Prefaces of the Latin Bible

Dom Donation De Bruyne’s work of a century ago has been all but unobtainable since it was first published quasi-anonymously just after the Great War. Originally conceived as an instrumentum laboris to the great Benedictine project to produce a critical edition of the Vulgate, it now has a new life as a unique collection of the many texts that were presented with, or alongside, the biblical text until the end of the Middle Ages. These texts predisposed readers as to what they found in the sacred texts, and how they imagined the collection as a whole. While these texts have been passed over for centuries by exegetes concerned with the interpretation of scripture, for anyone studying the history of the bible in western culture, the reception of the scriptures or the history of exegesis - or indeed the history of Latin theology - these short works are of crucial importance. They set the scene for exegesis and established the assumptions that created that universe of interpretation. They are, in short, the key to the medieval biblical paradigm. This collection makes available the raw material for a new chapter in the study of the Latin bible and the study of its reception in the later patristic and medieval periods. Moreover, it may usher in a new chapter in the history of biblical exegesis.