The Care of Books Part 22

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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sages 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 tripart.i.te 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.

On the Friday after the feast of Relics (27 January) in each year, the sacrist and the keeper are carefully to compare the books with the list; and should any book have disappeared from the library through the carelessness of the keeper, he is to replace it or the value of it within one month, under a penalty of forty shillings, whereof twenty shillings is to be paid to the Bishop, and twenty shillings to the sacrist. When the aforesaid month has fully expired, the sacrist is to set apart out of his own salary a sum sufficient to pay the above fine, and to purchase and chain in the library as soon as possible another book of the same value and material.

The keeper is to receive from the sacrist an annual salary of ten pounds, and four yards of woollen cloth to make him a gown and hood.

The sacrist is to keep the chapel, library, books, and chains, together with the house built for the use of the keeper, in good repair; and he is, moreover, to find and maintain the vestments and lights required for the chapel. All these duties he is to swear on the Holy Gospels that he will faithfully perform.

My enumeration of Cathedral libraries would be sadly incomplete if I did not say a few words about the splendid structure which is attached to the Cathedral of Rouen[255]. The Chapter possessed a respectable collection of books at so early a date as 1120; this grew, and, 29 July, 1424, it was decided to build "a study or library (_quoddam studium seu vnam librariam_)," which was completed in 1428. Fifty years afterwards--in 1477--it was decided that the library should be extended. The first thought of the Chapter was that it should be built of wood, and the purchase of good stout timber (_bona et grossa ligna_) is ordered. This plan, however, was evidently abandoned almost as soon as it was formed, for two years afterwards (20 April 1479) "the library lately erected" is mentioned. These words can only refer to the existing structure which is built wholly of stone. A week later (28 April) William Pontis, master-mason, was asked to prepare a design for a staircase up to the library. This he supplied on the following day. In June of the same year the Chapter had a serious difference of opinion with him on the ground that he had altered the design and exceeded the estimate. They came, however, to the wise conclusion that he should go on with the work and be requested to finish it with all dispatch.

In the following spring (20 March 1480) it was decided to prolong the library as far as the street; and in 1481 (18 September) to build the beautiful stone gate surmounted by a screen in open-work through which the court is now entered. This was completed by the end of 1482. The whole structure had therefore occupied about five years in building.

The library, together with a building of older date next to the Cathedral which serves as a sort of vestibule to it, occupies the west side of what is still called, from the booksellers' shops which used to stand there, _La Cour des Libraires_. The whole building measures 105 ft. in length, by 25 ft. in breadth. The library proper is lighted by six windows in the east wall, and by two windows in the north wall. The masonry of the wall under these windows and the two lancets by which it is pierced indicate that advantage had been taken of an earlier building to form the substructure of the library. The west wall must always have been blank.

Access to the library was obtained directly from the transept by means of the beautiful stone staircase in two flights which Pontis built in 1479.

This staircase leads up to a door marked BIBLIOTHECA which opens into the vestibule above mentioned. In 1788 a room was built over the library to contain the archives of the church, and the staircase was then ingeniously prolonged so as to reach the new second-floor.

Unfortunately the minutes of the Chapter tell us nothing about the original fittings of this room[256]. In 1718 the books were kept in cupboards protected by wire-work, over which were the portraits of benefactors to the library[257].

At present the archives have disappeared; the few books that remain have replaced them in the upper storey, and the library is used as a second vestry. The ill.u.s.tration (fig. 47) shews the interior of the _Cour des Libraires_, with the beautiful gate of entrance from the street. The library occupies the first floor. Beneath are the arches under which the shops used to be arranged; and above is the library of 1788.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47. Interior of the _Cour des Libraires_, Rouen, shewing the gate of entrance from the street, and the Library.]

FOOTNOTES:

[208] _Catalogi Bibliothecarum antiqui_; ed. G. Bekker, 8vo. 1885, pp.

24-28.

[209] _Ibid._, pp. 43-53.

[210] _Ibid._, pp. 64-73.

[211] _Ibid._ p. 82-120.

[212] _Catalogi Veteres Librorum Eccl. Cath. Dunelm._, ed. Surtees Soc.

1838, pp. 1-10.

[213] See a letter by Dr M. R. James in _The Guardian_, 18 May, 1898.

[214] _Catalogi Veteres Librorum Eccl. Cath. Dunelm._ Ed. Surtees Soc, 1838, pp. 46-79. This catalogue is dated Easter, 1395.

[215] _Ibid._ pp. 10-34. This catalogue is dated 1391.

[216] _Ibid._ pp. 34-38. Of the same date.

[217] _Ibid._ pp. 80, 81. These volumes are recorded in the first of the above catalogues.

[218] _Ibid._ pp. 81-84. The date is 1395. For a description of the Spendment see _Rites of Durham_, _ut supra_, p. 71.

[219] Printed in _Catalogue general des ma.n.u.scrits des Bibliotheques Publiques de France_, V. 339-452.

[220] Inventarium librorum monasterii Cistercii, Cabilonensis diocesis, factum per nos, fratrem Johannem, abbatem eiusdem loci, anno Domini millesimo CCCC octuagesimo, postquam per duos annos continuos labore duorum et sepius trium ligatorum eosdem libros aptari, ligari, et cooperiri, c.u.m magnis sumptibus et expensis fecimus.

[221] Et primo librorum existencium in libraria dormitorii, quam ut est disposuimus, c.u.m locus ipse prius diu fuisset inutilis et dudum arti sutorie et vestiario serviebat, sicut per aliquas annexas armariorumque dispositiones apparebat, sed a II^o annis vel circa nichil aut parum ibi fuerat.

[222] _Dictionnaire raisonne de l'Architecture_, I. 271. He does not give the date, but, when I examined the original in the _Bibliotheque Nationale_, I found it plainly dated 1674. It is a most valuable record, as it shews the monastic buildings, which were greatly altered at the beginning of the last century, in their primitive state.

[223] With this use of the word _linea_ may be compared the word _rayon_, now usually used in France for a shelf, especially a book-shelf.

[224] G.o.dwin, _De Praesulibus Angliae_, ed. Richardson, I. 126.

[225] _Anglia Sacra_, I. 145. Librariam etiam supra Capellam Prioris situatam perpulcra caelatura adornavit, quam etiam nonnullis libris instaurari fecit, ad usum maxime literarum studiis deditorum, quos miro studio et benevolentia nutrivit et fovit.

[226] _Rites of Durham_, p. 26.

[227] Item structura ij fenestrarum in Libraria tam in opere lapideo, ferrario et vitriario, ac in reparacione tecti descorum et ij ostiorum, necnon reparacione librorum se extendit ad iiij^{oo}x^i. xvj^o. et ultra.

_Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores tres._ Ed. Surtees Soc. p. cclxxiii.

[228] _Regist. Abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede Abbatis monasterii sancti Albani iterum susceptae_: ed. II. T. Riley, Rolls Ser. Vol. I. p. 423.

[229] _Hist. and Ant. of Worcester._ By V. Green, 4to. Lond. 1796. Vol. I.

p. 79. The measurements in the text were taken by myself in 1895.

[230] _Monumenta Franciscana_, ed. J. S. Brewer, Rolls Ser. Vol. I. p.

319, from a doc.u.ment called "Prima fundatio fratrum minorum Londoniae,"

MSS. Cotton, Vitellius, F. xii.

[231] Stow's _Survey_, ed. Strype, fol. Lond. 1720, Book 3, p. 130.

[232] _History of Christ's Hospital_, by Rev. W. Trollope, 4to. Lond.

1834, App. p. xxiii. The view of the library (fig. 32) is borrowed from this work.

[233] I have to thank M. Joseph Garnier, Archiviste du Departement, for his great kindness, not only in allowing me to examine these precious relics, but in having them conveyed to a photographer, and personally superintending a reproduction of them for my use.

[234] This plan is not dated, but, from internal evidence, it forms part of the set to which the bird's-eye view and the general ground-plan belong. They were taken when "des projets," as the heading calls them, were being discussed. One of these was an increase of the library by the addition of a long gallery at the east end at right angles to the original construction.

[235] _Voyage Litteraire de deux Religieux Benedictins_, 4to. Paris, 1717, I. 198, 221.

[236] I have taken 1 _toise_=639 feet.

[237] I have to thank M. Leon Dorez, of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, for kindly lending me his transcript of this catalogue, and for continual help in all my researches.

[238] Printed in Didron, _Annales Archeologiques_, 1845, III. 228. The article is ent.i.tled: _Un grand monastere au XVI^{me} siecle_. I owe this reference to my friend Mr W. H. St John Hope, a.s.sistant Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries.

[239] _Voy. Litt._ I. 101, 102.