Benedictus Levita

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Benedict Levita also Benedict the Deacon (from Mainz) cannot be historically proven as a person. The unknown author made a collection of 1391 forged capitularies (imperial laws). What little is known about him is in the preface to the work. There it is mentioned that he was a deacon in Mainz and that he compiled the capitularies at the behest of Archbishop Otgar . The work follows on from the real Ansegis collection and belongs to the group of pseudoisidorical forgeries .

author

Benedictus Levita claims to have been a deacon in Mainz and to have put it together for Otgar from materials from the archbishop's archive. However, current research assumes that the entire foreword is pure invention. This makes the term ante quem 847 questionable.

Both the content and the sources used show that the work was created in the western part of the Frankish Empire , probably in Reims . For example, it was possible to show that the attacks against the chorus episcopate could be better documented for this part of the empire. In addition, the collection was first used in Reims (857 by Hinkmar von Laon ). The forger probably used the libraries of Corbie Abbey . Accordingly, the time from 830 to after 847 is also assumed to be the time of origin. In addition, research is not sure how Benedictus Levita and the other pseudoisidoric forgeries ( Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis ; Papal Letters of Isidorus Mercator; Capitula Angilramni ) stand to one another.

content

The work is presented as a collection and completion of the real Collectio capitularium in four books that Ansegis 827 created. The author divides his work into three books, which he describes as liber quintus , sextus and septimus . This is preceded by a prologue in verse form, a foreword that should provide information about the author and a metric panegyric on the rulers of the Carolingians . At the end there are four additional writings (additamenta) .

(I) The Aachen chapter of 817 with regard to the monasteries.
(II) The report of the bishops (August, 829) to Emperor Ludwig the Pious .
(III) some real capitularies and a large number of fake ones, similar to those in the main body of the collection.
(IV) a large number (170) of excerpts from other sources, including other pseudoisidorical forgeries.

Ansegis' work was the model for the collection. About a quarter of the collection also consists of real capitularies, some of which even go beyond the Ansegis collection. Most of them, however, are fakes. The real sources include Codex Theodosianus , Breviarium Alaricianum , Epitome Iuliani , lex Visigothorum and Bajoaria , collectio Hadriana , Hispana, Rufinus and Cassiodors church history, the Bible and others. a. It is often repeated and whole chapters are present literally or almost word for word several times. The main aim of the forger was to make the church independent from attacks by secular power. He stands for a contemporary movement of church reform and in opposition to the prevailing custom that the church was ruled by lay people.

Editions

The first two editions (Tilius, Paris, 1548; Pithoeus, Paris, 1588) are incomplete. The complete text is in: Baluze, Capitularia regum Francorum (Paris, 1677), I, col. 801-1232, and in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Hist .: Leges, II (Hanover, 1837), 2, 39-158 (cf. Migne, PL, XCVII, col. 699-912).

pseudonym

In 1912, Benedictus Levita was used as the author's pseudonym for the utopian novel The King of Juda , in which a Zionist state with a king is founded in Palestine with German support .

literature

  • Johann Friedrich von Schulte :  Benedictus Levita . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 324 f.
  • Richter- (Dove): Textbook of Canon Law. 6th edition, §. 36 ff.
  • Gerhard Schmitz: Benedictus Levita , in: Albrecht Cordes (Hrsg.): Concise dictionary for German legal history (HRG). 2nd Edition. Part 1, Berlin 2005. Col. 520-522
  • Klaus Zechiel-Eckes : A look into Pseudoisidor's workshop. Studies on the creation process of the false decretals. With an exemplary editorial appendix (pseudo-Julius to the oriental bishops, JK +196). In: Francia. Volume 28, 2001, pp. 37-90.
  • Klaus Zechiel-Eckes: On Pseudoisidor's trail. Or: try to lift a thick veil. In: Wilfried Hartmann / Gerhard Schmitz (eds.): Progress through counterfeiting? Origin, shape and effects of the pseudoisidoric forgeries. Contributions to the symposium of the same name at the University of Tübingen on July 27 and 28, 2001. Hanover 2002 ( MGH Studies and Texts , Volume 31), pp. 1–28.
  • Klaus Zechiel-Eckes: Early pseudoisidor reception at Hinkmar von Laon: a fragment of the “signature work” from July 869, which was believed to be lost. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages. Volume 66, 2010, pp. 19-54.
  • Klaus Zechiel-Eckes: Counterfeiting as a Means of Political Debate. Louis the Pious (814–840) and the genesis of the pseudoisidoric decretals. Paderborn 2011 ( North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Lectures G 428)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Zechiel-Eckes : A look into Pseudoisidor's workshop. Studies on the creation process of the false decretals. With an exemplary editorial appendix (pseudo-Julius to the oriental bishops, JK +196). In: Francia. Volume 28, 2001, pp. 37-90.
  2. ↑ Ansegisus abbas Luxoviensis, Collectio capitularium repertory historical sources of the German Middle Ages
  3. ↑ Nessun SAPRA: Encyclopedia of German Science Fiction & Fantasy 1870-1918. Utopica, Oberhaid 2005, ISBN 3-938083-01-8 , p. 169.