It would be singular if this progress in library making were not reflected in the habits of a considerable section of the people. The court and its entourage set the fashion. Henry VI was a lover of books and a collector. His uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, although much occupied with public affairs and mercilessly warring with France, got together a rich library, particularly noteworthy for finely illuminated books: the famous library of the Louvre was a part of his French booty. Of his brother Gloucester we have already spoken. Archbishop Kempe owned a library of theology, canon and civil law, and other books, worth more than £260. He also gave money towards the cost of Gloucester’s library at Oxford; as did also Cardinal Beaufort and the Duchess of Gloucester. Sir John Fastolf possessed a small number of books at Caistor (_c._ 1450). The collection was of some distinction, as the inventory will show: “In the Stewe hous; of Frenche books, the Bible, the Cronycles of France, the Cronicles of Titus Levius, a booke of Jullius Cesar, lez Propretez dez Choses [by Barth Glanville], Petrus de Crescentiis, liber Almagesti, liber Geomancie cum iiij aliis Astronomie, liber de Roy Artour, Romaunce la Rose, Cronicles d’Angleterre, Veges de larte Chevalerie, Instituts of Justien Emperer, Brute in ryme, liber Etiques, liber de Sentence Joseph, Problemate Aristotelis, Vice and Vertues, liber de Cronykes de Grant Bretagne in ryme, Meditacions Saynt Bernard.”[466] Perhaps this little hoard may be taken as a fair example of a wealthy gentleman’s library in the fifteenth century. A collection perhaps accurately representing the average prelatical library was that of Richard Browne, running to more than thirty books of the common medieval character (1452). A canon residentiary of York named William Duffield had a library of forty volumes, as fine as Archbishop Bowet’s collection, and valued at a higher figure (1452). Ralph Dreff, of Broadgates Hall, possessed no fewer than twenty-three volumes, a larger collection than Oxford students usually had. A vicar of Cookfield owned twenty-four books, some of them priced cheaply (1451).
Some collections were pathetically small. A disreputable student of Oxford, John Brette, had among his “bits of things” a book and a pamphlet. Thomas Cooper, scholar of Brasenose Hall, enjoyed the use of six volumes. Another scholar, John Lassehowe, had a like number; and another, Simon Berynton, had fifteen books, worth sixpence (_c._ 1448)! A rector also had six, one of them Greek; a chaplain was equipped with six medical works; and James Hedyan, bachelor of canon and civil law, could employ his leisure in reading one of his little store of eight volumes. One Elizabeth Sywardby owned eight books, three being costly (1468).