Abbo of Fleury, Epistola XIV

This small canonical collection consists of a short preface and 58 canons. The preface takes the form of a letter (to "G", presumably Gauzbert of Saint-Julien de Tours), and apparently for this reason the work was counted among Abbo's letters; from its position in the editio princeps (Pithou), it is traditionally known as Epistola XIV.

The collection contains above all excerpts from letters of pope Gregory I in defense of monasteries. Olivier Guillot maintains that the emphasis on the libertas monasteriorum found in this letter is the response to the attempt made in 993/994 at an assembly of bishops at Saint-Denis outside Paris to stop monks from retaining demes. Abbo opposed the deposition of Arnulf, bishop of Reims at the council of Saint-Basle (991) maintaining that the decision could not be made at the council but must be referred to Rome. Both the defense of monastic rights and the insistence on direct appeal to the pope were to become essential themes in the reform movement of the 11th century. The choice of the excerpts of letters of Gregory I in letter XIV certainly influenced the compiler of the Diversorum patrum sententie (74 Titles). A complete collection of the letters survives in only one 11th century manuscript: London, British Library, Additional 10972. This manuscript was purchased in 1837 from the library of the château de Rosny, having belonged previously to the duchess of Berri and before that, in the 16th/17th century, to Pierre Pithou.

Literature

Kéry, Canonical Collections, pp. 199–201. Franck Roumy, Remarques sur l'œuvre canonique d'Abbon de Fleury, in: Abbon, un abbé de l'an mil (Bibliothèque d'histoire culturelle du Moyen Âge 6, 2008), 311–342; idem, Une collection canonique méconnue: l’Epistola XIV d’Abbon de Fleury, in: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Esztergom, 3–8 August 2008, ed. Peter Erdö (MIC. Subsidia 14, 2010), 207–226.

Categories

• key is AY
• not in Clavis
• very small (less than 100 canons) collection
• from Fleury
• saec. X