decretals, imperial constitutions, &c., which was pro duced in Gaul about the beginning of the 6th century, and is known to us as Quesnel s Codex Canonum from the name of its first editor (Paris, 1675). The different ecclesiastical provinces possessed ia addition the canons of their own particular synods, and Papal decretals addressed to the bishops within their bounds ; and many Frankish prelates were in the habit of drawing up for their subordinate clergy short compendiums of canon law, in which they inserted any particular regulations the local circumstances demanded. These so-called Capitula Episco- porum are printed in vols. xiii. -xv. of Mansi s Sacrorum
Conciiiorum Coilectio.
The Hispana got into circulation among the Franks in a more or less corrupt form. One edition, which appeared about the middle of the 9th century, has become celebrated in church history as the Collectio Pseudo-Isidoriana or False Decretals, Everything connected with this collection, its date, its author, its subject-matter, its purpose, has formed the subject of controversy, giving rise to a con siderable literature. We must here confine ourselves to the results of the latest criticism.
The following particulars seem to be settled. The wo^k, which is divided into three parts, was compiled by a single author, a Frankish ecclesiastic, between the years 8 40 and 860. From his styling himself in the preface fsidorus Mercator, Bishop Isidore of Seville was mistakenly supposed to be the author, and hence the name Pseudo Isidore. After the preface, and some minor apocryphal documents, the first part contains fifty of the Apostolic Canons extracted from the Ilispana, and sixty spurious decretals of the popes from Clement I (101) to Melchiades (314), chronologically arranged. The second part consists chiefly of canons taken from the Ilispana. The author has also used the latter as the substratum of the third part, but has interpolated thirty five fictitious decretals. A supple ment is appended to some of the manuscripts containing, with a few unimportant pieces, a series of brief regulations regarding processes against bishops. These are the so- called Capitula Angilramni (a bishop of Metz), which are now thought to be older than the main collection.
No suspicion attached to the Pseudo Isidore at the time of its appearance. On the contrary, it was everywhere accepted without question till Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, in the 15th century, expressed doubts of the genuineness of some of its contents. During the next hundred years the untrustworthy nature of the book (printed by Merlin in his Concilia Generalia, Paris, 1523) was irrefragably demon, strated by the labours of Erasmus, the Magdeburg Centuriatorg, and especially the Calvinistic pastor, David Blondel. It was subjected to the fierce attacks of the Protestant Reformers, who approached the question less in a scientific spirit than with a desire to reveal the iniquities of the Church of Rome They maintained with much acrimony that the "work was a deliberate forgery, under taken by command, or at least with the connivance, of the Pope ; to exalt his temporal and spiritual power. In modern times the controversy has been carried on chiefly by lawyers, and, the theological dust having subsided, it has become easier to define the limits within which lie the only probable views as to the sources and object of the work. It is to be regretted that some symptoms have recently appeared of a revival of the former bitter feeling in con nection with the Old Catholic movement in Germany. (The Pope and the Council, by Janus, 3d. ed., London, 1870).
The idea is exploded that the False Decretals were tho invention of their author s brain, fabricated for purposes of Papal aggrandizement. Many of the apocryphal por tions (the Apostolic Canons, <fcc.) had been for centuries in circulation as genuine. Of the decretals a considerable number are authentic, though antedated and ascribed to early popes to give them the authority of antiquity, while others embody the traditional contents of actual but lost decretals. The sources from which the compiler prin cipally borrowed his materials were the Bible, the fathers, genuine canons and decretals, Roman law from the West Gothic Breviary of Alaric. the works of Rufinus and Cassiodorus on ecclesiastic?! history, and the biographies of popes in the Liber Pont ficalis. It is now admitted by Protestant writers that the compilation was produced in the interest, not of the Pope but of the bishops, in order, by protecting them from the oppression of temporal princes on the one hand and ecclesiastical councils on the other, to correct some abuses prevailing among the Franks. The tendency of the authorities collected, was to support a right of appeal to the Pope in every causa major, i.e., process where a bishop was concerned, and to make the permission of the Pope a necessary preliminary to the assembling of a provincial council. This arrangement did not really secure the independence of the episcopate. It merely shifted the supreme control from a body of men to a single individual, in accordance with the constitutional ideas of the Middle Ages.
Jt is still a matter of controversy how far the course of ecclesiastical history has been influenced by the False Decretals. On the one hand it is maintained, chiefly by Roman Catholic writers, that they effected no essential alteration on the previous constitution or discipline of the church, that they merely gave the form of enactment to the prevailing ideas of the time on church government, and that the latter would have developed in the same direction had no such compilation ever appeared. It is argued reasonably enough that if any great innovation had been introduced the genuineness of the work would not have remained so long xinchallenged. Some Protestant writers on the other hand assert that the Papal claim to absolute supremacy, over councils and hierarchy within the church and the laity without, was a pretension unknown till the 9th century, and entirely based upon the False Decretals. The truth probably lies between the two views. The influence of the Pseudo-Isidore has been greatly overrated. But it cannot be denied that the embodiment in a definite shape of the indistinct but yet perceptible tendency of church development in the 9th century was of considerable service to the popes during the struggle of the Hilde- brandine era. (The latest and best edition of the False Decretals is Decretales Pseudo- Isidoriance et Capitula Angilramni, by Hinschius, Leipsic, 1863.)
Gratian may be mentioned. Many laws on the rights and duties of the clergy were contained in the different com pilations of Roman law (Theodosian and Justinian codes, Julian s Epitome of the Novels, and the Breviary of Alaric) and the Leges Barbarorum (especially the Lex Ripuaria Bajuvariorum and Alamannorum). Of a similar character were some of the capitularies of the Frankish kings, a collection of which in four books was made by the Abbot Ansegisus of Fontanella in 827, and officially pro mulgated. A more important collection from an eccle siastical point of view was that of Benedict, a deacon of Mainz (Benedictus Levita), who, by order of Bishop Otgar Benedictua of Mainz compiled a supplement to Ansegisus in three Levita. books about the year 850. In addition to capitularies the work comprises extracts from the above-named Roman and German sources, from the Bible, penitential-books, the fathers, and other ecclesiastical writers, as well as canons copied apparently from the Ilispana and Dicnyso-Hadriana It resembles the Pseudo- Isidore in containing much apo
cryphal matter in the form of false capitularies directed to
