De Bury has left us an account of his methods of collecting which throws some light upon the trade in books in his time. “Although from our youth upwards we had always delighted in holding social commune with learned men and lovers of books, yet when we prospered in the world, ... we obtained ampler facilities for visiting everywhere as we would, and of hunting as it were certain most choice preserves, libraries private as well as public, and of the regular as well as of the secular clergy.... There was afforded to us, in consideration of the royal favour, easy access for the purpose of freely searching the retreats of books. In fact, the fame of our love of them had been soon winged abroad everywhere, and we were reported to burn with such desire for books, and especially old ones, that it was more easy for any man to gain our favour by means of books than of money. Wherefore, since supported by the goodness of the aforesaid prince of worthy memory, we were able to requite a man well or ill ... there flowed in, instead of presents and guerdons, and instead of gifts and jewels, soiled tracts and battered codices, gladsome alike to our eye and heart. Then the aumbries of the most famous monasteries were thrown open, cases were unlocked and caskets were undone, and volumes that had slumbered through long ages in their tombs wake up and are astonished, and those that had lain hidden in dark places are bathed in the ray of unwonted light. These long lifeless books, once most dainty, but now become corrupt and loathesome, covered with litters of mice and pierced with the gnawings of the worms, and who were once clothed in purple and fine linen, now lying in sackcloth and ashes, given up to oblivion, seemed to have become habitations of the moth.... Thus the sacred vessels of learning came into our control and stewardship; some by gift, others by purchase, and some lent to us for a season.”[451]
If his words are true, monastic and other libraries must have been seriously despoiled to build up his own collection. He was bribed by St. Albans Abbey, and nobody need disbelieve him when he says he got many presents from other houses, for the merit of being open-handed was rewarded with more good mediation and favours than the giver’s cause deserved; indeed, De Bury himself seems to have made judicious use of bribes for his own advancement.[452] Usually gifts were in jewels or plate, but books were given to men known to love them; as when Whethamstede presented Humfrey of Gloucester and the Duke of Bedford with books they coveted.
