Paenitentiale Bedae
Folio 96v from the Sélestat manuscript (Cod. 132), showing the beginning of the Paenitentiale Bedae
Also known asPaenitentiale Pseudo-Bedae
AudienceCatholic clergy
Languagemedieval Latin
Dateca. 730?
Authenticityquestionable
Manuscript(s)four, plus fragments
Genrepenitential, canon law collection
Subjectecclesiastical and lay discipline; ecclesiastical and lay penance

The Paenitentiale Bedae (also known as the Paenitentiale Pseudo-Bedae, or more commonly as either Bede's penitential or the Bedan penitential) is an early medieval penitential handbook composed around 730, possibly by the Anglo-Saxon monk Bede.

Background

Authorship

Sources

Manuscripts and transmission

There are four extant manuscripts that contain the Paenitentiale Bedae, all dating to the ninth century, ranging geographically from northeastern France to the Main river region. The sigla given below (W9, Z2, etc.) are those introduced by Reinhard Haggenmüller.

Siglum Manuscript Contents
Mp2 Montpellier, Bibliothèque universitaire (Faculté de Médecine), MS 387, fols 1–80 (written middle of ninth century northeastern Francia) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Se2 Sélestat, Bibliothèque humaniste, MS 132 (written middle of ninth century, possibly in Mainz) rites for exorcism; incantations; Paenitentiale Ecgberhti; Paenitentiale Bedae; Excarpsus Cummeani
T5 Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Codex Fragm. 100 A, w, x, y and z + Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, MS 895 fragm. + Donaueschingen, Hofbibliothek, MS 925 Fragm.[1] (written about 800 probably in northern Italy) Epitome Hispana (fragmentary; excerpts);[2] Paenitentiale Oxoniense II (fragmentary); Paenitentiale Ecgberhti (prologue and c. 4.15 only, possibly once followed by further Paenitentiale Ecgberhti material); a series of penitential excerpts[3] (fragmentary; including excerpts from Paenitentiale Umbrense book I, Paenitentiale Cummeani, and Paenitentiale Burgundense); Paenitentiale Bedae[4] (first preface and first sentence of second preface[5] only, possibly once followed by further Paenitentiale Bedae material)
W9 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex lat. 2223 (written beginning of ninth century in the Main river region) Paenitentiale Theodori (U version); Paenitentiale Bedae; Paenitentiale Cummeani (excerpt); Capitula iudiciorum (previously known as the Poenitentiale XXXV capitulorum); Libellus responsionum; miscellaneous creedal and theological works; Paenitentiale Ecgberhti
Z2 Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Car. C 176 (D 64), fols 1–136 (written ca 850×875 in eastern Francia) xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Haggenmüller divided the four main surviving witnesses of the Paenitentiale Bedae into two groups, based broadly on the regions in which they were produced, the nature and arrangement of their accompanying texts, and shared readings in the Paenitentiale Bedae itself.:[6] the 'Rhine-Main river' group consists of the oldest manuscripts (W9 and Se1), while the 'East-Frankish' group (Mp2 and Z2) represents a slightly older tradition.

The Paenitentiale Bedae is also transmitted in somewhat altered form as part of two later penitential texts known as the Vorstufe des Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti (or Preliminary Stage of the Unified Bedan-Ecgberhtine Penitential, in which the Paenitentiale Ecgberhti is affixed to the end of the Paenitentiale Bedae) and the Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti (or Unified Bedan-Ecgberhtine Penitential; like the Preliminary Stage, but the whole is now preceded by the prefaces of both the Paenitentiale Bedae and the Paenitentiale Ecgberhti), and in greatly altered form in the still later Paenitentiale mixtum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti (or Merged Bedan-Ecgberhtine Penitential, in which the chapters of both the Paenitentiale Bedae and the Paenitentiale Ecgberhti are mixed together and arranged by topic).

Reception

Editions

The Paenitentiale Bedae itself has been edited twice and reprinted once:

Much more numerous are editions of the Paenitentiale Bedae in the later modified forms mentioned above, namely the Vorstufe des Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti, the Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti, and the Paenitentiale mixtum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti. These works, which present the Paenitentiale Bedae material in sometimes greatly modified form, have been edited and reprinted many times since the early modern period.

The Vorstufe des Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti has been edited four times:

The Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti has been edited three times and reprinted nine times:

The Paenitentiale mixtum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti has been edited twice and reprinted twice:

Notes

  1. ↑ These seven palimpsest fragments currently contain penitential canons that, some time around the year 800, were written over uncial copies of a lectionary and sacramentary. On the contents and original unity of these fragments, see Körntgen, Studien, pp. 98–108.
  2. ↑ The order of contents given here is that of the reconstructed manuscript as presented by Körntgen, Studien, pp. 100–108.
  3. ↑ Note that it is not clear on the basis of Körntgen’s reconstruction of this manuscript whether this series is part of the same penitential text as the Paenitentiale Ecgberhti material that precedes it.
  4. ↑ Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung, pp. 292–93, has argued that this is the beginning of the Paenitentiale additivum Pseudo-Bedae–Ecgberhti; however, it is just as likely that this is an abbreviated version of the two prefaces preceding the Paenitentiale Bedae as found in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex lat. 2223 (see next note).
  5. ↑ The sentence reads: Institutio illa sancta que fiebat in diebus patrum nostrorum et reliqua. The origin of the second Bedan preface is controversial. Haggenmüller presumed, without argument (see e.g. Die Überlieferung, pp. 132, 147, 149, 151), that it was merely an abbreviation of the Ecgberhtine prologue (also beginning Institutio illa), but it is just as likely that the Ecgberhtine prologue is an expansion of the second Bedan preface. It is significant, for instance, that the earliest extant copy of the Paenitentiale Bedae, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex lat. 2223, contains the second preface; the three later copies of the Paenitentiale Bedae omit it, however. Without stating his reasoning Haggenmüller argued that the second preface had been inserted into Vienna 2223's exemplar, though he declined to explain why this was done. There is thus no compelling reason to agree with Haggenmüller on this point. Rather, the originality of the second Bedan preface should be taken for granted on the authority of the earliest witness (Vienna 2223), until a compelling counter-argument is put forward. There is an obvious explanation as to why the later witnesses of the Paenitentiale Bedae omit the second preface. Haggenmüller has already shown that in the second half of the eighth century the Paenitentiale Bedae and Paenitentiale Ecgberhti were in circulation in the same Continental centres, and often in the same manuscripts; they were even being compared against and mixed with each other. In such a scenario, it is easy to imagine scribes choosing not to include the second Bedan preface because they knew it to exist (in what to them seemed like fuller form) as the beginning of the Paenitentiale Ecgberhti, which they had already copied out (or were intending to copy out) in the same manuscript. This hypothesis is in fact supported by the present manuscript fragment (T5), which Körntgen’s reconstruction has shown to have contained, first, a full Ecgberhtine prologue, and then later the first and second Bedan prefaces, though the second has been abbreviated to the point of nearly being omitted entirely: Institutio illa sancta que fiebat in diebus patrum nostrorum et reliqua, as if the scribe understood that what was to follow was already known to the reader from earlier on. T5 thus seems to represent a transitional form, the missing link between a Paenitentiale Bedae with the second preface and a Paenitentiale Bedae without it. There is no doubt that the direction of evolution witnessed by T5 points to the gradual obsolescence, rather than the abrupt interpolation, of the second Bedan preface.
  6. ↑ Haggenmüller, Überlieferung, 129–49.

Bibliography

  • Reinhold Haggenmüller, Die Überlieferung der Beda und Egbert zugeschriebenen Bussbücher, Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe III, Geschichte und ihre Hilfswissenschaften 461 (Frankfurt am Main, 1991).
  • Ludger Körntgen, Studien zu den Quellen der frühmittelalterlichen Bußbücher, Quellen Und Forschungen Zum Recht Im Mittelalter 7 (Sigmaringen, 1993).
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