the donation of the Lateran palace, which was originally the palace of the Lateran family, then of
the emperors, and last of the popes. The wife of Constantine, Fausta, resided in it, and on the transfer
of the seat of empire to Constantinople, he left it to Sylvester, as the chief of the Roman clergy and
nobility. Hence it contains to this day the pontifical throne with the inscription: "Haec est papalis
sedes et pontificalis." There the pope takes possession of the see of Rome. But the whole history
of Constantine and his successors shows conclusively that they had no idea of transferring any part
of their temporal sovereignty to the Roman pontiff.
- The authorship must be assigned to some ecclesiastic of the Frankish church, probably
of the diocese of Rheims, between 847 and 865 (or 857), but scholars differ as to the writer.^269
Pseudo-Isidor literally quotes passages from a Paris Council of 829, and agrees in part with the
collection of Benedictus Levita, completed in 847; on the other hand he is first quoted by a French
Synod at Chiersy in 857, and then by Hincmar of Rheims repeatedly since 859. All the manuscripts
are of French origin. The complaints of ecclesiastical disorders, depositions of bishops without
trial, frivolous divorces, frequent sacrilege, suit best the period of the civil wars among the grandsons
of Charlemagne. In Rome the Decretals were first known and quoted in 865 by pope Nicolaus I.^270
From the same period and of the same spirit are several collections of Capitula or Capitularia,
i.e., of royal ecclesiastical ordinances which under the Carolingians took the place of synodical
decisions. Among these we mention the collection of Ansegis, abbot of Fontenelles (827), of
Benedictus Levita of Mayence (847), and the Capitula Angilramni, falsely ascribed to bishop
Angilramnus of Metz (d. 701).
- Significance of Pseudo-Isidor. It consists not so much in the novelty of the views and
claims of the mediaeval priesthood, but in tracing them back from the ninth to the third and second
centuries and stamping them with the authority of antiquity. Some of the leading principles had
indeed been already asserted in the letters of Leo I. and other documents of the fifth century, yea
the papal animus may be traced to Victor in the second century and to the Judaizing opponents of
St. Paul. But in this collection the entire hierarchical and sacerdotal system, which was the growth
of several centuries, appears as something complete and unchangeable from the very beginning.
We have a parallel phenomenon in the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons which gather into one
whole the ecclesiastical decisions of the first three centuries, and trace them directly to the apostles
or their disciple, Clement of Rome.
perceived as early as 999 by the emperor Otho III. and proven by Laurentius Valla about 1440 in De falso credita et ementita
Constantini donatione. The document is universally given up as a fiction, though Baronius defended the donation itself.(^269) The following persons have been suggested as authors: Benedictus Levita (Deacon) of Mayence, whose Capitularium
of about 847 agrees in several passages literally with the Decretals (Blondel, Knust, Walter); Rothad of Soissons (Phillips,
Gfrörer); Otgar, archbishop of Mayence, who took a prominent part in the clerical rebellion against Louis the Pious (Ballerinii,
Wasserschleben); Ebo, archbishop of Rheims, the predecessor of Hincmar and leader in that rebellion, or some unknown
ecclesiastic in that diocese (Weizsäcker, von Noorden, Hinschius, Richter, Baxmann). The repetitions suggest a number of
authors and a gradual growth.
(^270) Nicolai I. Epist. ad universos episcopos Galliae ann. 865 (Mansi xv. p. 694 sq.): "Decretales epistolae Rom. Pontificum
sunt recipiendae, etiamsi non sunt canonum codici compaginatae: quoniam inter ipsos canones unum b. Leonis capitulum
constat esse permixtum, quo omnia decretalia constituta sedes apostolicae custodiri mandantur.—Itaque nihil interest, utrum
sint omnia decretalia sedis Apost. constituta inter canones conciliorum immixta, cum omnia in uno copore compaginare non
possint et illa eis intersint, quae firmitatem his quae desunt et vigorem suum assignet.—Sanctus Gelasius (quoque) non dixit
suscipiendas decretales epistolas quae inter canones habentur, nec tantum quas moderni pontifices ediderunt, sed quas beatissimi
Papae diversis temporibus ab urbe Roma dederunt."