BENEDICT THE LEVITE

Also known as Deacon Benedict, the name of the unknown author of a collection of forged capitularies (1,319 specimens) belonging to the group of the false decre tals (Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries). The collection is appended as books five to seven to the four books of the genuine collection of Ansegis. The last of the additions may have been written at the time of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, but all the rest must be dated earlier, about 850, and come probably from Le Mans. About one-fourth of them are genuine, as such, but forged in this text. The majority reproduce genuine, notably ecclesiastical, sources falsified into Frankish imperial laws and in the process subjected to repeated interpolations. Benedict sought to give the impression that the laws were the product of a collaboration between state and ecclesiastical authorities. The collection embraces almost all areas of Canon Law. It was calculated to remedy the sad state of the Frankish Church. Dominant principles are freedom of the Church and independence of its hierarchy.

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