general, who were allowed to borrow books from it, on execution of an indenture, or deposit of a sufficient pledge. "It is safer to fall back on a pledge, than to proceed against an individual," said the Customs of the Priory at Abingdon.

In what way were these monastic libraries fitted up? No trace of any monastic fittings has survived, so far as I am aware, either in England, or in France, or in Italy; and even M. Viollet-Le-Duc dismisses "The Library" in a few brief sentences, of which the keynote is despair. My own view is that a close analogy may be traced between the fittings of monastic libraries and those of collegiate libraries; and that when we understand the one we shall understand the other.

The collegiate system was in no sense of the word monastic, indeed it was to a certain extent established to counteract monastic influence; but it is absurd to suppose that the younger communities would borrow nothing from the elder—especially when we reflect that the monastic system had completed at least seven centuries of successful existence before Walter de Merton was moved to found a college; that many of the subsequent founders of colleges were churchmen, if not actually monks; and that there were monastic colleges at both Universities. Further, as we have seen that study was specially enjoined upon the monks by S. Benedict, it is precisely in the direction of study that we should expect to find common features in the two sets of communities. And this, in fact, is what came to pass. An examination of the statutes affecting the library in the codes imposed upon the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge shews that their provisions were borrowed directly from the monastic Customs. The resemblances are too striking to be accidental. Take, for instance, this clause, from the statutes of Oriel College, Oxford, dated 1329:

Bishop Bateman—who had been educated in the priory at Norwich, and whose brother was an abbot—gave statutes to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1350, with similar provisions, and the addition that certain books "are to remain continuously in the library-chamber, fastened with iron chains, for the common use of the Fellows." These were copied by Wykeham at New College, Oxford, but with extended provisions for lending books to students, and a direction that all the books "which remain unassigned after the Fellows have made their selection are to be fastened with iron chains, and remain for ever in the common Library." This statute was repeated at King's College, Cambridge, and at several colleges in Oxford.

Let me now remind you of Archbishop Lanfranc's statute for English Benedictines, dated 1070, which was based, as he himself tells us, on the general monastic practice of his time:

You will agree with me, I feel sure, that this statute, or similar provisions extracted from other regulations, is the source of the collegiate provisions for an annual audit and distribution of books; while the reservation of the undistributed volumes, and their chaining for common use in a library, was in accordance with the unwritten practice of the monasteries. This being the case I think that we are justified in assuming that the internal fittings of the libraries would be identical also; and it must be further remembered that both collegiate and monastic libraries were being fitted up during the same period, the fifteenth century.

When books were first placed in a separate room, fastened with iron chains, for the use of the Fellows of a college or the monks of a convent, the piece of furniture used was, I take it, an elongated lectern or desk, of a convenient height for a seated reader to use. The books lay on their sides on the desk, and were attached by chains to a horizontal bar above it. There were at least two libraries in this University fitted with such desks, at the colleges of Pembroke and Queens'; and that it was a common form abroad is proved by its appearance in a French translation of the first book of the Consolations of Philosophy of Boethius, which I lately found in the British Museum[1], executed towards the end of the fifteenth century (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Interior of a library: from a MS. of a French translation of the first book of the Consolations of Philosophy of Boethius.

One example at least of these fittings still exists, in the library attached to the church of S. Wallberg, at Zutphen in Holland. This library was built in its present position in 1555, but I suspect that some of the fittings, those namely which are more richly ornamented, were removed from an earlier library. Each of these desks is 9 feet long by 5 feet 6 inches high; and, as you will see directly, a man can sit and read at them very conveniently. I shall shew you first a general view of part of the library (fig. 2); and, secondly, a single desk (fig. 3).

Such cases as these must have been in use at the Sorbonne, where a library was first established in 1289 for books chained for the