Canon Law, Religion, and Politics: "Liber Amicorum" Robert Somerville

7. Differentia est: A Twelfth-Century Summula on Anathema and Excommunication

107 Bruce C. Brasington 7 Differentia est A Twelfth-Century Summula on Anathema and Excommunication Introduction Professor Somerville has analyzed some of the most challenging sources of medieval canon law. His studies of the canons of Claremont and papal decretals to Scotland are but two examples of this willingness to confront vast, complicated textual traditions. Equally, however, he has devoted considerable attention to the briefest of works, for example, prefaces to canonical collections, an enterprise in which this author was privileged to participate. The following study, offered in admiration to a master of canonistic texts both great and small, offers a similar miniature as it considers a twelfth-century summula on anathema and excommunication . Preserved in MS Cambridge, UL Add. 3321.1, this summula occupys three-quarters of the first folio in this composite manuscript. It has escaped scholarly attention since the notes made by F. W. Maitland when it was acquired in 1895.1 Written by a French scribe in often faint brown ink, Originally presented at the 2009 Leeds International Mediaeval Congress. I thank Cambridge University Library for allowing me to examine this manuscript. Dr. Brett helped me with the transcription of the text. I am also grateful to the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law, and the Forschungstelle für vergleichende Ordensgeschichte (Eichstätt) for allowing me to use their resources. Finally, I thank the inter-library loan department of the WTAMU Library. 1. Cambridge, UL Add. 4432, augmented by the description made by Ms. Jane Ringrose, which is available in the Manuscripts Room. A microfilm is also at the Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law in Munich. The longest work in this composite manuscript is the Distinctiones Cantabrigenses, an early commentary on Gratian briefly described by Stephan Kuttner, Repertorium der Kanonistik. Prodromus corpus glossarum (Studi e Testi 71; Rome 1937) 213–14. See also the entry at http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/1140d-h.htm accessed on 7 November 2011, dating it to the 1160s. 108  Bruce C. Brasington it is hard to read, particularly at the right margin. UV light is occasionally necessary; unfortunately, even this cannot uncover the name of the monastery written by an early-modern hand and subsequently erased. The summula’s theme was of considerable interest to a twelfth-century audience. Conceptions of anathema and excommunication were changing .2 Anathema remained true to its New Testatment origins. It orignated as a curse relying on the charisma and power of the individual who declared it. Increasingly, excommunication was being defined and applied by legal process.3 Here, the formulation of excommunication latae sententiae was particularly important.4 Elizabeth Vodola has argued that Gratian was uncomfortable with this, for latae sententiae meant that excommunication took effect immediately upon the criminal act, not after legal process.5 He distinguished between excommunication, which barred the 2. Among many works, Walter Doskocil, Der Bann in der Urkirche. Eine rechtsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Munich 1958) 59–68 on 1 Corinthians 5 and, more recently, Elisabeth Vodola, Excommunication in the Middle Ages (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986) 2–10. Noting the important change introduced by private penance and a ‘tempering’ introduced in the Carolingian period, Peter Browe, ‘Die Kommunion in der gallikanischen Kirche der Merowinger- und Karolingerzeit’ , in idem., Die Eucharistie im Mittelalter. Liturgiehistorische Forschungen in kulturwissenschaftlicher Absicht , ed. Hubertus Lutterbach and Thomas Flammer (Münster-Hamburg-London 2003) 431–58; also Roger Reynolds, ‘Rites of Separation and Reconciliation in the Early Middle Ages’ , in Segni e riti nella chiesa altomedievale occidentale (Settimane di Studio; Spoleto 1987) 1.405–33; Sarah Hamilton , The Practice of Penance, c. 900–c. 1050 (Woodbridge, UK, 2001); Lotte Kéry, Gottesfurcht und irdische Strafe. Der Beitrag des mittelalterlichen Kirchenrechts zur Entstehung des öffentlichen Strafrechts (Konflikt, Verbrechen, Sanktion in der Gesellschaft Alteuropas 10; Cologne 2006) esp. part 1. 3. Richard Helmholz, ‘Excommunication as a Legal Sanction: The Attitudes of Medieval Canonists ’ , ZRG Kan. Abt. 99 (1982) 204–21. There are wider theological and ecclesiological dimensions to this ‘separation’ of anathema and excommunication. It recalls the sharp distinction occuring in the twelfth century between the Church as a mystical body, theologically defined, and an organization defined by law. See Rudolf Sohm, Das Altkatholische Kirchenrecht (Leipzig 1918). Among many critical responses, Stephan Kuttner, ‘Reflections on Law and Gospel in the History of the Church’ , in Liber amicorum Monsieur Onclin, ed. Jean Lindemans and H. Demeester (Louvain 1976) 199–209. 4. Richard Helmholz, ‘Si quis suadente’ C. 17 q. 4 c. 29. ‘Theory and Practice’ , in...