Y, CLAIRVAUX.

If the evidence brought forward in the last chapter be accepted, the
Library which a Monastery or College built in the fifteenth century was a
long narrow room lighted by rows of equidistant windows. Occasionally, if
neighbouring buildings allowed, there was a window at the end of the room
also. The fittings were lecterns of wood. On these the books were laid,
each volume being fastened by a chain to a bar usually placed over the
desk, but occasionally, in all probability, in front of it or beneath it.
The readers sat on benches immoveably fixed opposite to each window. It is
obvious that reading was convenient enough so long as the students were
few, but if they were numerous and the books chained too closely together
much annoyance must have been caused. When the University of Oxford
petitioned Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in 1444 to help them to build a new
library, they specially dwelt upon the obstacles to study arising from the
overcrowded condition of the old room. "Should any student," they said,
"be poring over a single volume, as often happens, he keeps three or four
others away on account of the books being chained so closely
together[332]."

Further, the lectern-system was so wasteful in the matter of space, that,
as books accumulated, some other piece of furniture had to be devised to
contain them. The desk could not be dispensed with so long as books were
chained; and it therefore occurred to an ingenious carpenter that the
required conditions would be fulfilled if the two halves of the desk were
separated, not by a few inches, but by a considerable interval, or broad
shelf, with one or more shelves fixed above it. Thus a case was arrived at
containing four shelves at least, two to each side of the case, which
could be made as long as the width of the library permitted. I propose to
call this system "the stall-system," from the word _staulum_ (sometimes
written _stalla_, _stallus_, or _stallum_), which is frequently applied to
a case for books in a medieval library.

There are at least five fine examples of this system at Oxford--none, I am
sorry to say, at Cambridge. There was a set at Clare College, supplied to
the old Library about 1627, but they have since been altered by the
removal of the desks. Those at Oxford are at Corpus Christi College
(1517), S. John's College (1596), Sir Thomas Bodley's library (1598),
Merton College (1623), Jesus College (1677-79), Magdalen College (of
uncer