Libraries and fire. Many years ago, when I received a library card for Oxford’s Bodleian Library I was required to read out loud from a card a curious and ancient declaration that, among other things, required me to affirm that I would not “bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame.” The declaration seemed quaint and superfluous at the time, but in retrospect I realized that it likely had its genesis in some hugely costly and unfortunate event in an era when books were very rare.
Given what happened with Julius Caesar, did you have to promise that you were not a Roman Legionnaire, too?
The Cotton or Cottonian library was the library compiled by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571–1631), an antiquarian and bibliophile. Cotton's library included his collection of books, manuscripts, coins and medallions in his personal estate. The materials comprised the books and artifacts retrieved after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. Consequently, his collection is the single greatest known resource of literature in Old English and Middle English. Several well known works such as Beowulf, the poem Pearl, and the Lindisfarne Gospels exist today because of Cotton's library.
The leading scholars of the era, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, and James Ussher, came to use Cotton's works. Richard James acted as his librarian. Upon the foundation of the Bodleian Library, he made a substantial contribution.
The Cotton library is now part of the British Library.
The Cotton Library suffered a very serious fire in 1731. A number of irreplacebale manuscripts were lost -- we nearly lost Beowulf!!