“N.  Prior Ecclesiae Christi Cantuariensis discretis viris et religiosis Domino Priori de Anglesheya et ejusdem loci sacro conventui salutem in Domino.  Cum sincera semper caritate noverit faternitas vestra nos constiuisse fratres Gauterum de Hatdfeld et Nicolaum de Grantebrigiense Ecclesiae nostrae monachos latores precencium procuratores nostros ad exigendum et recipiendum librum qui intitulatur.  Johannes Crisestomus de laude Apostoli.  In quo etiam volumine continentur Hystoria vetus Britonum quae Brutus appellatur et tractatus Roberti Episcopi Herfordiae de compoto.  Quae quondam accommodavimus Magistro Laurentio de Sancto Nicholao tunc Rectori ecclesiae de Tyrenton.  Qui post decessum praefati Magistri L. penes vos morabatur et actenus moratur.  In cujus rei testimonium has litteras patentes nostro sigillo signatas vobis transmittimus.”

The contents of the book which is the subject of this special embassy are of the character usually found to have formed the staple of monastic libraries, though the particular treatises included in it are not common.

In the Reverend Joseph Hunter’s valuable treatise upon English Monastic Libraries[2] occurs a notice of an indenture executed in A.D. 1343, whereby the priory of Henton lent no less than twenty books to another monastic establishment.  The deed is described, but not printed.  It will be seen that the instrument we have given above is nearly a century earlier; and the minute description of the book given in this document supplies some very curious facts illustrative of the mode of putting together ancient books, which have not hitherto been remarked, for the simple reasons that no opportunity for comparison like that presented by the present case has yet been noticed.  Among the Cottonian MSS. (Galba E. iv.) is a perfect specimen of an ancient Library Catalogue, which, although not altogether unnoticed, deserves a more careful examination than it has yet received.  It relates to the magnificent monastic foundation from which emanated the deed we have printed above, and is headed “Tituli librorum de libraria Ecclesiae Christi Cantuariensis et contenta in eisdem libris tempore H. Prioris.”  It is written in that bold hand which prevails so extensively in ecclesiastical MSS., with but little variation, from the middle of the fourteenth century, to the end of the fifteenth,—­a hand which is not always clearly written, and which therefore, in itself, does not materially assist in the distinction of a date.  Now having first assigned the credit of this noble {22} Catalogue—­in which are entered about 600 volumes, in nearly every one of which, besides the substantive (or initial?) work, are particularised numerous detached writings, varying from two or three to five-and-forty distinct “tracts”—­to Prior Henry Chichely (1413—­1443), the founder of All Souls’ and St. John’s Colleges, Oxford, and who, “built the library of the church, and furnished it with books,” we will see whether the book “qui intitulatur Johannes Crisestomus,” &c. was returned to Canterbury, and had a place in the list;—­and this, we think, is satisfactorily shown by the following entry:—­