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DECRETALS (Epistolae decretales)
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See also:DECRETALS (Epistolae decretales) , the name (see See also:DECREE above), which is given in See also:Canon See also:Law to those letters of the See also:pope which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law; they are generally given in See also:answer to consultations, but are sometimes due to the initiative of the popes. These furnish, with the canons of the See also:councils, the See also:chief source of the legislation of the See also: Hence the See also:custom of alluding to the author of the collection under the name of the pseudo-Isidore. The collection itself is divided into three parts. The first, which is entirely spurious, contains, after the See also:preface and various See also:introductory sections, seventy letters attributed to the popes of the first three centuries, up to the See also:council of See also:Nicaea, i.e. up to but not including St See also:Silvester; all these letters are a fabrication of the pseudo-Isidore, except two spurious letters of See also:Clement, which were already known. The second part is the collection of councils, classified according to their regions, as it figures in the Hispana; the few spurious pieces which are added, and notably the famous Donation of See also:Constantine, were already in existence. In the third part the author continues the See also:series of decretals which he had interrupted at the council of Nicaea. But as the collection of authentic decretals does not begin till See also:Siricius (385), the pseudo-Isidore first forges See also:thirty letters, which he attributes to the popes from Silvester to See also:Damasus; after this he includes the authentic decretals, with the intermixture of thirty-five apocryphal ones, generally given under the name of those popes who were not represented in the authentic collection, but some-times also under the names of the others, for example, Damasus, St See also:Leo, See also:Vigilius and St See also:Gregory; with one or two exceptions he does not interpolate genuine decretals. The series stops at St Gregory the See also:Great (d. 604), except for one See also:letter of Gregory II. (715—731). The forged letters are not, for the most part, entirely composed of fresh material; the author draws his See also:inspiration from the notices on each of the popes given in the See also:Liber Pontificalis; he inserts whole passages from ecclesiastical writers; and he antedates the evidences of a discipline which actually existed; so it is by no means all invented. Thus the authentic elements were calculated to serve as a See also:passport for the forgeries, which were, moreover, quite skilfully composed. In fact, the collection thus blended was passed from See also:hand to hand without See also:meeting with any opposition. At most all that was asked was whether those decretals which did not appear in the Liber canonum (the collection of See also:Dionysius Exiguus, accepted in See also:France) had the force of law, but Pope See also:Nicholas having answered that all the pontifical letters had the same authority (see Decr. Gra. Dist. xix. c. 1), they were henceforward accepted, and passed in turn into the later canonical collections. No doubts found an expression until the 15th century, when See also:Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) and Juan See also:Torquemada (d. 1468) freely expressed their suspicions. More than one See also:scholar of the 16th century, See also:George See also:Cassander, See also:Erasmus, and the two editors of the Decretum of See also:Gratian, See also:Dumoulin (d. 1568) and Le See also:Conte (d. 1577), decisively ,rejected the False Decretals. This contention was again upheld, in the form of a violent polemic against the papacy, by the Centuriators of See also:Magdeburg (Ecdesiastica historia, See also:Basel, 1559—1574); the See also:attempt at rehitation by the Jesuit Torres (Adversus Centur. Magdeburg. libri quinque, See also:Florence, 1572) provoked a violent rejoinder from the See also:Protestant See also:minister See also:David See also:Blondel (Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus rapulantes, See also:Geneva, 1620). Since then, the conclusion has been accepted, and all researches have been of an almost exclusively See also:historical See also:character. One by one the details are being precisely determined, and the question may now almost be said to be settled.
In the first See also:place, an exact determination of the date. of the collection has been arrived at. On the one hand, it cannot go Date. back further than 847, the date of the False Capitularies,
with which the author of the False Decretals was acquainted.' On the other hand, in a letter of See also:Lupus, See also: The name of Isidore usurped by the author at first led to the supposition that the False Decretals originated in Spain; this See also:opinion no longer meets with any support; it is enough Nation-to point out that there is no See also:Spanish See also:manuscript of the nifty of collection, at least until the 13th century. In the 16th the See also:coke" century the Protestants, who wished to represent the tion. forgeries in the See also:light of an attempt in favour of the papacy, ascribed the origin of the False Decretals to See also:Rome, but neither the manuscript tradition nor the facts confirm this view, which is nowadays entirely abandoned. Everybody is agreed in placing the origin of the False Decretals within the Frankish See also:empire. Within these limits, three different theories have successively arisen: "At first it was thought that Isidore's See also:domicile could be fixed in the province of See also:Mainz, it is now about fifty years ago that the See also:balance of opinion was turned in favour of the province of See also:Reims; and now, after the See also:lapse of about twenty years, several authors have suggested the province of See also:Tours " (P. See also:Fournier, Etude sur See also:les Fausses Decretales). In favour of Mainz, especial stress was laid on the fact that it was the See also:country of See also:Benedictus Levita, the compiler of the False Capitularies, to which the False Decretals are closely related. But See also:Benedict, the See also:deacon of Otgar of Mainz, is as much of a hypothetical personage as Isidorus Mercator; moreover, in the middle of the 9th century the See also:condition of the province of Mainz was not disturbed, nor were the chorepiscopi menaced. In favour of Reims, it has been pointed out that it was there that the first judicial use of the False Decretals is recorded, , in the trials of Rothad, bishop of See also:Soissons (d. 869), and of Hincmar the younger; bishop of Latin (d. c. 882); and an application of the See also:axiom has been attempted: Is fecit cui prodest. But both these trials took place later than 852, at which date the existence of the collection is an established fact; the texts of it were used, but they were in existence before. Between 847 and 852, the province of Reims was disturbed by another affair, that of the clergy ordained by Ebbo at the See also:time of his See also:short restoration to the see of Reims, in 840—841; these clerics, Vulfadus (afterwards See also:archbishop of See also:Bourges), and a few others, had been suspended by Hincmar on his See also:election in 845. But the affair of Ebbo's clergy did not become See also:critical till the council of Soissons in 853; up till then these clergy had, so far See also:tic. The author gives himself out as a certain Benedict, a deacon of the church of Mainz; hence the name by which he is usually known, Benedictus Levita. The two false collections are closely akin, and are doubtless the fabrication of the same hands. as we know, produced no documents, and the citations from the False Decretals made in their later writings do not prove that they had forged them. Moreover, Hincmar would not have cited the forged letters of the popes in 852; above all, this theory would not explain the chief preoccupation of the forger, which is to protect bishops against unjust judgments and depositions. We must, then, look for conditions in which the bishops were concerned. It is precisely this which has suggested the province of Tours. See also:Brittany, which was dependent on the province of Tours, had just for a time recovered its See also:independence, thanks to its See also:duke Nominoe. The struggle between the two nationalities, the See also:Celt and the See also:Frank, found a reflexion in the See also:sphere of See also:religion. The See also:Breton bishops were for the most part abbots of monasteries, who had but little See also:consideration for the territorial limits of the civitates; and many of the religious usages of the Bretons differed profoundly from those of the See also:Franks. See also:Charlemagne had divided up the Breton dioceses and established in them Frankish bishops. Nominoe hastened to depose the four Frankish bishops, after wringing from them by force confessions of See also:simony; he then established a See also:metropolitan see at See also:Dol. Hence arose incessant complaints on the part of the dispossessed bishops, of the metropolitan of Tours, and his suffragans, notably those of See also:Angers and Le Mans, which were more exposed than the others to the incursions of the Bretons; and this gave rise to numerous papal letters, and all this throughout a See also:period of thirty years. There were See also:requests that the bishops should be judged according to the rules, protests against the interlopers, demands for the restoration of the bishops to their sees. These circumstances fall in perfectly with the questions about which, as we have pointed out, the pseudo-Isidore was mainly concerned : the See also:judgment of bishops, and the stability of the ecclesiastical organizations. In the province of Tours, attempts have been made to define more clearly the centre of the forgeries, and the most See also:recent authorities See also:fix upon Le Mans. The See also:sole See also:argument, though a very weighty one, is found in the undeniable relation, revealed in an astonishing similarity both in expressions and composition, which exists between these forgeries and some other documents certainly fabricated at Le Mans, under the episcopate of Aldric (832-856), notably the Actus Pontificum Cenomanis in urbe degentium, in which there is no lack of forged documents. These certainly See also:bear the See also:mark of the same hand. Though we cannot admit that the False Decretals were com- posed in See also:order to enforce the rights of the papacy, we may at least consider whether the popes did not make use of the False Decretals to support their rights. It is certain that in 864 Rothad of Soissons took with him to Rome, if not the collection, at least important extracts from the pseudo-Isidore; M. Fournier has pointed out in the letters of the pope of that time, " a See also:literary influence, which is shown in the choice of expressions and metaphors," not- ably in those passages See also:relating to the restitutio spolii; but he concludes by affirming that the ideas and acts of Nicholas were not modified by the new collection: even before 864 he acted in affairs concerning bishops, e.g. in the See also:case of the Breton bishops or the adversaries of See also:Photius, See also:patriarch of See also:Constantinople, exactly as he acted later; all that can be said is that the False Decretals, though not expressly cited by the pope, " led him to accentuate still further the arguments which he See also:drew from the decrees of his predecessors," notably with regard to • the exceptio - spolii. In the papal letters of the end of the 9th and the whole of the loth century, only two or three insignificant citations of the pseudo-Isidore have been pointed out; the use of the pseudo-Isidorian forged documents did not become prevalent at Rome till about the middle of the 11th century, in consequence of the circulation of the canonical collections in which they figured; but nobody then thought of casting any doubts on the authenticity of those documents. One thing only is established, and this may be said to have been the real effect of the False Decretals, namely, the powerful impulse which they gave in the Frankish territories to the move- ment towards centralization See also:round the see of Rome, and the legal obstacles which they opposed to unjust proceedings against the bishops. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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