Paul Meyvaert was a Benedictine monk who turned to medieval scholarship, and became a renowned scholar whose philological and historical work focused on medieval conceptions of authorship.
Largely self-taught, he published on forgeries, iconography, and textual criticism.
He was executive director of the Medieval Academy of America, and editor of Speculum, its journal.
He lived mostly on the Isle of Wight in Quarr Abbey, and taught himself the skills necessary to become a scholar of medieval history.
He wrote two monographs, on Bede and Gregory the Great, made an important textual discovery pertaining to the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and published a study of the textual tradition of the Benedictine rule.