5 in 5 | The Chained Library

It's time for Sandie's 5 in 5 where we are asked to share 5 photos taken in 5 minute. 

Yesterday I visited Wells Cathedral for a tour of their chained library and am sharing some photos from that visit. It was a fascinating tour but I started to feel ill and almost blacked out at one point so had to leave before the end. I think I heard most of the information about the chained books as the guide had moved on to showing us specific books and describing their history, but I will go back to do the entire tour.

This was our first view of the chained books. Not every book is now chained because, as with most Cathedrals, they lost most of their collection during the Civil War in the mid 1600s. Wells is a secular cathedral rather than a monastic so they had survived the Reformation under Henry VIII unscathed, retaining their entire library.

The open book is The Actes and Monuments, popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which was first published in 1563.

And this photo shows the same book, closed with the chain attached. The chains were attached to the back cover of the book as this was the strongest part. 

Because of the way the chains were attached, the books are stored with their spines inwards. They were identified by their position on the shelf (which never changed because, once chained, they stayed in the same place) which was recorded on a list displayed on the end of the bookcase.

The chains hang down in front of books on the lower shelf. These are still the original chains.

I'm cheating a bit and giving you one extra photo. I can't remember the name of the book as this is the last photo I took before I started to black out, but can remember that the book originally belonged to Thomas Cranmer. The red inked annotations have been confirmed as being Cranmer's own handwriting. Apparently it isn't unusual to see handwriting and various comments in these older books, the point being made was that although they were expensive items at the time they weren't museum pieces and were used as we use books today. The thing that makes these annotations unusual is the use of red ink which was a rarity during Cranmer's time.

The first photo is also a possibility for inclusion in the SPSH as No 16 | something that could be from a favourite book/movie/song as it could be the restricted library in the Harry Potter books.