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.
600–501 BC
1 work
c. 650–600 BC
Hebrew
Anonymous
Two tiny rolled sheets of silver worn as amulets, found in a burial chamber above the Valley of Hinnom in 1979 and unrolled over three years. Both carry a version of the priestly blessing: may the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace.
101–200
1 work
c. 100–150; survives in fragments
Greek
Papyrus Egerton 2
Anonymous
Four scraps of a codex bought in Egypt in 1934. A controversy with the lawyers, an attempted stoning, a leper healed, the tribute question, and a broken miracle at the Jordan where something is sown on the water and fruit appears.
401–500
1 work
c. 410–435
Armenian
Mesrop Mashtots, Sahak, and their pupils
Made within a generation of the invention of the Armenian alphabet, and made for that purpose. Begun from Syriac, then revised against Greek manuscripts brought back from Constantinople and Alexandria after Ephesus.
501–600
1 work
c. 560–562
Latin
Institutiones
Cassiodorus · c. 485–c. 585
A reading programme for the monks of his own foundation: first the books of scripture and their commentators, then the seven liberal arts, with instructions on copying accurately.
601–700
2 works
616
Syriac
Thomas of Harkel
A Syriac New Testament revised against Greek manuscripts so literally that the Syriac breaks under it — particles, word order, and even Greek constructions with no Syriac equivalent are reproduced, with variant readings noted in the margin.
c. 700
Latin
Anonymous
A small, badly spelled service book made for a travelling priest in Gaul, holding a mass for every occasion plus a sermon collection, a penitential, blessings for crops and for a sick horse, and a charm against the evil eye.
701–800
2 works
c. 784–796
Latin
Epistola de Litteris Colendis
Charlemagne, drafted by Alcuin · Charlemagne, c. 748 – 814
A circular to the monasteries observing that letters arriving from them are devout in sentiment and illiterate in grammar, and reasoning that if men cannot get the words right they will get the meaning wrong. Every house is to teach letters properly.
c. 796–801
Latin
Alcuin of York and the scriptorium of Tours · c. 735 – 804
A corrected Vulgate produced at Tours at Charlemagne's request, standardising a text that had drifted through four centuries of copying, and written in the new Caroline minuscule with word spacing and punctuation.
801–900
1 work
c. 830–862
Latin
Lupus of Ferrières · c. 805 – c. 862
A hundred and thirty letters, an unusual number of them about books: borrowing a Cicero, complaining that a lent Bede has not come back, asking for a Livy to be copied and warning the copyist about the exemplar's errors, and worrying about carrying a manuscript through country full of Vikings.
901–1000
2 works
c. 910–913
Greek
Arethas of Caesarea · c. 860 – c. 939
A reworking of Andrew of Caesarea with more history in it — the seven churches given their actual circumstances, the plagues read against the Arab and Bulgar wars the writer had lived through.
c. 983–997
Latin
Gerbert of Aurillac · c. 946–1003
The correspondence of the age's best mathematician — hunting manuscripts, arranging the copying of Cicero, explaining the abacus, and steering imperial politics.
1101–1200
2 works
c. 1121–1128
Latin
Consuetudines
Guigo I · 1083–1136
The written form of Carthusian life: the cell, the hair shirt, the weekly walk, the books each monk is lent, and the instruction to copy manuscripts as preaching with the hands.
c. 1100–1200
Latin
Glossa Ordinaria
The school of Laon and later hands
Patristic comment set in the margins and between the lines of the Bible itself, so that text and interpretation were read together on the page.
1301–1400
1 work
1368
Latin
Statuta Antiqua
The Carthusian Order
The consolidated law of the Carthusian order, codifying the customs of two and a half centuries into a single body of statutes.
14 of 1774 works