The Library
1277 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
1201–1300
98 works
c. 1240–1259
Latin
Chronica Majora
Matthew Paris · c. 1200–1259
A vividly opinionated chronicle of Europe from a St Albans scriptorium, illustrated by its author's own hand, hostile to papal taxation and to almost everyone in authority.
c. 1240–1260
Middle Dutch
Hadewijch of Brabant · 13th century
Stanzaic poems in the forms of troubadour song, and letters of spiritual direction to younger women, on the cost of loving God without consolation.
approved 1253
Latin
Clare of Assisi · 1194–1253
A rule for her own community insisting on the privilege of poverty — the right to own nothing at all — approved two days before she died.
c. 1250–1255
Latin
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
A full theological system in the form of a commentary on Peter Lombard, argued in the Augustinian tradition against the rising tide of Aristotle.
c. 1252–1256
Latin
De Ente et Essentia
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
An early short work distinguishing what a thing is from the fact that it is, and arguing that only in God are essence and existence the same.
c. 1257
Latin
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
A compact summary of the whole of theology in seven parts, written for students who found the full commentaries impossible.
1256–1259
Latin
Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Twenty-nine questions from public disputations on truth, knowledge, conscience, providence, and the human mind's grasp of God.
1259
Latin
Itinerarium Mentis in Deum
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
Six stages of ascent — through the world, in the world, through the mind, in the mind, and beyond — written on the mountain where Francis received the stigmata.
c. 1235–1264
Latin
Speculum Maius
Vincent of Beauvais · c. 1190–c. 1264
Around eighty books in three parts — nature, doctrine, history — assembled by a team at a royal abbey and running to some four million words.
c. 1250–1261
Latin
Stephen of Bourbon · c. 1180–c. 1261
Illustrative stories for preachers gathered by an inquisitor, including his account of peasants venerating a greyhound as a saint and healer of children.
c. 1260
Latin
Lignum Vitae
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
Forty-eight meditations on the life, passion, and glory of Christ arranged as fruits on a tree, designed to be memorised and pictured.
c. 1258–1262
Latin
De Animalibus
Albert the Great · c. 1200–1280
Twenty-six books on animals, mixing Aristotle with first-hand observation — of falcons, of whales caught off the North Sea, of ants he had watched himself.
c. 1263–1277
Latin
Humbert of Romans · c. 1200–1277
How to preach to every conceivable audience — sailors, students, lepers, the recently bereaved, women of ill repute, people at a funeral — with material for each.
1260–1263
Latin
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
A life of Francis written by the order's minister general to settle its internal quarrels, presenting him as a figure of contemplative ascent rather than of dispute.
c. 1264–1265
Greek
Nikephoros Blemmydes · c. 1197–c. 1269
A scholar and monk defends his own career — including the day he barred an emperor's mistress from his chapel — and explains why he twice refused the patriarchate.
1264
Latin
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Hymns written for the new feast of Corpus Christi — Pange Lingua, Adoro Te Devote, Lauda Sion — compressing the theology of the eucharist into singable verse.
c. 1259–1265
Latin
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Four books arguing the faith without appeal to scriptural authority for the first three, on the grounds that with Muslims and Jews one cannot begin from a shared text.
c. 1241–1265
Armenian
Kirakos Gandzaketsi · c. 1200–1271
Armenian history to the author's own day, including his capture by the Mongols and the two years he spent as their secretary before escaping.
c. 1260–1275
Latin
Legenda Aurea
Jacobus de Voragine · c. 1230–1298
Saints' lives for the whole year with etymologies of each name, told with relish and no anxiety about plausibility — dragons, resurrections, and improbable escapes included.
1267
Latin
Opus Maius
Roger Bacon · c. 1219–c. 1292
A programme for reforming learning sent to the pope: study languages, correct the biblical text, take mathematics seriously, and test claims by experience rather than authority.
1262–1268
Latin
Catena Aurea
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
A continuous commentary on the four gospels assembled entirely from patristic quotations, chained together so the fathers appear to comment in sequence.
c. 1262–1267
Greek
George Akropolites · 1217–1282
The Byzantine exile empire at Nicaea and the recovery of Constantinople in 1261, written by a statesman who was tortured by one emperor and served another.
c. 1265–1267; unfinished
Latin
De Regno
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Written for a king of Cyprus: monarchy is the best form of government and tyranny the worst, and a people may act against a ruler who has broken the terms of his office.
c. 1260–1286
Latin
William of Moerbeke · c. 1215–c. 1286
Aristotle rendered from Greek into Latin word for word, along with Proclus, Archimedes, and Greek commentators, at the request of his friend Aquinas.
c. 1267–1272
Syriac
Bar Hebraeus · 1226–1286
Twelve foundations covering the whole of theology and philosophy — knowledge, nature, the incarnation, the resurrection, the end — written by a physician, historian, and bishop.
c. 1250–1282
Middle Low German
Das fließende Licht der Gottheit
Mechthild of Magdeburg · c. 1207–c. 1282
Visions, dialogues, and love songs between the soul and God, moving between erotic longing, fierce criticism of corrupt clergy, and a tour of purgatory.
c. 1271, within the Summa
Latin
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Law defined as an ordinance of reason for the common good, in four kinds — eternal, natural, human, and divine — with unjust laws described as a kind of violence.
c. 1271
Latin
Siger of Brabant · c. 1240–c. 1284
An argument that on Aristotelian principles the world must be eternal, whatever faith holds — the philosopher reasoning as a philosopher and stopping there.
c. 1271–1272
Latin
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
A close reading of Aristotle's ethics on its own terms, using the new translations made from Greek rather than through Arabic.
1273; unfinished
Latin
Collationes in Hexaemeron
Bonaventure · 1221–1274
Lectures to the Paris friars warning that philosophy pursued for its own sake leads to error, broken off when their author was made a cardinal.
c. 1271–1273
Armenian
Grigor Aknertsi · 13th century
A short account of the Mongols from their appearance to the 1270s, written in a monastery in Cilicia from reports and observation.
c. 1265–1273; unfinished
Latin
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
The whole of theology organised around faith, hope, and love, written for a secretary who wanted something he could carry — and abandoned partway through hope.
c. 1274–1276
Catalan
Ramon Llull · c. 1232–c. 1316
A pagan meets a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim in a forest; each explains his faith courteously, and the book ends without saying which one the gentile chose.
1274
Latin
The Second Council of Lyon
A statement accepting the filioque and papal primacy, submitted by a Byzantine emperor's envoys to secure Western military protection.
1265–1274
Latin
Summa Theologiae
Thomas Aquinas · 1225–1274
Thousands of articles, each posing a question, stating the strongest objections first, answering, then replying to each objection in turn — covering God, creation, human action, virtue, law, and Christ. Left unfinished when Aquinas stopped writing.
c. 1272–1275
Latin
Geoffrey of Beaulieu · d. c. 1274
The king's confessor for twenty years describes his penances, his care for lepers and the poor, and his habit of hearing legal petitions himself under an oak.
c. 1270–1275
Old Church Slavonic
Serapion of Vladimir · d. 1275
Five sermons preached after the Mongol devastation, reading the catastrophe as judgement and denouncing the burning of accused witches as pagan cruelty.
c. 1271–1276
Latin
Speculum Iudiciale
William Durandus · c. 1230–1296
A complete manual of judicial procedure — summons, evidence, witnesses, appeals — for church courts, which by then handled marriage, wills, and much else.
7 March 1277
Latin
Stephen Tempier · d. 1279
A bishop of Paris condemns two hundred and nineteen propositions taught in the arts faculty, including several that limited what God could have done.
1278
Latin
Pugio Fidei
Ramon Martí · c. 1220–c. 1285
A polemic against Judaism written by a friar who read Hebrew and Aramaic fluently, quoting the Talmud and Midrash at length to argue Christian claims from Jewish sources.
41–80 of 98 matching · 1277 in the Library