A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

by Barbara W. Tuchman

He commissioned translations into French of Livy, Aristotle, and Augustine’s City of God “for the public utility of the realm and all Christendom,” and owned many other classics, works of the church fathers, and Arab scientific treatises in French translation. The library was eclectic, ranging from Euclid, Ovid, Seneca, and Josephus to John of Salisbury, the Roman de la Rose, and a then current best seller, Sir John Mandeville’s Travels. It contained the various 13th century encyclopedias of universal knowledge, a collection of works on the crusades and on astrology and astronomy, 47 Arthurian and other romances, codes, commentaries and grammars, works of philosophy, theology, contemporary poetry, and satire—in all, according to an inventory of 1373, over 1,000 volumes, ultimately the nucleus of the national library of France.