Au début de l'époque moderne, avec l'apparition de l'imprimé, les ordres mendiants durent repenser leur rapport à l'écrit, dans les domaines de la vie spirituelle et de l'observance, de l'enseignement théologique et de la pastorale. Ces ordres avaient des traditions intellectuelles très différentes mais cette réflexion aboutit à une formalisation juridique et concrète de la bibliothèque conventuelle assez semblable. Toutefois, la pratique effective de la lecture au couvent, fait des individus et non plus d'une communauté de religieux, longtemps limitée à quelques livres indispensables pour ne pas déroger à la sainte pauvreté et humilité des mendiants, connut un essor spectaculaire. Cette lecture quotidienne, spirituelle, apostolique ou érudite, emprunta des chemins parfois éloignés de l'offre de la bibliothèque commune. L'émergence de l'individu autonome dans le choix de ses livres est la principale caractéristique du XVIIIe siècle, les religieux rejoignant ainsi une communauté de lecteurs ecclésiastiques dépassant largement les limites de l'univers mendiant.
In the early modern times, as printed books appeared, mendicant orders had to work out a new vision of written documents in domains concerning spiritual life and complying with rules as well as theologic teaching and pastoral tasks. These orders had highly different intellectual traditions. That new thinking, however, brought about a material and judicial shaping of the convent's library which was rather identical whatever the order. Actual reading within the convent as performed by individuals and no longer by a community of clerics, which had long been restricted to whatever few books were necessary in order not break the rules of holy poverty and humility with the mendicants, was sharply on the rise. That daily spiritual, apostolic or learned reading often struck into paths that were sometimes far remote from whatever books were available in the community library. What characterises the 18th century is the appearence of the individual with some autonomy as far as chosing one's reading was concerned, with clerics thus joining in a community of religious readers whose borders were very muchremote from the mendicants' world.