Folia Theologica et Canonica 3. 25/17 (2014)
IUS CANONICUM - José Miguel Viejo-Ximénez, The Summa Quoniam in Omnibus revisited
160 JOSÉ MIGUEL VIEJO-XIMÉNEZ Quoniam in omnibus puts in order the causas coniagli (chapter one): it starts with the main one (hope of offspring: lspes prolis') and it ends with the less honest ones (beauty: ‘uiri mulierisve pulchritudo' ; money: ‘amor divitiarum' ; and others). This descending scale appears with the same words in the seventh book of the Summa Sententiarum, a theological work written by Walter of Mor- tagne in about 1155.29 It is very unlikely that the author of Quoniam in omnibus would have been the author of this paragraph. These sentences about what marriage exists for, or why people take such important decisions, would be one of the most recent pieces of the SQO. Chapter two of this brief essay on marital law is consecrated to the impediments: which people can get married, or what marriages are forbidden. Quoniam in omnibus explains that the marital impediments arise from one of the following five reasons: nature, blood, affinity, honesty and laws (constitutions). Again this plan is not new. It appears in an appendix to the Epitome de exacti- bus regibus.30 Obviously Quoniam in omnibus explains the canonical rules concerning consanguinity and omits some civil prohibitions. But the similarities of the sketches puts the authorship under suspicion. The most recent pieces of the Summa could have been supplied by theologians. However, one cannot forget the glossators of the Corpus Iuris Civilis. At the end of the comment on D. 3, Quoniam in omnibus uses the same definition of privilege that appears in the Libellus de verbis legalibus, one of the opuscula written by Auber de Béziers in about 1156.31 This opusculum shares with Quoniam in omnibus a definition of exception as well. It is not possible to establish the dependence between the Libellus and Quoniam in omnibus. But these coincidences show again that it is necessary to revise the date of composition of the first Summa on Gratian’s Decretum. Summary The Summa Quoniam in omnibus is one of the first autonomous and comprehensive commentaries on Gratian. The work follows the text and structure of the Decretum of the late forties or the early fifties of the twelfth century. Its explanations on selected chapters and dicta are compositions: mosaics of unidentified pieces that sometimes have been copied with little manipulations and additions. The SQO is a derivative work: its author assembled pre-existing ma29 Cf. VlEJO-XlMÉNEZ, J. M„ La Summa (n. 3), 69-70. 30 Cf. Conrat, M. (Hrsg.), Die Epitome exactis regibus. Mit Anhängen und einer Einleitung, Berlin 1884: Tituli qui in Epitome editionibus post VIII §25 inveniuntur, 154.4-19. 31 Cf. Viejo-Ximénez, J. M., La Summa (n. 3), 66-67.
