Pope Urban II, The "Collectio Britannica", and the Council of Melfi (1089) (review)

BOOK REVIEWS735 press"). Readers should be alerted to the fine Metropolitan Museum publication , Spanish MedievalArt, with excellent essays on the pilgrimage and Compostela by Serefin Moralejo, David Simon, and others. In Dunn and Davidson, especially useful is Ferreiro's clear summary of the St. Martin/St. James transition and Smith's essay on historical geography. Corrigan's summary of music and liturgy provides an excellent introduction (only Dagenais mentions the video,"And They Sang a New Song"). Scarborough's essay on the Contigas is a tantalizing introduction to her continuing study. On the other hand, the notes on the Indianapolis Altarpiece are disappointing—even the description is inaccurate (e.g., paint loss and restoration are referred to as smudges) and details are misidentified. The pilgrim-shell essay might have included pilgrims' badges, for example their use on church bells in Scandinavia. In short, the editors and authors seem to capture the flavor of the modern pilgrimage, reflecting the range of attitudes and competencies found in amateurs and scholars. After all, Romantics as well as professional medievalists still delight in walking the road. Marilyn Stokstad University ofKansas Pope Urban LL, The "Collectio Britannica", and the Council ofMelfi (1089). By Robert Somerville, with the collaboration of Stephan Kuttner. (NewYork: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xxii, 318. $98.00.) The Collectio Britannica is one of the most intriguing pre-Gratian canonical collections. A single manuscript that now resides in the British Library (Add. 8873) documents its existence. Although called Britannica, few scholars think that the collection was put together in England. Unfortunately, in spite of numerous consultations with a large number of scholars, Somerville still has not been able to determine the manuscript's or the scribe's geographical origins with any certainty. Northern Italy seems to be the location of choice, but some scholars dissent and give it a trans-Alpine origin. The question is far from paleographical pedantry. If the collection were compiled in Northern Europe from Roman law materials and letters taken from the papal registers, its compilation would force us to rethink the juridical culture of the North at the end of the eleventh century. The Britannica has been most important for the significant number ofpapal letters from the pontificates of Gelasius I, Pelagius I, Alexander II, John VIII, Urban II, Stephen V, and Leo IV Inscriptions from the Letters of Leo, Stephen, Alexander, and Urban sometimes bear the notation "ex registro," which may indicate that they were taken directly from the papal registers. The practice of using this notation in the inscriptions of decretals persists until the beginning of the thirteenth century. By that time, however,"ex registro" clearly no longer means that the decretal was taken directly from the papal registers. The collection also contains large blocks of text from Justinian's Digest and Institutes. Its 736book reviews Roman law contents are important because the Britannica is the first postantique collection to contain material taken from the Digest. Consequently, the collection provides evidence of the rediscovery of the Digest in the second half of the eleventh century. Somerville began working on Urban II as a graduate student atYale University under the direction of Stephan Kuttner in the late 1960's. He completed a dissertation on the Council of Clermont (1095) that was subsequently published in 1972. This collaboration of master and student twenty-five years later is a double tribute: to Stephan Kuttner, who shared his vast knowledge and erudition with the main author until the last days of his life (t August 12, 1996), and to Somerville, who has produced a work that equals the precise and exacting scholarship ofhis old master. For Somerville, the book is a work ofpietas in the word's original sense:"an attitude of dutiful respect toward those to whom one is bound" (Oxford Latin Dictionary). The Britannica is the source of a significant number of Urban's letters from the first eighteen months of his pontificate. Of the forty-seven letters extant, thirty-nine are in this collection. Forty-one letters (one of these is from King Sancho Ramirez I of Aragon to Urban) and five texts that Somerville calls "historical notices" or just "notices" are contained on...