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medieval library
Posted by Dr. Margaret Zeegers on 2008/07/24
Have just read the most terrific book on mediaeval libraries: Thompson, J. W. (1967). The medieval library. London: Hafner Publishing Company. Obviously a classic, one that any bibliophile would love, it is scholarly, detailed, and full of carefully constructed argument. Originally published in 1939, it ranges right across England and Europe, calling in some of the work of Thompson’s students for seven of the chapters, which expertise takes us into Scandinavian libraries in medieval Europe as well. To do this, of course, it had to go back in libraries of antiquity, and it does so with remarkable detail. It is astonishing just how the contents of libraries under consideration has been conjectured out of scraps of letters and parts of books written: reading Bede, for example, shows what books he must have access to, and probably from which libraries. Fascinating stuff, but one of the saddest things is in the last few lines of the book, which suggests that ‘the world War’ would have scattered some books which may not be recoverable. I mean not sad about the books being lost, but sad in that there is only ONE World War in history in 1939. Sad to think of what was about to happen to produce just another such event, and no hint of it as the book goes to press.
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