Collectio Brugensis in Brugge, Openbare Bibliotheek, 99

From Clavis Canonum


The Ms London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra C. VIII, fol. 64–91, and the Brugge, Openbare Bibliotheek, Ms. 99, fol. 63r–82r, contain an abbreviated version of the long form (A1) of the pseudoisidorian collection which has been called the Brugensis (not to be confused with decretal collection of same name). This collection is divided in the same three parts as the pseudoisidorian collection. This part of the London manuscript was copied in the second half of the 12th century in a northern French scriptorium and the corresponding part in the Ms Bruges was copied somewhat earlier in the Cistercian Abbey of Ter Duinen. The copy in the Bruges manuscript begins with a prologue which, according to Martin Brett, would later be used for the Tripartita associated with Chartres. The London copy, on the other hand, is closer in sequence to the original version of the pseudoisidorian collection. The Brugensis, together with smaller collections available in northeastern France (like the Collectio canonum in Paris, BnF, lat. 13368) constituted, according to Christof Rolker, the initial core of the Collectio Tripartita. The inscriptions which separate parts of the collection (Hactenus de … dehinc …) are almost identical with those in the Tripartita. In the present analysis the texts found in both copies have the key UG. The sequence of canons in the Bruges manuscript begins to vary from that in the Ms London at canon 2. 10. 4. From that point the location of the canons in the Bruges manuscript are noted in the location column with the key UI. Texts appended to the end of the collection in the Ms London are noted with the key UH.

The copy in the London manuscript contains a synodal ordo on fol. 35r– 36v. Herbert Schneider has found this ordo in England in the second half of the 11th century and in northern France shortly afterward. The copy in the London manuscript contains a number of additional texts associated with northern France. They have been described by Rudolf Pokorny. They include four letters of bishop Fulbert of Chartres (fol. 165v–168v) and the decrees of the council held by pope Calixtus II at Reims in 1119 (fol. 168v–169v). The manuscript also contains letters of pope Gregory I (fol. 125v–135v) and excerpts from the Quadripartitus on fol. 91r–105v, 46r–160v and 165rv). According to Pokorny, the text of these excerpts from the Quadripartitus is closely related to that in Antwerpen, Museum Plantin-Moretus, M 82 (66). [184]

Literature

For both manuscripts see Rudolf Pokorny, Eine Kurzform der Konzilskanones von Trosly (909), DA 42 (1986), pp. 122–128. Pokorny recognized that the two manuscripts contained the same collection and describes their contents. – On the prologue in the Ms Bruges and its use for the Tripartita see Brett, Urban II, pp. 39–40 n. 41. – For the transmission of the canons of the council of Reims (1119) see Robert Somerville, The Councils of Pope Calixtus II: Reims 1119, in: Proceedings of the 5th ICMCL, pp. 35–50. Idem, The Councils of Pope Calixtus II and the Collection in Ten Parts, BMCL 11 (1981), pp. 80–86. – Kéry, Collections p. 281 -282.