Note 5 — Chapter I · THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

That Pliny’s Natural History was extensively read in the Middle Ages is proved by the large number of times its title appears in medieval library catalogues. For example, in twelfth-century French catalogues alone it occurs in no less than six different places; in German catalogues in five different places before the twelfth century. Though at first glance 366these figures do not appear large, when compared with similar figures for the works of other writers they show that, relatively speaking, Pliny was very popular. We are also confirmed in this opinion by the frequency of citations of Pliny (M. Manitius, Philologisches, 1892, pp. 59–60; idem, Römische Prosaiker, 1890, pp. 380–384). Furthermore, we have in manuscripts dating from the eighth century and onward a series of excerpts from Books II, III, IV, VI, and XVIII of the Natural History. These contain the outstanding geographical elements of Pliny’s work and attest to its great popularity (see Rück, Auszüge, 1888; idem, Exzerpt, 1902; idem, Naturalis Historia, 1898, pp. 203–318). On p. 287 of the Exzerpt Rück writes that the existence of these excerpts forms “a weighty literary-historical proof of the continued life of Pliny in later centuries.”