For the next forty-two years, individual colleges had libraries, but the university itself had none. Thanks to this and other disposals, bibliophiles made wonderful finds in unlikely locations. Sir Robert Cotton was at his tailor’s shop when he saw by chance an ancient document that the tailor was about to cut up and use as a tape measure. On examination, the sheepskin parchment turned out to be an original Magna Carta—one of as few as four that King John had signed in 1215—still with “all its appendages of seals and signatures” attached.
