FALSE
777
FALSE
And, as a matter of fact, is his collection more com-
plete than any other? Even a summary examination
soon shows that there are many lacunse in this collec-
tion of canon law. It omits all mention of many
important matters, governing of rural parishes, eccle-
siastical benefices, tithes, simony, the monastic life,
questions concerning the matrimonial laws, privileges
and dispensations, and the pallium. The governing of
parishes and the question of benefices w'ere of vital
interest when Isidore lived. Though not quite so
acute as during the tenth and eleventh centuries, these
points of law became occasions of conflict between the
Church and the feudal society in progress of forma-
tion. They were already preoccupying men's minds,
and as Isidore does not refer to them he can hardly
claim to have wished to supply a complete ecclesiasti-
cal code. So we are driven to conclude that he had a
very special object in view in composing his partial
code. How are we to discover what this object was?
Evidently by examining the documents he forged.
There, if at all, are to be foimd his dominant ideas.
And such an examination is by no means difficult after
what we have just said concerning the legal side of the
false decretals. Isidore's object is so clearly defined
that it requires no very laboured analysis to discover
it. His chief aim is to assure the dignity and fruitful-
ness of the episcopal office. In his view the diocese is
the life-giving centre of the whole ecclesiastical organ-
ism, and the vitality of this centre i.s his chief concern.
All his legislation has this same object. But perhaps
it may be argued that, while he is indeed concerned to
safeguard the authority of the bishops, he is even
more careful to increase that of the pope. This was a
view long in favour among both Galileans and Protes-
tants, but it is no longer the fashion. In our day
critics are, on the whole, agreed that the immediate
object of Isidore was to win respect for the episcopal
authority. If he touches on the prerogatives of the
pope, it is never in the interests of Rome, but always
m those of the bishops. It was for this that he tried
to facilitate appeals to Rome. But in his idea the role
to be plaj'ed by the pope would not restrict the rights
of the bishops. It has been observed that Isidore
docs not mention the temporal power of the popes, and
that he never thinks of turning to profit C'onstantine's
pretended donation to the Church of Rome, nor does
he seem to aim at increasing the French protectorate
at Rome. Yet if his object had been to favour the
Holy See, how differently would he have gone to work.
Now, if we compare these aims of Isidore with the
actual situation of the Frankish Church when the
forger was at work, between the years 847 and S52, it
will be evident that false decretals are directly op-
posed to the chief abuses of which the bishops were
the victims at that time: condemnations of a political
character, neglect of the episcopal office, and the estab-
lishment of chorepiscopi. This explains the lacunae
in Isidore's ecclesiastical code. He was fighting
against urgent and glaring abuses. A contemporary
is always at a disadvantage in forming a clear opinion
of his age, of those deep causes of which the slow but
measured action must inevitably transform society.
And hence it was that Isidore confined himself to
things that were more or less on the surface in the
everyday life around him. If he foresaw other dan-
gers in the path of the Church, he certainly made no
attempt to provide against them.
It remains true, however, that Isidore was a forger. But there are forgers and forgers. Let us not forget that the false decretals are from the same workshop that forged the capitularies of .\ngibramne (.\ngil- ram) and the false capitularies of Hcncdictus Levita. When the capitularies had been forged it was but a natural step to the forging of pontifical letters. For this new work Isidore owed much to the " Liber Pon- tificalis", or chronicle of the popes. Thus when the Liber tells us that such a pope issued such a decree
long since lost, the forger noted the fact and set to
work to invent a decree for his collection along the
lines hinted at by the " Liber". This is a method well
known in diplomatic work, and one that has left us the
acta rescripta, of which we have many specimens in
ancient charters. These acta rescripta are documents
which, at a date long subsequent to that they bear,
and because the originals or ancient copies of them had
been damaged or lost, were drawn up by the aid of the
remnants of the originals, or from extracts therefrom,
or analyses of them, or at times from mere tradition
concerning their contents (cf . Giry, " Manuel de diplo-
matique", Paris, 1894, pp. 12, 867, etc.). In Isidore's
opinion many of the false decretals were merely such
acta rescripta. It was not a very honest proceeding,
and Isidore was far from being scrupulous. With a
faint modification it might be said of him as of an-
other forger in the seventeenth century, the crafty
Father Jerome Vignier, " He was the greatest liar in
Paris." But men of the ninth century must not be
judged according to modern ideas of literary morality.
Neither can the false decretals be looked at as a purely
literary work. They are a landmark in the evolution
of law. In every society law develops or evolves it-
self like other things, but under conditions of its own,
and step by step with the social life it regulates, and
which it must keep pace with in order to regulate.
The state of society, the ensemble of its customs,
change more or less according to time and place, and
are never stationary. And slight changes, when mul-
tiplied to any degree, end by causing a chasm between
former legislation and the newly born needs of a
changed society. The written laws no longer meet
the requirements of the social state they ought to regu-
late, and a readjustment of legal provisions becomes
necessary. History shows us that this may take
place in many ways, according to the nature of the
desired change and the surroundings in which it takes
place. It may be effected by the gradual substitution
of new laws for those that have grown antiquated or,
less courageously, by what is known as a creative in-
terpretation of existing laws, of which we have many
examples in Roman law; and again, in desperate
eases, the change may be brought about by forgeries,
when no other means seems practicable. Now, in the
middle of the ninth century, the rules of canonical
legislation did not seem to be the best possible to meet
the existing state of ecclesiastical affairs. The reform
councils of the ninth century had tried to bring about
the new laws demanded by the situation, but the lay
power had blocked the way. And thus the evolution
of law, finding an obstacle to its growth on one side,
was constrained to seek freedom on another. L^nable
to advance in normal fashion, a canonist whose inten-
tions were more commendable than his acts bethought
him of calling in the aid of the forger. It is impossible
to condone such forgeries, but the history of the case
puts us in a better position to judge them, and even to
discover extenuating circumstances in their favour,
by emphasizing the powerful forces at work in the
.society of the period, and which were acting with
what one may call historical fatalism. Moreover, the
false decretals are the work of private enterprise and
have no official character. The theory that they were
planned in Italy has been long since abandoned.
They are of purely Galilean origin, and if they de-
ceived the Church, the Church accepted them in good
faith and without any complicity.
The Spread. — We saw above, in the case of Hinc- mar, that Isidore's forgeries were known among the Franks as early as 852. In Germany we hoar of them a litt le later. We find traces of them in the Acts of the councils of Germany dating from that of ^^■orms in S(>8, but in Spain we find no reference to them, and they seem to have been hardly known there. They found their way into Englanil towards the close of the eleventh century, probably through Lanfranc, Arch-
