anthony the great is credited with the establishment of the earliest monasteries.
anthony the great is credited with the establishment of the earliest monasteries.
who is credited with the establishment of the earliest monasteries?
anthony the great
Na
Na
monasteries were targeted in the eighth and ninth centuries by vikings who invaded the coasts of northern europe. they were targeted not only because they stored books but also precious objects that were looted by invaders. in the earliest monasteries, there were no special rooms set aside as a library, but from the sixth century onwards libraries became an essential aspect of monastic life in the western europe. the benedictines placed books in the care of a librarian who supervised their use. in some monastic reading rooms, valuable books would be chained to shelves, but there were also lending sections as well. copying was also another important aspect of monastic libraries, this was undertaken by resident or visiting monks and took place in the "scriptorium". in the byzantine world, religious houses rarely maintained their own copying centres. instead they acquired donations from wealthy donors. in the tenth century, the largest collection in the byzantine world was found in the monasteries of mount athos (modern-day greece), which accumulated over 10,000 books. scholars travelled from one monastery to another in search of the texts they wished to study. travelling monks were often given funds to buy books, and certain monasteries which held a reputation for intellectual activities welcomed travelling monks who came to copy manuscripts for their own libraries. one of these was the monastery of bobbio in italy, which was founded by the irish abbot st. columba in 614, and by the ninth century boasted a catalogue of 666 manuscripts, including religious works, classical texts, histories and mathematical treatises.
early middle ages