The Library of Pembroke Hall

Pembroke College (originally Pembroke Hall) was founded by Marie de Saint Pol (d. 1377), in 1346, in memory of her husband Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke. What she envisaged can be glimpsed in the two sets of statutes, one a revised version of the other, both surviving in copies post-dating the Countess's death, though the earlier was probably first drawn up in 1347. It was to be a ‘theology’ college. The thirty scholars prescribed by the statutes, of whom twenty-four ‘maiores’ were fellows and six ‘minores’ grammatici uel sophiste, were meant to study arts and then theology, except that some, having studied theology for a reasonable length of time, might spend two or three years studying canon law relevant to theology, and one might study medicine.

Some details of the College's arrangement for its books, valuable though unsystematic, are given in these Statutes. First of all, in chapter 3 we are told that the books were in the charge of a fellow elected to be ‘thesaurarius’ or ‘custos librorum’ (‘treasurer’ or ‘keeper of the books’). This appears to be the earliest reference in any Oxford or Cambridge College to someone who may be termed a ‘librarian’. His main duties are laid out in chapter 7: