Montpellier, BM, 7

Library	Montpellier, BM
Shelfmark	BM 7
Century	saec. XII
Provenance	?
Place of origin	Romans-sur-Isère ?
European region of origin	Southern France
ARCA	md763485025m
Biblissima QID	Q169546
Collection	Burchard of Worms, Liber decretorum
Digital Images	gallica.bnf.fr
Digital Images 2	mediatheques.montpellier3m.fr
Description at 2	arca.irht.cnrs.fr
Author	Michela Galli

Manuscript MS 7 of the Médiathèque Émile Zola in Montpellier is a parchment manuscript from the 12th century, probably produced in the Abbey of Saint-Barnard de Romans (today known as Collégiale Saint-Barnard de Romans-sur-Isère). It contains Burchard's Liber decretorum.

We partly know the manuscript's conservation history: belonging to François Ranchin (1560c.-1641), professor and chancellor of the University of Medicine of Montpellier, the manuscript bears his coat of arms on the first page and was donated by him to the Bibliothèque des Capucins in Montpellier. In all probability, it passed to the municipal library, today the media library, at the time of the revolution, not before 1794, the date of the library's foundation.

According to Fransen, the manuscript can be traced back to the ‘Brochardus’ specimen reported in the 13th-century cartulary of the abbey of Saint-Barnard de Romans, which presents a catalogue of the abbey library in the last folios.

This wiki entry relies mostly on Fransen's article cited in the bibliography. All information had been verified, where possible, thanks to the manuscript digitisation.

Codicology

Manuscript in folio, 350x254 mm, currently consisting of 216 ff. divided into 27? quaternions. Some folios are missing (it must have contained at least 232 ff.): between ff. 74/75 1 folio is missing (3.220-221); between ff. 200/201 a quaternion is missing (19.8-45); at least two quaternions are missing too at the end (the manuscript ends with 20.18). The numbering in Arabic numerals, of modern dates, is at the upper outer corner on the recto of each folio.

Mise-en-page with two columns, consisting mostly of 36 lines. The ruling is dry-pointed, clearly visible on the page and the manuscript is untrimmed.

The text, in caroline script, is copied by 4 hands:

• Hand A: ff. 1-93r, stops before the end of Book V;
• Hand B: ff. 93v-144v, stops before the end of Book X;
• Hand C: ff. 145r-168r, stops in the middle of Book XVI;
• Hand D: ff. 168r-216v, concludes Book XX, incomplete.

The decoration is extremely sober, consisting only of initials in red ink, sometimes adorned with one or two dots. There are ‘guide letters’ in red ink. There is no difference, except in size, between chapter and book initials. Fransen compares the sobriety of the decoration with that of the exemplar in the Trivulziana Library in Milan, Trivulziano 601. Only in hand B is there a slight variation in the decoration, which nevertheless remains very simple. The chapter headings are also in red, accompanied by the relevant chapter number, unless the copyist has forgotten.

Contents

The manuscript belongs to the recent part of the Decretum tradition, which is characterised by specific gaps, found for the first time (probably) in the specimen in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, ms. E. 144 sup. and which is identified as deteriores, Milan version.

Fransen considers it related to the manuscript Paris, BnF, lat. 3861. In terms of added or altered texts, the Montpellier manuscript is related to the Troyes specimen, BM 1386, which is related to Paris, BnF, lat. 4283. The scholar indicates that these manuscripts belong to the same group, in which there are similarities to certain Italian manuscripts (Ivrea XCIV, Firenze RIcc. 240, Firenze Laur. 16.21, Pistoia C. 125), but specifies that given the variants found in the Montpellier, Paris, and Troyes manuscripts, it is unlikely that one was a model for the others.

Additions, omissions, and variants

Canon	fol.	Comment
BU01.021	8r	Augmented: "Cavendum est et summopere […] Cur non videtur, cur non perpenditur, quia benedictio illi in maledictionem convertitur qui ad hoc ut fiat hereticus ordinatur. Et item: Quisquis contra hanc simoniacam et neophitorum heresim vehementer officii sui consideratione non arserit cum Symone mago se non dubitet habere portionem qui prius commisit hoc piaculare flagitium. Et alibi: Quisquis hoc pretio studet accipere, sacerdos non esse sed dici tantum inaniter concupiscit. Et alibi: Dolens inquit [...] diu stare poterit"
BU01.023bis	8r	Rubr.: "De eadem re". Text: "Si quis episcopus aut presbyter qut abbas per pecuniam hanc obtinuit dignitatem, deiciatur ipse et ordinator eius et a communione sancta modis omnibus abscidatur et sit anathema sicut Symon magus a Petro. Require de hoc in cap cxii. et cxiii. istus libri".
BU01.112	19r	C. number reported by the copyist: cvii. Si quis episcopus [...] aut diaconum aut procuratorem vel dispensatorem ecclesie vel quemlibet ex his qui connumerantur in clero pro sui turpissimi lucri commodo proprii gradus periculo subiacebit [...] alienus sit a dignitate vel sollicitudine quam pecuniis acquisivit. Si quis vero mediator tam turpibus et nefandis datis vel acceptis extiterit [...] anathematizetur.
BU01.121
BU01.141-142
BU02.023	36ra	Displaced (between c. 18 and c. 19)
BU03.015A
BU03.095
BU03.152A
BU03.178
BU08.038
BU08.049
BU09.042

Links

• Manuscript record in the library.

Literature

Fransen, Montpellier; Kéry, Collections p. 139-141; Rolker, Canon Law (online) pp. 68 n. 106, 112 n. 142