Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845

Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845, written in Southern Italy in the tenth century contains a variety of canon law materials. It is probably best known as one of only two medieval copies of the Dionysiana including the Liber decretorum Dionysii. In fact, Vat. lat. 5845 and Paris, BnF, lat. 3837 are the only manuscripts which scholars since Maassen (Geschichte pp. 431-432) agree that they contain both the collection of synodal canons of Dionysiana II and the decretals part.

Origin of the codex

According to Lowe, Beneventan script pp. 53-54 and 69, the codex was written in Capua by monks from Montecassino who had fled there. Most of the time, he only refers to it as "saec. X" or "saec. Xin", but in the appendix (p. 364), he dates the manuscript to the years 915 to 934 (i.e. the time of Abbot John). This date generally accepted (see Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform p. 59 n. 94, Wirbelauer, Bertram/Dolezalek, d'Avray, and others). Vat. lat. 5845 later came to Montecassino, from where it passed to Rome.

Codicological observations

The codex has 328 parchment leaves numbered 1-327 (two folios are numbered "296": d'Avray p. 40). The quires, mostly quaterniones, are numbered (the first surviving quire number is "IV" on fol. 14v). The codex is physically incomplete. According to Bertram/Dolezalek, the first two quires and the outside leaves of the third are missing; what is today fol. 1 begins in the middle of the rubrics to the Canones Apostolorum, and there are more missing leaves. As already Holste notes, fols. 307-312 seem to be misbound. This includes the Cresconius fragment on fol. 307ra-308va (cf. Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform p. 254); note that the Ballerini describe the codex as if Cresconius was found at the beginning, but according to Bertram/Dolezalek this may simply be a relfection of Holste's comment that these folios should be at the beginning.

The collection(s) contained in Vat. lat. 5845

The contents of Vat. lat. 5845 have often been described in the literature, with some disagreement how to label the collection(s) it contains. The most detailed descriptions are those by Bertram/Dolezalek, Catalogue and d'Avray, Papal Jurisprudence pp. 30-40.

Bertram/Dolezalek describe Vat. lat. 5845 as an imperfect and expanded version of the Collectio Dionysiana II:

fol. 1ra-200vb, 202ra-306va, 313ra-327rb <Collectio Dionysiana, recensio 2, imperfecta et cum additionibus>

According to them, many of the additions are also found in the Collectio Dionysiana adaucta but others not; some additions found in Vat. lat. 5845 are also found in the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana.

The codex sometimes is described specifically as a copy of the Collectio Dionysiana adaucta; this, however, seems to be a misunderstanding.

Maassen refers to Vat. lat. 5845 in the discussion of the Dionysiana adaucta (his "vermehrte Hadriana"), mainly stressing similarities to Clm 14008; however, he clearly sees Vat. lat. 5845 as a "pure" Dionysiana which was added to with material also added to the Dionysio-Hadriana (pp. 450, 455, 464). Maassen p. 454 in any case did not count Vat. lat. 5845 among the four copies of the "vermehrte Hadriana".

Landau, Kanonessammlungen Lombardei pp. 430-431 in his discussion of the Dionysiana adaucta does not mention Vat. lat. 5845, and Landau, Gefälschtes Recht p. 19 treats Vat. lat. 5845 as a copy of the Dionysiana II but not the Dionysiana adaucta:

Ferner sind alle Texte der symmachianischen Fälschungen in der Collectio Vaticana (Vat. lat. 1342) überliefert, außerdem in den Codices der sog. Vermehrten Hadriana in der Terminologie Maassens - besser Dionysiana adaucta - und schließlich im Codex Vat. lat. 5845 der Dionysiana in der 2. Redaktion.

Wirbelauer, Zwei Päpste pp. 219-220 describes Vat.lat. 5845 (his V₃) as containing only one collection, namely a Dionysiana II, with additions very similiar to those in München, BSB, Clm 14008, his M₂ ("Coll. Dionysiana II mit dem Anhang, der sich nächstverwandt in M₂ findet"). Kéry, however, lists the manuscript as a copy of the Dionysiana II (p. 10), the Liber decretorum Dionysii (p. 11), and the Dionysiana adaucta (p. 21). The 2005 Clavis handbook even seems to cite Vat. lat. 5845 as a copy of the Collectio Dionysiana adaucta only: Fowler-Magerl, Clavis canonum p. 45. The Mirabile online catalogue follows Kéry. Hoskin, perhaps following Kéry, treats the manuscript as containing two collections, namely the Dionysiana (p. 151) to which the Dionysiana adaucta was "appended" (p. 301).

Note that Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform p. 223 refers to Vat. lat. 5845, fol. 322va-327rb as containing JE †1843 .

Links

• digital images: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.5845/0001
• Bibliography (but no description): https://digi.vatlib.it/mss/detail/Vat.lat.5845
• Bertram/Dolezalek catalogue: https://home.uni-leipzig.de/jurarom/manuscr/VaticanCatalogue/indexvatican.html
• Mirabile description (incomplete and partly confused): https://www.mirabileweb.it/manuscript/città-del-vaticano-biblioteca-apostolica-vaticana--manuscript/25312

Literature

The codex has been used by a number of scholars (Holste, Ballerini, Thiel, von Dobschütz, Schwartz, ...).

Maassen, Geschichte pp. 427, 431, 435, 449-451, and 464; Loew, Beneventan Script pp. 54 and 69; Kéry, pp. 10-11 and 21; Zechiel-Eckes, Die erste Dekretale, 51; d'Avray, Papal Jurisprudence pp. 30-40.