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Golden Summa

Summa

1537·Latin·1413 pages PDF (191.2MB) Source

Henry of Susa's Summa (later known as Summa aurea), the great thirteenth-century commentary on the titles of the Decretals of Gregory IX. Drafted while Henry was archdeacon and bishop of Sisteron and revised in the 1250s, the work systematically treats each title of the Liber extra under the headings quid sit, quare, qualiter, ubi, quando, per quem, and quid operetur. It was the most consulted canonical summa of the later Middle Ages and earned its author the appellation Hostiensis from his cardinal-bishopric of Ostia. This Lyon 1537 edition was prepared with the summaries and annotations of Nicolaus Superantius and an alphabetical repertorium; printed by Theobald Paganus. Copy from the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna (Google Books).

Author

Henry of Susa

Henry of Susa

Henricus de Segusio

1200–1271

Readings

On Simony, and that Nothing Be Demanded or Promised for Spiritual Things

De simonia et ne aliquid pro spiritualibus exigatur vel promittatur

Henry of Susa's title De simonia from Book V of his Summa on the Decretals of Gregory IX, the central canon-law treatment of simony by its greatest thirteenth-century systematiser. Hostiensis frames the title under his standard schema of questions: what simony is (its definition as the deliberate will to buy or sell spiritual things, or things annexed to the spiritual), why it is forbidden, how it is committed (through the hand, the tongue, or service — a manu, a lingua, ab obsequio), the penalties incurred, the obligation of restitution, dispensation and rehabilitation of simoniacs, the species of simoniacal pact and price, and adjacent crimes including extortion under colour of office (concussio). Throughout, Hostiensis weaves together Roman and canon-law authorities — the Decretum and Decretales, the Codex and Digestum, the glossators and his own predecessors — into the most influential canonist account of simony of the later Middle Ages.

Henry of Susa Henry of Susa·1253·Latin·Liber V, Titulus III·fol. 533rb–539vb