The Letters of Gregory the Great and Cassiodorus’ ‘Variae’, in «Frühmittelalterliche Studien», 56 (2022), pp. 1-14. (original) (raw)
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The registers of Pope Honorius III (1216-1227), like all thirteenth-century papal registers, do not conform to modern expectations of effective record-keeping 1. The volumes in the Registra Vaticana series are neither a complete record of papal letters issued by the chancery, nor organised systematically in chronological order; instead, a fraction of the total documentary output was enregistered "individually or in very small groups" in a rough, and frequently interrupted, chronological order 2. The mismatch between modern expectation and the vagaries of medieval practice is thrown into relief by the fact that only about a quarter of Honorius III's letters were enregistered, and many important political letters were not among them-something which, to us, seems counterintuitive 3. A number of publications, Jane E. Sayers' study of papal government and England chief among them, have furthered greatly our understanding of papal registration practice in the chancery of Honorius III 4. There are three interlocked elements of registration practice under Honorius that would repay further investigation utilising a quantitative methodology, and which have the potential to harness broader scholarly interests. First, what types of documents were issued and when. Second, the identities and geographical location of the impetrants and curial correspondents. Third, what the grouping of documents in the registers and the rhythms of their issue can tell 1 Jane E. Sayers, Papal Government and England during the Pontificate of Honorius III (1216-1227) (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life & Thought ser 3 21, Cambridge 1984) 71-73.-I am grateful to the editors for the invitation to participate in the conference "Innocenz III., Honorius III., und ihre Briefe: Die Edition der päpstlichen Kanzleiregister im Kontext der Geschichtsforschung" in Vienna in October 2021. My thanks to Gareth Parker-Jones and Tim Guard of Rugby School for temporarily releasing me from my regular duties in order to attend, and to the editors and the audience of the conference for their insightful suggestions on this research. I am obliged to my father, Jonathan, for his help with filters and formulas used in the dataset in Microsoft Excel.