Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/360

 340 Hijlory of Uomejiic Marnier s men of wealth had conliderable hbraries. The wills of this period, ftill preferved, often enumerate the books polTelTed by the teftator, and fliow the high value which was fet u]X)n them. Many of the illumi- nations of the fourteenth century prefent us with ingenious, and fome- times fantaftic, forms of book-cafes and book-ftands. In our cut No. 227, from a manufcript of metrical- relations of miracles of the Virgin Mary, now preferved in the library of the city of SoilTons in France, we have a monk reading, feated before a book-ftand, the table of which moves up and down on a fcrew. Upon this table is the inkftand, and below it apparently the inkbottle ; and the table has in itfelf receptacles for books No. 227. A Monk at Ms Studit and paper or parchment. In the wall of the room are cupboards, alfo for the reception of books, as we fee by one lying loofe in them. The man is here feated on a llool ; but in our cut No. 228, taken from a manu- fcript in the National Library in Paris (No. 6985), he is feated in a chair, with a writing-delk attached to it. The fcribe holds in his hand a pen, with which he is writing, and a knife to fcratch the parchment where anything may need erafion. The table here is alfo of a curious con- ftruftion, and it is covered with books. Other examples are found, which lliow