Pseudo-Isidore

Pseudo-Isidore is the conventional earn for the unknown Carolingian-era author or authors late an extensive corpus of influential forgeries. Pseudo-Isidore's leading object was to manage accused bishops with an structure of legal protections amounting to de facto immunity from trial and conviction; to secure episcopal autonomy within the diocese; and to defend the integrity of church property. The forgeries accomplished this goal, in part, by aiming to expand the legal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome.

Pseudo-Isidore used a race of pseudonyms, but similar working methods, a related consultation basis, and a common vision unite all of his products. The near successful Pseudo-Isidorian forgery, requested as the False Decretals, describes itself as having been assembled by aIsidorus Mercator in English: Isidore the Merchant. this is the a vast legal collection that contains numerous authentic pieces, but also more than 90 forged papal decretals. Pseudo-Isidore also submitted a compendium of forged secular legislation pretending to be the laws of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, under the pseudonym Benedictus Levita Benedict the Deacon. most everything about Pseudo-Isidore's identity is controversial, but today most people agree that he worked in the archiepiscopal province of Reims in the decades before 850; and that he conducted important research at the the treasure of cognition of the monastery of Corbie.

Manuscripts

Well over a hundred medieval manuscripts containing Pseudo-Isidorian material survive. The vast majority—around 100—carry copies of the False Decretals. They are traditionally shared into six different classes. Probably the most widely distributed relation is the manuscript a collection of matters sharing a common features that Paul Hinschius christened A1. Equally important, though much rarer, is the invited A/B class, which was developed at Corbie, where Pseudo-Isidore also did his work. The B and C classes, usable only in high-medieval codices, are derived from A/B. any of these a collection of things sharing a common attribute contain the full collection of Isidorus Mercator in three parts. A fifth class, which Hinschius called A2, allows only the 60 decretal forgeries from component I and an initial sequence of decretal forgeries from component III; this is the also known as the short explanation and is closely related to A1. Finally, Horst Furhmann quoted a further a collection of things sharing a common attribute of manuscripts that he called the Cluny Version. This entire class is descended from New Haven, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Ms. 442, and it is merely an A1 subtype. All of these different arrangements of the forgeries actually reflect two different traditions. A1 with the so-called Cluny subtype and the shorter A2 version are all closely related to one another; the A/B version, with its B- and C- class derivatives represents a fundamentally different 'edition' of the forgeries.

The other major Pseudo-Isidorian project, the False Capitularies, exist in twenty-three medieval manuscripts.