which was specially
selected as the University for monastic colleges, the Benedictines founded
Gloucester House, now Worcester College, so early as 1283. This college
had a library, on the south side of the chapel, which was built and
stocked with books at the sole charge of John Whethamstede, Abbat of S.
Albans[284]--whose work in connexion with the library of that House has
been already recorded[285]. Durham College, maintained by the Benedictines
of Durham, was supplied with books from the mother-house, lists of which
have been preserved[286]; and subsequently a library was built there to
contain the collection bequeathed in 1345 by Richard de Bury (Bishop of
Durham 1333-45)[287]. Lastly, Leland tells us that at Canterbury College
in the same University the whole furniture of the library (_tota
bibliothecae supellex_) was transferred from the House of Christ Church,
Canterbury[288]. It is, I submit, quite inconceivable that the fittings
supplied to these libraries could have been different from those commonly
used in the monasteries of S. Albans, Durham, and Canterbury.

Further, it should be noted that the erection of a library proper was an
afterthought in many of the older colleges, as it had been in the
monasteries. For instance, at Merton College, Oxford, founded 1264, the
library was not begun till 1377; at University College, founded 1280, in
1440; at Balliol College, founded 1282, in 1431; at Oriel College, founded
1324, in 1444; at Pembroke College, Cambridge, founded 1347, in 1452.
William of Wykeham, who founded New College, Oxford, in 1380, was the
first to include a library in his quadrangle; and, after the example had
been set by him, the plan of every subsequent college includes a library
of sufficient dimensions to last till the Reformation, if not till the
present day.

The above dates, covering as they do at least two-thirds of the fifteenth
century, shew that the collegiate libraries were being built at the same
time as the monastic. This coincidence of date, taken in conjunction with
the coincidences in enactment which I have already pointed out, seems to
me to supply an additional argument in support of my theory that the
internal fittings of collegiate and monastic libraries would be identical.
Besides, no forms are so persistent as those of pieces of furniture. A
workman, once instructed to make a thing in a particular way, carries out
his instructions to the letter, and transmits them to his