Libraries_[2] occurs a notice of an indenture executed in A.D. 1343,
whereby the priory of Henton lent no less than twenty books to another
monastic establishment. The deed is described, but not printed. It will
be seen that the instrument we have given above is nearly a century
earlier; and the minute description of the book given in this document
supplies some very curious facts illustrative of the mode of putting
together ancient books, which have not hitherto been remarked, for the
simple reasons that no opportunity for comparison like that presented by
the present case has yet been noticed. Among the Cottonian MSS. (Galba
E. iv.) is a perfect specimen of an ancient Library Catalogue, which,
although not altogether unnoticed, deserves a more careful examination
than it has yet received. It relates to the magnificent monastic
foundation from which emanated the deed we have printed above, and is
headed "Tituli librorum de libraria Ecclesiæ Christi Cantuariensis et
contenta in eisdem libris tempore H. Prioris." It is written in that
bold hand which prevails so extensively in ecclesiastical MSS., with but
little variation, from the middle of the fourteenth century, to the end
of the fifteenth,--a hand which is not always clearly written, and which
therefore, in itself, does not materially assist in the distinction of a
date. Now having first assigned the credit of this noble {22} Catalogue--in
which are entered about 600 volumes, in nearly every one of which,
besides the substantive (or initial?) work, are particularised numerous
detached writings, varying from two or three to five-and-forty distinct
"tracts"--to Prior Henry Chichely (1413--1443), the founder of All
Souls' and St. John's Colleges, Oxford, and who, "built the library of
the church, and furnished it with books," we will see whether the book
"qui intitulatur Johannes Crisestomus," &c. was returned to Canterbury,
and had a place in the list;--and this, we think, is satisfactorily
shown by the following entry:--