Today we are excited to present a guest post from Becky Loughead, formerly of Lambeth Palace Library and now Serials & E-Resources Librarian at the Society of Antiquaries.
One of the fascinating things about working with the historic collection of Lambeth Palace Library is not just the content of the manuscripts and printed books, but the books themselves as objects. What can examining this book tell us about its past? Who owned it, sold it, bought it, gave it as a gift? What does its binding tell us? Did it once have clasps or a chain attached to it? Does it have a shelfmark or title on the outside? What can this tell us about how it was kept or stored?
The chances are, if you’re an avid reader, you have some book shelves at home. You probably shelve your books in the way we’re using to seeing in libraries nowadays – rows of vertical books on a shelf with their spines facing outwards. If you have a lot of books, perhaps you also have some sort of finding aid, ordering the books by author’s surname, or by genre. We’re so accustomed to seeing books laid out in this fashion that it might seems strange – or even counterintuitive – to find out that this was not always the case. In fact, it’s a relatively recent development, and one with which our Medieval and early Renaissance ancestors wouldn’t have been familiar in the libraries and book collections of the day.
The books now in Lambeth Palace Library date back to the late 9th century or early 10th century. The oldest is the stunningly illuminated MacDurnan Gospels, believed to have been written in Armagh, Ireland, and later acquired by King Aethelstan of England (925-940) who donated it to Christ Church, Canterbury. This was a time when manuscripts were produced by monks in monasteries; an extremely labour-intensive operation involving many hours of copying text by hand. Books, therefore, were extremely valuable, so they were kept in locked chests or cupboards (‘armaria’) to keep them safe from wandering hands.
Some (but not all) books were chained to reading desks in a church or to lecterns in monastic cloisters. Those chained would be generally be large, heavily-used reference books, rather than the ones we might consider ‘valuable’ in a monetary sense today – these would still be kept securely locked away elsewhere. (Think about the not-for-loan books in the reference section of a modern library: you won’t find an expensive illuminated manuscript bible on the shelves, but you’d likely find a modern printed reference edition.) Chaining was an expensive practice, and some books may also have been available to be loaned under strict conditions, such as on payment of a deposit.
By the end of the medieval period, it was not only monastic institutions which had their own libraries. Universities and theological colleges likewise needed communal book collections for their students, also chaining their books to keep them from “disappearing” from the shelves. In earlier chained libraries, the books were typically chained to long, slanted reading lecterns, like pews in a church.
However, as more books were added to libraries, keeping them stored flat on slanted lecterns became more and more impractical. Some lecterns had shelves built in above or below, where books could be stacked horizontally – but this too posed logistical problems. Imagine trying to pull out your book from the bottom of a pile of heavy tomes! In the late 16th century, a continental technology was brought over to England (an early adopter was Merton College, Oxford) which would soon become the norm for libraries across the country. This was the stall system, where books could be stored upright in vertical rows in back-to-back shelving, lifted down and read on desks beneath.
The best surviving example of this can still be seen at Hereford Cathedral (the Chained Library was established in 1611). A chain was attached to the fore-edge of the book, typically on the corner of the front cover, and the end of the chain was attached to a steel rod running along the bottom of each shelf. Having the spines facing inwards meant the books could be lifted down off the shelf and opened, alleviating the need to turn them around. This meant the chain wouldn’t become tangled.
The library of Sion College (a college, guild of parochial clergy, and almshouse founded in 1630) was another such chained library in its early days. In 1996, when Sion College Library was closed, its manuscripts and pre-1850 books were transferred to Lambeth Palace Library. Many of its books still show evidence of chaining.
But did chaining actually work? Unfortunately – at least for Sion College – having chains didn’t make their library theft-proof. The Benefactors’ Book describes a substantial bequest by Thomas James, who died in 1711 and left some 3,000 volumes to the college. An assessment of the collection was carried out, and it was discovered that “several of those chain’d [books], have at sundry times been broke of ye chains, and stole away, notwithstanding ye strictest diligence & attendance of the Library Keeper, and all imaginable methods that he used to prevent it.”
Another entry of 1718 reads: “The foremention’d Books are now in ye Library. But some others have been stollen; & some of these are liable to be stollen; notwithstanding their chaines, & all possible care besides.”
By the late 1800s, the mass availability of cheaply printed books meant chained libraries were redundant, and the practice died out. Part two of this article will look what happened when the chains came off…
References and further reading:
Chain, chest, curse: Combating book theft in Medieval times, Erik Kwakkel, medievalbooks.nl, published July 10th, 2015.
Reading in restraint: The last chained libraries, Allison Meier. AtlasObscura.com, published May 8th, 2014.
Libraries used to chain their books to shelves, with the spines hidden away, Colin Schultz, Smithsonian.com, published September 6th, 2013.
The chained library: a study of four centuries in the evolution of the English library, Burnett Hillman Streeter. Macmillan, 1931.
The last of the great chained libraries, Jenny Weston. medievalfragments.wordpress.com, published May 10th 2013.
The English library before 1700: studies in its history, edited by Francis Wormald and C. E. Wright. Athlone Press, 1958.
The accidental Anglican
Anglican women on church and mission
Brokering the Good Friday Agreement: the untold story
Christ in all things: William Temple and his writings
Firmly I believe: an Oxford Movement reader
A heart strangely warmed: John and Charles Wesley and their writings
John Henry Newman and the path to sainthood,
Middle English devotional compilations: composi
A point of balance: the weight and measure of Anglicanism
The wills of our ancestors: a guide to probate records for family and local historians
Please note that since October 2019 Lambeth Palace Library is closed on Fridays. This is to give the staff time to prepare the collections for the move to the new library building. Opening hours are now 10am to 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 10am to 7.30 pm on Thursday. Additionally, 30th April 2020 will be the last day that the Lambeth Palace Library reading room will be open and also the last day that the Church of England Record Centre reading room will be open before the opening of the new building in early 2021. There might also be a delay in answering some types of enquiries.
ABTAPL Bulletin
The Church of England Newspaper
The name of Henry Bradshawe, and the family seat in Marple, Cheshire, in the seventeenth century, are familiar to bibliographers and to the book trade. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, John Bradshawe the regicide, being childless, bequeathed ‘all my Law Bookes,’ along with books ‘on divinity, history and other books’ to his nephew Henry, who maintained the family library until his death in 1698. This traditional account is an extreme simplification of the true story, which must start with the realization that books from the Bradshawe family library carry the ownership signatures of at least four Henry Bradshawes. Books from the library are scattered across the English-speaking world.
One of the most striking aspects of medieval manuscripts is their ravishing colours. Scientific advances mean that it is now possible, using non-invasive techniques, to identify the pigments that were used to produce the illuminations in question. This lecture will report the findings from recent investigations of illuminations in Lambeth Palace Library, explaining the processes that were used, summarising the pigments that were identified, and contextualising them within broader patterns of medieval and renaissance painting.
Fiona and Maria organising our conservation papers for the new studio
The vast majority of the papers from Archbishop Robert Runcie’s time in office (1980-1991) have now been catalogued and made publicly available. Significant progress is also being made with the appraisal and cataloguing of the papers of Archbishop George Carey. A range of other material has also been catalogued, such as small manuscript accessions relating to the Church Lads Brigade, Bishop Hensley Henson and the author Kathleen Bliss.
100 churches, 100 years,
Converting Britannia: evangelicals and British public life, 1770-1840
Eternal light: the sacred stained-glass windows of Louis Comfort Tiffany
Tim Harris and John Marshall (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2019). More information available 
A rite on the edge: baptism and christening in the Church of England
Thomas Fuller: discovering England’s religious past
Who is my neighbour?: the global and personal challenge
MS 683 f.2r
New books!
by Anne James (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016). More information available 
A few titles for which we have recently received new issues are:
This year in the conservation studio, conservator Alex Wade has been working on a funded project to clean and box 590 books in the early manuscript series. Here’s Alex to give an insight into what is involved in her work:
Enjoy reading one (or more!) of our recently acquired new books. Highlights include:
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). More information and reviews available 
An interesting item recently discovered is Edward Walker’s A circumstantial account of the preparations for the coronation of His Majesty King Charles the Second, and a minute detail of that splendid ceremony (B94.2/W15(1)). This is the first work in a bound volume of three published accounts of the coronation ceremonies of kings and queens. Printed in 1820 from Walker’s contemporary manuscript, it describes in great detail the preparations for the crowning of Charles II in May 1660, his journey from Dover to London, and the pomp and ceremony of his coronation at Westminster. The other two works in the volume describe respectively the coronation ceremonies of George III and Queen Charlotte in September 1761, and of George IV on 19 July 1821. As fascinating as these accounts are, it is the unique additions to the Sion College Library copies which make them especially interesting. Each of the three descriptions has been extra-illustrated with various memorabilia from the coronations, including numerous portraits of the monarchs, plans of the processions and contemporary newspaper clippings. Souvenir prints of the ceremonies, some coloured by hand, have been bound with the volume, as have several tickets issued to gain access to Westminster Abbey, the processions and even the coronation services themselves. Together these items form a one-of-a-kind record of these historic occasions.
Records of the Committee of the Alternative Service Book dated 1967-1988 are fully catalogued and available 
A Monument of Fame 