There weren't many people who could enter the Church's vast library, and unrestricted access to its texts was a privilege and an honor.
Perhaps because they were generally well educated, they better understood how scarce and fragile knowledge was. From the day the first missionary set foot on the kingdom's shores to the completion of the Cathedral of Our Lady a century later, organizations and private individuals had never stopped creating and collecting written works.
Quite a few people with ties to the Church had similar habits, eagerly organizing and translating ancient texts or recording all sorts of things. History and literature, poetry and plays, folk culture, medical remedies, even the most trivial details—it all depended on their personal interests.
Since these things were never systematically organized, they were sprawling and fragile, like an exquisite piece of glassware. A single accident or change in a family's fortunes could easily make them disappear, scattered into a vast cultural void where no one knew their worth.
But some were always collected. A donation made by a book's owner to his faith on his deathbed, a monk's shopping haul, and the fact that the Church itself was a rich source of written works—all of it added up to a considerable number.
Even many things that might "lead lambs of weak minds astray" were kept on file, just in case.
Of course, a trickle didn't necessarily become a mighty river. It was more likely to flow poorly and pool into stagnant water. Cell division didn't necessarily mean a body was growing, either; disordered proliferation was called a tumor.
The Church's collection was closer to the latter—and in its late stages, at that. After all, it was hard to set aside surplus staff for the lengthy task of sorting and cataloging, with no guarantee of