Collectio Farfensis

Title	Collectio Farfensis
Key	FA
Alternative title	Collectio canonum regesto Farfensi inserta (Kölzer)
Alternative title	Collectio Farfensis of the Ms Vat. lat. 8487 (Fowler-Magerl)
Alternative title	Farfa Collection (Rolker)
Size	Small (100 to 500 canons)
Terminus post quem	1095
Terminus ante quem	1104
Century	saec. XII
Place of origin	Farfa
European region of origin	Central Italy
General region of origin	Southern Europe and Mediterranean
Specific region of origin	Farfa
Main author	Fowler-Magerl, Linda

Title

The manuscript Vat. lat. 8487 contains the chartulary (regestum) of the monastery of Farfa. The final entry is from the year 1099 and the compiler is Gregory of Catino. The chartulary is followed by four groups of canons from fol. 59r to fol. 84v. Theo Kölzer edited the canonistic part of the manuscript. He treated these groups of canons as books of a collection, all the while acknowledging that the groups were not compiled at the same time. This edition is the basis for the present analysis (FA). Kölzer calls this collection the Collectio canonum regesto Farfensi inserta, but based on the 2005 edition of the Clavis handbook ("Collectio Farfensis of the Ms Vat. lat. 8487") and Rolker (Farfa Collection) it is simply called Collectio Farfensis here.

The collection

On fol. 84 is a capitulatio for the canons on fol. 69v–76v. This group of canons, which deals with a wide range of matters concerning the clergy, is designated Liber primus in the capitulatio. The capitulatio for a Liber secundus follows on fol. 84v. For lack of space the [123] final rubrics of this capitulatio were copied on fol. 69r. The texts of this „book“ are found on fol. 59r–64v, directly after the chartulary. It is entitled De rebus et substantiis et fidelium oblationibus. According to Kölzer this group of texts was compiled as a supplement to the chartulary. On fol. 77 begins a new group of canons with the title De magna ecclesie libertate vel monachorum seu clericorum optima honestaque securitate. It has a capitulatio but is nowhere called a book. The final group of canons, with the title Iura legalia venerabilibus locis eorumque ministeriis pertinentia, is devoted to secular law. It is, in my opinion, the second section of the third group of canons just as the texts from Roman law in the Collectio Anselmo dedicata are sections of the partes into which that collection is divided. The compiler of the collection in the Ms Vat. lat. 8487 may have seen the Collectio Anselmo dedicata, but did not have it before him when he was assembling his collection. The capitulatio for the third group of canons in the Ms Vat. lat. 8487 is different in form from that of the first two groups. The rubrics for the texts deriving from letters of pope Gregory I appear first and then the rubrics for the others. Again it may have been the Collectio Anselmo dedicata that inspired this separate treatment.

Kölzer dates the first two groups of canons circa 1099 and the latter two slightly later although none of the material or formal sources are that late. The compiler had at his disposal the shorter form of the pseudoisidorian decretals, the Beneventan Collectio V librorum and the Liber decretorum of Burchard. He also had access to the Epitome Iuliani and Frankish capitularies. He does not seem to have had direct access to the 74T. Instead, he probably used for the first canons in the third group a florilegium similar to the florilegium in Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana 3006, fol. 203r–205v. The first six canons (seven according to Picasso, because he treats Quam sit necessarium as two separate canons), are found in the same form at the beginning of book 3 of the Farfensis.

Kölzer refuses rightly to judge this collection in terms of its „reform“ tendencies and characterizes it as an attempt to confirm monastic rights. He associates it with other collections which are found together with monastic chartularies like the Collectio Sandionysiana in Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. lat. 326 (the chartulary of Saint-Denis) and the Collectio Beneventana, which is found together with the Chronicon S. Sophiae.

Literature

For the edition of the Collectio Farfensis see Theo Kölzer, Collectio canonum Regesto Farfensi inserta (MIC Series B: Corpus collectionum 5, Vatican City 1982). See also the review by Martin Bertram, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 38 (1983), pp. 217–221. – For the use of the version of the Diversorum patrum sententie in the Ms Paris, BN n. a. l. 326 see Fowler-Magerl, Fine Distinctions, pp. 156–163. For a description of the Ms Florence, Riccardiana 3006 as a whole see Giuseppe Motta, Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum sive Collectio in CLXXXIII titulos digesta (MIC Series B: Corpus collectionium 7, Vatican City 1988), pp. xxi–xxii. – Kéry, Collections p. 264–265.