Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/254

 246 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April these forgeries, in opposition to Sickel and to Count Cipolla, he includes the bull of Honorius I of 11 June 628. The monks, it appears, possessed a copy of the Liber Diurnus, now preserved at Milan, which furnished them with formulae for the composition of bulls ; but the particular formulae which were employed in this bull are taken from a section which was added to the Liber Diurnus half a century after Honorius's time (iii. 41-4). The bishop of Piacenza at once protested, and soon after 914 John X addressed a severe monition to the abbot (i. 288-90). But the monks were not long to be restrained, and in the first years of the eleventh century they produced a fresh batch of forged documents. Then for the moment the Emperor Henry II settled the dispute by erecting Bobbio into a see by itself and making the abbot its bishop. But very soon the two offices were held by different persons, and the contest was renewed. In the century following we learn little that bears directly on the point. Signor Buzzi, however, is persuaded that in 1143 Innocent II yielded to the demands of the monastery and conferred upon it a complete ' exemp- tion ' (iii. 78, 143, 147, 157) : Innocenzo II sottraendo il monastero da qualsiasi giurisdizione ed ingerenza imperiale e vescovile e reservando a se il diritto di conferma dell' abbate eletto e di consacrazione del medesimo, sia direttamente, sia per delegazione di un altro vescovo, ristabiliva integralmente su questo punto la situazione del periodo langobardo (iii. 146). But Signor Buzzi has misread the document. Though the bull of Innocent II, which was repeated with no material change by Lucius II a year later, conferred a special privilege on the monastery, it was a rule of law that privilege thus granted was limited to the terms of the grant. Innocent III was laying down no new principle when, in reply to the question, utrum clerici et laici qui litteras protectionis ostendunt, in quibus personae suae expresso nomine cum omnibus rebus suis sub apostolica protectione consistere declaran- tur, a iurisdictione episcopi dioecesani sint exempti, he decreed ' quod per litteras huiusmodi ab episcoporum suorum potestate minime subtrahuntur 1 In 1143 the pope took the monastery of Bobbio under his protection, but so far from exempting it from the authority of the bishop he only permitted it to seek ' the chrism, the holy oil, and ecclesiastical consecrations ' from a bishop of its own choice, in the case of the see of Bobbio being vacant or in schismatical hands (ii. 38). What the bull really did was to confirm the monastery in the possession of its property, and in doing this to decide in its favour a number of local claims which had been contested between it and the bishop. Signor Buzzi urges in favour of his interpretation that the monastery appears in the Liber Censuum ' tra i dependenti direttamente dalla santa sede e censuali della medesima ' (iii. 148). But the Liber Censuum was concerned with finance, not with jurisdiction : it recorded merely that the monastery was charged with a yearly payment to Rome ; and Alexander III laid down that, ' sicut non omnes qui specialiter beati Petri iuris existunt annuatim Apostolicae sedi censum exsolvunt, its non omnes censuales ab episcoporum subiectione habentur immunes '. 2 Had Innocent II conferred an exemption on the monastery, we should 1 5 Deer, xxxiii. 18, 2 5 Deer, xxxiii. 4.