Collectio CLXXXIII titulorum

The Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum was compiled in northern Tuscany, perhaps at Lucca, in the decade following 1063. The most recent canon in the collection is a letter of Alexander II sent in that year to the bishops, clerics and judges in Italy (JL 4500). The manuscript Conventi soppressi A. 4. 269 in the BN in Florence contains a copy of the collection together with a letter of pope Alexander III to the canons of Lucca. The collection has survived in three copies, all of them in Florentine libraries: the above mentioned copy in the Biblioteca Nazionale and the Mss Biblioteca Marucelliana C.386 and Biblioteca Riccardiana 3006. In the manuscripts in the Marucelliana and Biblioteca Nazionale the collection is entitled Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum and is divided into 183 titles. The Riccardiana copy divides the same canons into two books, the first containing 98 titles and the other 85. In all three copies a capitulation precedes the collection.

The collection begins with canons dealing with theology and then follows the same pattern found in the Liber decretorum of Burchard, ending with the resurrection of the dead. Major sources are Burchard, the pseudoisidorian decretals, the Codex, Institutes and the Epitome Iuliani and the second and third quires of the Ms Vat. Barb. lat. 538 (an originally independent part of the so-called Collectio Barberiniana). Excerpts from papal decretals constitute a major part of the collection; particularly well represented are texts of Gregory I taken directly from the Register. These are surpassed in number only by excerpts from writings of saint Augustine. There is also considerable use of the rule of St. Benedict. There is a new positive attitude in the collection toward marriage, a tendency already noted in the Collectio V librorum.

Anselm of Lucca and the compiler of the Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum use some of the same sources. These sources will have been available to both at Lucca. Anselm was undoubtedly influenced in his choice of texts by the earlier collection. Both contain the letter of pope John VIII to bishop Anselm of Limoges (JE 3258). The earliest appearance of this text in a canon law collection is, according to Detlev Jasper, in the 10th century Collectio IX librorum in the Ms 1349, see above. Canons 13. 3–15 and 18–20 in the 13th book of Anselm’s collection, De iusta vindicta, are already found in the Liber 101 canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum. But Anselm did not use the earlier collection directly. Canons 13. 6 and 13. 20 are in a longer version in the collection of Anselm.

The Collectio V librorum in the Ms Vat. lat. 1348 is an abbreviated version of the Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum, which was completed at Florence during the papacy of Gregory VII. The Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum was still being used in Tuscany in the early 12th century judging from the copy in the Biblioteca Nazionale, which contains an excerpt from a decree of Paschal II (JL 6611) integrated into the text. The collection was also used in the early 12th century for the Polycarpus and for the Collectio III librorum.

Giuseppe Motta has published an analysis of the collection, and the present analysis (NO) is based on it. In those few cases in which Motta has chosen to give a reading that agrees with the material source rather than with the collection itself (Motta makes this clear in a footnote whenever he does so), I have remained with the reading in the collection.

Literature:

For the analysis of the collection see Giuseppe Motta, Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum sive Collectio in CLXXXIII titulos digesta (MIC Series B: Corpus Collectionum 7, Vatican City 1973). The manuscripts in the Marucelliana and Riccardiana were both discovered by Hubert Mordek, Handschriftenforschungen in Italien, QFIAB 51 (1971), p. 629 n. 7. – See also Motta, I rapporti tra la Collezione canonica di S. Maria Novella e quella in Cinque Libri. Firenze, Bibl. Naz. Conventi Soppressi MS A.4.269 e Bibl. Vaticana, Vat. lat. 1348, BMCL 7 (1977), pp. 89–94.– For the use of the letter of pope John VIII to Anselm of Limoges see Jasper, The Beginning of the Decretal Tradition, p. 130. For the use of the chapter on tithes in the decretal of Leo IV to the bishops of Britanny, De decimis iusto ordine (JE 2599), see p. 108. Use of that text in the 11th century was not common. Jasper mentions the collection of Deusdedit and the Britannica. The appendix to the Collectio Sinemuriensis in the Ms Orléans, BM 306 has the version of Deusdedit, characterized by an inscription which claims the text is taken from the Register. For the 11th century one can also add the A Aucta and B versions of the collection of Anselm and version in the Ms Vat. Barb. lat. 535. – Ludwig Schmugge notes the presence of the letter Relatum est auribus nostris of pope Leo IX (JL 4269) in the Collectio V librorum in the Ms Vat. lat. 1348. It should be added that it was taken from the collection of S. Maria Novella (canon 145. 3). See Schmugge, Leo IX – JL 4269: An Attempt at an Edition, in: The Two Laws. Studies in Medieval Legal History dedicated to Stephan Kuttner, ed. by 102 Laurent Majali and Stephanie Tibbetts, Washington 1990, pp. 31–39. – For the importance of marriage in the collection see the recension of Jean Gaudemet, Notes d’histoire des collections canoniques (à propos d’une publication récente), RHD 67 (1989), pp. 47–53. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 216 f.