Though it may not be immediately obvious why articles on topics from such distantly removed areas of western Europe - the Iberian peninsula and southern Italy - should appear in the same volume (the fourth collection by Roger Reynolds), the materials covered illustrate that they are indeed closely related, both in their differences and their similarities. Both peninsulas had their own indigenous liturgies and music (Old Spanish and Beneventan), distinctive written scripts (Visigothic and Beneventan), and legal and theological traditions, and repeatedly these worked their influence on other areas of western Europe.
Although there were frequent attempts by the papacy and secular rulers from the 9th to the 13th century to suppress these distinctive traditions in both areas, elements of these nonetheless survived well into the 16th century and beyond. Despite the differences in these traditions, the articles in this volume also demonstrate through manuscript evidence the continued exchange of the distinctive customs between the Iberian peninsula and southern Italian cultures from the very early Middle Ages through the 12th century.