lf, on the
other hand, was probably intended for the convenience of the reader. He
might place on it, temporarily, any book that he was not using, and which
got in his way while he was reading one of those beside it; or, if he was
making extracts, he might set his inkstand upon it.

These desks evidently stood in the old library against the shafts of the
roof, for one of the ends has been hollowed out in each to receive the
shaft; and the finial, which is left plain on that side, is bent over
slightly, to admit it under the brace (fig. 39).

As I have now described three varieties of the lectern-system, I will
place before my readers, side by side, elevations of each of the three
(fig. 62) drawn to the same scale. It will be seen that they resemble each
other exactly in essentials. The differences observable are accidental,
and may be referred to individual taste.

That this form of desk was recognised on the continent as typical of
library-fittings is proved by its appearance in a French translation of
the first book of the _Consolation of Philosophy_ of Boethius, which I had
the good fortune to find in the British Museum[321] (fig. 63). This
manuscript was written in Flanders towards the end of the fifteenth
century. In such a work the library shewn requires what I may term
generalised fittings. An eccentric peculiarity would have been quite
inadmissible.

[Illustration: Fig. 62. Elevation of (A) one of the bookcases in the
Library at Zutphen; (B) one of those in the Library at Queens' College,
Cambridge; (C) one of those in the Library of Lincoln Cathedral.]

In the Stadtbibliothek of Nuremberg some of the oldest works on
jurisprudence still preserve their chains. Each has a short chain about
12 in. long fixed on the upper edge of the left-hand board. The title is
written on the middle of the upper edge of the right-hand board. It is
obvious that these volumes must have lain on a desk with their titles
uppermost[322].

[Illustration: Fig. 63. Interior of a Library.

From a MS. of a French translation of the first book of the _Consolation
of Philosophy_ by Boethius: written in Flanders towards the end of the
fifteenth century.]

[Illustration: Fig. 64. Library of the College de Navarre, Paris, now
destroyed.]

It is probable that similar fittings were used in the library of the
Sorbonne, Paris, which was first established in 1289, with books chained
for the common convenience of the Fellows (_in communem so