The few
books chained up in the churches for the use of the people
were displayed for various reasons. The Catholicon, a
Latin grammar and a dictionary, was a large book,
obtainable only at great cost, yet for reference
purposes all students and scholars constantly needed it.
Wealthy ecclesiastics and benefactors would therefore
naturally leave such a book for chaining up in the church,
which was then the real centre of communal life. The
Catholicon was chained up for reference in French churches,
and the practice was imitated here, possibly in nearly all
the large churches.[1] The Medulla grammatice, left to
King's Norton Church by Sir Thomas Lyttleton, was a
book of similar character, and would be deposited in church
for a like purpose. Books of canon law would also be
useful for reference purposes when chained in the church.
Some other shackled books were homiletical in character.
Should we be accused of excess of imagination if we
conjured up a picture of a little cluster of people standing
by a clerk who reads to them a sermon or a passage of
Holy Writ? The collection of tales, each with a moral,
known as the Gesta Romanorum, would make especially
attractive reading.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214