de Coventre.
Nineteen books were missing from the two "demonstrations,"
or displays. Nineteen service books were missing
"in parvis tabulis." No less than thirty-eight books,
twenty-eight of them for service, either of the large or the
small tables, were wanting: for these deceased brethren
had been responsible.[1]
[1] Literae Cantuarienses, ii. 146; James (M. R.), 146.
The "large tables" are believed to be boards whereon
the borrowers of books had their names and borrowings
noted. "I find," writes Dr. James, "in a St. Augustine's
manuscript a note written on the fly-leaf by a monk, of
the books pro quibus scribor in tabula'--'for which I am
down on the board.' "[1] Large tables were in use at
Pembroke College, Cambridge; probably they were of a
similar kind. "And let the said keeper,"--so the statute
runs--"have ready large pieces of board (tabulas magnas),
covered with wax and parchment, that the titles of the
books may be written on the parchment, and the names
of the Fellows who hold them on the wax beside it."[2]
Monastic catalogues were sometimes written on such
boards. At Cluni, Mabillon and Martene found the
catalogue inscribed on parchment-covered boards three
feet and a half long and a foot and a half wide--great
tablets which closed together like a book.
Pages:
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