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IMC 2024: Sessions

Session 1011: Monastic Libraries and Book Collections in Times of Crisis, c. 1000-c. 1600, I: Preservation and Systematisation

Wednesday 3 July 2024, 09:00-10:30

Organiser:Mercedes Pérez Vidal, Departamento de Historia y Teoría del Arte, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Moderator/Chair:Mercedes Pérez Vidal, Departamento de Historia y Teoría del Arte, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Paper 1011-aLibraries in Crisis: Book Donation Lists in the Anglo-Norman World
(Language: English)
Benjamin Bertrand, Department of History, Fordham University
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Learning (The Classical Inheritance) and Monasticism
Paper 1011-bConjuring a Crisis: Catalogues, Readers, and the Afterlife of Medieval Libraries
(Language: English)
René Hernández Vera, Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab, Københavns Universitet
Index terms: Bibliography, Language and Literature - Comparative, Literacy and Orality and Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1011-cThe Library at the Augustinian Canonry at Helgafell
(Language: English)
Giovanni Verri, Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab, Københavns Universitet
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Manuscripts and Palaeography and Monasticism
Abstract

These sessions focus on religious communities’ responses to crises in relation to monastic libraries and book collections. We aim to investigate what happened to medieval monastic libraries and book collections in times of peril during the Middle Ages, but also the early modern period and up until our time.

Session I examine in what way religious communities and some specific religious leaders responded to crises by stimulating desire for knowledge preservation and systematization. Through the analysis of eight donation lists, Benjamin Bertrand examines the role of abbots or bishops in the Anglo-Norman world in the 11th and 12th centuries in reforming their libraries to respond to a changing cultural atmosphere. René Hernández explores the role of library catalogues as a form of securing the agency of readers within medieval book collections. This talk will compare the catalogues of the Franciscan libraries of Assisi (1381), Padua (1396, 1449) and the Libro de los epítomes of Hernando Colón (c. 1539). Finally, Giovanni Verri will discuss the literary works that may have been kept in the Augustinian canonry of Helgafel in Iceland, through an analysis of the church registers (máldagar) and other documents.