RÉGINONE di PRÜM. — Born at Altripp (Rhenish Prussia), he entered the Benedictine monastery of Prüm (diocese of Trier), where he was appointed abbot (892); but, driven out by Counts Gerhard and Matfred, he emigrated to
[The following passage is highly corrupt and scarcely intelligible.]
… if a monk is made [unclear]; if someone is carried away by a flood from some river, or if you have introduced someone into your house; if you lead dogs through the houses; if a tavern is blackened; if there is a Christian or a litigant; if at any time a dwelling in some place makes an accusation; if you have dogs for hunting, so that you may have what is received, and so that human health may be preserved; hence the master is either appointed or deposed.
Chapter 1, concerning new matters.
If anyone [acts] as a homicide, a sorcerer, a destroyer, a robber. If [he sins] with five [women], if [he is a] lecher. If an adulterer, or through herbs or by some other means, he destroys the life of another human being. If someone casts an infant into a river. If [there are] deformities and those who do not return to the judgment. If they obscure the Lord’s day and the festivals of the saints through indifferent conduct. If they dishonour father and mother. If they persist in spiritual penitence. If someone receives a pact through [unclear means]. If a lord or lady, in a fit of rage, so scourges a servant girl that she ends her life.
Here begins the [work], which was [compiled] by the healthy [man] Ler Sipa, and written down thereafter.
R. Fathers, presbyters and priests of the Lord, fellow workers in the priestly order. We indeed, who hold the judgment of this place, while you are [its] leaders and teachers. We exercise the office of the Twelve Apostles, while you serve as the model of the light of the disciples. We are your shepherds, while you are entrusted to us as shepherds of souls. We shall render an account of you to the supreme Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ; you shall render an account of the peoples entrusted to you, and there is danger for all of you before the Christian judgment. We admonish and warn you, as we have found it necessary. We beseech your brotherhood, so that, recognizing the stability of your office, you may attentively hear our admonition, remember what we have suggested to you, and strive to put it into practice. First of all we admonish and earnestly command that
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(photograph, Enc. Catt.)
RÉGINONE DI PRÜM. — Incipit of the Homylia in synodo dicenda by R. di P. (attributed by the manuscript to St. Leo the Great) — Vatican Library, cod. Reg. lat. 325, f. 72r (15th–16th cent.).
S. Martino di Treviri (899) and ended his days at S. Massimino (915). He concerned himself with canon law, sacred music, and history.
His most celebrated work, De synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, written around 900, is a guide for bishops on pastoral visitation. The first book sets out the method of interrogating the clergy as witnesses to parish life; the second is an interrogation of the laity, in which the canonical texts, collected as evidence in presenting the subject matter, constitute a very valuable collection and provide instruction especially on the history of the Sacraments. The edition by F. G. A. Wasserschleben (Leipzig 1840) is the only one to contain the authentic text. He also wrote: Epistola de harmonica institutione (in M. Gerbert, Script. eccles. de musica sacra, II, St. Blasien 1784, p. 230); Tonarius, an antiphoner (in E. de Coussemaker, Script. de musica medii aevi, II, Paris 1863, pp. 1–73); Chronicon, from the beginning of the Christian era to 906, divided into two sections: De temporibus Dominicae incarnationis and De gestis regum Francorum (741–906); from 892 onward the author is original (the best edition is that of Fr. Kurze, Hannover 1891, in MGH, Scriptores rerum German. in usum schol., I).
BIM.: preface to the Chronicon, edited by Fr. Kurze; P. Schulz, Die Glaubwürdigkeit des Abts Regius von Prüm, Hamburg 1804 (demonstrates that the chronology is at times erroneous); P. Fournier, L'œuvre canonique de Région de Prüm, in Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes, 81 (1920), pp. 5–46; G. Lebras, Hist. des collect. canoniques en Occident depuis les fausses décrétales jusqu'au décret de Gratien, I, Paris 1931, pp. 244–68. Guglielmo Mollat