Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods | Page 5

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 [with great store of ancient manuscripts to
help them in their study], 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.
No example of an English monastic book-press has survived, so far as I have been able to
discover; but it would be rash to say that none exists. Meanwhile I will shew you a
French example of a press, from the sacristy of the Cathedral at Bayeux, but I cannot be
sure that it was originally intended to hold books. M. Viollet-Le-Duc, from whom I
borrow it, decides that it was probably made early in the thirteenth century.
Cupboard from sacristy of Bayeux Cathedral.
The Durham Rites speak only of book-presses standing in the cloister against the walls;
but it was not unusual to have recesses in the wall itself, fitted with shelves, and probably
closed by a door. Two such are to be seen at Worcester, immediately to the north of the
chapter-house door. Each is about ten feet wide by two feet deep.
Book-recess, east walk of the cloister, Worcester.
A similar receptacle for books seems to have been contemplated in Augustinian Houses,
for in the Customs of the Augustinian Priory of Barnwell, written towards the end of the
thirteenth century, the following passage occurs:
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 partitions, 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.
Recesses such as these were developed in Cistercian houses into a small square room

without a window, and but little larger than an ordinary cupboard. In the plans of
Clairvaux and Kirkstall this room is placed between the chapter-house and the transept of
the church; and similar rooms, in similar situations, have been found at Fountains,
Beaulieu, Tintern, Netley, etc. The catalogue, made 1396, of the Cistercian Abbey at
Meaux in Holderness, now totally destroyed, gives us a glimpse of the internal
arrangement of one of these rooms. The books were placed on shelves against the walls,
and even over the door. 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 shelves
there called columpnæ, set against the walls. It is obvious that no study could have gone
forward in such places as these; they must have been intended for security only, and to
replace the wooden presses used elsewhere.
As time went on, the number of the books would naturally increase, and by the beginning
of the fifteenth century the larger monasteries at least had accumulated many hundred
volumes. For instance, at Christ Church, Canterbury, at the beginning of the 14th century,
there were 698. These had to be bestowed in various parts of the House without order or
selection,--in presses set up wherever a vacant corner could be found--to the great
inconvenience, we may be sure, of the more studious monks, or of scholars who came to
consult them. To remedy such a state of things a definite room was constructed for
books--in addition to the presses in the cloister, which were still retained for the books in
daily use. A few instances of this will suffice. At Christ Church, Canterbury, a library
was built between 1414 and 1443 by Archbishop Chichele, over the Prior's Chapel; at
Durham between 1416 and 1446 by Prior Wessyngton, over the old sacristy; at Citeaux in
1480, over the writing-room (scriptorium); at Clairvaux between 1495 and 1503, in the
same position; at S. Victor in Paris--an Augustinian House--between 1501 and 1508; and
at S. Germain des Prés in the same city about 1513, over the south cloister.
Most of us, I take it, have more or less imperfect ideas of the appearance of a great
monastery in