2462: The Cotton Fire and the Dissolution of the Monasteries Sep 8, 2021

The Cotton Fire (named for the library's founder, not the material) was significant in its devastation because the library housed many antiques and particularly rare books. This time, AD 1731, was particularly significant as well because its founder who died 1631 had gotten many documents that were being privatized after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a series of legal decrees that broke up monasteries, convents, abbeys, etc., selling off land and liquidating many assets including priceless documents and manuscripts. During the English Reformation as well, many books were destroyed outright, for their materials, or purchased with no understanding of value and stored in any sort of condition. Therefore, when Sir Robert Bruce Cotton had in the late 16th and early 17th century made a point of collecting some of these, often his library housed sole copies. The fire, which caused some 1/4 of the library to be lost meant that many documents were completely lost forever, and many others, like the only copy of Beowulf, took significant damage.