The contents of British Late Medieval/Early Modern libraries
The source of this data is the Oxford Medieval libraries of Great Britain website, to give an idea of the chronological skew of this data set the number of entries for each century is:
<14th cent. 5073
14th cent. 20202
15th cent. 14442
16th cent+ 13383
[note: I literally missed half this list on my first look through, may have missed one!]
Top 15
| Rank | Name | Catalogue entries |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Augustine [354–430], bishop of Hippo | 3136 |
| 2 | Jerome [c347–420] | 1025 |
| 3 | Thomas Aquinas [c1225–1274] | 773 |
| 4 | Bernard of Clairvaux [1090–1153], abbot of Clairvaux | 752 |
| 5 | Hugh of Saint-Victor [c1096–1141] | 644 |
| 6 | Gregory the Great [c540–604, sedit 590–604] | 610 |
| 7 | Bede the Venerable [c673–735], monk of Wearmouth–Jarrow | 592 |
| 8 | Justinian [†565] | 550 |
| 9 | Anselm of Canterbury [c1033–1109], archbishop of Canterbury | 535 |
| 10 | Isidore of Seville [†636], bishop of Seville | 476 |
| 11 | M. Tullius Cicero [106–43 BC] | 429 |
| 12 | Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus [c480–524] | 398 |
| 13 | Peter Lombard [c1100–1160] | 378 |
| 14 | L. Annaeus Seneca [4 BC–AD 65] | 316 |
| 15 | Gregory IX (Ugolino da Segni) [c1148–1241, sedit 1227–1241] | 295 |
Aristotle would have taken 2nd place had I admitted him to this list (1297 catalogue entries), I excluded him because though received in latin translation, his works were of course originally Greek. This naturally reflects the scholastic obsession with the man. Personally I had no idea that Hugh of Saint-Victor and Justinian were so popular. The out-sized interest in Augustine is nothing unexpected, thanks to his admirers we have nearly as much of him left as we do of classical Latin in its entirety. Cicero and Seneca completely dominate in terms of classical authors.
###Classical comparisons:
##Poets:
Only real shock (to me at least) is that Vergil is not the most popular. Catullus of course would be much more popular amongst modern day collections, however he was hardly copied in the middle ages - today only 3 manuscripts survive, all from the 14th century, and all copies (or copies of copies) of the same 13th century manuscript.
| Name | Catalogue entries |
|---|---|
| P. Ovidius Naso [43 BC–AD 17/18] | 177 |
| P. Vergilius Maro [70–19 BC] | 127 |
| Q. Horatius Flaccus (Horace) [65–8 BC] | 89 |
| M. Annaeus Lucanus [AD 39–65] | 42 |
| D. Iunius Iuuenalis (Juvenal) [c60–c130] | 31 |
| M. Valerius Martialis [c40–104] | 13 |
| C. Valerius Catullus [c. 84–54 BC] | 2 |
| Silius Italicus [1st cent.] | 2 |
| T. Lucretius Carus [c. 99–c. 55 BC] | 1 |
##Historians: Quite different to a modern list here, where Curtius Rufus and Valerius Maximus would be at the bottom. Tacitus was essentially unknown in the middle ages, all 6 entries here being from the 16th century. The relative lack of interest in Caesar is probably the most different compared to the modern crowd, who place him next to Cicero. I am pleased that Sallust beats Livy.
| Name | Catalogue entries |
|---|---|
| C. Sallustius Crispus [86–c34 BC] | 52 |
| Valerius Maximus [fl. AD 30] | 47 |
| T. Livius (Livy) [59 BC–AD 17] | 34 |
| C. Suetonius Tranquillus [AD c69–c140] | 23 |
| C. Iulius Caesar [100–44 BC] | 20 |
| Q. Curtius Rufus [1st cent.] | 20 |
| Cornelius Tacitus [AD 56–after 113] | 6 |
| Cornelius Nepos [99–24 BC] | 3 |
Post-classically for comparison we also have the well known Flavius Eutropius [fl. 370] at 4 catalogue entries, and the less well known but far more important Orosius [† after 418] with 31 catalogue entries - I suspect with an earlier skew in time Orosius would have beat Livy (indeed he does 9 - 2 before 1300 with the data available).
##Misc:
| Name | Catalogue entries |
|---|---|
| C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder) [AD 23–79] | 25 |
| C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger) [AD c61–c112] | 4 |
| M. Fabius Quintilianus [† c100] | 37 |
| M. Terentius Varro [116–27 BC] | 13 |
| M. Vitruvius Pollio [fl. 40 BC] | 15 |
| C. Iulius Hyginus [c. 64 BC–17 AD] | 11 |
| Sex. Iulius Frontinus [c30–104 AD] | 22 |
| Aulus Gellius [c130–c180] (slightly post-class.) | 13 |
##Misc misc: The popularity of the famous ante-classical playwrites is reversed, compared to today: with P. Terentius Afer (Terence) [c195–159 BC] at 52 catalogue entries, and T. Maccius Plautus [† after 184 BC] at 17 catalogue entries
Of the two famous grammar texts, Priscian [fl. 500] beats Aelius Donatus [4th cent.] at 234 to 90.
Two books formed the main basis of knowledge about the trojan war in the middle ages. Daretis Phrygii de excidio Trojae historia and Dictys Cretensis Ephemeris belli Trojani. Written in late antiquity and very closely linked to one another, Dictys at 2 entries (written from the Greek perspective) is soundly beaten by Dares (Trojan perspective) at 48.
I also found this 12th century list of school texts interesting, they still had a copy of Ælfric's Latin grammar in Old English - I wonder how much longer they found it useful.
Posted Aug 22, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC
This is a great resource. Here are some thoughts on methodology, not necessarily directed at OP but for anyone who wants to use it well.
In quantitative approaches to history, the first thing we need to ensure is that our units of measurement are consistent (1=1) and meaningful (relates to our questions). Library catalog entries usually fail both tests.
They're not consistent, because the exact same works can be numbered so differently. An Opera Omnia in library A is only 1 record, whereas the exact same texts in library B might be listed as 7 separate volumes or entries. If 1=7, we don't have consistency, by a rather large factor. And this only gets worse when we try to compare between authors. If author A writes ten treatises that generally get copied together as a set, they might be listed as one entry: The Mystical Treatises. But author B might have written ten equivalently long treatises that usually get copied separately, thus generating up to 10 separate entries. Again, no consistency. So, what we learn from counting catalog entries is mostly just the library cataloging system.
But there are still ways to use the data. Most importantly, we can look at diffusion. How many (and which) libraries have at least 1 record of a given author or work? This allows us to make a decent rough estimate of an author's or work's influence.
We can also look at dates of first reception to see when a certain work achieved wide publication. Similarly, we could look at the transition from manuscript to print.
We can look at trends among different types of libraries. Concentrations of the Rule of Augustine in Augustinian and Dominican houses would be no great surprise, nor would Aristotelian school texts in universities, but some surprises might await.
Yes I did think this (and another problem is the question of pseudonymous works, which here are listed under the supposed author), but I put it out my mind for 2 reasons:
Another somewhat interesting question to consider indirectly relating the popularity of an author is the number of commentaries on his work.