COMPILATIONES (QUINQUE) ANTI-QUAE. — The name Q. c. a. is commonly used for the five most important of the numerous collections (about sixty are known) of canonical sources compiled after Gratian’DECRETO (v.) and before Gregory IX (v. CANONICI).
The first (also entitled Breviarium extravagantium) is the private work of Bernardo da Pavia (v. BALBI BERNARDO), composed almost certainly in 1191. It contains decretals of pontiffs, grouped under titles, which in turn are distributed among five books; their contents were aptly indicated by the school in the hexameter: iudex, iudicium, clerus, connubia, crimen. This division of the material, introduced by Bernardo, subsequently remained constant in the other ancient compilations and in the great canonical collections of the 13th–14th centuries, as well as in the works of the decretalists and of nearly all canonists until the 19th century.
The second (chronologically the third) was compiled by Giovanni di Galles shortly after 1210: it contains decretals of Clement III and Celestine III, in addition to a few earlier ones.
The third (chronologically the second) COLLEVACINO, PIETRO (v.) at the order of Innocent III, who promulgated it in 1210 as an authentic collection (v. COLLEZIONI CANONICHE): it contains decretals from the first twelve years of Innocent III’s pontificate (1198–1210).
The fourth, perhaps the work of Alano Anglico or Giovanni Teutonico, contains decretals from the final years of Innocent III’s pontificate (1210–16) and the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), and was written around 1217. It is not known whether or not it possessed the status of an authentic collection.
The fifth is a collection of decretals of Honorius III, compiled at the order of the same Pontiff, who promulgated it as an authentic collection on 2 May 1226.
A. Van Hove, Prolegomena, 2ª ed. Malines-Roma 1945, pp. 355–357 (and the bibliography cited there). Pio Ciprotti