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17 - School libraries (c. 1540 to 1640)

from Part Three - Tools of the trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
William Barker
Edited by
Elisabeth Leedham-Green  and
Teresa Webber
Elisabeth Leedham-Green
Affiliation:
Darwin College, Cambridge
Teresa Webber
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Summary

Juan Luis Vives, the great Spanish humanist who spent several years in England, wrote a set of schoolboy dialogues under the title Linguae latinae exercitatio (1538). In one of them, Spudaeus, the industrious student, gives a tour of his school to Tyro, the new boy. Spudaeus talks about the teachers, the hours of teaching, and then pauses for a quick look through the school library:

Spudaeus. Let us enter. I will show you the public library [publicam bibliothecam] of this school. It looks, according to the precept of great men, to the east.

Tyro. Wonderful! How many books, how many good authors, Greek and Latin orators, poets, historians, philosophers, theologians, and the busts of authors!

Spudaeus. And indeed, as far as could be done, delineated to the life and somuch themore valuable! All the book-cases [foruli] and book-shelves [plutei] are of oak or cypress and with their own little chains [catenulis]. The books themselves for the most part are bound in parchment [membranacei] and adorned with various colours.

Tyro. What is that first one with rustic face and nose turned-up?

Spudaeus. Read the inscription.

Tyro. It is Socrates and he says: ‘Why do I appear in this library when I have written nothing?’

Spudaeus. Those who follow him, Plato and Xenophon, answer: ‘Because thou hast said what others wrote.’ It would take long to go through the things here, one by one.

Tyro. Pray what are those books thrown on a great heap there?

Spudaeus. The Catholicon, Alexander, Hugutio, Papias, disputations in dialectics, and two books of sophistries in physics. These are the books which I called ‘worthy of condemnation’.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland , pp. 435 - 447
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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References

Carlisle, N., A concise description of the endowed grammar schools in England and Wales, 2 vols. (London, 1818).Google Scholar
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