Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/73

 BULLARIUM

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BULLARIUM

Coining 922 papa] constitutions from Gregory VII down to Sixtus V, the pope then reigning. With re- gard to this anil all subsequent collections, three things have carefully to be borne in mind. First, whatever may have been the intrinsic importance or binding force of any of the bulls so published, the selection itself was a matter which depended entirely upon the arbitrary choice of the various editors. As a collection the publication had no official character. The only recognized exception to this assertion is the first volume of a collection of his own bulls which was sent by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746 to the Uni- versity of Bologna to serve as a jons itirix, or source of legal principles. Secondly, it was never seriously maintained, despite some rather pretentious title pages, that these collections were in any sense com- plete or that they even included all the constitutions

of more general interest. Thirdly, it was the inten- tion of the editors, at least at first, rather to exclude than to include the papal pronouncements which had already been incorporated in the text of the canon law. The avowed object of the early collec- tions was to render assistance to canonists by bring- ing within their reach papal enactments which cither had been overlooked by the compilers of the "Cor- pus" or which had been issued subsequently to the latest decrees included in it.

We may disregard in the present, notice various small collections of relatively recent papal constitu- tions which were published in the early part of the sixteenth century. A typical specimen of such DOok- supplied by i rare tittle volume of sixty-two pages printed at Home per Slephanum Guiliereti in regione, Parionis 1509, a copy of which is in the British Museum Library. A contribution of more III.— 4

substantial value appears to have been a volume edited by Mazzutellus in 1579 which contained 723 documents. But it. istoLaertius Cherubim that the credit is usually given of creating the bullarium in substance as well as in name. In the preface to the volume of which the title has been already given, the editor refers to his personal experiences in the eccle- siastical courts of Rome. "In these courts I have noticed", he says, "that certain advocates and judges went completely astray because they had not at hand the text of those apostolic constitutions a knowledge of which is most necessary in treating and pronouncing upon causes, seeing that in such con- stitutions is embodied the whole of the most recent pontifical law". After this explanation it is not surprising to find that out of Cherubini's 922 docu- ments more than 800 were of recent date, that is to say, that they belonged to the hundred years imme- diately preceding the appearance of the volume. Of this collection a second edition in three volumes, was printed at Rome in 1617, and a third edition in four volumes extending in this cast' from Leo I to Urban VIII, was prepared by the editor's son, Angelo Cherubini, in 1638. with 'a supplement added in 1659. Other editions followed, always somewhat enlarged. The fifth in six volumes was brought out by two Franciscans at Rome 1669-72.

The Luxemburg Bullarium. — Moreover, a fuller but not more accurate reprint with supplementary volumes appeared in the eighteenth century, nomi- nally at Luxemburg, though the actual place of im- pression is said to nave been Geneva. Of this edi- tion, which is one of the most commonly met with in libraries, the first eight volumes coming down to Benedict XIII all bear the date 1727, while a ninth and tenth volume, supplementing the earlier portion, appeared in 1730. Other supplements followed tit intervals. Four volumes which were published in 1741 covered respectively the periods 1670 89, 1689-1721, 1721-30, 1730-40. In the same series, and still later, we have the following volumes: XV (174S), extending over 1734-40; XVI (1752), 1710 45; XVII (1753), 1746-49; XVIII (1754), 17 Is 52; XIX (1758>, 1752-57. The last four volumes are entirely taken up with the Bulls of Benedict XIV. Although this is not the most important bullarium, it smiled worth while to indicate the arrangement of this Luxemburg edition as it appears to have been in part the source of the great confusion which is to be found in many accounts of the subject, notably in the recent article "Bullaire" in the Dictionnaire

de thdologie catholique". It is not quite true, as has

sometimes been supposed, that the- "Luxemburg"

editors contributed nothing of their own to the col- lection. For example, in Vol. IX (1730) we have two Hulls of the English pope, Adrian IV, printed from the originals at Geneva with engraved facsimiles of tin' rota and leaden bulla, and in fact the whole of the contents of Vols. IX and X represent a large measure of independent research. The later volumes of the series, however, have simply been copied from the Roman edition next to be mentioned.

\1 ainardi's Roman Bullarium. — This Roman edition of the Bullarium, which still remains the most accurate and practically useful, bears on the title pages of its thirty-two volumes the name of tin' publisher, tlirolatno Mainardi, while the dedica- tion^ to various cardinals prefixed to the different volumes and extending from 1733 to 1762 are also sinned by him. The arrangement of the volumes, however, is peculiar, and the neglect to indicate these peculiarities has made the account given of this edi- tion in most bibliographies almost unintelligible. Mainardi began with the idea of printing a ment to the latest Roman edition of Cherubini's bullarium. As this was in six volumes and stopped short at the pontificate of Clement X (1670 76j.