ordered that books suspected to contain Lollard doctrines
should be examined by the authorities of both Universities;
if approved by them and by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
they could be delivered to the stationers for copying, but
not before. And in 1480 keepers of chests were forbidden
to receive as a pledge any book written on paper.[1] Certain
regulations were also made with regard to the status of
stationers and others engaged in book-making in the town.
But there seems to have been no common library.

[1] Cooper, i. 128, 152, 224.


About the time when Gloucester made his first gift of
books to Oxford University a public library was possibly
"founded" by John Croucher, who gave a copy of Chaucer's
translation of Boethius' De Consolatione philosophiae. Richard
Holme, Warden of King's Hall, who died in 1424, gave
sixteen volumes. At this time the collection amounted to
seventy-six volumes. Robert Fitzhugh, Bishop of London,
now left two books, a Textus moralis philosophiae and
Codeton Super quatuor libros Sertentiarum (1435-6). By
1435 or 1440 it had increased to one hundred and
twenty-two books: theology accounting for sixty-nine,
natural and moral philosophy for seventeen, canon law
for twenty-three, medicine for five, grammar for six, and
logic and sophistry for one each. Besides Holme's books
there were in this library eight books given by John
Aylemer, six given by Thomas Paxton, ten by James
Matissale, five each by John Preston, John Water,