Page "Richard de Bury" Paragraph 9

This manuscript, the contents of which are fully catalogued in the Fourth Report ( 1874 ) of the Historical Manuscripts Commission ( Appendix, pp. 379 – 397 ), contains numerous letters from various popes, from the king, a correspondence dealing with the affairs of the university of Oxford, another with the province of Gascony, beside some harangues and letters evidently meant as models to be used on various occasions.

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 manuscripts of Philobiblon it is ascribed to Holkote in an introductory page, in these or slightly varying terms: Incipit prologus in re philobiblon ricardi dunelmensis episcopi que libri composuit ag.

The Paris manuscript 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 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.