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1 results

  • 13 - The Royal Library under Henry VIII

  • from COLLECTIONS AND OWNERSHIP
  • Edited by Lotte Hellinga, J. B. Trapp
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    09 December 1999, pp 274-282

  • Summary

    At one time or another, Henry VIII owned more than fifty palaces, each presumably with its own collection of books. In the first decades of the sixteenth century the main collection was housed at Richmond. In 1534, William Tyldesley was designated Keeper of the King's library in the manor of Richmond and elsewhere. The most significant development in the history of the royal collection during the sixteenth century was a direct consequence of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. When Henry VIII and his advisers started gathering together materials relating to the royal divorce, it was logical for them to turn to the monastic libraries. By the early 1530s, texts relating to the powers of the pope and medieval councils, as well as some historical items, began to trickle in. In 1549, Bartholomew Traheron, the Royal Librarian, was specifically empowered to bring books from other royal libraries to Westminster.