One of the largest and more useful of the collegiate libraries at Oxford belongs to the Queen's College, situated on the north side of the High and just west of its intersection with Queen's Lane. It was founded in 1340 by Robert de Eglesfield for the support of about a dozen scholars and seventy-one poor students. His statutes provided that they should be under the protection of the queen consort and her successors, with visitation reserved for the archbishop of York.

Almost nothing of the original library remains, and it must be assumed that the early collection was appropriated and destroyed by John Bale and others like him before 1556. It was not until the end of the seventeenth century and the benefactions of Bishop Thomas Barlow and of Sir Joseph Williamson that the library began to grow once more. From a collection of 1,200 printed books at the Restoration, the library has grown to more than 130,000 volumes today. In 1938 considerable alteration in the administration of the library was made. Use of the library was opened to undergraduates, who had been restricted to a separate reading room before that date, and a large number of bibliographical and travel books were sold to make way for modern accessions. This policy of weeding the stock has continued to the present, insuring a dependable utilitarian collection for the use of the College.

The College itself was completely rebuilt in the early eighteenth century. The new library forming the west range of the north quadrangle was erected between 1692 and 1695. Originally the ground level of this range was open as at Christ Church, but today it is enclosed and forms the lower library. The second floor constitutes one of the most glorious library rooms in all Oxford. The long room, approximately 90 by 30 feet, is lit by ten windows on each side and one on the north end. To the west they look out across the roofs to the spires of All Souls, and to the east they look into the north quadrangle. The room is entered through an elaborate neo-classical doorway in the center of the south wall. The walls are lined with oak paneling to about ten feet. Above is a flat ceiling elaborately decorated with plaster and gilt. Between the windows and perpendicular to the walls (in the late medieval manner) stand blond wooden bookcases, each finished with an entablature. There is a pair of cupboards at the top on each side for smaller books. The larger books (folios and quartos) are placed on the open shelves. Until 1780 they were chained. In that year 5,717 volumes were freed from bondage.

The bookplate is engraved and measures 60 x 50 mm. It appears to date from the revival of library building at the end of the seventeenth century. On a banderole at the top is the College motto: Reginae erunt nutrices tuae, and at the bottom the name of the founder. At the center are the founder’s arms: argent, three eagles displayed, two and one, gules. The plate is found on the pastedown and also on the title verso of a copy of the Catalogus Bibliothecae Publicae Lugduno-Batavae, published, not surprisingly, at Utrecht in 1674 and now in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The title verso also bears a circular stamp of the library. The binding is full calf, with clear evidence of the clip that was once affixed to the foredge of the upper board for the chain. As with almost all books that were chained, an abbreviated title is written on the foredge. On the lower cover there are deep horizontal scratches—evidence of the chain of the neighboring volume.

John P. Chalmers

Librarian

Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

University of Texas at Austin