[1]
Usually gifts were in jewels or plate, but books
were given to men known to love them; as when
Whethamstede presented Humfrey of Gloucester and
the Duke of Bedford with books they coveted.
[1] "R. de Bury . . . qui ipsum episcopatum et omnia sua
beneficia prius habita per preces magnatum et ambitionis vitium
adquisivit, et ideo toto tempore suo inopia laboravit et prodigus
exstitit in expensis."--Murimuth, 171.
While acting as emissary for his "illustrious prince,"
de Bury hunts his quarry in the narrow ways of Paris,
and captures "inestimable books" by freely opening his
purse, the coins of which are, to his mind, "mud and sand"
compared with the treasures he gets. He blesses the friars
and protects them, and they rout out books from the
"universities and high schools of various provinces"; but
how, whether rightfully or wrongfully, we do not know.
He "does not disdain," he tells us--in truth, he is surely
overjoyed--to visit "their libraries and any other repositories
of books"; nay, there he finds heaped up amid the utmost
poverty the utmost riches of wisdom. He freely employs
the booksellers, but the wiles of the collector are as notorious
as the wiles of women, and his chief aim is to "captivate
the affection of all" who can get him books;--not even
forgetting "the rectors of schools and the instructors of rude
boys," although we cannot think he gets much from them.
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