The book opens with a Latin verse tribute, "L.E.B. Nostro Salutem", composed by Richard Tarrant, Pope Professor of the Classics at Harvard University, and with reflections by Robert Brentano, Janet K. Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley, whose friendship with Father Boyle began during their graduate student years at Oxford over forty years ago.

The contributors, many of whom were taught by Father Boyle during his years at the Pontifical Institute and the University of Toronto, present a number of new discoveries, including the first census of manuscripts in the Bergendal Collection in Toronto -- "The Library that Father Boyle Built" -- and a computerized method for dating medieval documents. The articles range from such famous figures as Boethius, John Scottus Eriugena, Peter Lombard, Robert Grosseteste, and John Wyclif to lesser known scribes, scholars, clerics, and lay people. Whatever the particular topic, each of the articles has been inspired by Father Boyle's urging that those who work on the written records of the past must always endeavor to make those documents "speak again with a full, distinct voice".