The present catalog, begun over a decade ago, stands at the beginning of modern cataloging of medieval manuscripts in North America. Its completion may serve as the occasion to pause for a moment and examine the beginnings and progress to date of manuscript cataloging in America, as well as to offer some comment on what it has taught us and how best to continue.
Manuscripts and manuscript leaves, in scripts of the Latin alphabet, ranging from Carolingian minuscule to Burgundian letter and humanist script, written across Europe before 1600 and representing the Latin, Italian, German, Netherlandish, Italian, English, French, Spanish, and Czech languages. Types of manuscripts include liturgical works, collections of sermons and the florilegia used for sermon composition, confessionals and penitentials for pastoral care, vernacular literature such as romances and verse, business and administrative records, including Italian and French land records—charters, cartularies, terriers, and rent rolls dating from the late thirteenth century to the seventeenth.
