medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Jan Nelis schrieb:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> The following book might be of interest :
>
> Johannes Fried, /"Donation of Constantine" and "Constitutum
> Constantini"/. Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 2007. Pp. 201. ISBN
> 978-3-11-018539-3. $101.00.
>
> My review of it can be found at:
>
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2008/2008-02-21.html
>
> Best,
>
> Jan Nelis
>
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The book has a few problems, though. Even if you disregard the fact that
the English translations of the Constitutum and its repetition in
Gratians Decretum which Fried prints without indicating any reference
have simply been copied from published books (or perhaps from the
internet), i.e.Ernest F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the
Middle Ages (cf. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/donatconst.html)
and Christopher Coleman's translation of Lorenzo Valla's treatise (cf.
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/vallatc.html) including the misprints
in the original books some grave problems remain. Fried believes that
Ps.-Constantine originally donated to the pope the city of Rome, but not
the west of the empire. But in the relevant passage of the Constitutum
the city of Rome and the western regions are connected with "et" and
"seu" which means that they are both donated. Fried's elaborations
about the possible differences af meanings of "dicio" and "potestas" are
in my view by no means convincing.
Fried sets the donation in the context of the circle of Pseudo-Isidore.
But the donation makes Roman primacy of Rome a gift from the emperor
whereas Pseudo-Isidore stresses always that this primacy is "a gift of
noone else than our Lord Jesus Christ" which is a different concept of
ecclesiology altogether.
An unfortunate number af negligences an in the book do not inspire much
confidence. So he mixes up Dionysius Areopagita, the contemporary of St.
Paul, with the early canonistic author Dionysius Exiguus.
Sometimes the form of argument which Fried is not very convincing
either. Sometimes a hypothesis is put forward as a mere possibility,
only to become a fact a few pages further.
Karl-Georg Schon
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