Exeter Cathedral Library was a monastic hoard. It originated with Bishop Leofric, who got together over sixty books about sixteen years before the Conquest. His books were a curious collection: among copies of the classics and ecclesiastical works were books of night songs, summer and winter reading books, a precious book of blessings, and a “Mycel Englisc boc”--a large English book, on all sorts of things, wrought in verse. The last is the famous Exeter book, still preserved in the library. A small folio of 130 leaves of vellum, it is remarkable to the student of manuscripts for its bold, clear, and graceful calligraphy, and priceless to the student of literature as the only source of much of our small store of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Some other Leofrican books remain. In the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is an eleventh century copy of Bede’s history in Anglo-Saxon, which was given to Exeter by Leofric, although it is not mentioned in the list of his gifts in the Bodleian manuscript. The inscription in it reads: _Hunc librum dat leofricus episcopus ecclesie sancti petri apostoli in exonia ubi sedes episcopalis est ad utilitatem successorum suorum. Si quis illum abstulerit inde, subiaceat maledictioni. Fiat. Fiat. Fiat._[277] A manuscript of Bede on
the Apocalypse, now at Lambeth Palace, seems almost certainly to have come from St. Mary’s Church, Crediton, and it bears the inscription:--“A: in nomine domini. Amen. Leofric_us_ Pater.”[278] Another book given by Leofric, a missal dating from 969, is preserved in the Bodleian Library.[279]
Although the age of these books suggests that the collection has existed continuously since the eleventh century, after Leofric’s time no important reference to the library occurs until 1327, when an inventory of the books was drawn up. Then about 230 volumes (excluding service books) were in the possession of the Chapter.[280] In this same year a breviary and a missal were chained up in the choir for the use of the people.[281] Twelve months later John Grandisson arrived at Exeter to take charge of his diocese. A book-loving bishop, he was a benefactor to the library, maybe to a very praiseworthy extent; but a few words will record what is definitely known about this part of his work. In 1366 he gave two folio volumes, still extant. One contains Lessons from the Bible, and the homilies appointed to be read, and the other is the Legends of the Saints.[282] In his will he gave two other books, perhaps Pontificals of his own compilation, to his successors.[283] He himself owned an extensive library, which he divided principally between his chapter and the collegiate churches of Ottery, Crediton, and Boseham, and Exeter College, Oxford.[284] All St. Thomas Aquinas’ works he bequeathed to the Black Friars’ convent at Exeter. To Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, he gave a fine copy of St. Anselm’s letters, now by good fortune in the British Museum. A Hebrew Pentateuch once belonging to him is in the capitular library of Westminster: is it possible that the bishop was a Hebrew scholar?[285] Among the books of Windsor College was a volume, _De Legendis et Missis de B. V. Mariâ_, which had been given by him.