ire des
Archives Departementales_ (Seine Inferieure), 4to. Paris, 1874, Vol. II. I
have also consulted _Recherches sur les Bibliotheques ... de Rouen_, 8vo.,
1853.

[256] The Canons held a long debate, 28 May, 1479, "de ambonibus seu
lutrinis in nova libraria fiendis et collocandis"; but finally decided to
use the furniture of the old library for the present.

[257] _Voyage Liturgique de la France_, par Le Sieur de Moleon, 1718, p.
268. I have to thank Dr James for this quotation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FITTINGS OF MONASTIC LIBRARIES AND OF COLLEGIATE LIBRARIES PROBABLY
IDENTICAL. ANALYSIS OF SOME LIBRARY-STATUTES. MONASTIC INFLUENCE AT THE
UNIVERSITIES. NUMBER OF BOOKS OWNED BY COLLEGES. THE COLLEGIATE LIBRARY.
BISHOP COBHAM'S LIBRARY AT OXFORD. LIBRARY AT QUEENS' COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
AT ZUTPHEN. THE LECTERN SYSTEM. CHAINING OF BOOKS. FURTHER EXAMPLES AND
ILLUSTRATIONS.

How were the libraries mentioned in the preceding chapter fitted up? For
instance, what manner of bookcases did Archbishop Chichele put into his
library at Canterbury in 1414, or the "bons ouvriers subtilz et plains de
sens" supply to the Abbat of Clairvaux in 1496? The primitive book-presses
have long ago been broken up; and the medieval devices that succeeded them
have had no better fate. This dearth of material need not, however,
discourage us. We have, I think, the means of discovering with tolerable
certainty what monastic fittings must have been, by comparing the
bookcases which still exist in a more or less perfect form in the
libraries of Oxford and Cambridge with such monastic catalogues as give
particulars of arrangement and not merely lists of books.

The collegiate system was in no sense monastic, indeed it was to a certain
extent established to counteract monastic influence; but it is absurd to
suppose that the younger communities would borrow nothing from the
elder--especially when we reflect that the monastic system, as inaugurated
by S. Benedict, had completed at least seven centuries of successful
existence before Walter de Merton was moved to found a college, and that
many of the subsequent founders of colleges were more or less closely
connected with monasteries. Further, as we have seen that study was
specially enjoined upon monks by S. Benedict, it is precisely in the
direction of study that we might expect to find features common to the two
sets of communities. And, in fact, an examination of the statutes
affecting the li