Fälschung als Mittel der Politik? Pseudoisidor im Licht der neuen Forschung: Gedenkschriftfür Klaus Zechiel-Eckes ed. by Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann, and: Gefälschtes Recht aus dem Frühmittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Herstellung und Überlieferung der pseudoisidorischen Dekretalen by Steffen Patzold (review)

These two books outline recent thought and current lines of enquiry on the origins and dissemination of the great canon law forgeries widely known as Pseudo-Isidore, which today are commonly believed to have begun life at or around the monastery of Corbie in the 830s. The Pseudo-Isidorian decretals are often considered one of the most influential forgery collections of the Middle Ages; many Pseudo-Isidorian concepts would go on to provide a platform for the “Gregorian reform” and the growth of papal power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Recent Pseudo-Isidorian studies have been galvanized by the work of Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, who died in 2010 and is honored by the collection Fälschung als Mittel der Politik?, edited by Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann. In 2000, Zechiel-Eckes’ discoveries shattered an old consensus on Pseudo-Isidore’s origins; since then, the field has been developing rather quickly, as these two volumes attest. Both works are oriented firmly towards specialists, and the uninitiated will probably want to chase up some of the introductory references provided to grasp the full import of this latest scholarship.

Fälschung is based on a colloquium held in 2013 in Zechiel-Eckes’ honor. According to the editors, contributors were asked to test Zechiel-Eckes’ hypotheses concerning the provenance of Pseudo-Isidore, to interrogate the relationship between the various versions and combinations of the forgery complex, and to consider the role of forgery in political culture more generally. Abigail Firey tackles the question of Corbie origins head on with an exemplary paleographical analysis of a canon law collection usually deemed to have been an early product of Pseudo-Isidore’s workshop. She shows how Corbie’s role in the Carolingian economy of book production presents a methodological problem in the pursuit of manuscript provenance. Eric Knibbs uncovers evidence for what looks to be a hitherto unnoticed early recension of the corpus in the manuscripts of the so-called “A1” version. Semih Heinen and Steffen Patzold argue from different perspectives that the forgery project was stimulated not, as Zechiel-Eckes believed, by the rebellion against Louis the Pious of 833-835, but by the earlier rebellion of 830-831. Gerhard Schmitz searches for common sources in Pseudo-Isidore and the False Capitularies of Benedictus Levita, while Clara Harder asks whether papal jurisdiction was more than simply a means to an end for the forgers (her arguments are now available in full in her Pseudoisidor und das Papsttum [Vienna: Böhlau, 2014]). Patrick Breternitz and Courtney M. Booker each turn to prominent figures of the 830s who have been implicated in the Pseudo-Isidorian project at some stage. Breternitz looks at Paschasius Radbertus, the abbot of Corbie famously identified as the forger-inchief by Zechiel-Eckes, and the second book of his Epitaphium Arsenii, a work sometimes invoked as evidence for his own involvement, stressing that this text must be read as a product of the time it was composed (c. 850). Booker, meanwhile, examines how Archbishop Ebbo of Rheims—deposed in 835 for his role in the rebellion against Louis—was long implicated in the forgeries by virtue of a reputation for wickedness and treachery that was cultivated over the course of a millennium. Wilfried Hartmann concludes the volume by paying tribute to Zechiel-Eckes’ talents as a researcher of canon law and...