Edward himself landed in Flanders to procure allies for his approaching campaign. Aungervyle accompanied him to Coblenz to his meeting with the emperor Louis IV., and in the next year was sent to England to raise money. This seems to have been his last visit to the continent. In 1340 and 1342 he was again engaged in trying to negotiate peace with the Scots, but from this time his life appears to have passed quietly in the care of his diocese and in the accumulation of a library.
He sent far and wide in search of manuscripts, rescuing 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.” It is to be supposed that Richard de Bury sometimes brought undue pressure to bear on the owners, for it is recorded that an abbot of St Albans bribed him to secure his influence for the house by four valuable books, and that de Bury, who procured certain coveted privileges for the monastery, bought from him thirty-two other books, for fifty pieces of silver, far less than their normal price. The record of his passion for books, his Philobiblon, was completed on his fifty-eighth birthday, the 24th of January 1345, and he died on the 14th of April (May, according to Adam Murimuth) of that year. He gives an account (chapter viii.) of the unwearied efforts made by himself and his agents to collect books. In the eighteenth chapter he records his intention of founding a hall at Oxford, and in connexion with it a library of which his books were to form the nucleus. He even details the rules to be observed for the lending and care of the books, and he had already taken the preliminary steps for the foundation. The bishop died, however, in great poverty, and it seems likely that his collection was dispersed immediately after 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 foundation by Henry VIII. they were divided between Duke Humphrey of Gloucester’s library, Balliol College and Dr George Owen. Only two of the volumes are known to be in existence; one is a copy of John of Salisbury’s works in the British Museum, and the other some theological treatises by Anselm and others in the Bodleian.
The 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), who describes him as an amiable and excellent man, charitable in his diocese, and the liberal patron of many learned men, among these being Thomas Bradwardine, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Fitzralph, afterwards archbishop of Armagh, the enemy of the mendicant orders, Walter Burley, who translated Aristotle, John Mauduit the astronomer, Robert Holkot and Richard de Kilvington. John Bale[1] and Pits[2] mention other works of his, Epistolae Familiares and Orationes ad Principes. The opening words of the Philobiblon and the Epistolae as given by Bale represent those of the Philobiblon and its prologue, so that he apparently made two books out of one treatise. It is possible that the Orationes may represent a letter book of Richard de Bury’s, entitled Liber Epistolaris quondam domini Ricardi de Bury, Episcopi Dunelmensis, now in the possession of Lord Harlech. This MS., the contents of which are fully catalogued in the Fourth Report (1874) of the Historical MSS. Commission (Appendix, pp. 379-397), contains numerous letters from various popes, from the king, a correspondence dealing with the affairs of the university of Oxford, another with the province of Gascony, beside some harangues and letters evidently kept as models to be used on various occasions.
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. of Philobiblon it is ascribed to Holkot in an introductory note, in these or slightly varying terms: Incipit prologus in philobiblon ricardi dunelmensis episcopi quē librū composuit Robertus holcote de ordine predicatorum sub nomine dicti episcopi. The Paris MS. has simply Philobiblon olchoti anglici, and does not contain the usual concluding note of the date when the book was completed by Richard. As a great part of the charm of the book lies in the unconscious record of the collector’s own character, the establishment of Holkot’s authorship would materially alter its value. A notice of Richard de Bury by his contemporary Adam Murimuth (Continuatio Chronicarum, Rolls Series, 1889, p. 171) gives a less favourable account of him than does William de Chambre, asserting that he was only moderately learned, but desired to be regarded as a great scholar.
The original Latin text was printed at Cologne (1473), Spires (1483), Paris (1500), Oxford (1598 and 1599), &c. It was first translated into English by J. B. Inglis in 1832, and into French by Hippolyte Cocheris in 1856. 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. W. West).
AUNT SALLY, the English name for a game popular at fairs, race-courses and summer resorts. It consists in throwing hard balls, of wood or leather-covered yarn, at puppets dressed to represent different characters, originally a grotesque female figure called “Aunt Sally,” with the object of smashing a clay pipe which is inserted either in the mouth or forehead of the puppet. In France the game is popular under the name jeu de massacre. In a variation of the pastime the mark consists of a living person’s head thrust through a hole in a sheet of canvas. In case of a hit a second shy is allowed, or a small prize is given.
AURA (from the Gr. for “breath” or “breeze”), a term used in old days to denote a supposed ethereal emanation from a volatile substance; applied later to the “electrical aura,” or air-current caused by electrical discharge; in epilepsy (q.v.) to one of its premonitory symptoms; and in spiritualism to a mysterious light associated with the presence of spirit-forms. See also Aureola.
AURANGABAD, or Aurungabad, a city of India, in the dominions of the nizam of Hyderabad, north-west division, situated 138 m. from Poona, 207 from Bombay via Poona, and 270 from Hyderabad on the river Kaum. It gives its name to a district. It was founded in 1610, under the name of Fatchnagar, by Malik Ambar, an Abyssinian, who had risen from the condition of a slave to great influence. Subsequently it became the capital of the Mogul conquests in the south of India. Aurangzeb, who erected here a mausoleum to his wife which has been compared to the Taj at Agra, made the city the seat of his government during his viceroyalty of the Deccan, and gave it the name of Aurangabad. It thus grew into the principal city of an extensive province of the same name, stretching westward to the sea, and comprehending nearly the whole of the territory now comprised within the northern division of the presidency of Bombay. Aurangabad long continued to be the capital of the succession of potentates bearing the modern title of nizam, after those chiefs became independent of Delhi. They abandoned it subsequently, and transferred their capital to Hyderabad, when the town at once began to decline. Aurangabad is a railway station on the Hyderabad-Godavari line, 435 m. from Bombay. In 1901 the population, with military cantonments, was 36,837, showing an increase of 8% in the decade. It has a cotton mill.
The district of Aurangabad has an area of 6172 sq. m. The population in 1901 was 721,407. It contains the famous caves of Ajanta, and also the battlefield of Assaye.
AURANGZEB (1618–1707), one of the greatest of the Mogul emperors of Hindustan, was the third son of Shah Jahan, and was born in November 1618. His original name, Mahommed, was changed by his father, with whom he was a favourite, into Aurangzeb, meaning ornament of the throne, and at a later time he assumed the additional titles of Mohi-eddin, reviver of religion, and Alam-gir, conqueror of the world. At a very early age, and throughout his whole life, he manifested profound religious feeling perhaps instilled into him in the course of his education under some of the strictest Mahommedan doctors.
