Abstract
Abstract The manuscripts of the Liber Clementinarum of Johannes de Imola (1404). As the author of this contribution has already argued in other occasions, in this paper he would like to highlight once more the importance of manuscripts for research in the literature of late medieval canon law. Manuscript witnesses of canon law literature after 1234 have never been subject of systematic review. This offers an explanation for the fact that this period has been largely disregarded in modern research. The example, chosen for this paper, shows that in particular the makeup and the external features of the manuscripts provide insights which paradoxically may be more revealing than the text itself: The commentary on the Constitutiones Clementinae by the Bolognese doctor utriusque iuris Iohannes de Imola (ca. 1375-1436) is preserved in more than 30 manuscripts, which contain an amazing amount of information regarding dates, scribes, commissioners and owners; last but not least, these manuscripts were continued seamlessly by a series of early printed editions. Altogether, they offer a vivid picture of the making, the proliferation and the use of Iohannes's work.
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