divided into two by a grate of iron,
behind which sat the officer who made the payments. The books seem to have
been kept partly in the outer half of the room, partly within this grate.

At Citeaux, the parent-house of the Cistercian order, a large and wealthy
monastery in Burgundy, the books were still more scattered, as appears
from the catalogue[219] drawn up by John de Cirey, abbat at the end of the
fifteenth century, now preserved, with 312 of the manuscripts enumerated
in it, in the public library of Dijon.

This catalogue, written on vellum, in double columns, with initial letters
in red and blue alternately, records the titles of 1200 MSS and printed
books; but the number of the latter is not great. It is headed:

Inventory of the books at Citeaux, in the diocese of
Chalons, made by us, brother John, abbat of the said
House, in the year of our Lord 1480, after we had caused
the said books to be set to rights, bound, and covered,
at a vast expense, by the labour of two and often three
binders, employed continuously during two years[220].

This heading is succeeded by the following statement:

And first of the books now standing (_existencium_) in
the library of the dorter, which we have arranged as it
is, because the room had been for a long time useless,
and formerly served as a tailory and vestry, ... but for
two years or nearly so nothing or very little had been
put there[221].

A bird's-eye view of Citeaux, dated 1674, preserved in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, shews a small building between the Frater and the
Dorter, which M. Viollet-le-Duc, who has reproduced[222] part of it,
letters "staircase to the dorter." The room in question was probably at
the top of this staircase, and the arrangements which I am about to
discuss shew beyond all question that the Dorter was at one end of it and
the Frater at the other.

There were six bookcases, called benches (_banche_), evidently
corresponding to the _sedilia_ or "seats" mentioned in many English
medieval catalogues. The writer takes the bookcases in order, beginning as
follows:

De prima banca inferius versus refectorium (13 vols.).
In 2^a linea prime banche superius (17 vols.).
In 2^a banca inferius de latere dormitorii (18 vols.).
" " superius " " (14 vols.).
In 2^a banca inferius de latere refectorii (15 vols.).
" " superius " " (18 vols.).

The third and f