Part 30 (1/2)
At S. John Baptist's College the library was built in 1596, and we may presume was fitted up soon afterwards, as Wood records numerous donations of books in the years immediately succeeding, and the appointment of a keeper to take charge of them in 1603[337]. This library, on the first floor of the south side of the second quadrangle, is 112 feet long by 26 feet wide, with eight windows of two lights in each wall. The bookcases, of which there are eight on each side between the windows, with a half-case against the west wall, are rather larger than those at Corpus Christi College, being 10 feet high, and 2 feet 6 inches wide. They have a cla.s.sical cornice and terminal pediment. The t.i.tles of the subjects are painted at the tops of the stalls as at Merton College. A few traces of chaining are still to be detected. The desks have not been altered. Each is in two divisions, as at Corpus, separated by a central bracket, and it has the slit to admit the chains. The long iron hinges are evidently original. The seats resemble those at Corpus.
The bookcases at Trinity College, set up in 1618, and those at Jesus College, made probably in 1679, call for no special remark.
Between 1598 and 1600 Sir Thomas Bodley refitted the library over the Divinity School. This n.o.ble room is 86 feet long by 32 feet wide. These dimensions contrast forcibly with those of the long narrow rooms to which we have been accustomed; and it is probably on account of the great width that the 10 windows on each side have two lights apiece. At right angles to these walls, which face north and south, there are nine bookcases on a side with a half-case at each end. Here again we find so close a resemblance to the cases at Corpus Christi College, that a particular description is unnecessary. It should be noted, however, that, as at S.
John's College, they had been made of a greater height (8 feet 4 inches) in the first instance, so as to accommodate two shelves above that on the level of the desk. These shelves are proved to be original by the existence, at the juncture of the shelves with the upright divisions, of the plates of iron which originally carried the sockets for the bar. The rest of the ironwork has been removed, and it is difficult to detect traces of its former existence, because modern shelves have been set against the ends of the cases. The hole for the lowest bar, however, remains in the same relative position as at Corpus Christi College; and, as the ironwork for supporting the bars is identical with what still remains there, it seems safe to conclude that no new principle was introduced. The desks are modern, but the large and ornamental brackets which support them are original, and the iron hooks (fig. 79) still remain by which they were prevented from falling when turned up. The position of these hooks shews that each desk was 19 inches broad. There were originally seats between each pair of cases, as may be seen in Loggan's view of the interior of the library, where their ends are distinctly shewn.
A special feature of this room is the beautiful open roof, practically that which Sir Thomas Bodley put up in 1599. The princ.i.p.als and tie-beams are ornamented with arabesques, while the flat surface between them is divided into square compartments on which are painted the arms of the University. On the bosses that intervene between these compartments are the arms of Bodley himself.
I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that the stall-system had been represented in the library at Clare College, Cambridge. The old library was a long narrow room over the old chapel, and we know on the authority of William Cole[338] that it was ”fitted up with wainscote Cla.s.ses on both sides.” These ”cla.s.ses” had been put up shortly before 1627, when the Duke of Buckingham, then Chancellor of the University, was taken to see them. When this library was pulled down in 1763 they were removed to the new library which had been fitted up 20 years previously, and ranged round the room in front of the modern shelves. They are splendid specimens of carpentry-work, and bear so close a resemblance to the cases in the library of S. John's College, that it may be a.s.sumed that they were copied from them[339]. When the removal took place they were a good deal altered, and a few years ago some fragments which had not been utilised were found in a lumber-closet. One of the standards (fig. 85), with its brackets, shews that the cases were once fitted with desks, the removal of which was ingeniously concealed by the insertion of slips of wood in the style of the older work[340]. I have not been able to discover any traces of chaining, but as there are a number of seats in the library, very like those in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, it is more than probable that chains were once employed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 85. Stall-end in the Library of Clare College, Cambridge.]
The stall-system was not only popular in Oxford itself, but was adopted as a standard for bookcases, and reproduced elsewhere.
The first example I will cite is at Westminster Abbey[341], where part of the dorter was fitted up as a library during the years 1623 and 1624 by John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln and afterwards Archbishop of York, who was dean of Westminster from 1620 to his death in 1650. In the flowery rhetoric of his biographer Bishop Hacket:
With the same Generosity and strong propension of mind to enlarge the Boundaries of Learning, he converted a wast Room, scituate in the East side of the Cloysters, into _Plato's_ Portico, into a goodly Library; model'd it into decent shape, furnished it with Desks and Chains, accoutred it with all Utensils, and stored it with a vast Number of Learned Volumes[342].
This library--which has not been materially altered since 1625--occupies the north end of what was once the dorter. It is 60 feet long, by 33 feet 4 inches broad. There are twelve bookcases--evidently the ”desks” recorded by Williams' biographer. Each is 10 feet 10 inches long, 2 feet broad, and 8 feet 3 inches high, divided by plain uprights into three compartments.
There are three shelves, below which is a desk for the reader, resting on brackets, and provided with the usual slit for the chains to pa.s.s through.
These desks are hinged. The cases are quite plain, with the exception of a molded cornice; above which, on the end of each, is some scroll-work.
There is also a small frame to contain the catalogue. It is probable that there were originally seats for readers between each pair of cases. I cannot discover any certain evidence of chaining, and yet ”chains” are distinctly enumerated among the dean's benefactions. There are faint scars at the intersection of some of the shelves and uprights which may be screwholes--but I cannot feel certain on the point.
I have already given the plan of the cathedral library at Wells (fig. 42).
After the Restoration this building was re-fitted during the episcopate of Robert Creighton (Bishop 1670-1672), with the help of donations from the celebrated Dr Richard Busby, and Dr Ralph Bathurst, who was dean from 1670 to 1704. It is important to remember that Bathurst was also master of Trinity College, Oxford, an office which he retained until his death. As he is described in the MS. List of Benefactors preserved in the library as having taken a foremost part in fitting it up (in _Bibliotheca hac instauranda_ [Greek: erG.o.dioktes]), the selection of the bookcases may with much probability be ascribed to him. His own college has still bookcases which once must have been excellent specimens of the stall-system.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 87. Bookcases in the Library of Durham Cathedral.
From a photograph.]
There are eight bookcases at Wells, of plain unpainted deal, projecting from the west wall between the windows (fig. 42). They are 8 ft. 6 in.
long, 8 ft. 1 in. high and 3 ft. broad. Seven of them have desks on both sides, but the last--that placed against the part.i.tion at the south end, which screens off a small room for a study--has a desk on one side only.
There is no shelf below the desk, but two above it. They are fitted with the usual apparatus for chaining. Between each pair of bookcases, in front of the window, is a seat for the reader. These cases resemble so closely those at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, that the source from which they were derived cannot be doubtful.
Was this library ever chained? A Walton's Polyglot, 1657, had evidently been prepared for chaining, and in a novel fas.h.i.+on, the plate to carry the chain being attached to the left-hand board close to the back of the volume (fig. 86)--so that it was evidently set on the shelf in the ordinary way, and not with the fore-edge turned to the spectator, as is usual in chained libraries. But with this exception I could not discover indications of the attachment of a plate on any of the volumes. If I am right in concluding that the books in this library were never chained, the cases are a curious instance of the maintenance of fas.h.i.+on. Dean Bathurst ordered a bookcase, and it was supplied to him with all its fittings complete, whether they were to be used or not.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 86. Ring for attachment of chain, Wells.]
My last example is from Durham Cathedral, where John Sudbury, dean from 1661 to 1684, fitted up the ancient Frater as a library. The room is about 115 feet long by 30 feet wide, with nine windows in each side-wall. Their sills are ten feet from the ground.
The cases (fig. 87) are evidently the work of a carpenter who was thoroughly conversant with the stall-system. They had originally two shelves only above the desk, the entablature, now visible on the ends only, being carried along the sides. The shelf below the desk is also modern. These cases are ten feet apart, and between each pair, instead of a reader's seat, is a dwarf bookcase terminating in a desk. Attached to it on each side is a seat conveniently placed for a reader to use the desk on the side of the princ.i.p.al case.
I have shewn that the stall-system made its appearance at Oxford early in the sixteenth century, but I have not been able to discover who introduced it. My own impression is that it was monastic in its origin; and I can prove that it fits at least two monastic libraries exactly. This theory will also explain the prevalence of such cases at Oxford, and their almost total absence from Cambridge, where monastic influence was never exercised to the same extent.
I will begin with Canterbury, where, as I mentioned above[343], the library was over the Prior's Chapel. The construction of this chapel is described as follows by Professor Willis:
Roger de S. Elphege, Prior from 1258 to 1263, completed a chapel between the Dormitory and Infirmary.... The style of its substructure shews that it was begun by his predecessor.... [It] is placed on the south side of the Infirmary cloister, between the Lavatory tower and Infirmary. Its floor was on the level of the upper gallery, and was sustained by an open vaulted ambulatory below. This replaced the portion of the original south alley [of the cloister] which occupied ... that position.... But, as this new substructure was more than twice as broad as the old one, the chapel was obtruded into the small cloister-garth, so as to cover part of the facade of the Infirmary Hall, diminish the already limited area, and destroy the symmetry of its form[344].