Répertoire critique des manuscrits littéraires en ancien occitan

Medieval Occitan literature occupies a decisive place in written culture in the Romance language and, more generally, in European culture. This fact, recognised since the birth of modern philological sciences, has earned Old Occitan special attention from researchers.
Systematic work (repertories and reference corpora) has been completely neglected since the 1970s. The basic tools, which are essential for conducting organised research, are therefore largely lacking. Our project takes as its starting point the observation of this gap and targets the manuscript witnesses that preserve the old Oc literature. It exploits the methodological achievements of recent decades in the description of manuscript traditions and the contribution of computer tools in data management. At present, knowledge of the manuscript heritage of ancient Occitan literature still depends on the Bibliographie des manuscrits littéraires en ancien provençal published by Clovis Brunel in 1935. This instrument succinctly lists the basic data indispensable to philological work: the ms. number, the title of the work, an attempt to date and locate it, and bibliographical elements. Our project aims to produce a modern critical repertory of Occitan manuscripts to replace Brunel's Bibliography.
The project aims at establishing a database articulated in four classes: (i) texts, (ii) manuscripts, (iii) editions and studies and (iv) authors and scribes; this database will be completed by a paper catalogue of manuscripts, allowing a synthetic visualization of the manuscript heritage of ancient Oc literature.