The broad and principal aim of the Monumenta Liturgica Beneventana is the discovery, study, and editing of medieval liturgical texts contained in manuscripts displaying the distinctive writing known as ‘Beneventan.’ This type of script was first used towards the middle of the eighth century in the Duchy of Benevento (to which general region the hand owes its name), and it was practiced until at least the middle of the sixteenth century (and into the eighteenth in a ‘pseudo-Beneventan’ form). ‘Beneventan’ was written throughout the area comprising the Duchy and also along the Dalmatian coast, the script having been transported there by Benedictine monks who came to found or to populate monasteries.

With Virginia Brown’s revision and enlargement in 1980 of E.A. Loew[Lowe]’s magisterial palaeographical study The Beneventan Script (Oxford, 1914), it was abundantly clear that the vast majority of extant manuscripts and fragments in the Beneventan hand were liturgical (nearly 75% as opposed to some 15% of codices in other scripts). The discovery of the Beneventan script’s use as a liturgical script par excellence (not unlike the Gothic type font used for printed liturgical books in the early twentieth century) has been confirmed repeatedly as new items have been found. In studies of the Beneventan liturgical manuscripts it is clear that they reflect not only the ancient indigenous liturgical rite or use known as ‘Beneventan,’ but also the rites and uses of the nearby see of Rome and those of the conquering Byzantines, Normans, and Angevins.

Moreover, study of these manuscripts provides a profile of liturgical practice across the ‘Beneventan zone’ from southern Italy to Dalmatia for over eight centuries. The manuscripts of the rite can be localized through references to saints and other specific names contained therein, and these manuscripts can then be compared and contrasted. In short, the liturgical rites practiced in the ’Beneventan zone’ display an astonishing diversity and reflect the political, social, and cultural complexity of the south Adriatic region in the Middle Ages.

Objectives of the Program
The study of the ritual practices of this region within the program of the MLB has a number of related objectives. First, the discovery of hitherto unknown Beneventan manuscripts and fragments in European and North American depositories. Second, microfilm and photographic holdings of appropriate manuscripts have been and are being expanded so that the collection at the Pontifical Institute is now the most extensive in the world, so much so that foreign scholars visit the Institute to consult these reproductions and frequently write for information.

Third, virtually all the liturgical codices in Beneventan script found thus far have been extensively described codicologically and palaeographically in situ according to an internationally accepted model adapted to the program’s requirements, and the information from each description is included in a computerized database. In terms of technical application, this use of computerized databases for manuscript descriptions keeps Canadian medieval scholarship at the cutting edge of international developments in this area. One of the exciting byproducts of these computerized descriptions has been the ’joining’ of many membra disiecta scattered throughout the world; in the past three years more than 25 additional ’reunions’ have been made involving 100 fragments.

Fourth, transcriptions of the liturgical texts in the manuscripts are being entered into a repertory, and this repertory is being and will be used in the fourth objective of the program, namely, critical editions and studies of the various types of liturgical books in Beneventan script. A fifth objective of the program is to use the edition and study of liturgical manuscripts in Beneventan script as a means to train graduate students in the various disciplines they must master as medievalists: codicology, palaeography, ecclesiastical and secular history, liturgy, music, ecclesiastical law, and art history, to name but a few. The shorter discoveries of these students have been published in the “Miscellanea Beneventana” section of Mediaeval Studies, and to date there have been eight licentiate and doctoral theses at the Pontifical Institute and University of Toronto on Beneventan-script liturgical topics.

A sixth objective of the program is cooperation with projects or programs beyond Toronto engaged in the study of topics involving Beneventan-script codices. For example, members of the MLB have cooperated with Dom Jean Mallet, OSB and Dom André Thibaut, OSB in the compilation of their monumental catalogues of the Beneventan-script codices in the Biblioteca Capitolare in Benevento; with the Fondation Royaumont in France in the study of the music and culture of the cathedral of Benevento; and with the Kanones CD–ROM project of Linda Fowler-Magerl in Germany listing incipits/explicits of all canon law texts from the early eleventh through the mid-twelfth century. Further, because of their scholarship in matters touching Beneventan script and liturgy, members of the MLB have been asked to teach courses and seminars in Europe for the benefit of colleagues and students.

Communication of Results
Results of the program continue to be disseminated to the scholarly community principally through two refereed channels sponsored by the Department of Publications of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Shorter studies on the manuscripts have been and will continue to be disseminated in the refereed journal Mediaeval Studies in the series ’Miscellanea Beneventana’ (for items specifically in Beneventan script) and a newly instituted subseries ’Parerga Beneventana’ (for important items not in Beneventan script, such as rare Visigothic, pre-Carolingian, and Insular-script manuscripts, discovered in the course of work on the Beneventan items). Longer studies and editions have been and will continue to be published in Studies and Texts in the subseries Monumenta Liturgica Beneventana. Because it is important that the work of the MLB be known in publishing outlets in other countries – especially when editors of refereed journals, catalogues, and collections of essays welcome submissions from its members – articles will also continue to be placed in these outlets in both Europe and the United States.

In addition, the investigators will continue to communicate their results verbally (often with slides and videos) in several forums. Members of the MLB continue to participate in learned conferences and workshops and to present lectures, seminars, and courses both in Canada and elsewhere.

Communication of results outside of the scholarly community continues in several forms: scholarly assistance in the production of manuscript sale catalogues of Beneventan-script items, such as those of Bernard Quaritch and Sotheby’s; the publication of manuscript exhibition catalogues such as I Fiori e’ Frutti santi: S. Benedetto, la Regola, la santità nelle testimonianze dei manoscritti cassinesi (Montecassino, 1998); presentation in the media (national television, radio, and the popular press) of liturgical items in Beneventan script; public displays in the institutions of the investigators of research carried out in the program; and displays of Beneventan manuscripts, facsimiles, and research results and publications at such well-publicized events as the fundraising dinner for the Pontifical Institute in 1995 honoring Sir Peter Ustinov, Gerald Emmett Cardinal Carter, and Douglas Bassett or the colloquium and exhibition at the Pontifical Institute in 1999 of manuscripts from Montecassino, ‘Treasures of Montecassino,’ accompanying the awarding of an honorary degree to don Faustino Avagliano, OSB, Archivist and Prior of Montecassino.

Principal Investigators
Virginia Brown (AB, Manhattanville; MA, North Carolina; PhD, Harvard; Arch. Pal., Vatican). Senior Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, and Professor in the University of Toronto; Editor-in-Chief of the Catalogus translationum et commentariorum; former editor of Mediaeval Studies; author of numerous publications on Beneventan-script topics, palaeographical studies, and classical and Renaissance subjects.
E–mail: <vbrown@chass.utoronto.ca>

Richard F. Gyug (AB, Carleton University; MA, PhD, University of Toronto; MSL, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies). Research Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History, Fordham University. Author of numerous publications on liturgical books in southern Italy and Dalmatia, and social history in medieval Catalonia.
E–mail: <gyug@fordham.edu>

Roger E. Reynolds (AB, PhD, Harvard; JD, University of Chicago Law School). Emeritus Senior Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, and Professor in the University of Toronto; author of over 150 publications on medieval liturgy, law, and clerics and clerical orders in the Middle Ages; frequent lecturer in Europe and North America, and television and radio guest. Recent work by Roger Reynolds is listed separately on the site.
E–mail: <roger.reynolds@utoronto.ca>