“The great monastic libraries of medieval Europe, contrary to the popular stereotype, were not silent study halls for cloistered monks. They were noisy places where scribes, bookbinders and other artisans collaborated to create the astonishing illuminated manuscripts that flourished in the age before Gutenberg. Some visitors called them ‘houses of mumblers’ because the monks liked to recite their texts out loud while they copied them. These, too, were living places, devoted not just to book preservation but to bringing scholars together to work with each other in the three-dimensional world.”
--from “Libraries as places to linger and mingle” by Alex Wright Christian Science Monitor January 13, 2006
“Gerald of Wales, as a boy, preferred to build sand churches and monasteries to
sand castles.”
--from Gerald of Wales (trans. Loomis) 1985, p. xiii; T.A. Heslop, “Late
Twelfth-Century Writing about Art, and Aesthetic Relativity,” in G.R.
Owen-Crocker and T. Graham (eds.), Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives. A
Memorial Tribute to C.R. Dodwell (Manchester: University of Manchester, 1998),
pp. 132-35.
Medieval chained library, Hereford Cathedral. Photo: Sarah Blick
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