The Library
1774 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.
401–500
2 works
c. 450–460
Latin
Confessio
Patrick · 5th century
A defence written in awkward, unschooled Latin by a former slave who returned to convert the people who had kidnapped him, answering British churchmen who questioned his fitness.
c. 450–460
Latin
Patrick · 5th century
An open excommunication of a British warlord whose men had killed and enslaved newly baptised Irish Christians, demanding their return.
501–600
5 works
c. 525–550
Latin
Finnian · 6th century
A tariff of penances matching each sin with its remedy, and prescribing that contraries be cured by contraries — the greedy to give, the angry to be patient.
c. 570–600; attribution traditional
Latin
Attributed to Columba · 521–597
An abecedarian hymn running from the Trinity before creation through the fall of the angels to the last judgement, in dense and deliberately difficult Latin.
c. 590–600
Latin
Columbanus · c. 543–615
A severe Irish rule for the monasteries he founded across Gaul and Italy, paired with a penitential assigning a specific penance to each named sin.
c. 597
Old Irish
Amra Choluim Chille
Dallán Forgaill
A lament for Columba composed at his death in language so compressed and archaic that medieval Irish scribes had to gloss almost every word. He studied the books of Solomon, it says, and Ireland is a harp without its string.
c. 595–613
Latin
Columbanus · c. 543–615
Letters to three popes and to his own monks, defending the Irish Easter calculation and addressing the bishop of Rome with startling directness.
601–700
10 works
c. 632–633
Latin
Cummian · 7th century
An Irish abbot explains why, after a year shut in with the computistical texts, he has abandoned the Irish Easter reckoning for the Roman one.
c. 639–643
Latin
Jonas of Bobbio · 7th century
The life of the Irish founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio, written a generation later by a monk of his own house, including his quarrel with the Frankish court.
c. 650
Latin
Cummean
A tariff of penances arranged under the eight principal vices taken from Cassian, prescribing a measured remedy for each sin by kind, duration, and the offender's rank — with contraries applied to contraries as a physician treats disease.
c. 650–680
Latin
Cogitosus · 7th century
The life of the abbess of Kildare, full of miracles of provision — butter multiplied, beer for churches — and a description of her double monastery of men and women.
c. 680–691
Latin
Anonymous
A manuscript of hymns, canticles, and collects used at an Irish monastery, including a eucharistic hymn and a hymn on the fire of Pentecost.
c. 670–700
Latin
Tírechán · 7th century
An itinerary of the churches Patrick was said to have founded across the north and west of Ireland, church by church and district by district.
c. 680–700
Latin
Muirchú moccu Machtheni · 7th century
Patrick recast as a wonder-worker confronting druids at the court of the high king at Tara, in a contest of fire and darkness.
c. 697–700
Latin
Adomnán of Iona · c. 624–704
The founder of Iona in three books of prophecies, miracles, and angelic visions, written by his ninth successor from the community's own memories.
697
Latin
Cáin Adomnáin
Adomnán of Iona · c. 624–704
A law promulgated at a synod of Irish and Pictish kings and clergy, imposing heavy penalties for killing or wounding women, children, and clerics in war.
c. 690–725
Latin
Collectio Canonum Hibernensis
Anonymous
Canons arranged by topic and drawn as readily from the Old Testament and Irish synods as from Roman councils, with each source named.
801–900
1 work
c. 855
Latin
De Rectoribus Christianis
Sedulius Scottus · 9th century
Advice to a king in alternating prose and verse: choose counsellors well, tax lightly, protect churches, and remember that a ruler's private vices become public disasters.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1073–1082
Latin
Marianus Scotus · 1028–1082
A world chronicle by an Irish monk enclosed as a recluse in Germany, arguing that the received date of the incarnation was twenty-two years out.
19 of 1774 works