The record-union., 1899-07-24
BOUND BY CHAINS.

|
BOUND BY CHAINS.
How Sixteenth Century Libraries
Were Preserved.
| There are bookmen with such a pas
! Sionate sense of the common property
in literature that they cannot keep
their hands from picking and stealing,
even in a friends library Their logic
is bad, for it is only substituting one
vested interest for another. A man
may, by common consent, be a good
son, tender husband, a kind father, a
worthy citizen and confirmed book
| thief. The collector who is wealthy can
write off a sum to make good his losses
or he can go in for reprisals. When he
is tolerably certain of his man the lat
ter is probably the more effective.
| The old chained libraries must have
been due to the conviction that the
eighth commandment should be but
| tressed up in some way or other. In
| the sixteenth century they were quite
| common and continued SO until the end
of the eighteenth Some of them sur
vive at the present time.
| Hereford diocese, England, has Ii
brary in chains of 1000 volumes, chief
ly theological. The collection at VIM
| borneminster is $50 strong Hereford
All Saints has nearly 300 volumes and
! Grantham parish almost as many.
There are smaller collections elsewhere.
Once, perhaps, these were equally ex-
tensiye, but there are bibliophiles who
| laugh at lOeksmiths. Eternal vigilance
| is the price of libraries
| The Bodeleian at Oxford was once in
chains. Master Thomas Bodley's rep
utation among his bookish friends was
much blown upon, says the Sketch"
| Who knew so we'll how to provide
against pilfering? There is now not
single chained book at the universities.
Though chained libraries are few and
far between, single books in churches
are not uncommon. The chained Bible
in Cumnor Church is a notable one,
hard by Cumnor place, where those
melodramaticF ruffians, Varney and
Anthony Foster, murdered fair Amy
| Robsart, according to Sir Walter,
| though not according to history The
| disappearance of these agreeable
stories of ancient bloodshed is a serious
| matter. Even Judge Jeffreys, it ap-
pears. was a very tolerable person.
| The school books grow duller every
day; a little more, it will grow past
bearing, and the scholars will rise in
| revolt
Though the college libraries have had
| their chains struck off there is plenty
| of evidence of their having existed
As-'Item, for twenty-seven chaynes
! for the newe bookes in the librayre,
viii vyi6. 20 Toh
seventy-tWo chaynes, IFS; to Hillarye,
helping hym, Wild" Thus, an extract
from the Cambride University accounts.
The late William Blades, the great
Caxtonian, suggests that they were in
tended to keep the books for general
use, rather than to prevent theft. 1t
was customary to lend out the books
for a year. Many were not returned
But what was that but annexation in
a more subtle form? The drawbacks of
the chains, however, were soon seen.
The students at Oxford complained
that the readers were forced to be con-
tfnually jostling one another. They pc
titioned the great bibliophile, Duke
Humphrey of Gloucester, for more ac-
commodation. Claiming books was
common then all over Europe For
each volume that came to a library by
purchase or by gift chain was bought
A smith was deputed to fix it and a
painter to write the name and press
mark upon the fore edge. The Lau-
rentinian, at Florence, is probably the
largest chained library in the world.
1t is otherwise famous, for the building
was designed by Michel Angelo.
There is a story about the collection
at the Church of ST. Wallberg, at Zut-
phen, in Holland. Formerly the books
wore no chains, but the devil was so
annoyed with the contents of some of
them-it was a theological library
that he broke in and stole several. The
print of his cloven hoof on the pave
ment may. be seen by the visitor who
doubts. Chains were bought, sprinkled
with holy water and attached. The
collection in Hereford Cathedral is a
genuine example of an ancient monastic
library OF the 1000 volumes, about
800 have the chains complete. They
fill five old oaken bookcases, and there
are two others fast turning to touch
wood. The library was formerly in the
lady-chapel, but is now in the archives
chamber. The chained library at Here
ford All Saints takes up two sides of the
vestry, 20S volumes in all. A few days
ago it narrowly missed transportation
to America. In fact, a well-known
London bookseller bought and paid for
it and had sold it again, when the dean
of Windsor, the paramount authority,
interposed and declined to give his
sanction. So the books went back to
their ancient home, and the bookseller
came to his $500 again. He was on
the point of shipping them when the
bargain was declared off. In the school
room of Chirbury parish, in Shropshire,
there is chained collection of 207 vol
umes. The chains remain upon 110 of
them. The Grantham library consists
chiefly of divines of the seventeenth
century.
In the parish of Gorton, now part Of
suburban. 1ianchester, there is the resi-
due Of = hbrary in chains forty -eisht