1603–1700

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the ways in which a shifting conceptualization of manuscripts’ antiquarian value during the seventeenth century led to a final push towards their preservation. As medieval manuscripts were increasingly viewed as relics of a bygone and inaccessible past, their preservation took on greater political and cultural urgency. Evaluating seventeenth-century descriptions of manuscript destruction and the surviving evidence, this chapter shows that the deliberate destruction of manuscripts was limited. The chapter explores as a case study the library at Worcester Cathedral, where the majority of seventeenth-century losses to the collection happened at the hands of collectors and not, as is often assumed, at the hands of uncultured iconoclasts.

Authors 1

1. Krista A Milne corresponding Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University ,