Miscellanies, Christian reform and early medieval encyclopaedism

This article examines the evidence of the early medieval Latin Physiologus manuscripts for compilatory practices within the context of Carolingian ecclesiastical and educational reform in the period c.700–1000. It argues that miscellany manuscripts, in which the Physiologus is exclusively found in this period, represent a conscious and highly organized encyclopaedic drive that created multi-purpose manuals as part of the response to programmatic social change at a local level. Miscellanies are therefore a key and overlooked source for the use of knowledge in monastic writing centres, and for early medieval intellectual history more generally

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Bestiary · Literature · Medieval Latin · Middle Ages · Miscellany · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Medieval European Literature and History · Medieval Literature and History