‘A remarkable time capsule’: The enchanting history of Oxford University’s 750-year-old medieval library

“There’s no single definition of a library,” says Professor Teresa Webber. In 1276, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a decree that initiated the library at Merton College, which has operated continuously since then. To understand its long history, Merton's library existed before the Black Death and has continued past the Covid-19 pandemic. Its patrons included notable figures from the past, including famous mathematicians of the 14th century and the author of The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien. This month, the library celebrates its 750th birthday, a significant occasion. Merton's remarkable history was recognized as far back as the Victorian era, when it was often called the oldest library in England. In the 20th century, authors like Rudyard Kipling and John Buchan mentioned it in their historical fiction, enhancing its reputation as a very old library. As awareness of "the famous Merton Library" increased, claims about its age became exaggerated, with some enthusiastic Oxonians even labeling it the oldest library in the world. Today, historians are cautious about making such bold claims. “It’s a complicated question,” says Professor Teresa Webber from the University of Cambridge. “There’s no single definition of a library. And there were all sorts of stages in the development of what we think of today as a library.” The beginnings of Merton's library were quite different from modern libraries. There was no librarian or shelves for browsing. “Books were loaned and returned from the chest,” explains Merton’s librarian, Dr. Julia Walworth. “It was a formal process. Instead of saying, ‘Go find the books you need,’ the whole community would gather to unlock the chest.” Merton's collection started becoming more like a modern library shortly after the Archbishop's decree. Just a few years later, some books were kept outside the chest for the first time, chained to a table for easier access. According to Walworth, this change “anticipates the modern distinction between loan and reference library collections.” In the 1370s, Merton took another step towards becoming a modern library by building a dedicated room for its expanding collection. This is where they introduced an important advancement in book storage. “Horizontal shelves were installed for placing books upright,” Walworth notes. “Merton is the first recorded use in Britain of this method of storing books.” Interestingly, books were arranged with their spines facing inward, and their titles were written on the paper facing out. This was because chains were attached to the fore-edge of each book’s cover. “The fellows knew that chained books were less likely to be lost than those that were loaned out,” Walworth states. Today, only a few volumes in the library are still chained, and those are just for display. The rest of the books are now stored with their spines out, but the medieval room still serves as a captivating time capsule of the library's past. Near the entrance, visitors can see wha...