Collectio XII partium (first version)

A vast collection in twelve parts was completed by the clergy at Freising in the early 11th century. The accumulation of the material used for it must have begun much earlier. The compilers made direct use of the Hibernensis and the Collectio Anselmo dedicata. They used the "Freising Collection of Canonical Materials" found in the Mss Munich, StB Clm 6241 and 6245 and Vienna, ÖNB Cod. 2198, all from Freising, and in the Ms Bamberg, StB Can. 9 from Regensburg. The compilers also cooperated with and were influenced by the circle of Burchard of Worms. Emphasis here is on pastoral care. This is apparent from the selection of the excerpts from papal decretals. Jörg Müller has demonstrated this in regard to the use of excerpts from letters of pope Gregory I and Detlev Jasper has shown the same in regard to the use of letters of pope Nicholas I.

There is disagreement about the extent and direction of the cooperation between Worms and Freising. Hartmut Hoffmann and Rudolf Pokorny argue that the first version of the Collectio XII partium was completed after the final version of the Liber decretorum had appeared. Jörg Müller argues that Burchard collated his collection-inthe-making with completed parts of the Collectio XII partium, perhaps more than once. Hoffmann and Pokorny point to the fact that corrections were made in the Ms Vat. Pal. lat. 585/586 and that the first version of the Collectio XII librorum contains these corrected forms. Müller objects that the Palatine copy of the Liber decretorum is a Prunkexemplar and therefore a finished product and that any corrections made in that copy were the result of collation with an unexpected source, perhaps a form of the Collectio XII partium which had just arrived from Freising. Müller argues accordingly that the two collections were compiled interdependently.

The first version (TX)

Two versions exist of the Collectio XII librorum. Complete copies of the earlier version (2CDP for Müller) are found in the Mss Troyes, BM 246 and Saint-Claude, BM 17. The Ms Troyes is the basis for the present analysis of the first version (TX). This version, with circa 2600 canons, contains approximately 800 canons more than the Liber decretorum. Both copies of the first version begin with a prologue taken from the Liber decretorum. In the prologue in the Ms Saint-Claude there is still the reference to twenty books rather than twelve parts. The description of the contents of the collection which comes at the end of the prologue has been altered, however. There are 92 only twelve entries. These entries are entitled libri as in the Liber decretorum of Burchard, not partes as in the Collectio XII partium. The first six entries are taken unchanged from Burchard, but the final six entries correspond to the titles of parts 7–12 of the Collectio XII partium. In the Ms Troyes the reference to libri has been changed to partes and the description of the contents of the collection at the end of the prologue is missing.

The presence of the Burchardian preface and the reference to 20 books in the Ms Saint-Claude has convinced many scholars of the absolute priority of the Liber decretorum. A comparison of the description of the contents at the end of the prologue with the titles of the parts in textu leads to a somewhat different conclusion, however. The description of the contents of the first six parts of the collection corresponds neither to the titles in textu nor to the content of those titles.

The titles in textu are given here according to the Ms Troyes. Since, however, the Ms Troyes does not have titles for all of the parts, the following list is supplemented (here in parentheses) with titles from the Ms Saint-Claude: 1.) De sacerdotali ordine; 2.) De sacris ordinibus (De ministerio episcoporum); 3.) De communi vita; 4.) no rubric (De synodo); 5.) no rubric (De universali ecclesia); 6.) De sacramentis ecclesie; 7.) De universali ecclesia; 8.) De incesto diversi generis et legitimis coniugiis; 9.) De homicidiis; 10.) De peiuriis et excommunicandis; 11.) De rectoribus et iudicibus ecclesie, de furibus et sortilegiis; 12.) De visitatione infirmorum, de penitentia et reconciliatione.

It appears that the Liber decretorum with prologue arrived at Freising at a time at which the first version was already close to completion, but the collection had no prologue, as many collections do not. The prologue from the Liber decretorum was so persuasive that it was copied, apparently in haste, without revision. This was done without regard to the parts of the collection already in place. Then, in the Ms Troyes the description of contents was left out. The text of the first version of Collectio XII partium may have been corrected as a result of the arrival of the Liber decretorum. There is no sign, however, that the structure of the collection, the implementation of which was far advanced, was altered by that event.

Second version (TW)

The second version the Collectio XII partium (TW) was finished by 1039. It contains some 300 additional canons and is extant in two manuscripts: Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Can.7 and Wien, ÖNB, Cod. 2136. A third copy (Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc.Can.9) contains very substanial excerpts (more than 1000 canons according to (Müller, Untersuchungen, 29-31).

Mixed Version

There is also a version of the collection with characteristics of both 2CDP and 1CDP in the Ms Berlin, SBPK Savigny 2. The titles of the parts in the later version are as follows:

1.) De episcopis; 2.) De sacris ordinibus; 3.) De communi vita; 4.) De ecclesiis et earum iustitiis; 5.) De sacramentis ecclesie; 6.) De festivitatibus et ieiuniis et crapula et ebrietate; 7.) De homicidiis et calumniis episcoporum et reliquorum ordinum; 8.) De incesto diversi generis et legitimis coniugiis; 9.) De synodo celebranda; 10.) De diversis conditionibus hominum et de excommunicatione reproborum; 11.) De penitentia et reconciliatione; 12.) De vita activa et contemplativa.

Additions in the version of the Liber decretorum of Burchard augmented in southeastern Germany (see above) seem to come from the Collectio XII partium.

Literature

For a detailed analysis see Müller, Untersuchungen zur Collectio Duodecim Partium. Müller has made an up-dated version (1997) of his contribution to the Handbook of Medieval Canon Law available on the web site of the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law. Should the volume ever be published, his contribution, Die Collectio duodecim partium und ihr Freisinger Umfeld, will still appear in the 1995 version. For a differing opinion of the relationship between the Liber decretorum of Burchard and the Collectio XII librorum see Hoffmann – Pokorny, Das Dekret, pp. 87–107. See Müller’s rebutal in: ZKG 107 (1996), pp. 268–269. – Jörg Müller generously put his analyses of both versions of the Collectio XII partium at my disposal for the data base. – For the relationship to the Collectio V librorum see Koal, Studien zur Nachwirkung der Kapitularien, pp. 138–191. – For the use of the letters of Gregory I, see Jörg Müller, Die Überlieferung der Briefe Papst Gregors I. im Rahmen der Collectio Duodecim Partium, in: Licet preter solitum: Ludwig Falkenstein zum. 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Lotte Kéry, Dieter Lohrmann and Harald Müller, Aachen 1998), pp. 17–31. For the use of the letters of Nicholas I, see Jasper, The Beginning of the Decretal Tradition, pp. 118f. and 130. – For the description of the contents of the collection in the prologue in the Ms Sainte-Claude see Émile Van Balberghe, La Préface du Décret et la ‘Collectio XII Partium’, BMCL 3 (1973), pp. 7–9. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 155–157 (for the Collectio XII partium), pp. 185–186 (for the Freising material collection). 94

Categories

• key is TX
• belongs to: 12P group
• very large (more than 2000 canons) collection
• from southern Germany
• terminus post quem 1000
• terminus ante quem 1020
• saec. XI
• Entries in Clavis database based on ms
• DEFAULTSORT Collectio 012 partium 01