Page:Notes and Queries - Series 1 - Volume 1.djvu/32

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:—

It may perhaps be supposed that this proves too much, as, besides the direct title of the volume, eight "tracts" are here entered, while in the Power of Attorney only two are noticed. But we would maintain, nevertheless, that it is the identical book, and explain this variation in the description by the circumstance that the library having, in the space of nearly two centuries, been materially enriched, numerous works, consisting in many cases only of a single "quaternion," were inserted in the volumes already existing. An examination of the structure of books of this period would confirm this view, and show that their apparent clumsiness is to be explained by the facility it was then the custom to afford for the interpolation or extraction of "sheets," by a contrivance somewhat resembling that of the present day for temporarily fixing loose papers in a cover, and known as the "patent leaf-holder."

The second document is a list of certain books, belonging to the monastery of Anglesey, early in the fourteenth century, allotted out to the canons of the house for the purpose of custody, or, perhaps, of study or devotion.

Several of these descriptions are highly curious; particularly the last item, which describes one of the "glossed" psalters as being "in pawn" a fact which, in itself, tells a history of the then condition of the house.

The first document, taken in connection with that referred to by Mr. Hunter, would seem to establish the existence of a system of interchanging the literary wealth of monastic establishments, and thereby greatly extending the advantages of their otherwise scanty stores. Both are executed with all the legal forms used in the most important transactions, which would support the opinion of their not