Collectio Sancti Amandi

Title	Collectio Sancti Amandi
Key	?
Alternative title	Sammlung der Handschrift von Saint-Amand
Century	saec. VIII
Main author	Till Stüber

This chronologically arranged collection mainly consists of Gallican (27 documents) and Spanish (17 documents) Church councils. In addition, it contains the Capitula of Martin of Braga, the Sententiae quae in ueteribus exemplaribus conciliorum non habentur (which in mss. of the Hispana go by the name and authority of the council of Agde) and the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua. The earliest document is the synod of Elvira ca. 300, the youngest the 11^th synod of Toledo 675. The collection has not been edited, but its mss. have partly been used by Munier, Maassen and De Clercq for their editions of Gallican Church councils, as well as by Martínez Díez and Rodríguez for their edition of the Hispana.

There are three complete copies of this collection:

1. Berlin, SBPK, Hamilton 132 (saec. VIII^ex., Corbie), fols. 131ra–238vb

2. Paris, BnF, lat. 1455 (saec. IX², Rheims or Sens), fols. 80r–188vb

3. Paris, BnF, lat. 3846 (saec. IX, St-Amand), fols. 128ra–253rb

Excerpts, fragments and derivations of the Sancti Amandi are listed by Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform pp. 249f. Note that Paris, BnF, lat. 4280, listed as containing excerpts of the Collectio Sancti Amandi should rather be counted as containing a separate collection according to Stüber.

In BnF lat. 1455 and 3846, the collection proper is preceded by a detailed table of contents, which, at least in most cases, provides short paraphrases of each conciliar canon. From this, it can be inferred what the collection originally might have looked like. The collection, as it is preserved in BnF lat. 3846 and Berlin, Ham. 132 (its Corbie AB part), is very close to the table of contents, as these mss. only add the synod of Orléans 533, which is not included in the contents list. In contrast, in BnF lat. 1455, the collection is additionally supplemented by several scribes, drawing from the conciliar portion of Pseudo-Isidore or a Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis (adding canons from Valencia 549 and Toledo VIII 653 to Toledo XIII 683). The latter collection equally served as an examplar to enrich Ham. 132: Here, the original Sancti Amandi (written in Corbie AB minuscule) was later (?) supplemented by ninth-century scribes, writing in Caroline minuscule. While the fact that Ham. 132 was supplemented using a Pseudo-Isidorian collection is well known since the days of Hinschius, the interesting parallel between BnF lat. 1455 and Ham. 132 has gone unnoticed so far.

According to Martínez Díez, the formal source for the Spanish councils had been the Collectio Hispana (Vulgate version). The Gallican councils were probably copied from different exemplars: one of them was an earlier recension of the Collectio Remensis, a version which is no longer extant and can only be reconstructed indirectly. It seems that, for the Gallic councils, the compiler did not draw from the Hispana at all. Still according to Martínez Díez, the terminus post quem is given by the fact that the Vulgate version of the Hispana was composed not earlier than 694. The terminus ante is derived from the date of the oldest extant ms., which - according to David Ganz - was written about 800, at the scriptorium of Corbie. Given that all copies of the Sancti Amandi (complete or incomplete) are of Gallican origin, Gaul is commonly considered as place of composition.

Given that in Ham. 132 and Paris BnF lat. 3846, the oldest extant mss., the Collectio Sancti Amandi is preceded by the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana there has been some discussion on whether the Sancti Amandi might initially have been conceived not as a distinct collection, but as a mere supplement to the Dionysio-Hadriana (cf. Abigail Firey, Canon Law Studies at Corbie, in: Fälschung als Mittel der Politik? Pseudoisidor im Licht der neuen Forschung. Gedenkschrift für Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, ed. Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann [2015], 19–80 at 43). This assumption rests on a remark by Maassen, Geschichte 783, who believed that BnF lat. 1455 was a direct or indirect copy of BnF lat. 3846. Even though BnF lat. 1455 does not contain any traces of the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana, Maassen's assumption implied that this ms. derived from an exemplar where the Sancti Amandi was preceded by the Dionysio-Hadriana. Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform 249f. followed up on this, concluding that the former collection might well have been composed in order to supplement the latter. However, despite its later Pseudo-Isidorian additions, BnF lat. 1455 has preserved a couple of features (corrupted passages, inscriptions and explicits) it shares exclusively with the Collectio Remensis, which, as noted above, is one of the formal sources of the Sancti Amandi. As these older features are already omitted or revised in mss. BnF lat. 3846 and Ham. 132, Maassen's claim of BnF lat. 1455 being a direct or indirect copy of BnF lat. 3846 can be ruled out. This, to be sure, does not make it impossible that the Sancti Amandi did, in fact, initially serve as a supplement to the Dionysio-Hadriana, but - contrary to Mordek's assumption - there is no positive evidence to support this. Furthermore, the fact that the compiler had his collection preceded by a detailed capitulatio, thus outlining its exact contents, makes it rather unlikely that he did not conceive of the Sancti Amandi as a distinct collection.

The Collectio Sancti Amandi served as a formal source to the Collectio Bellovacensis. Given that Vat. lat. 3827, the Codex unicus of this collection, is very close to BnF lat. 1455, the fols. 1r-36v of the Vaticanus might well be a direct (?) copy of the respective passages of the Parisinus. The 12^th century Collectio canonum in Paris, BnF, lat. 4280 also draws, among other sources, from the Collectio Sancti Amandi.

Literature

See Maassen, Geschichte pp. 780-784; Kéry, Collections p. 84-85; Gonzalo Martínez Díez and Félix Rodríguez, La colección canónica Hispana vol. 5 (1992), 9-20.

Categories

• compiled between the late seventh and the second half of the eighth century
• Collection
• not in Clavis