The practical lesson to be gained from Mark Handley's "Epitaphs, Models, and Texts: A Carolingian Collection of Late Antique Inscriptions from Burgundy" is that many of the syllogai of inscriptions from the Middle Ages may have begun life as model books for the production of epitaphs. He reconstructs the very detailed history of one such sylloge from Paris (BN Lat 2832), which includes various examples of poetry, including a section of epitaphs. Some of the epitaphs derive from extant examples in Gaul, and he argues that the entries in the epigraphic section were collected to serve as a model book for the actual production of tombstones.