As a continuation to the 10 year long program of the International Canon Law Research Centre, Dr. SZUROMI Szabolcs DSc., President of PPCU and Head of the Research Centre has successfully identified a new Middle Age codex belonging to the manuscript of Ermitage. The analyzed script greatly enriches the knowledge about the work of Saint Raymond de Peñafort (†1275), whose Summa Poenitentiae (Summaries of Confessions) was not only a list of sins and suggested penances, it discussed pertinent doctrines and laws of the Church that pertained to the problem or case brought to the confessor, and is widely considered an authoritative work on the subject and has been used ever since. The permission for the research was granted by the National Library of Russia. The script undoubtedly used to belong to the original library of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which was also confirmed by the proof that the codex was written and assembled at said abbey. The script’s creation date was pinpointed to somewhere between 1308 and 1311, which is considered a very punctual result. It was also uncovered that the script was not only known by the Parisian Order of Preachers, but the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés has used it frequently as a confession guide in the early 14th century.
