Convenors: Richard Sharpe (Oxford); Cristina Dondi (Oxford); Dorit Raines (Venice)

The closure of religious houses, in varying circumstances, affected all of Europe at some point between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. At different times and in different countries the consequences for monastic libraries were widely varied, in some cases preserving medieval and early modern collections intact, in others abandoning books to their fate, or transferring them piecemeal into new ownership to serve different cultural purposes.

What impact did these historic changes have on the shape of libraries, access to libraries, and in particular on the preservation or otherwise of books from the past ---the intellectual heritage of Europe?

Abstracts of the conference presentations.

The conference was supported by funding from the British Academy, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the John Fell OUP Research Fund, and the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book