Notes on the cathedral libraries of England

"Notes on the cathedral libraries of England" by Beriah Botfield is a bibliographical and antiquarian survey written in the mid-19th century. It examines the origins, condition, access, and contents of England’s cathedral chapter libraries, highlighting notable manuscripts, printed books, and past losses. The work excludes parochial and secular institutions while treating Lambeth and Windsor as ecclesiastical exceptions. It is aimed at antiquaries, bibliographers, and clergy seeking a practical guide to these collections. The opening of the volume presents a preface setting out the need to document cathedral libraries—often overlooked in favor of architecture—along with the author’s method of inspecting catalogues and volumes, his acknowledgments of inevitable omissions, and his decision to exclude parochial and secular libraries. After a contents list and brief corrigenda, the first case study recounts the Bristol library’s near-destruction in the 1831 riots, the recovery of about eleven hundred damaged volumes, and hopes for renewal, followed by a reflective passage on the cathedral’s architecture and a lament in verse. The longest early section surveys Canterbury: the library’s room and planned improvements; its catalogues and borrowing rules; historical losses; and, above all, rich holdings—Saxon and Kentish manuscripts (notably Somner’s transcriptions and papers), materials from St. Augustine’s Abbey, Isaac Casaubon’s diary, and extensive biblical, patristic, ecclesiastical-historical, classical, topographical, and bibliographical collections.

Notes on the cathedral libraries of England, by Beriah Botfield. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #78788.