University of Virginia Library

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MAIN LIBRARY

In his Renaissance of the Twelfth Century Charles Homer
Haskins made the remark that "when men spoke of a
library in the Middle Ages they did not mean a special
room, and still less a special building" but rather thought
of a "book press" or wardrobe, as is suggested by the word
armarium commonly used for libraries.[93] I do not know
whether this assessment is tenable for the later Middle
Ages. It is certainly not what the framers of the Plan of St.
Gall had in mind for a monastic library of the time of
Charlemagne or Louis the Pious. The Plan provides for a
central library of a surface area of 1600 square feet, located
over a scriptorium of identical dimensions, the two together
totaling 3200 square feet. We know at least of one
other Carolingian library that was installed in a separate
building: that of the monastery of St. Wandrille (Fontanella).
It stood in the cloister yard in front of the Refectory,
and opposite it, on the other side of the yard, was a
twin building which served as charter house.[94] In the
monastery of St. Emmeran there must have been a special
library, for it is said of Bishop Wolfgang (972-94) that he
had it decorated with metrical inscriptions of his own composing.[95]
If Haskins infers from Lanfranc's description of
the annual distribution of the daily reading matter that "all
of the books of a monastery can be piled on a single rug"
this cannot be taken as referring to the whole of the
monastic library, but only to that portion of it that was
checked out to the monks at the beginning of Lent.[96] In
such monasteries as St. Riquier and Corbie, which housed
as many as 350 to 400 monks, even this circulating portion
of the general library holdings must have been of substantial
bulk.