s_, which I have translated "cases," are
both frequently used. The first commonly denotes the cases in monastic
libraries, and the second is the usual word for a reading-desk. I think,
therefore, that the two words were applied to describe the same piece of
furniture, as "stall" and "desk" were with us. I am now going to shew you
two pictures of rooms arranged for study, which fit the above description
very well. The first is from a French translation of Boccaccio, _Des cas
des maleureux nobles hommes et femmes_, written and illuminated in
Flanders for King Henry the Seventh[2]. Two gentlemen are studying at a
revolving desk, which can be raised or lowered by a screw. This is
evidently the "wheel" of the French king's library. Behind are their
books, either resting on a desk hung against the wall (which is
panelled), or lying on a shelf beneath the desk. The second is also
Flemish, of the same date, from a copy of the _Miroir historial_[3]. It
represents a monk, probably the author of the book, writing in his study.
Behind him are three desks, one above the other, hung against the wall,
with books, as in the first picture, resting upon them.

Some such arrangement as this must have been long in fashion. Libraries
such as those of Diane de Poitiers and Francis the First could not have
been bestowed in any other way; and in fact, when books are enriched with
metal-work, or have specially elaborate ornaments on their sides, a desk
of some sort is indispensable.

Humbler scholars had to content themselves with small cupboards
constructed in the thickness of the wall, or hung against it, as in the
picture I will next shew you, from a French translation of Valerius
Maximus, copied for King Edward the Fourth, and dated 1479[4]. You will
observe that the lower part of the window is fitted with trellises as in
the French king's library, not casements. The upper part only is glazed.

Another, and apparently very usual way of bestowing books, especially when
they were not numerous, was to place them in a sort of cupboard under the
sloping desk on which the owner read or wrote. An excellent specimen of
this device--which Richard de Bury specially commends, as being modelled
on the Ark, in the side of which the book of the Law was put--is to be
found in the _Ship of Fools_ (1498). Another, of a curiously modern type,
occurs in an _Hours_ in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, executed about
1445 for Isabel, Duchess of Brittany.

S