Less than a decade later Dr. John
Warkworth, the Master, presented fifty-five manuscripts,
among which was his own Chronicle. "Among the gifts
made to the library in the fifteenth century are one or two
which raise curious questions. One book comes from Bury
and has the Bury mark. Another belonged to the canons
of Hereford; another to Worcester; another to Durham (it
is still identifiable in the Durham catalogue of 1391); and
there are other instances of the kind. Such a phenomenon
makes one very anxious to know how freely and under what
conditions collegiate and monastic bodies were in the habit
of parting with their books during the time before the
Dissolution. Was there not very probably an extensive
system of sale of duplicates? I prefer this notion," writes
Dr. James, "to the idea that they got rid of their books
indiscriminately, because the study of monastic catalogues
shows quite plainly that the number of duplicates in any
considerable library was very large. On the other hand, it
is clear that books often got out of the old libraries into the
hands of quite unauthorised persons: so that there was
probably both fair and foul play in this matter.
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