Collection items

9th-century Gospel-book from Tours

Manuscript Created date: 2nd half of the 9th century

The copying and decoration of this Gospel-book from Tours represent a remarkable artistic achievement. As is characteris...

A Chinese-Tibetan manuscript of the Lankavatara Su...

Manuscript, Concertina Created date: 800–850

This concertina manuscript contains a Chinese commentary on the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, with the text of the sūtra also writt...

Alcuin's letter collection

Manuscript Created date: 1st quarter of the 9th century

This collection of the letters of the Englishman Alcuin of York (b. c. 735, d. 804), is datable to the early ninth centu...

Chinese Buddhist sutra on indigo-dyed paper

Scroll, Manuscript Created date: 9th–10th century

This fragment of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra is an early example of the tradition of writing fine manuscripts in metallic...

Cicero, De Oratore

Manuscript Created date: 2nd quarter of the 9th century

This volume contains De Oratore (On the Orator), a rhetorical treatise by the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero (b....

Decorative copy of the Heart Sutra in Chinese

Scroll, Manuscript Created date: 9th–10th century

This Perfection of Wisdom sūtra, commonly called the Heart Sūtra, expounds the fundamental emptiness of all things. It i...

French copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History

Manuscript Created date: 3rd quarter of the 9th century

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede (b. c. 673, d. 735), monk and scholar of Wearmout...

Gospel-book produced in Northern France

Manuscript Created date: 3rd quarter of the 9th century

This Gospel-book, made in the third quarter of the ninth century, is an example of the Franco-Saxon style of decoration...

Moutier-Grandval Bible

Manuscript Created date: c. 830–840

A beautifully illustrated pandect, taking its name from the monastery of Moutier-Grandval in the diocese of Basel in Sw...

Nonius Marcellus, De Compendiosa Doctrina

Manuscript Created date: 3rd quarter of the 9th century

The only surviving work of a grammarian working in the fourth century called Nonius Marcellus, the De compendiosa doctri...

Old English Orosius

Manuscript Created date: Late 9th – early 10th century

In 410 the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe led by King Alaric (r. 395–410), entered the city of Rome and spent three days pi...

The Ashem Vohu, a Zoroastrian prayer

Manuscript Created date: 9th century

This manuscript comes not from India or Iran, the lands associated today with the Zoroastrian religion, but from Dunhuan...

The Book of Buddha's Names

Scroll Created date: 9th–10th century

This scroll was discovered in Cave 17 (known as the Library Cave) in Dunhaung, China, as such, it is believed that this...

The story of Cædmon's Hymn

Manuscript Created date: 775–825

The earliest named English poet was a cowherd named Cædmon who lived at the Abbey of Whitby. We know about this man beca...

Tiberius Bede

Manuscript Created date: 1st half of the 9th century

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People was completed in 731. The work tells the story of the conversion of ...