librorum cura commissa, hos in armario invenit libros et
sub custodia sua recepit, scilicet:

Bibliothecam in duobus voluminibus [etc.].

The list which follows enumerates 42 volumes, together with a map of the
world. To this small collection there were added in Hamo's time, either by
his own gift or by that of other benefactors, 31 volumes more; so that
before his death the press contained 73 volumes, probably a large
collection for that period. Besides these, there were service-books in the
charge of the bursar (_thesaurarius_), and song-books in that of the
precentor. The three collections were probably kept in the church.

The first indication of a separate room to contain books is afforded by
the gift of a volume by Philip Repyndon, Bishop 1405-1419, in which year
he resigned. It is given after his resignation, "to the new library to be
built within the Church of Lincoln." Again, Thomas Duffield, formerly
Chancellor, who died in 1426, bequeathed another book "to the new library
of the aforesaid church." The erection of the new library may therefore be
placed between 1419 and 1426.

A catalogue, now in the muniment room at Lincoln, which, on internal
evidence, may be dated about 1450, enumerates 107 works, of which 77
(more or less) have been identified as still in the library. The heading,
which I will translate, refers to a chaining of the books which had
recently taken place, possibly after the construction of the cases which I
shall describe in a subsequent chapter.

It is to be noted that in this indenture are enumerated
all the books in the library of the church of blessed
Mary of Lincoln which have lately been secured with
locks and chains; of which indenture one part is
stitched into the end of the black book of the aforesaid
church, and the other part remains in ...[244].

The library--a timber structure--was placed over the northern half of the
east walk of the cloister. At present only three bays at the north end
remain; but there were originally two bays more, at the south end, between
the existing structure and the Chapter-House. These were destroyed in
1789, when the following Chapter Order was made (7 May):

That the old Library adjoining to the Chapter House
shall be taken down, and the part of the Cloysters under
it new leaded and the walls compleated, and the Stair
case therto removed, and a new Stair Case made, agreable
to a plan an