BENEDICTUS LEVITA. – A collection of Frankish capitularies is known by this name; it is divided into three books which are designated as V, VI, VII, because, according to the intention of the author, they were meant to be considered as a supplement to the analogous collection in four books by Ansegisus (v.). The collection is preceded by seven distichs in which the compiler states that he is called B. L., i.e., Deacon, and that he completed the work at the behest of Autcarius, bishop of Mainz. Pierre Pithou first cast doubt on the authenticity of some texts in the collection in 1588; Baluze and Savigny still considered most of them authentic, but today it is the unanimous opinion that this collection, like the Pseudo-Isidorian one, consists of apocryphal texts. A clue contained in I, cap. 303 suggests that the work originated in the province of Tours. It is to be dated between 847 and 852. The three books comprise 405, 436, and 478 chapters respectively. The author’s purpose is to demonstrate that the reforms vainly demanded of the civil authorities of his time by the bishops were already contained in the old capitularies of Pippin, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious, which had been forgotten but were rediscovered by him.
The sources on which the author draws are especially the Sacred Scriptures, the collections of Quesnel, Dionysio-Hadriana, Hispana, the Penitential of Theodore, collections of Roman law, the Lex Baiuvariorum, and the Lex Visigothorum. The work displays repetitions, contradictions, and disorder, and, with respect to the sources, additions, mutilations, and substitutions. In two manuscripts, four appendices are found. The work, under the title of Capitolaria spuria, was edited by G. H. Pertz in MGH, Leges, II, II (1837), pp. 17–158.