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56 Franck Roumy 5  A New Manuscript of the Collectio Sinemuriensis (New York, Columbia University, Western MS 82) An early twelfth-century manuscript, whose precise origin remains unknown, was sold at the Hotel Drouot in Paris, on Wednesday, January 28, 2004. Although the volume includes no miniatures but only a few decorated initials, the bidding reached the high sum of €46,500. The codex was acquired by a dealer that specialized in the sale of rare manuscripts, the Les Enluminures bookstore. Thanks to the speedy action of Robert Somerville, to whom these lines are dedicated, and to Dr. Consuelo Dutschke of the manuscript and rare book department of Columbia University Library in New York, the Les Enluminures bookstore sold the manuscript to Columbia , where it is housed at present under the call number Western MS 82. The manuscript was auctioned as part of a lot including various items. Among them were several old books, but especially a sizable collection of autographs and letters of the nineteenth century, some photographs, and the watch of the famous interwar French poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.1 The incongruous presence of a medieval manuscript of unidentified content in this rather heterogeneous gathering of objects gave rise to an appraisal , entrusted to the author of these lines. Thanks to the indispensable CD-Romof LindaFowler-Magerlthatinventoriesthecanonicalcollections prior to Gratian’s Decretum,2 it was easy to establish the nature of the text in 1. The sale, entrusted to the auctioneers Bernard Oger and Étienne Dumont, occasioned a catalogue containing a summary description of the manuscript, including several photographs: Oger et Dumont, Livres anciens, lettres et manuscrits autographes, 28 janvier 2004 (S. l. n. d. [Paris 2003]) 7–8. One fourth of the cover contains a photo of the manuscript. 2. The analysis of the text in question was carried out using the second version of the CD-Rom: Linda Fowler-Magerl, KanonesJ2 (Piesenkofen 2003). A new enlarged version, accompanied by a valuable volume presenting the analyzed collections, is now available: Linda Fowler-Magerl, Clavis. Collectio Sinemuriensis  57 the manuscript: it clearly was a copy, hitherto unknown, of the celebrated Collectio Sinemuriensis. Since the time allotted to the appraisal was generous, it was possible to undertake a detailed analysis of the codex,3 whose interest for the literary history of the Semur collection is far from negligible. The Semur collection takes its name from manuscript 13 of the Municipal Library of Semur-en-Auxois, in Burgundy.4 Not known to Paul Fournier and Gabriel Le Bras, the collection appears to have been first identified by Paul Hinschius in manuscript 438 of the National Library in Madrid.5 His discovery appears, however, to have remained unknown for about a century, until the importance of the collection was set out by Gérard Fransen , who was able to identify the Semur manuscript thanks to information furnished by Robert Somerville.6 But it is to Linda Fowler-Magerl, who discovered three more manuscripts of this text (Orléans, BM, 306; Paris, BN, lat. 18221; Sélestat, BM, 13), that the collection owes its first detailed study.7 As has often been emphasized, the Collectio Sinemuriensis does not adopt either of the two classic schemas found in most canonical compilations prior to Gratian’s Decretum: it is neither chronological nor systematic . Instead, it takes the form of the collections similar to Benedictus Levita ’s, which compile texts by blocks of sources, a method that seems rather characteristic of ‘militant’ collections, gathered with a view to reform or to the defense of ecclesiastical rights.8 As it is, the Sinemuriensis is consid3 . I should like to warmly thank M. et Mme Pascal Ract-Madoux, booksellers in Paris, who invited me to examine the manuscript and gave me all the time needed to engage in its study, in the best possible conditions. 4. For a very summary description: Cat. gén. (1887) 6.301–302. 5. Paul Hinschius, ‘Über Pseudo-Isidor-Handschriften und Kanonessammlungen in spanischen Bibliotheken’, ZKG 3 (1863) 139–41, gave the collection, organized in three books, a hasty but quite precise description, notably underscoring borrowings from Burchard and the presence of fragments of Ansegis of Fontenelle and Hincmar. 6. Gérard Fransen, ‘Manuscrits de collections canoniques’ , BMCL 6 (1976) 67–68, repr. in Gérard Fransen, Canones et quaestiones (Bibliotheca eruditorum 25; Goldbach 2002) 1.1.479–83. 7. Linda Fowler-Magerl, ‘Vier französische und spanische vorgratianische Kanonessammlungen ’ , Aspekte europäischer Rechtsgeschichte. Festgabe für Helmut Coing zum...

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