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]
