Books give delight to the very marrow of one’s bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy. Copying,
Any question, however innocuous, could raise the prospect of a discussion, a discussion that would imply that religious doctrines were open to inquiry and argument.
All monks were expected to know how to read. In a world increasingly dominated by illiterate warlords, that expectation, formulated early in the history of monasticism, was of incalculable importance.
Working with knives, brushes, and rags, monks often carefully washed away the old writings—Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Seneca, Lucretius—and wrote in their place the texts that they were instructed by their...
What is honour? A word. What is in that word honour?
We have only to look attentively at the world around us to grasp that many of the most intense and poignant experiences of our lives are not exclusive to our species.
To spend your existence in the grip of anxiety about death, he wrote, is mere folly. It is a sure way to let your life slip from you incomplete and unenjoyed. He gave voice as well to a thought I had...
There is no single explanation for the emergence of the Renaissance and the release of the forces that have shaped our own world.
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. (4.1.179–81)
The monk in the grip of acedia would find it difficult or impossible to read. Looking away from his book, he might try to distract himself with gossip but would more likely glance in disgust at his su...
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For suff ’rance is the badge of all our tribe. (1.3.105–6)
No. Honour hath not skill in surgery, then? No.
Jaques’ vision in the same comedy of the whining schoolboy with his satchel / And shining morning face, creeping like snail / Unwillingly to school
It is an heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in’t. (2.3.114–15)
In the course of the vicious Gothic Wars of the mid-sixth century and their still more miserable aftermath, the last commercial workshops of book production folded, and the vestiges of the book market...
In . . . Menenius Agrippa, Shakespeare draws a deft portrait of a successful conservative politician, altogether in the camp of the rich but adept at presenting himself as the people's friend.
I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, one of these curses runs, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all...
APART FROM THE charred papyrus fragments recovered in Herculaneum, there are no surviving contemporary manuscripts from the ancient Greek and Roman world.
No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound?