We know
nothing of the character and size of the library at this
time, although it seems to have been preserved in a special
room. In 1297, the Chapter ordered the two side doors
of the choir screen in the aisles to be shut at night. One
door near the library (versus librarium) and the Chapter
was only to be open from the first stroke of matins until
the proper choir door was opened at the third bell. At
other times during the day it was always to be closed,
so that people could not injure the books in the library,
or overhear the conferences of the Chapter (secreta capituli).
This library was most likely on the north side of the
church, with the Chapter House beside it, in the north
transept, as shown conjecturally in the plan given in
Canon Church's admirable Chapters in the Early History of
the Church of Wells.[1] That so early, in a church neither
monastic nor collegiate, a school was at work, and a
library had been formed, is a specially significant fact in
the study of our subject.
[1] Pp. 1, 325-327.
In this position the library remained until the fifteenth
century. Two notices occur of it, one in 1340 and
another in 1406, in both cases in connection with an
image of the Holy Saviour, "near the library.
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