From Cave Paintings to the Internet An Annotated Interactive Timeline on the History of Information and Media 800 to 900 Timeline

The Book of Kells, sometimes known as the Book of Columba, contains a richly decorated copy of the four gospels in a latin text based on the Vulgate edition (completed by St Jerome in 384 AD). The gospels are preceded by prefaces, summaries of the gospel narratives and concordances of gospel passages compiled in the fourth century by Eusebius of Caesarea. In all, there are 340 folios (680 pages). The Book of Kells is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin.

According to the Codices Latini Antiquiores, 264 manuscript books or fragments survive of texts written in Latin before 800 CE. "Of these 264 only a tenth (26) are secular works, and most of these of a technical nature. Eight of them are legal texts, 8 are medical, 6 are works of grammar, 1 is a gromatic text. It is clear from the historical evidence that the basic arts of life went on; education, law, medicine and the surveying necessary to adminsitration and the levying of taxes still required manuals and works of reference, and these needs are duly reflected in the parttern of manuscript survival." (Reynolds, Texts and Transmission [1983] xvi)

From roughly this date forward, as a result of the Carolingian Renaissance, "there is a continuous if irregular growth in the number of classical manuscripts in circulation, an increase in the range of authors available, and an extension of the geographical areas in which they could be found. . . .It is impossible to assess the growth in the volume of books in circulation without a complete catalogue of all surviving classical manuscripts." (Reynolds, Texts and Transmission [1983] xxvi.) Reynolds states in a footnote on this page that a catalogue in publication of known manuscripts of classical authors written from the ninth to twelth centuries will describe about 3000 manuscripts. This is more than ten times the number of manuscripts available from the period prior to 800.

The Book of Durrow, which derives its name from the Irish Columban monastery of Durrow, Co. Offaly, is an early medieval Gospel book decorated with carpet pages and framed symbols of the Evangelists. It was long considered the earliest surviving fully decorated insular Gospel book, and thought to date from the mid-seventh century, yet it was executed with such a degree of sophistication that recent scholars argue for a date more contemporaraneous with the Book of Kells. Thus, its date is uncertain and controversial. It is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin.

Hien Tsung becomes the Emperor of China. During his reign a shortage of copper leads to the introduction of paper money.

Carter, Invention of Printing in China 2nd ed [1955] indicates that widespread use of paper money in China dates from 994. Some references suggest that paper money may have been used in China as early as the seventh century.

The Stuttgart Psalter, thought to have been produced in Saint Germain, France, is the earliest surviving psalter with a full set of illustrations--316 in all. It is also "the first codex to be designed so that there is a perfect relationship between text and picture." (Adrian Wilson). It is preserved in the Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek.

Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian cleric and mathematician, develops the concept of a written process to be followed to achieve some goal. He writes a book on the subject giving the name algorithm to this process. The information in this work will eventually reach Europe in books on Algorithmus by other authors that will be printed through the second half of the 15th century and later. Al-Khwarizmi also writes a book entitled On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals.

At Studium, a monastery near Constantinople, Abbot Theodre produces a new set of monastic regulations that emphasize the scriptorium and the library, and outline the duties of the librarian. From this point onward each monastery is encouraged to form its own library.

The Plan of Saint Gall, "the only surviving major architectural drawing from the roughly 700-year period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the 13th century," dates from this time. The plan probably depicts an ideal Benedictine monastic compound "including churches, houses, stables, kitchens, workshops, brewery, infirmary, and even a special house for bloodletting. . . . much has been learned about medieval life from the Plan. The absence of heating in the dining hall, for instance, was not an oversight but was meant to discourage excessive enjoyment of meals. In the quarters for the 120-150 monks, their guests, and visitors, the ratio of toilet seats was better than what modern hygenic codes would prescribe." The Plan also includes a library.

The Banu Musa brothers, three Persian scholars active in the library and translation institute called the House of Wisdom in Bagdad, publish in manuscript the Book of Ingenious Devices.This describes and illustrates and number of automata, including some derived from Hero of Alexandria. Among the original inventions by the Banu Musa brothers are a feedback controller,  and "the earliest known mechanical musical instrument, in this case a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable cylinders automatically. According to Charles B. Fowler, this 'cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century.' The Banu Musa also invented an automatic flute player which appears to have been the first programmable machine."

The great library of the Cathedral of York, which had been considerably augmented by the efforts of Alcuin, and had become even more famous after Alcuin's time, is destroyed along with York Cathedral by Danish Vikings. In following the centuries the church and its area will pass into the hands of numerous invaders. The cathedral will be destroyed by the Danes in 1075. It will be destroyed and rebuilt several times thereafter.

The Diamond Sutra is published in China. A scroll sixteen feet long by 10.5 inches wide, it is the earliest dated example of woodblock printing. The scroll bears an inscription which may be translated as follows: "reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Chieh on behalf of his parents on the fifteenth of the fourth moon of the ninth year of Xian Long (May 11, 868)."

Date of the earliest "complete" manuscript of Euclid's Elements that has survived: MS. d’Orville 301, which has been preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, since 1804. "It was written in pen and ink on parchment in the year 888 AD by Stephen the Clerk in Constantinople, then sold to Arethas of Patrae, later bishop of Caesarea in Capadoccia, for fourteen gold coins. Its whereabouts are obscure from that time until the seventeenth century, when it was acquired by the Dutch classicist J P D’Orville, part of whose collection was eventually purchased by the Bodleian Library."

King Alfred the Great orders monks to compile the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons and their settlement in Britain. Much of the information in these documents consists of rumours of events that happened elsewhere and so may be unreliable. However for some periods and places, the chronicle is the only substantial surviving source of information. "After the original chronicle was compiled, copies were kept at various monasteries and were updated independently. Sometimes with items important to the locals, such as the fertility of the harvest or the paucity of bees, would be eagerly recorded, whereas distant political events could be overlooked. A combination of the individual annals allows us to develop an overall picture, a document that was the first continuous history written by Europeans in their own language."

"There are nine surviving manuscripts (including two copies), of which eight are written entirely in Anglo-Saxon, while the ninth is in Anglo-Saxon with a translation of each annal into Latin. . . .The oldest (Corp. Chris. MS 173) is known as the Parker Chronicle, after Matthew Parker who once owned it, or the Winchester Chronicle." This manuscript, preserved at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, dates from the actual time of compilation--the last decade of the ninth century.

"It was said that Baghdad alone had over one hundred booksellers in 891, and that at the height of its cultural glory it had some thirty public libraries." (Harris, History of Libraries in the Western World [1999] 79).