2. Books that the scholars might use. It is difficult to say what any particular scholar actually did read, for the libraries of monasteries differed enormously in the character and number of their books; some monasteries had several hundred books, some none at all. Some libraries were composed almost entirely of works of the Fathers; some possessed a good many works of ancient classical writers. One might expect to find any one or more of the following works in a scholar’s library:—
Aristotle, De Interpretatione and the Categories in Boëthius’ translation.
This explains why the logical problems occupied the almost exclusive attention of the first schoolmen.
Plato, the Timæus.
This was known to the Irish monks perhaps in Greek, but on the continent in a translation by Chalcidius. The only other sources of knowledge of Plato were in the works of Augustine and the neo-Platonists.
Commentaries on Aristotle,—The Isagoge by Porphyry, in a translation into Latin by Boëthius, and some commentaries by Boëthius himself on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione and Categories.
Cicero, the rhetorical and dialectical treatises, such as the Topica, De Officiis.
Seneca, De Beneficiis.
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura.
Augustine’s works and some pseudo-Augustinian writings.