Clerks must not permit the 'smutty scullion reeking from his stewpots'to touch the 'lily leaves of books'
Morton Cohen reflects on Richard de Bury , the first great book collector in the English-speaking world, who rose to high place both at court and in the church and who, on his deathbed, wrote a treatise about his love of books that would have earned him immortality had he done nothing else. (R)
