brary in the codes imposed upon some of the earlier
colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, leads us irresistibly to the conclusion
that they were derived from monastic Customs, using the word in its
technical sense, and monastic practice. The resemblances are too striking
to be accidental.

I shall therefore, in the next place, review, as briefly as I can, the
statutes of some of the above colleges, taking them in chronological
order[258]; and I shall translate some passages from them.

But first let me mention that the principle of lending books to students
under a pledge was accepted by the University of Oxford many years before
colleges were founded. It is recorded that Roger L'Isle, Dean of York, in
the early part of the thirteenth century, "bestowed several exemplars of
the holy Bible to be used by the Scholars of Oxford under a pledge"; that
the said books, with others, were "locked up in chests, or chained upon
desks in S. Mary's Chancel and Church to be used by the Masters upon leave
first obtained"; that certain officers were appointed to keep the keys of
these chests, and to receive the pledges from those that borrowed the
books; and that the books were so kept "till the library over the
Congregation House was built, and then being taken out, were set up in
pews or studies digested according to Faculties, chained, and had a keeper
appointed over them[259]."

In the statutes of Merton College, Oxford, 1274, the teacher of grammar
(_grammaticus_) is to be supplied with a sufficient number of books out of
the funds of the House, but no other mention of books occurs therein[260].
The explanatory ordinances, however, given in 1276 by Robert Kilwardby
(Archbishop of Canterbury 1273-79), direct that the books of the community
are to be kept under three locks, and to be assigned by the warden and
sub-warden to the use of the Fellows under sufficient pledge[261]. In the
second statutes of University College (1292), it is provided, "that no
Fellow shall alienate, sell, pawn, hire, lett, or grant, any House, Rent,
Money, Book, or other Thing, without the Consent of all the Fellows"; and
further, with special reference to the Library:

Every Book of the House, now given, or hereafter to be
given, shall have a high value set upon it when it is
borrowed, in order that he that has it may be more
fearful lest he lose it; and let it be lent by an
Indenture, whereof one part is to be kept in the common
Ch