Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals - Manuscript Tradition

Manuscript Tradition

Seventy-five manuscripts of the Pseudo-Isidorian material have survived, and they differ widely one from another. The manuscript tradition is grouped in at least six or seven classes, which include the following:

Most comprehensive is the one called A1 by Hinschius:

• with Vaticanus latinus Ottobonianus 93 (mid-9th century) as the best representative.

Of equal importance is class A/B:

• The original manuscript of this class was preserved: New Haven, Beinecke Library ms. 442 (written after 858).
• A/B is best represented by Vaticanus latinus 630 (last quarter of the 9th century, from the Corbie scriptorium).
• The so-called Cluny version dates back to the mid-9th century as well.
• Class A2 goes back to the ninth century as well. (Whether the New Haven manuscript or A2 is the better is hard to say.)
  • Ivrea Biblioteca Capitolare 83 (9c, Northern Italy)
  • and Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana D.38 (9c, ecclesiastical province of Reims) are some of the best manuscripts of Class A2.

Three more versions date from the 11th or 12th century:

• Hinschius class B (e.g., Boulogne-surhhayMer, Bibliothèque municipale 115/116),
• Hinschius class C (e.g., Montpellier Bibliothèque de l'École de Médecine H.3)
• and, finally, a version mixing A2 and the Cluny version (e.g., Paris Bibliothèque nationale lat. 5141).

It is hard to say which manuscript class represents the "genuine" forgery, so to speak. The fact that A1, A/B, the Cluny version and A2 all date to the ninth century might be an indication that the forgers circulated their work from the very beginning in several different versions. It would have been the typical behavior of forgers to increase insecurity by circulating many different versions, thereby decreasing authority of anyone intending to call out the forgery, for no one could tell which version was a forgery and which was not.