GREY FRIARS, LONDON: THE OLD HALL AND WHITTINGTON’S LIBRARY]
Chichester his glossed Psalter, at Lewes the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, at Winchelsea the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, at Canterbury Isaiah glossed, at London the Epistles of St. Paul glossed, and at Winchester the twelve Prophets glossed; as well as some volumes to the Black Friars--at Arundel the _Book of Sentences_, at Canterbury Hosea glossed, at London the Books of Job, the Acts, the Apocalypse, with the canonical epistles, and at Winchester the _Summa_ of William of Auxerre.[121] Such friendliness for the Mendicants was far from common among the secular clergy. Besides the southern places mentioned in this bequest, friaries in the east, at Norwich and Ipswich, and in the west, at Hereford and Bristol, had goodly libraries.
The friary collections in London seem to have been important, especially that given to the Grey Friars in 1225,[122] just when they had settled near Newgate. The Austin Friars may have owned a library before 1364, when two of their number left the London house, taking with them books and other goods.[123] Early in the fifteenth century a library was built and a large addition was made to the books of this house by Prior Lowe, a friar afterwards occupying the sees of St. Asaph and of Rochester.[124] At this time the friars of London were specially fortunate. The White Friars enjoyed a good library, to which Thomas Walden, a learned brother of the order, presented many foreign manuscripts of some age and rarity.[125] The Grey Friars’ library was founded or refounded by Dick Whittington (1421).[126] The room “was in length one hundred twentie nine foote, and in breadth thirtie one: all seeled with Wainscot, having twentie eight desks, and eight double setles of Wainscot. Which in the next yeare following was altogither finished in building, and within three yeares after, furnished with Bookes, to the charges of” over £556, “whereof Richard Whittington bare foure hundred pound, the rest was borne by Doctor Thomas Winchelsey, a Frier there.”[127] On this occasion one hundred marks were paid for transcribing the works of Nicholas de Lyra, a Grey Friar highly esteemed for his knowledge of Hebrew, and “the greatest exponent of the literal sense of Scripture whom the medieval world can show.”[128]