nages as scholars and men of
culture and learning. . . . It is clear that . . . their influence was
not inconsiderable in encouraging literary tastes and studious habits
among their clergy. Pitts, in his list of distinguished Englishmen of
letters who flourished during the latter half of the fifteenth century,
mentions no less than twenty-four Norfolk men who were recognised as
prominent scholars, controversialists, historians, or students of
science." {1} Coincident with the decline of monastic learning in Europe
were the revival of secular learning and the invention of printing, which
gave a great impetus to the collection of books, especially on the
continent. The sixteenth century was a dark age in the history of
British libraries, the iconoclasts of the Reformation ruthlessly
destroying innumerable priceless treasures both of books and bindings.
John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, who was educated at a Carmelite Convent in
Norwich, and became vicar of Swaffham, Norfolk, in 1551, wrote scathingly
of the literary condition of England in the middle of the sixteenth
century, and referred specifically to Norwich: "O cyties of Englande,
whose glory standeth more in bellye chere, than in the serch of wysdome
godlye. How cometh it, that neyther you, nor yet your ydell masmongers,
haue regarded thys most worthy commodyte of your contrey? I meane the
conseruacyon of your Antiquytees, and of the worthy labours of your
lerned men. . . . I have bene also at Norwyche, oure seconde cytie of
name, and there all the library monumentes are turned to the vse of their
grossers, candelmakers, sope sellers, and other worldly occupyers." {2a}

In the early years of the seventeenth century many famous collegiate and
town libraries--i.e., libraries under the guardianship of
municipalities--were founded throughout the country, and in the history
of the latter Norwich has a unique place. So far as can be ascertained
from the published historical accounts of libraries, Norwich has the
distinction of having established in 1608 (six years after the foundation
of the Bodleian Library, and 145 years before the foundation of the
British Museum) the first provincial town library under municipal
control. {2b} The other earliest popular town libraries are those of
Ipswich (1612), Bristol (founded in 1613 and opened in 1615), and
Leicester (1632). Mr. Norris Mathews, the City Librarian of Bristol,
contends that "The claim to the earliest [public libra