 The date of Benedictus Levita’s capitula has long proved controversial.The prefatory material mentions that Archbishop Otgar of Mainz has died; the preface must thus postdate 847 (Otgar died 21 April, 847).Earlier scholars applied this terminus post quem to the entire complex of Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries, though modern authors are more inclined to see at least some of the forgeries introduced by the preface as an earlier phenomenon, extending back to at least the later 830s.