4. § IV
At Old Sarum Church, Bishop Osmund (1078-99) collected, wrote, and
bound books.[5.23] In his time, too, the
chancellor used to superintend the schools and correct books: either
books used in the school or service books.
[5.24] The income from a virgate of land was
assigned to correcting
books towards the end of the twelfth century (1175-80).
[5.25] The new Salisbury Cathedral was erected in
the thirteenth century; but apparently a special library room was not
used until shortly after 1444, when it was put up to cover the whole
eastern cloister. This room was altered and reduced in size in 1758.
About the time the room was completed one of the canons gave some books,
on the inside covers of two of which is a note in a fifteenth century
hand bidding they should be chained in the new library.
[5.26] Nearly two hundred manuscripts, of various
date from the ninth to the fourteenth century, are now in the library.
Among them several notable volumes are to be found: a Psalter with
curious illuminations; another Psalter, with the Gallican and Hebrew of
Jerome's translation in parallel columns, also illuminated; Chaucer's
translation of Boëthius; Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the
Kings of Britain of the twelfth century; a thirteenth century
Lectionary, with golden and coloured initials; a Tonale according to
Sarum use, bound with a fourteenth century Ordinal; and a fifteenth
century Processional containing some notes on local customs.
