Institutiones
composition: secureauthorship: secure
A retired minister turns manuscript copying into a monastic vocation, and writes the handbook that tells his monks which books to obtain, how to correct them and why the secular disciplines are worth keeping.
- copying as a form of ministry rather than a chore
- a curriculum joining sacred and secular reading
- explicit instructions on textual correction and manuscript care
- a library built to a plan rather than by accident
After a career at the Ostrogothic court Cassiodorus founded the monastery of Vivarium and wrote a two-book guide for it: the first on scripture and its commentators, the second a survey of the seven liberal arts. The practical instructions matter as much as the theory, covering the correction of texts, the care of manuscripts and even bookbinding and lamps for night copying. The argument that copying scripture is itself a form of preaching gave the scriptorium a religious justification, and the reading list shaped which classical texts monastic libraries thought worth having.
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