The "Second Council of Arles" and the Spirit of Compilation and Codification in Late Roman Gaul

The fifth and sixth centuries saw the creation of many compilations of secular and canon law. In the secular sphere, a tradition of legal codification going back at least to the reign of Hadrian (117–138) culminated first in the production of the Codex Theodosianus in the 430s, and a century later in the creation of the even more ambitious Corpus iuris civilis. ² Ecclesiastical official documents were compiled just as earnestly. ³ In the early sixth century, Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk living in Rome, assembled the Codex canonum ecclesiasticorum (a compilation of ecumenical councils) and a collection of papal decretals, which were later combined to form the so-called Dionysiana. Subsequent Roman corpora included a collection of documents relating to the Council of Chalcedon assembled by the deacon Rusticus in 549. At the more private level, compilations ranging from catalogues of heresies to lists of ecclesiastical authors were created. ⁴

The practice of compilation and codification also was manifested in Gaul. Small corpora of legal material proliferated, as seen in the so-called Constitutiones Sirmondinianae, eighteen imperial constitutions dating from 321 to 425 assembled in the mid-fifth century, and in the Novellae, a collection of imperial statutes dated from 438 to 471. ⁵ In the Visigothic kingdom of Aquitania the Codex Euricanus was putatively issued ca. 477/484 by king Euric (466–484), ⁶ and the Lex Romana Visigothorum, later known as the Breviarium Alarici, was authorized by Euric’s son Alaric II in 506. ⁷ At the beginning of the sixth century, the Lex Romana Burgundionum and the Lex Burgundionum appeared in the Burgundian kingdom and the Lex Salica was issued for the Frankish kingdom. Shortly thereafter, compilations of legal formulae began to be created in cities throughout Gaul. ⁸ It may be no coincidence that such compilations followed closely on the heels of the final collapse of Roman authority in Gaul. They likely represent to some degree a desire, among both rulers and subjects, to normalize the legal situation in recognition of the changed political circumstances.

Ecclesiastically, in the late fifth century, Gennadius of Marseilles published the De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis (also known as the De viris inlustribus), a catalogue of ecclesiastical authors, ⁹ and a Liber sive definito ecclesiasticorum dogmatum (also known as the Definitio fidei and Adversus omnes haereses). ¹⁰ Anonymous compilations also circulated, such as the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, ¹¹ the De septem ordinibus ecclesiasticis, ¹² the Breviarium fidei, ¹³ and the so-called Decretum Gelasianum, a list of proscribed books now thought to have originated in early sixth-century Gaul. ¹⁴ The “Eusebian collection” of sermons originated in the archives of Faustus of Riez (ca. 460–490) or Caesarius of Arles (502–540), if not both. ¹⁵ Gallic liturgical collections began to be created, eventually resulting in the extant Expositio missae Gallicanae, Lectionarium Gallicanum, and Missale Gothicum, ¹⁶ not to mention the Liber comitis, a collection of lections, prefaced by an Epistula ad Constantium, thought by some to be the work of Mamertus Claudianus of Vienne. ¹⁷

The “Second Council of Arles”

The following discussion will be concerned primarily with Gallic collections of canon law, or Libri canones, that were created during the sixth century. It will consider not only the development of such collections in general, but especially the canons of the so-called “Second Council of Arles,” henceforth referred to as “Arles II,” a compilation par excellence, whose genesis and date remain in doubt, and whose nature hitherto has not been well understood. ¹⁸

The canons of Arles II have some decided anomalies. The customary preamble is lacking, there is no list of subscriptions, and no meeting time or circumstance is specified: currently, the canons are dated no more specifically than to the period between 442 and 506. ¹⁹ Another anomaly is that most of the canons are reaffirmations of canons of earlier councils, including not only Nicaea (325), but also some significant councils of the Gallic past, such as Arles (314), Orange (441), and Vaison (442). This feature has led...