FALSE
780
FALSE
If Hincmar had the faintest suspicion that the decre-
tals were aimed at him, he would have treated them
differently. Though he had a suspicion that one or
other document had been forged in part, he offered no
objection to the collection as a whole. But it is cer-
tain that he would have spared no pains to discredit a
code intended as a weapon agamst him. On the
whole, then, this theory is an attractive one; but while
no solid proof can be brought in its favour, many
solid argimients can be brought against it.
There is another set of critics who fix on the prov- ince of Tours and the neighbourhood of Le JIans as the scene of the forgery. The principal among these critics are Langen, DoUinger, M. M. Simson, Viollet, J. Havet, P. Fournier ami L. Duchesne. According to them, the forged legislation on the trial of bishops and the organization of dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces aim at a state of things existing in Brittany after S4o, when Nom^noe, Duke of Brittany, gained a victorj' over Charles the Bald. At that time Brittany was eager for independence, in the ecclesiastical as well as in the civil order. The bishoprics m Brittany were subject to the metropolitan of Tours, and the Carlo^-ingian sovereigns clung to this ecclesiastical subjection as a pledge of political subordination. On the other hand, the Duke of Brittany was anxious to get rid of four bishops whom he suspected of favouring the Franks. He gave them a quick trial and expelled them from his domains. The affair was carried to Rome, and about 847 Leo II wrote a letter to the Duke of Brittany reminding him of the claims of canon law. The whole thing caused much commo- tion among the Franks and at Rome. As it was a matter of public knowledge, and more or less contem- porary with the appearance of the decretals, nearly all the critics are agreed that Isidore had this affair in his mind when he wrote, and that many of his laws presupposed some such state of affairs as existed in the pro\'ince of Tours and the Church of Brittany. These are only appearances, however, and we want precise proofs, something more definite. Now the critics in question think they recognize a family likeness be- tween two documents which were certainly written at Le Mans and the decretals of Isidore. The first of these is the apocryphal Bull of Pope Gregory IV (827- 844) in favour of Aldric, Bishop of Le Mans. In this letter (Migne, P. L., CVI, 853) the pope recognizes the right of the Bishop of Le Mans to take his case to Rome whenever a charge is brought against him. The letter is supposed to have been written on S July, 833. It is quite after Isidore's own heart; and its style is wonderfully similar to that of the forger. The forged Bull of Gregory IV is a mosaic of authentic texts, and very often they are texts which Isidore tised over and over again.
The critics are all agreed that this forged Bull and the decretals are independent documents; that is, that neither makes use of the other. But the critics we are now considering maintain that both come from the same workshop; that they are alike in materials and methods of composition. And they further point out the closeness of their dates. The forgeil Bull was cer- tainly drawn up at Le Mans, they say, about 850, when Le Mans was in the hands of the Duke of Brit- tany. The bishop, who favoured the Franks, was in a sorrj- plight ; and to protect him the Bull of Gregory IV was forged. We are certainly very near now to the date of the decretals, and the family likeness be- tween the documents would be explained by the iden- tity of their origin. The same critics argue in the same way in the ease of a memoir or storj' of a dispute that took place in 838 between .\ldric. Bishop of Le Mans and the Abbey of St-Calais (Migne, P. L., CXV, 81-82). During the course of the trial the authority of the canons is quoted after the manner of Isidore, i. e. in mosaic-fashion made up of those fragmentary passages Isidore was so fond of using. And this docu-
ment belongs to the years between 842 and 846. We
are still at Le Mans and about the period when the
decretals appeared. Moreover, it is a fact that there
were chorepiscopi at Le Mans at this time. Now,
what are we to think of these arguments? They are
not without value, but not all their assumptions are
lieyond question. Thus, we have no proof that the
forged Bull of Gregory IV was written during the life-
time of Aldric. The present writer is of the opinion
that it was after his time and as a support to Robert
of Le Mans, successor to Aldric, in his quarrel with the
monks of St-Calais. But the question as to the date
of the Bull is merely a secondary one. The most im-
portant argument is the existence at Le Mans, about
the very time when the decretals were forged, not of a
document, but of two documents concocted in the
very style of the forger Isidore. And there seems
reason to believe that Le Mans has most claim to being
the scene of the forgery of the decretals. In the inter-
ests of fairness we must, however, say one thing. As
we have seen, the knowledge of the decretals shown by
Pope Nicholas I dates from the visit to Rothade to
Rome in 864. It is a matter, for us, of some surprise,
since in the previous year the same pope had to deal
with the appeal of Bishop Robert of Le Mans, succes-
sor of Aldric. If the false decretals were forged at Le
Mans, how comes it that Bishop Robert did not use
them exactly as Bishop Rothade of Soissons did one
year later? It is true that in his letter of 22 January,
865, Nicholas I declares that the Prankish bishops ap-
peal to the decrees of the early popes (i. e. the decre-
tals of Isidore). And it may be that Bishop Robert
of Le Mans is included in this generalization.
M.\NuscRiPTS .\ND EDITIONS. — The MSS. of the false decretals belong to many classes, but we shall mention only three, which serve to show us how the work spread. The first class comprises twenty-five MSS. Although all of them are incomplete, yet we are able to restore the full text from them, i. e. the text of the canonical collection described above, and re- stored m the edition of Hinschius. A second class of MSS. contains only a part of Isidore's work. This class comprises eighteen MSS., which give Part I of the collection, i. e. the apocryphal decretals up to Melchiades, but omit Part II, and give only a portion of Part III. These MSS. cease at page 508 of the edi- tion of Hinschius. Everything leads to the belief that the MSS. of this second class are merely extracts from the first. A third class of MSS. is represented only by number 1341 of the Latin MSS. in the Vatican Library. This MS. contains the " Collect io Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis", of which we have already spoken. This collection may be looked on as a first edition, a trial edition of the false decretals. It does not contain Part I, i. e. the apocrj-phal decretals from Clement to Melchiades, but only those parts which cor- respond to the genuine Hispana, namely the councils and the decretals of the popes from Damasus. In this latter part the forger has interpolated some of his apocrvpha which later found their way into the com- pleted edition of the false decretals, the principal of these apocrypha are to be found on pages 501-508 and 509-515 of "the edition of Hinschius. It should be re- . membered that the Hinschius edition is a critical edi- tion; i. e. one edited after a thorough study of the manuscripts of the forged texts. The text of the genuine documents has not been subjected to any criticism, the editor contenting himself with repro- ducing it just as he found it in already extant col- lections, that is to say, existing previous to Isidore's treatment of them.
-An endless number of books have been written on this sub- ject, but we give here those that are indispensable and that sum up all others of importance. The Preface to the edition of Hins- chius; Seckei. Pseudoisidor in Realencyck. fur prol. Theol. una Kirche: Fournier. Etudes sur tes fausses decrelales in Revue d-hislnire eccl.. VII (l.ouvain. 1906), pp. 33-51; 301-16; 543-64;
761-784; VIII (1907), pp. 19-56.
LODIS Saltet.
