Collection items

9th-century collection of prayers and litanies

Manuscript Created date: Mid-9th century

Made in the third quarter of the ninth century, this manuscript contains a collection of devotional texts such as prayer...

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...

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...

Boethius, De institutione arithmetica with medical...

Manuscript Created date: Mid-9th century–1st half of the 10th century

During the Middle Ages, the practice of gathering different texts from various periods in the same manuscript was common...

Calculating time

Manuscript Created date: 1st third of the 9th century–Late 11th century

This manuscript consists of three books joined together in the medieval period at the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Germain...

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...

Dioscorides, Liber de virtutibus herbarium

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

The Greek physician, Dioscorides (b. c. 40, d. 90), wrote a treatise on the medical properties of plants, animal product...

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...

Illustrated Lives of Saints

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

Throughout the Middle Ages, stories of saints’ lives were extremely popular, as witnessed by the many copies that surviv...

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...