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In Egypt in AD389 Bishop Theophilus oversaw the destruction of the Temple to the god Seraphis in Alexandria. This was the largest building in the world, larger than the Colosseum or the Parthenon. It overlooked the harbour of Alexandria and the Great Lighthouse; one of the Great Wonders of the World.. but which also housed the Great Library of Alexandria holding an estimated 700,000 volumes mainly in the form of scrolls. It was a public library and any citizen of Alexandria could come and use it. Christians hated any form of research that enquired into their religion. Their creed was the bible which should be accepted in blind faith; not questioned or tested. Any who questioned were heretics and would be tortured until they saw the error of their ways and if they did not repent they would be killed. In AD 391 the library was burned and the texts were lost to the world. And then this great temple was reduced to rubble. Eventually a small church dedicated to St John the Baptist was built on the site as a final insult to the pagan gods. Philosophers were considered especially dangerous and their books burned and they were banned from teaching. Culture died at that point. Some parchment books were saved because parchment was expensive and the text would be wiped off and the parchment reused – so called palimpsests. Researchers have been able to recover the original texts in some cases. This destruction continued right through the dark ages and widely – France, Turkey, Syria and Egypt. It continued to the 15th Century’ friar Savonarola with his Bonfires of the Vanities and only stopped with the gradual emergence of the Renaissance. We are still losing books in Britain today. Britain has closed almost 800 libraries since 2010. Private libraries like the Charlecote l;ibrary are important outposts helping to preserve books for posterity.

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