Many medieval texts were anonymous, and others attributed to different authors in different individual manuscripts. A large number also carried false attributions, especially to patristic writers such as Augustine of Hippo. All of these problems can leave the researcher puzzled, especially when doing manuscript research. One resort is checking the initia, or opening words of texts. Jacqueline Hamesse and Slawomir Szyller have provided a four-volume guide to the opening words of texts found in manuscript copies, especially giving the opening words of a text proper. Nor have they failed to note forms of address to dedicatees, excerpts beginning with formulas like “Reverendissimo in Christo domino…” [To the most reverend lord in Christ]. The scope of the project is international, drawing on card files in more than one location; priority was given to philosophical and theological texts, because no one tool treated them in sufficient depth. (The emphasis of the database In principio [In the Beginning], for example, is on literary texts.) The Repertorium project began in 1988, when computer technology was not as flexible as it is now, and the editors admit that they would have had more options had they started later. Nonetheless, the result is a useful tool.

The first volume provides an extensive list of abbreviations of the names of individual libraries, as well as an introduction in French and English. Thereafter, the list runs from A through Z. Each entry, in Latin, provides the initium, or opening words; the name of the author (if known); the title; the manuscript signature; the foliation of the individual text within the manuscript book; and the inventory number in the editors’ database. A biblical pericope for a sermon precedes the initium of a sermon text in italic type. Occasionally the Latin extract is so similar (as in the entries for the work De terminis difficilibus in theologia [On Difficult Terms in Theology] by Armandus de Bellovisu / Armand de Belvézer) that the entries might have been combined without any loss of utility. Some works are represented by only one copy. Others, such as the De anima [On the Soul] of Avicenna and the De vita et moribus philosophorum [On the Life and Character of the Philosophers] attributed to Walter Burley, survive in dozens of manuscripts.

The editors recently published the fourth volume, containing supplements and indexing, which the reviewer has not yet seen. It surely will make this tool all the more useful for manuscript studies. Migration of the Repertorium to the Internet environment would make it even more useful.