Collectio XCI capitulorum

The canonical collection known as the Collectio 91 capitulorum is an unassuming collection of canonical materials, with apparently limited spread and influence. It is systematically arranged into 91 numbered statements. Lotte Kéry described the collection as an ‘unstructured collection of canonical materials’. Paul Fournier was the first scholar to describe the collection in some detail and he dated the collection to sometime in the first two decades of the ninth century and located its composition somewhere in Gaul.

The arrangement of the 91 chapters is rather inscrutable: the individual chapters are marked only by their numbers, lacking titles or headings, and there is no introductory index titulorum either. Based on source material and character, one could divide the Collectio 91 capitulorum into two parts. The first part, with statements evidently designed to instruct the clergy (chapters 1-34), resembles an episcopal statute. This part, drawing on an unknown text (or texts), which also acted as a source for the Collectio canonum Laudunensis and the collection of forged capitularies by Benedictus Levita, is edited as the 'Capitula Vesulensia' by Rudolf Pokorny. The statements represent instructions for proper priestly behaviour, correct ritual celebration, and the education of the laity in religious discipline.

Following this first part (but without any indication of a break in numbering or appearance), chapters 35-91 present authoritative statements on more diverse topics. The statements are drawn from a variety of source texts, including ecumenical councils (in particular Antioch), royal capitularies (of Pippin III and Charlemagne), the penitential work of Theodore of Canterbury, canons from Gallic councils, and Pope Gelasius’s decretal. A major authority is the synod of Auxerre (573 x 603); the collection reproduces almost 38 of the synod’s 45 canons. The topics covered by the statements are likewise suited to local priests: the main concern seems to be the correct conduct and performance of the clergy.

Despite Kéry’s characterisation of the work as an ‘unstructured collection of canonical materials’, there are clusters of chapters discernable that are organised according to certain themes, testifying to a conscious editorial mind at work. These clusters cover the many duties of rural priests and laity quite comprehensively and address issues of non-christian practices (‘pagan’), the liturgical calendar, religious practice, burials, the Eucharist, baptism, marital rules, sexual morals of laity and clergy, and a few statements on monastic life:

cc.
1-24	Liturgy and the obligation to instruct the laity in religious discipline
25-35	Correct priestly behaviour
36-46	Nuns and women
47-62	Correct performance of liturgical rites and prohibition of non-sanctioned rituals
63-70	Priestly purity (and prohibition to sue clerics in secular courts)
71-73	Abbots and monks
74-75	Death
76-81	Marriage and consanguinity
82-89	Correct liturgy (especially purity)
90-91	Incest

Almost all of the chapters contain directives, rules, guiding principles, and admonitions directed at secular clerics, especially priests, operating at the grassroots level of society, in a pastoral context.

Manuscript

The Collectio 91 capitulorum survives a single manuscript, currently housed at the municipal library of Vesoul (Franche-Comté). Manuscript 79 (73) in the Bibliothèque municipale Louis Garret is a small, late tenth- or eleventh-century codex and contains what appears to be a combination of practical religious texts that dates to the ninth-century. The origin of the manuscript is unclear; it was obtained by the nuns of Faverney in 1776. The suggestion by Franz Bernd Asbach that the manuscript came from nearby Luxeuil is therefore quite uncertain.

In addition to our canonical collection, the codex contains a mix of texts that seem especially relevant to secular clergy serving local Christian communities, offering simple and brief texts explaining church dogma and guiding religious practice. Of interest are the ‘chapters from penitential books’, drawn from statements from the Excarpsus Cummeani and the Theodorian Paenitentiale Umbrense (fols 1v-28r), the so-called Paenitentiale additivum Ps.-Bedae-Egberti (fols 28v-42r), There is a fragment from the Gregorian Libellus responsionum (fols 42v-44r), before the Collectio 91 capitulorum is copied on folios 44r-53r, followed by a few statements on incest and marriage from the royal capitularies known as the Decretum Compendiense (a. 757) and the Decretum Vermeriense (a. 756) on folios 53r and 53v (possibly meant as an appendix to the collection). Next are an anonymous clerical interrogation on baptism, explaining the meaning of elements of this and other ecclesiastical rituals (fols 53v-57v), the so-called Fortunatus commentary on the Creed (57v-63r), brief Expositiones on Mass and Paternoster (63r-65v), and a further commentary on the Creed (65v-68v). A copy of Theodulf of Orléans’s first capitulary (68v-81r) follows, which constitutes the youngest datable text in the manuscript, written sometime between 798 and 818. The final text of the manuscript is a florilegium of canonical and patristic excerpts drawn from the Collectio Sangermanensis XXI titulorum (81r-87v).

The combination of texts in Vesoul 79 (73) seems considered and intentional, aimed at priests as a useful book for their daily religious and ritual duties. It is reasonable to assume that the combination of texts stems from the second quarter of the ninth century and that the eleventh-century manuscript from Vesoul is a faithful copy of a ninth-century codex, or, at least, part of one. It is possible, but unprovable, that the inferred ninth-century archetype shared the material characteristics with Vesoul 79 (73).

Literature

Franz Bernd Asbach, Das Poenitentiale Remense und der sogen. Excarpsus Cummeani: Überlieferung. Quellen und Entwicklung zweier kontinentaler Bußbücher aus der 1. Hälfte des 8. Jahrhunderts, Unpubl. PhD thesis (Regensburg, 1975), 45.

Paul Fournier, ‘Notices sur trois collections canoniques inédites de l’époque carolingienne’, reprinted in Paul Fournier, Mélanges de droit canonique, ed. Theo Kölzer (Aalen, 1983), vol. II, 145-89.

Allen J. Frantzen, ‘The Penitentials Attributed to Bede’, Speculum 58, no. 3 (1983), pp. 573–97, at 579.

Sven Meeder, 'A Collection of No Authority: Canon Law and the Collectio 91 capitulorum' (in preparation).

Sven Meeder, 'Collectio 91 capitulorum': http://www.svenmeeder.nl/living-the-law-in-the-early-medieval-world-the-contribution-of-canon-law-to-european-culture/collectio-91-capitulorum/

Hubert Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta: Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Hilfsmittel, Munich, 1995), 894-5

Susan A. Keefe, A catalogue of works pertaining to the explanation of the creed in Carolingian manuscripts (Instrumenta patristica et mediaevalia, 63, Turnhout, 2012), 376.

Lotte Kéry, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400-1140): a bibliographical guide to the manuscripts and literature (History of Medieval Canon Law, Washington, DC, 1999), 165-6.

Rudolf Pokorny, MGH Capit. episc. 3.346-353: http://www.mgh.de/dmgh/resolving/MGH_Capit._episc._3_S._346.

Samuel Schröder, ‘Priesterbild und Priesterbuch zwischen correctio und Kirchenreform: Beobachtungen zu Erklärungen von Messe und Veterunser in der Handschrift Vesoul 73’, Unpubl. M.A. thesis, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Tübingen, 2020).

Categories

• saec. IX (800x820)
• not in Clavis
• this article is a stub
• DEFAULTSORT "Collectio 091 titulorum"