Scandal, Reform, and the Compilation of Canon Law in Eleventh-Century Reims

FAIN: FT-264939-19

John Ott
Portland State University (Portland, OR 97207-0751)

Research and preparation for editions and translations of two major documents on church and civil legal history in medieval France, the Apologia of Archbishop Manasses I of Reims (c. 1069-1080) and the legal collection Sinemuriensi produced at Reims in the 10^th and 11^th centuries.

This project examines the compilation of canon law in and around the episcopal city of Reims in the eleventh century, a time of dramatic change, institutional church reform, and local episcopal resistance. It focuses on two sources of considerable importance for the history of canon law and the medieval church: the Apologia of Archbishop Manasses I of Reims (c.1069-1080) and a widely disseminated legal collection known as Sinemuriensis. The Summer Stipend would support two months' archival research in France to examine and transcribe undigitized manuscripts of these texts, with the goal of better understanding how the law was created and employed in the dispute between Manasses and Pope Gregory VII. These legal sources afford valuable lessons about how local cultures and universalizing discourses intersect and overlap, and how their constituents communicate – or fail to communicate – their values to one another. Research will support a book project and several articles.

Associated Products

Texts, Law, and Church Reform: The Anti-Simoniac Dossier of BM Reims Ms. 15 and the Collectio Sinemuriensis (Article)
Title: Texts, Law, and Church Reform: The Anti-Simoniac Dossier of BM Reims Ms. 15 and the Collectio Sinemuriensis
Author: John S. Ott
Abstract: This paper explores a little-known florilegium of 36 canons found in Reims, Bibliothèque municipale Ms. 15. The canons form one part of a dossier against simoniac prelates, assembled in 1078–1079 by reform-minded clergy in Reims to bring down the archbishop, Manasses I (ca. 1069–1080). Taken nearly whole-cloth from the Tuscan Collectio Barberiniana, the canons of Reims 15 shed light on the transmission of legal material from northern Italy to northern France, and offer precious insight into how this material was assembled for use. Moreover, substantial elements of the florilegium were incorporated into the eleventh-century legal collection known as Sinemuriensis. Using the canonical material of Reims 15, this paper offers a new hypothesis concerning the various recensions of Sinemuriensis and their dating, and concludes with an edition of the canons from the Reims florilegium.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/zrgk/html#latestIssue
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fuer Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung

Erasing Bad Memories: Fashioning the Reputation of Manasses I, Archbishop of Reims (c. 1069-1080) (Book Section)
Title: Erasing Bad Memories: Fashioning the Reputation of Manasses I, Archbishop of Reims (c. 1069-1080)
Author: John S. Ott
Editor: Anne Wagner
Editor: Herold Pettiau
Abstract: The poor reputation of Manasses I, archbishop of Reims (c. 1069-1080, deposed by Gregory VII, is well-known. His posthumous memory, orchestrated by Guibert of Nogent and Hugh of Flavigny, is at the origin of the image of the bad bishop, to which historians have generally subscribed. Several publics are possible and detectable in the scandal, which should not imply that this bad reputation existed while the archbishop was alive, when he had both partisans and looked to defend himself.
Year: 2023
Publisher: Classiques Garnier (Paris)
Book Title: L'Eveque conteste. Les resistances a l'autorite episcopale des Pays-Bas a l'Italie du Nord
ISBN: 9782406133568

Episcopal Letters and Compulsory Oaths: Observations on a Farraginous Collection in Bordeaux, BM Ms. 11 (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Episcopal Letters and Compulsory Oaths: Observations on a Farraginous Collection in Bordeaux, BM Ms. 11
Author: John S. Ott
Abstract: Bordeaux Bibliothèque Meriadeck Ms. 11 has been known to scholars of canon law since at least the late nineteenth century, principally because of two collections of legal material it contains: a relatively brief but dense compilation of Pseudo-Isidorian decretals, conciliar decrees, and papal correspondence, much of it apparently drawn from the Collection in 74 Titles (fols. 73r-76r); and the Collectio Burdegalensis (fols. 147v-180r), which has been the subject of sustained scrutiny and a recent edition by Kriston Rennie. Largely overlooked has been a third, farraginous compilation of legal materials on fols. 144v-147v, which encompasses a dossier on, among other topics, forced oaths and whether they are legally binding on their swearers, particularly ecclesiastics. This material includes five episcopal letters from the eleventh century, four of which, to my knowledge, appear nowhere else. While these letters were edited and commented upon in 2002 by Detlev Jasper, my intention with this paper is to further situate the episcopal letters and the other farraginous canonical material in this section of Bordeaux BM Ms. 11 in their historical and textual contexts. I will in particular offer some suggestions as to the geographical origins of the collection and the date, purpose, and interconnectedness of the letters, which will differ from Jasper’s reading.
Date: 07/23/2022
Primary URL: https://www.icmcl2020.org/program/
Primary URL Description: Program of the International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, St. Louis, MO, 17-23 July 2022 (Note that this conference, originally scheduled for July 2020, was postponed due to Covid-19.).
Conference Name: Sixteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law

An Unremarked Canonical Collection of ca. 1100 from La Sauve-Majeure and the Collectio Sinemuriensis (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: An Unremarked Canonical Collection of ca. 1100 from La Sauve-Majeure and the Collectio Sinemuriensis
Author: John S. Ott
Abstract: This paper discusses a hitherto unremarked and as-yet unedited and unpublished collection of canonical material written into the margins of fols. 139r-144v and 146v of Bordeaux, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 11. This florilegium of 58 canons has not been noted by any previous commentators or cataloguers of Bordeaux Ms. 11, including Couderc, Tardif, Jasper, Rennie, or Schneider. Analysis and transcription of the canons indicates that they were taken from a copy of the Collectio Sinemuriensis, a late eleventh-century legal collection compiled at Reims. The Collectio Sinemuriensis is a relatively little-studied but nonetheless influential (judging from the extant copies) pre-Gratian legal collection, contemporary with, though quickly surpassed by, the Ivonian collections of ca. 1090-1100. The provenance of Bordeaux Ms. 11 has been securely fixed to the contemporary monastic community of La Sauve-Majeure near Bordeaux. La Sauve was established in 1079 by Gerald, a monk of Corbie, who traveled to Rome and Monte Gargano, was ordained a priest by Leo IX in 1050, became abbot of Saint-Vincent of Laon, quit Saint-Vincent when its monks refused reform, became abbot-elect of Saint-Médard of Soissons, and then, forced from there, ventured to Bordeaux by way of Orléans, Poitiers, and Tours. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Gerald either brought a copy of Sinemuriensis with him, from which the marginal canons of Bordeaux 11 were later copied, or hastily transcribed the florilegium into the margins of an existing manuscript while he was in the province of Reims, or perhaps in Poitiers or Tours, before traveling to Bordeaux. (Poitiers in 1078—shortly before Gerald passed through—hosted a legatine council presided over by Hugh of Die which was extremely important for the transmission of canonical collections in western France.). This paper surveys this previously unremarked collection of canon law.
Date: 04/21/2023
Primary URL: https://www.academia.edu/100406162/Medieval_Association_of_the_Pacific_2023_Conference_Program
Primary URL Description: Conference program of 57th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, Eugene, OR, USA
Conference Name: 57th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, Eugene, OR

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