Collectio canonum Quesnelliana |
*** This page currently under construction ***
The following can also be found in Chapter 5 of my dissertation, 'Canon law collections in England ca 600–1066: the manuscript evidence'.
Manuscripts:
| Sigla | Shelfmark | Date | Medieval Provenance |
| Ar | Arras, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 644 (572) | s. viii/ix, northeast France (Saint-Amand Abbey?; Saint-Vaast Abbey?) | England? (Bath?), s. xi1; Saint-Vaast Abbey, s. xi2 |
| Es | Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 191 (277) | s. viii/ix (772×795?), northeast France | Lake Constance region by s. xi/xii |
| Df | Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, K02:E32 | s. viiiex–viii/ix, Werden?; Lorsch?; England? | Werden |
| Or | Oxford, Oriel College, MS 42 | s. xii/xiii, Malmesbury | |
| P1 | Paris, Bibliothèque national, Lat. 1454 | s. ix3/4, Northern Francia | Beauvais |
| P2 | Paris, Bibliothèque national, Lat. 3842A | s. ixmed, northern Francia (Paris?) | |
| P3 | Paris, Bibliothèque national, Lat. 3848A | s. ix1/4, Metz region | Troyes |
| V1 | Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Lat. 2141 | ca 780, Lorsch region (Fulda?) | Fulda until s. xvi? |
| V2 | Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Lat. 2147 | ca 780, Lorsch region (Fulda?) |
Digital images of MS Df are available through Düsseldorf's Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Web site.
Digital images of MS
Es are available through the E-Codices Web
site.
Transcription: A transcription of the fragment in MS Df.
Contents:
| Coll.Quesn. chapter | Document(s) | (columns in PL 56) |
| – | index titulorum | (359A–368A) |
| I | xxx | (000) |
| II | xxx | (000) |
| III | xxx | (000) |
| IV | xxx | (000) |
| V | xxx | (000) |
| VI | xxx | (000) |
| VII | xxx | (000) |
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| X | xxx | (000) |
| XI | xxx | (000) |
| XII | xxx | (000) |
| XIII | xxx | (000) |
| XIV | xxx | (000) |
| XV | xxx | (000) |
| XVI | xxx | (000) |
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Overview: The Collectio Quesnelliana was first identified by Pierre Pithou (†1596) and first edited by Pasquier Quesnel in 1675, whence it takes its modern name. Coll.Quesn. is a vast collection of canonical and doctrinal documents, divided into ninety-eight chapters. In all extant manuscript witnesses (none of which dates from before the eighth century) the collection is preceded by a comprehensive index, which numbers each chapter (I–XCVIII), with sub-chapters occasionally provided as well. The collection can be divided broadly into three sections based on the nature of its contents: cc. I–V, containing conciliar canons from the major fourth century eastern and African councils; cc. VI–LVII, being a long series of documents (mostly letters) pertaining to doctrinal disputes which arose from the teachings of Pelagius, Celestius and Acacius, and by Nestorius and Eutyches―at the centre of which series is a dossier (c. XXV) of material relating to the council of Chalcedon (451); and cc. LVIII–XCVIII, a collection of dogmatic and disciplinary letters written by Pope Leo I, many of which (most notably Leo’s Tomus, JK 423) were directed to eastern figures in Leo’s contests with the Eutychian and monophysite heresies. It should be noted that the compiler of Coll.Quesn. ‘has avoided inclusion of doubtful or spurious documents, like the so-called Symmachian forgeries, the Decretum Gelasianum, etc.’ But this would seem to be the extent of discrimination exercised by the compiler, and previous scholars have spoken rather disparagingly of the overall organization of Coll.Quesn., characterizing it as something of a hotch-potch, a patchwork of several older and smaller collections, which were available to the compiler. Despite its organizational flaws, however, Coll.Quesn. enjoyed a certain popularity in the Gallic church during the eighth century, and much of the ninth as well, until it was superseded by the more comprehensive historical collections (notably the Dionysio-Hadriana and pseudo-Isidorian collections) which arose in the later Carolingian period. 1
Of the large, chronological collections to have come out of Late Antiquity, Coll.Quesn. is perhaps the earliest and, after Coll.Dion. and Coll.Hisp., most influential. Coll.Quesn. has been dated by historians to the early sixth century, possibly to the pontificate of Gelasius I (492–496), since none of the documents it preserves dates from after 495. Older scholarship, beginning with the Ballerini, argued that Coll.Quesn. was a Gallic collection, though one with an admittedly ‘Roman colour’. French historians developed the theory that the collection originated at Arles, thought to have been something of a clearing house for canonical materials in the early sixth century. Recent scholarship, however, making much more of Coll.Quesn.’s ‘Roman colour’ (it is a prominent colour indeed), has argued for an Italian, possibly even Roman origin. Relatively recent work (in 1985―research on this collection moves slowly indeed) by Joseph Van der Speeten has shown that Coll.Quesn., or at least one of its constituent parts (the ‘dossier de Nicée et de Sardique’), may have been used as as source for Dionysius’s collection; this would seem to place Coll.Quesn. definitively at Rome ca 600. Further research is needed in order to determine more exactly the circumstances under which Coll.Quesn. was assembled.
Coll.Quesn. has been especially valued by historians for its large complement of correspondence by Pope Leo I (Coll.Quesn. c. LXVII–XCVIII). While the exact nature of the compiler’s source material for the Leonine letters is still a subject of debate, it seems that at least some of it depended upon a very old tradition. Detlev Jasper remarks that:
'The compiler of the Quesnelliana seems to have been especially interested in Pope Leo’s writings. He gathered the letters that were available and put them at the end of his collection as numbers LXVII to XCVIIII, although without any recognizable order or organization. ... The compiler’s main goal seems to have been to maximize the number of Leonine letters in the collection and consequently he placed less stress on order or on the literary shape of his material.'
Together, Leo’s letters represent one of the most important historical sources on the Eutychian controversy, which centered on a Christological debate that eventually led to to the separation of the Oriental Orthodox church. As far as the West was concerned the controversy was finally resolved by the dogmatic definitions issued at the council of Chalcedon (451), which formally invalidated Eutychian doctrine. Because its collection of Leonine letters is more extensive than almost any other early medieval collection, this makes Coll.Quesn. something of a textbook on this particularly important doctrinal dispute, and―because it also contains a significant complement of documents pertaining to the heresies of Pelagius, Celestius and Acacius (Coll.Quesn. cc. VI–LVII)―means that Coll.Quesn. is a somewhat unusual collection in that it focuses more on doctrinal issues than on disciplinary ones.
For its part as a Latin textbook on the heretical controversies that beset the early Church, it is unlikely that Coll.Quesn. would have been of much use to bishops after the seventh century, when the last vestiges of Eutychianism and Monophysitism were suppressed in West. Yet it remained a popular work well into the ninth century, particularly in Francia. Most likely this was because of the numerous papal disciplinary letters it contained. Coll.Quesn. played a particularly important role in the spread of Leo’s letters in Western canonistic litterature, being instrumental to the reception of Leo’s letters in Pseudo-Isidore. Manuscript evidence alone indicates that Coll.Quesn. had a fairly wide dissemination in Gaul during the eighth and ninth centuries; though it had perhaps already found a welcome audience with Gallic or Frankish bishops in the sixth century, when it may have been used as a source (along with the Collectio Sanblasiana) for the collectiones Colbertina and Sancti Mauri. By the mid-eighth century, Coll.Quesn. had secured its place as an important lawbook within the Frankish episcopate, for whom it served as the primary source-book during the influential council of Verneuil (755), over which Pippin presided. It is perhaps significant that the Verneuil capitulary is the final document found in Vatican, Pal. lat. 577 (MS D10), a manuscript with strong Anglo-Saxon connections and which has long been thought to have belonged to the Boniface’s Kreis. Despite it probably being generally perceived as an archaic document that had much to say about doctrinal controversies that were no longer relevant, Coll.Quesn. exerted considerable influence on canonical activities in eighth- and ninth-century Francia. Its relevance as a canonical document in the West at this time should not, therefore, be underestimated.
That Coll.Quesn. may have passed into Anglo-Saxon England has scarcely even been suggested before, much less considered seriously by historians. Yet of all the canon law collections which have been unfairly written off by historians as irrelevant to the early English church, Coll.Quesn. has the strongest claim to have actually been known to, used and disseminated by Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics. The following summary remarks on MSS Arras 644, Düsseldorf E32, Einsiedeln 191, Vienna 2141, Vienna 2147, all of which show signs of an Anglo-Saxon connection, will hopefully serve as a jumping-off point for future considerations of the possible relevance of this important collection to the Anglo-Saxon church.
A total of nine extant manuscripts (one of which, Düsseldorf E32, is fragmentary) contain Coll.Quesn., and all but one of them dates from either the eighth or the ninth century. These are, in addition to MSS Arras 644, Düsseldorf E32, Einsiedeln 191, Vienna 2141, Vienna 2147: Paris, Bibliothèque national, Lat. 1454 (s. ix3/4, Northern Francia; prov. Beauvais); Paris, Bibliothèque national, Lat. 3842A (s. ixmed, northern Francia); Paris, Bibliothèque national, Lat. 3848A (s. ix1/4, Metz region; prov. Troyes); and Oxford, Oriel College, MS 42 (s. xii/xiii, Malmesbury). In addition to these, several manuscript are now lost which are know to have contained Coll.Quesn., and one manuscript which is still extant, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Lat. 1458, fols 64–87 (s. ix1, northern France), a close relative of Paris 3842A, almost certainly once contained this collection. To the list of witnesses of Coll.Quesn. should also be added Vatican, Vat. lat. 4982 (s. xvi2, France?), which contains an excerpt from the collection on fols 185r–196v. The Oriel manuscript, by far the latest of the bunch, is that upon which Quesnel based his edition (he also collated readings from Paris 3842A). Oriel 42 contains in fact a modified version of Coll.Quesn., which was copied out in William of Malmesbury’s own hand.
As Rosamund McKitterick has noted, the ‘earliest manuscripts of the Quesnelliana ... all bear insular symptoms of one kind or another.’ This by itself seems indicative of the important role the Anglo-Saxons may have played in the dissemination of this collection in Francia during the eighth cenutry. Two of the five manuscripts now known to have possible Anglo-Saxon connections―Arras 644 and Düsseldorf E32―may have actually been in England at one time. Arras 644 seems to have been in the possession of Abbot Saewold of Bath shortly before the Conquest; however, how Arras 644―a manuscript, like Einsiedeln 191, dating from northern France, ca 800―might have entered into Saewold’s possession is not currently known. The fragmentary Düsseldorf E32, written in Anglo-Saxon minuscule, has been considered by most scholars as a book originating in Werden; C.A. Lowe, however, speculated on more than one occasion about the possibility of it having been copied in England, perhaps in Northumbria or Kent. The remaining three Coll.Quesn. manuscripts with possible Anglo-Saxon connections―Einsiedeln 191, Vienna 2141 and Vienna 2147―while most certainly never in England, were either used by Anglo-Saxons working on the Continent or were produced in Continental scriptoria that had been influenced by Anglo-Saxon scribal culture. Einsiedeln 191, probably originating in the same scriptorium as Arras 644, was corrected and annotated by several Insular hands, one of which wrote Anglo-Saxon script. Vienna 2141 and Vienna 2147 are also from the same Continental scriptorium, and both show Insular features in script and abbreviations, the latter also in parchment preparation.
Düsseldorf E32 may be the oldest extant witness to Coll.Quesn., and it is truly unfortunate that more of the manuscript does not survive. Textually, Düsseldorf E32 may be ‘closely related’ to Einsiedeln 191. If this is indeed true (and it still needs to be born out by further study), then it would also put Düsseldorf E32 in close relationship with Arras 644; for Arras 644 and Einsiedeln 191 not only originate from the same scriptorium, but are themselves textually ‘simillimum’. Bischoff believed Einsiedeln 191 belonged to the library of Charlemagne’s court, within which moved certain Irish and Anglo-Saxon luminaries; it was possibly within the court that Einsiedeln 191 acquired several corrections by Insular hands. Zechiel-Eckes has suggested that the possible relationship between Arras 644, Düsseldorf E32 and Einsiedeln 191 may demonstrate direct contact between Charlemagne’s court and the scriptorium at Werden. The same scholar has also suggested that the three copies of Coll.Quesn showing ‘Insular symptoms’, namely Düsseldorf E32, Vienna 2141 and Vienna 2147, may evidence an intellectual exchange which took place between the Anglo-Saxon centres at Lorsch and Werden. Obviously, such relationships remain speculative and await the kind of close textual research that will be necessary to confirm or deny their existence. A full collation of all nine extant witnesses of Coll.Quesn. is therefore called for, and of course will be a necessary step in the process of producing a critical edition of this important canon law collection.
Notes
(1) H. Mordek, 'Kanonistische Aktivität in Gallien in der ersten Hälfte des 8. Jahrhunderts', Francia 2 (1974), 19–25, at 22–3. ↑
Last updated: 09 | 08 | 2012