Manuscripts constitute the source material par excellence for diverse academic disciplines. Art historians, philologists, historians, theologians, philosophers, book historians and even jurists encounter one another around the codex. The fact that such an encounter can be extremely fertile was demonstrated, during an international congress in Brussels on November 5-9, 2002.A record of the discussions can be found in this volume of the Mediaevalia Lovaniensia. The editors selected those lectures that focused on the historical, literary-historical, philosophical and theological aspects of the congress theme as opposed to those with an explicit art-historical perspective. The common thread, however, is always the codicological aspect: what can the study of manuscripts contribute to the literary-historical interpretation or the insight into the functioning of a text in its original context. The various contributions testify to a fearless and unrestrained interdisciplinary approach to the material. The subjects broached cover a broad domain: from the development of classical themes to the transmission of lyrical models, from visual material giving evidence of the reception of literary texts to the artes-literature used as a vehicle for a love story.