Around the year 1600, carpenters cut off the sloping tops of fourteen of the lecterns and replaced them with single shelves, retaining the decorative ends, which became the sides of the lower part of what were now bookshelves. At a later date, extra shelves were inserted in the mid-level. At a still later date, sometime before 1650, the final stage in the ascension was completed: the open bottoms of the old lecterns were filled with more shelves.
