After the publication of the volumes on the relationship between Latin and Romance and the historical-comparative grammar of the Romance languages (Vol. II/1), on individual Romance languages and language areas from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Vol. II/2) and from the Renaissance to the present (Vols. III, IV, V/1, V/2, VI/1, VI/2), and on contact, migration and artificial languages plus contrastivity, classification, typology (Vol. VII), the present volume (Vol. I, two part-volumes) of the »LRL« (publication start 1988) covers the history and methodology of Romance Studies. The first part-volume (articles 1-38) looks at the history of the discipline and its methodology (Language System), while the second (articles 39-90) discusses the methodological domains Language in Society, Language and Classification, Data Collection and Processing. In the years to come publication of the Lexicon will reach completion with the Indexes and References (Vol. VIII).