About 800 years ago, an unknown scribe applied his quill to an animal skin to faithfully reproduce the most important and influential text the world has ever known. Deciphering his cryptic symbols and scribbles today seems a hopeless taskÉ but such is the ambitious aim of Robert BellamyÕs latest book, A Paleographical Puzzle Ð a detailed presentation of the history, creation, language, script, abbreviation system, and content of a 13th-century Latin manuscript.