DEUSDEDIT, COLLECTION OF

The Collection of Deusdedit is the second major canonical work under Pope Gregory VII, after that of an selm ii of lucca, compiled between 1083 and 1087 and dedicated to Pope Victor III. Few facts are known of the author's life. By his own report, he was an only child and already cardinal priest of St. Peter in Chains (in Eudoxia ) in his early 30s; he is first mentioned by this title in 1078 by berengarius of tours, who further identified him as a monk of Tulle (Tudelensis: Benedictine Abbey of St. Martin, Diocese of Limoges). Dates and details of his Roman career are unknown. He spent some time in Germany, perhaps on a papal mission, where he found material for his collection. A most strenuous promoter of the full gregorian reform program, he wrote in its defense against the adherents of antipope Clement III his Libellus contra invasores, completed in 1097 under Pope Urban II. He died in 1100.

The primary purpose of his Collectio canonum was to buttress the privileged status and universal rights and responsibilities of the Roman primacy in the Universal Church, as a basis for achieving the ends of the reform. It was planned systematically in four books: 1, the Roman Church's authority; 2, the Roman clergy; 3, the Roman Church's temporalities; 4, the liberty of the Church in its personnel and properties. Its mass of texts (1,173 items) includes many disciplinary norms of general utility. Four tables of rubrics (capitulationes ) provide an index to facilitate use. In addition to the collections already in use (dionysius Exiguus, hispana collectio false decretals, burchard's Decretum, Collection in seventy–four Titles, atto's Collection), he drew upon sources newly exploited by contemporary compilers in the liber diurnus, Ordines Romani, liber Pontificalis, Roman civil law, and the papal archives. Although of limited influence, the collection of Deusdedit provides valuable evidence of the aims and methods of the 11th–century papal reform, and of the obligation of the secular arm to enforce them.

See Also: canonical collections before gratian.

Bibliography: Editions. v. wolf von glanvell, ed., Die Kanonessammlung des Kardinals Deusdedit: Die Kanonessammlung, selbst (Paderborn 1905), all published. e. sackur, ed., Libellus contra invasores et symoniacos et reliquos scismaticos, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Libelli de lite (Berlin 1826– ) (1892) 292–365. Literature. p. fournier and g. le bras, Histoire des collections canoniques en occident depuis les fausses décrétales jusqu’au Décret de Gratien, 2 v. (Paris 1931–32) 2:37–54. p. fournier, "Les Collections canoniques romaines de l'époque de Grégoire VII," Mémoires' de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles–lettres 41 (1918) 271–395, also separate. w. holtzmann, "Kardinal Deusdedit als Dichter," Historisches Jahrbuch der Görres–Gesellschaft 57 (1937) 217–232 with biog. details. c. lÉfebvre, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. r. naz, 7 v. (Paris 1935–65) 4:1186–91.

[j. j. ryan]