Great Books

The question is as old as the advent of the written word. What should I read when there are so many books?

The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails deeply fastened in, which by the counsel of masters are given from one shepherd. More than these, my son, require not. Of making many books there is no end: and much study is an affliction of the flesh.

—Ecclesiastes 12:11-12 

Portrait of Ezra at the start of the Old Testament
Codex Amiatinus, fol. 5r
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

Scholars are great makers-of-lists so it stands to reason that there have been lists of great books throughout history.

There were lists of great books in antiquity, there were lists of great books in the Middle Ages, there were lists of great books in the Enlightenment, and there are lists of great books today.

We call one such list “the Bible,” although Catholic and Orthodox Christians include a number of books that Protestants relying on the Masoretic text of the Hebrew bible do not.

More recent lists have been used to define the heritage of Western civilization, but the most famous of these lists include only a dozen or so titles from the Ages of Faith (see below).

The SJWs currently protesting against the “dead white European males” of the idealized twentieth-century college curriculum are hardly the first to try to erase the medieval Christian past. They are not even the most effective in attempting as much.

That honor goes to the Enlightenment and its early modern predecessors—the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Whereas the Catholic Church published its Index Librorum Prohibitorum to caution Christians what not to read, Protestant and Enlightened list-makers simply pretended the books that they considered dangerous did not exist.

It is much worse to be on no list at all than to be on a list of prohibited books. Banned books excite curiosity. They tempt man’s rebellious nature by the very virtue of being forbidden. Unlisted books fall into oblivion—thus the great battles throughout written history about which books those who wish to consider themselves wise should read.

What follows is a roughly chronological list of some of the great written works of the Middle Ages, grouped loosely by genre. It should not be considered complete.

****

Modern lists of medieval “greats”

Harvard Classics (alias Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf):

• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 
• Beowulf 
• Song of Roland 
• Sagas of the Volsungs and Nibelungs 
• Togail Bruidne Dá Derga
• Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy 
• Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales 
• Jean Froissart, Chronicles 
• Thomas of Kempen, Imitation of Christ
• Thomas Malory, Morte d’Arthur 

Mortimer Adler’s Great Books of the Western World:

• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, City of God, On Christian Doctrine 
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica
• Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy
• Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde

St. John’s College “Great Books” curriculum:

• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
• Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion 
• Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica 
• Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy 
• Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

****

Unauthorized list of the Great Books of the Middle Ages

The Vulgate Bible (Douay-Rheims)

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, City of God, Enarrationes in Psalmos, On Christian Doctrine

Martianus Capella, Marriage of Mercury and Philology
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
Benedict of Nursia, Rule for monasteries

Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job
Cassiodorus, On the Psalms

Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks
Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, Commentaries on Scripture

Einhard, Life of Charles

The Heliand
Beowulf
The Song of Roland

Anselm of Canterbury, Prayers and Meditations, Proslogion, Cur Deus Homo
Abelard and Heloise, Letters
Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs
Hugh of St. Victor, On the sacraments, Didascalicon
John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, Policraticus
Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias
Richard of St. Victor, Mystical Ark

Peter Lombard, Sentences
Peter Comestor, Historia scholastica
Gratian, Decretum

Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain
William of Malmesbury, Deeds of the English Kings
Otto of Freising, Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, The Two Cities
William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea
William of Newburgh, History of English Affairs

Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed

Chrétien de Troyes, Romances
Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzifal
Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan
Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose
Ulrich von Lichtenstein, Service of Ladies
Snorri Sturlson, Prose Edda

Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum maius
Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea
Bonaventure, Breviloquium
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica

Alfonso X el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa Maria
Conrad of Saxony, Speculum beatae Mariae Virginis
Gertrude of Helfta, Herald of Divine Love
Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls

Jean de Joinville, Life of St. Louis
Geoffroi de Charny, Book of Chivalry
Marco Polo, Travels

John of Caulibus (pseudo-Bonaventure), Meditations on the Life of Christ

Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, La Vita Nuova
Francesco Petrarch, Canzoniere, Letters
Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Pearl

Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead
The Cloud of Unknowing
Henry Suso, Wisdom’s Watch Upon the Hours
Birgitta of Sweden, Revelations
Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

Jean Froissart, Chronicles

Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies

Guido of Monte Rochen, Handbook for Parish Priests
Thomas of Kempen, The Imitation of Christ
The Myroure of our Lady
York Mystery Plays

Thomas Malory, Morte d’Arthur

Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Majestas Domini with the Four Evangelists at the start of the New Testament
Codex Amiatinus, fol. 796v
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana