During the Middle Ages, much ancient literature was lost for various reasons. General thinking is that what survived largely came through the Arabs. In the Ancient/Classical History forum, members are discussing the respective roles of the Church and Arab translators.

KL47 writes, "It was the scholars and monks in Constantinople and the eastern provinces who preserved most of the surviving Greek historical texts throughout the medieval period, even if there was little encouragement to actually study them. Secondly, only a very small portion of Greek literature owes its continued survival to the Muslims."

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Medieval Manuscript Tradition