Canon law and attempts on ecclesiastical reform within the change of the Merovingien and Carolingian realm: The Collectio Vetus gallica and it's context within manuscript tradition.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ludger Körntgen
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2021 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 459815395

Main subject of the project is the earliest systematic canonical collection in the Francia: The Collectio Vetus Gallica. This collection is passed on only in a version redacted in the monastery of Corbie in the second quarter of the 8th century. This version was critically edited by Hubert Mordek for the first time and was valued as early evidence of ecclesiastical reforms connected to the Carolingian mayors of the palace. This project, that started on July 01. 2021, is focussing on several texts associated with the collection in different compositions and consistencies in the manuscript tradition. Thus four different levels of investigation have been defined: The first level is about the coherence of the content of these texts. Special attention is drawn to an amount of texts connected to papal authority. On the second level, questions of textual and historical contexts of transmission are examined and clarified alongside the preparation of critical editions based on the Vetus Gallica tradition, which have not been deduced editorially so far. Simultaneously the aftereffects of the entire transmission complex and the reception of the collection are also examined. On the third level the results provided by the examination of the textual and historical contexts of transmission are combined with Mordek’s results to rethink his differentiation in two manuscript classes. In this regard the main focus lies on the questions based on the differences between those two classes concerning content, knowledge of the sources and the redactors’ motivations compared to each other and the assumed redaction of the collection in Corbie. An alternate assumption is the possibility explaining the differences in the tradition as a result of a differentiated editing process at the same place and at the same time. The results of those analyses are brought together on the fourth level in order to contextualize the transmission complex and its four stages of redactions and its reception more precisely within the early Carolingian reforms. The requested extension of the project is intended to make it possible to include further texts in a more detailed critical analysis of manuscript transmission and editing in order to secure and specify the previous results on a more valuable basis. Especially the Synod of Gregory I. of 595 and his much discussed and lately edited “Libellus Responsionum” as well as the Paenitentiale Remense, which is particularly interesting in terms of its editing, reception and historical context, are considerable for this analysis.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants