Medieval Latin Paleography: A Bibliographical Introduction

Margaret McGrath was a research librarian at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto.

Paleography, the study of old writing, was first defined three hundred years ago. It began as the examination of official manuscripts and has come to include the analysis not only of literary works but of such diverse carriers as inscriptions, seals, and coins. From 1961 it was taught at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies by Father Leonard Boyle OP. who left Toronto in 1984 to become Vatican Librarian. This move alone is enough to establish his distinction.

The preface testifies to the author’s view of his subject. In his terms it is “integral” rather than “piecemeal” paleography and requires the practitioner to understand all the circumstances surrounding the writing he is interpreting. The quantity of material to support this view has been organized into eight divisions, necessarily artificial, and several of them (notably the “cultural setting” and the “research setting”) will have enormous value for any medieval researcher. At the same time, Father Boyle’s conviction that “the basic function of paleography is to address a text as it is transmitted in writing and to compel it to communicate as it was meant to do” is well served by the over 450 items listing manuscript facsimiles, in addition to the “textual setting” division.

Many of the entries have brief annotations, and cross-references are ample. The two indexes, one of names, places, and subjects and the other of manuscripts, are excellent. Father Boyle states that because of his move he had to hurry for publication a work he had put aside in 1981. Perhaps that is the reason for the odd lack, such as the Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques when the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie is cited. On the other hand, that cannot be the reason for the lack of heavier type faces, which would make the important divisions much clearer.

However, these are minor murmurs about a work which, however much its author may refer to it as incomplete, contains over 400 pages and 2,200 citations of a specialized nature in aid of clarifying a subject regarded as mysterious by all but a few.