The Genesis of Monastic Libraries

Abstract

The reproduction of manuscript books in the Middle Ages by monks is related to the original goal of the monastic way of life, which is to live a life of prayer. Thus, the history of books and libraries in monasteries can be traced backward from the Rule of Benedict to the beginning of Christian monasticism in the desert of Egypt. This article examines several ancient documents to show how the first monks considered reading books—and assembling libraries—necessary for a specific form of prayer. Hushed monks in a big room hunched over their desks scribbling furiously—the image of monks copying books by hand is a common- place from the history of Western culture. It is so familiar, in fact, that a popular film of a few years ago, The Name of the Rose, based on the novel by Umberto Eco, was able to use a monastic scriptorium (as such a room is called) and its library as centers around which the plot evolved with a minimum of explanation. Similarly, a television commercial from a few decades ago used the image to suggest that photocopying was much faster than letting a monk copy a document by hand. At root, this image is fairly simple: in the Middle Ages monks used to copy books by hand, working together in silence in one big room, a scriptorium. They saved many ancient classical texts from being lost. These classical texts were rediscovered and gave birth to the Renaissance. Scholarly works on the histor y of libraries, such as Bernhard Bischoff's Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, remind us of the sig- nificance of monastic scriptoria and their importance in the history of Western culture. 1 While the image of the monastic scriptorium may be familiar in our culture, it remains a bit of a mystery why monks started copying books. Why did they collect books in the first place? How does this activity fit with the monk's life of silence and prayer? Tracing this history begins with the Rule of Benedict, but rather than proceed forward in time, as did Bischoff and others interested in the monks' impact on Western culture, this article will work backward to the beginnings of Christian monasticism in the desert of Egypt and the impulse to find a