Liber decretorum Dionysii

Title	Liber decretalium Dionysii
Key	DX
Alternative title	Sammlung der Decretalen (Maassen)
Alternative title	Dekretalensammlung des Dionysius (Wurm)
Alternative title	The Decretal Collection (Firey)
Alternative title	Collectio Decretorum (d'Avray)
Size	Very small (less than 100 canons)
Terminus post quem	496
Terminus ante quem	523
Century	saec. VI
Place of origin	Rome
European region of origin	Central Italy
General region of origin	Southern Europe and Mediterranean
Main author	User:Christof Rolker

Dionysius, after having translated conciliar canons, compiled a collection of decretals, using previous collections (not papal registers). Scholars agree that the resulting Liber decretalium was not completed before the second version of the conciliar collection (= Dionysiana II), but disagree whether the decretal collection was part and parcel of this second version or rather added later.

Importantly, Dionysius distinguished between different kinds of papal letters and selected only "legal" (as opposed to "dogmatic") letters, a distinction that had a profound impact on Western canon law (d'Avray).

The Liber decretalium began with a dedicatory letter to a certain priest Julian followed by a capitulatio in the form of a numbered list of all rubrics of the decretals (Wurm p. 62).

Contents

The Liber decretalium does not have an independent manuscript tradition; it has to be reconstructed from later collections. According to Wurm, Studien pp. 62-81, it originally contained 36 (sic) decretals plus one imperial rescript:

1. Siricius, JK 255 2. Innocent I, JK 311 3. Innocent I, JK 286 4. Innocent I, JK 293 5. Innocent I, JK 314 6. Innocent I, JK 315 7. Innocent I, JK 316 8. Innocent I, JK 304 9. Innocent I, JK 317 10. Innocent I, JK 313 11. Innocent I, JK 297 12. Innocent I, JK 302 13. Innocent I, JK 301 14. Innocent I, JK 309 15. Innocent I, JK 306 16. Innocent I, JK 308 17. Innocent I, JK 305 18. Innocent I, JK 310 19. Innocent I, JK 307 20. Innocent I, JK 318 21. Innocent I, JK 299 22. Innocent I, JK 303 23. Zosimus, JK 339. According to Wurm p. 70, Zosimus JK 345 (his no. "23a") was added after JK 339 in later versions. 24. Boniface, JK 353 25. Rescript by Emperor Honorius; see Wurm p. 71 and Maassen p. 320 26. Boniface, JK 349 27. Boniface, JK 362 28. Celestine, JK 381, followed by a short florilegium (Wurm p. 72: no. 28a) 29. Celestine, JK 369 30. Celestine, JK 371 31. Leo I, JK 402 32. Leo I, JK 405 33. Leo I, JK 414 34. Leo I, JK 416 35. Leo I, JK 544 36. Leo I, JK 411 37. Leo I, JK 536

The following three item are additions not found in the "reine Dionysiana" according to Wurm pp. 75-77:

37a. Leo I, JK 410 38. Gelasius I, JK 363 39. Anastasius, JK 744

The Collectio Dionysiana adaucta contains further additions from the letters of Leo I (Wurm pp. 77-78), namely JK 406, JK 412, JK 389, JK 399, JK 485, and JK 415.

Relation of conciliat and decretal collection

• While Justel first had published only the conciliar collection of the Dionysiana (see below for details), the posthumous 1661 edition contained both canons and decretals. For centuries, this edition was used by scholars working on the Dionysiana. For many readers, the starting point of their studies was that Dionysius Exiguus had compiled a collection that was composed of a collection of conciliar decrees and a collection of decretals.
• According to Maassen, the decretal collection was not the work of Dionysius Exiguus: "Es unterliegt daher nicht dem mindesten Zweifel, dass diese Decretalen nicht von Dionysius selbst in die Sammlung aufgenommen, sondern ein späterer Zusatz sind." (p. 436). He also pointed out that Pope Zachary in Gaudio magno when quoting both councils and decretals from a version of the Dionysiana still distinguished liber canonum and liber decretorum, indicating an existence as two distinct collections still in the eighth century ((p. 438)).
• Peitz assumed that the Liber decretalium was indeed composed by Dionysius, but that it was combindes with the conciliar collection only after his death (Peitz, Studien p. 11).

The manuscripts

There are 2 manuscripts containing the Liber decretalium described in this Wiki. See Category:Manuscript of DX and the individual entries:

• Paris, BnF, lat. 3837

• Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845

Scholars disagree about the number of extant manuscripts of the decretal collection, partly because they disagree about its relation to the collection of conciliar canons. In any case, there are different lists of manuscripts:

• Maassen p. 431-432 lists Paris, BnF, lat. 3837 and Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845 as the only two complete manuscripts (decretal collection including praefatio).
• Wurm, Studien pp. 31-32 likewise lists Paris, BnF, lat. 3837 (his Da), Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845 (his Db) as copies of the pure form ("Die (reine) Dionysiana (D)"). Under the same heading he also lists two manuscripts:
  • "cod. Sessorianus LXIII" (his Ds) which he describes as a "vermehrte Dionysiana, ähnlich der Hadriana". See Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Sessor. LXIII.
  • "cod. bibl. capit. Mutinensis, Ord. I nr. 12." (his Dm) which he describes as "die aus der D ausgeschriebene coll. Mutinensis" (p. 32). See Modena, Biblioteca Capitolare, O.I.12.
• Green, Innocent p. 17 follows Maassen (only two complete mss).
• Kéry p. 21 follows Maassen (only two complete mss) but additionally mentions two more manuscripts containing "small collections of excerpts", namely Paris, BnF, lat. 3847 and Paris, BnF, lat. 10399.
• Firey, Collection lists Paris, BnF, lat. 3837, Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845, but also Paris, BnF, lat. 3845 as containing the second version of the conciliar collection and the decretals.
• Zechiel-Eckes, Erste Dekretale, pp. 50-51 assumes that the decretal collection was an integral part of the second version of the Dionysiana. Like Wurm, he lists Paris, BnF, lat. 3837 (his Da), Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. lat. 5845 (his Db), and Modena, Biblioteca Capitolare, O.I.12 (his Dm) as "Codices der Dion. 2" (p. 50) containing JK 255.
• Heith-Stade does not list manuscripts but suggests that the decretal collection was only known from the Dionysio-Hadriana: "The Liber decretalium is known today from versions found in or retrieved from the Collectio Dionysiana-Hadriana" (p. 330).
• d'Avray, Papal Jurisprudence p. 26, referring to the different lists in Kéry and Zechiel-Eckes, speaks of "two or three manuscripts" of Dionysius' decretal collection.
• Hoskin, Letters pp. 151-152 largely follows Kéry (only two mss of the collection plus two mss with excerpts) and cites Firey. He comments (p. 151 n. 174) that Firey's assertion that Paris, BnF, lat. 3845 was a copy of the Liber decretalium Dionysii probably goes back to the description of this manuscript in Kéry p. 10 (where both BnF, lat. 3845 und BnF, lat. 3837 are said to contain "also decretals").

Editions

The editions of the Liber decretalium have been called "a bibliographical nightmare" (Brett, Theodore, p. 122 n. 5) for good reasons. According to Brett (pp. 138-140), the textual history can be described as follows: Justel's 1628 edition of the Dionysiana depended on his own copy (today Oxford, Bodleian Library, e Mus. 103) which has no decretals. In the second edition, however, "he printed the capitula of the decretals as far as Anastasius II from an unknown source" (p. 138); only in the 1661 edition, the text of the decretals was added. Turner and Kuttner suspected that the source for this addition was Colchaeus' 1525 edition or its 1609 reprint which in turn relies on three copies of the Dionysio-Hadriana; Brett, in contrast, followed Wurm Studien p. 51 n. 74 who suspected that the 1661 edition relied on a corrupt Hadriana manuscript. As Brett p. 139 concluded:

"It seems to follow that the edition of 1661 is based on the second Dionysiana proper for the councils, but on a poor manuscript of the Hadriana for the decretals. As the Ballerini noted long ago (PL 56, 199-200), and Wurm after them (Studien , pp. 70 (no.23a), 75 (no.37a) and 79), the 1661 edition therefore included in the decretal section which does belong to the early Dionysiana some letters which were added later, notably Zosimus c. 4 and Leo I c. 49, as well as the appendix from Hilary onwards. These additions accumulated slowly; the Hadriana marks a late stage in the process. The 1661 text is also full of readings proper only to the Hadriana. [...]"

Literature

• David Heith-Stade, Dionysius Exiguus, doi:10.1017/9781108559133.015

Categories

• key is DX
• belongs to: Dionysiana group
• from Rome
• saec. VI
• entries based on Migne