e many
books to the library in the year 1306;[325] and Richard de Stowe, during
the same century, gave the monks a small collection in nine or ten
volumes; a list of them is preserved in an old manuscript.[326]

But earlier than this in the eleventh century, a bishop of Exeter stands
remarkable as an _amator librorum_. Leofric, the last bishop of Crediton,
and "sometime lord chancellor of England,"[327] received permission from
Edward the Confessor to translate the seat of his diocese to the city of
Exeter in the year 1050. "He was brought up and studied in
_Lotharingos_," says William of Malmsbury,[328] and he manifested his
learning and fondness for study by collecting books. Of the nature of his
collections we are enabled to judge by the volumes he gave to the church
of Exeter. The glimpse thus obtained lead us to consider him a curious
book-collector; and it is so interesting to look upon a catalogue of a
bishop's private library in that early time, and to behold his tastes and
his pursuits reflected and mirrored forth therein, that I am sure the
reader will be gratified by its perusal.[329] After enumerating some
broad lands and a glittering array of sumptuous ornaments, he is recorded
to have given to the church "Two complete mass books; 1 Collectarium; 2
Books of Epistles (_Pistel Bec_[330]); 2 complete _Sang Bec_; 1 Book of
_night sang_; 1 Book _unus liber_, a Breviary or Tropery; 2 Psalters; 3
Psalters according to the Roman copies; 2 Antiphoners; A precious book of
blessings; 3 others; 1 Book of Christ _in English_; 2 Summer Reading bec;
1 Winter ditto; Rules and Canons; 1 Martyrology; 1 Canons in Latin; 1
Confessional _in English_; 1 Book of Homilies and Hymns for Winter and
Summer; 1 Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy, _in English_ (King
Alfred's translation); 1 Great Book of Poetry in English; 1 Capitular; 1
Book of very ancient nocturnal _sangs_; 1 Pistel bec; 2 Ancient raeding
bec; 1 for the use of the priest; also the following books in Latin,
viz., 1 Pastoral of Gregory; 1 Dialogues of Gregory; 1 Book of the Four
Prophets; 1 Boethius Consolation of Philosophy; 1 Book of the offices of
Amalar; 1 Isagoge of Porphyry; 1 Passional; 1 book of Prosper; 1 book of
Prudentius the Martyr; 1 Prudentius; 1 Prudentius (_de Mrib._); 1 other
book; 1 Ezechael the Prophet; 1 Isaiah the Prophet; 1 Song of Songs; 1
Isidore Etymology; 1 Isidore on the New and Old Testament; 1 Lives of the
Apostles; 1 Works of Bede; 1