New significant data on the history of canon law culture in Europe

2017.11.07.

Professor Szabolcs Szuromi has been researching scripts of National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg for more than a decade as part of Pázmány Péter Catholic University International Canon Law History Center.

Due to the analysis of Professor Szuromi, the President of Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPCU) two prominent texts from the 6th century Ireland were identified on the 23rd and 24th of October, greatly adding to the documented knowledge of compendium and written culture with its discovery of the manuscripts' origin, replication during the 8th century Occitania and detailed journey until the 19th century with contentual classification.


The identified script from the 6th century is an early Collectio Dionysiana (its first version composed at the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century), which was without doubt copied at an Irish monastery, arrived between 659 and 661 to Normandy from where it was transferred to the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés in Paris in 1683. This manuscript is another proof to Professor Szuromi theory which has been repeatedly supported in recent years, suggesting that texts copied in Irish monasteries have appeared in the Mainland early resulting in a correlative effect in codical culture, including the influence of Canon Law as well.

Professor Szuromi has also managed to define in content, pinpoint its origin city and date with a decade precision a single fasciculus which was considered part of Collectio Hibernensis. Part of the fragment is a second version of the early Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta (6th century) which was copied in Toulouse during the 8th century. This particular analysis greatly influences and in fact, even changes scientific perception of Collectio Hibernensis, as well as the prevalence and effect of the collection. The considerable finding also enriches the material of canonical resources copied in Occitania with a new handwritten fragment.

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