Collectio Atrebatensis

The Collectio Atrebatensis in the Ms Arras, BM 425, fol. 1v–67v, is an accumulation of canons probably made at or in the vicinity of Arras. The main formal sources are Burchard, the Collectio Sinemuriensis and the Collectio Hibernensis. Folios are missing, but is impossible to determine how many because the canons are not numbered and there is no capitulatio. It is therefore impossible to determine with certainty when the collection was compiled. The missing folios may have contained more recent texts. Judging from the folios which survive, however, the compilation could have coincided with the refounding of the bishopric of Arras in 1093. In that case John of Warneton, who arrived at Arras in 1094, would have found the collection there on his arrival. A connection between John of Warneton and the Atrebatensis was suggested first by the canon Joseph Marie de Smet.

Fortunately, over 60 % of the canons in the one surviving copy would be used for the Collectio Sangermanensis, which is divided into nine volumina (not libri as is often maintained). This justified, in my opinion, using the Sangermanensis to supply missing explicits for the present analysis (AR) when the incipits are known and vice versa. There is a degree of risk in such an action, of course, and the user of the data bank must be aware of this. In the margins of the Atrebatensis, adjacent to those canons destined for the Sangermanensis, are letters of the alphabet, from a to i. As Dirk Van den Auweele and Laurent Waelkens have shown, they were used as numbers to indicate the volumen for which each canon was intended.

The Atrebatensis contains an excerpt from the Visio Eucherii dealing with Charles Martel, who was buried at Saint-Denis near Paris. The text begins: Karolus princeps, Pipini regis pater (the orthography in the incipit list: Carolus princeps). This version is also found in the Collectio Caesaraugustana. See below, p 241.

Literature

The canon Joseph Marie De Smet never published his research on the collection. Fortunately Alphons Van Hove made the results known in his Commentarium Lovaninese in Codicem Iuris Canonici I: Prolegomena (Mechlin/Rome 1945), p. 333 n. 8. – For the bishopric of Arras see Bernard Delmaire, Le diocèse d’Arras de 1093 au milieu du XIe siècle (Arras 1994). See also Lotte Kéry, Die Errichtung des Bistums Arras 1093/1094 (Beihefte der Francia 33, Sigmaringen 1994), pp. 334–352. – For the meaning of the letters of the alphabet see Laurent Waelkens [207] and Dirk Van den Auweele, La collection de Thérouanne en IX livres à l’abbayé de Saint-Pierre-au-Mont-Blandin: le codex Gandavensis 235, Sacris Erudiri 24 (1980), pp. 115–153, here p. 139 f. – For the use of the Sinemuriensis see Fowler-Magerl, Fine Distinctions, p. 130. – For the Visio Eucherii see Die Konzilien der Karolingischen Teilreiche 843–859, ed. Wilfried Hartmann (MGH Conc.3, Hanover 1984) p. 414 f. with n. 50 ff. The vision is contained in a letter from the bishops of the council of Quierzy (November 858) to king Ludwig the German; for the manuscripts containing the Visio see p. 404 ff.– Kéry, Collections p. 279.

Categories

• Collection
• key is AR
• saec. XIex
• from Northern France
• Medium size (just over 500 canons)
• database entries based on manuscript
• non-standard title