The Carolingian libraries (, , , , and ) emerged during the reign of the Carolingian dynasty, when book collections reappeared in Europe after a two-century cultural decline. The end of the 8th century marked the beginning of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance countries of Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden and Norway, a cultural upsurge primarily associated with church reform. The reform aimed to unify worship, correct church books, train qualified priests to work with the semi-pagan flock, and prepare missionaries capable of preaching throughout the empire and beyond. This required a comprehensive understanding of classical Latin and familiarity with surviving monuments of ancient culture.
The largest monasteries established schools to teach the fundamentals of the trivium and to study the works of Roman authors, including poets, historians, rhetoricians, philosophers, mathematicians, architects, etc. By the 9th century, a group of Carolingian polymaths had emerged who valued broad learning and associated activities for their own sake. This group was not limited to the capital.
During the Carolingian period, there were no libraries in the modern sense, in particular the special book depositories did not exist. However, there were relatively large collections of tens and hundreds of volumes, mostly belonging to monasteries and city bishops. Catalogues, rubrics and book lists, which began to be created in monasteries from the early 9th century, were needed to help people find their way around the vast number of manuscripts. Private book collections of clerics and laymen also emerged. After the owner's death, they were often transferred to monasteries. Unfortunately, no complete book collection from the Carolingian period has survived to this day.
Sources
None of the Carolingian libraries have survived in their entirety. Information on the collections, composition, principles of acquisition, owners and users of the libraries is limited, but more complete than that relating to antiquity. During the 8th to 10th centuries, monks and priests, who were the primary bearers of intellectual culture in the early Middle Ages, compiled lists of books found in monastery vaults or known to them. Sometimes, such lists were accompanied by more or less extensive commentaries.Compilations of medieval book lists and catalogues were mainly published by Germanic scholars. Among the best editions, specialists name the following: Becker G. Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui. — Bonnae, 1885; Gottlieb Th. Über mittelalterliche Bibliotheken. — Leipzig, 1890; Lehmann P. Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz. Bd. 1. — München, 1918. Lists of books from the Murbach Abbey and Lorsch Abbey were published separately: Bloch H. Ein karolingischer Bibliothekskatalog aus Kloster Murbach // Strassburger Festschrift zur 46. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner. — Strassburg: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, 1901. — S. 257—285; Milde W. Der Bibliothekskatalog des Klosters Murbach aus dem 9. Jahrhundert. Ausgabe und Untersuchung von Beziehungen zu Cassiodors «Institutiones». — Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1968; Häse A. Mittelalterliche Bücherverzeichnisse aus Kloster Lorsch. Einleitung, Edition und Kommentar. — Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002. During the Carolingian era, bibliography was not an independent discipline, and book lists were compiled solely for the purpose of inventorying collections. Presumably, the lists did not adequately convey the contents of the library collections, since there are numerous discrepancies in book catalogues from the same abbeys. Not all manuscripts with a known provenance are listed in the catalogues of the abbeys where they were created or stored.
During the Carolingian period, book lists were labelled with various terms such as brevis or breviarium librorum, inventarium librorum, annotatio librorum, descriptio librorum, abbreviatio librorum and even genealogia bibliothecae.Accordingly: 'brief [review]', 'brief book review', 'book inventory', 'book notes', 'book list', 'brief book description', 'library pedigree'. These catalogues were typically attached to the works of the most authoritative authors read in a particular abbey. For example, Augustine's The City of God was used at Monte Cassino. At Lindisfarne, the book catalogue was placed at the beginning of the second volume of the Bible, which was arbitrarily bound in two codices. Meanwhile, at the Abbey of Saint Gall, annotated book catalogues, each several dozen pages long, were bound to a collection of Alcuin's writings and a codex with capitularies and Germanic law.
From the 9th century onwards, book lists became an integral part of monastic chronicles, particularly in Saint Gall. These sources allow for the precise determination of when a particular manuscript arrived in the collection, as the authors record its arrival in the monastery. Books were highly valued and were even mentioned in the wills of kings and nobles. Sometimes wills contain unique information. For example, a charter documented the composition of the book collection of Duke Eberhard of Friuli, which was divided among his sons. Additionally, valuable information can be found in the correspondence of Carolingian polymaths with their students, friends, and colleagues.
Size of the library collections
During the 9th to 10th centuries, monastic libraries often contained hundreds of codices, making them the largest in size. Surviving catalogues reveal that in 822, the collection of the Reichenau Abbey included 415 books, while the Saint-Riquier Abbey owned 243 books in 831. Similarly, the library of Saint Gall had 428 accounted books, Lorsch had 590, and the monastery of Saint Salvator in Würzburg had at least 209 codices. At the start of the 10th century, the Bobbio Abbey possessed 666 books, while the Saint Emmeram's Abbey had 513. Although the collections of other significant Carolingian monasteries, such as Fleury, Ferrières, Saint-Denis, Saint Martin at Tours, Saint-Remi, Corbie, and the Abbey of Fulda, were likely of similar size and composition, their library catalogues have not survived.
The library of a Carolingian abbey typically consisted of various manuscripts, as demonstrated by the Saint Gall catalogue Breviarium librorum de coenobio sancti Galli, which was composed of three manuscripts written in the 9th century.The manuscript was digitised and is freely available: The Saint Gall library contained 10 codices of Augustine's works, 3 of Ambrose of Milan, and 2 each of Jerome, Gregory the Great, and Bede the Venerable. The Saint Gall library was generally conservative, focusing on the Bible and the works of the holy fathers before Bede. Between 840 and 880, the library acquired approximately 70 new codices, some of which were magnificently decorated. A notable feature of the Saint Gall library was the significant number of Irish manuscripts, with 30 listed in the catalogue. These manuscripts were acquired from outside the monastery, rather than being produced by Irish monks in the monastery's scriptorium.
Bishop's and cathedral libraries were established later than monastic libraries and were unable to match their size and content. In the 9th century there were only 39 books in Cologne, 71 in Weißenburg, 40 in Passau and 42 in Oviedo. Reims, under the care of its bishop Hinkmar, had approximately one hundred books. Salzburg had only 14 books, Augsburg had 50, Lindisfarne had 52, and Cremona had 95 books.
During the Carolingian period, laymen's private libraries emerged, often containing several dozen manuscripts. One of the most well-known is Eberhard of Friul's library, which was precisely listed in his will of 863. The library consisted of approximately 50 manuscripts, primarily focused on educational and religious content, but also including works on military art, jurisprudence, geography and history. The contents of Charlemagne's personal library, on the other hand, are not very well documented. According to the biography written by Einhard, Charlemagne "collected a great number of books" (De vita Karoli, 33). However, there is no further information on the specific contents of his library. It is known that Charles held the works of Augustine, including The City of God, in high regard (24). Additionally, during meals, he had readings about the history and deeds of the ancients. Donald Bullough attempted to reconstruct the composition of Charlemagne's library and concluded that it was based on educational literature. However, in terms of quantity, it was far inferior to the monastic libraries of both his time and earlier periods, such as the bishop's library of Jarrow under Bede the Venerable.
Catalogues The initial efforts to catalogue library collections were primarily focused on the practical task of locating manuscripts that readers required and organising a vast collection. This objective was first achieved in the early 9th century at the Reichenau Abbey. The monks created a thematic catalogue and an author's index (wherever possible to indicate the author). The sections of Reichenau's catalogue included De libris canonum, De regulis, De libris homeliarum, De passionibus sanctorum, De libris glossarum, De opusculis Eusebii episcopi, De libris Iosephi, De opusculis Orosii presbyteri, De libris Bedae presbyteri, and others.Accordingly: "From the Canonical Books," "On the Institutions," "From the Homiletic Books," "On the Martyrdom of the Saints," "From the Books of Grammar," "From the Minor Works of Bishop Eusebius," "From the Books of Josephus [Flavius]," "From the Minor Works of Presbyter Orosius," and "From the Books of Bishop Bede." The compilers distinguished between the text of a work (liber) and the number of volumes it was presented in (volumen, codex). The Reichenau occasionally described the contents of codices in which many works by different authors were interwoven. Such work was done by the monk Reginbert, who described all the codices he had given to the monastery. The catalogue at Reichenau did not always adhere to a consistent order. For example, the books of Flavius Josephus were listed separately, despite the presence of a designated rubric for them.
The catalogues of Saint-Riquier, Oviedo, Bobbio, Lorsch, Murbach, and Saint Gall use similar rubrication and provide more or less detailed descriptions of individual codices. However, most booklists from the 9th to 10th centuries are simply enumerations of titles without any discernible order. It is possible that they were grouped by the names of past and present owners.
Forming of book collections
Books were highly valued for their material worth. They were often given as gifts, inherited, or bequeathed. In the 9th century, it became common for monks to present rulers with books, usually the Bible, which is depicted in many book miniatures from that time. In return, kings and nobles would grant abbeys expensive and lavishly decorated codices, as well as special funds to maintain the books. Emperor Charlemagne gave the monks of Saint-Denis a forest. The proceeds were used by the brothers to make new bindings for their manuscripts. The abbots of Saint Wandrille donated dozens of books to their monastery, which was appropriately recorded in the monastery chronicle. The abbots at Saint Gall, Bobbio, and Saint Emmeram also followed this practice. It was common among secular clergy to bequeath private libraries to monasteries.