The Library
1780 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
301–400
2 works
c. 320–330
Greek
Onomasticon
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
An alphabetical gazetteer of biblical places, giving each one's location in the fourth-century landscape and whether the village was still standing.
393
Latin
De Viris Illustribus
Jerome · c. 347–420
Short notices of a hundred and thirty-five Christian writers and their books, from Peter to Jerome himself, compiled to show pagans that Christianity had a literature.
401–500
1 work
c. 480–495
Latin
De Viris Illustribus
Gennadius of Massilia · d. c. 496
A continuation of Jerome's catalogue, adding about a hundred writers of the intervening century with a line or two on each and a verdict. Gennadius is a Gaul of the Lérins school, so Faustus is praised and Augustine handled coolly.
501–600
2 works
c. 546
Latin
Breviatio Canonum
Ferrandus of Carthage · d. c. 546
Two hundred and thirty-two canons drawn from Greek and African councils and rearranged by subject rather than by council.
c. 550, before his patriarchate
Greek
John Scholasticus · d. 577
The canons of the councils and the fathers rearranged out of chronological order and under fifty subject headings, so that a bishop with a question could look it up instead of reading everything.
601–700
3 works
c. 613
Latin
De Natura Rerum
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
A short handbook on the heavens, the seasons, thunder, tides, and pestilence, written for a Visigothic king who had asked about eclipses.
c. 615–618
Latin
De Viris Illustribus
Isidore of Seville · c. 560 – 636
Thirty-three short notices continuing the catalogue Jerome began and Gennadius extended, weighted heavily toward Spain and Africa — Leander, Fulgentius, Martin of Braga — with a verdict on each.
c. 620–636; unfinished at his death
Latin
Etymologiae
Isidore of Seville · c. 560–636
Twenty books explaining the whole of knowledge by way of the origins of words — grammar, medicine, law, God, animals, ships, farming, furniture.
801–900
3 works
c. 842–847
Latin
De Rerum Naturis
Rabanus Maurus · c. 780 – 856
Twenty-two books rebuilding Isidore's Etymologies with a second layer added: after each thing is defined, Rabanus gives what it signifies in scripture, so that a reader looking up a lion, a stone, or a colour finds both the natural fact and the allegory.
c. 845
Greek
Myriobiblos
Photius of Constantinople · c. 815–c. 893
Notes on two hundred and eighty books read by the author, each summarised and judged, many of them now lost entirely.
c. 883; earlier material revised
Greek
Attributed to Photius of Constantinople · c. 815 – c. 893
Church canons and imperial laws arranged together under fourteen headings, so that a bishop could see at once what the church required and what the state enforced, and where the two did not agree.
901–1000
1 work
c. 970–1000
Greek
Anonymous
Thirty thousand alphabetical entries on words, authors, and events, compiled from earlier lexica and scholia by editors who often did not understand their sources.
1001–1100
1 work
c. 1008–1012
Latin
Burchard of Worms · c. 950–1025
Twenty books of canon law for a working bishop, the nineteenth of which is a penitential listing in detail the folk practices confessors should ask about.
1101–1200
1 work
c. 1110
Greek
Euthymios Zigabenos · 12th century
A commissioned survey of every heresy from the ancient sects to the Bogomils and Islam, each described and answered from the fathers.
1201–1300
3 works
c. 1230–1240
Latin
Hugh of Saint-Cher and the friars of Saint-Jacques · c. 1200–1263
Every significant word in the Latin Bible listed alphabetically with references, produced by a team of friars working from a newly standardised chapter division.
c. 1240
Latin
De Proprietatibus Rerum
Bartholomaeus Anglicus · c. 1203–1272
Nineteen books on God, angels, the human body, illness, air, birds, stones, colours, and smells, compiled by a friar teaching in Germany.
c. 1235–1264
Latin
Speculum Maius
Vincent of Beauvais · c. 1190–c. 1264
Around eighty books in three parts — nature, doctrine, history — assembled by a team at a royal abbey and running to some four million words.
1401–1500
1 work
c. 1420–1429
Greek
Symeon of Thessalonica · d. 1429
A complete explanation of Orthodox worship — the church building, all the sacraments, the funeral rites, the ordinations — by the last archbishop of the city before it fell.
1601–1700
1 work
1697
French
Pierre Bayle · 1647–1706
A biographical dictionary whose footnotes swallow the entries, raising sceptical difficulties about miracles, providence, and the problem of evil at every turn.
19 of 1780 works