Collectio IX librorum in Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Gud. lat. 212

Name

The collection is known as Collection of Saint-Germain, Collection in Nine Books, Collectio Sangermanensis IX voluminorum (Fowler-Magerl), or Wolfenbüttel Collection in Nine Books (Rolker); it should be confused with neither the early medieval Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum nor the Collection in Nine Books in Vat. lat. 1349, nor that in San Pietro C. 118.

General

There are two manuscripts extant: Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Cod. Guelf. 212 Gud. lat. and Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, 235. For almost a century, only the Wolfenbüttel manuscript was known; the present analysis is based on this copy (WO). The Ghent manuscript, from the Benedictine monastery Saint-Pierre-au-Mont-Blandin in Ghent, was more recently identified by Laurent Waelkens and Dirk Van den Auweele. Canons peculiar to this copy have as their key WP.

In the Ms Wolfenbüttel the collection begins with a prologue, the title of which is: Incipit titulus prologi kanonicarum sentenciarum ex corpore kanonum exceptarum. This is followed by the brief prologue: Liber subiectus kanonum novem constat voluminibus que ad quid valeant et quid in se contineant succincta annotatione monstrabitur ne lectoris sollertia ad inveniendum in ipsis quod quesierit diu laboret. A description of the contents of each of the nine volumina and a capitulatio for the entire collection follows: Primum itaque volumen de sacris ordinibus loquitur. Secundum autem de viris ecclesiasticis quid scire vel agere debeant. Tertium de continentia et legitimis nuptiis atque incestis. Quartum de symonia et de symoniacis et huiusmodi. Quintum de causis et accusationibus atque iudiciis. Sextum de consuetudinibus ecclesiasticis et libris recipiendis. Septimum de excommunicatis et excommunicandis. Octavum de sacramento et sacrantibus atque iuramento. Nonum de opusculis Iheronimi et Urbani et quorumdam aliorum. [208]

At the end of most of the volumina are canons not mentioned in the capitulatio. More such additions are found in the Ms Wolfenbüttel than in the Ms Ghent. The capitulatio to the first volumen ends with canon 133. One more canon is added in the Ms Ghent, two entirely different canons are added in the Ms Wolfenbüttel. The capitulatio to the second volumen ends with canon 316. One and the same canon is added in both copies; two more canons are added in the Ms Wolfenbüttel. The capitulationes to the forth, sixth, and seventh volumina end with canons 46, 56, and 105, respectively. Two canons each are added to the latter two volumina in the Ms Wolfenbüttel. The capitulatio to book eight ends with canon 31. In both manuscripts a further canon is added.

Waelkens and Van den Auweele maintain that the first eight volumina were finished several years before the ninth, namely before or shortly after the council of Clermont (1095), the decrees of which are found in that volumen. They maintain that John of Warneton, who arrived at Arras in 1094 and who became bishop of Thérouanne in 1099, would not have had time to compile the first eight volumina of the Sangermanensis. In my opinion, however, he could easily have compiled the Sangermanensis while still at Arras if he had found the accumulation of texts which is the Collectio Atrebatensis on his arrival. The Sangermanensis was, in any case, used as a major source by the compiler of the Collectio X partium. This collecction was probably conceived (although not completed) by John of Warneton circa 1100 at Thérouanne.

Paul Fournier and others thought that the compiler of the Sangermanensis used the Collectio Tripartita. Martin Brett was the first to realize that this was not so. The misjudgment can perhaps be explained by the number of canons common to both collections. A series of extracts from letters of pope Gregory I are found in both, for example, and the fundamental statement Hereticum esse constat qui Romane ecclesie non concordat. But these texts are also found in the Ms Paris, BnF, lat. 13368 (and related collections in the Mss Paris, BnF, lat. 13413 and 14193 and in Antwerpen, Museum Plantin-Moretus, M 82 (66)) and the collection in this manuscript was an important formal source for the Collectio A of the Tripartita. If the collection in Paris, BnF, lat. 13368 was indeed used as a source for the Sangermanensis this would explain a number of other texts common to the Tripartita and Sangermanensis. [209]

The text Hereticum esse is also found in the second version of the Tarraconensis, which was enriched with material from northeastern France. The source is obviously one of the collections above mentioned. Horst Fuhrmann knew that the text appears in the Ms Antwerp, Musaeum Plantin-Moretus M. 82 (fol. 96) and Ms Paris 13368, did not discuss further implications of his find, however.

The Sangermanensis was used, together with the Collectio Sinemuriensis, the fourth part of the Quadripartitus and excerpts from the Ms Antwerp, Musaeum Plantin-Moretus M. 144 for a collection in the Ms Cambridge, Parker Library 442. Martin Brett brought my attention to that collection and lent me his analysis.

Literature

For the Wolfenbüttel manuscript, which contains far more canonistic material than the Collection in nine books see Max Sdralek, Wolfenbüttler Fragmente (Kirchengeschichtliche Studien 1.2, Münster 1891), pp. 3–86. – For the collection and, in particular, the copy in the Ms Ghent see Laurent Waelkens and Dirk Van den Auweele, La collection de Thérouanne en IX livres à l’abbaye de Saint-Pierre-au-Mont-Blandin: le codex Gandavensis 235, Sacris Erudiri 24 (1980), pp. 115–153. See also Fowler-Magerl, Fine Distinctions, pp. 183f. To the end of canon 2.43 of the collection (Curandum vero maxime et omni cautela), which was taken from the letter of pope Felix III to the bishops of Sicily, is the following note: de his similiter in concilio Arelatensi capitulo xovio invenitur. This addition is also found in the Collectio XII partium (canon 12. 50 in the first version and 11. 67 in the second) and in the second collection in the Ms Vat. lat. 4977 (canon 158). – For the use of the decrees of Clermont see Somerville, Pope Urban II, p. 221 f. – For the text Hereticum esse … concordat see Horst Fuhrmann, „Quod catholicus non habeatur, qui non concordat Romanae ecclesiae“. Randnotizen zum Dictatus Papae Gregors VII., in: Festschrift für Helmut Beumann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Kurt-Ulrich Jäschke and Reinhard Wenskus, Sigmaringen 1977, pp. 263–287, here 275–283. –On the lack of any connection between the Sangermanensis and the Tripartita and for the collection in the Ms Cambridge Parker Library 442, see Brett, The Collectio Lanfranci, pp. 169 f. – Kéry, Collections p. 262–263.