University of Virginia Library

6. § VI

In an inventory of St. Paul's Cathedral, taken in 1245, mention is made of thirty-five volumes.[5.28] Before this, in Ralph of Diceto's time, a binder of books was an officer of the church. As at Salisbury, the chancellor's duties included taking charge of the school books. In 1283 a writer of books was included among the ministers. The two offices were combined in the beginning of the next century. When Dean Ralph Baldock made a visitation of St. Paul's treasury in 1295, he found thirteen Gospels adorned with precious metals and stones; some other parts of the Scriptures; and a commentary of Thomas

Aquinas. In 1313 Baldock, who died Bishop of London, bequeathed fifteen volumes, chiefly theological books.[5.29] To Baldock's time probably belongs the reference to twelve scribes, no doubt retained for business purposes as well as for book-making. They were bound by an oath to be faithful to the church and to write without fraud or malice. Æneas Sylvius tells us he saw a Latin translation of Thucydides in the sacristy of the cathedral (1435). [5.30]

A library room was erected in the fifteenth century. "Ouer the East Quadrant of this Cloyster, was a fayre Librarie, builded at the costes and charges of Waltar Sherington, Chancellor of the Duchie of Lancaster, in the raigne of Henrie the 6 which hath beene well furnished with faire written books in Vellem."[5.31] The catalogue of 1458 bears out Stow's description of the library as well-furnished. Some one hundred and seventy volumes were in the Chapter's possession; they were of the usual kind, grammatical books, Bibles and commentaries, works of the fathers; books on medicine by Galen, Hippocrates, Avicenna, and Egidius; Ralph de Diceto's chronicles; and some works of Seneca, Cicero, Suetonius, and Virgil. [5.32] In 1486, however, only fifty-two volumes were found after the death of John Grimston the sacrist. [5.33] Leland gives a list of only twenty-one manuscripts, but it was not his habit to make full inventories. In Stow's time, however, few books remained. [5.34] Three volumes only can be traced now—(1) a manuscript of Avicenna, (2) the Chronicle of Ralph de Diceto in the Lambeth Palace Library, and (3) the Miracles of the Virgin, in the Aberdeen University Library.[5.35]