The history of a script which lasted five centuries is indis solubly bound up with the history of the region in which it was used. Such a script would of necessity receive some impress of the intellectual and political movements of its locality, and thus act as a register, as well as a medium, of culture. The study of such a script does well then to take cognizance of the milieu of its development and will become more fruitful by extending its inquiry to the books written in the script, to the. Centres prominent for copying activity, and to the personages, literary and political, who fostered the culture they inherited. This is not the place for a history of the culture of southern Italy. Yet a brief sketch of the main events affecting the region in the Middle Ages seems indispensable, and will, I hope, suffice for an introduction to the chapters following. I shall content myself with grouping the incidents to be narrated around the vicissitudes of the mother-house of occidental monasticism, Monte Cassino. She was for the period the great centre of light and learning, the leader and model of all the smaller schools. And owing to her geographical situation and extensive feudal possessions no event of real importance in southern Italy left her untouched.