The Great Public Library of Constantinople?

Mosaic in Aghia Sophia

Above is a mosaic in Aghia Sophia (meaning Divine wisdom) which was a  church in Constantinople, being the largest church in the world when it was built. Emperor Justinian (left) is holding Aghia Sophia which he built during his reign and is offering it to the Madonna and Christ. Emperor Constantine (right) is offering the city he built (Constantinople) to them.  

The Great Public Library of Constantinople?

Constantine the Great moved the capital Rome to the New Rome, where Europe and Asia meet Constantinople (330 CE).  In Constantinople one would assume that there would be a need for a great public library, similar to the twenty eight public libraries of Rome between 1 CE and 300 CE. The Eastern Empire had adopted Christianity as its official religion and with all the classical literature and pagan writings before that time the assumption is that there would have existed a great public library but there seems to be no trace of one at all.

Staikos (2000) indicates there were four main reasons for this;
Murray (2009) agrees with these statements.

1.       There was a slump in business of the Roman bookselling and publishing houses that marketed books throughout the Roman Empire. The production and distribution of Christian books was never taken over by the pagan copying and publishing firms. Authors would instead copy their books and issue them to friends and associates. Thus denying the old system of publishers and distributors as more educated classes turned to Christianity it lead to the end of the book trade to the public.The majority of books produced were from the Imperial or the monastic writing rooms (libraries) and none of them had dealings with the general public.
2.        The church’s attempts to impose its Christian belief system to the population and control the distribution of pagan writings including classical learning and any challenge to Christian theological works would be banned. The Eastern empire adopts Christianity in 334 CE, one would have thought that with writings both Christian and pagan this would have a roaring book trade. This was not the case as with fanatical Christians would not stand for pagans and from the year 340 CE saw the start of the persecution of the pagans and finally the closing of the Athenian philosophy schools in 529 CE. During Emperor Justinian’s reign in 390 CE he would punish any church that did not adhere with the strict belief system.
3.    The rise in the cost of books caused by the higher cost of parchment and the extraordinary costs associated with paying copyists. The books that were produced in Byzantium were in the form of codices and up until the Seventh Century   were usually written on Egyptian papyrus after the loss of Egypt to the Arabs the importing of papyrus came to an end. Parchment was introduced as a writing medium in the Fourth Century as it lasted longer, papyrus would deteriorate over a period of time but the expense of such material was very high.
4.     The negative stance of many monks regarding the possession of books; it was felt by many monks and hermits that ownership of books was conflicting to their belief of their vow with poverty. and The Canons of the Apostles (4^th CE) was ‘Shun all pagan books’.

During the Byzantine Empire hundreds of thousands of codices were produced for the monastic library. The large libraries were, the imperial and church related libraries. Private libraries were very small containing only up to thirty books and no great public libraries such as the ones during antiquity existed.

Lerner (1999) indicates that there was a school founded by Constantine and a public library was attached, it contained 120,000 volumes and received imperial support. 


Staikos, K 2000, The great libraries: from antiquity to the renaissance, Oak Knoll Press.

Murray, SAP 2009, The library: an illustrated history, Skyhorse Publishing, New York.
Lerner, FA 1999, The story of libraries: from the invention of writing to the computer age, The Continuum Publishing Company, New York.

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The challenge faced is there didn’t seem to be a vast amount written in regard to this subject alone. I could not locate one book that was solely devoted to the subject.  I had sought the assistance of four reference librarians, three in person and one through email. The one incident that occurred with the three reference librarians is that after searching the catalogue for “The Byzantine Empire and its libraries” or variants, they all then broadened their search to “The history of libraries” and felt that I would be able to locate information within that resource. Another issue is that certain information contradicts other material gathered and I am a little unsure on how to display this research or to say who is the most reliable source. It has led me to retract my first post and review what I will write, if  there are different viewpoints of authors I will state them with a citation, I cannot distinguish who is right nor do I feel the need to put forward my opinion, only the information collected.

 One of the reference librarians has sent me a link to a thesis, the other has uncovered a monograph of Great libraries through the ages this has a chapter devoted to the Byzantine libraries. To actually acquire this book took a little time and thought, the process I used was through booko.com.au  where I searched for the book and its new link to Libraries Australia, it let me know it was available in the State Library and Monash University using my caval card I was able to obtain a copy. (It would have been  less time consuming if this was an Ebook).

The other challenge faced is that this is over a 1100 year period and the empire expands and decreases through the timeline. The one thing I have learnt is to never assume there will be countless resources on subject without investigating it fully, if nothing else I have been taught a valuable lesson here, do your research first don’t assume anything.