Features
‘A remarkable time capsule’: The enchanting history of Oxford University’s 750-year-old medieval library
Predating the Aztec Empire, Merton College Library in Oxford has been used by everyone from celebrated 14th-Century mathematicians to JRR Tolkien. In an exclusive interview with the BBC for its 750th birthday, its librarian describes what makes it so special.
At Merton College in Oxford, there is an antique chest. In the Middle Ages, three key-holders had to be summoned to reveal the riches within. But this treasure wasn’t gold or jewels. It was books.
Such strict security may sound overly cautious for mere parchment. But in an era before the printing press, books were a valuable commodity. They could take months to produce, as the entire text had to be painstakingly written out by hand. So, just as universities solicit cash from their alumni today, Merton College insisted its 13th-Century fellows donated books.
“There’s no single definition of a library” – Prof Teresa Webber
The Archbishop of Canterbury issued a decree in 1276 introducing this requirement, which marked the beginning of the library at Merton College. It has been running continuously ever since. To put that length of time in context, Merton’s library predates the Aztec Empire. Its unbroken history stretches from before the Black Death to beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. And its users have encompassed everyone from famous 14th Century mathematicians to Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien.
This month marks the library’s 750th anniversary. It’s a major milestone. But Merton’s extraordinary lifespan has been recognised since the Victoria era, when it was routinely described as the oldest library in England.
In the 20th Century, writers like Rudyard Kipling and John Buchan referenced it in works of historical fiction, bolstering its reputation as a particularly venerable library. As the cultural recognition of “the famous Merton Library” grew, claims about its longevity became exaggerated. Some overzealous Oxonians even declared it the oldest library in the world.
The origins of the historic library
Historians today are more careful about making such bold declarations. “It’s a complicated question,” says Prof Teresa Webber from the University of Cambridge. “There’s no single definition of a library. And there were all sorts of stages in the development of what we think of today as a library.”
The origins of the library at Merton are certainly different from how we think of such institutions now. There was no librarian and there were no shelves for browsing. “There was a system of loaning and returning books from the chest,” Merton’s librarian, Dr Julia Walworth tells the BBC. “It would have been a formal thing. Rather than just saying, ‘Oh, go rummage and find the books you need,’ the whole community would come together to open the chest.”
“Horizontal shelves were installed for placing books upright. Merton is the first recorded use in Britain of this method of storing books” – Dr Julia Walworth
Merton’s collection started evolving into a modern library quite quickly. Just a few years after the Archbishop’s decree, several books were stored outside the chest for the first time. They were chained to a table in the college, making them available at any time. According to Walworth, this innovation “anticipates the modern distinction between loan and reference library collections”.
Merton’s book treasury moved closer to becoming a modern library in the 1370s, when a purpose-built room was constructed to house the growing collection. It was here that Merton introduced a vital improvement in book storage. “Horizontal shelves were installed for placing books upright,” Walworth says. “Merton is the first recorded use in Britain of this method of storing books.”
Curiously, Merton’s books were shelved with their spines inwards and their titles inked on the paper facing out. This was due to the continued use of chains, which were clipped on the fore-edge of each book’s cover. “The fellows were aware that chained books had a better chance of survival than books that went out on loan,” Walworth explains.
Today, just a few volumes in the library are chained – purely for display purposes. And the remaining books are now placed in the modern fashion with their spines out. But otherwise, the medieval room remains a remarkable time capsule of the library’s history. Near the entrance, visitors can even see the 13th-Century chest, which Walworth believes is the original. During term time, the historic library room is still used by students. And this ongoing use is a major factor in the superlatives that are often applied to the age of Merton’s library. “It’s hard to think of an earlier library room that’s been in continuous use,” Webber says.
Claims about Merton’s longevity first gained traction in the Victorian era, as it became more of a tourist destination. Visitors would marvel at its stained-glass windows, as well as rare books like its 15th-Century edition of The Canterbury Tales. “It’s one of the earliest books printed in England,” Walworth explains. “What’s unique about Merton’s copy is the hand-illuminated borders.” Among those who visited the library was American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, who mentioned it in his 1856 travelogue English Traits. In 1884, a young Beatrix Potter visited, describing the library’s “beautiful oak roof” and “ancient, dusty smell” in her diary.
By this time, books and magazines were increasingly describing the library in record-breaking terms. An 1878 guide to Oxford called Merton’s library “the most ancient now in England”. The 1885 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica described it as “the oldest existing library in England”. Gradually, these claims were inflated. A 1928 article in The Times recounted an event held by the Oxford Preservation Trust in which it was declared “the oldest library in the world”.
This growing perception of Merton’s longevity was even referenced in F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby. In the book, the multi-millionaire title character fills his mansion with imitations of history’s most prestigious rooms. So, it’s only natural that his books live in a recreation he refers to as “the Merton College Library”. As Walworth puts it, “Merton’s library had become a byword for the ‘best’ ancient library” by that time. She even points out that Fitzgerald’s fictional scenario had roots in reality. “The dining clubs at Princeton University have historical imitation rooms. One of them is based on the Merton College Library.”
But today, Walworth rebukes any suggestion that Merton’s library is the world’s oldest. She prefers to describe it with several qualifiers, calling it “one of the oldest still-functioning academic libraries in Europe”. That more measured description recognises that not all historic libraries can be categorised in the same bucket – monastic libraries functioned very differently from private subscription libraries, for instance. But it also acknowledges ancient institutions around the globe. “It’s not that people weren’t aware of other parts of the world in the past,” Walworth says. “But there was a tendency for people to think of their own world as having primacy. Our outlook tends to be more global now, quite rightly.”
The debate over the world’s oldest library
Among these global institutions, there are several candidates for the contested title of world’s oldest library. When the Al-Qarawiyyin library in Morocco underwent a major restoration in 2016, it was described by several media outlets as “the oldest library in the world”. But Guinness World Records cites Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt as the oldest continuously operating library.
In both cases, it’s difficult to establish an exact starting date. For the Al-Qarawiyyin library, some scholars have cast doubt on the library’s claims of Ninth-Century origins, saying the “story has much myth about it”. In the case of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, the building was constructed in the Sixth Century. But ancient writings suggest that the library’s collections could date from two centuries earlier. “It depends how you count it,” Walworth says. “When are you going to start the timeline? What is the beginning of a library?”
However, Prof Richard Gameson from Durham University tells the BBC that the library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery “is probably the one with the longest continuous history”. But he caveats this by adding that “the nature of the ‘library’, how it was used and how it was understood changed over time”. So, any claim to be “the oldest” needs to be accompanied by an appropriate explanation of what a library is. Finding a single definition that allows for one conclusive record-holder seems a near-impossible task.
“You can think of the oldest library as the oldest coherent collection of books that stayed together,” says Webber. “Or you can think of it in terms of the survival of the physical space. Or you could ask, ‘What’s the oldest space and collection of books which has been there continuously?'”
She offers the Dunhuang Library Cave in China as an example. This secret chamber was filled with manuscripts and sealed sometime around the 11th Century. It was only opened again after its rediscovery in 1900. “But the books were still in continuous storage there,” Webber says.
Finding a common definition of a library will only become more challenging now, as digital institutions offer physical spaces that do not even contain any books. “The definition of what a library is has always needed to be a capacious one,” says Webber. “The introduction of new technology is simply a continuation of that. But I don’t think the library as a physical space will disappear.”
Walworth is similarly optimistic, as she embarks on a project to digitise Merton’s manuscripts. “People will be able to access them anywhere. But I think they will still want to come and see the library and understand how people used books in the past.”
Reflecting on the 750-year span of Merton’s library, this digital phase seems like just another step in a long evolution. Just as the books moved from the Archbishop’s chest to chained desks to horizontal shelves, now they will enter the virtual realm. “I suppose that’s why I now find it less useful to talk about libraries as ‘the oldest’,” Walworth says. “For me, the story is not about how long a library has been running. It’s more about the sense of community.”
She points out that the tradition of donating books introduced by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1276 persists to this day. “What started when he laid down those injunctions was the idea of a common collection built by the people. So, it’s just remarkable that for 750 years people have maintained this connection with an institution and its books.”
Perhaps that proves that books really are the most durable treasure – whether they are handwritten on parchment and sealed in an antique chest or distributed as pixels in the cybernetic ether.
[BBC]
Features
Combining local resources,traditional knowledge and science to build a food-secure Sri Lanka
World Food Day 2026: Innovating today for a better food future
by Dr. Kaushalya Wijayasekara
What will be on the Sri Lankan dinner table ten years from now? Will our children be able to get nutritious food at a price their families can afford? Will farmers be able to grow enough despite changing weather and rising costs? And how much of the food we produce will actually reach the consumer, instead of being lost or wasted along the way?
These questions can’t wait. A farmer faces unpredictable weather. A family faces rising food costs. Fruit goes unsold after a good harvest. Some children do not get enough nutrition. The future of food is tied to the future of Sri Lanka itself.
World Food Day 2026 is a chance to look beyond the immediate problems and ask whether we can build a food system that feeds our people well, gives farmers better opportunities, protects the environment and makes better use of what we already have. The answer can be yes, but we will have to think differently.
We are not starting from zero. Sri Lanka has diverse crops, fisheries, traditional food knowledge, indigenous varieties, research institutions, universities and a young generation able to create new solutions. What we need is to bring these together and act. Producing more will not secure our food future on its own. It will depend on how intelligently we produce, process, preserve, distribute and consume food.
Making more of what we already have
Innovation does not always mean inventing something new. Often it means finding better uses for the resources we have.
Sri Lanka grows traditional rice varieties, kurakkan, green gram, cowpea, jackfruit, breadfruit, cassava, sweet potato, coconut and palmyrah. All of them have great potential for modern, nutritious, value-added foods. Jackfruit and breadfruit can be made into flour and other convenient products. Traditional rice varieties can go into new foods that suit changing consumer needs. Palmyrah, with its strong cultural heritage, can create new income through better processing, packaging, quality assurance and market development.
The aim is to connect our traditional food knowledge with modern consumer needs and technology, while keeping our food heritage.
Stop wasting the food we produce
Reducing food loss and waste should be a major priority. Seasonal fruits such as mango, banana, papaya and pineapple can be lost in large quantities when production exceeds demand or when storage, transport and processing facilities are inadequate. With suitable technology, these fruits can become dried products, pulps, powders, beverages and other shelf-stable foods.
Agricultural and fisheries by-products are resources too. They could be turned into food ingredients, animal feed, bio-based products and other useful materials, which would move us toward a more circular food economy.
Technology alone is not enough. We need stronger local processing facilities, cold storage, efficient transport, collection centres and market information systems, especially close to where food is produced. Cutting food loss raises the value of what our farmers and fishers already produce.
Nutrition and food safety come first
Food security means more than having enough food. People also need food that is safe and nutritious.
Sri Lanka can develop affordable, nutritious foods from local pulses, grains, vegetables, fruits and fish. Children and other vulnerable groups should get particular attention. Schoolchildren in particular deserve a focus: safe, nutritious, locally sourced products for school feeding programs would support child nutrition, local farmers and domestic food industries at the same time.
Food safety must stay at the centre of food innovation. Good hygiene, quality control, laboratory testing, traceability and appropriate food safety systems are what make new products safe as well as attractive and nutritious.
A food system that can cope with climate change
Climate change is already affecting agricultural production, water availability, crop yields and food prices. We need food systems that can handle changing conditions. That means climate-resilient crops, efficient water use, soil and water conservation, better storage and resource-efficient food processing.
Traditional knowledge matters here. Generations of Sri Lankan farmers have developed practices suited to local climates and ecosystems. Combining that experience with modern science can give us solutions that fit local conditions and are sustainable. Technology alone will not build the future of food. Science, experience and local knowledge together can.
Give young people a bigger role
Sri Lanka’s universities have an important part to play in shaping our food future. Young people should be encouraged to identify real problems in the food system and work on practical solutions in areas such as food waste, sustainable packaging, nutrition, food safety, modernising traditional foods and digital technologies.
A good research project should not always end as a research paper. Where appropriate, research should be supported to move on to products, technologies, enterprises and community solutions. That needs stronger partnerships between universities and industry, along with mentoring, research funding, business support and market connections. If young researchers and entrepreneurs can turn their ideas into viable food innovations, both consumers and producers will benefit.
A pathway designed for Sri Lanka
We do not need to copy food-system models from other countries. We can build a pathway that suits our own resources, culture and needs. It would bring together local resources, traditional knowledge, scientific research, appropriate technology and entrepreneurship, with farmers, fishers, universities, research institutions, food industries, entrepreneurs and policymakers working side by side.
The goal goes beyond selling raw materials. We need to create more value, reduce waste, improve nutrition, generate jobs and strengthen rural livelihoods. This matters especially for small and medium-scale food enterprises, which can drive local economic development when they get the right technical, financial and market support.
The choices we make today
The food future will not create itself. It will be shaped by what we grow, what we research, what we process, what we consume and what we choose not to waste.
So, the question for World Food Day 2026 is this: what can we do today so that every Sri Lankan has safe, nutritious, affordable and sustainable food tomorrow?
The answers are already around us, in our farms, fisheries, food businesses, universities, laboratories and communities. We have the resources, the traditional knowledge, the scientific expertise and talented young people. What we need now is to connect them and act.
A better food future begins with the choices we make today.
Dr. Kaushalya Wijayasekara
Senior Lecturer, Department of Biosystems Technology, Faculty of Technology, University of Ruhuna
By Admiral Ravindra C Wijegunaratne
WV, RWP and Bar, RSP, VSV, USP, NI (M) (Pakistan), ndc, psn, Bsc
(Hons) (War Studies) (Karachi) MPhil (Madras)
Former Navy Commander and Former Chief of Defence Staff
Former Chairman, Trincomalee Petroleum Terminals Ltd
Former Managing Director Ceylon Petroleum Corporation
Former High Commissioner to Pakistan
The Digampathana suicide truck attack on 16th October 2006 remains the deadliest single strike in Sri Lanka Navy history, leaving scars that time cannot erase.
It was a seemingly ordinary Monday morning on 16 October 2006, but the calm of that day would soon be shattered in a way none of us could have imagined. As the Commandant of the Naval and Maritime Academy and Flag Officer Commanding Naval Fleet at Trincomalee, I was aware that a number of my cadets were travelling that morning, part of a convoy of fifteen buses carrying naval personnel from Trincomalee, Colombo, and other bases, heading toward Dambulla to rendezvous with another group. The convoy also included trucks and escort vehicles, a routine movement planned and coordinated with the army to ensure the roads were clear. The morning started quietly. Some personnel greeted friends, handed over their weapons, or strolled to a nearby tea shop. It all seemed so ordinary—too ordinary for what would come next.
Sri Lanka Navy sunk LTTE Ships carrying arms, ammunition and warlike materials thousand miles away from Sri Lanka in Indian Ocean in September and October 2007.
By late morning, both convoys had reached the small ground at Digampathana, near the Sigiriya junction, and personnel mingled briefly, unaware that a carefully orchestrated act of terror was waiting. Then, suddenly, an empty half-truck veered directly into the convoy. It exploded with a ferocity I can still recall as if it were yesterday. Nuts, bolts, and high explosives tore through the air. Pandemonium erupted instantly. I later learned that 107 of our naval personnel were killed on the spot and another 153 critically injured. The scene was indescribable—bodies scattered, vehicles mangled, personal effects strewn across the ground. I remember later hearing that the head of the suicide bomber was recovered more than 100 meters away from the blast, a grim testament to the sheer force of the explosion.
I was in my office at the Naval and Maritime Academy when my mobile phone rang. A young midshipman from the 21st intake called, his voice trembling: “Sir, there was a huge explosion at the convoy point! Many are dead … my batch mate Wijesundara is among them.” I immediately jumped into my jeep with my escort Chief Petty Officer and driver and rushed to Digampathana, relying on every ounce of my driving skill to reach the scene. The journey, which usually took little more than an hour, felt endless that day, each passing mile weighed down by dread.
When I arrived, I was confronted with a sight that no training can prepare you for. The injured were being rushed to Dambulla Hospital, where doctors and nurses worked tirelessly, improvising in ways that saved lives despite the overwhelming chaos. I went back to the site after visiting the hospital. The remains of our naval personnel were scattered across the ground, and someone had begun collecting weapons and protective gear. I immediately contacted Surgeon Rear Admiral Nico Jayasekara and received his instructions: collect all body parts in separate bags and transport them to the Trincomalee Naval Hospital mortuary. This gruesome work had to be done with care and dignity, and it filled the icebox in my vehicle. Through DNA testing initiated by Rear Admiral Nico, we were able to identify every naval personnel lost that day, bringing some closure to grieving families.
The Navy Commander at the time, Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, was devastated. I had worked closely with him and knew how deeply he cared for his men. He ensured that the fallen were honoured with full ceremonial naval funerals at Welisara Naval Base, attended by families and comrades. Sixty-seven funerals were conducted in a single day—a number that still haunts me.
The Digampathana attack remains the largest single loss of naval life in our history. It was a day of sorrow, but also a day that reinforced our resolve. The tragedy galvanized the Navy to target the LTTE Sea Tiger wing with renewed determination and reshaped our maritime operations forever. Every time I think of that day, I remember not just the lives lost, but the courage, professionalism, and dedication of those who survived, those who treated the injured, and those who ensured the fallen were honored properly. May the souls of our naval hero’s rest in peace, their sacrifice guiding us and inspiring generations of naval personnel to come.
Tales of Mystery and Suspense – 24
I was intrigued by the title of a book I found in a book drop at the condominium of a friend, Murder at Whitby Abbey, and I brought it home with me though I will not be able to return it in the near future. It was described on the cover page as ‘a standout in the crowded medieval mystery field’, though I fear I do not know of other books in this field, apart from the Cadfael series, which I have dealt with earlier.
The book, by Cassandra Clark, is set during the reign of Richard II and has as a backdrop his precarious position, which led to his being replaced, and murdered, by his cousin Henry, who reigned as Henry IV. It is a gloomy book, the action taking place in the twelve days of Christmas leading up to the Epiphany. And the gloom is pervasive, even though this is supposed to be a time of festivity, with mummers performing, and many of those in the guest house where the heroine stays going to town to enjoy themselves, with much drinking and much music, which also fills the guesthouse.
The heroine Hildegarde is a nun, sent to try to acquire a relic being sold by Whitby Abbey, though this was also a penance set by the Abbot of the monastery that governed her abbess because she had had sex with a man. Soon after she and her companions reach the Abbey set high on a cliff, she finds that there are other bidders, and soon suspects that the hierarchy, not perhaps the Abbot who seems a weakling, but his rapacious bursar, is determined to make money, and not above creating false relics to sell to several aspirants.
After Hildegarde and her Cistercian companions – Whitby is a Benedictine Foundation – two monks, Gregory and Egbert, and a young priest Mark, reach the abbey, they find that Aelwyn, a monk they had met on their way to the guesthouse had died. This was in the apple store, and they realize, when they find the surplices of novices stuffed into the air vents, that he had been left to suffocate in the overwhelming scent of apples.
Clark
The Cistercians are asked to look into the death, perhaps because they are likely to get no cooperation from the Abbey folk, but perhaps because those in charge are keen to know what happened. And the infirmarer, an old monk, suggests Hildegarde talk to a man called Edred who worked for the bursar, and had been a friend of Aelwyn’s. But Edred too is killed, before he can keep an appointment he had made with Hildegarde, drowned in a pool near the farmhouse of the Abbey.
Meanwhile tensions arise between the fisherfolk and the abbey for the bursar wants to charge them for using the beach that technically belongs to the abbey to dry their fish and their nets. This leads to physical battles, when the guards used by the abbey, under the command it seems of the bursar whose determination to make money is not resisted by the abbot and the prior, try to storm the area where the fishermen live.
Hildegard finds out more about what had happened through two youngsters, one of whom Torold is the son of Aelwyn by a woman who worked as a prostitute for a cartel, and with whom Mark fell in love. The other works on the farm and had seen Edred meet someone near the pool, after which that someone left the place by himself. And the boy had also found in the pool a sort of dagger with the seal of the abbey.
He and his dog, and Torold who follows her, rescue Hildegarde from a man at arms who has waylaid her and tries to rape her earlier. Escaping into the abbey she was nearly been raped then by the bursar, but she managed to escape, in the process setting fire to him and the muniments room, which led, when he was rescued, to the discovery of a box with the money he said had been stolen, blame being cast on both Aelwyn and Edred.
Matters come to a head when the fisherfolk try to storm the abbey, being resisted by the men at arms stationed on the towers. But then Hildegarde realizes that behind the murders was the bursar’s clerk, whom she pursued to the cathedral. There is great drama then as she escapes from him when he tries to kill her, and then from the man at arms who had tried to both rape and kill her, but they both fall from the scaffolding she had climbed, the latter coming from a tower where he had been stationed.
Both of them think they run the rapacity of the abbey, the latter claiming to work for the nobles opposed to Richard, who is presented throughout the book as devoted to his subjects, not to power or money. But though the villains die, the bursar continues, having got over the hysteria the fire had caused and his acknowledgment then of guilt – and though the abbot and the prior seem less vicious, whether they will be able to assert themselves is questionable.
Before the climax, when the others in the guesthouse were leaving, Hildegarde found that two of them were in possession of the relic, for which they seem to have paid well. Hildegarde herself had made a derisory offer, but before she leaves the abbot gives her the relic, perhaps in gratitude for what she and her fellow Cistercians had discovered, the abbey having made as much money as it needed and more from the gullible other buyers.
Mark’s inamorata is saved from the stews because she moves in with Edred’s widow whom the bursar had thrown out of the rooms he occupied when her husband was found dead. Hildegarde had paid for lodgings, in a house run by the man who ran the brothels, but he had a kindly side and was going to finance them to make nets for the fishermen.
So, the Cistercians set off for their home as swiftly as they can to get there on the day of the Epiphany, having stopped en route to pray for King Richard whose birthday it was.
Namal, Janaki further remanded
Achintha smashes 1,500 metres record at All Island Schools Games
Rare pink diamond goes on display in France 100 years after amateur heist
Nursery owner in China jailed for life after hundreds of children poisoned
Pakistan, Sri Lanka look to find the right mix as World Cup countdown begins
Mumbai Indians and head coach Mahela Jayawardene part ways
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
News7 days agoSri Lanka escalates anti-graft drive with Shiranthi’s jailing
-
News7 days agoIranian ships stranded, Lanka fears US sanctions
-
Latest News6 days agoFarhan and Sadaqat help Pakistan seal series in style
-
Latest News5 days agoNissanka’s return headlines Sri Lanka’s Test squad against Pakistan
-
Features6 days agoIntake 16: 45 years of duty and honour
-
News6 days agoMalwathu Chapter issues statement on talks with President over Gnanasara Thera’s robes
-
News7 days agoNavi Pillay’s Lankan affairs in focus as she wins 2026 Nobel Peace Prize
-
News6 days agoCP alleges NPP has taken the blame for illegal US sanctions on Iranian vessels