Collectio Burdegalensis

Title	Collectio Burdegalensis
Key	BG
Size	Medium (500 to 1000 canons)
Terminus post quem	1078
Terminus ante quem	1080
Century	saec. XI
Place of origin	Poitiers
European region of origin	Western France
General region of origin	Northwestern Europe
Main author	Linda Fowler-Magerl

General

The Collectio Burdegalensis is an abbreviated form of the Liber decretorum of Burchard. In contrast to the collection of Saint-Hilaire, it is divided clearly into sixteen books, each with its own capitulatio. The Collectio Burdegalensis was compiled for a monastery rather than a canonry. The 6th book consists of canons dealing with the libertas monasteriorum taken from the early version of the Diversorum patrum sententie (74T), see above p. 114.

The Burdegalensis is the first collection to contain the decrees of the council of Poitiers 1078, which was called to anounce the prohibition of lay investiture. Also in the collection are decrees 1 and 3 through 13 of the Roman synod of November 1078 and the oath [130] taken by Berengar of Tours in 1079. It is not out of the question that the collection was compiled in preparation for one of the councils held at Bordeaux, in 1079 and 1080, although it is usually thought that it was compiled at Poitiers. Later collections compiled at Poitiers also contain the decrees of the council held at Poitiers in 1078, but the Burdegalensis is the only collection to call the results a „general decree“: Decretum generale quod decrevit sancta sinodus in concilio Pictaviensi. Although John Gilchrist did not list the canons of Poitiers among the decrees of Gregory VII, some later collections would attribute these decrees to Gregory, with or without mention of the council. The collection in the Ms Turin, BNU D. IV. 33, for example, has as inscription to canon 4: Ut nullus abbas monachus vel quilibet, the inscription Gregorius papa septimus. The following canon is inscribed Eiusdem. In the collection in the Ms Tarragona, Biblioteca Pública 35, after a series of texts attributed to Gregory, the first canon is inscribed: Item eiusdem in decretis pictaviensis concilii. This may indicate that the council, presided over by the papal legate Hugo of Die and Lyon, was confirming rules that had been set down in advance in Rome. It is very possible that Hugo brought the precise phrasing of the decrees with him. It has long been recognized that the influence of Gregory on canon law was effected through his councils rather than through letters to individual adressees, and that he depended on his legates to make his policies known.

The Burdegalensis contains nothing of the Dictatus papae and the use of the 74T is limited to the section on monastic liberty. The collection is on the whole much more Burchardian conservative than the later collections associated with Poitiers.

Two copies of the collection have survived, but only the one in the Ms Würzburg, UB M. p. j. q. 2, fol. 2v–95r, is complete. It was this copy which was used as the basis for the present analysis (BG). This manuscript was for a time in the possession of Peter, bishop (?) of Saintes. The second copy, in the Ms Bordeaux, BM 11, fol. 147r– 171v, which belonged to the abbey La Sauve Majeure near Bordeaux, stops at canon 7. 16. In the present analysis the Würzburg copy was compared with the Bordeaux copy. Until Herbert Schneider identified the collection in the Ms Würzburg, no one suspected that the copy in the Ms Bordeaux was incomplete and the fragmentary transmission was called a collection in seven books. In both copies the text of the canon 1.104 is missing. It can be identified, however, because the rubric is the same as the rubric Burchard used for his canon [131] 1. 201. The 9th book of the Burdegalensis contains the same patristic texts that preceed the Collectio IV librorum in the Ms London, BL Arundel 173. Apparently the compilers used the same florilegium. Both manuscripts containing copies of the Burdegalensis also contain excerpts from the Collectio Tarraconensis (in the Ms Würzburg on fol. 96–110v and in the Ms Bordeaux on fol. 171v–178v).

Book Titles

The book titles as given in the Ms Würzburg are as follows: Primus liber continet de Romano antistite, de patriarchis, de primatibus, de depositionibus, de metropolitanis ac ceteris episcopis, de ordinationibus et dispositionibus atque depositionibus eorum.

Secundus liber continet de diversa institutione et ministerio presbiterorum et reliquorum ordinum aecclesiasticorum et laicorum ac de ordinibus agendis.

Tercius continet de institutione ecclesiarum et cultu et honore, de decimis et oblationibus et qui libri legendi sint et quando ponendi (in the text: De divinorum domorum institutione et c. et h. et d. et o. et iustitiis et qui libri in sacro catalogo recipiantur et qui apocriphi et quando apponendi sint).

Quartus liber continet sacramentum babtismatis et ministerium babtizandorum et babtizatorum.

Quintus liber de sacramento corporis et sanguinis domini et de perceptione eius et observatione.

Sextus liber continet de monasteriorum monachorumque libertate et eorum sancto proposito.

Septimus de viris ac feminis Deo dicatis sacrum propositum transgredientibus, de revocatione et penitentia eorum.

Octavus de virginibus et viduis velatis, de raptoribus earum, de coniunctione legitimorum conubiorum.

Nonus de incantatoribus, divinis, sortilegis, de angelis et variis demonum illusionibus.

Decimus continet ut periuria et multiplicia genera iuramentorum exstirpentur.

Undecimus de fornicatione et incestu diversi generis, de penitentia et correctione utriusque sexu.

Duodecimus de omicidis, patricidis, fratricidis et de his qui uxores suas et seniores suos interficiunt et de penitentia singulorum (in the text: De h. sponte et non sponte commissis et de p. et f. et de h. q. u. s. et s. s. i. et de observatione et penitentia singulorum).

Terciusdecimus de excommunicatis et predatoribus et de penitentia eorum (in the text: De excommunicandis et excommunicatis et de predatoribus [132] et contemptoribus mandatorum dei et de reconciliatione et penitentia eorumdem).

Quartusdecimus de iudicibus, accusatoribus, defensoribus, falsis testibus et de penitentia singulorum.

Quintusdecimus de observatione quadragesime et de crapula et hebrietate quid sit edendum vel non edendum.

Sextusdecimus qui docet sacerdotem quomodo debeat unicuique succurrere ordinato vel sine ordine, pauperi, diviti, iuveni, seni, sano, infirmo utroque sexu.

Literature

For the analysis of the collection on the basis of the Ms Bordeaux 11 see Adolphe Tardif, Une collection canonique Poitevine, RHD 21 (1897), pp. 149–216. In the same article Tardif edited on p. 215 f the liturgical text often attributed to Gregory VII: Licet nova consuetudo (JL 5290). For a description of the folios in the Ms Bordeaux which preceed and follow the copy of the collection see Detlev Jasper, Inveni in canonibus apostolorum … Zu einer mittelalterlichen Fälschung auf Papst Clemens I, in: Papsttum, Kirche und Recht im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Horst Fuhrmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Hubert Mordek (Tübingen 1991), pp. 201–213. Jasper notes that the part of the manuscript which preceeds the collection was once a separate manuscript.– For the copy in the Ms Würzburg M.p.j.q.2 see Schneider, Die Konzilsordines, pp. 41–42 and 277–284.– For the excerpts taken from the Tarraconensis in the Ms Bordeaux see Fournier – Le Bras, Histoire 2.249 f. – For the council of Poitiers 1078 see Blumenthal, Gregor VII, pp. 108 f. For the legates, see pp. 202–219. Also Schieffer, Die Entstehung des päpstlichen Investiturverbots, p. 165 n. 269. – For the term generalis in regard to councils and for the use of legates, see Robert Somerville, The Councils of Gregory VII, Studi Gregoriani 13 (1989), pp. 36 f. Also Blumenthal, Conciliar Canons and Manuscripts, p. 369. – For the use of the early form of the Diversorum patrum sententie (74T) and for the patristic texts in the 9th book see Fowler-Magerl, Fine Distinctions, pp. 156 ff. and 177 f. – Kéry, Collections p. 215–216.