In anim Dia!

We are but a mere stone’s throw here in Thame from England’s seat of learning, Oxford.  A city comprising ancient buildings, steeped in history, predominantly turned inside out with their backs to the streets, snooker table lawns on the inside, quadrangle entry permitted only to those who have business there or a brain and a wallet big enough read there. I have been in and out of the city, many times, but never treated myself to a tour of the Bodleian Library. So, it came to pass that last week I went from being told by the Youngest that I had packed the lunchbox the wrong way (I have them ruined, no two ways about it) to myself akin to my 8 year old outside a sweetshop, nose pressed to the glass, as I wondered at Old and Middle English manuscripts some dating back to 800 AD. There is a fantastic exhibition on the history and origin of the Kings James Bible housed right beside the Bodleian http://www.manifoldgreatness.org/index.php/before/early-bibles/ . What a treat and if only I had done this before my exam on Renaissance literature. Go figure. Happy out, like a sucky calve, all by my own self,  I gazed at first editions of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, John Milton’s Paradise Lost amongst other works all alluding in some shape or form to the bible. Even more interesting were the whisperings of other visitors, well up on historical and literary matters, to which I secretly earwigged. Fascinating. In next door to the Bodleian then, through the Divinity School, a large vaulted room wherein students hundreds of years ago were examined. No need for Polomints, Lucozade and a fist full of Bics in those times. The prof or examiner would sit on a large wooden throne at the top of the room (now in the Sheldonian Theatre). Opponents stood opposite each other and by the power of oration, in Latin of course, philosophy, astronomy, maths and logic were chewed up and spat out. Now it is used as a large dressing room, for those to robe-up before parading through to the Sheldonian to receive their degrees and doctorates.

Up the stairs to one of the Bodleian reading rooms the notice boards are darted with announcements of activities during Trinity and Encaenia, the terminology preserved like the buildings.  The welcoming smell of old leather bound, gold guilded volumes beckons us through the doors. Here lie books and manuscripts hundreds of years old, not for the normal five eighth to handle but for the librarian to accept the reader’s request, assign the reader to a desk and bring the manuscript to you. The University of Oxford’s motto is ‘Dominus illuminatio mea’, the Lord is my light, and truly, some light will have to be shed on how and where the millions of volumes will continue to be housed. They have already gone underground but I reckon they will have to look up to the light, in ‘cloud’. Oxford is just one of 14 locations around the UK, including a salt mine in Cheshire, where its books are domicile. Each year it receives one free copy of everything printed in the UK. Ditto with Trinity College Dublin. That’s a lora, lora books! Last count in the region of 10 to 11 million allegedly and rising. Mind boggling, but my word, for a book lover, such a treat.