A small, eleventh-century manuscript housed in the municipal library of Vesoul (Franche-Comté) contains a ninth-century combination of practical, religious texts, including a work introduced as Institutio canonum, now known as the Collectio 91 capitulorum (‘Collection in 91 chapters’). This ‘unstructured collection of canonical materials’,1 divided into 91 numbered statements without rubrics, is a witness to the reforming spirit of the Carolingian age, according to Paul Fournier. The first to describe the collection in some detail, Fournier dated the collection sometime to the first two decades of the ninth century and located its composition somewhere in Gaul. Despite his assertion that the collection was of primary importance and deserved the attention of historians,2 the Collectio 91 has not enjoyed much scholarly interest in the century since his article.
The capitula of the Collectio 91 capitulorum (Coll.91.#) are numbered in the only extant witness (Vesoul, BM 73 (79)). The first 34 ‘chapters’ are edited as the Capitula Vesulensia (Cap.Ves.#) by Rudolf Pokorny.3 The list shows the contents and arrangement of material in Coll.91 using the system of keys championed by the Carolingian Canon Law project (as well as Michael Elliott’s many online contributions). Note that the wording of the individual capitula may differ from the ‘conceptual’ canons to which the keys refer. When the capitula of the Coll.91 present a strongly altered or summarised version, a ‘†’ follows the key. Partial representations of the documents (excerpts), are signalled by a ‘*’.
The contents of the Collectio 91 capitulorum
| Collectio 91 capitulorum | Document(s) |
| Coll.91.1 | =Cap.Ves.1 |
| Coll.91.2 | =Cap.Ves.2 |
| Coll.91.3 | =Cap.Ves.3 |
| Coll.91.4 | =Cap.Ves.4 |
| Coll.91.5 | =Cap.Ves.5 |
| Coll.91.6 | =Cap.Ves.6 |
| Coll.91.7 | =Cap.Ves.7 |
| Coll.91.8 | =Cap.Ves.8 |
| Coll.91.9 | =Cap.Ves.9 |
| Coll.91.10 | =Cap.Ves.10 |
| Coll.91.11 | =Cap.Ves.11 |
| Coll.91.12 | =Cap.Ves.12 |
| Coll.91.13 | =Cap.Ves.13 |
| Coll.91.14 | =Cap.Ves.14 |
| Coll.91.15 | =Cap.Ves.15 |
| Coll.91.16 | =Cap.Ves.16 |
| Coll.91.17 | =Cap.Ves.17 |
| Coll.91.18 | =Cap.Ves.18 |
| Coll.91.19 | =Cap.Ves.19 (cf. Matth. 19,3-9; 19,29; Marc. 10,2-9; 10,29f.) |
| Coll.91.20 | =Cap.Ves.20 (Tob. 12,9; Ecclus. 3,33) |
| Coll.91.21 | =Cap.Ves.21 |
| Coll.91.22 | =Cap.Ves.22 (incl. Deut. 27,9; cf. Jerome, Letter xx.15) |
| Coll.91.23 | =Cap.Ves.23 |
| Coll.91.24 | =Cap.Ves.24 |
| Coll.91.25 | =Cap.Ves.25 |
| Coll.91.26 | =Cap.Ves.26 |
| Coll.91.27 | =Cap.Ves.27 |
| Coll.91.28 | =Cap.Ves.28 |
| Coll.91.29 | =Cap.Ves.29 |
| Coll.91.30 | =Cap.Ves.30 |
| Coll.91.31 | =Cap.Ves.31 |
| Coll.91.32 | =Cap.Ves.32 |
| Coll.91.33 | =Cap.Ves.33 |
| Coll.91.34 | =Cap.Ves.34 |
| Coll.91.35 | CANT.328.20 |
| Coll.91.36 | ? |
| Coll.91.37 | Duplex legationis edictum (789), c. 19 |
| Coll.91.38 | ? |
| Coll.91.39 | CAGD.506.19 |
| Coll.91.40 | PTHU.700.2.VII.1 |
| Coll.91.41 | PTHU.700.2.VII.2 |
| Coll.91.42 | CEPA.517.20 |
| Coll.91.43 | CEPA.517.38 (last words are unique: et jam nec laici.) |
| Coll.91.44 | Coll.Sang.XI.8 |
| Coll.91.45 | ? |
| Coll.91.46 | Coll.Sang.XI.9 |
| Coll.91.47 | ? |
| Coll.91.48 | DGEL.492.636.6† |
| Coll.91.49 | CAUX.561.1 |
| Coll.91.50 | CAUX.561.2 |
| Coll.91.51 | CAUX.561.3 |
| Coll.91.52 | CAUX.561.4 |
| Coll.91.53 | CAUX.561.6 |
| Coll.91.54 | CAUX.561.9 (incl. Is, 56, 7 ; etc.) |
| Coll.91.55 | CAUX.561.10 |
| Coll.91.56 | CAUX.561.11 |
| Coll.91.57 | CAUX.561.12 |
| Coll.91.58 | CAUX.561.13 |
| Coll.91.59 | CAUX.561.14 |
| Coll.91.60 | CAUX.561.15 |
| Coll.91.61 | CAUX.561.16 |
| Coll.91.62 | CAUX.561.19 |
| Coll.91.63 | CAUX.561.20 |
| Coll.91.64 | CAUX.561.21 |
| Coll.91.65 | CAUX.561.22 |
| Coll.91.66 | CAUX.561.40 |
| Coll.91.67 | CAUX.561.33 |
| Coll.91.68 | CAUX.561.35 |
| Coll.91.69 | CAUX.561.41 |
| Coll.91.70 | CAUX.561.43 |
| Coll.91.71 | CAUX.561.24 |
| Coll.91.72 | CAUX.561.25-6 |
| Coll.91.73 | CAUX.561.23 |
| Coll.91.74 | CAUX.561.17 |
| Coll.91.75 | CAUX.561.18 |
| Coll.91.76 | CAUX.561.27 |
| Coll.91.77 | CAUX.561.28 |
| Coll.91.78 | CAUX.561.29 |
| Coll.91.79 | CAUX.561.30 |
| Coll.91.80 | CAUX.561.31 |
| Coll.91.81 | CAUX.561.32 |
| Coll.91.82 | CAUX.561.36 |
| Coll.91.83 | CAUX.561.37 |
| Coll.91.84 | CAUX.561.42 |
| Coll.91.85 | CAUX.561.39 |
| Coll.91.86 | ? |
| Coll.91.87 | CMAC.581.6 (see Breviarum Hipponense, c. 28? (Mun. Conc. Afr., p. 41)) |
| Coll.91.88 | CAGD.506.44 |
| Coll.91.89 | CAGD.506.47 |
| Coll.91.90 | CTOL.675.5 (first sentence) |
| Coll.91.91 | Cap.Pipin (754×766), 1, 2, 3 |
A transcription of the text from its sole manuscript witness can be found here.