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2 results

  • 31 - The library of the Venerable Bede

  • from PART IV - COLLECTIONS OF BOOKS
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 606-632

  • Summary

    To consider that the commentary on Genesis was just one of over forty works which Bede wrote, suggests the importance of assessing the extent of the library used by him. This chapter shows how Venerable Bede's library must have been assembled, and considers the tools available for reconstructing its contents, noting their limitations, and using some specific cases to illustrate the problems. Bede reworked and abbreviated De locis sanctis to produce his own De locis sanctis, and is the sole witness to the means by which Adomnán's work reached Northumbria. If the tangible re-creation of Bede's library continues to be a theme, then, surviving books themselves should be the starting-point. Bede's is a theological library, designed for a monastery inspired by the spirit of the Benedictine Rule. His library must have included biblical texts in various formats, including, a remarkable pandect in the old translation, namely the Codex Grandior.

  • 28 - The library of Iona at the time of Adomnán

  • from PART IV - COLLECTIONS OF BOOKS
  • Edited by Richard Gameson, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
    Published online:
    28 March 2012
    Print publication:
    22 December 2011, pp 570-579

  • Summary

    Since no library list from Iona has survived, and the only extant manuscript that can be linked with certainty to the island is a copy of the Vita sancti Columbae, it is on the basis of the texts quoted in Adomnán's two books that one can reconstruct the contents of the island's library. The Vita Germani by Constantius can be identified from the Vita Columbae, along with the anonymous Actus Silvestri. Incidentally, through Bede's words of praise for the learning displayed in the De locis sanctis, Adomnán himself was included in the later updates of the De viris inlustribus. One other piece of textual evidence that is relevant to Iona's library appears in the seventh-century Irish poem Amra Choluimb Chille in praise of Columba. Much speculation has been devoted to the form of the biblical text on Iona which, in turn, has focused on the presence of non-Vulgate lemmata in Adomnán's works.