Chapter V — Cathedral and Church Libraries
§i
To the books of the monastery some human interest clings: we can at once conjure up a picture of the cloister and the scribe at his work; the handling of an old manuscript, the turning over of finely-written and quaintly-illuminated yellow pages, throws the mind flashing back centuries to the silent writer in his carrell. But the church library is not rich in associations. It was a small “working” collection: one part for the use of the clergy, the other part—consisting of a few chained books—for the use of the people. These chained books, which now suggest a scarcely conceivable restriction upon the circulation of literature—even theological literature—were, in fact, the sign of a glimmer of liberal thought in the church. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, not only were monastic books issued to lay people more freely, but many more books were chained in places of worship than in the sixteenth century, when the proclamation for the “setting-up” of Bibles in churches was granted unwillingly.
Some collections which later were distinctively church libraries were at first claustral. For convenience’ sake we shall treat all of them as church libraries. The amount of information on medieval church libraries is surprisingly extensive, albeit a great deal more must remain hidden still, for all our cathedral libraries have not been subjects of such loving scholarship as Canon Church has bestowed upon the ancient treasure-house at Wells. Still the material is extensive, and our difficulty in making a selection for such a compendious book as the present is complicated, because we often do not find it possible to say whether the books referred to in the available records are merely service books, or books of an ordinary character. To evade this difficulty we must ignore all material relating to unnamed books, which we cannot reasonably suppose to have been the nucleus of a more general collection, or an addition to it.
Exeter Cathedral Library was a monastic hoard. It originated with Bishop Leofric, who got together over sixty books about sixteen years before the Conquest. His books were a curious collection: among copies of the classics and ecclesiastical works were books of night songs, summer and winter reading books, a precious book of blessings, and a “Mycel Englisc boc”—a large English book, on all sorts of things, wrought in verse. The last is the famous Exeter book, still preserved in the library. A small folio of 130 leaves of vellum, it is remarkable to the student of manuscripts for its bold, clear, and graceful calligraphy, and priceless to the student of literature as the only source of much of our small store of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Some other Leofrican books remain. In the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is an eleventh century copy of Bede’s history in Anglo-Saxon, which was given to Exeter by Leofric, although it is not mentioned in the list of his gifts in the Bodleian manuscript. The inscription in it reads: Hunc librum dat leofricus episcopus ecclesie sancti petri apostoli in exonia ubi sedes episcopalis est ad utilitatem successorum suorum. Si quis illum abstulerit inde, subiaceat maledictioni. Fiat. Fiat. Fiat.277 A manuscript of Bede on the Apocalypse, now at Lambeth Palace, seems almost certainly to have come from St. Mary’s Church, Crediton, and it bears the inscription:—“A: in nomine domini. Amen. Leofricus Pater.”278 Another book given by Leofric, a missal dating from 969, is preserved in the Bodleian Library.279
Although the age of these books suggests that the collection has existed continuously since the eleventh century, after Leofric’s time no important reference to the library occurs until 1327, when an inventory of the books was drawn up. Then about 230 volumes (excluding service books) were in the possession of the Chapter.280 In this same year a breviary and a missal were chained up in the choir for the use of the people.281 Twelve months later John Grandisson arrived at Exeter to take charge of his diocese. A book-loving bishop, he was a benefactor to the library, maybe to a very praiseworthy extent; but a few words will record what is definitely known about this part of his work. In 1366 he gave two folio volumes, still extant. One contains Lessons from the Bible, and the homilies appointed to be read, and the other is the Legends of the Saints.282 In his will he gave two other books, perhaps Pontificals of his own compilation, to his successors.283 He himself owned an extensive library, which he divided principally between his chapter and the collegiate churches of Ottery, Crediton, and Boseham, and Exeter College, Oxford.284 All St. Thomas Aquinas’ works he bequeathed to the Black Friars’ convent at Exeter. To Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, he gave a fine copy of St. Anselm’s letters, now by good fortune in the British Museum. A Hebrew Pentateuch once belonging to him is in the capitular library of Westminster: is it possible that the bishop was a Hebrew scholar?285 Among the books of Windsor College was a volume, De Legendis et Missis de B. V. Mariâ, which had been given by him.
A library room was built over the east cloister in 1412-13.286 Probably the building was found necessary on account of a considerable accession of books, and we hazard a guess that Grandisson’s bequest, received in 1370, formed the bulk of the accretion. At all events, among the accounts for the building are charges for 191 chains for books not secured before. No fewer than 67 books were also sewed or bound on this same occasion, the master binder being paid £6 and his man 36s. 8d. Thus at the beginning of the fifteenth century—the age of library building—the capitular hoard at Exeter was furbished up, newly housed, and arranged. But the interest in the collection seems to have waned. Another chain was bought for sixteenpence in 1430-31 for a copy of Rationale Divinorum, which was given by one Rolder; but such gifts were few and far between. In 1506 the Chapter owned 363 volumes, but 133 more than in 1327,287 so that few additions besides Grandisson’s were made in nearly two centuries, or many books were lost.288 According to this second inventory the books were arranged in eleven desks; eight books were chained opposite the west door; twenty-eight were not chained; seven were chained behind the treasurer’s stall (a Bible in three volumes, Lyra also in three, and a Concordance); and fourteen volumes of canon and civil law behind the succentor’s stall.289 The Dean and Chapter were in a strangely generous mood at the end of this century. In 1566 they gave one of Leofric’s books to Archbishop Parker: it is now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The collection was despoiled of eighty-one of its finest books to enrich Bodley’s foundation at Oxford, 1602.290 Although the book-lover does not like to see treasures torn from their associations, yet in this instance the alienation was fortunate. By 1752 only twenty volumes noted in the inventory of 1506 were left at Exeter.291
Besides the Exeter Book, one other very ancient and valuable manuscript is preserved in the Cathedral: this is the part of the Domesday Book referring to Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset, which is probably not much later in date than the Exchequer record. Two ancient book-boxes are also to be found there. These are fixed in a sloping position by means of iron supports embedded in the pillars. The late Dr. J. W. Clark was led to believe them to be intended for books by finding a wooden bookboard nailed to the inside bottom of one of the boxes. For the protection of the book each box has a cover, which does not seem ever to have been fastened: a reader would raise the lid when he wanted to use the manuscript, and close it before he went away.292 Erasmus seems to have seen similar boxes fixed to the pillars in the nave at Canterbury.293