Fälschung als Mittel der Politik? Pseudoisidor im Licht der neuen Forschung: Gedenkschriftfür Klaus Zechiel-Eckes ed. by Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann, and: Gefälschtes Recht aus dem Frühmittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Herstellung und Überlieferung der pseudoisidorischen Dekretalen by Steffen Patzold

Abstract

Falschung als Mittel der Politik? Pseudoisidor im Licht der neuen Forschung: Gedenkschrift fur Klaus Zechiel-Eckes. Edited by Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann. [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Studien und Texte, Band 57.] (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 2015. Pp. vii, 268. euro48.00. ISBN 978-3-44710335-0.)Gefalschtes Recht aus dem Fruhmittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Herstellung und Uberlieferung der pseudoisidorischen Dekretalen. By Steffen Patzold. [Schriften der Philosophisch-Historischen Klasse der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 55.] (Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter. 2015. Pp. 76. euro24.00. ISBN 978-3-8253-6511-0.)These two books outline recent thought and current lines of enquiry on the origins and dissemination of the great canon law forgeries widely known as Pseudo-Isidore, which today are commonly believed to have begun life at or around the monastery of Corbie in the 830s. The Pseudo-Isidorian decretals are often considered one of the most influential forgery collections of the Middle Ages; many Pseudo-Isidorian concepts would go on to provide a platform for the Gregorian reform and the growth of papal power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Recent Pseudo-Isidorian studies have been galvanized by the work of Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, who died in 2010 and is honored by the collection Falschung als Mittel der Politik?, edited by Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann. In 2000, ZechielEckes' discoveries shattered an old consensus on Pseudo-Isidore's origins; since then, the field has been developing rather quickly, as these two volumes attest. Both works are oriented firmly towards specialists, and the uninitiated will probably want to chase up some of the introductory references provided to grasp the full import of this latest scholarship.Falschung is based on a colloquium held in 2013 in Zechiel-Eckes' honor. According to the editors, contributors were asked to test Zechiel-Eckes' hypotheses concerning the provenance of Pseudo-Isidore, to interrogate the relationship between the various versions and combinations of the forgery complex, and to consider the role of forgery in political culture more generally. Abigail Firey tackles the question of Corbie origins head on with an exemplary paleographical analysis of a canon law collection usually deemed to have been an early product of PseudoIsidore's workshop. She shows how Corbie's role in the Carolingian economy of book production presents a methodological problem in the pursuit of manuscript provenance. Eric Knibbs uncovers evidence for what looks to be a hitherto unnoticed early recension of the corpus in the manuscripts of the so-called A1 version. Semih Heinen and Steffen Patzold argue from different perspectives that the forgery project was stimulated not, as Zechiel-Eckes believed, by the rebellion against Louis the Pious of 833-835, but by the earlier rebellion of 830-831. …