Collectio Hibernensis

The Collectio Hibernensis was one of the most influential of the systematic collections compiled prior to 1000. It was copied more often than the 6th-century Concordia canonum of Cresconius, the 8th-century Gallic Collectio Herovalliana, the late 9th-century northern Italian Collectio Anselmo dedicata and the early 10th-century Libri duo de synodalibus causis of Regino of Prüm. Only the early 9th-century southern Gallic Collectio Dacheriana had comparable circulation and impact. There are two versions of the Hibernensis, both of which are likely to have been compiled. Many of the surviving copies were made in Brittany, however, and the collection seems to have circulated throughout the European continent. The alpha version is known to have existed by the first half of the 8th century. The earliest surviving copy of the beta version, an augmented version, dates to the middle of the 9th. The alpha version was edited in 1874 by Hermann Wasserschleben. A recent edition (2019) by Roy Flechner prints the alpha version complemented by all additional material that is unique to the beta version. The present analysis of the alpha version (HR) is based on Wasserschleben's edition.

Only two complete examples of the beta version have survived. The one in the Ms Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 42 was copied in the mid 9th century, probably in Brittany. The other, in the Ms Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana Tome XVIII, fol. 58va–136ra, was copied in the 11th century in southern Italy. The present analysis of the beta version (HS) is based on the copy in the Ms Vallicelliana. It was compared with the copy in Ms Hatton (HT). These two copies are almost identical in content and arrangement. An 11th-century fragment of the beta version is found in the Ms Montecassino, Archivio e Biblioteca dell’Abbazia 297.

I have examined two other copies of the Hibernensis which have been thought to contain the beta version, the one in Livorno and the other in Karlsruhe. Both contain the alpha version. The Livorno manuscript, which was copied in northern Italy in the 11th century, is in the Biblioteca Comunale Fondo Labronica. Its shelf number has long been given as olim 10 or simply as sine numero. It now has the shelf number 12. The collection is found on fol. 8v–56v and fol. 192r– 196v (the last quire of the manuscript). Confusion regarding the version 47 this copy represents was apparently caused by the fact that the books devoted to bishops and priests were enlarged using the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville.

The 9th-century copy in Ms Karlsruhe, Badische LB Aug. XVIII was made at Reichenau. Only a fragment of the collection has survived and the quires are rebound incorrectly. Book 18 begins on fol. 83r. Book 32, which begins on fol. 90v, continues on fol. 75r and finishes on fol. 82v. Roger Reynolds has begun a transcription of the beta version in Ms Vallicelliana in anticipation of a critical edition promised by colleagues in Ireland. The present analysis and the forthcoming transcription will make it easier to determine which version of the Hibernensis was used for the many fragments and excerpts of the collection which have survived.

Until recently the beta version was thought to have been based on the surviving form of the alpha version, but in 1998 Thomas M. Charles-Edwards demonstrated that this was probably not the case. Both versions have the book De contrariis causis, but the texts in that book are entirely different. The texts in the beta version correspond to a form of the Hibernensis compiled prior to that of the surviving alpha version. Charles-Edwards argues that both the beta and the surviving alpha versions are direct derivatives of an earlier form, perhaps a draft text, and that both were completed at about the same time, in the early 8th century. This may prove to be substantiated by evidence from a manuscript of the early 8th century, Copenhagen, Kongelike Bibliotek Ny Kgl. Saml. 58, which contains a florilegium in some way related to the beta version, and by the eighth- or ninth-century Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, Mp. th. q. 31, which appears to witness what Roy Flechner styled an „undivided text“, which preceded the two versions.

The Vallicelliana manuscript was copied, partly in Carolingian (or Romanesca) and partly in Beneventan hand, to the south of Rome in the 11th century. It was chosen as the basis for the present analysis because the contents of the manuscript as a whole had considerable influence on canon law collections in middle and southern Italy. The text of the Hibernensis differs only minimally from that in the Hatton manuscript. Peculiar to the version in the Ms Vallicelliana is the frequent suppression of Irish names in the inscriptions. Patricius is often replaced by Paterius and Gildas by Gelasius. In the Hatton copy definitions beginning with idest are interpolated into the text. According to the footnotes of Wasserschleben some of the same definitions are found in the alpha version in the Ms Orléans, BM, 221 (9th century, Brittany) and among the excerpts in the Ms Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek 210 (late 8th century). In 48 the Hatton manuscript some few canons are added to the ends of books, more toward the end of the collection than at the beginning. The end of the Hatton copy is also characterized by scribal carelessness and radical abbreviations.

In the prologue to both copies of the beta version the collection is called Gratissima canonum collatio que scripturarum testimoniis et sanctorum dictis roborata legentem letificat. Tables of contents follow in some manuscripts of both the alpha and beta versions. These list the books into which the Hibernensis is divided. The numbers of books varies within each recention as well across recensions: between 66 and 69, depending on the manuscript. Book 23, De senibus, is found in only one manuscript copy of the alpha version, however. The compiler refers explicitly to this list and recommends it to the reader. In a number of both alpha and beta copies texts of unnumbered books (concerning synods) are inserted before the first book (concerning bishops). Otherwise the titles of the books in both versions are almost identical and almost in the same order. Titles not found in the alpha version are: De christiano, De lege, De tribu, De infantibus, De proximis placendis and De silentio et elevatione vocis. In both the alpha and beta versions most of the texts are what Reynolds calls „multiple texts“, which is to say that they consist of excerpts from various sources grouped together to form units. Differences between the two versions can be found in the arrangement of texts within the books and in the arrangement of excerpts within the multiple texts.

In the prologue the compiler complains of the disagreement in the synodal decrees at his disposal, and he admits considerable reworking of that material and the use of scriptural and patristic texts as reinforcement. There are only a few excerpts from papal decrees in the collection. Those texts which do come from papal letters are attributed to synods. The numerous texts from pope Gregory I may seem to be an exception, but Gregory is always treated as a father of the church. In the inscriptions he is never Gregorius papa, always Gregorius or Gregorius Romanus to distinguish him from Gregorius Nazianzenus. Texts from the Greek fathers are in general well represented. Ecclesiastical terminology derived from the Greek language (episcopus, ecclesia, etc) are defined using the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Ecclesiastical histories and the lives of saints are used, as are a number of sources which would not be used directly in later collections.

Roger Reynolds demonstrates in ever greater completion and precision the later use of the Hibernensis. The Hibernensis alpha influenced 49 a number of collections represented in the present data bank, among which are the Liber decretorum of Burchard, the Collectio XII partium and the Atrebatensis. The beta version circulated in Italy by the 10th century, which is evident from its use by the compiler of the Collectio IX librorum in the Ms Vat. lat. 1349. The title De ratione matrimonii enjoyed a separate wide circulation.

Literature

The most recent edition of the Hibernensis (with English translation), in two volumes, is by Roy Flechner: Flechner, The Hibernensis, Washington, DC, 2019. An earlier edition of the Hibernensis alpha was published by Hermann Wasserschleben, Die irische Kanonensammlung, Leipzig 1874 and republished with corrections, additions, and contributions from Henry Bradshaw and Friedrich Maassen in 1885. For the alpha version Wasserschleben used in particular the Mss Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 243 and Cambrai, BM, 619. The edition of 1885 was reprinted in 1966 at Aalen.

For the relationship between the beta and alpha versions see Thomas M. Charles-Edwards, The Construction of the Hibernensis, Peritia 12 (1998), pp. 209–237. For the sources of the Hibernensis beta see the edition of Wasserschleben, pp. xiii–xxv. An English translation of the prologue is found in Somerville and Brasington, Prefaces, p. 58. For the Copenhagen manuscript see Rob Meens, The Oldest Manuscript Witness of the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis, Peritia 14 (2000), pp. 1–19. For the transmission of the Hibernensis in general see Roger Reynolds, The Transmission of the Hibernensis in Italy, pp. 20–50. For the transmission of the beta version, pp. 25–27. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 73–80.

Categories (for HR)

• key is HR
• belongs to: Hibernensis group
• large (1000 to 2000 canons) collection
• from Ireland
• terminus post quem 700
• terminus ante quem 750 <
• saec. VIII
• based on printed edition (Wasserschleben)
• DEFAULTSORT Collectio Hibernensis alpha