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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: AUD-BAI |
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AUNGERVYLE, RICHARD (12871345) , commonly known as RICHARD DE BURY, English bibliophile, writer and bishop, was born near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on the 24th of January 1287. He was the son of Sir Richard Aungervyle, who was descended from one of William the Conqueror's soldiers, settled in Leicestershire, where the family came into possession of the manor of Willoughby. His education was undertaken by his uncle, John de Willoughby, and after leaving the grammar school of his native place he was sent to Oxford, where he is said to have distinguished himself in philosophy and theology. John Pits' says, but apparently without authority, that he became a Benedictine
exile at Avignon. .On the first of these visits he made the acquaintance of a fellow bibliophile in Petrarch, who records his impression (Epist. Famil. lib. iii. Ep. I) of the Englishman as "not ignorant of literature and . . . from his youth up curious beyond belief of hidden things." He asked him for information about Thule, but Aungervyle, who promised information when he should once more be at home among his books, never sent any answer, in spite of repeated enquiries. The pope, John XXII., , made him his principal chaplain, and presented him with a rochet in earnest of the first vacant bishopric in England.During his absence from England he was made (1333) dean of Wells. In September of the same year the see of Durham fell vacant, and the king overruled the choice of the monks, who had elected and actually installed their sub-prior, Robert de Gray- stanes, in favour of Aungervyle. In February 1334 he was made lord treasurer, an appointment he exchanged later in the year for that of lord chancellor. This charge he resigned in the next year, and, after making arrangements for the protec- tion of his northern diocese from an expected inroad of the Scots, he proceeded in July 1336 to France to attempt a settle- ment of the claims in dispute between Edward and Philip. In the next year he served on three commissions for the defence of the northern counties. In June 1338 he was once more sent abroad to secure peace, but within a month of his appointment 1 De Ill. Angl. Script. (1619, p. 467). Edward himself landed in Flanders to procure allies for his approaching campaign. Aungervyle accompanied him to Coblenz to his meeting with the emperor Louis IV., and in the next year was sent to England to raise money. This seems to have been his last visit to the continent. In 1340 and 1342 he was again engaged in trying to negotiate peace with the Scots, but from this time his life appears to have passed quietly in the care of his diocese and in the accumulation of a library. He sent far and wide in search of manuscripts, rescuing many treasures from the charge of ignorant and neglectful monks. " No dearness of price," he says, " ought to hinder a man from the buying of books, if he has the money demanded for them, unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller or to await a more favourable opportunity of buying." It is to be supposed that Richard de Bury sometimes brought undue pressure to bear on the owners, for it is recorded that an abbot of St Albans bribed him to secure his influence for the house by four valuable books, and that de Bury, who procured certain coveted privileges for the monastery, bought from him thirty-two other books, for fifty pieces of silver, far less than their normal price. The record of his passion for books, his Philobiblon, was completed on his fifty-eighth birthday, the 24th of January 1345, and he died on the 14th of April (May, according to Adam Murimuth) of that year. He gives an account (chapter viii.) of the unwearied efforts made by himself and his agents to collect books. In the eighteenth chapter he records his intention of founding a hall
The chief
It has often been asserted that the Philobiblon itself was not written by Richard de Bury at all, but by Robert Holkot. This assertion is supported by the fact that in seven of the extant MSS. of Philobiblon it is ascribed to Holkot'in an introductory note, in these or slightly varying terms: Incipit prologus in philobiblon ricardi dunelmensis episcopi que libru composuit 1 Script. Ill. Maj. Brit. cent. v. No. 69. "- De Ill. Angl. Script. (1619, p. 468). AURANGZEB Robert us holcote de ordine predicatorum sub nomine dicti episcopi. The Paris MS. has simply Philobiblon olchoti anglici, and does not contain the usual concluding note of the date when the book was completed by Richard. As a great part of the charm of the book lies in the unconscious record of the collector's own character, the establishment of Holkot's authorship would materially alter its value. A notice of Richard de Bury by his contemporary Adam Murimuth (Continuatio Chronicarum, Rolls Series, 1889, p. 171) gives a less favourable account of him than does William de Chambre, asserting that he was only moderately learned, but desired to be regarded as a great scholar.The original Latin text was printed at Cologne (1473), Spires (1483), Paris (1500), Oxford (1598 and 1599), &c. It was first translated into English by J. B. Inglis in 1832, and into French by Hippolyte Cocheris in 1856. The best translation is that by Mr E. C. Thomas, accompanying the Latin text, with full biographical and bibliographical introductions (1888). Other editions are in the King's Classics (1902) and for the Grolier Club (New York
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