Quadripartitus

Title	Quadripartitus
Key	QU
Alternative title	Sammlung in vier Büchern (Maassen)
Alternative title	Collectio Vaticana
Alternative title	Collectio canonum quadripartita
Size	Medium (500 to 1000 canons)
Terminus post quem	825
Terminus ante quem	875
Century	saec. IX
Place of origin	Reims
European region of origin	Northern France
General region of origin	Northwestern Europe
Specific region of origin	Reims
Main author	Linda Fowler-Magerl

The Quadripartitus is a canonical collection compiled in the province of Reims in the second or third quarter of the ninth century. It is heavily dependend on the Collectio Dacheriana. Part four in particular was influential well into the high Middle Ages.

Title

The collection consists of four parts of unequal length, hence the title Collectio canonum quadripartita or, much more commonly, Quadripartitus It should not be confused with the 12th English legal collection of the same name, on which see the article Quadripartitus (12th c.). It seems to have been referred to also as Collectio Vaticana, another title that can be confusing, as it was used by Schwartz (see his Praefatio) for a collection of Greek conciliar canons in Vat. gr. 830 and is also used for the collection in Vat. lat. 1342.

Content and structure

The first three parts contain 19, 55 and 84 canons respectively, and part four contains 382. Franz Kerff, who analysed the collection, lists a number of sources other than the Dacheriana: various works of Cassian, the Sententie and De ecclesiasticis officiis of Isidore of Seville, the Regula pastoralis of pope Gregory I and excerpts from his Register, the Rule of St. Benedict and the Exposition of that Rule by Smaragdus, the Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecim abusivis seculi, the 6th century Collectio Remensis and the penitential of Halitgar of Cambrai. Each book has a prologue and a capitulatio. The inscriptions of the canons in the first three parts are in the margin and heavily abbreviated. Those of the fourth part are in the text together with the rubrics. The canons in the first three parts are much longer than those in the fourth part and more exclusively patristic. There is been disagreement about the original form of the collection. Franz Kerff maintains that the four parts belonged together from the beginning.

Influence

The transmissions of the collection vary considerably. In any case, parts two through four were used in the late 9th century at Reims for the second Collectio II librorum in the Ms Milan, Ambrosiana A. 46 inf. All four parts are transmitted in the Mss Stuttgart, Württembergische LB, HB VII 62 (9th century, perhaps Reichenau), fol. 1v–176r. This manuscript was used by abbot Bern of Reichenau (1008-1048) in his treatise De nigromantia seu divinatione daemonum contemnenda. The present analysis (QU) is based on the Stuttgart manuscript and replaces that in earlier versions of Kanones. Other copies contain only the canons of the fourth part, for example: the Ms Antwerpen, Musaeum Plantin-Moretus M 82, fol. 52r –90v (11th/12th century, northeast France). [60] There are a number of collections which used only the fourth part, for example: Regino of Prüm at Trier at the beginning of the 10th century. This transmission is related to that in the Ms Trier, SB 1098/14 which contains only excerpts from the fourth part. Only the fourth part was used for the 11th century Collectio Sinemuriensis compiled at Reims and the Collectio Tripartita compiled at Chartres and the collection in the Ms Paris, BnF, lat. 13368. Excerpts from part 4 were used for the appendix to the Collectio Brugensis on fol. 146r– 160v and 165r–v of the Ms London, BL Cotton Cleopatra C. VIII (12th century, northern France). Excerpta from the other parts are found separate on fol. 91r–105v. The fourth book is found in the Ms Vat. lat. 1347, fol. 144r–180v (9th century, Reims). This was apparently the source for the canons in the Ms Montecassino, Archivio e Biblioteca dell’Abbazia Cod. 541, pp. 236a–285b. The material collection in the Ms Vat. lat. 3830, which is associated with Montecassino, also contains excerpts from the fourth part.

Literature

The fourth part was edited by Aemilius L. Richter, Antiqua canonum collectio qua in libris de synodalibus causis compilandis usus est Regino Prumiensis, Marburg 1844. Transcriptions of all four books (Book 1 based on the Stuttgart manuscript; Books 2-4 based on the Oxford manuscript) as well as draft editions of the exordium and Bok 1 have been provided by Michael D. Elliot. For an exhaustive study see Kerff, Der Quadripartitus. Kerff published an analysis of the collection, but the incipit-explicit list does not correspond to the beginning and end of the canons in the Quadripartitus, but rather to the beginning and end of the citations from the material sources. – For the use of the Quadripartitus in the copy of the Collectio Brugensis in the Ms London and in the Ms Vat. lat. 3830, see Rudolf Pokorny, Eine Kurzform der Konzilskanones von Trosly (909): Zur Reformgesetzgebung in der ausgehenden Karolingerzeit, DA 42 (1986), pp. 118–144, esp. 125 n. 30. – For the use of the Quadripartitus in the Ms Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 442, see Brett, Urban II, p. 44 n. 56. – Kéry, Collections p. 167–169.