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And, as a matter of fact, is his collection more com- plete than any other? Even a summary examination soon shows that there are many lacunse in this collec- tion of canon law. It omits all mention of many important matters, governing of rural parishes, eccle- siastical benefices, tithes, simony, the monastic life, questions concerning the matrimonial laws, privileges and dispensations, and the pallium. The governing of parishes and the question of benefices w'ere of vital interest when Isidore lived. Though not quite so acute as during the tenth and eleventh centuries, these points of law became occasions of conflict between the Church and the feudal society in progress of forma- tion. They were already preoccupying men's minds, and as Isidore does not refer to them he can hardly claim to have wished to supply a complete ecclesiasti- cal code. So we are driven to conclude that he had a very special object in view in composing his partial code. How are we to discover what this object was? Evidently by examining the documents he forged. There, if at all, are to be foimd his dominant ideas. And such an examination is by no means difficult after what we have just said concerning the legal side of the false decretals. Isidore's object is so clearly defined that it requires no very laboured analysis to discover it. His chief aim is to assure the dignity and fruitful- ness of the episcopal office. In his view the diocese is the life-giving centre of the whole ecclesiastical organ- ism, and the vitality of this centre i.s his chief concern. All his legislation has this same object. But perhaps it may be argued that, while he is indeed concerned to safeguard the authority of the bishops, he is even more careful to increase that of the pope. This was a view long in favour among both Galileans and Protes- tants, but it is no longer the fashion. In our day critics are, on the whole, agreed that the immediate object of Isidore was to win respect for the episcopal authority. If he touches on the prerogatives of the pope, it is never in the interests of Rome, but always m those of the bishops. It was for this that he tried to facilitate appeals to Rome. But in his idea the role to be plaj'ed by the pope would not restrict the rights of the bishops. It has been observed that Isidore docs not mention the temporal power of the popes, and that he never thinks of turning to profit C'onstantine's pretended donation to the Church of Rome, nor does he seem to aim at increasing the French protectorate at Rome. Yet if his object had been to favour the Holy See, how differently would he have gone to work. Now, if we compare these aims of Isidore with the actual situation of the Frankish Church when the forger was at work, between the years 847 and S52, it will be evident that false decretals are directly op- posed to the chief abuses of which the bishops were the victims at that time: condemnations of a political character, neglect of the episcopal office, and the estab- lishment of chorepiscopi. This explains the lacunae in Isidore's ecclesiastical code. He was fighting against urgent and glaring abuses. A contemporary is always at a disadvantage in forming a clear opinion of his age, of those deep causes of which the slow but measured action must inevitably transform society. And hence it was that Isidore confined himself to things that were more or less on the surface in the everyday life around him. If he foresaw other dan- gers in the path of the Church, he certainly made no attempt to provide against them.

It remains true, however, that Isidore was a forger. But there are forgers and forgers. Let us not forget that the false decretals are from the same workshop that forged the capitularies of .\ngibramne (.\ngil- ram) and the false capitularies of Hcncdictus Levita. When the capitularies had been forged it was but a natural step to the forging of pontifical letters. For this new work Isidore owed nuich to the " Liber Pon- tificalis", or chronicle of the popes. Thus when the Liber tells us that such a pope issued such a decree

long since lost, the forger noted the fact and set to work to invent a decree for his collection along the lines hinted at by the " Liber". This is a method well known in diplomatic work, and one that has left us the acta rescripta, of which we have many specimens in ancient charters. These acta rescripta are documents which, at a date long subsequent to that they bear, and because the originals or ancient copies of them had been damaged or lost, were drawn up by the aid of the remnants of the originals, or from extracts therefrom, or analyses of them, or at times from mere tradition concerning their contents (cf . Giry, " Manuel de diplo- matique", Paris, 1894, pp. 12, 867, etc.). In Isidore's opinion many of the false decretals were merely such acta rescripta. It was not a very honest proceeding, and Isidore was far from being scrupulous. With a faint modification it might be said of him as of an- other forger in the seventeenth century, the crafty Father Jerome Vignier, " He was the greatest liar in Paris." But men of the ninth century must not be judged according to modern ideas of literary morality. Neither can the false decretals be looked at as a purely literary work. They are a landmark in the evolution of law. In every society law develops or evolves it- self like other things, but under conditions of its own, and step by step with the social life it regulates, and which it must keep pace with in order to regulate. The state of society, the ensemble of its customs, change more or less according to time and place, and are never stationary. And slight changes, when mul- tiplied to any degree, end by causing a chasm between former legislation and the newly born needs of a changed society. The written laws no longer meet the requirements of the social state they ought to regu- late, and a readjustment of legal provisions becomes necessary. History shows us that this may take place in many ways, according to the nature of the desired change and the surroundings in which it takes place. It may be effected by the gradual substitution of new laws for those that have grown antiquated or, less courageously, by what is known as a creative in- terpretation of existing laws, of which we have many examples in Roman law; and again, in desperate eases, the change may be brought about by forgeries, when no other means seems practicable. Now, in the middle of the ninth century, the rules of canonical legislation did not seem to be the best possible to meet the existing state of ecclesiastical affairs. The reform councils of the ninth century had tried to bring about the new laws demanded by the situation, but the lay power had blocked the way. And thus the evolution of law, finding an obstacle to its growth on one side, was constrained to seek freedom on another. L^nable to advance in normal fashion, a canonist whose inten- tions were more commendable than his acts bethought him of calling in the aid of the forger. It is impossible to condone such forgeries, but the history of the case puts us in a better position to judge them, and even to discover extenuating circumstances in their favour, by emphasizing the powerful forces at work in the .society of the period, and which were acting with what one may call historical fatalism. Moreover, the false decretals are the work of private enterprise and have no official character. The theory that they were planned in Italy has been long since abandoned. They are of purely Galilean origin, and if they de- ceived the Church, the Church accepted them in good faith and without any complicity.

The Spread. — We saw above, in the case of Hinc- mar, that Isidore's forgeries were known among the Franks as early as 852. In Germany we hoar of them a litt le later. We find traces of them in the Acts of the councils of Germany dating from that of ^^■orms in S(>8, but in Spain we find no reference to them, and they seem to have been hardly known there. They found their way into Englanil towards the close of the eleventh century, probably through Lanfranc, Arch-