Humphrey was not merely a patron of poets and men of letters, of Lydgate and William of Worcester and Abbot Whethamstede of St.Albans, as his brother and other princes of the day had been, but his patronage seems to have sprung from a genuine interest in learning itself.

He was a zealous collector of books and was able to bequeath to the University of Oxford a library of a hundred and thirty volumes.

A gift of books indeed was a passport to his favour, and before the title of each volume he possessed the Duke wrote words which expressed his love of them, "moun bien mondain," "my worldly goods"! Lydgate tells us how "notwithstanding his state and dignyte his corage never doth appalle to studie in books of antiquitie." His studies drew him to the revival of classic learning which was becoming a passion across the Alps.

One wandering scholar from Forli, who took the pompous name of Titus Livius and who wrote at his request the biography of Henry the Fifth, Humphrey made his court poet and orator.

The Duke probably aided Poggio Bracciolini in his search for classical manuscripts when he visited England in 1420.