This lecture offers a fresh appraisal of the problems of the existence, location, and contents of the papal library, and the associated problems of Roman script and Roman book production in the early middle ages. The palaeography and codicology of books from Rome, and books possibly produced in Rome, between the sixth and the ninth centuries, are reassessed in the light of current scholarship. This includes a discussion of the possible loss of Roman books originally written on papyrus, and of books in both Latin and Greek. The current archaeological evidence relating to a Lateran library and its location is considered. The records of the Lateran Council of 649 provide an important case study for the contents and use of the Lateran library in the early middle ages. All this evidence suggest that the papal library had a crucial function as well as a symbolic role in the early middle ages as a repository of orthodox and authoritative texts.
Rosamond McKitterick is Professor Emerita of Medieval History in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. She received the degrees of MA, PhD, and Litt.D. from the University of Cambridge and studied for a year (1974-5) at the University of Munich. In 2010 she was awarded the International Dr A.H. Heineken Prize in History by the Royal Dutch Academy. Among her many books, articles and chapters in books, one of the most recent is her monograph Rome and the invention of the papacy: the Liber pontificalis (2020).