Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods Part 2

In English libraries at least bookcases arranged on what I may term the Oxford type were in general use throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The invention of printing had largely increased the number of volumes, and at the same time diminished their value, so that chaining was no longer necessary. When it had been abandoned neither a desk, nor a seat in close proximity to the books, was required. In consequence, though libraries continued to be built on the ancient type with numerous windows close to the floor, it was possible to alter the old cases, or to make new ones, with a far larger number of shelves than heretofore; and when further s.p.a.ce for books was needed, low cases were interposed between each pair of tall ones. A splendid specimen of this treatment is to be seen at S. John's College, Cambridge, where the bookcases were put up soon after the completion of the library in 1628. Though the plinth and central pilaster have been taken away, and the levels of the shelves changed, their original appearance can be recovered at a glance. On the top of all the low cases there was a desk, in memory of that of ancient times. At the end of the taller cases is a panel to contain the catalogue, here closed by a small door.

_Bookcases in S. John's College Library._

Sometimes, as we see at Peterhouse, ancient usage a.s.serted itself so far that a seat was contrived by making the plinth of the tall case project to a sufficient distance. These bookcases were set up between 1641 and 1648.

_Bookcase in Peterhouse Library._

When the necessity for still further s.p.a.ce for books became imperative, the seat was given up, or was dropped to the height of a step, as in the bookcases in the south room of the University Library, Cambridge, put up soon after 1649. The carved wing, however, which had masked the ends of it, was retained as an ornament, both there and in the old library at Pembroke College, Cambridge, furnished soon after 1690.

Meanwhile a new system of arranging bookcases had come into use on the continent. So far as I have been able to discover, the first library arranged in the way with which we are familiar, namely, with the bookcases set against the walls instead of at right angles to them, is that of the Escurial. These cases were made by Herrera, the architect of the building, in 1584. There is no indication of chaining, but, in conformity with ancient usage, the fore edge of the books, instead of their backs, is turned outwards, and the desk is represented by a shelf, carried all round the room at a convenient height. No doubt so important a structure as this, erected by so mighty a potentate as the King of Spain, would be much talked about, and provoke imitators. Among these, I feel sure, was Cardinal Mazarin, whose library was fitted up in Paris in or about 1647, as a library to be used daily by the public. After his death his books and bookcases were moved to the building in which they may still be seen. I will now shew you views of the two libraries, and you shall decide whether it is not obvious that the one was suggested by the other.

_Interior of the Library of the Escurial and of the Bibliotheque Mazarine, Paris._

The new system was not accepted hastily. I believe that Sir Christopher Wren, when he built Trinity College Library in 1695, was the first English architect who ventured to build a library with windows which, as he says himself, "rise high, and give place for the deskes against the walls." I suspect that he borrowed this latter idea from France, which he visited in 1665, and most likely from the Bibliotheque Mazarine, for he has himself recorded his admiration for "the masculine furniture of the Palais Mazarin," though he does not specially mention the library. But he did not discard the ancient arrangement altogether. On the contrary he utilised it so far as to subdivide the room, and provide recesses for the convenience of students. He says:

The disposition of the shelves both along the walls and breaking out from the walls must needes prove very convenient and gracefull, and the best way for the students will be to have a litle square table in each celle with 2 chaires. The necessity of bringing windowes and dores to answer to the old building leaves two squarer places at the endes, and 4 lesser celles not to study in, but to be shut up with some neat lattice dores for archives.

_One compartment of Trinity College Library._

I need hardly say that neither this library, nor any of those built by Wren's pupils or imitators, shew traces of chaining. The old fashion, however, lingered. In 1651 Humphrey Cheetham directed the books he gave to certain specified parish-churches near Manchester to be chained; in 1694 James Leaver gave books to the grammar-school at Bolton in Lancashire which were chained in a cupboard very like the _armarium_ of a monastic cloister;

_Book-cupboard and desk at Bolton, Lancashire. The former is lettered: "The gift of Mr James Leaver, citison of London 1694."_

and at All Saints Church, Hereford, a collection of books bequeathed in 1715 was chained to ordinary shelves set against the walls, as may still be seen. This very obvious way of disposing of books evidently shocked old-fashioned people, for Cole the antiquary, writing in 1703, could still speak of the arrangement of shelves against the walls as _a la moderne_.

The libraries I have been describing were more or less public, and I should like, before I conclude, to shew you how books were bestowed in the studies of individual scholars--whether royal, monastic, or secular.

I conceive that for many centuries after the beginning of the Christian era the methods of the ancient world were followed; and that private libraries were arranged upon the Roman model in presses, with busts, mottoes, and the like. Such was the library of Isidore, Bishop of Seville (601-636). He was a voluminous writer, and seems to have had a voluminous library, divided, if I interpret the arrangements correctly, among fourteen presses, each ornamented by one or more portrait-busts or medallions with suitable verses beneath them. The series concludes with a notice _Ad interventorem_, a person whom we may call _A talkative intruder_:

Non pat.i.tur quenquam coram se scriba loquentem: Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras.

How useful such an admonition would be in modern libraries, if only it could be enforced!

So late as the end of the twelfth century I find a Bishop who bequeathed his library to a church describing it as "the contents of my press (_plenarium armarium meum_)."

Gradually, however, other methods came into fashion, due probably to the introduction of the handsome bindings of which I have already spoken. Some particulars have fortunately been preserved of the cost of fitting up a certain tower in the Louvre between 1364 and 1368, to contain the books belonging to Charles the Fifth of France, from which much useful information may be extracted. The fittings of the older library in the palace on the Isle de la Cite were to be taken down and altered, and set up in the new room. Two carpenters are paid for "having taken to pieces all the cases (_bancs_) and two wheels (_roes_), that is revolving desks, which were in the king's library in the palace, and transported them to the Louvre...; and for having put all together again, and hung up the cases (_lettrins_) in the two upper stages of the tower that looks toward the Falconry, to put the king's books in; and for having panelled ... the first of those two stories all round inside." Next a wire-worker (_cagetier_) is paid "for having made trellises of wire in front of two cas.e.m.e.nts and two windows ... to keep out birds and other beasts (_oyseaux et autres bestes_) by reason of, and protection for, the books that shall be placed there."

The words _bancs_ and _lettrins_, which I have translated "cases," are both frequently used. The first commonly denotes the cases in monastic libraries, and the second is the usual word for a reading-desk. I think, therefore, that the two words were applied to describe the same piece of furniture, as "stall" and "desk" were with us. I am now going to shew you two pictures of rooms arranged for study, which fit the above description very well. The first is from a French translation of Boccaccio, _Des cas des maleureux n.o.bles hommes et femmes_, written and illuminated in Flanders for King Henry the Seventh[2]. Two gentlemen are studying at a revolving desk, which can be raised or lowered by a screw. This is evidently the "wheel" of the French king's library. Behind are their books, either resting on a desk hung against the wall (which is panelled), or lying on a shelf beneath the desk. The second is also Flemish, of the same date, from a copy of the _Miroir historial_[3]. It represents a monk, probably the author of the book, writing in his study.

Behind him are three desks, one above the other, hung against the wall, with books, as in the first picture, resting upon them.

Some such arrangement as this must have been long in fashion. Libraries such as those of Diane de Poitiers and Francis the First could not have been bestowed in any other way; and in fact, when books are enriched with metal-work, or have specially elaborate ornaments on their sides, a desk of some sort is indispensable.

Humbler scholars had to content themselves with small cupboards constructed in the thickness of the wall, or hung against it, as in the picture I will next shew you, from a French translation of Valerius Maximus, copied for King Edward the Fourth, and dated 1479[4]. You will observe that the lower part of the window is fitted with trellises as in the French king's library, not cas.e.m.e.nts. The upper part only is glazed.

Another, and apparently very usual way of bestowing books, especially when they were not numerous, was to place them in a sort of cupboard under the sloping desk on which the owner read or wrote. An excellent specimen of this device--which Richard de Bury specially commends, as being modelled on the Ark, in the side of which the book of the Law was put--is to be found in the _Ship of Fools_ (1498). Another, of a curiously modern type, occurs in an _Hours_ in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, executed about 1445 for Isabel, d.u.c.h.ess of Brittany.

Sometimes this book-cupboard supported a revolving desk, which could be raised or depressed by the help of a central screw--like those I shewed you just now; sometimes the desk alone appears, with books laid on it.

The forms given to these pieces of furniture by the ingenuity of those who made them are infinite; and they often include beautiful designs for armchairs, fitted with desks for writing. I will shew you just one--not because it is specially beautiful, but because it gives a quaint picture of a scholar's room at the beginning of the fifteenth century[5].

Here Time--as represented by yonder clock--holds up his finger and bids me stop. I would fain have shewn you more pictures--but I hope that you have seen a sufficient number to give you some idea of the surroundings in which our forefathers read and wrote. I am sure that only in this way can we realise that they were real living people--not mere names. Their modes of thought were far different from ours; they may have wasted their time in verbal subtleties, and uncritical tales; but the more we study what they did, the more we shall realise how laborious, how artistic, how conscientious they were; and amid all the developments of the nineteenth century, we shall gratefully confess that the Middle Ages rocked the cradle of our knowledge, and that we "See but their hope become reality."