Postdoctoral Fellow 2003-04
Neslihan Senocak (History)
Bilkent University, Turkey
Analyzing Fourteenth-Century Franciscan Library Inventories
The educational program of the mendicant orders created a network
of schools, with friars, students, and lectors constantly changing
residence—a situation that presented a challenge to the Franciscan
Order’s administration in their management of the ever-increasing
stock of books. These libraries of the mendicants were quite different
from those of the monks in an earlier period. The monastic library
lent to members of the community and outsiders relatively rarely.
The libraries of the mendicants had to improve the existing mechanisms
for keeping track of circulating books and create new ones. In the
case of the Franciscan Order, these improvements included the compilation
and updating of library inventories. Such inventories were mandatory
for all convents with a library from the end of the thirteenth century.
These Franciscan inventories, as we have them, are not mere lists
of books. Once compiled, they were annotated and updated year after
year by successive librarians. They served also as circulation records.
Every time a book was borrowed or returned by a friar (or sold),
a marginal note next to the entry for the book in question would
record the transaction.
Several Franciscan library inventories from the fourteenth century
have classification marks and marginal notes bearing the names of
the friars who borrowed or returned books. They sometimes disclose
the reason for the loan, such as making provision for a friar going
to university. The study of these shelf marks and possession notes
can answer a series of questions relating to the life and mind of
the Franciscan Order in the period. Which books had the highest
circulation rate? Which friars checked out the most books? What
was the main occupation of these friars? How frequently were the
books lent out to friars for life? Equally interesting is the presence
of classification marks. The letters and numbers found next to each
entry in these inventories need to be analyzed and the classification
system described, as a prerequisite to our understanding of the
period’s organization of knowledge.
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