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.
501–600
1 work
c. 565
Greek
Chronographia
John Malalas · c. 491 – c. 578
World history from Adam to Justinian in eighteen books, written in the spoken Greek of the streets rather than the literary language, and cheerfully mixing myth, scripture, chariot-racing factions, and what people were wearing.
1101–1200
2 works
c. 1098–1101
Latin
Honorius Augustodunensis · c. 1080–c. 1154
A pupil asks and a master answers: on God, on creation, on why infants die, on what the damned suffer, on whether the blessed will see their friends in hell.
c. 1195
Latin
De Miseria Condicionis Humane
Lotario dei Segni · 1160/61–1216
An unrelenting catalogue of human wretchedness — birth, appetite, ambition, decay — written by a cardinal who promised a companion volume on human dignity and never wrote it.
1201–1300
1 work
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.
1301–1400
2 works
c. 1310–1324
Latin
Speculum Humanae Salvationis
Anonymous
Each scene of Christ's life paired with three Old Testament or legendary prefigurations, in verse designed to be read alongside pictures.
c. 1333–1348
Old French
La Légende dorée
Jean de Vignay · c. 1282–c. 1350
Voragine's saints' lives translated into French for the queen, one of the many vernacular versions that carried the collection across Europe.
1601–1700
1 work
1658
English
Anonymous
A course of practical instruction on duty to God, self, and neighbour, divided into seventeen sections to be read through three times a year.
7 of 1774 works