![Decretales Gregorii IX [with gloss of Bernardo Bottoni of Parma]. Constitutiones novellae Innocentii IV [with gloss of Bernard of Compostella iunior]. Latin manuscript on vellum.](https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/img-bn63979.jpg)
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The most important 13th-century textbook of canon law: a magnificent manuscript on vellum
Decretales Gregorii IX [with gloss of Bernardo Bottoni of Parma]. Constitutiones novellae Innocentii IV [with gloss of Bernard of Compostella iunior]. Latin manuscript on vellum.
Decorated manuscript on vellum. Folio. 252 ff. 41-42 lines, 2 columns, surrounded by gloss in smaller script, headings in red, running titles and 1-line initials in red and blue, with larger blue and red flourished penwork initials throughout; 4 large decorated book openings formed of the name 'Gregorius' in tall combined capitals the width of the column. Extensive medieval notes and added glosses on every page in different hands, some slips of vellum bound in with further glosses. Contemporary brown leather binding over wooden boards on 4 tawed leather thongs; traces of 4 clasps; one metal catch remaining, stamped with the Paschal Lamb and the letter 'S'.
€ 135.000,00
An imposing folio manuscript of the most important legal textbook of the 13th century, in its original binding, and with extensive glosses and annotations.
The Decretals of Gregory IX became the fundamental text of canon law, controlling many aspects of secular as well as clerical life. This was what the Pope intended when in 1230 he ordered his confessor, Raymond of Peñafort, to organise into one authoritative text the existing five compilations of canon law with their subsequent additions, including his own. In 1234 the Pope sent the new work to the universities of Paris and Bologna and decreed that this was henceforth to be the official collection. Innocent IV expanded the Decretals with his own canons, known as the Novellae. The marginal annotations show that the present copy continued to be used well into the 15th century (indeed, it was owned by a French lawyer and judge in the 17th century).
Such a crucial text rapidly acquired commentators, with the Glossa Ordinaria, completed ca. 1266, being the most popular gloss, as opposed to independent commentary. The substantial commentary here is that of the jurist Bernardo Bottoni of Parma (d. 1266), who studied under Tancred of Bologna. The commentary of the Novellae Constitutiones is that of Bernard of Compostela junior, chaplain to Pope Innocent IV. The uniformity of text, essential for law operative throughout western Christendom, was reflected in the comparatively uniform layouts and systems of decoration. The penwork title panels with the name "Gregorius" and the flourished initials, found in volumes from both Italy and northern Europe, are part of a carefully ordered articulation of text and gloss designed for ease of use.
The vast majority of law books like this appear to have been made in Bologna, and were either sent out from there for sale or used by law students attending lectures at the university and brought home on completion of their studies. Comparatively few copies of this essential text remain in private hands.
Comprises: Decretals of Gregory IX, Book I (lacking the opening, beginning in Tit. II, Cap. VIII: "[...] evidenter quod apparet", ff. 1-57v); Book II, ff. 58-109v; Book III, ff. 111-163; Book IV, ff. 163v-182v; Book V, f. 182v-234v, ending, "[...] hommagium conpellatur. amen"; Novellae of Innocent IV, beginning "De rescriptis / Cum in multis iuris articulis [...]', ff. 235-252v.
1) The present manuscript was in France by the 15th century, to judge from the script of some added notes, the name "francoys" scribbled on fol. 187, and the pastedown from a French document. 2) Later owned by the judge and historian Denys de Salvaing de Boissieu (1600-83), of Vourey. 3) Sold at Grenoble at the sale of his library by M. Falque and Felix Perrin, Catalogue d'une Importante Bibliothèque composée d'ouvrages anciens, rares et précieux - Ancienne Bibliothèque de D. de Salvaing de Boissieu, Grenoble, 13-18 December 1897, lot 234 (the description from this catalogue is pasted into the inside upper cover). 4) Sotheby's, 5 Dec. 1995, lot 32. 5) The Schoyen Collection, MS 2084.
Folio (430 x 400 mm). 252 leaves, collation: 1:6 (of 8, lacking i-ii), 2:8, 3:4, 4:8, 5:4, 6-11:8, 12:6, 13-15:8, 16:2, 17-27:8, 28:6, 29-31:8, 32:6, 33:10, 34:8 (catchwords sporadically survive). Main text 41-42 lines in 2 columns (ruled space: 195 x 110 mm), surrounded by very extensive gloss in smaller script, mostly around 3 sides of each column. Headings in red, running titles and one-line initials throughout alternately in red and blue, larger flourished penwork initials throughout, alternately blue and red with penwork in the contrasting colour. Four large decorated book openings formed of the name 'Gregorius' in tall combined capitals the width of the column (ff. 58r, 111r - with the initial 'G' left blank - 163v and 182v). Extensive medieval notes and added glosses on every page in different hands, some slips of vellum bound in with further glosses. Contemporary binding of rounded wooden boards sewn on 4 tawed leather thongs pegged into V-shaped patterns in the boards, covered with brown leather; pastedown inside lower cover from part of a 15th-c. document in a French notarial hand. Traces of 4 clasps once on edges of upper cover; one metal catch remaining on upper edge of lower cover of lozenge-shape stamped with the Paschal Lamb and the letter 'S'.
Binding worn with professional repairs. Text lacks two leaves at the beginning and a few leaves at the end. Signs of considerable use over several centuries: some pages torn and frayed; a section torn from fol. 66 with loss of text; margins cut away from ff. 247-248 and 251 with loss of some text or gloss. Some worming at ends.
Schøyen MS 2084.
For more on the Decretals, see S. L'Engle and R. Gibbs, Illuminating the Law: Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge Collections (2001), esp. pp. 15-19, 69-71.
![Theologia moralis ex solidis probatorum auctorum principiis [...].](https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/img-bn5035-324x324.jpg)
![Decretales Gregorii IX [with gloss of Bernardo Bottoni of Parma]. Constitutiones novellae Innocentii IV [with gloss of Bernard of Compostella iunior]. Latin manuscript on vellum.](https://inlibris.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/img-bn63979-324x324.jpg)