A vicar of
Cookfield owned twenty-four books, some of them priced
cheaply (1451).
[1] Hist. MSS., 8th Rept., pt. I, 268a
Some collections were pathetically small. A disreputable
student of Oxford, John Brette, had among his "bits
of things" a book and a pamphlet. Thomas Cooper,
scholar of Brasenose Hall, enjoyed the use of six volumes.
Another scholar, John Lassehowe, had a like number;
and another, Simon Berynton, had fifteen books, worth
sixpence (c. 1448)! A rector also had six, one of them
Greek; a chaplain was equipped with six medical works;
and James Hedyan, bachelor of canon and civil law,
could employ his leisure in reading one of his little store
of eight volumes. One Elizabeth Sywardby owned eight
books, three being costly (1468).
Section V
More records of the same kind may be obtained from
almost any collection of wills and inventories, the number
of them increasing towards the end of the manuscript age.
How far this change was due to the influence of Italy we
do not fully know. Certainly before the end of Henry VI's
reign the first impulse of the Italian renascence--the
impulse to gather up the materials of a more catholic and
liberal knowledge--had been transmitted to England.
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