AUNGERVYLE, RICHARD commonly known as RICHARD DE BURY, English bibliophile, writer and bishop, was born near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, Jan. 24 1287, and educated at Oxford. He was made tutor to Prince Edward of Windsor (afterwards Edward III.), and was mixed up with the sordid intrigues which preceded the deposition of Edward II. On the accession of Edward III. his services were rewarded by rapid promotion. He was cofferer to the King, treasurer of the wardrobe and afterwards clerk of the privy seal. The King, moreover, repeatedly recommended him to the Pope, and twice sent him, in 133o and 1333, as ambassador to the papal court, then in exile at Avignon. On the first of these visits he made the acquaintance of a fellow bibliophile in Petrarch, who records his impression (Epist. Famil., lib. iii., Ep. I) of the Englishman as "not ignorant of literature and . . . from his youth up curious beyond belief of hidden things." During his absence from England he was made (1333) dean of Wells. In September of the same year the see of Durham fell vacant, and the King over ruled the choice of the monks, who had actually installed their sub-prior, Robert de Graystanes, in favour of Aungervyle. In Feb. 1334 he was made lord treasurer, an appointment he ex changed later in the year for that of lord chancellor. This charge he resigned in the next year, but he was repeatedly employed on the King's service abroad and in the defence of northern England.
Aungervyle sent far and wide in search of manuscripts, rescu ing many treasures from the charge of ignorant and neglectful monks. "No dearness of price," he says, "ought to hinder a man from the buying of books, if he has the money demanded for them, unless it be to withstand the malice of the seller or to await a more favourable opportunity of buying." The record of his passion for books, his Philobiblon, was completed on his 58th birthday, and he died April 14 (May, according to Adam Muri muth) of that year, in great poverty. It seems likely that his collection was dispersed immediately of ter his death. But the traditional account is that the books were sent to the Durham Benedictines at Oxford, and that on the dissolution of the foun dation by Henry VIII. they were divided among the libraries of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, Balliol College, and Dr. George Owen. Only two of the volumes are known to be in existence.
chief authority for the bishop's life is William de Chambre, printed in Wharton's Anglia Sacra (1691), and in Historiae Dunelmensis scriptores tres, Surtees Soc. (1839). It has often been asserted that the Philobiblon itself was not written by Richard de Bury at all, but by Robert Holkot. This assertion is supported by the fact that in seven of the extant mss. it is ascribed to Holkot in an introductory note. The original Latin text was printed at Cologne (1473), Spires (1483) , Paris 0500), Oxford (1S98 and , etc. The best translation is that by Mr. E. C. Thomas, accompanying the Latin text, with full biographical and bibliographical introductions (1888) . Other editions are in the King's Classics (1902) and for the Grolier Club (New York, 1889, ed. A. F. West).