Few medieval monasteries had libraries larger than 500 or 600 volumes

Evidence

Most of all, monasteries produced books to fulfil their needs: those of the community as a whole and those of individual members. This naturally circumscribed the size of many monastic libraries, and, together with the sheer cost of parchment, helps explains why few medieval monasteries had libraries larger than 500 or 600 volumes. St Gallen possessed around 400 books in the late ninth century; Cluny, one of the richest monasteries in Europe around the twelfth century, had some 570 volumes. Before the thirteenth century, the norm for most monastic libraries was probably not much larger than around 100 or 200 books. — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 100

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 100
• XREF: connects to: Medieval monastic libraries rarely exceeded a few hundred volumes — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 100; Leading English monasteries held roughly 2,000 volumes each by 1535 — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 245; Dutch ministers averaged 1,144 books per library in the seventeenth century — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 298 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• A monastery assembled a 2000-book library from only forty-eight volumes #contradicts (0.80) — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 205