1 00:00:12,830 --> 00:00:22,440 In the first week of these lectures. I surveyed the two main bodies of evidence for the history of medieval libraries in England. 2 00:00:23,690 --> 00:00:28,580 And in the second week, I questioned two widespread assumptions. 3 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:34,280 This week's lectures will attempt a more sequential narrative. 4 00:00:35,900 --> 00:00:42,590 And today my title uses five nouns which characterise libraries at different periods. 5 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:46,520 Growth. Competition. Stability. 6 00:00:46,970 --> 00:00:58,910 Loss. Renewals. In discussing Neil Cairns medieval libraries of Great Britain, I laid some emphasis on its tendency to flatten time. 7 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:08,750 Inviting a cumulative reading of accession, according to date of writing 12th century, 13th century, 14th century. 8 00:01:09,770 --> 00:01:14,750 And in highlighting the evidence that religious houses deaccessioned books, 9 00:01:15,230 --> 00:01:21,230 which went into the second hand market and in some cases helped to build up other libraries with older books. 10 00:01:21,860 --> 00:01:29,720 I further emphasised the role of change in the history of libraries, especially in the 15th century. 11 00:01:31,530 --> 00:01:43,140 Change over time is no surprise, but it can be easily overlooked, especially when medievalist tend to specialise in a period or an approach. 12 00:01:44,670 --> 00:01:53,010 So today I shall make a hasty survey of the ups and downs of libraries over the 500 years 13 00:01:53,010 --> 00:01:59,430 or so from our earliest book lists to the invention of printing in the 15th century. 14 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:06,580 If I end up at the tempo of the devil's gallop, it's because there is a lot to cover. 15 00:02:08,330 --> 00:02:13,250 And if I induce some measure of confusion, so be it. 16 00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:22,580 For the ups and downs of different libraries and different types of libraries were not synchronised. 17 00:02:23,090 --> 00:02:27,500 There is no single curve of growth, setback. 18 00:02:27,650 --> 00:02:40,650 Renewal, extinction. The flattening effect of MGB is at its most dangerous with very old books and the libraries to which they are assigned. 19 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:49,020 Our Anglo-Saxon forebears had not advanced in librarianship to the point of entering X libraries inscriptions. 20 00:02:50,590 --> 00:02:54,880 Which become usual only late in the 12th century in England. 21 00:02:56,110 --> 00:03:04,150 Durham retains some books that had belonged to the community of St Cuthbert since the late seventh and eighth centuries. 22 00:03:05,860 --> 00:03:11,950 Which appear under Durham in MLG, be where they were in the high and later Middle Ages, 23 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:19,420 only to appear under Lindisfarne and one of those with a query and none on the 24 00:03:19,420 --> 00:03:23,410 chest of the street where the community spent the better part of a century. 25 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:39,610 It was supposedly at Chester Le Street between 1934 and 1939 that King Athelstan, he's the fella on the left, gave five books to the Saint. 26 00:03:42,090 --> 00:03:54,750 Our first booklist is a highly questionable document as quoted if it's quoted rather than made up in the tendentious historia decent to compare to. 27 00:03:55,650 --> 00:04:02,220 But it tells us that King Asal Stone gave a rich gospel book, Jewelled, Binding and so on. 28 00:04:02,850 --> 00:04:10,380 A Missal two more gospel books and a copy of the lives of Saint Cuthbert in prose and verse. 29 00:04:12,250 --> 00:04:17,320 M Cotton. Oh, so benign is a 19th century gospel book. 30 00:04:18,100 --> 00:04:22,560 And. Its inscriptions recording as well. 31 00:04:22,590 --> 00:04:28,140 Stone's gift to St Cuthbert were preserved for us by Humphrey Wanli. 32 00:04:29,010 --> 00:04:37,290 Preserved for us in 1705 because most of the manuscript, including the front leaves, was destroyed in the cotton fire. 33 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:45,880 This is generally identified as the first of the books on assistance gift. 34 00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:53,500 Cambridge, Corpus Christi 183 is primarily a copy of Bede's to lives of St Cuthbert, 35 00:04:54,070 --> 00:05:00,700 dated by Henry Bradshaw to the ninth century, followed in that by M.R. James. 36 00:05:01,420 --> 00:05:12,670 But since Plummer identified the book as that referred to in the Historia, it has been dated on the basis of its being new when Ethel Stone gave it. 37 00:05:12,910 --> 00:05:18,370 This is what you're looking at here. It's a splendid image of the Saint, the king. 38 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:21,580 And the book is there on the screen, Pure Entertainment. 39 00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:32,460 Now a church could never really have too many gospel books, and one in a jewelled binding was no doubt a rich gift to honour the Saint. 40 00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:41,470 But a copy of the two lives of Cuthbert can hardly have filled a great deficiency in the library at Chester Le Street, 41 00:05:42,130 --> 00:05:46,930 whose Monk's main role had been to protect and preserve the body of St Cuthbert. 42 00:05:49,100 --> 00:05:54,140 Do we ask ourselves where the king went to get these books? 43 00:05:55,880 --> 00:06:06,050 A Second-hand gospel book and what's now regarded as a new copy of The Lives with a short glossary and a list of bishops. 44 00:06:07,760 --> 00:06:12,720 With a picture for the occasion. It was presumably a commission. 45 00:06:14,020 --> 00:06:19,060 The short glossary and so on makes it seem a rather odd commission. 46 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:30,400 We have no answer to where the king went. With the earliest books now at Durham Care was, it seems to me, indecisive. 47 00:06:32,020 --> 00:06:37,990 When Will turns to the lists under Canterbury Cathedral, Priory or Winchester Old Minster. 48 00:06:39,010 --> 00:06:43,300 Many entries for pre conquest books are marked with queries. 49 00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:54,890 And they were often entered on the basis of speculation about origins, not on evidence of provenance, not even late medieval provenance. 50 00:06:56,450 --> 00:06:59,209 With Canterbury, you might struggle to notice this. 51 00:06:59,210 --> 00:07:07,010 There's 360 books entered under Canterbury Cathedral, Priory and the early medieval ones are rather spaced out. 52 00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:11,870 But look for those question marks with a place like Winchester Open. 53 00:07:12,140 --> 00:07:15,920 It's much more obvious that the list is really quite speculative. 54 00:07:17,700 --> 00:07:25,860 Well, I can understand the reluctance not to include that book, not not to exclude books that speak for Anglo-Saxon culture. 55 00:07:27,270 --> 00:07:31,290 It's an area where care must be used with special care. 56 00:07:32,490 --> 00:07:41,280 He was an Anglo-Saxon ist himself who turned to later medieval bibliography, and he knew that he was lowering the threshold for entry. 57 00:07:41,970 --> 00:07:49,129 Not all his readers realised that. Anglo-Saxon libraries, however, are far off. 58 00:07:49,130 --> 00:07:58,310 Think not to be reached on the evidence collected by care in the book, which they say operates to a much lower standard of evidence. 59 00:07:59,210 --> 00:08:05,480 Nor do we have ninth century light library catalogues such as Survive from the Carolingian Empire. 60 00:08:06,870 --> 00:08:13,680 Like Lapidus low lectures from 2002 on the Anglo-Saxon library. 61 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:21,540 Created an abstract library in default of evidence for actual libraries. 62 00:08:22,510 --> 00:08:29,800 More than half. The book comprises appendices of information works known to all 12 works known to be read, 63 00:08:30,310 --> 00:08:36,670 works known to the writer of the old English Martyrology who Lapid should go on to identify as Ecker of Hexham. 64 00:08:39,010 --> 00:08:47,610 And. A list of works in manuscripts surviving that were owned somewhere in Anglo-Saxon England, 65 00:08:48,060 --> 00:08:54,630 a subject now supported by the extensive listing produced by Language and Noise in 2014. 66 00:08:55,960 --> 00:09:02,620 So we have ample material evidence and we can deduce much from the quality of penmanship 67 00:09:02,620 --> 00:09:07,390 and the evolution of handwriting and the letter and learning of Anglo-Saxon books. 68 00:09:08,550 --> 00:09:15,810 But of libraries. The evidence simply bears no comparison with that from the 12th century and later. 69 00:09:17,410 --> 00:09:22,239 The books themselves have in most cases lacked the stability that would allow us to 70 00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:27,940 work backwards from a later provenance to a more secure mapping of their early homes. 71 00:09:30,270 --> 00:09:34,830 Continental evidence is not necessarily better marked by early owners. 72 00:09:35,870 --> 00:09:44,840 But books have more have more often come down an organic line of descent that allows us to follow it backwards. 73 00:09:45,140 --> 00:09:47,720 This is lacking in England, outside Durham. 74 00:09:49,460 --> 00:09:59,090 Nonetheless, we have a few book lists before A World of Winchester gave books to Peterborough Abbey in the second half of the 10th century. 75 00:09:59,810 --> 00:10:09,110 There are 20 titles on the list distinctly different in culture from the contents of early 12th century libraries, which are much more familiar. 76 00:10:10,420 --> 00:10:19,430 None of these books survives. In fact, only a quarter of them re-appeared in an early 12th century list from Peterborough, 77 00:10:20,180 --> 00:10:28,280 which shows 59 volumes, beginning with the newly necessary authors such as Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose Gregory. 78 00:10:29,610 --> 00:10:34,470 But it continues with some authors more popular in Pre Conquest England. 79 00:10:35,820 --> 00:10:40,860 Hard to tell from the list how many of those books were left from the Pre Conquest library. 80 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:52,610 There may have been some out with the old as well as in with the new, but without more of the books themselves, it's impossible to know. 81 00:10:54,550 --> 00:11:03,820 There is, I think, a real question why we have so few surviving books of the 11th century in England early in comparison, 82 00:11:04,930 --> 00:11:14,410 11th century and earlier in comparison with the numbers we have of books from the 12th century and onwards, the graph is out of proportion. 83 00:11:17,590 --> 00:11:22,960 I don't want to engage now with this with a set of statistics, 84 00:11:23,350 --> 00:11:33,040 and I'm reluctant to hypothesise any significant clearing out when numbers of reconquest books clearly were retained. 85 00:11:34,180 --> 00:11:42,930 And the issue may come down to questions of. Of our inability to establish provenance for pre conquest books. 86 00:11:44,700 --> 00:11:51,660 At Peterborough in the early 12th century. The catalogue includes a book of King Alfred written in English. 87 00:11:52,740 --> 00:12:00,410 But its title was not recorded. The catalogue was limited in his ability to deal with the language. 88 00:12:00,420 --> 00:12:06,540 Perhaps Burton on Trent did rather better with its half dozen old English books in the late 12th century. 89 00:12:07,270 --> 00:12:14,200 When it does manage to identify the works. Better than the evidence from Peterborough. 90 00:12:14,710 --> 00:12:18,940 Is that from Exeter? Two copies of the lists of books. 91 00:12:19,100 --> 00:12:22,600 The list of books given to Exeter Cathedral by its first bishop. 92 00:12:22,660 --> 00:12:30,430 The French in the mid 11th century survive one here in mess walked to 16, 93 00:12:31,420 --> 00:12:41,110 the other removed from the West sex and gospels now in Cambridge, and prefixed to the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry still in Exeter. 94 00:12:42,820 --> 00:12:54,340 Leah Fritsch moved his C from Crediton to the town of Exeter in 1050, where he remained bishop beyond the Norman conquest until his death in 1072. 95 00:12:55,850 --> 00:13:08,390 The list represents 66 books with many entries in English, particularly for the service books going into Latin for the more obviously library books. 96 00:13:09,290 --> 00:13:13,250 It's an old fashioned, but by no means obsolete collection. 97 00:13:14,610 --> 00:13:21,150 With the lists and the 19 surviving books from the from left riches gift. 98 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:30,060 The Middle 11th century provision of books at Exeter Cathedral is better attested than that for anywhere else in the period. 99 00:13:31,770 --> 00:13:39,150 It is striking that a number of the books are considered to have come from St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. 100 00:13:40,620 --> 00:13:47,160 How Live Rich put together his collection of books is really impossible to guess now. 101 00:13:47,730 --> 00:13:54,420 Frank Barlow, a fine historian in his generation and long based in Exeter. 102 00:13:55,750 --> 00:14:06,190 Betrays an old habit of thinking in his own DNP article on Live Fritsch, I quote in the league table of pre 12th century manuscripts, 103 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:13,450 the Exeter Scrip Tourism comes forth off to Canterbury, Salisbury and Worcester. 104 00:14:14,020 --> 00:14:18,590 No, he's not being in any sense out of date. 105 00:14:18,610 --> 00:14:28,060 He was entirely in line with his peers in still thinking that the script for him was the right way to consider the collection. 106 00:14:28,420 --> 00:14:34,510 But the Exeter collection must have come together from a diversity of sources. 107 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:39,040 There's a new appraisal of what happened. 108 00:14:39,550 --> 00:14:47,410 It's as inconclusive as I am by James Willoughby in the volume on the library cat catalogues of the secular cathedrals, 109 00:14:47,770 --> 00:14:51,700 which I hope will appear before very long. 110 00:14:53,550 --> 00:15:04,130 Long promised later medieval book lists and a continuing record of good survival from Exeter, including many books now in the Bodleian, 111 00:15:04,850 --> 00:15:13,219 has meant that one can also see the expansion of the library under the Fritchey successor, the long serving Norman Bishop. 112 00:15:13,220 --> 00:15:17,780 Osborne. Fitz Osborne. It is another very striking fact. 113 00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:20,810 The books acquired by Bishop Osborne, 114 00:15:21,140 --> 00:15:33,230 such as Miss Balti 301 show the hand of a scribe who also worked on books commissioned by Bishop William of Durham in the same period. 115 00:15:33,950 --> 00:15:38,210 Exeter and Durham are about as far apart as cathedrals in England can be got. 116 00:15:40,530 --> 00:15:51,470 Bishop Williams gifts to the cathedral are well attested and they form an important witness to the normalisation of libraries in England and Durham. 117 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:57,090 It must be remembered, was still a secular chapter during most of Bishop William's time. 118 00:15:57,270 --> 00:16:07,170 Monks were only introduced in 1093. Some of the books surviving from Durham and Exeter. 119 00:16:08,540 --> 00:16:11,840 Can be traced back to Buyer in Normandy. 120 00:16:12,170 --> 00:16:15,260 The association is made with by cathedral. 121 00:16:16,550 --> 00:16:25,580 Scribes are recognised, but their job titles are not known and the real context of production is not known. 122 00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:35,930 But Buyer was a centre from which scribes and exemplars were supplying new books to Norman Cathedrals in England. 123 00:16:37,370 --> 00:16:42,960 And now the 12th century, the evidence for this period is abundant and well-known. 124 00:16:43,190 --> 00:16:50,870 And I've spoken more about it earlier in the series. Not only can we see the modernisation in the libraries, Dexter and Durham, 125 00:16:51,350 --> 00:16:58,640 but we can see a major period of collection building around the country with very good survival of books from. 126 00:16:58,820 --> 00:17:02,540 To name a few famous names. Canterbury. Christchurch. 127 00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:12,159 Bury. St Edmunds. And St Albans. There is also important evidence provided by 12th century catalogues from Rochester Cathedral, 128 00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:16,360 Priory, Canterbury Cathedral Priory and Durham Cathedral Priory. 129 00:17:17,590 --> 00:17:28,330 And we are so well provided that we can even describe a new intellectual agenda driving the expansion of libraries in England and in Normandy. 130 00:17:28,690 --> 00:17:34,990 In the first half of the 12th century, an agenda centred on study of the Bible and the Latin fathers. 131 00:17:37,190 --> 00:17:41,930 It is, however, predominantly attested in England by Benedictine foundations, 132 00:17:42,530 --> 00:17:49,009 and I have warned that too much focus on the Benedictines and their books can lead us to 133 00:17:49,010 --> 00:17:55,520 overlook the extensive book economy that provided for the needs of the secular clergy. 134 00:17:55,700 --> 00:18:07,020 And who knows who else? When Abbott's hired scribes to provide new books for their libraries and at St Albans gave them lunch as part of the bargain. 135 00:18:08,070 --> 00:18:13,950 There must obviously have been a large market for book production outside the abbeys. 136 00:18:14,220 --> 00:18:25,600 It is too often been overlooked. Books associated with William of Malmesbury often show the handwriting of scribes ten, 137 00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:31,960 a dozen, 15 scribes who worked for him over considerable periods of time, 138 00:18:32,470 --> 00:18:42,910 whether it be in Malmesbury or during his text hunting tours of religious houses around the country where he could find books containing works, 139 00:18:43,240 --> 00:18:51,520 not part of the new agenda, but left from the old unworthy scribes made copies at his direction. 140 00:18:53,130 --> 00:18:59,100 Williams assistants were more likely hired scribes than his monastic brethren. 141 00:18:59,910 --> 00:19:06,840 I mentioned one of these books last time, given to Merton in 1486, which shows 13 scribes. 142 00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:18,840 I've said more than once in these lectures that the half century or so of planned collection development in Benedictine abbeys faded out around 1160. 143 00:19:19,620 --> 00:19:25,020 Its last phase concerned more with secular law books than with the new theology. 144 00:19:26,670 --> 00:19:34,200 From then on. For the most part, Abbeys sat on their laurels, satisfied with adequately stocked libraries, 145 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:41,760 which grew mostly through the haphazard acquisitions of members of the community referred to 146 00:19:41,790 --> 00:19:48,600 usually as donors when their books became part of the common stock after the owners died. 147 00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:56,100 Besides this, some houses kept a record of acquisitions paid for by successive Abbott's. 148 00:19:57,530 --> 00:20:00,650 These, I presume, reflect corporate purchases. 149 00:20:00,890 --> 00:20:10,460 The Abbot controlling the on allocated surplus of the EP is revenues, but for most institutions the donor was central. 150 00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:17,570 The individual monk, who acquired a few or many books in different books or important books, 151 00:20:18,020 --> 00:20:22,430 and whose souls were prayed for by their successors who read the books. 152 00:20:23,360 --> 00:20:31,070 Learning among the Benedictines did not die out, but the libraries entered a long period of passivity. 153 00:20:33,070 --> 00:20:40,150 In the meantime, it is my impression that Cistercian books of high quality are out of sync. 154 00:20:40,270 --> 00:20:48,910 The great expansion of Benedictine libraries. They date more from the second half of the 12th century and into the early 13th century. 155 00:20:49,870 --> 00:20:57,850 Our earliest Cistercian lists from review around 1190 and 1200 each with upwards of 200 books, 156 00:20:58,540 --> 00:21:04,990 and from a decade or so later, a much smaller library of some 80 books. 157 00:21:06,870 --> 00:21:14,550 But the visual quality of books produced for the cistercians of, say, Boyland or build walls is impressive. 158 00:21:15,470 --> 00:21:26,330 And our delight in the elaborate single colour initials of, say, the island bead note Walmsley Park is increased because such books are rare. 159 00:21:28,060 --> 00:21:33,580 We have no evidence of any major Cistercian library in England. 160 00:21:34,420 --> 00:21:42,970 The Muses 400 books in the 1390s is not insignificant, and it was not a premiere Abbey of the Order. 161 00:21:44,290 --> 00:21:48,040 There may have been bigger libraries unknown to us. 162 00:21:49,980 --> 00:21:59,760 As far as Cistercian writers are concerned, there are few indeed after Ralph of Coggeshall around 1220 until. 163 00:22:01,150 --> 00:22:08,440 The end of the 14th century. There's a few, mostly not very well known figures with death dates in the early 15th century. 164 00:22:10,890 --> 00:22:15,120 Cistercian obscurity goes beyond passivity. 165 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:24,200 For the Augustinians, we have one clear example of a significant cluster of books from the 12th century land. 166 00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:34,430 Toni in the suburbs Gloucester, with some 90 surviving manuscripts datable from the 12th century broadly to the beginning of the 13th century. 167 00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:37,819 It will be a slow task to examine them, 168 00:22:37,820 --> 00:22:48,290 to decide whether here there was any detectable change of plan around 1160 between a foundation collection and more haphazard accession. 169 00:22:49,070 --> 00:22:57,980 My suspicion is there was not. There may not have been the widespread expansion in the first half of the 12th century. 170 00:22:58,700 --> 00:23:09,470 Its foundation dates of many of the Augustinian houses are in the 1120s and thirties, so they start off a generation behind the Benedictines. 171 00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:15,680 But there is not the obvious slowdown in the second half of the century. 172 00:23:17,990 --> 00:23:21,590 The library's never reached the size of Benedictine libraries. 173 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,960 Perhaps they had less surplus resources to spend on collection development. 174 00:23:27,740 --> 00:23:35,170 And they would. The rule did not direct them to read in as obvious a way as the Benedictine rule. 175 00:23:36,860 --> 00:23:42,680 I certainly do not notice the shift towards donors in books belonging to Augustinian houses. 176 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:52,100 Though donations could play a part to lists both of the end of the 12th century from Waltham Abbey and from Bridlington, 177 00:23:52,100 --> 00:23:55,610 Priory Show around 120 books at each. 178 00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:06,980 Not very impressive by comparison with the Benedictine abbey. Do we infer that at this state, Augustinian libraries were typically that much smaller? 179 00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:21,490 Probably so. Then, Tony, in its mid-14th century, peak had some 500 books, including the substantial bequest of 56 books from John Leech, 180 00:24:23,230 --> 00:24:32,120 rather more of which appear secondary entries added to the catalogue than were cross matched when the edition was published in 1998. 181 00:24:32,410 --> 00:24:36,760 Sorry about that. Well, 500 is a very decent size. 182 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:47,140 It does not compare with the big Benedictine holdings around the same date of 1350, 1360, when we have libraries of 1802 thousand volumes. 183 00:24:48,710 --> 00:24:57,260 Size, of course, is a crude means of grading when one acknowledges the number of duplicate copies of the same works in some of these places. 184 00:24:58,250 --> 00:25:05,180 But I have not come up with a points scheme for appraising overall quality, and I don't want to. 185 00:25:06,830 --> 00:25:13,880 How Land Tony would compare with other significant Augustinian collections over the early part of this period. 186 00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:20,450 We have not the means to say some fried wines and only had the advantage of proximity to Oxford. 187 00:25:21,110 --> 00:25:26,870 Sire Ancestor seems to have had a flourishing library in the time of the author Alexander Niccum. 188 00:25:28,780 --> 00:25:37,809 But we're talking numbers like 40 books known but the Augustinian library I'm most wished for evidence of is holy 189 00:25:37,810 --> 00:25:46,360 trinity in old gate close to the monstrous Martin le grand and not far from the Cathedral of Saint Paul in London. 190 00:25:48,410 --> 00:25:48,810 Neither. 191 00:25:48,830 --> 00:26:03,320 The friars who compiled the registrant, Anglia nor John Leland in the 1530s visited Holy Trinity and MGB Records, all of five surviving books. 192 00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:15,030 It had been a very wealthy Augustinian priory, but it was dissolved voluntarily in 1532 ahead of the dissolution, 193 00:26:15,690 --> 00:26:21,150 seeking the King's help with its insupportable corporate debt. 194 00:26:22,700 --> 00:26:30,170 And launching the idea of dissolution in the minds of the King's ministers, the fate of its library is unknown. 195 00:26:31,690 --> 00:26:32,720 It was, however, 196 00:26:32,740 --> 00:26:45,310 the base from 1170 to 1221 of Peter of Cornwall Prior with the house from 1197 and his books I have mentioned already as something of real interest. 197 00:26:47,110 --> 00:26:53,980 His Libreville Autonome, dated 1200s, survives as a primary copy made for the author. 198 00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,340 It was copied professionally for him. 199 00:26:58,780 --> 00:27:07,270 As I argued in the last chapter of the book that Robert Easton and I brought out in 2013 on the contents of this manuscript. 200 00:27:09,300 --> 00:27:17,280 The first book is The Work of Scribe A and you can see Scribe a writing in the left hand column there. 201 00:27:18,540 --> 00:27:29,460 The second book was started by Scribe B, and you can see Scribe be in the right hand column starting at the bottom of the left hand column. 202 00:27:34,260 --> 00:27:38,730 Scribe B found that he had much more to copy than his colleague. 203 00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:49,930 He demanded an assistant. And on the left, we have the handwriting of that assistant. 204 00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:58,820 I think that these copyists had books piled up on their desks, the tables with markers in them. 205 00:27:59,360 --> 00:28:07,610 They would copy excerpts and add headings as directed by the markers put in by Peter of Cornwall. 206 00:28:09,620 --> 00:28:12,650 The chapters could not be numbered before copying. 207 00:28:13,910 --> 00:28:21,380 And so the fine red chapter numbers that we see here didn't exist until the book had been written out. 208 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:28,820 This is the first and only copy known. So when Scribe C was hired. 209 00:28:30,930 --> 00:28:36,750 The pile of books to be copied on scribes desk was divided and they thought, Hmm, how many? 210 00:28:36,900 --> 00:28:40,020 What chapter number should you start at? Start at 600. 211 00:28:41,820 --> 00:28:48,030 And when Scribe Bee caught up with him, he finished a chapter 582. 212 00:28:49,990 --> 00:28:56,049 So they'd misjudged it. The choir ring and he started on a new choir. 213 00:28:56,050 --> 00:29:00,790 So we have an incomplete choir ending at 582. 214 00:29:00,820 --> 00:29:09,750 One extra chapter inserted by scribe a leaves cut out and then Scribe C continues from chapter 600. 215 00:29:10,090 --> 00:29:14,810 When Scribe. Be caught up. 216 00:29:15,230 --> 00:29:25,010 Scribe see you sacked. And this is why here Scribe B is taking over from Scribe C in the left. 217 00:29:25,460 --> 00:29:30,740 But if you compare and I, I haven't put them side by side for you, so you'd have to be very smart to do it. 218 00:29:32,030 --> 00:29:44,690 The right hand columns there a scribe c writing a single column of copying in Scribe A's stint at Folio 60. 219 00:29:46,020 --> 00:29:54,690 And the way I understand the code ecology here is that scribe be number two had said I need an assistant. 220 00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,330 And at that point Scribe C was brought in and given a trial. 221 00:29:59,870 --> 00:30:03,740 Do the next column in my stint say scribe. 222 00:30:04,130 --> 00:30:07,760 He does it very carefully. He gets the job. He started it. 223 00:30:08,180 --> 00:30:12,530 Chapter 600. And when Scribe is caught up with him, he's sacked. 224 00:30:13,010 --> 00:30:20,230 So we have. Three scribes working together, copying from piles of books. 225 00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,540 To get the book finished as efficiently as can be. 226 00:30:29,830 --> 00:30:34,600 We cannot work out how many books were needed to provide these excerpts. 227 00:30:35,050 --> 00:30:45,100 The number of excerpts adds up to a number over 1200, but there are sometimes many excerpts taken from one text, 228 00:30:45,100 --> 00:30:48,220 and sometimes more than one of the texts could have been in the same book. 229 00:30:48,850 --> 00:30:54,700 The assumption would usually be made that they were all available in the Library of Holy Trinity. 230 00:30:55,630 --> 00:31:01,450 Many would have supposed to scribes to be themselves canons, which I think unlikely. 231 00:31:02,830 --> 00:31:07,930 I'm also inclined to question whether the exemplar were all from the prior library. 232 00:31:08,770 --> 00:31:12,880 In London there were other religious houses and there were scribes for higher. 233 00:31:14,300 --> 00:31:21,200 Although we have no reference to Stationers before 1262 Roger of Oxford, whom I mentioned last Thursday. 234 00:31:22,340 --> 00:31:25,370 There may well have been stationers in London at this date. 235 00:31:25,730 --> 00:31:33,590 1262 is, after all, approximately the beginning of that kind of archival evidence, not necessarily the beginning of Stationers. 236 00:31:36,370 --> 00:31:41,200 There may well have been stations in London able to supply exemplars as well as scribes. 237 00:31:42,340 --> 00:31:50,570 Where in London would Peter of Cornwall most likely find a copy of Reginald of Durham's Life and Miracles of Godric? 238 00:31:51,490 --> 00:31:59,050 Much excerpted in this book. The extent copies are all associated with Durham Cathedral Priory. 239 00:32:00,270 --> 00:32:04,350 I wonder, had Peter borrowed a copy from the London home of Philip? 240 00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:10,750 What? To the Bishop of Durham. Or from a London house or from a stationer. 241 00:32:14,290 --> 00:32:17,920 The scale of the trade I've already alluded to. 242 00:32:18,700 --> 00:32:24,220 Peter finished his vast Panthere Lucas a decade earlier in 1189. 243 00:32:26,020 --> 00:32:37,030 Merton College has the dedication copy given to the patron of the first Port Ralph, the oak tree, who is thanked for paying for the higher scribes. 244 00:32:38,790 --> 00:32:42,930 In the lower margins of manuscript 191 the first volume of the set, 245 00:32:43,740 --> 00:32:51,870 we find that scribes signed the choirs, presumably as part of the financial reckoning. 246 00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:56,240 Does it imply already? Payment by the choir. 247 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:02,360 Rather than by the day, which will be the normal approach to paying a hired workman. 248 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:11,880 Four scribes worked on volume one of four. 249 00:33:13,810 --> 00:33:22,360 If we multiply up for a minimum of number of copies, five copies, one for himself, four for his benefactors, 250 00:33:23,050 --> 00:33:30,730 then we should be looking at scores of scribes employed at the same time, unless production was staggered. 251 00:33:32,340 --> 00:33:41,890 With getting on for a million words to each copy. This was an expensive task, but the aim seems to have been to get it done. 252 00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:48,370 The date 1189 for the copying of button 191 is secure. 253 00:33:51,970 --> 00:33:57,730 The compilation behind the copying had also included the making of a great many excerpts. 254 00:33:58,450 --> 00:34:03,730 It's no wonder that Peter was grateful to the patrons who had paid for the scribes. 255 00:34:04,330 --> 00:34:10,100 Now, after 1197 prior, he could have done without such external support. 256 00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:19,360 One suspects, but is a mere canon. He couldn't ask his prior for the money to hire 80 or 90 scribes for several weeks. 257 00:34:21,190 --> 00:34:30,460 I inclined to think that in London, the trade and the established libraries about which we know so little would have cooperated. 258 00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:38,980 But there remains a distinct possibility that the trade kept exemplars of popular texts, even at this date. 259 00:34:40,170 --> 00:34:44,390 Only popular texts, not Reginald Slicer Godfrey. 260 00:34:45,420 --> 00:34:53,490 Would it be surprising if London was already and had been for a long time, the centre of the book Economy in England? 261 00:34:54,710 --> 00:35:07,050 I don't feel surprised. I remember with a little caution a passage in Thomas Molpus account of the abbots of Evesham written about 1216, 262 00:35:07,050 --> 00:35:12,340 but much of it based on the work of Dominic of Evesham. The passage. 263 00:35:12,340 --> 00:35:23,010 I'm going to. Quote, I suspect is in Thomas of Marlborough's Woods rather than Dominic of Ephraim's. 264 00:35:24,390 --> 00:35:34,050 It was Abbot Alfred towards the end of its reign who retained the Embassy of Evesham upon becoming Bishop of London. 265 00:35:35,910 --> 00:35:44,110 And here we have Alfred taking advantage of some merchants arriving in London with the body of Saint Rudolph, 266 00:35:44,130 --> 00:35:55,020 the Confessor from Staverton in Holland, which they sell him for 100 marks, and he heads off census of Evesham to be venerated. 267 00:35:57,300 --> 00:36:05,530 And almost as an afterthought, liberal R.S. Pluribus Tem de Venus, Kwame Grammaticus de Leon Donia transmit it. 268 00:36:05,550 --> 00:36:14,430 He also sent from London a very large number of books termed to Venus Quam Grammaticus life translated as both service books and school books. 269 00:36:16,450 --> 00:36:20,500 It does not appear that he is creating an important library for scholarship. 270 00:36:20,890 --> 00:36:24,910 He is rather meeting basic needs, albeit on a plentiful scale. 271 00:36:25,810 --> 00:36:29,680 But he is not hiring scribes and he is not directing his monks. 272 00:36:30,220 --> 00:36:37,270 He is buying books seemingly in the trade in 1034 or soon after. 273 00:36:38,390 --> 00:36:46,940 No. If we believe this is only valid in the perspective of Thomas of Musselburgh and not of Abbot Alfred. 274 00:36:48,900 --> 00:36:53,310 This is still very early evidence for trade supply. 275 00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:57,709 From the 1230s onwards, however, 276 00:36:57,710 --> 00:37:06,740 we start to see direct evidence of the book trade craft workshops like that of William de Braille's here in Oxford along Kent Street. 277 00:37:07,430 --> 00:37:15,710 Attested by both by the books it produced and by record sources for the occupancy of shop premises. 278 00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,940 From then on, continually, if not continuously. 279 00:37:21,870 --> 00:37:29,010 Art historical work has built a picture of workshops characterised by style or by individual artists, 280 00:37:29,670 --> 00:37:39,210 and no one is likely to challenge the notion that in London and in Oxford and perhaps other places, we have an answer to the supply side question. 281 00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:46,920 The question of exemplars for texts remains problematic in the universities. 282 00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:58,110 There was a provision by the end of the 13th century through Stationers and PC, perhaps earlier, for the supply of approved books. 283 00:37:59,170 --> 00:38:04,180 But many works spread and circulated that were not on the university curriculum. 284 00:38:05,410 --> 00:38:11,200 We know that libraries were not and could not be self-sufficient in the provision of exemplars. 285 00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:19,780 But we do not know how works were made available to meet what have been may have been only occasional need. 286 00:38:21,130 --> 00:38:25,510 I must go faster from the second quarter of the 13th century. 287 00:38:26,110 --> 00:38:29,200 We must include a new kind of consumer of library books. 288 00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:36,870 The Friars. We know them as studious, though some medieval authors made them an object of satire. 289 00:38:37,350 --> 00:38:46,500 Not all friars were like. Here in Oxford and Cambridge, in Paris and across Europe, friars were prodigious consumers of books. 290 00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:57,560 Authors of books and distributors of books. I name only Aquinas, Bonaventure and the Oxford teacher from Tweeddale SCOTUS. 291 00:38:59,430 --> 00:39:04,470 It must be a cause of great regret that the evidence from the English friar is so poor. 292 00:39:05,430 --> 00:39:09,630 One suspects that there was much, much more than has survived. 293 00:39:10,650 --> 00:39:16,530 The motivation in creating registrar anger was a desire to read everything that mattered. 294 00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:22,980 And one may mention that they may have sought to make copies of much that mattered to them. 295 00:39:24,460 --> 00:39:31,210 The fact that gross tests books went to the Greyfriars in Oxford to serve as exemplars for the future, 296 00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:39,730 and that as early as 1253 is a sign that the bishops saw it as a serious research library. 297 00:39:42,330 --> 00:39:45,870 It's almost all gone without leaving a meaningful trace. 298 00:39:46,620 --> 00:39:55,470 We have a handful of books older than the Great Frost Foundation, a few 13th century books, a few 14th century books and some later items. 299 00:39:56,220 --> 00:40:00,870 No consistent text library at any period. No shelf marks. 300 00:40:01,410 --> 00:40:06,780 The Franciscans elsewhere used simple shelf smokes and no documentary evidence. 301 00:40:09,290 --> 00:40:16,519 Fryers personally were not bound by stability as Benedictines were care complained of 302 00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:21,890 the difficulty of dealing with books marked only with the names of individual friars. 303 00:40:24,150 --> 00:40:29,130 Were the houses unable to provide stability for their books? 304 00:40:31,580 --> 00:40:36,559 By Leland's time when he gained entry at the Greyfriars. 305 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:42,620 Here, he found a library room. That would be relatively modern equipment, 15th century, 306 00:40:42,620 --> 00:40:50,960 probably full of dust spiders and the grubs and beetles of cliche with not a lot of books to attract his interest. 307 00:40:52,070 --> 00:40:59,900 The library had changed much over time. That library room had been built some high points of interest. 308 00:41:00,590 --> 00:41:10,459 Its books had drifted away. We have to look back over several phases of change to try and imagine what the 309 00:41:10,460 --> 00:41:19,130 Greyfriars Library in Oxford looked like in 1253 or in 1300 when a Digby manuscript, 310 00:41:19,130 --> 00:41:22,490 I think, was copied from one of the greatest exemplars. 311 00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:28,100 It certainly has the most accurate text of of his tractatus de DSM mandates. 312 00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:38,700 Were fryers perhaps too much users of books to maintain a safe library of deposit where 313 00:41:38,700 --> 00:41:44,819 a Benedictine house might have space to leave hundreds of books unused for a century, 314 00:41:44,820 --> 00:41:52,050 two or two friars had more use for the books and less luxury of storage space. 315 00:41:53,610 --> 00:41:58,500 I'm guessing the clock moves on. We have two centuries still to go. 316 00:42:01,430 --> 00:42:05,010 In the 1320s. I've wondered whether it's funny. 317 00:42:05,030 --> 00:42:11,660 AP We can see an extreme outcome of that Benedictine passivity. 318 00:42:12,140 --> 00:42:17,280 I've written somnolence here. In the display case. 319 00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:25,280 At the time of my first lecture, there was the scrap parchment used by the presenter of Thorney over a period of years 320 00:42:25,610 --> 00:42:31,100 to track the annual distribution of books to the monks on the first Monday of Lent. 321 00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:40,280 We are able to read the entries for four non-consecutive years between 1324 and 1330. 322 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:52,570 And I managed to provide a plausible reconstruction of monastic seniority in order to track which books each monk took over time. 323 00:42:53,110 --> 00:42:58,090 This is a little puzzling combinatorics, and I don't claim to have got the only viable solution. 324 00:42:58,990 --> 00:43:04,660 It might tragic to 2005 if anyone would like to come up with an alternative solution. 325 00:43:09,390 --> 00:43:19,970 Three things emerged. A surprising number of monks were absentees on this occasion, laid down in the rules for the distribution of books. 326 00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:27,720 Many of the monks took only the most basic reading material. 327 00:43:28,050 --> 00:43:38,070 In one case, a brother had the Lord's Prayer on all four non-consecutive years within the eight year period covered. 328 00:43:42,650 --> 00:43:50,000 And a small supply of books provided for the needs of the Lenten distribution year after year. 329 00:43:50,420 --> 00:43:59,030 One of those books is No portly 680 medical works written in the 13th century and given to the MP by Ralph Clock. 330 00:43:59,110 --> 00:44:02,690 That's the kind of late 13th century donation we might well expect. 331 00:44:04,130 --> 00:44:07,820 The impossible question is whether there was, besides these books, 332 00:44:08,210 --> 00:44:18,050 a large and neglected library of books built up first in the early 12th century and added to by individual monks over the succeeding years. 333 00:44:19,730 --> 00:44:25,760 If that wasn't what had happened to it. If there was, why weren't they using it? 334 00:44:26,210 --> 00:44:33,080 When we have reference to the library and all these at Abingdon, which were kept in a different cupboard from the main stock. 335 00:44:33,470 --> 00:44:37,910 It's not that only the books in that cupboard were distributed every year. 336 00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:41,690 It was that once the distribute distribution had happened. 337 00:44:42,870 --> 00:44:48,180 In the cloister you could lock your. This year's book among the library and walls. 338 00:44:48,780 --> 00:44:53,670 And more people had the key to let you get it. That was just a convenience within the year. 339 00:44:56,490 --> 00:45:01,710 It seems to me that Thorney presents a low end of monastic reading. 340 00:45:03,470 --> 00:45:09,350 By the mid thirties and forties we know that the monks had some rather racy book. 341 00:45:09,950 --> 00:45:16,220 The bishop called it shameful and in no way to be committed to writing, which circulated among them. 342 00:45:20,110 --> 00:45:24,070 Condemned by the bishop, but slow to be eradicated. 343 00:45:24,850 --> 00:45:27,790 My guess is that we're looking at to here a French debut. 344 00:45:29,500 --> 00:45:36,190 But this is not great evidence for the AP as a community of readers with what should have been a mature library. 345 00:45:38,740 --> 00:45:43,510 The 1320s was perhaps a nadir for the Benedictines, but not for all of them. 346 00:45:45,900 --> 00:45:48,450 From 1336, Pope Benedict the 12th, 347 00:45:48,630 --> 00:45:58,620 wanted a revival of Benedictine Learning and then joined larger communities to maintain one or two members of the monks at university. 348 00:45:59,950 --> 00:46:07,470 Now, before we think of this as an outside imposition on monks who had abandoned their books and wanted to stay that way, 349 00:46:08,130 --> 00:46:13,830 remember that the very large history catalogue of 1800 books at Canterbury. 350 00:46:14,810 --> 00:46:22,370 Dates from 1326. The very large Ramsay catalogue probably dates from the 1330s. 351 00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:34,400 There was interest. There was learning. Bennett Benedict's aim was to spread best practice more widely in the order within England. 352 00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:38,840 We might think of John of London, Monk of St Augustine's Abbey. 353 00:46:40,230 --> 00:46:49,380 If one could see the huge and complex library catalogue of that abbey so well-edited by Bruce Parker Benfield in its accession order. 354 00:46:49,860 --> 00:46:59,040 As we see those from Canterbury and from Ramsey under the name of John of London would be more books than came from any other donor, 355 00:47:00,090 --> 00:47:04,890 among them a quantity of serious material in mathematics and astronomy. 356 00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:14,040 We do not have any work of learning from this. John of London, despite attempts to link him with others of the same name. 357 00:47:15,020 --> 00:47:18,080 In the mid 13th century and in the mid 14th century. 358 00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:27,559 Another name I had in mind to discuss at this point was Randall Higdon, a monk of Chester, who, from the beginning of the third's reign, 359 00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:36,950 began to make available a very successful universal chronicle, which he continued to revise until his death at an advanced age in 1364. 360 00:47:38,300 --> 00:47:41,870 He outlines his major sources in the preface. 361 00:47:42,710 --> 00:47:50,060 But from time to time, as one reads him, one finds that he can quote really rather unexpected sources. 362 00:47:50,090 --> 00:47:53,330 These are not necessarily identified by the 19th century editor. 363 00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:58,770 We know little enough about the library. A Chester MP. 364 00:48:00,090 --> 00:48:05,340 And I doubt that we could describe its contents on the basis of Higgins reading. 365 00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:14,950 But he is an example of a very successful Benedictine reader, author and publisher at a time when one does not expect it. 366 00:48:16,950 --> 00:48:22,230 I have wondered whether he was allowed to spend rather a lot of his time in London. 367 00:48:23,570 --> 00:48:28,280 Where he could read more and where he had easy access to scribes. 368 00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:37,950 I need not repeat what I've said earlier about the late 14th century as the apogee of medieval library catalogues in England, 369 00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:43,860 as much for the handling of complex metadata as for the size of the collections described. 370 00:48:45,460 --> 00:48:48,820 Much of this was the product of slow accumulation. 371 00:48:49,660 --> 00:48:57,910 But it came with renewed interest. And in the mid to late 14th century, we may see a surge in expansion again. 372 00:48:58,390 --> 00:49:07,959 The librarians who gave us some of these catalogues, I think particularly of Henry Kirk's dead and John Whitfield commissioned and wrote books. 373 00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:12,310 They are concerned with their library over a narrow span of time. 374 00:49:14,380 --> 00:49:24,850 Over the next generation or two, we see perhaps a selection of books and the building of library rooms equipped with reading 375 00:49:24,850 --> 00:49:31,930 desks for more concerted study away from the activity of the cloister walk providing room. 376 00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:39,410 Very likely for fewer books. Berry and Canterbury, for example, had such libraries. 377 00:49:39,830 --> 00:49:42,830 And so, we suspect, did a fair number of places. 378 00:49:43,460 --> 00:49:55,460 The evidence can be very thin evidence of training on surviving books mentioned in accounts, if we have them, of money spent on chains and locks. 379 00:49:57,090 --> 00:49:59,459 In the first the second lecture, 380 00:49:59,460 --> 00:50:10,650 I inferred a room with 50 desks and 750 books from the system of shelf marks revealed in an index catalogue from St Mary's Abbey in York. 381 00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,350 A big conclusion from that evidence. 382 00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:24,900 Now, for the first time, we have at the end of the 14th and in the early 15th century, a visible connection between the books that have reached us. 383 00:50:26,580 --> 00:50:32,940 And the late medieval library furniture that we know from Rare Survivals in a number of places. 384 00:50:33,570 --> 00:50:43,230 This visible connection has made the chained library a widely perceived realisation of the medieval library. 385 00:50:45,270 --> 00:50:50,040 Our Benedictine evidence reached its zenith in the late 14th century. 386 00:50:51,930 --> 00:50:57,300 And it is much more difficult to follow even Benedictine libraries into the 15th century. 387 00:50:57,810 --> 00:51:03,390 Though we know that the number of books produced in England was going up at the time. 388 00:51:05,210 --> 00:51:13,010 The library catalogue of St Augustine's provides a challenging tool because they're underneath the 15th century. 389 00:51:13,010 --> 00:51:24,800 Re Transcription. There lies the late 14th century catalogue augmented no doubt by many hands, with all the accessions of 100 years. 390 00:51:27,100 --> 00:51:30,340 If only we had the original to study and not a later copy. 391 00:51:31,350 --> 00:51:36,750 The simple fact is that as far as the Benedictines go in the 15th century, 392 00:51:37,230 --> 00:51:48,180 our attention has shifted away and we'll lose them again, perhaps without real warrant to fall into torpor, interests go elsewhere. 393 00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:53,220 The evidence of accessions to the London Carmel in the late 14th, 394 00:51:53,310 --> 00:52:02,790 early 15th century and the extraordinary catalogue from the Austin Hermits in York in 1372 with the addition of John argues, 395 00:52:02,790 --> 00:52:09,810 300 books somewhat later stand to show that the Friars might be doing well. 396 00:52:10,890 --> 00:52:12,780 If only we had more evidence. 397 00:52:14,130 --> 00:52:24,180 Yet by the time that the Benedictines in Bury and York were equipping their library rooms and perhaps selling off surplus books. 398 00:52:25,310 --> 00:52:31,640 There were other houses. We see definitely deaccessioning on some scale. 399 00:52:32,720 --> 00:52:43,430 To the advantage of individuals buying books who were happy to acquire old books and even old works long forgotten in some cases, 400 00:52:43,940 --> 00:52:45,470 and to seek to preserve them. 401 00:52:46,950 --> 00:52:54,750 And to the advantage of some new libraries, such as those of the Canons of Windsor and the Fellowes of Eton, which I talked about on Thursday. 402 00:52:55,590 --> 00:53:05,340 Now, if build what comes to mind, it is because build was books often very finely produced in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. 403 00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,270 Turn up in several places in the 15th century. 404 00:53:11,220 --> 00:53:19,290 Now I'm not going to generalise to argue that Cistercians were now devoting themselves full time to sheep rearing and had given up reading. 405 00:53:21,110 --> 00:53:24,260 Even at build was they retained many books, 406 00:53:25,100 --> 00:53:34,190 a clutch of which fell into the hands of Archbishop Cranmer around the time of the dissolution and survive as a clutch in the Royal Library now. 407 00:53:35,890 --> 00:53:45,220 All Biblical. We must also remember that the universities had come into existence long before the 15th century. 408 00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:51,160 The early evidence from Oxford, around 1100, is perhaps not well known. 409 00:53:51,820 --> 00:53:56,800 But Gerald of Wales is reading to the scholars of Oxford in 1189 is widely familiar. 410 00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:02,710 The 13th century saw the foundation of the first colleges, both in Oxford and in Cambridge, 411 00:54:03,460 --> 00:54:06,940 and the first documentary evidence of the local book trade. 412 00:54:08,410 --> 00:54:15,190 Yet. The first substantial evidence of college libraries is from 1318 by 1334. 413 00:54:15,550 --> 00:54:20,170 The catalogue of 87 volumes of arts books at Merton College. 414 00:54:21,190 --> 00:54:29,320 The same college has an earlier testament, leaving two books in 1300 that from the 1330s. 415 00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:38,170 As I discussed in the second lecture, testaments increase in numbers thick and fast, but college catalogues are few. 416 00:54:38,500 --> 00:54:48,290 For the remainder of the century. The flood of documentation is not easily digested into a clear sense of library holdings, 417 00:54:48,780 --> 00:54:57,420 though it does paint a like a lively picture of fellows borrowing college books and then later in life when they've made careers in the church, 418 00:54:57,810 --> 00:55:03,360 remembering their successes back at Merton when they disposed of their personal libraries. 419 00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:11,110 Indexed by author in Title One also sees clearly enough the works most in demand. 420 00:55:12,710 --> 00:55:19,160 I mentioned last time my suspicion that one of the best evidenced college libraries was 421 00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:27,500 losing copies of necessary books and replacing them without really noticing in the evidence. 422 00:55:27,500 --> 00:55:33,080 As currently analysed. Secondary Folios Demand More Attention. 423 00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:42,890 With 33 documents printed in the Oxford volume of the Corpus and 344 recognised survivors from the medieval college. 424 00:55:44,390 --> 00:55:52,430 It is impossible to say how many books there were at Merton when the medieval holdings reached their maximum size. 425 00:55:54,560 --> 00:56:03,170 After inventories of arts books and theology books at different points in the 14th century, we have no further inventory. 426 00:56:04,310 --> 00:56:11,510 We may allow that the record of annual loans will reflect the great majority of the collection shared out among the fellows. 427 00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:16,790 But even here, the evidence is, shall I say, suboptimal. 428 00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:26,960 There survive five aughts lists of loans and two theology lists, and there is no year from which both lists are known. 429 00:56:28,130 --> 00:56:32,750 The earliest is 1372, the latest 1519. 430 00:56:33,110 --> 00:56:41,810 And we may reasonably suppose that such annual loans had been recorded since well before 1372. 431 00:56:42,410 --> 00:56:45,890 So out of a potential of, say, 400. 432 00:56:47,070 --> 00:56:51,690 Even 500 records. Seven exist. 433 00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:57,760 These are transient throw away records redundant within a year. 434 00:56:58,090 --> 00:57:03,250 If all the fellows have behaved well within a few. If some of them have made off with the books. 435 00:57:05,940 --> 00:57:16,200 We must be thankful for what we have now by putting together a list of 1452 on the art side and 1519 on theology. 436 00:57:16,620 --> 00:57:24,120 We might hazard a total of some 700 books, but the lapse of time between 1452 and 1519. 437 00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:29,010 So so much change in the book economy that we must hesitate. 438 00:57:29,910 --> 00:57:41,430 The loan list from 1519 is, in any case, a challenging document listing only the second folios of 442 volumes of the Odyssey. 439 00:57:41,790 --> 00:57:44,910 So your starting point is just the Second Folio. 440 00:57:45,570 --> 00:57:50,370 How many of these represent recent expansion in the collection with printed books? 441 00:57:50,820 --> 00:58:01,950 I'll just say my time is running out. But I should mention that the late 14th and 15th centuries had also seen the foundation of some rich, 442 00:58:01,950 --> 00:58:06,299 secular, collegiate churches like the university colleges. 443 00:58:06,300 --> 00:58:12,270 And unlike the religious houses, they were blessed with continuity in the 16th century. 444 00:58:12,870 --> 00:58:19,740 So that from Windsor and Eton, we still have enough books to see that libraries built from the second hand trade. 445 00:58:20,220 --> 00:58:26,820 Well, the new abbey at Syon grew largely through new books and was acquiring printed books at an 446 00:58:26,820 --> 00:58:33,750 early date as the index of imprints in Vincent Gillespie's edition makes clear at a glance. 447 00:58:35,660 --> 00:58:40,760 I breathlessly mentioned the increasing visibility of professional books for lawyers 448 00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:45,950 and physicians in the 15th century and of private books for personal devotions. 449 00:58:47,010 --> 00:58:52,560 And of strong record evidence from the late 14th century continuously. 450 00:58:53,910 --> 00:59:00,440 For a. Voluminous book trade records massively centred in London. 451 00:59:02,340 --> 00:59:03,660 Doesn't surprise me at all. 452 00:59:04,110 --> 00:59:14,910 But Paul Christiansen did not judge it worth his while to look further back than 1300 for what was by then as you go backwards. 453 00:59:15,180 --> 00:59:26,730 Sparse early evidence. In the long run, it would be hard to say that libraries as a sector in the book economy kept a pace with the private sector. 454 00:59:28,390 --> 00:59:34,930 In part, that's because we are poorly apprised of the earlier history of the private sector. 455 00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:42,740 For the Anglo-Saxon period. It is almost assumed that the book is an institutional book. 456 00:59:43,210 --> 00:59:51,490 Though I doubt the truth of that. First, Private Booklist names the works in the library of a man named Athelstan. 457 00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:57,250 Around the end of the 10th century, we infer he was a schoolmaster from the books he owned. 458 00:59:59,590 --> 01:00:06,130 The manuscript into which the list is written subsequently came into the Library of St Augustine's Abbey and survives. 459 01:00:07,300 --> 01:00:09,070 His was a modest collection. 460 01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:20,270 Richard Parsons successively of St Martin in the corn market in Worcester and the suburban church of Tibetan outside Worcester. 461 01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:28,819 Rural Dean of Worcester in 1221 had the misfortune to have two cartloads of 462 01:00:28,820 --> 01:00:34,910 his books detained by a total gatherer at which bowled ten miles out of town. 463 01:00:36,500 --> 01:00:45,050 How many books make two cartloads, and what part of his personal library this represents are unclear? 464 01:00:45,890 --> 01:00:51,110 And we have no idea why they were on the road ten miles out of town. 465 01:00:51,590 --> 01:00:57,860 He'd been a person in Worcester several years before this date and continued several years after. 466 01:00:59,190 --> 01:01:02,460 So it may be this is his latest purchase from London. 467 01:01:07,500 --> 01:01:17,610 The toll collector, however, was accused of misconduct in obtaining the books and trying to apply unlawful tolls on other people. 468 01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:21,360 So the case into the legal records and we know about it. 469 01:01:22,530 --> 01:01:27,360 It's probably the largest private library attested so early in England. 470 01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:32,910 Yet the person is an unknown but surely not untypical figure. 471 01:01:33,660 --> 01:01:41,970 We could do much more to track personal books over time and so equipped we might have less 472 01:01:42,210 --> 01:01:49,080 sense that the proportion of the library economy was shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. 473 01:01:49,860 --> 01:01:54,090 What we see is more and more personal books. But we haven't looked for the personal books. 474 01:01:54,570 --> 01:02:01,380 Earlier. There can, however. Be no doubt that the invention of printing. 475 01:02:02,470 --> 01:02:09,730 And the arrival of printed books in some considerable numbers in England within 15 years or so of 476 01:02:09,730 --> 01:02:18,520 Gutenberg's invention represented a huge change in the balance between libraries and private books. 477 01:02:19,710 --> 01:02:27,870 On Thursday, I shall argue that it would spell the end of most libraries in England for a generation.