In the late 1980s, Laura Light undertook the monumental task of bringing the catalogue descriptions of the Houghton's medieval manuscripts--more than 1,300 in all--up to the standards of modern scholarship. Among the fruits of that project was an exhibition in the Library of twelfth century Biblical manuscripts. Light's catalogue catches the culture of the medieval book at its height, not only in Bibles but in breviaries, lectionaries, commentaries, and works of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church.

Laura Light is a former manuscript cataloguer at the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Read More by Laura Light:

• A Garland of Satire, Wisdom, and History: Latin Verse from Twelfth-Century France (Carmina Houghtoniensia)