The survival rate of ancient literature

[Sean Manning]

One last datum since this thread has started up again.

I have it on the word of written culture expert Dr. Erik Kwakkel that about 8% of medieval manuscripts survive (carying a somewhat higher proportion of medieval literature, but we don't know much about what is missing). Of course, common medieval books like psalters probably got discarded much quicker when printing came in than anything old and rare, but I'm not sure. Based on that, a survival rate of less than 1% for ancient literature sounds plausible.

Has he published anything on that matter? I'd also love to know which sources have come in what languages - Greek, Roman, Arabic, Syriac - to us. :?: :!: :?: :!:

I expect that the figure is for Europe only, and I'm not sure if it includes the Orthodox world or just Latin Christiendom. It would be really interesting to do a tally of which ancient authors survive from different regions, and in what languages- I know some things only survive in Arabic or Syriac translations. I just asked Dr. Kwakkel about this and here was his reply:

Hi Sean,

The estimation of 7% (not 8%, as I may have stated in class) is found in:

-Uwe Neddermeyer, ‘Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer Quantitativen Bestimmung der Buchproduction im Spätmittelalter’ in Gazette du Livre Médiéval 28 (1996), pp. 23-32
-Uwe Neddermeyer, Von der Handschrift zum gedrückten Buch. Schriftlichkeit und Leseinteresse im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit: Quantitative und qualitative Aspecte (Wiesbaden 1998).

This number (7%) relates to medieval books in general. If you focus on illuminated manuscripts, the survival rate goes up to 15% (no doubt because of their beauty), see Hanno Wijsman, ‘Manuscrit illustrés dans les Pays-Bas Bourguignons: Quelques remarques quantitatives’, in Gazette du Livre Médiéval 43 (automne 2003), pp. 23-33).

I hope this is useful.

Erik Kwakkel

Its amazing that so many books survive when you think about it. Does anyone here read French or German?