Vanished Libraries of Anglo-Saxon England
Vanished Libraries of Anglo-Saxon England
From the time of the conversion to Christianity of Anglo-Saxons, in the wake of the Gregorian mission in England in 597, libraries of various kinds began to be assembled in England. In the first instance, before English scriptoria and scriptorial practice had been established, books had to be imported from the Continent. Books from late antiquity's Mediterranean libraries formed part of the holdings of the earliest Anglo-Saxon libraries, but the matter cannot be adequately evaluated because Anglo-Saxon libraries themselves are no longer intact. However, it is possible to ascertain the existence of a significant number of well-stocked libraries in England during the centuries between the 7th and the 11th. This chapter presents a brief sketch of vanished Anglo-Saxon libraries.
Keywords: Mediterranean libraries, Anglo-Saxon libraries, ancient libraries, Christianity
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
