Students,
old and young, of high station and low, are crowded in
lodging-houses, many of which are shabby, dirty, and
disreputable. Hence they come forth to play their games
or carry on their feuds. Some haunt taverns and worse
places. Others eke out their means by begging at street
corners. All get their teaching by gathering round masters
whose rostrum is the church doorstep or the threshold of
the lodging-house. Amid the manifold distractions of this
queerly-ordered life the maker and seller of books earns
what living he can; his chief patrons being indigent
masters, who often must starve themselves to get books, and
students so poor that pawning becomes a custom regulated
by the University itself.
Not till the University became firmly established as a
corporate body could a common library be formed. The
beginning was simple. The first books reserved for
common use had their home in St. Mary's Church: some
lay in chests, and were lent in exchange for a suitable
pledge; others were chained to desks so that students
could readily refer to them. These books were almost
certainly theological in character, and all were no doubt
given by benefactors, now unknowm.
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