An Investigation Of The Monastic Library Situation In Early Middle Ages

Entering into the Middle Ages, Western Europe was filled with chaos: frequent social conflicts, political divisions, economic recessions and culture decline.The well-established political system of the ancient Roman Empire had broken at that time. Christian church, the only surviving organization in the ruins, inevitably undertook the important task of reconstructing the Western Europe. As a basic Christian organization, the monastery played an important role in the process of establishing the new order. Monasticism thought made its earliest appearance in Egypt in the end of 3rd century AD, which gradually formed a new monastery organization that adapted to the western world in the process of spreading to the West.The glorious ancient civilization of the Western Roman Empire declined during the barbarians’ invasion. The ancient grand library, an important institution in which culture is inherited, also doomed and became monastery small bookcase alongside the corridor into the Middle Ages. As a basic Christian organization, the monastery library developed steadily in a long time because it was influenced by regime changes rarely. Through the monks’ transcription and writing activities and the donations of the new students, abbey laid the foundation of the library’s development and saved some valuable classic texts ultimately. In addition, the monastery, which is based on the library, developed into an important education institution in the middle ages, trained a large number of knowledgeable scholars, made outstanding and distinguished contributions in the field of culture and promoted the rise of "Carolingian Renaissance". However, because of the restrictions of the social and historical conditions, the library was marked with strong religious color that most of the books are religious and mainly for collection but utilization, and it is not conducive to the spread of culture.