University of Virginia Library

2. § II

Some miniatures in early manuscripts give us a good idea of the way books were stored in the Middle Ages. They are shown lying flat on sloping shelves which extend part-way round the room. Curtains are occasionally shown hanging in front of the shelves to protect the books from dust. Or a sloping shelf was fitted to serve as a reading-desk, and a second flat shelf ran beneath it to take books lying on their sides one above the other. In several miniatures lecterns of very curious design are often depicted; some of them stood on a cupboard or cupboards wherein books were stowed away.

In the monasteries books were stored in various places, —in chests, cupboards, or recesses in the wall. When the collection was small, a chest served; a receptacle of this kind is illustrated at p. 50. Cassiodorus had the books of his monastery stored in presses, or armaria. The manuscripts of Abbot Simon of St. Albans were preserved in "the painted aumbry in the church." An aumbry was a recess in the wall well lined inside with wood so that the damp of the masonry should not spoil the books. It was divided vertically and horizontally by shelves in such a way that it was possible to arrange the books separately one from al other, and so to avoid injury from close packing, and delay in consulting them.[4.55] The same term was applied to a detached closet or cupboard. At Durham the monks distributed their books—keeping some in the spendimentum or cancellary, some near the refectory, and

the bulk in the cloister. Two classes of books were in the cancellary: one stored in a large closet with folding doors, called an armariolum, and used by all the monks; the other kept in an inner room, and apparently reserved for special uses. The books assigned to the reader in the refectory were stored by the doorway leading to the infirmary, and not in the refectory itself, as we should expect: maybe this arrangement was exceptional, and was adopted for special reasons of convenience. Probably two places were reserved for books in the cloister. One case or chest contained the books of the novices, whose place of study was in that part of the cloister facing the treasury. The main store was on the north side of the cloister. "And over against the carrells against the church wall did stande sertaine great almeries of waynscott all full of bookes, wherein dyd 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."[4.56] Dr. J. W. Clark, the leading authority on early library fittings, has tried to show, from evidences of a similar arrangement at Westminster, that this part of the cloister formed a long room, with glazed windows and carrells on the one hand, bookcases on the other, and screens at each end shutting off the library and writing-place from the rest of the cloister.[4.57]

Along the south wall of the cloister at Chester is a series of recesses which are believed to have been used for bookcases. Two recesses for aumbries are still to be seen in the cloister at Worcester: it is recorded that one book,

the Speculum Spiritualium, was to be delivered "to ye cloyster awmery." At Beaulieu the arched recesses in the south wall of the church may have been put to a similar use. These recesses are shown on the plan here reproduced;

[Description: PLAN SHOWING DISPOSITION OF BOOKS IN CISTERCIAN HOUSES]

so also is the common aumbry in the wall of the south transept.

In large continental houses a bookroom was sometimes needed very early. One of the monasteries of Cassiodorus included a special room for the library, with at least nine

presses in it.[4.58] At St. Gall, a special bookroom was planned, if not actually built, as early as the ninth century. According to the old drawing still preserved at St. Gall, this room was to be on the north side of the presbytery, symmetrically with the sacristy on the south side. It was in two stories. The ground floor was to be arranged as a writing-room, infra sedes scribentium,—the furniture being a large table in the centre, and seven writing-desks against the walls. The upper story was the library.[4.59] In England we hear of bookrooms oftenest in the fifteenth century, They were a usual feature in later Cistercian houses. The plan just given shows the position of this room between the church and the chapter-house, and not far from the common claustral aumbry. At Whalley Abbey, also a Cistercian house, there was evidently a separate library room, because an inventory of the house's goods taken in 1537 refers to the "litle Revestry next unto the lebrary."[4.60] Kirkstall and Furness also had bookrooms. On each side of the massive arch of the Chapter House at Furness Abbey is a similar arch leading to a small square room, most likely used for books. The illustrations facing this show the position of these rooms on either side of the Chapter House doorway. An extant catalogue of another Cistercian house, that of Meaux in Yorkshire, clearly indicates the whereabouts of the conventual books. Some church books were before the great altar, others were in the choir, a few in the infirmary chapel, and in the common press and other presses of the church. The bulk of them was in the common aumbry, not apparently in the open cloister, but in a room off the cloister. Over the door, on a shelf or in a cupboard, were four Psalters; thirty-six books were on

[Description: FURNESS ABBEY: CLOISTERS; FURNESS ABBEY: CHAPTER-HOUSE, INTERIOR]

the top shelf on the other side of the room; the remainder, to the number of about 270, were on other shelves marked by letters of the alphabet.[4.61]

At the Premonstratensian Abbey of Titchfield the books were stored in a small room, in four cases, each having eight shelves. We do not positively know that a separate room existed at the Benedictine house of Christ Church, Canterbury, before the fifteenth century, "yet," as Dr. James says, "the form of Prior Eastry's catalogue, with its division into Demonstrations and Distinctions, irresistibly suggests that the collection must in his time [1284-1331] have occupied a special room, of which the two Demonstrations represent the two sides. The Distinctions would be narrow vertical divisions of these, and each of them would have its numerous subdivisions into Gradus. As the best English equivalent of Demonstratio I would suggest the word `Display,' which fairly gives the idea of a wall-surface covered with books; and I figure the building to myself as an enlarged example of those Cistercian bookrooms with which Dr. J. W. Clark's researches have familiarized us. It would thus be no place for study, such as the later libraries were, but merely a storeroom whence books were fetched to be read at leisure in the cloister."[4.62] Between 1414 and 1443 a library was built over the Prior's Chapel by Archbishop Chichele: it was about sixty-two feet long on the north side, fifty-four on the south side, and twenty-two feet broad. This was the room which Prior Selling fitted up with wainscot, and put books in for the benefit of the studious.[4.63] At St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, there was a bookroom in 1340, for the manuscript of the Ayenbite of Inwyt contains a note that it belongs to the

"bochouse."[4.64] The form of the catalogue of c. 1497 also suggests that a bookroom was then in use.

At Gloucester a special room was built, probably in the fourteenth century. Durham apparently did without a room until early in the fifteenth century. "There ys a lybrarie in the south angle of the lantren, whiche is nowe above the clocke, standinge betwixt the Chapter-House and the Te Deum wyndowe, being well replenished with ould written Docters and other histories and ecclesiasticall writers." [4.65] To this room the books were transferred gradually from the cloister and chancellery: the words "in libraria," or "Ponitur in libraria," being written in the margin of the catalogue opposite to the book upon its removal.

The Benedictine houses of Winchester, Worcester, Bury St. Edmunds,[4.66] and St. Albans also had special bookrooms.

For the safe keeping of the conventual books the preceptor was responsible.[4.67] As he had charge of the armarium or press for storing books, he was also sometimes styled "armarius." He was required to keep clean all the boys' and novices' presses and other receptacles for books; when necessary he was to have these fittings repaired. To provide coverings for the books; to see that they were marked with their proper titles; to arrange them on the shelves in suitable order, so that they might be quickly found, were all duties within his province.[4.68] He had to keep them in repair: in some houses he was expected to

examine all of them carefully several times a year, and to check, if possible, the ravages of bookworms and damp. If necessary, he could call in skilled labour to keep his library and books in order; but usually several brethren were trained in the necessary arts, as at Sponheim. The Abingdon regulations, which are in the usual form, forbade him to sell, give away, or pledge books. All the materials for the use of the scribes and the manuscripts for copying were to be provided by him.[4.69] He made the ink, and could dole it out not only to the brethren but to lay folk if they asked for it civilly.[4.70] He also controlled the work in the scriptorium: setting the scribes their tasks, preventing them from idling or talking; walking round the cloister when the bell sounded to collect the books which had been forgotten by careless monks.

As a rule the monks so highly prized their books— saving them first, for example, in time of danger, as when the Lombards attacked Monte Cassino and the Huns St. Gall—that rules for the care of them would seem almost superfluous. Still, such rules were made. When reading, the monks of some houses were required to wrap handkerchiefs round the books, or to hold them with the sleeve of their robe. Coverings, perhaps washable, were put upon books much in use. [4.71] The Carthusian brethren were exhorted in their statutes to take all possible care to keep the books they were reading clean and free from dust.[4.72] Elsewhere we have referred to an "explicit" urging readers to have a care for the scribe's writing: in another manuscript once belonging to Corbie, the kind reader is bidden to keep his fingers off the pages lest he should mar the

writing on them—a man who knows nothing of the scribe's business cannot realize how heavy it is, for though only three fingers hold the pen, the whole body toils.[4.73]