Middle English Literature

Primary documents and further reading
Boyd, B. (1973) Chaucer and the Medieval Book. San Marino, CA: Huntington
Library.
Brechka, F. T. (1983) “Richard de Bury: The Books He Cherished.” Libri 33:
302–15.
Camille, M. (1997) “The Book as Flesh and Fetish in Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon.”
In D. W. Frese and K. O. O’Keeffe (eds.) The Book and the Body. Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 34–77.
Krochalis, J. E. (1988) “The Books and Reading of Henry V and His Circle.”
Chaucer Review 23: 50–77.
Scattergood, V. J. and J. W. Sherborne (eds.) (1983) English Court Culture in the
Later Middle Ages. London: Geral and Duckworth.

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Taylor, A. (1999) “Authors, Scribes, Patrons and Books.” In J. Wogan-Browne,
N. Watson, A. Taylor, and R. Evans The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of
Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520. University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 353–65.
Viscount Dillon and W. H. St. John Hope (eds.) (1897) “Inventory of the Goods
and Chattels Belonging to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester.” Archaeological Journal
54: 275–308.
E. C. Thomas (ed. and trans.) (1888) Richard de Bury, Philobiblon. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, 161–240 (selections).
Language: Latin
Manuscript dates: 1375–1458
That the treasure of wisdom is chiefly contained in books.
. . . In books I find the dead as if they were alive, in books I foresee things
to come, in books warlike affairs are set forth, from books come forth the
laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not
to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would
be buried in oblivion unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of
books. Alexander, the conqueror of the earth; Julius, the invader of Rome and
of the world who, the first in war and arts, assumed universal empire under his
single rule; faithful Fabricius and stern Cato would now have been unknown
to fame if the aid of books had been wanting. Towers have been razed to
the ground, cities have been overthrown, triumphal arches have perished from
decay, nor can either pope or king find any means of more easily conferring
the privilege of perpetuity than by books. The book that he has made renders
its author this service in return, that so long as the book survives, its author
remains immortal and cannot die, as Ptolemy declares in the Prologue to his
Almagest: “He is not dead,” he says, “who has given life to science.”
Who, therefore, will limit by anything of another kind the price of the
infinite treasure of books, from which the scribe who is instructed bringeth
forth things new and old? Truth that triumphs over all things, which over-
comes the king, wine, and women, which it is reckoned holy to honour
before friendship, which is the way without turning and the life without
end, which holy Boethius considers to be threefold in thought, speech, and
writing,
1
seems to remain more usefully and to fructify to greater profit in
books. For the meaning of the voice perishes with the sound. Truth latent
in the mind is wisdom that is hid and treasure that is not seen, but truth
1
De interpretione.
Books
237

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238
Textualities
which shines forth in books desires to manifest itself to every impressionable
sense. It commends itself to the sight when it is read, to the hearing when
it is heard, and moreover in a manner to the touch when it suffers itself to
be transcribed, bound, corrected, and preserved. The undisclosed truth of
the mind, although it is the possession of the noble soul, yet because it lacks
a companion, is not certainly known to be delightful while neither sight
nor hearing takes account of it. Further, the truth of the voice is patent only
to the ear and eludes the sight, which reveals to us more of the qualities
of things and, linked with the subtlest of motions, begins and perishes as it
were in a breath. But the written truth of books, not transient but permanent,
plainly offers itself to be observed and, by means of the pervious spherules
of the eyes, passing through the vestibule of perception and the courts of
imagination, enters the chamber of intellect, taking its place in the couch of
memory, where it engenders the eternal truth of the mind . . .