The previous chapter lead us into the medieval library and we now linger there a while longer. As medieval book repositories grew in size, so too grew security concerns. Making sure your books remained yours was an important part of the medieval reading experience, especially near the end of the period, when libraries opened up their doors to readers from outside the community. Some religious houses allowed people from the outside world to consult books (sometimes they could even borrow them), while the late-medieval city saw the coming of semipublic libraries, which readers could enter if they were granted permission. Given the high cost of manuscripts and the practical problems that arose with replacing a lost copy (it may take half a year to produce one), librarians were really careful about protecting their precious manuscripts. Looking at their options, some strategies are very pragmatic, while others appear wholly ineffective to our modern eyes.

Chains

The least subtle but most effective way to keep your books safe was to chain them to a bookcase. This is effectively what happened in the “chained library.” Walking around in such a place is an utterly surreal experience: it looks more like a prison than a library. The chains produce a “cling-cling” sound when you walk too close to them, a sound that must have been familiar to medieval users of these libraries (Figure 79). While there are only a modest number still in existence today, many of the medieval books we consult in modern libraries were once part of such a collection of “imprisoned” books. Objects that were once chained can be identified with ease, either from the attached chain (not very common) or from the rusty imprint its clamp left in the wood of the bookbinding.

The primary reason for chaining a book was, obviously, safekeeping. Just like phones and tablets on display in stores are fixed to their display tables with straps, these precious medieval books were bolted to the library that owned them. This feature of stabilitas loci (alluding to the Benedictine ideal of staying in one location as a monk) turns the chains, or their rusty traces at the upper or lower end of manuscripts’ flyleaves (Figure 75 at p. 140, lower edge), into something interesting beyond the strictly book-historical sense.