1) I'm referring to a commonly known narrative, not necessarily the truth (I've recently been trying to encourage myself to recognize when my "knowledge" is of

1) I'm referring to a commonly known narrative, not necessarily the truth (I've recently been trying to encourage myself to recognize when my "knowledge" is of limited veracity). 2) I think the assumption is less that they were unable and more that they did not. I'm not familiar enough with the history of library science to judge this.