Another bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey,
bequeathed many books to his church (1195). Thomas de
Marleberge (d. 1236), when he became prior of Evesham,
gave a large collection of books in law, medicine, philosophy,
poetry, theology, and grammar.[2] Simon Langham bequeathed
seven chests of books to Westminster Abbey
(1376).[1] William Slade (d. 1384) left to the Abbey of
Buckfast, of which he was abbot, thirteen books of his own
writing.[2] Cardinal Adam Easton (d. 1397) sent from Rome
"six barrells of books" to his convent of Norwich, where
he had been a monk.[3] One of these books, a fourteenth-
century manuscript in an Italian hand, is now preserved in
the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: the inscription
attesting this reads--"Liber ecclesie norwycen per
magistrum Adam de Eston monachum dicti loci." Nor did
the poor priest forget to add his mite to the general hoard:
"I beqweth to the monastery of Seynt Edmund forseid,"
willed a priest named Place, "my book of the dowses of
Holy Scryptur, to ly and remayn in the cloister of the seid
monastery as long as yt wyll ther indure."[4] Such gifts
were always highly valued, and in Lent the librarian was
expected to remind the brethren of those who had given
books, and to request that a mass should be said for them.
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