Collectio VII librorum in Wien, ÖNB, Cod. 2186

A collection in seven books was compiled in central Italy, perhaps at Rome, during or shortly after the pontificate of Paschal II (1099–1118). Peter Landau recently examined the formal sources and confirms the suspicion that the major source was the Polycarpus from which whole blocks of texts were taken. The second major source was the collection of Anselm of Lucca, perhaps also the Collection of S. Maria Novella and the collection in the Mss Vat. lat. 3832/Assisi, BCom 227. The Liber decretorum of Burchard was also used. Canons from the Liber de vita christiana of Bonizo and canons from the Hibernensis are found only in later copies in Cortona and Vienna. These texts were apparently added to the form in the Vatican copy. The Collectio VII librorum used much the same sources as the Polycarpus which was being compiled at the same time and in the same region. There are patristic texts taken probably from florilegia and texts taken from Roman law. There are similarities in the choice of Roman law texts to the selection in the collection Anselmo dedicata, but the compiler of the Collectio VII librorum has more complete inscriptions. 233 There are decretals issued in the period between the papacies of Leo IX and Paschal II. Unfortunately, none of the decretals of Paschal can be dated precisely.

Two versions have survived. The earlier version is in the Mss Vat. lat.1346 and Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek Helmstedt 308. The later version is in the Mss Vienna, ÖNB Cod. 2186 and Cortona, BCom 43. The Cortona manuscript has canons from the council of Worms (1122). Peter Landau has shown that the texts added to the second version are almost all from the Polycarpus. The copy in the Vatican manuscript has the appearance of a first draft. There are numerous canons in the margins which are integrated into the text (albeit at somewhat different places) in the other manuscripts. The books are divided into titles. There are short summaries before each title. In the Vatican manuscript the capitulations for the titles of all seven books are found at the beginning of the manuscript, unfortunately badly damaged. As in the Polycarpus the canons do not have their own rubrics. The first title-rubrics of the first book are numbered, the titles of the other books are not. There are additions called additamenta at the end of the collection.

The Vienna manuscript was used as the basis for the present analysis (SV). It was compared with the copy in the Ms Vat. lat. 1346 (SW). Variants in the Mss Cortona (SY) and Wolfenbüttel (SX) have also been registered. Because folios are missing in the Ms Vienna (between the present 222/223) the canons from the middle of the second title to the end of the sixteenth title of the 5th book are missing. For the sake of the analysis it is assumed that the missing texts are the same as those in the Ms Cortona. There is no special reference to SY in the location column when texts are present in both the Vienna and the Cortona manuscripts. And there is no special reference to SX when texts are present in both the Vatican and Wolfenbüttel manuscripts. The title-rubrics are numbered and in the present analysis the numbering of the canons is according to book and title.

The Wolfenbüttel copy was identified only recently by Hartmut Zapp. A group of canons added to the end of the collection and labelled an 8th book had created the illusion that manuscript contained the unique copy of an unknown collection. He and Robert Somerville demonstrated that the copy in the Ms Wolfenbüttel resembles the Vatican copy, and they published a description of the manuscript together with a transcription of some of the papal decretals found in the „8th book“. Canons taken from book 3 (canons 234 3. 73–82) of the collection are found at the beginning of book 8. They are followed by excerpts from decretals of pope Honorius and texts from books 6 and 7. Then come texts not found in any of the other versions. The „8th book“ is at the beginning of a quire. Only two folios (124 and 125) were filled with text and as a result this quire was transferred to the end of the collection and filled with other material.

Peter Landau concludes that the Collectio VII liborum was not used by Gratian.

Literature

For a description of the manuscripts see Blumenthal The Early Councils, pp. 111–113. See now Peter Landau, Die Quellen der mittelitalienischen Kanonessammlung in sieben Büchern (MS Vat. lat. 1346), in: Ritual, Text and Law: Studies in Medieval Canon Law and Liturgy presented to Roger E. Reynolds, ed. by Kathleen G. Cushing and Richard F. Gyug, Ashgate 2004, pp. 1–14. – For the „8th“ book see Robert Somerville and* Hartmut Zapp, An „Eight Book“ of the Collection in Seven Books, in: Grundlagen des Rechts. Festschrift für Peter Landau zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Richard H. Helmholz, Paderborn 2000, pp. 163– 177. Somerville paid special attention here to the decretals of pope Urban II in the collection. – For the collection and Gratian see Peter Landau, Quellen und Bedeutung des Gratianischen Dekrets, Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris 52 (1986), pp. 218–235; reprinted in his: Kanones und Dekretalen, pp. 207*–224* and 477*–479* (Retractationes).– Kéry, Canonical Collections, p. 269.

Categories

• saec XII
• from Central Italy [[Category:Collection from Central Italy]
• DEFAULTSORT "Collectio 007 librorum Wien"
• entry based on MS