The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 1: c.400 – 1100

The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain #1

by Richard Gameson (Editor), Simon Keynes (Contributor), Michelle P. Brown (Contributor)

This is the first comprehensive survey of the history of the book in Britain from Roman through Anglo-Saxon to early Norman times. The expert contributions explore the physical form of books, including their codicology, script and decoration, examine the circulation and exchange of manuscripts and texts between England, Ireland, the Celtic realms and the Continent, discuss the production, presentation and use of different classes of texts, ranging from fine service books to functional schoolbooks, and evaluate the libraries that can be associated with particular individuals and institutions. The result is an authoritative account of the first millennium of the history of books, manuscript-making, and literary culture in Britain which, intimately linked to its cultural contexts, sheds vital light on broader patterns of political, ecclesiastical and cultural history extending from the period of the Vindolanda writing tablets through the age of Bede and Alcuin to the time of the Domesday Book.

Genres: History, Medieval

898 pages, Hardcover

First published December 22, 2011

Reviews

[John Boardley]

An ambitious volume covering the book in Britain from 55 BC to 1066 AD. Often books of this scope read like a collection of slightly disconnected essays. This, however (and praise is owed to its editor), is magnificent and one of very few such histories that I might consider re-reading.

[Future editions will need to include something on the Bloomberg tablets (discovered in the early 2010s) that date to the first decade of Roman rule in Britain and therefore predate the Vindolanda tablets of the first and second centuries AD.]