Besides the seven liberal arts, natural, metaphysical, and moral philosophy, or the three philosophies, were added in the thirteenth century. For these studies Aristotle and his commentators were the chief guides. The medical authorities of the middle ages have been catalogued for us by Chaucer in his description of a doctor of “phisyk”--
“Wel knew he the olde Esculapius And Deiscorides, and eek Rufus, Old Ypocras, Haly and Galien; Serapion, Razis and Avicen; Averrois, Damascien and Constantyn; Bernard, and Gatesden, and Gilbertyn.”
Of these names eight are included in Duke Humfrey’s gifts to Oxford in 1439 and 1443; and ten of them are represented in the catalogue of Peterhouse Library in 1418. Besides the writers mentioned by Chaucer, works on fevers by Isaac the Arab, the _Antidotarium_ of Nicholas, and the _Isagoge_ of Johannicius were in general use.
Next to theology--in which class the chief books were the same as in the claustral library, although liturgical books are more rarely found--the largest section of an academic collection was that of civil and canon law. It comprised the various digests, the works of Cinus of Pistoia and Azo; texts of decrees, decretals, _Liber Sextus Decretalium_, _Liber Clementinae_, with many commentaries, the _Constitutions_ of Ottobon and Otho, the book compiled by Henry of Susa, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, called _Summa Ostiensis_, the _Rosarium_ of Archdeacon Guido de Baysio, and Durand’s _Speculum Judiciale_. The last three books are frequently met with, and were highly esteemed by medieval jurists.[545]
In a previous chapter we have noted the somewhat fresher character of the library given to Oxford University by the Duke of Gloucester. We have two later records which may be referred to now to indicate the change wrought by the Renascence. A catalogue of William Grocyn’s books was drawn up soon after his death in 1519. This collection proves its owner to have been conservative in his tastes, as the medieval favourites are well represented. Of Greek books there are only Aristotle, Plutarch in a Latin translation, and a Greek and Latin Testament--a curiously small collection in view of his interest in Greek, and in view of the fact that many of the chief Greek authors had been printed before his death. It seems likely that his Greek books had been dispersed. But the change is apparent in the excellent series of Latin classics, which included Tacitus and Lucretius, and in the number of books by Italian writers, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ficino, Filelfo, Lorenzo della Valle, Æneas Sylvius, and Perotti.