ns the said library
is magnificent, built of stone, and excellently lighted on
both sides with fine large windows, well glazed, looking out
on the said cloister and the burial-ground of the brethren....
The said library is paved throughout with small tiles adorned
with various designs.

The description written in 1723, by the learned Benedictines to whom we
owe the _Voyage Litteraire_, is equally interesting:

From the great cloister you proceed into the cloister of
conversation, so called because the brethren are allowed to
converse there. In this cloister there are 12 or 15 little
cells, all of a row, where the brethren formerly used to write
books; for this reason they are still called at the present
day the writing-rooms. Over these cells is the Library, the
building for which is large, vaulted, well lighted, and
stocked with a large number of manuscripts, fastened by chains
to desks; but there are not many printed books.

In the great cloister, on the side next the Chapter House, the same
observer noted "books chained on wooden desks, which brethren can come and
read when they please." The library was for serious study, the cloister
for daily reading, probably in the main devotional.

If my time were unlimited I could describe to you several other fifteenth
century monastic libraries, but I feel that I must content myself with
only one more--that of the Franciscan House in London, commonly called
Christ's Hospital. The first stone of this library was laid by Sir Richard
Whittington, 21 October, 1421, and by Christmas Day in the following year
the roof was finished. Stow tells us that it was 129 feet long by 31 feet
broad; and the Letters Patent of Henry the Eighth add that it had 28
desks, and 28 double settles of wainscot. The whole building--so well
worth preservation--has been totally destroyed, but I am able to shew you
a view of it.

_Library of Christ's Hospital: from Trollope's "History of Christ's
Hospital,"_ p. 105.

This view is an excellent illustration of the point on which I have
insisted, namely, that in the course of the fifteenth century the great
religious Houses--no matter to what Order they belonged--found that their
books had become too numerous for the localities primitively intended for
them, and began to build special libraries--usually over some existing
structure; or--in other words--established a library of reference, which