Collectio Barberiniana
The manuscript Vat. Barb. lat. 538 contains canonistic material which Mario Fornasari edited as a unitary collection and called the Collectio Barberiniana. This was misleading. The manuscript consists of several quires copied at different times at the same scriptorium in central Italy. The canons are not numbered in the manuscript nor is there a capitulation. Nonetheless, the numbering used by Fornasari has been retained in the present analysis (BN) because modern literature is based on it. One of the quires contains on fol. 58v– 59r a letter presumably written in 1081 by pope Gregory VII to Peter, abbot of Fucecchio in the diocese of Lucca and to the prior Rudolf of Camaldoli (JL 5219), and it is possible that all the quires were copied at Lucca.
The first quire contains the excerpt De heresibus christianorum from the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. A shorter form of this excerpt is found in the Ms Vat. lat. 3830, which was copied in northcentral Italy in the mid 11th century. The next two quires, on folios 7–14 and 15–21, belong together. They contain canons used for the Liber canonum diversorum sanctorum patrum (Collectio Sancte Marie Novelle), which was compiled at Lucca, and they contain canons which reappear in collections compiled in northeast France. The first quire corresponds to the canons of titles 2–4 and 6–8 of the edition, the second to the canons of titles 9 –11 and to the first canon of title 12. Title 5, which consists of only one canon, was added later. 96
These first three quires represent the earliest parts of the manuscript in its present state. The second quire contains a mini-collection compiled in the middle of the 11th century. A source for several of the texts is the Collectio V librorum or a derivative. A group of texts related to the contents of this quire is found on folios 3r–5r and 215– 221 of a mini-collection in the Ms Reims, BM 15. This group of texts was in turn used for the Collectio Sinemuriensis. Canon 7.3, which is excerpted from a decretal of pope Gelasius I (Quos constiterit indignos), is falsely attributed here to pope Hormisdas. The false attribution comes apparently from a Tuscan copy of the Liber decretorum of Burchard in which this canon (1. 22) has been given the inscription of the canon which follows it (1. 23). Such mistakes were often made when inscriptions are written in the margin. The false attribution is found in a series of excerpts from the Liber decretorum of Burchard in the Mss Florence, BML Plut. XVI 21, fol. 12r, and Plut. VII sin. 1, fol. 6v. It is also found in the Tuscan collection of S. Maria Novella in Florence (18. 2) and a small collection opposing simony on fol. 148r– 149v of the Ms Florence, BML Plut. XIX dext. 5. This last manuscript mentioned is from the canonry of the parish of Sant’Appiano in Florence. The first four canons in this collection are also found in the Libri tres adversus simoniacos (1. 18) of Humbert of Silva Candida.
Canons 9. 1. 7, 8, 13, 10, 11, 12 and 9. 2 of this second quire are found on fol. 148r–149r of the Ms Munich, StB Clm 22278 from Windberg under the rubric: Quod a symoniacis et criminosis oblata sacrificia deus execretur et magis impediant..
The third quire in the Ms Vat. Barb. 538 contains a second minicollection with canons found in the older core of the collection in the Ms Paris, BN lat. 13368 (beginning with canon 125) and in northern French collections related to it.
Decrees of the synod held at Rome in November 1078 (Reg. 6. 5b) are found on folios 34r–v (title 17) in a transmission similar to that which would be used at Poitiers (for the appendix to the Collectio IV librorum in the Ms Canterbury, Cathedral Library B.VII, for the Collectio Tarraconensis and for the Collectio VII librorum in the Ms Turin, BNU D. IV. 33). John Gilchrist, who discovered this linkage, recognized the exceptional character of the Barberiniana. It is one of only two collections to transmit canon 2 (Si quis Normannorum … satisfaciat), the other being the collection in Munich, StB Clm 16085, which also contains Humbertine material. The Barberiniana, he notes, contains 97 a transmission of the decrees identical to that in the Register after the corrections had been made.
On fol. 36r–44 is a series of excerpts from the Liber decretorum of Burchard. The most recent texts in the manuscript are found on fol. 58r: decrees from the spring synod of 1078 (JL ante 5064) and the decrees of pope Calixtus II at the synod of Toulouse 1119. The oath of Berengar of Tours from the year 1079 on fol. 59v is found in several Poitiers collections, but the transmission here is not dependent on Poitiers. It contains a phrase toward the end of the oath which is missing in those collections. It is given here in cursive script: sic credo nec contra hanc fidem ulterius docebo excepto causa reducendi ad viam hereticos qui per meam doctrinam ab hac fide recesserunt aut exponendo fidem quam hactenus tenui his qui me interrogaverint. Sic me deus adiuvet et hec sacra evangelia. This text is crossed out in the Register and is totally missing in the copy in the Ms Troyes, BM 952, which comes from Clairvaux.
The Barberiniana and the collection of Deusdedit both use the widely distributed „Error“-series and the florilegium Pro causa iniuste excommunicationis. The direct use of the Barberiniana by Deusdedit, which has been suggested, is unlikely.
Literature:
For the edition see Mario Fornasari, Collectio canonum Barberiniana, Apollinaris 36 (1963), pp. 1271–41 (description) and 214–297 (text). For the criticism see Gérard Fransen, Principes d’édition des collections canoniques, RHE 66 (1971), p. 130. – For the Barberiniana and the Ms Reims, BM 15 and for the „Error“series see Fowler-Magerl, Vier französische und spanische Kanonessammlungen, pp. 132–137. For the Barberiniana and the collection in the Ms Paris, BN lat. 13368 and related collections see Fowler-Magerl, Fine Distinctions, pp. 148f and 173 f. For the manuscript Florence, BML cod. Plut. XIX dext. 5 see Giuseppe Motta, Echi della polemica antisimoniaca nei secoli xi–xii. I tre codici di Sant’Appiano in Valdelsa, Aevum 62 (1988), pp. 198–214. – For the transmission of c. 2 of the synod of 1078 see John Gilchrist, The Gregorian Reform Tradition and Pope Alexander III, in: Miscellanea Rolando Bandinelli Papa Alessandro III, ed. Filippo Liotta, Siena 1986, pp. 282 f.; reprinted in his selected studies: Canon Law in the Age of Reform, 11th – 12th Centuries, Aldershot 1993, No. XI. – For the Berengarian oath with and without excepto causa … interrogaverint see Erich Caspar, Das Register Gregors VII (MGH Epistolae selectae 2, Berlin 1920–3), p. 281, 21– 24 and 427, 8 f. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 383–384. 98
