¹ Due to the tendency to regard manuscripts comprising a variety of texts belonging to different genres as ‘miscellanea’, these manuscripts are rarely studied in much detail.

² For an important general overview of the Carolingian Renaissance, see Contreni, John J., ‘The Carolingian Renaissance: Education and Literary Culture’, in McKitterick, Rosamond, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, 2: c.700 –c.900 (Cambridge, 1995), 709–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Buck, Thomas M., Admonitio und Praedicatio. Zur religions-pastoralen Dimension von Kapitularien und kapitulariennahen Texten (507–814) (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), 67–156Google Scholar.

³ For an overview of penance and penitential reforms under the Carolingians, see Meens, Rob, Penance in Medieval Europe, 600–1200 (Cambridge, 2014), 106–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Bullough, Donald A., Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage (Manchester, 1991), 160–240Google Scholar (‘Alcuin and the Kingdom of Heaven’), at 173–4.

⁵ On blushing, see Firey, Abigail, ‘Blushing before the Judge and Physician: Moral Arbitration in the Carolingian Empire’, in eadem, ed., A New History of Penance (Leiden. 2008), 173–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ O'Sullivan, Sinead, Early Medieval Glosses on Prudentius’ Psychomachia: The Weitz Tradition (Leiden, 2004), 23–130Google Scholar.

⁷ On the question of individuality and personal religiosity, see Von Moos, Peter, ‘L'Individu ou les limites de l'institution ecclésiale’, in Bedos-Rezak, Brigitte M. and Iogna-Prat, Dominique, eds, L'Individu au Moyen Âge. Individuation et individualisation avant la modernité (Paris, 2005), 271–88Google Scholar. On medieval sexuality and penitential discipline, see Payer, Pierre J., Sex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code 500–1150 (Toronto, ON, 1984)Google Scholar.

⁸ Meens, Rob, Het tripartite boeteboek. Overlevering en betekenis van vroegmiddeleeuwse biechtvoorschriften (met editie en vertaling van vier tripartita) (Hilversum, 1994), 259–60Google Scholar.

⁹ Ibid. 264.

¹⁰ For a thorough study of Halitgar's Penitential, see Kottje, Raymund, Die Bussbücher Halitgars von Cambrai und des Hrabanus Maurus. Ihre Überlieferung und ihre Quellen (Berlin, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Tanner, Norman P., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols (London, 1990), 1: 245Google Scholar.

¹² Kerff, Franz, ‘Mittelalterliche Quellen und mittelalterliche Wirklichkeit. Zu den Konsequenzen einer jüngst erschienenen Edition für unser Bild kirchlicher Reformbemühungen’, Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter 51 (1987), 275–86Google Scholar; idem, ‘Libri paenitentiales und kirchliche Strafgerichtsbarkeit bis zum Decretum Gratiani. Ein Diskussionsvorschlag’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kan. Abt. 75 (1989), 23–57; Alexander Murray, ‘Confession before 1215’, TRHS 6th ser. 3 (1993), 51–81.

¹³ Kottje, Raymund, ‘Buße oder Strafe? Zur “Iustitia” in den “Libri Paenitentiales”’, in La giustizia nell'alto medioevo (secoli V–VIII), Settimane di Studio del centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 42 (Spoleto, 1995), 443–74Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Meens, Rob, ‘The Frequency and Nature of Early Medieval Penance’, in Biller, Peter and Minnis, Alastair J., eds, Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1998), 35–61Google Scholar; idem, ‘Penitentials and the Practice of Penance in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, EME 14 (2006), 7–21.

¹⁵ See the discussion in Kottje, ‘Buße oder Strafe?’.

¹⁶ Vatican City, BAV, Pal. Lat. 485, fol. 101^v.

¹⁷ Bischoff, Bernhard, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen), 3 vols (Wiesbaden, 1998–2017), 3: 542Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Ibid. 60.

¹⁹ My sources for the choice of manuscripts discussed here were Meens's list of educational manuscripts (Het tripartite boeteboek, 259–60) and the lists of manuscripts including individual penitential books in the appendices of his Penance in the Early Middle Ages, 226–37. Raymund Kottje's comprehensive presentation of manuscripts containing Halitgar's penitential was also useful: Die Bussbücher, 14–82.

²⁰ There is however, an early tenth-century manuscript which belongs in this category: Paris, BN, MS 614A. It includes penitential and liturgical material, but also the Interrogationes de littera et de singulis causis, a school text: see Everett, Nicholas, ‘The Interrogationes de littera et de singulis causis: An Early Medieval School Text’, Journal of Medieval Latin 16 (2006), 227–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 254. Further research is needed to establish whether similar books continued to be transcribed well into the tenth century.

²¹ Paxton, Frederick S., ‘“Bonus liber”: A Late Carolingian Clerical Manual from Lorsch (Bibliotheca Vaticana MS Pal. lat. 485)’, in Mayali, Laurent and Tibbetts, Stephanie A. J., eds, The Two Laws: Studies in Medieval Legal History dedicated to Stephan Kuttner (Washington DC, 1990), 1–30Google Scholar.

²² Bischoff, Katalog, 3: 312 (no. 5642).

²³ ‘[D]isciplina a discendo dicta est’: St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS Cod. Sang. 184 (codicological unit 2), fol. 189.

²⁴ ‘Propter hoc discitur bene vivere, ut perveniatur ad semper vivere’: ibid.

²⁵ Laistner, M. L. W., ‘Notes on Greek from the Lectures of a Ninth-Century Monastery Teacher’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 7 (1923), 421–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Lendinara, Patrizia, ‘The Scholica graecarum glossarum and Martianus Capella’, in Teeuwen, Mariken, O'Sullivan, Sinéad, eds, Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella: Ninth-Century Commentary Traditions on De nuptiis in Context (Turnhout, 2011), 301–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ This text circulated in different versions and variant forms: see Giorgio Brugnoli, Studi sulle Differentiae verborum (Rome, 1955), 27–37; Birger Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XI^e et XII^e siècles, 1: Documents, études et répertoires publiés par l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes (Paris, 1982), 133–5, 340–50.

²⁷ Bischoff, Katalog, 2 : 51 (no. 2191); K. A. De Meyier, Codices Vossiani latini, 1: Codices in Folio (Leiden, 1973), 100–3; Leonardi, Claudio, ‘Raterio e Marziano Capella’, Italia medioevale e umanistica 2 (1959), 73–102Google Scholar; Préaux, Jean, ‘Les Manuscrits principaux du De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercuri de Martinus Capella’, in Cambier, Guy, Deroux, Carl and Préaux, Jean, eds, Lettres latines du moyen âge et de la renaissance (Brussels, 1978), 76–128Google Scholar, at 79, 101, 123; Teeuwen, Mariken, Harmony and the Music of the Spheres: The Ars Musica in Ninth-Century Commentaries on Martianus Capella (Leiden, 2002), 72–3Google Scholar, 88–98.

²⁸ ‘Duodecim abusivis sunt saeculi: sapiens sine operibus, senex sine religione, adolescens sine oboedientia, dives sine elemosyna, femina sine pudicitia, dominus sine virtute, Christianus contentiosus, pauper superbus, rex iniquus, episcopus neglegens, plebs sine disciplina et populus sine lege’: Pseudo-Cyprian, De duodecim abusivis saeculi (CSEL 3/3, 152).

²⁹ Ibid. 152–73. On the text, see Breen, Aidan, ‘The Evidence of Antique Irish Exegesis in Pseudo-Cyprian, De duodecim abusivis saeculi’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 87C (1987), 71–101Google Scholar; On the text's popularity in Carolingian Europe, see Anton, Hans H., ‘Pseudo-Cyprian: De duodecim abusivis saeculi und sein Einfluss auf den Kontinent, insbesondere auf die karolingischen Fürstenspiegel’, in Löwe, Heinz, ed., Die Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter, 2 vols (Stuttgart, 1982), 2: 568–617Google Scholar.

³⁰ Meens, Rob, ‘Politics, Mirrors of Princes and the Bible: Sins, Kings and the Well-being of the Realm’, EME 7 (1998), 345–57Google Scholar.

³¹ See Contreni, ‘Carolingian Renaissance’, 739–40.

³² See also Solivan, Jennifer, ‘Depictions of Virtues and Vices as Mnemonic Devices’, Imago Temporis: Medium Aevum 11 (2017), 159–92Google Scholar.

³³ Straw, Carole, ‘Gregory, Cassian, and the Cardinal Vices’, in Newhauser, Richard, ed., In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages (Toronto, ON, 2005), 35–58Google Scholar; eadem, Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection (Berkeley, CA, 1988), 107–27.

³⁴ On clerical and monastic schools, see Contreni, ‘Carolingian Renaissance’, 713–15.

³⁵ ‘External’ monastic schools were located outside the precincts of the monastery, and were intended for the education of children not destined for the monastic life. The external school of the monastery of St Gall is an example often cited to argue for the widespread existence and operation of such schools during the Carolingian period, but Hildebrandt, M. M., The External School in Carolingian Society (Leiden, 1992)Google Scholar, argues that it was neither typical nor regular in the ninth century. On complaints about the disarray of late Carolingian education, see Contreni, ‘Carolingian Renaissance’, 715–16.