RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals
party in the province of Reims, consolidated by events into a faction bitterly hostile to Hincmar. After his restoration Ebo ordained a number of clerics at Reims in 840 and 841. They were not molested at first after he was expelled, but in 845 Hincmar suspended them (see Hincmar of Reims), and they were in constant fear of having their ordination declared invalid. They thus had a personal interest in establishing the invalidity of Ebo's deposition and the validity of his restoration. Their suspension rendered it impossible for them to perform their ordinary duties; and the painfully uncertain situation in which they found themselves furnished the incentive to employ their involuntary leisure in an attempt to secure relief by forging documents. For the division of the work among members of the group, see V., below.
It was in West Franconia (and in the province of Reims) that the completed and published work first appeared. The earliest known citations are Hincmar's of 852 (or 857; see § 4, above). In Hincmar's contests with his suffragans, Rothad of Soissons and Hincmar of Laon, the false decretals were the decisive factor — in the former case, with help from the pope, in favor of the suffra-
7. History gan, in the latter case against the of the recalcitrant subordinate. There is
Collection, some reason to believe that Hincmar discerned the true character of the documents; he was learned enough to do so, but he seems to have deprecated the controversy that must follow, if he spoke out boldly; and, moreover, he was not unwilling, on occasion, to use the decretals for his own purposes and to beat his enemies with their own weapons. It is probable that Rothad carried the decretals to Rome in 864 and laid them before Pope Nicholas I. The first sure intimations that Nicholas knew of them appear in his Christmas address of that year and in a letter of Jan., 865, to the Frankish bishops, both utterances being in regard to Rothad's contest with Hincmar. Adrian II., in 871, quotes a decretal of the Pseudo-Anterus, and a synodal address of 869, probably composed by Adrian himself, has more than thirty citations from the Pseudo-Isidore's collection; it is noteworthy as the first extensive use of the false decretals in favor of the claims of the Roman see. In the reform movements of the eleventh century their full possibilities and effect were disclosed. In Germany the first citations are in the acts of synods at Worms (868), Cologne (887), Metz (893), Tribur (895), and — at greater length — Hohenaltheim (916). At Gerstungen (1085) both the Gregorian and the imperial parties appealed to the false decretals; and an utterance of the papal legate (who afterward became Pope Urban II.) and the Saxon bishops concerning them is noteworthy for its doubting and contemptuous tone. They were introduced into England by Lanfranc. Spain they reached only as embodied in the later collections of canons. It was these collections which did most for their acceptance and dissemination. The oldest which embodies Pseudo-Isidorian material (A2) is the Collectio Anselmo dedicata, made, probably in Milan, between 883 and 897. Others followed (see Canon Law, II., 5, § 1), and a collection made in Italy
under Leo IX. about 1050 is little more than a compendium of the Pseudo-Isidoriana (250 of its 315 chapters are from the forgery). When it was admitted to Gratian's Decretum, its acceptance became absolute.
With the possible exception of Hincmar and the guarded expression of the Synod of Gerstungen, no one raised his voice against the forgeries till the fifteenth century. Then Heinrich Kalteisen of Coblenz, Nicholas of Cusa, and Juan Torquemada challenged the decretals of Clement and Anacletus. In the next century suspicion extended as far as Siricius (Erasmus; two editors of the Corpus juris canonici, Charles Du Moulin, 1554, and Antoine Le Conte, 1556; Georgius Cassander, 1564). The " Magdeburg Centuries " (1559) and David Blondel (1628) brought the full and incontestable proof. For the history of criticism since then, see the bibliography.
II. The Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis : As already stated (I., § 2, above), the Pseudo-Isidore took as the basis of his work the so-called Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis or manuscript of Autun. In the early Middle Ages the Spanish collection of canons {Collectio canonum Hispana, MPL, lxxxiv.; see Canon Law, II., 4, § 2) was current in Gaul in a very corrupt text (the Hispana Gallica; represented by Cod. Vindobon., J^ll sac. IX. ex.), many of its readings being quite unintelligible. The Augustodunensis (represented by only two manuscripts— both unedited — Cod. Vat. 134-1 sac. XI. ex. and Cod. Berol. Hamilton 132 sac. IX.) presents this text with numerous changes, some of them attempts at emendation which improve the grammai and make sense — though they increase the deviation from the genuine Hispana and often change the meaning — but others very striking substitutions and additions. These changes are based in part on genuine sources (the Dionysio-Hadriana and Hibernensis), in part are pure inventions which show the aims, prejudices, and tendencies of the Pseudo- Isidore. The entire scheme for protecting bishops against charges and deposition (see I., § 5, above) is already thought out. The additions (noted above, I., § 2) are made up by the Pseudo-Isidore's compilatory method (see I., § 3, above). The date of the recension must fall between 845 and 848, most probably about 847 Thus all data indicate that the Augustodunensis was produced by the Pseudo- Isidore himself. It may be considered as paving the way for the Pseudo-Isidoriana in double manner— a preliminary exercise in falsification by the forger (or forgers) and a means of preparing the public later to receive the more ambitious attempt.
III. The Capitula Angilramni: This is a short collection of seventy-one brief chapters, most of them relating to charges against clerics, especially bishops, and thus treating of the Pseudo-Isidore's chief theme. It is now generally agreed that they are forgeries, that neither Angilram, bishop of Metz, nor Pope Adrian I. (772-795), whose names are connected with them (see Angilram), had anything to do with them, and that they are closely connected with the Pseudo-Isidoriana. They are usually added as an appendix to manuscripts of the latter of the complete form (Al). Probably they were
Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals