The collection was of some
distinction, as the inventory will show: "In the Stewe
hous; of Frenche books, the Bible, the Cronycles of France,
the Cronicles of Titus Levius, a booke of Jullius Cesar, lez
Propretez dez Choses [by Barth Glanville], Petrus de
Crescentiis, fiber Almagesti, fiber Geomancie cum iiij aliis
Astronomie, fiber de Roy Artour, Romaunce la Rose,
Cronicles d'Angleterre, Veges de larte Chevalerie, Instituts
of Justien Emperer, Brute in ryme, fiber Etiques, fiber de
Sentence Joseph, Problemate Aristotelis, Vice and Vertues,
fiber de Cronykes de Grant Bretagne in ryme, Meditacions
Saynt Bernard."[1] Perhaps this little hoard may be taken
as a fair example of a wealthy gentleman's library in the
fifteenth century. A collection perhaps accurately representing
the average prelatical library was that of Richard
Browne, running to more than thirty books of the common
medieval character (1452). A canon residentiary of York
named William Duffield had a library of forty volumes, as
fine as Archbishop Bowet's collection, and valued at a
higher figure (1452). Ralph Dreff, of Broadgates Hall,
possessed no fewer than twenty-three volumes, a larger
collection than Oxford students usually had.
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