TRAVEL & INSPIRE BLOG:
Chained to the table, with the eyes of Oliver Cromwell peering over my shoulder, I spent two months finishing a manuscript in the ancient and mysterious Bodleian Library in Oxford. Steps away from me was a door leading into a medieval world of timber rafters studded with ancient crests, carved by craftsmen in 1487, of dusty tomes upon wooden shelves, and benches that had supported the rump of many a great writer and researcher, Tolkien and CS Lewis being the more modern sitters. But why were there frozen toes in the courtyard? And why do so many scholars, to this very day, limp?
“I herby undertake" …”not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame”. Here I was partaking of Thomas Bodley’s oath, the swearing of which is required of anyone permitted to work within the hallowed walls of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Opened in 1602 with a collection of 2,000 books assembled by Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe and its oath has been sworn by members for over 400 years.
But hell! If I was a library-goer during that first 300 years I’d be wishing that line wasn't in it, the kindling of "fire or flame" part. Why? Because before central heating, any determined scholar (who, you know, had to work during winter too) had the opportunity to freeze to death within the stone walls of this structure. No fire, remember. And in those days, no fire meant NO HEATING. And if you're from warmer climes, remember that Oxford can drop to MINUS 16 degrees celsius (that's 2 degrees for you Fahrenheits) and within stone walls such days become, well, not conducive to human survival. And you wonder why the keenest of scholars died young.
Take the book out! I hear you say; borrow the book and read it by the gloaming fireside of the local pub. Yes, well, you see in the beginning ... let's say prior to the last century ... books were rare and highly revered things (to me they still are, but hey, that's a personal fetish), and books could NOT be removed from the premises. To this day, most volumes within the Bod cannot be borrowed. How did they police this? In earlier times they took this challenge very seriously and books were chained to the tables ... yes, CHAINED. There are images of scholars in the Bodleian Library in the 1600s working at high, sloping desks as they refer to a precious book that's chained to the desk's central ridge.
Are you getting the picture here? Desperate scholars (are there any other?) slaving away for long hours, keen to finish their work, and get their ideas written down and out to the "publick" before that scholar seated at the chained-book-table next to them beats them to it. And what did this involve? Long, long hours in the library working with that annoying chained book ... yes, even in the middle of winter. So you see, you've been told a lie. Early deaths amongst the educated classes of Oxford were not due to the plague, poor hygiene or poor nutrition, they were due to being seated in the Bod. Frozen, cyanosed toes and fingers would drop off, snap off in actuality, as these scholars exited the ancient library doorways out into the quadrangle. I've heard they required extra sweepers with their birch brooms to attend to all the frozen digits needing to be swept clear of the passage every early morn. Yet each day those determined, toeless scholars would limp back to the Bodleian to begin another day of fireless and flameless research.
But I get ahead of myself. You see I wanted to talk about the library built BEFORE this one. Yes, there's an even older library in amongst the Bodleian assemblage. It's called the Duke Humfrey's Library, and along with the Divinity Hall positioned beneath it, it makes up one side of the famed Bodleian quadrangle. Who was this Humfrey fellow? He was a younger son of Henry IV of England and a great lover of books and literature. When he died in 1447 he donated his collection of books to the University of Oxford which at the time had 20 books, so the addition of Humfrey's 281 was seen as generous and they built a library in Humfrey's name. But things didn't stay bookishly happy. The new king of 1550 (a brattish adolescent) was clearly NOT a book lover, he had the collection dispersed, and so ended the initial budding of the library which was not renewed and reinvigorated until Thomas Bodley's arrival at the end of that century.
But the magic of this place! As I crossed the stone stairwell from my 16th-century working position (with the leery eyes of Oliver Cromwell breathing down my neck, but that's another story), I faced an ancient, arched door that led into a timber room of high rafters embedded with hundreds of colourful arms of the university; this medieval hall stacked high with shelves holding ancient tomes and filled with stalls and benches that had held the likes of ... the likes of ... well, the thousands of scholars who'd used the library since it was built in 1487 (I do know CS Lewis sat here because I read it in the brilliant McGrath biography). So, just think, that captivating wardrobe scene in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe could have been thought up with Lewis's rump settled against one of Humfrey's timber benches (his derriere can't have been too chilled as I'm guessing they had a heating system by the 1940s).
But it was the musty, carved-timber, medieval magic of the place that got to me! Harry Potter eat your heart out! (Well he doesn't have to, some of it was filmed here.) But of course I'm more for the mature medieval-ness of Game of Thrones, nothing to do with Oxford of course but hey, walking up those stone steps, placing my fingertips upon medieval doors and sniffling up 500-year-old dust (that likely contains rare and deadly microbes), I can only dream. It was a wonder-filled two months, the Bodleian was an inspirational and enchanting place to work ... in which to finish writing a book ... and if it hadn't been for Cromwell getting to me, I never would have left.
And as for that beautiful domed building in the first photo, a picturesque part of the library called the Radcliffe Camera, yes that name got to me too. Nothing to do with shooting pics, the word "camera" is Latin for room, and Radcliffe was a wealthy physician who funded the structure. I love the way this domed building reflects that nearby smaller dome of the Sheldonian Theatre (for a while I'd get those two mixed up). And that Bridge of Sighs just by the library in the last photo? A little taste of Venice in the cool of Oxford, it only adds to the magic of this place.
But hey, get here for yourself, this is only the tip of the magical-spired iceberg of Oxford, there are a thousand other secret gardens, ancient stone buildings, magnificent churches and dirty, little streets (and I'm not talking about rubbish here but their lewd ancient names) in this incredible city ... but all that for another blog. And yes, yes, I will expose Cromwell for his behaviour when I have fully recovered. In the meantime, be nice to all those scholars, to all those uptight academics, and be understanding of their martyrdom history when they put on the inherited limp.
© All TEXT and PHOTOS Copyright CHERYL HARDACRE 2019
For more writing tips and book/art/France & Italy bits go to: