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The Bible is the most widely read book in the world. From the transcription of the Old Testament to Greek, to the collection of the Gospels, the Bible has always been in a state of literary and scholarly transition. In her classic work, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Beryl Smalley describes the changes in the organization, technique, and purpose of Bible studies in northwestern Europe from the Carolingian renaissance to about 1300. This was the period when the emergence of Aristotelian thought inspired medieval scholars to take a fresh look at the Scriptures. The large number of medieval commentaries on the Bible confirms that they did so and that they expressed their reactions in writing.
Medieval historians and students of literature will find special value in this book: they will learn, in systematic fashion, what earlier scholars have accomplished in the field of exegesis; and they will be enabled to employ the history of biblical interpretation recounted here as a mirror for the social and cultural upheavals that were taking place simultaneously.
"The core of the book is the chapters devoted to the Victorines—the regular canons of St. Victor at Paris who being both scholares and claustrales formed a bridge to cover the gulf which had arisen between monks and schoalrs, the devotional and the intellectual aspects." –The English Hisotrical Review
"Miss Smalley has rendered a valuable servie to medieval studies by showing in detail how keenly critical, even when hampered by the absence of reliable texts or by their ignorance of the original language of Old or New Testament, men like Andrew of St. Victor or Stephen Langton were." –Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review
"This is a history which describes the changes in the organizations, techniques, and purposes of biblical studies in northwestern Europe from the Carolingian revival to about 1300. It will be valuable to medieval historians and students of literature." –Scholarly Books in America
"Both church historians and exegetes have justly praised this careful, methodical, and superbly documented inquiry into the changing patterns and purpose of Biblical studies between the age of Charlegmagne and the Aristotelian revolution of the 13th century." –Concordia Theological Monthly
"In tracing the history of medieval exegesis, Smalley offers introductory chapters on the Fathers and on the rise of monastic and cathedral schools. After treating the Victorines—Hugh, Richard, and Andrew, she discusses the "masters of the sacred page" and the friars." –New Testament Abstracts
"The student of medieval history, culture, and institutions will want to read this book to discover the author's insights on how these affected scriptural exegesis and how the latter, in turn, found a response in its age....This book deserves a place on the ilbrary shelves of every institution of higher eduction. It is one of those rare works from which both the beinner and the accomplished can profit." –Interest
Beryl Smalley (1905–1984) was a British historian. She was a tutor in history and former vice-Principal at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.