THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
prepared independently of the Pseudo-Isidoriana and were used as one of its sources. Most of them appear there in the decretals of Julius and Felix II. as promulgated by the Council of Nicsea. The relation to Benedict's capitularies is uncertain; each work seems to have used the other, and the question of priority can not be determined. Since they were used by Benedict, they must at least have been begun before 848, and their use by the Pseudo- Isidore shows they were completed before 851. More definite determination of authorship and place of composition is impossible. The chapters are first mentioned by Hincmar in 870 with an implied doubt of their genuineness.
IV. Benedict Levita: At about the same time as the Pseudo-Isidoriana there appeared what purported to be a supplement to the collection of capitularies of Ansegis of Fontanella (see Ansegis, 1) made by " Benedict Levita " at the request of the late Archbishop Otgar of Mainz, chiefly i. Contents from material preserved in the Mainz and archives. The author declares that Description, he has made no changes in the text of his sources and, like the Pseudo-Isidore, urges others to continue his work. The arrangement of Benedict's collection is patterned closely after that of Ansegis. Like Ansegis, he begins with a metrical preface (seven distichs), followed by a prose preface (stating the origin, contents, and plan of the collection). Then comes a eulogy in verse (thirty-eight distichs) of the Carolingians from Pepin and Carloman to the sons of Louis the Pious. Three books (numbered v.-vii. in continuation of Ansegis i.-iv.) and four additions follow. The manuscripts differ little in text, but very much in extent, some containing only single books or mere fragments. Benedict's work often appears with Ansegis, but never with the Pseudo-Isidore or Angilram. The three introductory sections are to be considered a part of the original work, not a later addition. The chapters of the three books and additions iii.-iv (1,721 in all) are strung together without logical or historical order. References to authorities are seldom given, and repetitions are numerous (in book iii. more than 100 chapters, in addition iv. more than 90). All this was probably intentional, to hide the falsifications, although Ansegis seldom cites authorities, and Benedict says the repetitions are due to lack of time to sift the sources carefully. Addition i (found in only a few manuscripts) is the Capitular e monasticum of Aachen of July 10, 817 (MGH, Cap., i. 1883, 343-349); the preface calls it the conclusion of book iii., and it appears in some manuscripts with this book. Addition ii. is chaps, xxxv.-lxii. of the Episcoporum ad Hludowicum. imperatorem relatio of Aug., 829 {MGH., Cap., ii., 1890, 39-51); according to the preface it was found later and inserted. Most of the capitularies of addition iii. are false. Addition iv. contains 170 excerpts from a larger number of sources and shows more resemblance to the Pseudo- Isidore; the title attributes the collection to Charlemagne.
The preface says that the collection includes capitularies of Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious which were omitted by Angesia; only three
passages of book i. are from other sources (the first three documents, from the letters of Boniface of Mainz; chap. ii. 1-53, from the Penta- 2. Sources teuch; chap. iii. 1-122, from the Dionand ysio-Hadriana, said to have been Treatment, prepared at the command of Charlemagne by Bishop Paulinus, Alcuin, and others). As a matter of fact, only about one-quarter of Benedict's capitularies are genuine, and many of these are interpolated. His forgeries are seldom pure inventions; most of them are genuine ecclesiastical documents (or excerpts from such) transformed (with no slight skill in imitating the legal style) into Frankish laws and freely altered. The Pseudo- Isidore's compilatory method is seldom followed. The " archives of Mainz " are purely imaginary (see § 3, below). For Benedict's use of Angilram, see III., above; for the relation of his work to the Pseudo-Isidoriana, see § 5, below. In general Benedict's sources, both immediate and ultimate, are the same as the Pseudo-Isidore's (see I., §§ 2 and 3, above). While, however, he fails to quote many documents from which the Pseudo-Isidore drew, he uses the acts of about thirty councils and the Breviatio canonum of Fulgentius Ferrandus, none of which were employed by the Pseudo-Isidore; he quotes Roman law more extensively and from a larger number of documents; besides the Lex Wisigothorum he makes excerpts from an ecclesiastical recension of the Bavarian law; and he uses the first and second capitularies of Theodulf of Orleans.
The metrical preface fixes the terminus post quern of the completion of the work at Apr. 21, 847 (the date of Otgar's death). The terminus ante quern lies between 848 and 850. Addition iv. is relatively the latest part of the work (see § 5, below). The place of composition was certainly not Mainz, as was long believed on Benedict's own 3. Time testimony, especially as the author's and Place attitude toward the chorepiscopi and of Origin, secularization does not fit East-Frankish conditions; and Rabanus, archbishop of Mainz in 847-856, knew nothing of the collection said to have been made in his metropolitan city by direction of his predecessor. Moreover, the alleged Mainz Levite appears to have known so little of the city that he located it on the wrong side of the Rhine. The animus and prejudices of the work, and the fact that it was first and most used in West Franconia, point to its origin there; and the close relations between Benedict and the Pseudo-Isidore (see § 5, below) indicate the archbishopric of Reims. If Benedict had never been in Mainz, of course his " archives of Mainz " are a fiction.
Benedict is far more comprehensive than the Pseudo-Isidore in the subjects he handles, and he even encroaches on the domain of purely secular legislation. His genuine material may have been included with the hope, secondarily, that something might be done to remedy abuses by calling attention to the actual law. Primarily, however, his genuine matter was only a framework for his inventions, and it is the latter which reveal his main motive. The Pseudo-Isidore's chief ideas recur, though sometimes in less developed form, so that