Richard Aungerville (1281–1345), churchman, is known as Richard de Bury, from his birthplace, Bury St. Edmunds. He studied at Oxford, became a Benedictine monk at Durham, and having been tutor to Edward III., was made successively Dean of Wells and Bishop of Durham, besides acting for a time as high chancellor, as ambassador to France and Germany, and as commissioner for a truce with Scotland. He had a passion for collecting manuscripts and books; and his principal work, “Philobiblon,” intended to serve as a handbook to the library which he founded in connection with Durham College at Oxford (afterwards suppressed), describes the state of learning in England and France. See E. C. Thomas’s edition of the “Philobiblon” (1888).
The end of the Philobiblon of Master Richard de Aungervile, surnamed de Bury, late Bishop of Durham. This treatise was finished in our manor-house of Auckland on the 24th day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand three hundred and forty-four, the fifty-eighth year of our age being exactly completed and the eleventh year of our pontificate drawing to an end; to the glory of God. Amen.
He (Richard) saith of himselfe, “exstatico quodam librorum amore potenter se abreptum,” that he was mightily carried away, and even beside himself, with immoderate love of bookes and desire of reading. He had alwaies in his house many chaplains, all great schollers. His manner was, at dinner and supper time, to haue some good booke read unto him, whereof he would discourse with his chaplaines a great part of the day following, if business interrupted not his course. He was very bountiful unto the poore.
We will now, my dear Sir, begin “making out the catalogue” of victims to the BIBLIOMANIA! The first eminent character who appears to have been infected with this disease was Richard De Bury, one of the tutors of Edward III, and afterwards Bishop of Durham; a man, who has been uniformly praised for the variety of his erudition, and the intenseness of his ardor in book-collecting.
His erudition appears crude and uncritical, his style indifferent, and his thoughts superficial. Yet I am not aware that he had any equal in England during this century.
To solace his declining years, he wrote the “Philobiblon,” in praise of books; a treatise which may now be perused with great pleasure, as it shows that the author had a most intimate acquaintance with the classics, and not only a passion for books exceeding that of any modern collector, but a rich vein of native humour, which must have made him a most delightful companion.
Widely varying judgments have been passed upon the intellectual position of De Bury. It was long the fashion to speak of him with Sir Henry Savile as the learnedest man of his age. More recent critics have regarded him as not a scholar himself, but a patron and encourager of scholarship. The truth lies perhaps midway between these different verdicts…. We must bear in mind that De Bury was essentially a man of affairs, and that his official preoccupations left him comparatively scanty intervals of time to devote to literature. The judgment of Petrarch may be sufficient to satisfy us as to the extent of his knowledge and the width of his literary interests…. The special interest to us of Richard De Bury is that he is, if not the prototype, at least the most conspicuous example of a class of men who have been more numerous in modern than in ancient or mediæval times. No man has ever carried to a higher pitch of enthusiasm the passion for collecting books. On this point, at least, De Bury and Petrarch were truly kindred spirits, and their community of feeling finds expression in a striking similarity of language…. There seems no sufficient reason to suppose that De Bury wrote any other book than the “Philobiblon.”
