Epitome Hispana

The Epitome Hispana (Alfons Stickler, Brian Ferme and a number of others refer to it as the Epitome Hispanica, Martínez Díez as el Epitome Hispánico) is a chronologically ordered collection compiled a decade or two after 598 (the most recent text being a canon from the council of Huesca held in that year). The title in the Ms Verona: Capitula omnium conciliorum que a beatis patribus statuta sunt sive epistolarum decretalium que a pontificibus sive apostolicis viris decreta sunt breviter collecta atque conscripta. The collection is divided into titles the first of which contains the Capitula Martini. The next title takes canons from what is called a Liber Complutensis. This was presumably an early 6th century Gallic collection containing the canons of Greek, African and Gallic councils. The compiler of the Liber Complutensis took the canons of the Greek councils from a Gallic, 35 chronologically arranged collection. The most recent canon is from the second council of Arles. Peter Landau recognized that the Bolognese decretist Rufinus used what he called a „Brevarium Computense“ in his Summa to the Concordia discordantium canonum of Gratian. The next title, De epistola Innocentii papae ex concilio Niceno, contains the canons of Nicaea in the version of Rufinus of Aquileia who, after years in Jerusalem, had returned to Italy in 397 and translated Greek material he had brought with him. Then follow titles with canons from Greek, Gallic and Spanish councils and titles containing decretal letters. The letters are from popes Clement, Siricius, Innocent I, Zosimus, Boneface I, Celestine I, Leo I, Gelasius I, Felix III and Vigilius. The collection ends with a letter of saint Jerome to Patroclus. The present analysis of the Epitome (PT) uses the edition of Gonzalo Martínez Díez. The numbering is also taken from there.

The collection survives in several manuscripts, the earliest of which are the Ms Verona, BC LXI (59), which was copied in the 7th/8th century, and the Ms Lucca, BC 490, copied circa 800. The copy in the Ms Verona was used in the 11th century for the Collectio Veronensis in the Ms Verona, BC LXIV. The Epitome was used at an early date in Gaul, in northern and central Italy and in southern Germany (according to Peter Landau in Augsburg, Freising, Regensburg and Niederalteich). A southern French manuscript containing the Epitome, now Copenhagen, Kongelike Bibliotek, Ny kongel. Saml. 58, was brought to Regensburg in the 8th/9th century, and a copy of it was made there, now the Ms Munich, StB Clm 14468, fol. 3r–11v (circa 821). The copy in the Ms Merseburg, Archiv des Domkapitels 104 (10th c.) and the copy in the Ms Vat. lat. 5751 were made in the 10th century, perhaps at Bobbio.

Literature

The Epitome Hispana was edited by Gonzalo Martínez Díez, El Epítome Hispánico. Una colección canónica española del siglo VII, Miscelanea Comillas 37.2 (1962), pp. 322–466. He describes the collection in volume 36.1 (1961), pp. 9– 90. – For the circulation of the Epitome Hispana see Landau, Kanonessammlungen 36 in Bayern, pp. 143–148. Idem, Kanonessammlungen in der Lombarde, pp. 433–434. For the Collectio Veronensis see Idem, The Collectio Veronensis, ZRG Kan. 67 (1981), pp. 75–120. For the Liber Complutense, Gratian, Rufinus and Collectio Francofortana see Idem, Vorgratianische Kanonessammlungen bei den Dekretisten und in frühen Dekretalensammlungen, in: Proceedings of the 6th ICMCL, pp. 93–116. – Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 57–60.

Categories

• Based on modern edition

Categories (semi-automatic)

• key is PT
• large (1000 to 2000 canons) collection
• from Spain
• terminus post quem 598
• terminus ante quem 618
• saec. VII