Appendix in BnF lat. 1454

Title	Appendix in BnF lat. 1454
Wikidata Item no.	Q127692628
Century	saec. VIII/IX
European region of origin	Northern France/Ecclesiastical Province of Tours?
Author	Till Stüber
Structure	chronological
No. of manuscripts	three

In two manuscripts of the Collectio Quesnelliana (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 1454, saec. IX³/⁴ [= Q] and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 3842A, saec. IX [= P]), this collection is followed by an appendix comprising a total of nineteen documents. The same appendix is also preserved in fragmentary form in the canonical miscellany Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 1458, saec. IX¹/² [= O], fols. 64ra–87va (the fragment begins with the final words of the first item). On account of the close textual relationship to the two aforementioned Quesnelliana manuscripts, Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium p. 415) already reached the plausible conclusion that the fragment contained in lat. 1458 represents the remnant of a now-lost manuscript of the Collectio Quesnelliana.

All three surviving manuscripts originate from northern France and were produced in the ninth century. However, the contents of the appendix open the possibility of an earlier date of composition: the terminus post quem for its compilation is the beginning of the eighth century, to which Michael D. Elliot dates the most recent text included therein (the penitential of Theodore of Canterbury in the recension of the so-called Discipulus Umbrensium).

Two items, namely a text entitled Differentia inter sacrificium et holocaustum (no. 1) – a late antique treatise on the merits of monastic life – and the Epistula episcoporum missa ad plebem (no. 15), an episcopal letter from Merovingian Gaul written around 560 AD, are transmitted exclusively in the appendix.

The appendix itself exhibits no discernible organizing principle, whether thematic or chronological. It is therefore unlikely to represent a deliberately pre-conceived compilation of canonistic materials. Its formation is perhaps better understood as follows: to the archetype – a manuscript of the Collectio Quesnelliana – additional quires were appended, which the owner(s) gradually had filled with texts they considered worth preserving and that were otherwise unavailable in their library.

Noteworthy is the connection of several items to the ecclesiastical province of Tours. The aforementioned Epistula episcoporum missa ad plebem, for instance, is subscribed by four bishops of that province; the letter of Lupus and Eufronius is addressed to a bishop of Angers; and the same geographical context is suggested by the councils of Tours (461) and Vannes (461/491). The appendix may therefore have been compiled in the region of Tours, or else its compiler drew on sources originating from that area.