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LIBER

niustribus")) A number of apocryphal fragments (e. g. the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions), the ''Con- stitutum Silvestri", the spurious Acts of the alleged Synod of 275 bishops under Silvester etc., and fifth century Roman Acts of martvrs. Finally, the com- piler distributed arbitrarily along his list of popes a number of papal decrees taken from imauthentic sources; he Ukewise attributed to earlier popes htur- gical and disciplinary regulations of the sixth century. The building of churches, the donations of land, of churdi plate and furniture, and many kinds of precious ornaments are specified in great detail. These latter items are of great value, since they are based on the records of tl^ papal treasurv {vesiiarium)^ and the conclusion has Been drawn that the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis in its earliest form must nave been a derk of the treasurv. It is to be noted that the actual Liber Pontificalis thaf/ we have was not the only work of this kind. There existed a similar collection of biographies, executed under Pope Hormisdas

l.~ 523), ol which a lengthy fragment has reached us mtum Laurentianum); it gives the end of the Bfe of Anastasius II (d. 49S) and the life of his sue- eesBor Symmachus. The text of the early Liber Pontificalis (first half of the sixth century), as found in the manuscripts that exhibit the later continua- tions, is not the original text. Duchesne gives a recon- struction of the earliest text of the work. After Felix ni (IV) the Liber Pontificalis was continued by various authors at intervals, each writer treating a group of papal lives. Duchesne recognizes a first con- tinuation as far as Pope Silverius (536-7), whose life is attributed to a contemporary. The limits of the next continuation are more difficult to determine; more- over in its earliest biographies several inaccuracies are met with. It is certain that one continuation ended with Pope Conon (d. 687); the aforesaid summary ending with this pope (Catalogus Cononianus) and certain lists of popes are proof of this.

After Conon the lives down to Stephen V (885-91) were regularly added, and from the end of the seventh century usually by contemporaries of the popes in question. While manv of the biographies are very curcumstantial, their historical value varies mucli; from a literary point of view both stvle and diction are, as a rule, of a low grade. Nevertheless they are a vcrv important historical source for the period coverea. Some of these biographies were begun in the lifetime of the pope, the incidents being set down as they occurred. The authors were Roman ecclesiastics, and some of them were attached to the papal court. In onl v two cases can the author's name be discovered with any probability. The life of Stephen II (752-7) was probably written by the papal '* Primicerius " Christo-

Eher. Anastasius Bibliothecarius perhaps wrote the fe of Nicholas I (858-67), a genuine, tnou^ brief, history of this pope; this author may also have worked at the lite of the following pope, Adrian II (867-72), with whose pontificate the text of this Liber Pontificalis, as exhibited in the extant manuscripts, comes to an end. The biographies of the three follow- ing popes are missing and that of Stephen V (885-91) is moomplete. In its original form the Liber Pontifi- calis reaclied as far as the latter pope. From the end of the ninth century the series of the papal lives was long interrupted. For the whole of the tenth and eleventh centuries there are only lists of the popes with a few short historical notices, that usually give only the pope's origin and the duration of his feign. After Leo IX (1049-54) detailed biographies of the popes were again written; at first, however, not as continuations of the Liber Pontificalis, but as occasion offered, notably during the Investitures conflict. In this way Boniso of Sutri, in his " Liber ad amicum" or " De persecutione ecclesise", wrote lives of the popes from Leo IX to Gregory VII; he also wrote, as an introduction to the fourth book of his ''Decretals", a "".—16

"Chronicon Romanorum Pontificum" as far as Urban II (1088-99). Cardinal Beno wrote a history of the Roman Church in opposition to Gregorv VII, ** Gesta Romanse ecclesise contra Hildebrandum (Mon. Germ. Hist., Libelli de lite, II, 368 sqq.). Important infor- mation concerning the popes is contained in the " Annales Romani", from 1044 to 1187, and is utilized, in part, by Duchesne in his edition of the Liber Ponti- ficalis (below). Only in the first half of the twelfth century was a svstematic continuation again under- taken. This is the Liber Pontificalis of Petrus Guil- Icrmi (son of William), so called by Duchesne after the manuscript written in 1142 by this Petrus in the monastery of St. Gilles (Diocese of Reims). But Petrus Guillermi merely copied, with certain additions and abbreviations, the biographies of the popes writ- ten by Pandulf, nephew of Hugo of Alatri. Following the Imes of the old Liber Pontificalis, Pandulf had made a collection of the lives of the popes from St. Peter doi^Ti; only from Leo IX does he add any original matter. Down to Urban II (1088-99) his information is drawn from written sources; from Paschal II (1090-1118) to Honorius II (1124-30), after whose pontificate this recension of the Liber Pontificalis was written, we have a Contemporary's own information. Duchesne holds that all biographies from Gregory VII on were written by Pandulf, while earlier historians likeGicsebrecht ("Alfgemeine Monats- schrift", Halle, 1852, 260 sqq.) and Watterich (Ro- manorum Pontificum vito, I, LXVIII sqq.) had con- sidered Cardinal Petrus Pisanus as author of the lives of Gregory VII, Victor III, and Urban II, and had attributed to Pandulf only the subsequent lives — ^i. e. those of Gelasius II, Oallistus II, and Honorius II. This series of papal biographies, extant only in the recension of Petrus Guillermi, is continued in the same manuscripts of the monastery of St. Gilles as far as Martin II (1281-5); however, the statements of this manuscript have no sp)ecial value, being all taken from the Chronicle of Martinus Polonus.

On the other hand the series of papal lives written by the cardinal priest Boso (d. about 1178), has inde- pendent value; it was his intention to continue the old Liber Pontificalis from the death of Stephen V with which life, as above said, the work ends. For the popes from John XII to Gregory VII Boso drew on Bonizo of Sutri; for the lives from Gelasius II (1118- 19), to Alexander III (1179-81) underwhomBoso filled an important office, the work has independent value. This collection, nevertheless, was not completed as a continuati(Hi of the Liber Pontificalis and it remained unnoticed for a long time. Cencius Camerarius, after- wards Honorius III, was the first to publish, together with his "Liber censuum", the "Gesta Romanorum Pontificum" of Boso. Biographies of indiNndual popes of the thirteenth century were written by vari- ous authors, but were not brought together in a con- tinuation of the Liber Pontificalis. Early in the fourteenth century an unknown author carried farther the above-mentioned continuation of Petrus Guil- lermi, and added biographies of the popes from Martin IV (d. 1281) to John XXII (1316-34); but the infor- mation is taken from the "Chronicon Pontificum" of Bemardus Guidonis, and the narrative reaches cmly to 1328. An independent continuation appeared in the reign of Eugene IV (1431-47).

From Urban V (1362-70) to Martin V (1417-31), with whom this continuation ended, the biographies have special historical value; the epoch treated is broadly the time of the Great Western Schism. A later recension of this continuation, accomplished under Eugene IV, offers several additions. Finally, to the fifteenth century belong two collections of papal biographies, which were thought to be a con- tinuation of the Liber Pontificalis, but nevertheless have remained separate and independent collections. The first comprises the popes from Benedict XII (1334r