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| Hereford Cathedral Library |
Let me begin by thanking those responsible for giving me the opportunity to deliver this lecture. I must say that it is an honour to have my name associated with that of Alan Tovey. It is good to see his widow here, now Mrs Lucy Beale.
I understand that Alan was from Hafodyrynys, only nine miles away from where I grew up, although Cwmbran, it must be said, has a different feel to Hafodyrynys. As a boy we in Cwmbran and Newport used to refer to such places as part of “Welsh Wales”. (Welsh Wales has been defined as “post-industrial South Wales, epitomised by the coal mining valleys that fan out northward from Swansea, Cardiff and Newport”. Assembling identities, Sam Wiseman, Cambridge, 2014, 72.)
I recall being up in Welsh Wales with my dad one day when we passed a
very compact little soccer field. “That's where we used to play”
my dad said. My father was from Newport and was a keen footballer and
a decent one. For a little while (at the end of his career I think,
in the early fifties I guess) he was goalkeeper for the Hafodyrynys
team.
Definition
And so to libraries. A library can be defined as “a place in which reading materials, such as books, periodicals and newspapers, and often other materials such as musical and video recordings, are kept for use or lending”. (Free Dictionary). The word can also refer to such a collection of materials, especially when systematically arranged. The word is sometimes used more loosely as in toy library, tool library, even seed library.
And so to libraries. A library can be defined as “a place in which reading materials, such as books, periodicals and newspapers, and often other materials such as musical and video recordings, are kept for use or lending”. (Free Dictionary). The word can also refer to such a collection of materials, especially when systematically arranged. The word is sometimes used more loosely as in toy library, tool library, even seed library.
Today we are thinking specifically of books, which the original word suggests. Library is from Latin librarium. It originally referred to a chest of books. It is interesting to note that the Latin word Liber can refer to a book or with different inflexion (Lee-ber) a free person (the two decline differently liber, libri, libro, etc and liber, liberi, libero, etc). There is also the adjective liber, libera, liberum. It is tempting to give an attractive but false etymology – Library, a place of freedom!
The Bible
The Bible itself is often spoken of as a library, as it contains 66 books by different authors, from different times and situations, using different styles and genres and originally addressing different audiences. The statement is open to abuse but if we maintain both that the Bible is a library and one book we will not be far from the truth.
In one volume in the Library, 2 Timothy, we read (4:13) Paul's words When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments. We are not sure what the distinction between scrolls and parchments may be. Clearly Paul wanted books, however. He did not look down on book learning but was keen to use books. It is a fair inference from the verse that reading is important for Christians, especially ministers, and that libraries are potentially a good and useful thing. John Calvin (1509-1564) says the verse refutes “the madness of the fanatics who despise books and condemn all reading and boast only of ... their private inspirations by God” and “commends continual reading to all godly men as a thing from which they can profit.” (John Calvin, NT Commentary Corinthians, Timothy, Titus and Philemon, eds S W Torrance, T F Torrance, California, 1960, 341.) Matthew Henry (1662-1714) adds that we should thank God that he “given us so many writings of wise and pious men in all ages” and seek “that by reading them our profiting may appear to all.” (Matthew Henry, Commentary on the whole Bible, in loc cit.)
In another volume in the Library, Ecclesiastes (in 12:12) is a well known verse that makes a different point of making many books there is no end. It is often quoted. Our location today well illustrates the point. The following phrase is often quoted too, usually with a wry smile, and much study wearies the body!
Church father Origen (184-253), in his commentary on John, says that it appears to indicate two things - “that we ought not to possess many books, and .. that we ought not to compose many”. (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume IX, Chapter 2). Conscious that he himself is composing a book he is aware of the irony, as others have been addressing the text. He suggests that it is a caution rather than a prohibition, which must be right Solomon himself was composing a book when he wrote as he did. John Gill (1697-1771) picks out the application well when he says on the place (John Gill, Exposition on the whole Bible, in loc cit.)
A man may lay out his money, and fill his library with books, and be very little the better for them; what one writer affirms, another denies; what one seems to have proved clearly, another rises up and points out his errors and mistakes; and this occasions replies and rejoinders, so that there is no end of these things, and scarce any profit by them; which, without so much trouble, may be found in the writings of wise men, inspired by God, and in which we should rest contented …
My subject is the value of libraries. I am happy to address it but by way of a disclaimer it is fair to add a caution. In a fallen world, fallen men and women can be harmed as well as helped by libraries. The experience of Richard Baxter (1615-1691) perhaps offers a graphic illustration of the need for caution. On one occasion we learn that as he sat in his study one day
the weight of his greatest folio books broke down three or four of the highest shelves, … and they fell down on every side of him, and not one of them hit him, except one upon the arm. Whereas the place, the weight, and greatness of the books was such, and his head just under them, that it was a wonder they had not beaten out his brains, or done him an unspeakable mischief. (Baxter's Practical Works, Volume 1, ix)
One shelf just above him apparently held the huge Polyglot Bible edited by Bishop Brian Walton (1600-1661), the complete Works of Augustine of Hippo (354-440) and several other weighty tomes. The story serves as a reminder that libraries can do harm as well as good.
History
(A good introduction to this subject can be found in The Story of Libraries, Second Edition: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age, Fred Lemer, London, 2009.)
It is apposite to attempt a very brief survey of the history of libraries. It is generally agreed that the earliest were collections of clay tablets gathered and catalogued in Mesopotamia by the Sumerians and their Akkadian and Persian successors. There may have been other early libraries that used less robust materials. If so, they have not survived.
The first explicit reference to an ancient Egyptian library dates back to 1788 BC. A stele exists on which King Neferhotep records his desire “to see the ancient writings of Atum” in the library of the temple at Heliopolis. A famous Egyptian library also existed in the time of Rameses II (d 1213 BC), possibly the Exodus Pharaoh.
It was probably not until the fourth century BC that individuals, such as the Greek philosophers Plato (427-337 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) began to amass personal libraries. A saying is attributed to Plato, though perhaps erroneously, that “a house that has a library in it has a soul”.
We know little about it but the most famous of ancient libraries is the Hellenic one at Alexandria dedicated to the Muses. Established in the third century BC by Ptolemy I (c 367-283 BC), it was part of the Musaeum there. Greatly reduced in the time of Julius Caesar (48 BC) and Aurelian (270 AD) it was tragically destroyed by fire in 391 AD and probably entirely lost when the Muslims invaded Egypt in 642 AD.
Roman Emperors commonly founded libraries and in the early years AD libraries were founded not just in Rome but all over the Empire. When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD a library containing 1800 volumes was destroyed in the Villa of Pisones in Herculaneum.
Christians were early aware of the usefulness of libraries. Bishop Alexander (d 251) founded one in Jerusalem before 250 AD and Origen did the same around the same time in Caesarea. Clement (150-215) used one in Alexandria to quotes from nearly 350 authors in his works. Christian Libraries were one of the targets of Diocletian (244-311) when he persecuted Christians. The one in Caesarea survived. We know that Eusebius (263-339) used it to write his Ecclesiastical History and Jerome (347-429) after him.
While the papyrus roll ruled for hundreds of years, by the first century AD, the use of vellum and parchment was coming in, the former being eventually supplanted. The other technological change, famously pioneered by Christians, was the codex or book. By the fourth century AD it had overtaken scrolls in popularity. (There is a hilarious sketch on Youtube where a mediaeval monk gets help with the new technology, which he does not quite have the hang of.See here (Accessed March 2017).
In the mediaeval period libraries began to centre on monasteries and monks became famous for copying manuscripts. In the sixth century one of the first copyright disputes occurred in Ireland, when Columba (521-597) secretly copied a psalter, or perhaps a whole Bible, belonging to Finian (470-549). They took their dispute to High King Diarmait mac Cerbhiall (Dermot McKervil, d 565) who ruled against Columba, saying “to every cow belongs its calf and to every book its copy”. It was one of the reasons Columba left Ireland for Iona.
It was in this period that libraries began to chain their more valuable books in order to keep them from being purloined. One of the largest chained libraries, one that you can still visit today, is in Hereford Cathedral. Another, the first endowed for use outside an institution, is the Francis Trigge Chained Library in Grantham, Lincolshire, established 1598, a forerunner of later public libraries.
The invention of printing had its own impact, increasing the number of books and the ease with which they could be reproduced. Before 1602, The Bodleian Library was refounded in Oxford through Thomas Bodley (1545-1613). (Today one of six copyright libraries in the British Isles, ie one entitled to a free copy of every book published in the UK.) Other early libraries include Norwich City Library (1608) and Chetham's Library, Manchester, (founded through Sir Humphrey Chetham 1580-1653) which claims to be the oldest public library in the English-speaking world (1653). Other early town libraries are Ipswich (1612) Bristol (1613-15) and Leicester (1632). The British Library was established 1753. (Another copyright library.)
This is the transcript of part of a lecture given at the EFCC Conference 2017
