A Note on the Authorship of the Collectio Seguntina

Abstract

The history of Sigüenza’s manuscript, Archivo Catedralicio 10, is, mostly, a mystery. Since it was brought to international scholarly attention by Gérard Fransen and studied by Walther Holtzmann, scholarly consensus has usually mentioned the text only as another in a long list of local appendices to the Quinque compilationes antiquae, in this case the Compilatio prima, noting that the text appears to have several decretals copied from the now-lost registers of Clement III or Celestine III. To date, however, the compiler of the 121 entries that comprise the Collectio Seguntina has yet to be identified. This study proposes that Rodrigo de Finojosa, bishop of Sigüenza from 1192-1218, should be identified as the most likely compiler of the collection, based both on the historical context of the compilation and on the contents of the Seguntina itself. In doing so, it also adds the name of yet another bishop to the roll call of prelates whose canon law literacy was on the rise near the end of the long twelfth century, further underscoring the importance of canon law to the history of the medieval church. The connection between Rodrigo de Finojosa and the Collectio Seguntina is primarily supported by the decretal letters copied into the collection. Of the 116 items enumerated by Holtzmann, nine