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THREE OVERLOOKED MANUSCRIPT WITNESSES OF CAROLINGIAN EPISTOLAE FORMATAE BY ARCHBISHOP THEUTGAUD OF TRIER AND BISHOP ADVENTIUS OF METZ FROM PROVENCE AND CATALONIA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2025
Extract
This article presents three new discoveries of Carolingian epistolae formatae from Provence and Catalonia, which update recent editions of the texts in question and offer clues about their historical context and purpose.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fordham University
Footnotes
The three new manuscript witnesses discussed in this article were identified and analyzed in the framework of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project “Carolingian Culture in Septimania and Catalonia” (Vienna and Barcelona, P 33080-G). The author would like to thank the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and the Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó in Barcelona for the opportunity to consult the original manuscripts for in-depth codicological and palaeographical research.
References
1 Epistolae variorum 798–923, ed. I. Schröder, MGH, Epistolae 9 (Epistolae Karolini aevi 7) (Wiesbaden, 2022).
2 Epistolae variorum 798–923, ed. Schröder, 3–283. The classic study of this text genre remains C. Fabricius, “Die Litterae Formatae im Frühmittelalter,” Archiv für Urkundenforschung 9 (1926): 39–86 and 168–94.
3 S. Patzold, Presbyter: Moral, Mobilität und die Kirchenorganisation im Karolingerreich (Stuttgart, 2020), esp. 503–505 for a chronological overview of the fifty-four Carolingian epistolae formatae currently known. See also idem, “Bishops, Power, and Local Churches in the Frankish Countryside,” in I Franchi: Settimane di Studio della Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 69 (Spoleto, 21–27 aprile 2022), 2 vols. (Spoleto, 2023), 1:651–89, at 669–72; and I. Schröder, “Kanonisches Recht und seine Umsetzung am Beispiel der ‘epistolae formatae’ des 9. Jahrhunderts,” in Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Paris, 17–23 July 2016, ed. F. Demoulin-Auzary et al. (Vatican City, 2022), 1–12.
4 The description of the manuscript in Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae 3 (Paris, 1744), 524b, does not analyze the complex content of the final part (fols. 142r–150r) following the Rule of St Basil. See more recently F. Maassen, “Bibliotheca Latina Juris Canonici Manuscripta 1: Die Canonensammlungen vor Pseudo-Isidor. II. Frankreich,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 54 (1866): 157–288, at 254–55.
5 Maassen, “Bibliotheca Latina Juris Canonici Manuscripta 1,” 254–55; idem, Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des canonischen Rechts im Abendlande bis zum Ausgange des Mittelalters, Band 1: Die Rechtssammlungen bis zur Mitte des 9. Jahrhunderts (Graz, 1870), 849 (no. 21); H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, 2 vols. (Mainz, 1883–1898), 1:716 (“saec. xii”) and 2:260; H. Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich: Die ‘Collectio vetus Gallica,’ die älteste systematische Kanonessammlung des fränkischen Gallien: Studien und Edition (Berlin, 1975), 263 (“saec. xii”); L. Kéry, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400–1140): A Bibliographical Guide to the Manuscripts and Literature (Washington D.C., 1999), 89 (“saec. xii”); and A. Firey, “Ghostly Recensions in Early Medieval Canon Law: The Problem of the ‘Collectio Dacheriana’ and its Shades,” Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis 68 (2000): 63–82, at 72 n. 39. On specific features of this copy of the Collectio Dacheriana, see G. Le Bras, “Les deux formes de la ‘Dacheriana’,” in Mélanges Paul Fournier (Paris, 1929), 395–414, at 404–405.
6 Epistolae Arelatenses genuinae, ed. W. Gundlach, MGH, Epistolae 3 (Epistolae Merowingici et Carolini Aevi 1) (Berlin, 1892), 5–47 and 55–66 (Manuscript 4). See also Maassen, “Bibliotheca Latina Juris Canonici Manuscripta 1,” 254; idem, Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des canonischen Rechts, 768–70 (no. 4); W. Gundlach, “Der Streit der Bisthümer Arles und Vienne um den Primatus Galliarum,” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 14 (1889): 251–342; and 15 (1890): 9–102 and 233–92 (Manuscript 4); and D. Jasper and H. Fuhrmann, Papal Letters in the Early Middle Ages (Washington, D.C., 2001), 86 (“twelfth century”).
7 For an edition, see Schmitz, Bussbücher 1:752–57. Further on this text, see idem, Bussbücher 1:197, 201, 394, 716, and 751; and 2:39, 55, 97, 178, 192, 195, 260, 388, 389, 403, 468, and 677; A. Lagarde, “Le manuel du confesseur du xi e siècle,” Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, n.s. 1 (1910): 542–50, at 547; and K. M. Delen et al., “The ‘Paenitentiale Cantabrigiense’: A Witness of the Carolingian Contribution to the Tenth-Century Reforms in England,” Sacris Erudiri 41 (2002): 341–73, at 346–48 and 358.
8 For a partial edition, see Schmitz, Bussbücher 1:757 (only the beginning on fol. 94v) and 2:480–88 (fols. 96r–97r). Further on this text, see idem, Bussbücher 2:468–69, 472–73, 476, and 505; P. Fournier, “Essai de restitution d’un manuscrit pénitentiel détruit,” in Mélanges Mandonnet: Études d’histoire littéraire et doctrinale du Moyen Âge, 2 vols. (Paris, 1930), 2:39–45, at 42; and P. Fournier and G. Le Bras, Histoire des collections canoniques en Occident depuis les fausses décrétales jusqu’au Décret de Gratien, Tome 1: De la réforme carolingienne à la réforme grégorienne (Paris, 1931), 432–34.
9 On this text, see Schmitz, Bussbücher 1:752, and 2:468. There is no modern edition.
10 Basili regula a Rufino latine versa, ed. K. Zelzer, CSEL 86 (Vienna, 1986), xxix (“s. xi/xii”). Further on this text, see Maassen, “Bibliotheca Latina Juris Canonici Manuscripta 1,” 255; idem, Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des canonischen Rechts, 346; Gundlach, “Der Streit der Bisthümer Arles und Vienne,” 285; and J. Gribomont, Histoire du texte des Ascétiques de S. Basile (Louvain, 1953), 99 (no. 23, dated “fin xi e ou début xii e s., provient d’Arles”) and 107.
12 Concilia antiqua Galliae tres in tomos ordine digesta, ed. J. Sirmond, 3 vols. (Paris, 1629–1666), 2:666–67 (no. III: “Ex codice Lirinensi”); Fabricius, “Die Litterae Formatae,” 178 and 192–93 (no. 39: “9. Jhrh.”); and C. van Rhijn, Shepherds of the Lord: Priests and Episcopal Statutes in the Carolingian Period (Turnhout, 2007), 175–76 with n. 13. The letter is now also listed by Patzold, Presbyter, 504 (no. 18).
13 For her edition of the letter based on Sirmond’s text, see Epistolae variorum, ed. Schröder, 62–63 (no. 31), with eadem, “Kanonisches Recht”, 12.
14 C. van Rhijn, “Priests and the Carolingian Reforms: The Bottlenecks of Local Correctio,” in Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. R. Corradini et al. (Vienna, 2006), 219–37, at 227 n. 40; eadem, Shepherds of the Lord, 175 n. 13: “This letter dates to the time of Charles the Bald and can be dated no more precisely than that”; and Epistolae variorum, ed. Schröder, 61: “Der Brief enthält … nicht die übrigen Zeichen für Absender, Empfänger, Überbringer und Indiktion, sodass er sich nicht eindeutig datieren lässt.”
15 Further on the significance of Arles, see below.
16 The deposition has been edited by W. Hartmann in MGH, Concilia 4 (Hanover, 1998), 124–26, with indirect evidence assembled on 91 (an excerpt from the Annales Bertiniani ad a. 862) and 96 (Hincmar of Rheims’s Subscriptio).
17 C. von Noorden, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Rheims: Ein Beitrag zur Staats- und Kirchengeschichte des westfränkischen Reiches in der zweiten Hälfte des neunten Jahrhunderts (Bonn, 1863), 183. According to H. Schrörs, the letter’s content points to a time when Pope Nicholas I had not yet taken up the matter, but that does not contradict the temporal context suggested here. See H. Schrörs, Hinkmar, Erzbischof von Reims: Sein Leben und seine Schriften (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884), 246 n. 34.
18 M. Stratmann, Hinkmar von Reims, Collectio de ecclesiis et capellis, MGH, Fontes iuris 14 (Hanover, 1990), 49 and 51; and O. Schneider, Erzbischof Hinkmar und die Folgen: Der vierhundertjährige Weg historischer Erinnerungsbilder von Reims nach Trier (Berlin, 2010), 87–88, 90–91, 100, 215, 265, 302, and 345.
19 A short abstract of Hincmar’s letter addressed to Theutgaud, in which he refuted the latter’s pretensions (dated to 852/853), is mentioned in Flodoard of Rheims, Historia Remensis Ecclesiae 3.21: “Teutgaudio Treverensi de primatu, quem deferri ab eo debere scripserat ille sedi Trevirorum, insinuans id eidem sedi a sede Remorum numquam fuisse delatum et cetera,” ed. M. Stratmann, MGH, Scriptores 36 (Hanover, 1998), 57–457, at 271. See also M. Stratmann, “Briefe an Hinkmar von Reims,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 48 (1992): 37–81, at 52.
20 The collection comprises the following topics and sources: decision by majority at a Church council (Nicaea I 6 [here can. 11]); episcopal election (Arles II 54 [here can. 33]; decision by majority in the case of different opinions in an episcopal election (Nicaea II 7 [here can. 4]); metropolitan election (Orléans III 3); involvement of further bishops in the case of a disputed episcopal election (Carthage XVII 50 [here Carthage 1]); rights and tasks of the primate in the case of an episcopal or metropolitan election (Leo I: JK 411); promotion of monks to clerics and bishops (Siricius: JK 255); obtaining permission from the abbot in the case of appointing a monk as a cleric or bishop (Agde 27 [here can. 28]); avoidance of ecclesiastical and secular business activities by monks (Chalcedon 4 [here can. 3]); prohibition against leaving the clerical or monastic status (Chalcedon 7); prohibition against a monk exercising any office other than his mission (Tarragona 11 [here can. 12]); rights and obligations of bishops and abbots in the case of a new monastic foundation and relocation or transfer of monks to clerical status (Agde 27 [here can. 28]); prohibition against delaying an episcopal election (Chalcedon 22 [here can. 25]); prohibition against implementing an episcopal candidate against the will of the clergy and people (Leo I: JK 411); prohibition of simony (Chalcedon 2); prohibition of clerical ordination and acceptance of itinerant monks (Agde 27 [Pseudo-Isidor]? [here Innocentius I]); abbot’s duty to release a monk for episcopal election in case of necessity (Paenitentiale Umbrense XXI 10 [here Gelasius I]); and a bishop’s ability to request monks for clerical ordination from an abbot in case of necessity (Agde 27 [Benedictus Levita] [here Gelasius I]). I thank my German colleagues Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmitz (Tübingen) and Prof. Dr. Christof Rolker (Bamberg) for suggesting identifications in the last part of the collection (28 February and 1 March 2024).
21 This is the case, for example, in the transmission of Bishop Adventius of Metz’s epistola formata, which originally accompanied a special collection of church law. See n. 31, below.
22 The manuscript is not mentioned by F. Avril et al., Manuscrits enluminés de la Péninsule ibérique (Paris, 1982). Its provenance from Narbonne was already assumed, however, by J. R. Barriga [i] Planas, El sacramentari, ritual i pontifical de Roda (Barcelona, 1975), 144 n. 261: “El tipus d’escriptura fa pensar en una procedència meridional i el gran nombre de cartes dels Papes al bisbe Rusticus de Narbona fa suposar que prové d’aquesta seu”; and F. X. Altés i Aguiló, “Un qüestionari sinodal sobre la litúrgia gaŀlicana en un manuscrit gironí,” Revista catalana de teologia 4 (1979): 101–16, at 104: “el penitencial del Ms. lat. 3880 de la Biblioteca Nacional de París, el qual procedeix de Narbona.”
23 F. Avril, Fichier des manuscrits enluminés du départment des manuscripts = Paris, BnF, Nouvelle acquisition française 28635 (1).
24 L. Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1868–1881), 1:282–85.
25 Regesta Pontificum Romanorum: Tomus Quintus, ed. P. Jaffé and K. Herbers, 3rd ed. (Göttingen, 2024), 330 (no. 13242) = PL 151, cols. 495–96 (no. 224). See also H. Vidal, “Les origines de la primatie narbonnaise (xi e–xii e siècles),” in Narbonne: Archéologie et histoire, Tome 2: Narbonne au Moyen Âge: XLVe Congrès organisé par la Fédération historique du Languedoc méditerranéen et du Roussillon, à l’occasion de la célébration du VIIe Centenaire de la Cathédrale Saint-Just et Saint-Pasteur (Montpellier, 1973), 121–27, at 122 and 126.
26 M. Aurell i Cardona, Les noces du comte: Mariage et pouvoir en Catalogne (785–1213) (Paris, 1995), 55, 348, 394, 421, 476, and 533–34.
27 On the relationship of the Arles witnesses of this letter collection, see Gundlach, “Der Streit der Bisthümer Arles und Vienne,” 303.
28 M. Aurell i Cardona, “L’expansion catalane en Provence au xii e siècle,” in La formació i expansió del feudalisme català: Homenatge a Santiago Sobrequés i Vidal, ed. J. Portella i Comas (Girona and Barcelona, 1986), 175–97, at 177, 186, and 190. One should not overlook, however, the role of Aicard of Arles, former monk of Saint-Victor de Marseille, who ruled again from 1107–1113, precisely during the Catalan takeover in Provence.
29 See the editions by É. Baluze in Capitularia regum Francorum, 2 vols. (Paris, 1677), 2:585 (no. 42); and K. Zeumer, in MGH, Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi (Hanover, 1886), 563 (no. 20). See also Fabricius, “Die Litterae Formatae,” 178 and 192–93 (no. 24: “858”); and Patzold, Presbyter, 504 (no. 24).
30 Epistolae variorum, ed. Schröder, 90–92 (no. 44).
31 G. Schmitz, “Die Appendix Dacherianae Mettensis, Benedictus Levita und Hinkmar von Laon,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonistische Abteilung 92 (2006): 147–206, at 150; and idem, “Ein Kanonist bei der Arbeit: Kleine Rechtstexte aus Codex Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón Ripoll 77,” in Medieval Church Law and the Origins of the Western Legal Tradition: A Tribute to Kenneth Pennington, ed. W. P. Müller and M. E. Sommar (Washington D.C., 2006), 57–65, at 59–60.
32 On Jaume Caresmar, see now P. Freedman, The Splendor and Opulence of the Past: Studying the Middle Ages in Enlightenment Catalonia (Ithaca, 2023), passim.
33 P. Ewald, “Reise nach Spanien im Winter von 1878 auf 1879,” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 6 (1881): 217–398, at 387 and 392; R. Beer and Z. García [y Villada], Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Hispaniensis, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1886–1915), 2:43–44; F. Valls i Taberner, “Les coleccions canóniques a Catalunya durant la época comtal (872–1162),” in Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der mittleren und neueren Geschichte und ihrer Hilfswissenschaften: Eine Festgabe zum siebzigsten Geburtstag Geh. Rat Prof. Dr. Heinrich Finke gewidmet (Münster in Westphalia, 1925), 43–51, at 45–48; J. Rius [i Serra], “El Concili de Nicea en la província eclesiàstica Tarraconense,” Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia 2 (1926): 553–92, at 566 and 591; G. Martínez [y] Díez, La Colección Canónica Hispana 1: Estudio (Madrid, 1966), 65 n. 36 (where the text is not mentioned); I. Maria Puig i Ferreté et al., Índex codicològic del ‘Viatge literario’ de Jaume Villanueva (Barcelona, 1998), 100 (no. 503) and 164 (no. 503); and M. Zimmermann, Écrire et lire en Catalogne (ix e–xii e siècle), 2 vols. (Madrid, 2003), 2:767.
34 For example, M.-H. Jullien and F. Perelman, Clavis Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Aevi. Auctores Galliae 735–987, 4 vols. (Turnhout, 1994–2015), 1:60; and Compendium Auctorum Latinorum Medii Aevii (500–1500), 7 vols. (Florence, 2000–2021), 1:48–49.
35 The most famous is certainly Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Ms. Ripoll 40, a copy of Ansegis of Saint-Wandrille’s collection of capitularies and many other Carolingian legal texts made around the year 1020. Another copy from early eleventh-century Vic, later in nearby Santa Maria de l’Estany, is New York, Hispanic Society of America, HC 380/819 with the acts of the Council of Troyes of 878 (containing capitularies of several Carolingian bishops such as Theodulf of Orléans, Radulf of Bourges, and Pseudo-Theodulf of Orléans), capitularies of Bishop Isaac of Langres, and excerpts of Pseudo-Isidore’s Decretalia. A less well-known case concerns the earliest secure knowledge of the Collectio Dacheriana in Catalonia under Abbot Oliba. See M. M. Tischler, “Carolingian Canon Law Collections in Early Medieval Catalonia: Complementing or Replacing the Hispano-Visigothic Legal Tradition?,” in Canon Law and Christian Societies between Christianity and Islam: An Arabic Canon Collection from al-Andalus and its Transcultural Contexts, ed. M. Maser et al. (Turnhout, 2024), 87–125, at 108–11.
36 This observation applies in principle to all new finds or rediscoveries presented here. In the first case, it has to do with the lack of modern cataloguing of the legal manuscripts of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (Latin 3836–4793), which was called for nearly thirty years ago by M. Bertram, “Drei neuere Kataloge juristischer Handschriften,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 82 (1996): 381–402, at 397 n. 52.