“As the [c. March 1208 papal] interdict was declared, John ordered books to be sent from Reading Abbey, which were delivered by the hand of the abbey’s sacrist. John did not explain why he chose this moment to catch up on his reading, but it is worth considering what he wanted to have with him at a moment of extreme crisis for himself and for the kingdom. There were six volumes containing the whole of the Old Testament. This was a particular favorite of medieval kings since they liked to model themselves on the bellicose David in particular. The sacrist also brought Hugh of St. Victor’s On the Sacraments of the Faith, the greatest work of one of the greatest minds of the twelfth century; since the pope was withdrawing the” “sacraments from John and from his people, it is not surprising that Hugh’s book was on John’s reading list. There were also more esoteric works, including the Letter of Candidus to Marius Victorinus. Marius was an early Christian theologian who adapted Stoicism for Christian purposes: John would have to be stoical in the face of the pope’s onslaught, so this text was a good place in which to find inspiration. Another text that John had brought to him from Reading Abbey was Valerius Maximus’s Memorable Deeds and Sayings. Written in about AD 31 to provide moral guidance to his Roman readers, Valerius’s work covered such topics as Courage, Endurance, Determination and Self-Confidence, crucial for the coming struggle, along with some that John might have wished to pass over, such as Loyalty to Parents and to Brothers. The more standard works in the collection of books delivered to John included Peter Lombard’s Sentences (Quatuor libri Sententiarum), perhaps the leading theological work of the age, with the fourth book devoted to the seven sacraments and to the subjects of death, judgment, hell and heaven. John also received Origen’s treatise on the Old Testament, in which the author uses allegory to explain the text. In the minds of modern theologians, Origen’s methodology amounts to no more than reading into the text what one wishes to read into it, not quite making it up as one goes along, but not far short; the fact that John chose to read Origen perhaps gives us a further, unflattering insight into the king’s mind at this point in his life. The final selection was from the work Augustine of Hippo, including his City of God, a treatise that, amongst other things, notices that “all men desire to be happy” and then goes on to question what happiness might be. None of this is light reading and all of it suggests that there was some serious discussion under way in the close circles around the king concerning the impact of the interdict. John was applying his mind as well as his might to the problem.”
Stephen Church, King John: And the Road to Magna Carta