hat the only
light was admitted through the narrow lancet windows.

In 1502-3 the panel-work (_celatura_) on the roof of the west library was
put up at a cost of L27. 6_s._ 0_d._ The account contains also a charge
for painting the bosses (_nodi_) at the intersection of the moldings that
separate the panels. Mr Henderson points out that these ornaments prove
the existing ceiling to be that put up in 1503; for among them are the
Tudor Rose, the dolphin of Fitzjames (Warden 1483-1507). and the Royal
Arms used from Henry IV. to Elizabeth, but altered by James I.

After this another long interval occurs during which no work done to the
library is recorded; but in 1623 the south room was taken in hand, and the
changes introduced into it were so extensive that it is referred to in the
accounts as New Library (_Nova Bibliotheca_) a name which it still
retains.

In the first place the room at the east end (fig. 81) was thrown into it,
and the oriel window constructed, together with the two large dormers on
the side next the court (fig. 80). These works, by which light was so
largely increased, prove how gloomy the library must have been before they
were undertaken. Next, after important repairs to the walls and floor, and
the construction of the decorative plaster-work at the east end, the old
bookcases were sold, and Benet the joiner supplied twenty new cases and
one half-case. The only old case remaining is, by tradition, the half-case
against the screen on the north side as one enters from the vestibule.

It is therefore certain that the cases and seats in the south room date
from 1623. It is unfortunately equally certain that we know nothing about
the date of those in the west room; and we are therefore unable to say
whether the cases in the south room were copied from them in 1623, or
whether the reverse process took place at some unknown date. If we adopt
the pleasing theory that in the west room we have very early cases,
constructed possibly when the library was built, we must still admit that
these relics of a remote past have been altered at some subsequent period,
so as to be brought into conformity with the cases in the south room; for
the cornices and the frames for the titles are precisely similar in the
two rooms.

The difference between the two sets of cases in the method of chaining, to
which attention has been already drawn, may bear on the question of date.
As time went on chaining would be modified in the