Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Polycarpus

The title of a canonical collection in eight books composed in Italy by Cardinal Gregorius. It is borrowed chiefly from the collections of Anselm and from the "Anselmo Dedicata". Writers generally date it about 1124 because it includes a decretal of Callistus II (died 1124), but some place it prior to 1120 or 1118, date of the death of Bishop Didacus, to whom the collection is dedicated, and regard the Callistus decretal as an addition. The dedicatory epistle and the titles were published by the Ballerini ("De antiquis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum", part IV, c. xvii in "P. L.", LVI, 346, Paris, 1865), and the rubrics by Theiner ("Disquisitiones criticæ in præcipuas canonum et decretalium collectiones", Rome, 1836, 356 sqq.). Extracts from Book IV were published by Mai, "Nova bibliotheca patrum", VII, iii, 1-76 (Rome, 1852-88).

PHILLIPS, Kirchenrecht, IV (Ratisbon, 1851), 135-6; SCHERER, (Gratz, 1886), 240; WERNZ, Jus Decretalium, I (2nd ed., Rome, 1905), 331, 333.

A. VAN HOVE