Linked to the past

Chained Library, Hereford Cathedral. Reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford and the Mappa Mundi Trustees

‘In the Middle Ages books were rare, and so was honesty. A book, it was said, was worth as much as a farm; unlike a farm, it was portable property that could easily be purloined. Books, therefore, were kept under lock and key.’

Canon B H Streeter, The Chained Library, 1931

Walk through Hereford’s imposing cathedral, its shop and cafeteria, then past the Mappa Mundi – a treasure beyond price that lay for years in a dusty crypt – and you reach the Chained Library. The most complete surviving example of its kind, the volumes are arranged with painstaking neatness on the six double and two single bookcases, just as they were in 1590, and for the 250 years that they remained in the Lady Chapel at the eastern end of the cathedral.

The charm of a bookshelf bristling with dangling chains is immediate. The volumes, so firmly manacled in place give rise to the irresistible idea that left to their own devices they might fly from the shelves and spread their contents far and wide.

But the key, of course, was security. The books are shelved with their spines at the back, and the foredge of each front cover has a brass staple. From this a metal chain is attached; at the other end, a ring runs freely along a bar under the bottom shelf. The books can in this way be opened and studied, but not removed by a reader at the sloping wooden desks, overwhelmed for a greedy moment by the beauty and value of the volume.

The idea of a library – a specific room for the storage and study of books – came about in the late medieval period. Before this they were housed wherever they were used. Hereford Cathedral’s library was described as ‘new’ in 1478. Through the Reformation, the invention of moveable type, and the English Civil War, the library grew and prospered as books were bought and given as gifts. In the 19^th century, the Lady Chapel was restored as a place of worship, and the anachronistic chained volumes were consigned to storage, along with their dismantled shelves.

But in 1855 the library was partly – and incorrectly – reassembled by a librarian called F T Havergal. From 1929 to 1931 the correct assembly was rediscovered by Canon B H Streeter, whose arrangement remained in place until 1996, when the new library building in which the books are displayed today, allowed the Chained Library to be restored completely to its former glory.

Travelling by train from London to Hereford in 2010, the passenger who leaves a mobile phone or iPod on the seat while he relieves himself is asking for the item to be purloined. Leave a book on the seat, and the chances that it will still be there after a trip to the buffet car are high.

Go into any mobile phone shop, and alarming echoes of the chained library are very much in evidence. Ever had the urge to toy with a desirable communication device? Naturally you may; but it will be firmly chained to the bowels of the shop.

Ought we, then, to fear that placing value on books is a thing of the past? The newspapers – themselves struggling for life in a world of instant online news – are full of cautionary mutterings about ‘apps’ and ‘e-readers’, sanitising literature and removing forever the delightful possibility of finding an old love letter, pressed flower or rasher of bacon between the pages of a dusty volume.

Books, however, have some distinct advantages over these wonders of the modern world. They don’t, as Nadine Gordimer pointed out at this year’s Hay on Wye festival, require batteries. Fling a book out of a fifth floor window and retrieve it from a puddle the next morning and it will be unpleasant, but decidedly readable. Not so the ‘e-reader’. And vitally, they instil in people a passion that makes them hang onto them. Over the years I have absent-mindedly abandoned scarves, hats and jewellery, each item probably worth more than even a brand new paperback. I have given books away, but I have never, as far as I can recall, lost one.

 Hereford’s Chained Library is a charming, historical curiosity. But it is also a living part of the cathedral’s history, and the passion that has been ploughed into ensuring its survival over the centuries is heartening, and very real.

For more information visit www.herefordcathedral.org. Further reading: Joan Williams, Mappa Mundi and the Chained Library, (Norfolk: Jarrold Publishing)

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