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These first mediæval libraries, of which several pictures are preserved, send to us the precedent of ample and aptly applied daylight admitted through long windows directly into each alcove. The exteriors remind us of our stack rooms. This arrangement of library rooms passed by imitation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries from the monasteries to the colleges, and still survives in the older libraries of Oxford and Cambridge,—for instance, Merton College, a long, narrow room with bookcases between the windows, at right angles with the walls, forming well-lighted alcoves.

All of the earliest library rooms were long and narrow. Clark has preserved the measurements of several thus:—

A.D. 1289. Zutphen (Holland): A solid building separated from others (in case of fire): 120 feet long, 36 feet broad: 19 uniform windows east and west, “that plenty of daylight might fall upon the desks and fill the whole length and breadth of the library.”

A.D. 1422. The Franciscan House in London, “Christ’s Hospital” (the first building in England built expressly for a library?) founded by Sir Richard Whittington; 129 feet long by 31 feet broad, with 28 desks and 28 double settles.