They were bound by an
oath to be faithful to the church and to write without
fraud or malice. Aeneas Sylvius tells us he saw a Latin
translation of Thucydides in the sacristy of the cathedral
(1435).[3]
[1] Archaeologia, I. 496.
[2] Hist. MSS., 9th Rept., App. 46a.
[3] Ep., 126; Creighton, Papacy, iii 53n.
A library room was erected in the fifteenth century. "Ouer
the East Quadrant of this Cloyster, was a fayre Librarie,
builded at the costes and charges of Waltar Sherington,
Chancellor of the Duchie of Lancaster, in the raigne of
Henrie the 6 which hath beene well furnished with faire
written books in Vellem."[1] The catalogue of 1458 bears out
Stow's description of the library as well-furnished. Some one
hundred and seventy volumes were in the Chapter's possession;
they were of the usual kind, grammatical books, Bibles
and commentaries, works of the fathers; books on medicine
by Galen, Hippocrates, Avicenna, and Egidius; Ralph de
Diceto's chronicles; and some works of Seneca, Cicero,
Suetonius, and Virgil.[2] In 1486, however, only fifty-two
volumes were found after the death of John Grimston the
sacrist.
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