The medieval regulars and their book collections: St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and The Abbey of St. Mary de Pratis, Leicester

The recent editing of many monastic house library catalogues in the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues has opened up the opportunity for new studies into the book collections of the regulars. The catalogues can be problematic, so an attempt has been made to tackle these issues before exploring them further as sources. This thesis demonstrates the use of these catalogues and extant manuscripts to explore further a monastic culture of learning that grew within both St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, and St. Mary de Pratis, Leicester. There is a particular focus on denoting not only the acquisition of these collections but their use as well, using the surviving evidence to demonstrate two communities thoroughly involved with their book collections. This includes the catalogue as a text, its order, the selection of authors, the location of books within the monastery, the donation and borrowing records of volumes, the contents of volumes and the surviving manuscripts.