1 - From Vindolanda to Domesday: the book in Britain from the Romans to the Normans

Summary

Covering more than a millennium of the history of the book in Britain, the present volume by itself deals with a longer period than do all the rest of this series put together. Extending from Roman Britain to the first generation of the Anglo-Norman realm, it embraces both of the two ‘memorable’ dates in English history (55 bc and ad 1066); and stretching in bibliographical terms from the Vindolanda Tablets through the Lindisfarne Gospels to the Domesday Book, it includes some of the most famous and fascinating artefacts of written culture ever produced in these isles.

The first millennium is also notable as the period during which Britain was repeatedly invaded – by Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans – with a consequent ebb, flow and cross-fertilisation of cultural life. A grand narrative of bibliographical history may be constructed around these momentous events. In outline, one sees the arrival of books and Latin literacy with the Romans; their decline in lowland Britain (in contrast to their presumed survival in other regions) following the departure of the legions and the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons; and the reintroduction of (now specifically Christian) literary culture to these areas as an integral part of the missions from Rome and Ireland, leading in turn to masterpieces of book production and decoration from the end of the seventh century into the eighth. Then, during the period of the Viking invasions, there was the demise of book-making and even of clerical literacy.