these lists is to be retained by the Bishop, another by the sacrist, and a third by the keeper. Whenever a book is bequeathed or given to the library it is to be at once set down in this list together with its true value.