History

Depiction a a bishop from a fourteenth-century illumination showing him being deprived of his mitre and crozier by two knights (MS P.IX.2 f.127)

At Hereford Cathedral there were probably never more than about 140 books in the Library before the era of printing. It is also of course a major reason for the practice of chaining as a security measure, since books were rare and comparatively valuable and more difficult to replace.

Creation of the library
Until the 15th century the 'Library' consisted merely of a collection of books, which were probably kept in a variety of places: some chained to lecterns in the cathedral, others kept in cupboards of chests. The first cathedral statutes of the mid-13th century provide for the care of the books, which was the responsibility of the chancellor. The first library room, where the books could be both kept and read, was built over the west walk of the south-west cloister in the 15th century; it was complete but still new in 1478. None of the furniture from this room survives, but we can assume that, as in other similar libraries of the period, the books were chained to long lecterns on which they lay on sloping desks, with benches for readers.

Growth of the library
Queen Elizabeth I's Commission of 1582 provided among other things for the Library, with the first evidence of funding and of cataloguing, and the annual appointment of one of the residentiary canons as Master of the Library.In 1590 the whole Library was moved into the Lady chapel, enacting the Reformation principle of converting such a chapel to non-liturgical use and leaving only one altar in the church.

Here the Library was transformed through the inspiration of Thomas Thornton (c.1541–1629), a canon of Hereford from 1583, and Master of the Library 1595–97 and 1610–17. He was also a canon of Christ Church Oxford and vice-chancellor of Oxford University in 1583 and 1599. At Oxford he had encountered Sir Thomas Bodley's innovative design at Duke Humfrey's Library, and copied this in the library furniture he installed both at Christ Church and Hereford. This is substantially the Chained Library which survives at Hereford today, the chief innovation being that books were for the first time placed upright on the shelves, to save space: a feature necessitated by the rapid growth of collections following the spread of printing. Chaining in this position required that the books should be placed with their spines inwards, so that the chain, which now had to be attached to the foredge of one cover, would not become tangled when the book was taken from its shelf and placed on the desk for reading. The rest of the chaining mechanism, involving metal bars to which the other end of the chains were attached, and metal hasps with locks and keys to keep the bars in place, all still survive in the Chained Library.

Structure
This period of enthusiasm for the Library saw a number of other developments, in particular the institution of the Donors' Book, a great increase in the number of acquisitions, by both purchase and gift, and an extensive programme of binding. Comparing the Donors’ Book with the 18th-century catalogues, it seems that the Library survived the Civil War without major losses. After the Restoration there was a modest revival of the Library, although it was not the first priority for the Dean and Chapter at this time when the whole system of cathedral administration had to be revived. A major addition came in 1678 when the Jesuit College at Cwm was dissolved, and its books transferred to the Cathedral Library, where they form an unusual and fascinating collection of recusant works.