Patrologia Latina

The Patrologia Latina is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1844 and 1855, with indices published between 1862 and 1865.

Although consisting of reprints of old editions, which often contain mistakes and do not comply with modern standards of scholarship, the series, due to its availability (it is present in many academic libraries) and the fact that it incorporates many texts of which no modern critical edition is available, is still widely used by scholars of the Middle Ages and is in this respect comparable to the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. The Patrologia Latina is one part of the Patrologiae Cursus Completus, the second part of which is the Patrologia Graeco-Latina, consisting of patristic and medieval Greek works with Latin translations.

The Patrologia Latina includes over 1000 years of Latin works from Tertullian to Pope Innocent III, in 217 volumes: volumes 1 to 73, from Tertullian to Gregory of Tours, were published from 1844 to 1849, and volumes 74 to 217, from Pope Gregory I to Innocent III, from 1849 to 1855. Although the collection ends in 1216, after the death of Innocent III, Migne originally wanted to include documents all the way up to the Reformation; this task proved too great, but some later commentaries or documents associated with earlier works were included.

The printing plates for the Patrologia were destroyed by fire in 1868, but with help from the Garnier printing house they were restored and new editions were printed, beginning in the 1880s. These reprints did not always correspond exactly with the original series either in quality or internal arrangement, and caution should be exercised when referencing to the PL in general.