Size added legibility and grandeur, but was also a way of preventing theft. In an 858 A.D. letter to Archbishop Hincmar, Lupus of Ferrières explained why he’d been reluctant to send a copy of Bede’s Collectanea: the book was too large to conceal on one’s person or to hide in a bag and, even if it could be, “one would have to fear an attack of robbers who would certainly be attracted by the beauty of the book.”
