Use your
endeavours to get these books: so do us a good favour; and
clear your character." Three years later it was discovered
the books were scattered and in private hands (1453),[2] or,
as seems likely, at King's College, Cambridge, and Eton.
[1] O. H. S. 35, Anstey, 294-95.
[2] O. H. S. 35, Anstey, 285-86, 300-I, 318.
Now the library over the Congregation House was all
too small. A Divinity School seems to have been first
projected in 1423; building began about seven years
later;[1] but the work proceeded very slowly, owing to
want of money, which the authorities tried to raise in
various ways, even by granting degrees on easy terms.
When Gloucester's books came to overcrowd the old
library--and the books were chained so closely together
that a student when reading one prevented the use of
three or four books near to it--the idea was apparently
first mooted of erecting a bigger room over the new school,
where scholars might study far from the hum of men (a
strepitu succulari). The University sent an appeal to the
Duke for help to carry out this scheme (1445), but he had
then lost power and was in trouble, and does not seem to
have responded favourably, albeit they suggested adroitly
the new library should bear his name.
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