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3 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.

  • 11 - The early royal collections and the Royal Library to 1461

  • 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 255-266

  • Summary

    Edward IV is usually considered to be the founder of the English royal library as it is known today. This chapter focuses on the Lancastrian period, the reigns of Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI. The payments in 1401-2 for works at Eltham Palace, which was rebuilt for Henry IV and was one of his favourite residences, describe a new study, one of the rooms attached to the King's new chamber. The rediscovery at Eton in 1978 of a copy of Henry V's last will of 10 June 1421 and its codicils of 1422 has added valuable information about Henry's books and his intentions for them. There can be little doubt that by 1421, Henry possessed a considerable learned library. A large number of Latin books, over 140 at least, were kept in the Treasury during the minority of Henry VI, to 1440 or later.

  • 12 - The Royal Library from Edward IV to Henry VII

  • 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 267-273

  • Summary

    Despite constantly accumulating evidence of the ownership of books and of arrangements for their storage and care during earlier reigns, King Edward IV remains clearly identifiable as the founder of the old Royal Library. The bulk of Edward's manuscripts are large-scale copies of well-known and widely distributed library texts in French of original Latin texts. Several members of Edward IV's immediate family are known to have owned books. The next major contributor to the English Royal Library was the first Tudor sovereign, Henry VII. His own acquisitions seem to have been the result of gifts. A particularly grand gift was offered during the last year of the reign by the French ambassador, Claude de Seyssel, who presented a richly illuminated copy of a translation of a work by Xenophon from a Greek manuscript in the French royal library at Blois. The King's mother Lady Margaret Beaufort, owned at least one very grand contemporary Hours from a leading Parisian workshop.