Collectio Frisingensis I

Title	Collectio Frisingensis I
Key	?
Alternative title	Sammlung der Handschrift von Freising
Alternative title	Collectio canonum Frisingensis
Wikidata Item no.	Q127603649
Century	saec. V
Main author	Linda Fowler-Magerl
Main author	Christof Rolker

Title

The collection is known as Collectio (canonum) Frisingensis, often with an added prima to distinguish it from other Freising-related collections; Maasen, who only knew Clm 6243, refers to it as "Sammlung der Handschrift von Freising".

Manuscripts

For manuscripts, see Category:Manuscript of Collectio Frisingensis I (number of entries: 3).

• München, BSB, Clm 5508
• München, BSB, Clm 6243
• Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, M.p.th.f. 146

The Frisingensis I is extant in two manuscripts, both copied near Lake Constance, München, BSB, Clm 6243, fol. 11-189 and in München, BSB, Clm 5508 (with four fragments: München, BSB, Clm 29550/4) (pace Fowler-Magerl, Clavis p. 23).

According to Hoskin, Clm 5508 is a direct copy of Clm 6243; furthermore, Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, M.p.th.f. 47 and Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, M.p.th.f. 64a both contain fragments of the conciliar canons of the Frisingensis but not papal letters.

See d'Avray, 127 n. 43 for two manuscripts listed as copies of Frisingensis I in Kéry, Collections pp. 2-3 but in fact not containing it.

Date

According to Silva-Tarouca, the collection was compiled saec. V/VI in Italy. Linda Fowler-Magerl dated it to the late fifth century. Turner and Schwarz assumed an older core was compiled in the second decade of the fifth century (Kéry, Collections p. 2), Jasper suggested that the Frisingensis I could have been compiled from earlier smaller collections going back to Gelasius' lifetime.

Content nad structure

The collection (in Clm 6243) contains in this sequence three letters of Innocent I (JK 286, 293, 303), one letter of Zosimus (JK 339), materials relating to Boniface I (five pieces on the Apiarus affair, two unrelated letters to Gaul), and two letters of Celestine I (JK 369, 371). The compiler/scribe of Clm 5508 likely took this material directly from Clm 6243 but omitted those texts which he had already inserted earlier from different sources (Dunn).

The Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum and the Collectio Frisinensis I

The Frisingensis I, together with the the 6th/7th century Collectio Wirceburgensis, is an important witness to the Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum which has not survived in its original form, but only in this form. It is generally agreed that the Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum was compiled as part of a dispute between the bishop of Rome and the church of northern Africa. The dispute broke out when an African priest named Apiarius, who had been excommunicated by his bishop, appealed in 417/418 to Zosimus, the bishop of Rome. Cuthbert Hamilton Turner assumed that the collection was Rome’s answer to Carthage’s refusal to allow appeal to courts outside northern Africa. The collection contains the canons of the council of Sardica allowing a bishop convicted in Africa to appeal to Rome. Eduard Schwartz, at first in agreement with Turner, called the collection the Corpus canonum Romanum. Schwartz was later to reverse his position and argue that the collection was compiled at Carthage. In 1992 Hubert Mordek re-examined the arguments and concluded that the original form of the collection was compiled at Carthage but that, prior to its being used for the Collectiones Frisingensis prima and Wirceburgensis, alterations and additions were made at Rome. He renamed it accordingly Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum. [25]

The transmission of this collection in the Frisingensis prima and Wirceburgensis represents the earliest known translation of all of the canons of the major oriental councils. This translation would be used in the early 6th century by Fulgentius Ferrandus for his Breviatio canonum and centuries later for the Collectio Hispana, which in turn would be used for the pseudosidorian forgeries. Because the translation was used indirectly for that forgery it is now called the Versio Isidori antiqua, although it has nothing to do with Isidore of Seville. The form of the Corpus canonum in the Ms Munich StB Clm 6243 contains texts and canons of the councils of Nicaea (325), Ancyra (314), Neocaesarea (314/325), Gangra (341/342), Antioch (341/325), Laodicea (343/380), Constantinople (381) and Sardica (342/343). The councils are separated by inscriptions which refer to the canons as regulae. The canons do not have rubrics. The canons of the Greek councils from Nicaea through Laodicea are numbered from 1–160 without interruption. A list of the names and provinces of the oriental bishops attending the council of Nicaea follow the canons of that council. The names of the occidental bishops are not included quia nulla aput eos suspicio fuit. Added below the line, between eos and suspicio, is de hereticis (fol. 19rb in Clm 6243). Rome’s claim to be the source of orthodoxy is an important element of this collection. The names and provinces of the bishops attending the councils from Ancyra to Laodicaea are not listed. It is said that these names are contained in greco (fol. 33a rb), in the specific case of Ancyra in greco sermone (fol. 19rb) and in the case of Gangra they are said to be iam superius in greco codice (fol. 23va). The canons of Constantinople are numbered separately as are the canons of Sardica. The names of the bishops attending these councils are not listed. Eduard Schwartz and Hubert Mordek assume that the collection originally had two parts, both containing the same texts, once in Greek and once in Latin.

The canons of Sardica are preceded by a lengthy text which states that there are canons of uncertain origin circulating in Africa which, if reasonable and not in conflict with the Roman church, should be recognized. An inscription admits that the canons of Sardica are not found in the Greek original: in Graeco non habentur sed in Latino inveniuntur (fol. 34va of the Ms Clm 6243 and fol. 52v of the Wirceburgensis). These canons, the authenticity of which was questioned by Dionysius Exiguus, are followed by the exchange between the bishops of the council of Carthage in 419 and the bishop of Rome. To the original version of the Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum (as witnessed [26] by the Wirceburgensis) are added in the Ms Clm 6243 papal decretals from Damasus (366–384) through Gelasius I (492–496), the most recent dated 495. The compiler of the Frisingensis took the letters from a small Italian collection, the so-called Epistolae decretales.

Literature

• Maassen, Geschichte p. 476-486
• Geoffrey D. Dunn, ‘Boniface I and the Apiarius Affair’ Revue d'Etudes Augustiniennes et Patristiques 68 (2022) 369-389. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.REA.5.135270
• Glauche, Katalog der lateinischen Handschriften [...], vol. I: Clm 6201-6317, Wiesbanden 2000, pp. 70-78
  • For a digital copy, see http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00106371/image_94
  • For an English summary, see d'Avray, Papal Jurisprudence c. 400, pp. 45-47
• Kéry, Collections pp. 2-3