19 - Sources for the History of Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages (c. 800–1100)

Summary

Imagining the contents of monastic libraries in the central Middle Ages (c. 800–1100) also encompasses a contemplation of their loss. The violence of plunderers, the rapaciousness of early modern book-hunters, and the destruction wrought by fire, moisture, and vermin have taken such a toll on these once formidable collections that only a small fraction of the manuscripts painstakingly produced by monastic scribes have survived the last millennium to hint at the lost horizons of a vibrant textual culture. It has been estimated, in fact, that only a small fraction (less than 10 percent) of the books produced in the early Middle Ages have survived. To take one egregious example of this destruction, in the tenth century the brethren of the abbey of Novalesa in Piedmont fled before the advance of Muslim raiders, leaving behind not only their home but also the six thousand books in their library.