| | Year | | Event | Keyword |
| | 104 | | Papermaking discovered in China by Ts'ai Louen (date is not very | PAPER |
| | specific: it may have been 105. Name also written as: Ts'ai Lun) |
| | Material used: plant bark, discarded cotton and old fishnets. |
| | 105 | | Chinese history records that papermaking was invented by Ts'ai | PAPER |
| | Lun in the court of Ho'ti in Lei-yang, China. Paper had, in fact, been |
| | made in China for at least two hundred years before this date. The |
| | first papers were made from hemp, bark, and used fish nets. |
| | 191 | | Palatine library destroyed by fire | PALATINE |
| | 370 | | Public libraries, in these days there were said to be 28 public | PUBLIC LIBRARY ROME |
| | libraries in Rome |
| | 391 | | Alexandrian Library destroyed under the direction of Archbishop | ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY |
| | Theophilus of Antioch (destruction of temple of Serapis) |
| | 480 | | (480-524), the last learned Roman to study the language and | BOETHIUS |
| | literature of Greece. He wrote his DE CONSOLATIONE |
| | PHILOSOPHIAE while awaiting his execution. The Consolation of |
| | Philosophy is a dialogue of 39 short poems in 13 different meters |
| | that paid tribute to the ancient authors and philosophers. |
| | 590 | | Luxeuil. Monastery founded by Columban, first monastery in Gaul. | LUXEUIL |
| | Irish Monks brought along numerous manuscripts |
| | 637 | | Caesarea Library destroyed by Arabs conquering Palestine (library | CAESAREA |
| | was originally founded by church father Origen who died 309 AD) |
| | 687 | | Undoubtedly one of history's most dramatic book exhumations | CUTHBERT, GOSPEL OF St. |
| | involves a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St.John that was |
| | buried in the year 687 with the body of St. Cuthbert, bishop near |
| | Lindesfarne. Two hundred years later Danish invaders sacked the |
| | holy compound, carrying with them the remains of Cuthbert. In 1104 |
| | the carved wooden casket was opened and the Gospel, a |
| | manuscript written in uncial, was found perfectly preserved. |
| | 700 | | Lindisfarne Gospels written on 258 leaves (link to on-line | LINDISFARNE |
| | reproductions: http://www.xs4all.nl/~cremers/manuscri.html ) |
| | 715 | | Codex Amitinus, manuscript of the Vulgate written in Northumbrian | CODEX AMITINUS |
| | uncial. |
| | 716 | | Amiatinus. Codex Amiatinus, made at the scriptorium of the twin | AMITIANUS |
| | monasteries Wearmouth and Jarrow near Newcastle, Northumbria. |
| | This codex brings together the entire old and new testament in |
| | 1,030 folios in a single binding.. |
| | 750 | | Paper making reached Samarkand before 750, Baghdad in 793, | PAPER |
| | Damascus and Cairo in approximately 950. Through the Arab |
| | conquest of North Africa and Southern Spain, the invention first |
| | reached the Moorish parts of Spain in the 11th century. A mill was |
| | recorded at Fez in Morocco in 1100, and the first on the Spanish |
| | mainland at Xativa in 1151. It reached Southern Italy in the 13th |
| | century, where, until quite recently, some of the oldest handmade |
| | paper mills in Italy were operating near Amalfi, in the Naples area. |
| | 750 | | Canterbury School of manuscript illumination, active until 13th | CANTERBURY |
| | 750 | | Willibrord Gospels made appr. 750, probably made by the artists of | WILLIBRORD |
| | the Book of Durrow |
| | 750 | | Aureus. Codex Aureaus written, probably at Canterbury | AUREUS |
| | January 17, 2003 | Page 4 of 32 |