FORMULARIES
141
FORMULARIES
continue the campaign. Shortly afterwards (4 April,
89(3) Formosus died. He was succeeded by Boniface
VI, who reigned only fifteen days.
Under Stephen VI, the successor of Boniface, Em- peror Lambert and A^iltrude recovered their author- ity in Rome at the beginning of S97, having renounced their claims to the greater part of Upper and Central Italy. AgiUrude beuig determineil to wreak ven- geance on her opponent even after his death, Stephen VI lent himself to the revolting scene of sitting in judgment on liLs predecessor, Formosus. At the synod convened for that purpose, he occupied the chair ; the corpse, clad in papal vestments, was withdrawn from the sarcophagus and seated on a throne; close by stood a ileacon to answer in its name, all the old charges formulated against Formosus under John VIII being revived. The decision was that the deceased had been unworthy of the pontificate, which he could not have validly received since he was bishop of an- other see. All his measures and acts were annulled, and all the orders conferred by him were declared m- valid. The papal vestments were torn from his body; the three fingers which the dead pope had used in con- secrations were severed from his right hand ; the corpse was cast into a grave in the cemetery for stran- gers, to be removed after a few days and consigned to the Tiber. In 897 the second successor of Stephen had the body, which a monk had drawn from the Tiber, reinterred with full honours in St. Peter's. He furthermore annulled at a synod the decisions of the court of Stephen VI, and declared all orders conferred by Formosus valid. John IX confirmed the.se acts at two synods, of which the first was held at Rome and the other at Ravenna (898). On the other hand Ser- gius III (904-911) approved in a Roman synod the decisions of Stephen's synod against Formosus; all who had received orders from the latter were to be treated as lay persons, unless they sought reordina- tion. Sergius and his party meted out severe treat- ment to the bishops consecrated by Formosus, who in turn had meanwhile conferred orders on many other clerics, a policy which gave rise to the greatest con- fusion. Against these decisions many books were written, which demonstrated the validity of the con- secration of Formosus and of the orders conferred by him (see Auxiuus).
jAFPii, Regesia Pontijicum Romanorum, 2nd ed., I (Leipzig, 1885), 435-39; Dlmmlek, Gesla Berengarii (Halle, 1871); Idem, Auxilius und Vulgarius (Leipzig. 1S66); Idem, Geschichte des ofitfrdnkischen Reiches (3 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1887-88); Lapoteie, L' Europe et le Saint Sikge a I'epoque catoUngi^nne, I: Le pape Jean VIII (Paris, 1895); Duchesne, Les premiers temps de I Etat pontifical (Paris, 1898), 153 sqq.; Saltet, Les rcordina- tions, etude sur le sacrement de VOrdre (Paris, 1907), 152 sqq.; Hefele, Conciliengesch. {2nd ed., Freiburg, 1879), IV, 561 sqq.; Langen, Geschichte der rumischen Kirche, III (Bonn, 1892). 295 sqq.; Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, II (Berlin, 1867), 222 sqq.
J. P. KlRSCH.
Formularies (Libri Formulardm), medieval col- lections of models for the execution of documents (acta), public or private; a space being left for the insertion of names, dates, and circumstances peculiar to each case. As is well known, it is practically inevit- able that documents of the same nature, issued from the same office, or even from distinct offices, will bear a close resemblance to one another. Those charged with the execution and expedition of such documents come naturally to employ the same formulae in similar cases ; moreover, the use of such formute permits the drafting of important documents to be entrusted to minor officials, since all they have to do is to insert in the allot tetl space the particular information previ- ously supplied them. Finally, in this way every docu- ment is clothed with all possible efficiency, since each of its clauses, and almost every word, has a meaning clearly and dotinitoly intended. Uncertainties and difficulties of interpretation are thus avoided, and not unfrequentl}' lawsuits. This legal formalism is usually
known as the "style" or habitual diction of chanceries
and the documents that issue therefrom. It repre-
sents long efforts to bring into the document all neces-
sary and useful elements in their most appropriate
order, and to use technical expressions suited to the
case, some of them more or less essential, others
merely as a matter of tradition. In this way arose a
true art of drafting public documents or private acta,
which became the monopoly of chanceries and notaries,
which the mere layman could only imperfectly imi-
tate, and which in time develojicd to .such a point that
the mere " style " of a supposit it ious deec I has often been
sufficient to enable a skilful critic to detect the forgery.
The earlier Roman notaries {labellionex) had their own
traditional formuke, and the drafting of their acta was
subject to an infinity of detail (see "Novels" of Jus-
tinian, xHv, bcvi); the imperial chanceries of Rome
and Byzantium were more remarkable still for their
formulae. The chanceries of the barbarian kingdoms
and that of the papacy followed in their footsteps.
Nevertheless it is not directly from the chanceries that
the formularies drawn up in the Middle Ages have
come down to us, but rather from the monastic and
ecclesiastical schools. Therein was taught, as pertain-
ing to the study of law, the art of drafting pubhc and
private documents (see Du Cange, "Glossarium med.
et infimse Latinitatis ", s. v. "Dictare"). It wascalled
dictare as opposed to scribere, i. e. the mere material
execution of such documents.
To train the dictatores, as they were known, speci- mens of public and private acta were placed before them, and they had to listen to commentaries thereon. Thus arose the yet extant formularies, between the fifth and the ninth centuries. These models were sometimes of a purely academic nature, but the num- ber of such is small; in almost every case they are taken from real documents, in the transcription of which the individualizing references were suppressed so as to make them take on the appearance of general formula?; in many instances, too, nothing was sup- pressed. The formulae deal with public documents: royal decrees on civil matters, ordinances, etc.; with documents relative to legal processes and the ad- ministration of j ustice ; or with private deeds drawn up by a notary: sales, exchanges, gifts to churches and monasteries, tran.sference of ecclesiastical property, the manumission of slaves, the settlement of matrimonial dowries, the execution of wills, etc. Finally, there are deeds which refer solely to ecclesiastical concerns: consecrations of churches, blessings of various kinds, excommunications, etc. The study of the medieval formularies is of importance for students of the history of legislation, the rise of institutions, the development of manners and customs, of civil history, above all for the criticism of charters and diplomas, and for re- searches in medieval philolog}'. In tho.se times the ecclesiastical and civU orders were closely related. Many civil functions and some of the highest state offices were held by ecclesiastics and monks. The ars dictiindi was taught in the schools connected with the monasteries and those under ecclesiastical control. For quite a long time all acta were drawn up only in Latin, and as the vernacular languages, in Romance lands, gradually fell away from classical Latin, recourse to ecclesiastics and monks became a matter of necessity. The formularies are, of course, anything but models of good Latinity; with the exception of the Letters (Varite) of Cassiodorus, and the St. Gall collection "Sub Salomone", they are written in careless or even barbarous Latin, though it is possible tliat their wretched "style" is intentional, so as to render thtm intelligible to the multitude.
The formularies of the Middle Ages date from the sixth to the ninth or tenth century, and we still possess many once used in one or other of the barbarian king- doms. Many were edited in the seventeenth century by Jerome Bignon, Baluze, Mabillon, and others; and
