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Notes on a Projected Corpus of Twelfth-Century Decretal Letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Stephan Kuttner
Stephan Kuttner*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

Medieval historians, diplomatists, and canonists alike will welcome the news from Gottingen that Professor W. Holtzmann is preparing the critical edition of a corpus of papal decretals of the twelfth century. It is altogether fitting that this project should be undertaken by a scholar universally recognized as the foremost authority on the decretal collections; and also that he should have decided to detach it from the G6ttingen Academy's monumental enterprise, as designed and directed for over forty years by the late Paul Kehr, which has as its ultimate goal a complete edition of the twenty thousand odd papal letters extant from the earliest times to the accession of Innocent III-an enterprise which we may not hope to see completed within this generation. Professor Holtzmann, in the course of his connection with the general Papeturlcundenuierks, has come to realize that the decretal letters of the twelfth century offer both an historical interest and a critical problem of their own. The first is easily seen by their paramount significance, especially since the pontificate of Alexander III, for the development of Canon law in doctrine and its consolidation in practice; the second consists in the peculiarities connected with their being transmitted in collections made by canonists for the use of canonists. The purpose of such collections, i.e. the intention to serve, broadly speaking, the needs of schools and courts, entailed certain well-known textual developments, resulting in a sharp contrast with any kind of archival tradition: neglect of formal elements of the individual letter, especially of its protocol and eschatocol; abbreviation of its juridically irrelevant portions; dissection, at least in the systematic collections, of slecretals dealing with divers matters in order to distribute their contents under several titles, etc.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 6 , 1948 , pp. 345 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © 1948 by Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service Co., Inc. 

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References

1 Holtzmann, W., ‘Über eine Ausgabe der päpstlichen Dekretalen des 12. Jahrhunderts,’ Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl. 1945, pp. 15–36.Google Scholar

2 One may recall especially his Papsturkunden in England (Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, phil.-hist. Kl. Neue Folge 25; Folge, Dritte 14–15; Berlin 1931–6).Google Scholar

3 The distinction between response and judicial mandate will often, but not always coincide with that between decretalis epistula generalis and specialis, which the decretists used to discuss in their glosses on Gratian D.19. Holtzmann’s definition (Ausgabe 18), which covers only the papal letters circulated for use in schools and courts, is too narrow.Google Scholar

4 Collections of the thirteenth century containing only decretals of Innocent III or later popes are excluded from Holtzmann’s project and from the purview of the present notes. The fact that the papal registers since 1198 A.D. are preserved reduces the critical importance of these collections, even though not all their decretals are covered by the registers. Some interesting problems concerning the relations between collectors and registrators are discussed in Kempf, F., Die Register Innocenz III (Miscellanea Hist. Pontif. ix, 18; Rome 1945) 87–102.Google Scholar

5 Figures according to Holtzmann, , Ausgabe 19. Of the c. 1050 decretals, 347 are not recorded in Jaffé-Loewenfeld (ibid. 32) while unidentified parts of dissected decretals frequently appear under separate numbers in JL.Google Scholar

6 Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (ZRG) Kan. Abt. 3 (1913) 615ff. and 4 (1914) 583ff.Google Scholar

7 Kuttner, , Repertorium der Kanonistik (Studi e Testi 71; Città del Vaticano 1937) 272–321. In the figure given above, Coll. Dunelm. I-III (op. cit. 280f.) and Londin. I-II (282) are reckoned as one each; Coll. Mutin. and Oenipont. (285f.) have been discarded, cf. Holtzmann, , Ausgabe 21 n.2; Kuttner, , ‘Bernardus Compostellanus Antiquus,’ Traditio 1 (1943) 311 n.14. Also the collection of papal and episcopal letters relating to the province of Reims, which Martène, and Durand, , Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (Paris 1717) 2, 622–1011, printed from a MS of St. Vaast’s, Arras, should not be counted among the canonical collections of decretals, as is done by Schönsteiner, F., ‘Die Collectio Claustroneoburgensis,’ Jahrbuch des Stiftes Klosterneuburg 2 (1909) 14.Google Scholar

8 In addition to discoveries made by Haenel, Phillips, Kehr, Erdmann, and by authors of catalogues of manuscripts.Google Scholar

9 i.e. of Appendix Conc.Lat., Coll. Bamb. and Brug. Google Scholar

10 Ausgabe 21–4: the added collections are Nos. 5, 13, 17, 19, 21, 26, 54; the added MSS, Nos. 28c and 53 of his list.Google Scholar

11 Holtzmann’s list has 55: he does not count Parisiensis IV (cf. Repert. 313) as a separate collection in Paris, BN lat. 3922A (cf. Ausgabe 25; infra n.27) and omits Dertus. III (cf. Repert. 319); on the other hand, he counts Baluze’s collations of a lost copy of Bamb. (see below) as a separate number (No. 53).Google Scholar

12 There exist no full analyses in print even of such collections as the Cottoniana (Cotton. II) and the Cheltenhamensis, which were made known in outline as early as 1897 by Hampe (Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 22, 388ff; 398ff.) and studied in 1900 by Seckel (ibid. 25, 523ff.).Google Scholar

13 In the following observations, the asterisk denotes collections not listed in my Repertorium; only for these new texts will MSS be expressly indicated. Where the name assigned by Holtzmann to a given collection differs from the designation adopted in Repert., the latter will be added in parentheses. Some recent bibliography is supplied in the following footnotes; we may mention here at the outset the several articles on decretal collections in the Dictionnaire de droit canonique (as far as accessible), which are however of very unequal value: on App. Conc. Lat. (by Amanieu, A., Dict. 1 [1935] 833–41); Bamb. (Daudet, P., 2 [1937] 84–9); Berol. and Brugen. (Lemercier, P., 2, 766–70; 1118–20); Cantab. and Cassell. (Lefebvre, Ch., 2, 1270–3; 1396–7); Cheltenh. (Misserey, L. R., 3 [1939] 682–3).Google Scholar

14 Holtzmann, , ‘Beiträge zu den Dekretalensammlungen …,’ ZRG Kan.Abt. 16 (1927) 45; ‘Collectio Eberbacensis,’ ibid. 17 (1928) 550f.; ‘Die Register Papst Alexanders III. in den Händen der Kanonisten,’ Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 30 (1940) 16f. In the last named, very important study, Holtzmann recedes somewhat from his earlier, more sweeping thesis on the origin of primitive collections in general at the Roman Curia.Google Scholar

15 ZRG 16, 44 (on Dert. cc.65–69, 73); for Alcob. the proof consists in c.18 ‘Cum in quibusdam’ with the inscription Illustri portugalen. regi (ed. Erdmann, C., Papsturkunden in Portugal [Abhandl. Ges. Wiss. Göttingen, N.F. 20,1; Berlin 1927] p. 254).—Two decretals from Alcob. have been edited by Morey, Dom A., Bartholomew of Exeter, Bishop and Canonist (Cambridge 1937) 133–4.Google Scholar

16 For details, see Holtzmann, , Register (n.14 supra) 78.Google Scholar

17 cf. ibid. 71.Google Scholar

18 Also Juncker, J., in using this collection (ZRG Kan. Abt. 13 [1924] 293 n.1, 296, etc.) does not seem to have recognized its true character. Cf. Holtzmann, , Ausgabe 26 n.1.Google Scholar

19 A first notice of this collection was given as early as 1697 in ? Bernardus, E.,〈 Catalogi librorum mss. Angliae et Hiberniae I, 126; cf. also Madan, and Craster, , Summary Catalogue no. 2452.Google Scholar

20 cf. Holtzmann, , ‘Krone und Kirche in Norwegen…,’ Deutsches Archiv für Geschichte des Mittelalters 2 (1938) 347; 375 n.2; ‘Zum Prozess der Äbtissin Mathia …,’ ZRG Kan. Abt. 27 (1938) 300–3. A decretal from Chelt. has been edited by Morey, , Bartholomew of Exeter 128; eleven pieces from Cott. (No. 2 from Cott. and Peterh.) edited by Holtzmann, , Deutsches Arch. 2, 383–95.Google Scholar

21 Following the traditional grouping, Holtzmann lists here: (a) the Parisiensis II, No. 27; (b) the Appendix group, Nos. 28–29; (c) the Bambergensis group, Nos. 30–34; (d) independent collections, Nos. 35–40. For the reasons why Coll. Sangermanensis and Abrincensis, although composed later than Comp. I, are classed in this group, see Kuttner, , Repert. 289f.Google Scholar

22 Holtzmann's study on the registers of Alexander III (n. 14 supra) is of the greatest importance for these groups.Google Scholar

23 cf. Holtzmann, , Register 19 n.1; Kuttner, , Traditio 1, 285 n.30.Google Scholar

24 cf. Repert. 295; Holtzmann, , Register 19.Google Scholar

25 Repert. 295; Holtzmann, , Register 19f., followed by a detailed discussion of 34 pieces from App. 50 and Oriel.I 57, pp. 21–54. The paleographical and critical reasons he adduces (p. 40f.) for a Bolognese origin of Oriel. I are, however, not convincing. In particular, it cannot be admitted that the distortion of the place name, beñ. or beneū(enti) into boñ. or bonoñ(ie), which occurs five times in date lines of Oriel.—along with other corruptions of the same name: uerñ. or uenet(iis), ueñ. or ueñ(one) —should prove this portion of the MS to have been written at Bologna. (Other quires of the miscellaneous codex, which formerly belonged to St. Andrew's Northampton [cf. p. 40 n.2], are certainly not of Italian provenance: e.g. the Summa ‘In nomine,’ cf. Repert. 199). One might argue that, on the contrary, only a non-Italian copyist would substitute the universally known metropolis of legal studies for the less well known Benevento; for the sake of argument one might even discover Spanish phonetics in the shift ben.-ven. Be this as it may, Coll. Oriel. cannot be convincingly assigned to Bologna: consequently all we can say about its source, the epitome of the papal register, is that it may, but by no means must have been circulated from that city.Google Scholar

26 cf. Holtzmann, , ZRG Kan.Abt. 27, 303 n.1; Register 64 (cf. also pp. 33, 36, etc.). It must be a slip of the pen when he remarks in another context (ibid. 61) that Coll. Bamb. was not known in England.Google Scholar

27 cf. Register 66; Ausgabe 23; also ibid. 25 on several other supplements which the collector of Rouen subsequently entered in his MS (Paris, BN lat. 3922A) from Comp. I, Gilbert, Rainer of Pomposa, etc. (see also n.11 supra, n.57 infra, and Traditio 1, 328 n.6). The decretal JL 16552 was edited from Rotom. by Holtzmann, , Deutsches Archiv 2, 395f. (No. 12).Google Scholar

28 See however Deutsches Archiv 2, 397–400 (No. 13) for an edition of JL 17639 from Coll. Hal. and Monac.; also Ausgabe 31 on traces of the registers of Clement III and Celestine III in the primitive collections after Comp. I. Google Scholar

29 No. 54, fragment of a collection in ∗Oslo, is a new discovery; for No. 53 (MS Baluze) see supra. By letter of March 8, 1948, Professor Holtzmann informs me that he found another fragmentary collection in ∗Paris, BN nouv. acq. lat. 2477.Google Scholar

30 For a sample of the edition see Ausgabe 35f. (JL 13740, including 14075–6). The Corpus will be arranged alphabetically by incipits (a chronological order has to be eschewed since too many decretals defy even approximate dating) and fitted with the proper indices and concordances.Google Scholar

31 The MS was seen, but not identified by Bethmann, , Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 9 (1847) 639: ‘Decretalium collectio in 36 Büchern’ (another MS of St. Ambrogio’s, mentioned ibid. 640, ‘Decretales antiquae’ [cf. Repert. 321], contains a pre-Gratian collection, on which see Bras, Fournier-Le, Histoire des collections canoniques II [Paris 1932] 222–4); recognized as an early copy of Gratian by L. Weiland, MGH Const. 1 (1893) 21 n.3, who used the MS in his edition of the Concordat of Worms, ibid. 160f. (Callixtus II, JL 6986: this is Coll. Ambros. c.55) and of a letter of Emperor Otto IV, ibid. 2 (1896) 34. This letter and two entries relating to the sacristan, later abbot, Ardengus of St. Ambrogio (1226 A.D.) are appended to our collection, fol. 319r-v. For the early glosses on Gratian in this MS see Traditio 1, 280 n.5.Google Scholar

32 Upon examining the twelve citations of extravagantes in Bernard’s treatise, Friedberg concluded that Bernard had the individual decretals before him generally in the same textual shape as they appeared afterwards in Coll. Par. II (Die Canonessammlungen … [Leipzig 1897] 31; cf. Traditio 1, 295 n.25). Only one of the twelve references (ed. Laspeyres, n.47: JL 10445) is not found in Ambr.; the others fit even better with our collection than with Par.II. Bernard cites e.g. Innocent II, JL 8289 wrongly under the name of ‘Hadrianus’ (n.72 Laspeyres): an aberration from the correctly inscribed Ambr. c.52 to c.51 (Hadrian IV, JL 10444)? Google Scholar

33 Note e.g. (to give only one example) that JL 13970 ‘Nos inter alios’ to the bishop of Genoa is inscribed ‘g. curicensi (euriensi Par.) episcopo’ and begins ‘Ideo inter alios’ only in Ambr.45 and Par.II 29.7; it is cited accordingly by Bern. de matrim. (n.92 Laspeyres).Google Scholar

34 The glosses on Grat. D.50, for instance, refer to the decretals JL 12253, 13823, 13856, 14091, 14216: only the first of these is found in Ambr. (c.26).Google Scholar

35 cf. Lohmann, E., ‘Die Collectio Wigorniensis,’ ZRG Kan.Abt. 22 (1933) 61f.Google Scholar

36 Register 16 n.1; also by Van Hove, , Prolegomena (Commentarium Lovaniense I,1; 2nd ed. 1945) 352.Google Scholar

37 cf. Repert. 200 n.3.Google Scholar

38 Some of the references fit the Bamb. group as well (cf. Repert. 199 n.2); but the following correspond to the rubrics of App. only: Laon MS 371bis, fol.117v: ‘ex. de spol. Item cum quis’ (App. 22.6; in Bamb. 36.6 the title is de restit. spol.); fol.119v: ‘ex de potest. iud. Ad hec,’ fol.120v: ‘ex. de pot. iud. Quamuis’ (App. 7.19, 8; in Bamb. 33.19, 8: de off. et pot. …); fol.120v: ‘ex. de spon(salibus) Significasti’ (App. 6.14; in Bamb. 50.13: de matrim. et spons….) etc.Google Scholar

39 On Honorius and his work see for the time being the brief indications in Traditio 1, 321 n.4. His decretal references have nothing to do with Comp. I (as I believed, on Schulte’s authority, in Repert. 424f.); cf. Douai MS 640, fol. Iva: ‘ex. de pot(estate iudicum) Jampridem’ (App. 46.4 alone has this rubric and initium, as against de off. et pot…. and Quoniam abbas in Bamb. 33.23; 1 Comp. 1.21.19); fol. 3ra: ‘ex. de excom. Qua fronte’ (App. 31.2; in Bamb. 42.38: de appell.); fol. 3vb: ‘ex. ut actor respondeat. Miramur’ (App. 11.2; in Bamb. 34.2: de cognit. mutuarum petit.) ; fol. 30va: ‘ex. de rescriptorum inter(pretatione). De hoc autem’ (App. 41.3; in Bamb. 50.17, followed by 1 Comp. 4.1.6, the entire decretal JL 13793 Ex litteris [= App. 6.20, 41.3, 10.3] stands undivided under the title de matrim….).Google Scholar

40 Glosses on App. were found plurimae in Laurens’ MS (cf. his preface and some glosses printed in the editions, e.g. Mansi 22, 248D, 322C, 394E, 403D) and are extant in the MSS of Leipzig (cf. Juncker, , ZRG Kan. Abt. 13 [1924] 319 n.3, 338 n.8; 15 [1926] 389n.) and Vienna. Before his death, Juncker had found evidence that the siglum Jo. in the glosses of the Leipzig MS (cf. Repert. 291) points to an English master and not to John of Faenza (letter of October 11, 1937). Further discussion on the English glossators of App. and other western collections must be left for another occasion; the observation made in Traditio, 1, 285 n.31, on ‘some scanty glosses’ is misleading.Google Scholar

41 cf. Kuttner, , ‘Zur neuesten Glossatorenforschung,’ Studia et documenta historiae et iuris 6 (1940) 313f. with references for Simon of Bisignano and Huguccio in n.58. For Bazianus see Schulte, , ‘Die Glosse zum Decret …,’ Denkschriften der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften 21, ii (Vienna 1872) 57ff.; also Juncker, ZRG Kan.Abt. 15, 422n. Bernard of Pavia citing Coll. Par.II remains the only exception; Schulte’s assertion (op. cit. 11) that in the glosses on Gratian of Wolfenbüttel, MS Helmst. 33, decretals are cited from App. is gratuitous. Actually the main set of glosses in this MS was conflated from heterogeneous material and the majority of decretal references are given without indication of titles (Juncker, , op. cit. 354); the less frequent glosses citing with title (e.g. Schulte loc.cit.; Juncker 421n. and 452 n.1) represent a later stratum and all fit Comp. I.—Without inspection of the MSS it is impossible to interpret the strange gloss in Helmst. 33 and Munich, MS lat. 10244: ‘Alexander uidetur dicere in libro tertio, de illis, quod …’ (JL 14043, part of 14046), which Schulte op. cit. 13f. refers to the papal register. Coll. Wig. 3.31 can hardly be meant.Google Scholar

42 cf. Juncker, , ZRG Kan.Abt. 13, 344 n.3.Google Scholar

43 The use of App. in Anglo-Norman glosses on Gratian (cf. Repert. 13, 23, 25) needs further investigation. App. was certainly not used in the Summa ’Omnis qui iuste’ and the Ordo iudiciarius Bambergensis. In the latter, three references citing decretals with title (ed. Schulte, , Sitzungsberichte der kais. Akad. der Wiss. 70 [Vienna 1872] 294 n.1, 298 n.1, 300 n.1) are probably interpolated (cf. Juncker, ZRG Kan.Abt. 15, 466n.) and fit the Bamb. group alone. In the course of the ’nineties, App. was superseded in the English schools by Coll. Tanner, as will be shown on another occasion.Google Scholar

44 The latter question hinges on the stand one is inclined to take on the origin of the lost epitome of Alexander Ill’s register, cf. n.25 supra. Google Scholar

45 Traditio 1, 285 n.30; for further contents of the MS see also Kuttner, , ‘Johannes Teutonicus, das vierte Laterankonzil und die Compilatio quarta,’ Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati 6 (Studi e Testi 125; Città del Vaticano 1946) 618 nn. 2–4.Google Scholar

46 Traditio loc. cit.; the index is part of the matter appended to a MS of Gratian with early glosses (cf. ibid. 280 n.5).Google Scholar

47 Exclusive of collections containing only Innocentian or later material.Google Scholar

48 Doubts were already expressed by Mansi in the preface of his edition, Stephani Baluzii … Miscellanea novo ordine digesta III (Lucca 1762) 367.Google Scholar

49 cf. op. cit. 367, 369a, 370a, 371 etc.Google Scholar

50 cf. the Clairvaux catalogue of 1472 A.D. in d’Arbois de Jubainville, H., Études sur l'état intérieur des abbayes cisterciennes (Paris 1858) p. 429, R.20: ‘Item ung autre volume contenant V livres de Décrétales, commençant aussi [i.e. as R. 19 = Troyes 385; cf. Repert. 339] Iuste indicate filli hominum … et en la fin y a ung cayer d’autres matières et d’autre lettre.’ The Catalogue général of 1855 lists MS 944 without incipit simply as Decretals of Gregory IX; hence it was overlooked in Repert. Google Scholar

51 ‘La pénétration du droit des Décrétales dans l‘Église Polonaise au XIIIe siècle,’ Acta Congressus Iurid. Internat. Romae, 12–17 Nov. 1934 3 (Rome 1936) 390. Additional information was kindly supplied by Dr. Vetulani in a letter dated March 20,1937.Google Scholar

52 cf. Kuttner, , Traditio 1, 289 n.52; 311 n.9; 332 n.41. In the second redaction, Alanus inserted only 41 out of the 68 pieces of the original appendix (42 more in the appendix of the Fulda MS are merely duplicates). The second redaction of Gilbert shows certain variations in the several MSS as to the number and position of pieces inserted from the original appendix, cf. Repert. 312f.Google Scholar

53 cf. Traditio 1, 327 n.5; Misc. Mercati (n.45 supra) 6, 619f. In the case of Gilbert, however, the first redaction seems to have been the accepted text: otherwise there would be greater uniformity among the MSS of the second redaction, and Alanus would not have included so much material from Gilbert’s original appendix in the final form of his own collection.Google Scholar

54 Traditio 1, 310f. If Tours MS 569A, fols.13–44v, listed in Repert. 351 as a copy of Comp. II, should really have contained another decretal collection, as Dr. Holtzmann was told shortly before the MS perished during the war (cf. Ausgabe 24), it would have belonged to the same group of recompilations; all I can say from my notes (taken in 1934) is that beginning and end corresponded to Comp. II. Also Coll. Dertusensis III, mentioned by Holtzmann in 1927 as related to Comp. II (cf. Repert. 319), may be a recompilation of this type.Google Scholar

55 Ausgabe 21.Google Scholar

56 Caillemer, E., ‘Le droit civil dans les provinces anglo-normandes au XIIe siècle,’ Mémoires de l'Académie nationale de sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Caen, 1883 p. 176; on the provenance of the miscellaneous MS cf. p. 191. Caillemer planned, but never finished, an edition of another item—the so-called Summa Bellinensis (op. cit. 175ff.)—from this MS; a set of proof-sheets of the abortive edition was owned by the late Hermann Kantorowicz and is now in the library of the University of Minnesota Law School.Google Scholar

57 Mentioned by Caillemer, , op. cit. 173f. On Par. lat. 3922A in general see n.27 supra. Google Scholar