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    Book/Printed Material
    Xi ping shi jing
    熹平石经     These engravings of the seven Confucian classics were set up outside the National University Gate, located on the south side of Loyang, the capital city, in the Eastern Han dynasty. They were created between 175 and 183, after Cai Yong and a group of scholars successfully petitioned the emperor to have the Confucian classics carved in stone in order to prevent their being altered...
    • Contributor: Cai, Yong, 133-192
    • Date: 0175
    • Resource: - 1 page
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    Bian wang lun
    辯亡論     This complete scroll of a Tang dynasty manuscript was unearthed in Dunhuang, China. The text is written in ink on yellowish paper in a regular script, in well-spaced columns with beautiful characters. The scroll contains a work entitled On the Fall of States, by Lu Ji (261-303), a writer of the Western Jin dynasty. Modeled on Jia Yi's On a Visit to Qin, it...
    • Contributor: Lu, Ji, 261-303
    • Date: 0280
    • Resource: - 7 pages

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    Abduction of Briseis. This leaf of papyrus, which bears on the recto a rough line-drawing, was clearly later split into pieces and used for a letter, the remains of which (ten lines) are to be found on the verso. The drawing depicts the abduction of Briseis by the heralds Talthybius and Eurybates, which is related in Canto 1 of the Iliad (lines 330-48). The head covering of...
    • Contributor: Homer
    • Date: 0300
    • Resource: - 1 page
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    Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis. Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis (The Stockholm papyrus) is a codex consisting of 15 leaves containing 154 recipes for the manufacture of dyes and colors used in fashioning artificial stones. Written in Greek around AD 300, it is one of the earliest complete treatises of its kind and an important vehicle for the transmission of practical information from the Alexandrian (Old Egyptian) world to Byzantium and...

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    Johnson Papyrus. Herbals are directories of plants, their properties, and their medicinal uses. Herbals most likely were at first not illustrated, but in late antiquity they acquired illustrations. This fragment of a leaf from an illustrated herbal from Hellenistic Egypt shows a plant that is possibly Symphytum officinale, or comfrey. The herbal is made of papyrus, a plant that flourished in the valley of the Nile,...
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    Life of Barsawma. This undated manuscript of Ktāba d-ḥayyāw(y) d-qaddišā mār(y) Barṣawmā (Life of Barsawma) contains a narrative of the miraculous life of Barsawma (died about 492). The manuscript is in Syriac, but this text also is known in Ge'ez, the classical language of Ethiopia. Barsawma is said to have performed about 100 miracles, detailed here, and he was involved in the Christological controversies of the fifth...

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    Of Medical Substances.
    De materia medica     The precious codex known as the Dioscurides Neapolitanus contains the work of Pedanius Dioscorides, the Greek physician who was born at Anazarbus near Tarsus in Cilicia (present-day Turkey) and lived in the first century AD during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Dioscorides wrote the treatise Perì üles iatrichès, commonly known in Latin as De materia medica (Of medical substances), in five books. It...
    • Contributor: Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos
    • Date: 0500
    • Resource: - 351 pages

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    Fragments of Letters and Homilies of Saint Avitus (Alcimus Ecdidius Avitus), Bishop of Vienne.
    S. Avitus, Viennensis ep., Homiliae et Epistolae, fragmenta     Presented here is a fragment of a manuscript on papyrus, created in France in the sixth century. The manuscript was discovered in 1865 by Émile Dambreville, an employee in the Department of Manuscripts of the National Library of France, in another manuscript (Latin 11859) containing a treatise on birds. The text, in Latin, is a fragment of the homilies and letters of Saint Avitus...
    • Contributor: Avitus, Alcimus Ecdicius, Approximately 450-518
    • Date: 0500
    • Resource: - 46 pages

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    Books Six, Seven, and Eight of "Codex Theodosianus". This manuscript dating from the sixth century contains books six to eight of the Codex Theodosianus (Theodosian code), the collection of laws compiled between 429 and 438 by two commissions on behalf of the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II (401-50, reigned as Eastern Roman emperor from 408 to 450). The code was promulgated in February 438 and came into effect on January 1, 439. It...
    • Contributor: Theodosius II, Emperor of Rome, 401-450 - Chuzon, Antiochus, Active 429-438
    • Date: 0500
    • Resource: - 272 pages

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    Psalter of Saint Germain of Paris. The manuscript presented here, Latin 11947 in the collections of the National Library of France, is known as the Psalter of Saint Germain of Paris. Saint Germain was born in France in circa 496. He became bishop of Paris in 555 and served in that position until his death in 576. The psalter contains the text of the Psalms from a version of the...
    • Contributor: Jerome, Saint, Died 419 or 420
    • Date: 0500
    • Resource: - 604 pages

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    The Ashburnham, or Tours, Pentateuch. This illustrated manuscript of the Pentateuch in the Latin Vulgate was made in Spain, North Africa, Northern Italy, or Rome in the late sixth century. The manuscript reached Frankish Gaul during the eighth century. It was kept in Tours during the following century, where it remained for about 1,000 years. The manuscript is fragmentary. Originally 208 folios, it contains 129 original folios and 13...

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    Book of Horses. The Kitab al-khayl (Book of horses) is a short treatise on horsemanship by an unknown author. The first half of the work presents learning attributed to Imruʼ al-Qays, the celebrated pre-Islamic poet who is generally believed to have flourished in the sixth century and to have been a son of the last Kindite king. He was a key figure in early Arabic poetry. In...
    • Contributor: Imruʼ Al-Qays, 497-545
    • Date: 0515
    • Resource: - 12 pages

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    The Gospel According to Matthew and the Gospel According to Mark. Codex Beratinus Purpureus Phi, also known as Codex of Berat number 1 (Gregory-Aland no. 043), is a manuscript that was copied in the sixth century in an imperial scriptorium in Constantinople or somewhere on the shores of Asia Minor during the time of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great (circa 483--565, reigned 527--65). It contains the gospels of Matthew and Mark in their original...

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    Fragment of "Moralia" in Job, Part Six.
    Moralia iob     This eighth century manuscript is a prominent example of the Anglo-Saxon heritage of Bavaria and, more specifically, of Munich. It is an incomplete copy of Pope Gregory the Great's allegorical exegesis of the Book of Job, part six. The manuscript of nearly 300 pages was written almost entirely by the Anglo-Saxon scribe Peregrinus ("Foreigner"), who tells us in an explanatory colophon (folio 146 verso)...
    • Contributor: Gregory I, Pope, Circa 540-604 - Peregrinus
    • Date: 0600
    • Resource: - 300 pages

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    Chronicle of Fredegar. The Chronicle of Fredegar is a compilation by an unknown author, who most likely lived in Burgundy in the seventh century and to whom modern scholars gave the name Fredegar. The compilation is the only source for the history of Gaul in the period after the death of Saint Gregory of Tours (538-94). The author probably completed the work around 660. The manuscript presented...
    • Contributor: Fredegar, Active 7th Century
    • Date: 0600
    • Resource: - 398 pages

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    Gallican Lectionary, from the Luxeuil Abbey.
    Lectionarius gallicanus     The manuscript presented here, Latin 9427 in the collections of the National Library of France, was produced in the seventh century, most likely at the Luxeuil Abbey in eastern France, where it later was discovered by the Benedictine scholar Jean Mabillon (1632-1707). Often referred to as the Luxeuil Lectionary, it is an important source for understanding the Gallican Rite, the rite that prevailed in...

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    Jin gang ban ruo bo luo mi jing
    金剛般若波羅蜜經     This complete scroll from the first year of the Yifeng era (676) of the Tang dynasty was unearthed in Dunhuang, China. The scroll contains the Diamond Prajna pāramitā sutra, a work that is an important sacred text in the prajñā line of Mahayana Buddhism as well as a foundational text in Chinese Chan (Japanese Zen) Buddhism. The text was transmitted to China in the...
    • Contributor: Liu, Honggui
    • Date: 0676
    • Resource: - 23 pages

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    Codex Amiatinus.
    Biblia Sacra / Bibbia Amiatina     The Codex Amiatinus is the earliest surviving manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate. It is considered the most accurate copy of Saint Jerome's original translation and was used in the revision of the Vulgate by Pope Sixtus V in 1585-90. Preserved in the Medicea Laurenziana Library in Florence, it is one of the world's most important manuscripts. In his Ecclesiastical History...
    • Contributor: Ceolfrid, of Wearmouth, Saint, 642-716 - Gregory II, Pope, Died 731
    • Date: 0688
    • Resource: - 2059 pages

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    Theological Miscellany, Circa 764-83.
    Sententiae variae patrum     This miscellany manuscript was written in the time of Bishop Arbeo (circa 764--83) in the Bavarian diocesan town of Freising. It is remarkable especially for its script, a form of Anglo-Saxon minuscule, and its typically insular decoration: initials are adorned with animals and interlace patterns and surrounded by red dots. These insular features must be attributed to an English scribe active in the Freising...
    • Contributor: Peregrinus - Isidore, of Seville, Saint, Died 636
    • Date: 0700
    • Resource: - 146 pages

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    History of the Franks.
    Historia Francorum     Saint Gregory of Tours was born in 538 in what is now Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne region of central France. A Gallo-Roman who spoke Latin as his native language, he was ordained as a deacon in 563 and was bishop of Tours from 573 until his death in 594. Gregory's Historia Francorum (History of the Franks) is a major source for the history of...
    • Contributor: Gregory, Bishop of Tours, Saint, 538-594
    • Date: 0700
    • Resource: - 234 pages

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    Bishop Augustine, "The Harmony of the Gospels". The manuscript presented here contains the text of De concordia evangelistarum (The harmony of the Gospels), a Latin treatise by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354--430) composed in the year 400. The manuscript was created in France in the eighth century and is written in a half-uncial script. The Gospels, written by the four evangelists, provide slightly different accounts of the life of Christ, with...
    • Contributor: Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354
    • Date: 0700
    • Resource: - 544 pages

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    "De Locis Sanctis" by Saint Adamnan, Together with Extracts from "De Virginitate" by Venantius, and Pages from Saint Augustine of Hippo, Senator Cassiodorus, and Others. The volume presented here, Latin 13048 in the collections of the National Library of France, contains several manuscripts dating from the eighth and ninth centuries. The first is the text of De Locis Sanctis (Holy places) by Saint Adamnan (circa 625-704). Arculf was a seventh-century German bishop who is known as the earliest western European Christian traveler to the Middle East after the rise...
    • Contributor: Adamnan, Saint, Approximately 625-704 - Fortunatus, Venantius Honorius Clementianus, Approximately 540-Approximately 600 - Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354 - Cassiodorus, Senator, Approximately 487-Approximately 580
    • Date: 0700
    • Resource: - 186 pages

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    Bobbio Missal. The Bobbio Missal was discovered in Bobbio Abbey (in Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy) in 1686 by the French scholar and Benedictine monk Jean Mabillion (1632-1707). Mabillon published the work in 1687 under the title Liber Sacramentorum Ecclesiae Gallicanae, thereby identifying it as a Gallican sacramentary, which he suggested had been executed in the Besançon diocese in the late seventh century. Since then, the critical...

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    Prayer of Wessobrunn.
    Wessobrunner Gebet     This manuscript, dating from the early ninth century, contains the Wessobrunner Gebet (Prayer of Wessobrunn) and many other short works. The prayer itself, in prose, which gives the text as a whole its name, is preceded by a short creation poem, which, in nine lines of alliterative verse, seeks to explain the creation of the world out of chaos. This small literary monument is...

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    Ji yi qie fu de san mei jing. juan 2
    集一切福徳三昧経.     The hand copying of Buddhist sutras was believed to confer great merit and spiritual benefit, so that from the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the sixth century, numerous manuscripts were reproduced throughout the country. Shown here is a volume from the hand-copied Issai-kyō (a Buddhist corpus) commissioned by the Empress Kōmyō (701-60), wife of the Emperor Shōmu, to pray for the repose of...