(ca. 1281–1345)
Richard de Bury was an English bishop and statesman, who is remembered as a scholar and a lover of books who authored the Latin autobiographical text Philobiblon, describing his love of manuscripts and his passion for collecting them.
Richard was the son of Sir Richard Aungerville, and is occasionally known by that surname, but he came to be called de Bury because of his birthplace at Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.He was educated at Oxford, became a Benedictine, and was appointed tutor to the young prince ofWales, Edward of Windsor, son of King Edward II and Queen Isabella.He apparently supported Isabella’s actions to depose her husband and put her son on the throne as Edward III, and after that occurred in 1327, Richard was appointed to a number of important offices, including bishop of Durham in 1333, lord chancellor of England in 1334, and lord treasurer in 1336.He also served the king on diplomatic trips to the court of Pope John XXII at Avignon in 1330 and 1333, and on the earlier trip he seems to have met PETRARCH. He was also a leading figure, particularly in his later years, in England’s peace negotiations with Robert the Bruce of Scotland and with King Philip of France.Worn out by a prolonged illness, Richard died at his manor at Aukland and was buried in Durham Cathedral.
One of Richard’s most lasting contributions to English culture was his founding of Durham College at Oxford. To the library of Durham College, he bequeathed his large collection of books, and one of the purposes of his Philobiblon was to give some direction to those charged with managing the library at the college. He also addresses himself to contemporary clergy, and as bishop tries to instill in them the love of books and of learning that was his own passion. At the same time, he wished to explain why he himself had spent so much of his life and fortune in amassing what was, for his time, a huge collection of manuscripts. Richard wrote at least two other works— his Epistolae Familiarium and Orationes ad Principes—but is remembered primarily for the Philobiblon. That text was first printed in Cologne in 1473, and subsequently was published in Germany, in France, and in England in 1598. It was not translated into English until 1832. As for Richard’s book collection, it remained intact at the Durham College Library until Henry VIII dissolved the college in the 16th century, after which the library was broken up and scattered.
Bibliography
■ Bury, Richard de. The Philobiblon. Introduction by Archer Taylor. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948.
■ ———. Philobiblon. Text and translation by E. C. Thomas, edited and with a foreword by Michael Maclagan. Oxford: Published for the Shakespeare Head Press by B. Blackwell, 1960.