The Lincoln Cathedral Library is a library of Lincoln Cathedral in Lincolnshire, England. It is housed in a building designed by Christopher Wren.
The Lincoln Cathedral Library is a library of Lincoln Cathedral in Lincolnshire, England. It is housed in a building designed by Christopher Wren.
The collection includes 120 “incunabula”, that is books printed before 1500. As well as a reference collection of c.10,000 items, there are 260 mediaeval manuscripts, including works of theology, canon law, devotional books, music and literature, and the following: [1]
The devotional books include an illuminated Book of Hours which is small enough to fit into a pocket.
In the mediaeval era the manuscripts were kept in a chest or cupboard, and scholars came from great distances to consult them. [3]
By 1422 a new, chained library had been built over the east walk of the Cloister, adjoining the Chapter House. Three of the mediaeval reading desks and one bench survive in the Mediaeval Library, which was built to accommodate around a hundred manuscripts.
Michael Honywood was made Dean of Lincoln at the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, with the huge task of repairing the fabric of the cathedral, ravaged by the Parliamentarian soldiers during the Civil War. General repairs took him until 1674, when he was finally able to begin his cherished project of providing a new library building with £780 of his own money on the site of the ruined north cloister.
Honywood commissioned the design from Sir Christopher Wren, who also supervised throughout, as is indicated by a page which survives in the Cathedral collections, setting out the prices for painting and gilding, and written and signed by Wren. The external Tuscan Doric colonnade of the exterior is serenely classical yet the inside is full of Baroque features: advancing and receding planes and cornice, which give interest to a long, narrow room; and the trompe-l'œil marbling. Through removal of the added paint layers some of the original marbling has been revealed; where it has not been revealed (due to expense and conservation concerns) a reproduction marbling has been painted over the layers.
The terms laid out in the contracts for the building specified that the building should be completed in two years.
Honywood bequeathed his 5,000 books (including one of only 250 manuscript versions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales ) to the Dean and Chapter - these are still in the building built for them.
Lincoln is one of only two surviving Wren libraries; the other is the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, designed by Wren in 1676.
Displayed under the staircase leading to the Library is a Roman mosaic discovered in the cloister in 1793. [4]
The Wren Library is currently closed to the public for extensive repairs to the ceiling.
Lincoln Cathedral, also called Lincoln Minster, and formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln, is a Church of England cathedral in Lincoln, England. It is the seat of the bishop of Lincoln and is the mother church of the diocese of Lincoln. The cathedral is governed by its dean and chapter, and is a grade I listed building.
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Thornton Abbey was a medieval abbey located close to the small North Lincolnshire village of Thornton Curtis, near Ulceby, and directly south of Hull on the other side of the Humber estuary. Its ruins are a Grade I listed building, including notably England's largest and most impressive surviving monastic gatehouse.
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The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a 4346-line Middle English alliterative poem, retelling the latter part of the legend of King Arthur. Dating from about 1400, it is preserved in a single copy in the 15th-century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript, now in Lincoln Cathedral Library.
Museo Nazionale di San Marco is an art museum housed in the monumental section of the medieval Dominican convent of San Marco dedicated to St Mark, situated on the present-day Piazza San Marco, in Florence, a region of Tuscany, Italy.
English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed arches, rib vaults, buttresses, and extensive use of stained glass. Combined, these features allowed the creation of buildings of unprecedented height and grandeur, filled with light from large stained glass windows. Important examples include Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. The Gothic style endured in England much longer than in Continental Europe.
Robert de Chesney was a medieval English Bishop of Lincoln. He was the brother of an important royal official, William de Chesney, and the uncle of Gilbert Foliot, successively Bishop of Hereford and Bishop of London. Educated at Oxford or Paris, Chesney was Archdeacon of Leicester before his election as bishop in December 1148.
The medieval cathedrals of England, which date from between approximately 1040 and 1540, are a group of twenty-six buildings that constitute a major aspect of the country's artistic heritage and are among the most significant material symbols of Christianity. Though diverse in style, they are united by a common function. As cathedrals, each of these buildings serves as central church for an administrative region and houses the throne of a bishop. Each cathedral also serves as a regional centre and a focus of regional pride and affection.
Robert Thornton was a Yorkshire landowner, a member of the landed gentry. His efforts as an amateur scribe and manuscript compiler resulted in the preservation of many valuable works of Middle English literature, and have given him an important place in its history.
The Lincoln Thornton Manuscript is a medieval manuscript compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English scribe and landowner Robert Thornton, MS 91 in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. The manuscript is notable for containing single versions of important poems such as the Alliterative Morte Arthure and Sir Perceval of Galles, and gives evidence of the variegated literary culture of fifteenth-century England. The manuscript contains three main sections: the first one contains mainly narrative poems ; the second contains mainly religious poems and includes texts by Richard Rolle, giving evidence of works by that author which are now lost; and the third section contains a medical treatise, the Liber de diversis medicinis.
Hereford Cathedral Library is a working theological lending and reference library located in Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, England; it also holds books and manuscripts of major importance to the history of the county of Herefordshire. Hereford Cathedral Library is also well known for its chained books as it is the only library of this type to survive with all of the chains, rods and locks still intact.
Michael Honywood D.D. was an English churchman, Dean of Lincoln from 1660. Honywood was a bibliophile and he founded and funded the Lincoln Cathedral Library.
Peter Blannin Gibbons Binnall (1907–1980) was a minister of the Church of England and antiquary. He was a Canon of Lincoln and his final position was Sub-Dean of Lincoln. He wrote books on English churches and cathedrals, which often included his own photography. Binnall was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries for his contributions to scholarship on ecclesiastical architecture.
Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library Rodney M. Thomson; Boydell & Brewer (1989)
53°14′05″N0°32′09″W / 53.2348°N 0.5358°W
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