Of such books there were plainly very large
numbers constantly changing hands; they were the pledges
so continually deposited on borrowing from chests, and
seem, from scattered hints, to have been a very fruitful
source of litigation and dispute."[2] Most of these books
were in the hands of seniors. Truly enough many a
poor clerk would as lief have twenty "bokes" to his name
as anything else treble the value. But he would undergo
much sharp self-denial and receive much "wherewith to
scoleye" ere he got together so considerable a collection of
"bokes grete and smale," to say nothing of instruments.
As such a large proportion of the scholars were poor, and
unable to acquire books, nearly all the instruction given
was oral. Well-to-do scholars would not find, therefore,
books of very great service; and indeed they were as ill-
equipped in this respect as their poorer brethren. The
accounts of the La Fytes, two scholars whose expenses
were paid by Edward I himself, contain records of the
purchase of two copies of only the Institutions of Quintilian
(c. 1290).[3] Is not Chaucer describing his own room in
both passages--the room he loved to seek after his day's
work at the desk? Here at the bedhead are his books,
including the astronomical treatise of Ptolemy called
Almagest.
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