Cresconius, Concordia canonum

Cresconius, about whom nothing is known but his work, compiled a systematic collection in the mid 6th century which he called a Concordia canonum. Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, who recently edited the collection, has shown that it was probably compiled in Italy. The present analysis (SD) is based on his edition. Cresconius promises to improve on the Breviatio canonum of Fulgentius by providing both a title index (a capitulation) and the full texts of the canons. He uses none of the lesser known African councils cited by Fulgentius and probably had no access to them. He adresses his collection to a pontiff Liberinus, otherwise unknown. Zechiel-Eckes found evidence of a Liberius who was bishop at Cumae toward the end of the 6th century but no one with a similar name in Africa.

Cresconius refers to himself as exiguus, certainly in imitation of Dionysius Exiguus. The only formal source that Cresconius used was the version of the Dionysiana which contained papal decretals. He also cited a number of canons not found in surviving copies of the Dionysiana but which would be used in the two later recensions, the Dionysio-Hadriana and the Dionysiana aucta, both completed in Italy. The decretals in the Concordia canonum are from popes Siricius, Innocent I, Zosimus, Celestine I, Leo I and Gelasius I. There is no sign of the most recent letters in the Dionysiana, those of pope Anastasius II. The collection is divided into 300 titles and begins with the ordination of the bishop. The titles that follow deal with liturgy (particularly the Eucharist), with the „primacy“ of bishops, the privileges of the major sees and the rules governing contact with heretics. 33

Numerous copies, excerpts and fragments have survived. Most copies have a supplement which is thought to be a product of the final phase of the Three-chapter-schism in northeastern Italy. There followers of Arian and of the schism had found refuge. Zechiel-Eckes suspects that the form of the collection with supplement was put together at Pavia at the end of the 7th century and that it was taken eastward by missionaries from the region Bobbio/Pavia.

The collection continued to be copied and revised well into the 9th and 10th centuries. Hubert Mordek points out that in the early Carolingian period a scribe added a second prologue which he took from the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua by way of the Herovalliana. A version revised in the 9th or 10th century, the Cresconius Gallicus, was probably completed at Reims. It survives in only one manuscript: Paris, BnF, lat. 4280A. The copy in the Ms Salzburg, St. Peter a. IX. 32 adds texts also found in the Dionysio-Hadriana and pseudoisidorian decretals. Mordek discovered in the late 10th century Ms Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 197 a mixture of texts from the Concordia and a southern German version of the Vetus Gallica and texts also found in the Dionysio-Hadriana.

Manuscripts

See Manuscripts of SD

Literature

The Concordia canonum was edited by Zechiel-Eckes, Die Concordia canonum. This supersedes the edition of Guillaume Voel and Henri Justel, Bibliotheca iuris canonici veteris 1 (Paris 1661) Appendix, p. xxxiii–cxii (Migne PL 88.829–942). For the Cresconius Gallicus see Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen, pp. 846 f . and Zechiel-Eckes I. pp. 226–240. – For Cresconius and the Vetus Gallica see Mordek, Analecta canonistica pp. 1–4. Idem, Kirchenrecht und Reform, pp. 122–24; Idem, „Cresconius“, Lex.MA 3 (1984/86), pp. 345–346. Mordek has shown that the preface in Migne PL 88. 831 f is not that of Cresconius but is taken from the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua by way of the Herovalliana. – For the Salzburg manuscript see Georg Phillips, Der Codex Salisburgensis S. Petri IX 32. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der vorgratianischen Rechtsquellen, SB Vienna 44 (1863), pp. 443 f. – See Marco Cardinale, La „Concordia Canonum“ di Cresconio e la sua diffusione nella cultura giuridica dell’Europa medievale 1: Problemi generali e criteri metodologici, Apollinaris 62 (1989), pp. 283–331. – For the Three-Chapter Schism, see Rudolf Schieffer, Zur Beurteilung des norditalischen Dreikapitel-Schismas. Eine überlieferungs-geschichtliche Studie, ZKG 87 (1976), pp. 167–201. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 33–37. 34

Categories (semi-automatic)

• key is SD
• belongs to:
• small (100 to 500 canons) collection
• from Italy
• from Italy
• terminus post quem 530
• terminus ante quem 570
• saec. VI