PONTIFICAL REGISTERS. — By "pontifical registers" (registri pontifici) are meant the books in which the Chancery had copies made for memory of the letters it dispatched.
The term gesta or regesta had already been used for the commentaries of the Roman age, in which the Senate and the consuls, later the emperors, the imperial authorities of the provinces, and the barbarian kings preserved copies of the acts they issued. Special officials took care of keeping these books, but one should not think of a true and proper registration, regular and complete, as conceived in the modern age; the acts were copied in a chronological order not always rigorous, and often notices of administrative interest and copies of received letters were inserted. The compilers of the great Roman juridical collections drew from these registers; from the registers of the court of Theodoric derive the Variae of Cassiodorus, which had rather a didactic purpose.
To this tradition is linked the use of pontifical registers by the popes: from them mainly drew the ancient canonical collections, e.g., the Collectio Dionysiana, the Quenselliana, the one called of Frisinga, the Collectio Aveliana, and later the Collectio canonum of Deusdedit, which explicitly indicates the source of the individual fragments. Copies of documents extracted from the registers in official form have always been considered of public value.
I. BEFORE INNOCENT III (1198)
The existence of pontifical registers in the 4th century is unanimously admitted, but there is no peremptory testimony to this effect. A recent authoritative study (Silva-Tarouca) has demonstrated the inconsistency of what until then were considered unassailable proofs of the existence of the registers, namely the mentions "littera uniformis, et alia manu e a pari," referred to in a letter of Pope Liberius (355) and in others of various popes of the 4th-5th centuries; yet it is certain that the manuscript tradition of the letters of St. Leo the Great derives from the register.Thus the most ancient testimony of the registers goes back to St. Leo I (440-61). It seems (Silva-Tarouca) that they consisted, not of rolls or books, but of a series of booklets, in which the letters were grouped according to their recipients: the emperor, bishops distinguished by region, i.e., Italy, Gaul and Spain, the East, etc. A considerable number of letters of St. Gregory the Great are then preserved, which derive from his registers. There are about 850 letters transmitted by three collections dating from the 8th-9th centuries, of different nature and scope; it is known that in the 9th century there existed in the Lateran Archive 14 rolls of papyrus that corresponded to the 14 years of the pontificate, though each began with the start of the indiction, i.e., September. It is not certain (Posner) that the entirety of the three collections represents the whole register; moreover, it is not known how the registers were then kept, what letters they contained, or whether single copies or drafts of sent letters were also preserved alongside them. Testimonies of writers and canonists assure the existence of registers for some popes of the 7th and 8th centuries. For the
PONTIFICAL REGISTERS — Incipit of book 7 of the Register of Innocent III (1198-1216) — Vatican Archive, Reg. Vat. 5, f. 497.
9th century, besides the fragments of the registers of Leo IV, John VIII, and Stephen VI contained in canonical collections, there remains a copy of 314 letters relating to the last six years of John VIII (872-82) in a codex written at Monte Cassino in the 11th century, now preserved in the Vatican Archive. They derive from the register and are ordered by indictions, as was the register of Gregory the Great; it seems that the original register was divided into three parts, of which only the last two are attested in the Vatican codex. It is debated (Steinacker) whether this 11th-century copy reproduces the original in full or contains only a selection of letters made for a particular purpose. There is no testimony for the 10th century or the first half of the 11th; after a gap of nearly two centuries, the British Collection contains a certain number of decrees extracted from the registers of Alexander II (1061-73).
The first original register that remains is that of Gregory VII (1073-85), preserved in the Vatican Archive. It contains 381 letters and is divided into books according to the years of the pontificate, no longer according to indictions; such a division will then always be observed in the following centuries. In it, like the ancient commentaries, notices are also inserted, e.g., relating to councils of the time, and the famous text known as the Dictatus Papae. For Urban II (1088-99), Paschal II (1099-1118), and Gelasius II (1118-19) there are only mentions and extracts. A fragment of the register of the antipope Anacletus II, with 38 letters mostly belonging to May 1130, is preserved in Monte Cassino in a 13th-century copy. The register of Alexander III (1159-81) was divided into 12 books grouped into four volumes (Holtzmann); many registers of the 13th century were still preserved in the Chancery of Honorius III (1216-27), but they have since been lost.
II. FROM INNOCENT III (1198) — With 1198 begin the registers preserved in the Vatican Archive; the series is not complete because many volumes have been lost and some are dispersed in various libraries. For the 13th century they are gathered into a single series (Reg. Vaticana) which, with gaps, extends to the year 1597 (vol. 2042); for the 14th century, alongside the preceding, there exists a second series (Reg. Avenionensia) formed by the registers of the popes of Avignon and of some antipopes up to the year 1415 (vol. 349); from 1389 begins a third series (Reg. Lateranensia), which extends to 1897 (vol. 2467). There are then preserved in the Vatican Archive the registers of the secretaries who dispatched bulls and briefs: the registers of the Secretaria Camerae, vols. 222 from 1470 to 1796; older registers of briefs in Arm. XXXIX (15th century); the registers of the Brevia Lateranensia, vols. 852 from 1490 to 1800; the great series of the Secretariat of Briefs, vols. 5660 divided into various groups by subject, from 1566 to 1846. A separate group is formed by the registers of the Brevia seu epistolae ad principes, vols. 292 from 1560 to 1836 (earlier volumes are found in Arm. XLIV-XLV). Besides the registers of letters, the registers of Supplications are preserved, vols. 7365 (1342-1899).
Amid such a variety of series, multiple problems arise regarding their relationships and, above all, the character of each of them and of the individual registers, the methods of registration, and the provenance of the various groups from the different offices or organs that, in the evolution of the Curia, were added to the most ancient office, the Chancery, in the issuance and registration of pontifical documents.
At least for the 13th century, only a part of the dispatched letters is found inserted in the registers: this too is a problem not yet well explained, which touches on the very meaning of pontifical registers. It has been suggested (Heckel) that documents of interest to the Curia were regularly recorded, and for the others, only upon request of the interested parties, but this is not proven. A careful study of the registers of Innocent III (Kempf) has shown that, in their formation, they present together the character of an "office book," a "collection of letters of historical interest," and a "collection of decrees." In later centuries, instead, a stricter concept prevails: each office or even certain particular officials keep copies of the dispatched documents with a presumption of regularity and completeness, though following different criteria and methods.
Other problems, rich in consequences for the historian, are whether the letters were copied into the registers from the originals or from drafts, whether before or after dispatch; sometimes the drafts themselves were preserved in packets or bound in volumes with the value of registers.
There is thus diversity among registers of the same pontificate and an evolution in the concept of registration, within a framework, however, of a tenacious persistence of traditional forms.
The RV. (Reg. Vaticana) constitute the oldest and most important series. The volumes are arranged according to the succession of the popes and, for each pontificate, in chronological groups; however, the composition of the series is uneven, because it was formed in the 17th century by bringing together groups of registers that belonged to different offices. The first three volumes are in a certain sense extraneous to the series: RV. 1 is a copy of the register of John VIII (see above), RV. 2 is the original of Gregory VII (ibid.; see reproductions under GREGORY VII and POPE), and RV. 3 is a modern copy of the preceding one. With RV. 4, the more or less regular series begins, with the letters distinguished according to the years of each pontificate. For the 13th century and a large part of the 14th, the registers are attributed as a whole to the Chancery; however, some, isolated or in groups, belonged to the Apostolic Chamber, which intervened in the dispatch and registration of letters of particular administrative or political interest. The letters of the Chancery were then distinguished by classes according to their content (litterae communes); those of the Chamber were called litterae secretae; litterae de curia are found both in the Chancery and in the Chamber. By the middle of the 14th century, secretaries began to function within the Apostolic Chamber, who soon had their own registers.
Most of the registers from the Avignon period are not originals, but contemporary official copies, executed in fine form and on parchment, of the original paper registers that now form the series of the Reg. Avenionensia; however, a certain number of volumes, paper and original, actually belong to that series. A few others from the 14th-15th centuries instead appear among the Reg. Lateranensia.
Many volumes from the 13th-14th centuries have a special character or are not authentic: i.e., RV. 6 is the R. super negotio Romani Imperii of Innocent III; RV. 29 A, 30 A, and 33-36 contain secret letters of particular known pontiffs from Urban IV to Honorius IV (1261-87); RV. 46 A
Pontifical Registers - Incipit of vol. VII of the Register of Innocent III (1198-1216) - Vatican Archive, Reg. Vat. 5, f. 495.
is a copybook; RV. 62 is a collection of letters relating to the Tartars (1198-1355); the thirteen volumes RV. 244 A-N consist of original drafts from Clement VI (1342-52) to Gregory XI (1370-78); RV. 308-309 belong to the Apostolic Chamber but do not contain pontifical letters; RV. 332 contains secret letters sent sub signo.
The registers from Martin V (1417-31) onward are more regular and mark a progress in the system of registration; they are all paper and belong either to the Apostolic Chamber (e.g., the volumes Officiorum) or to specific secretaries (e.g., those of Poggio Bracciolini) or to common secretaries, or, after 1487, to the secretariat established in college. The regular series ends with St. Pius V (1572); the last three volumes are mixed and extend to the 5th year of Clement VIII (1505). A chronological overview of the volumes is published in Sussidi per la consultazione dell'Archivio Vaticano (Studi e testi, 45), Rome 1926, pp. 49-125.
The Reg. Avenionensia are paper and original in the strictest sense; they begin with John XXII (1316-1334), and earlier registers were probably lost. The current arrangement of the volumes is irregular, and extraneous elements are often inserted; the individual books were copied in better form into parchment volumes that now form part of the Reg. Vaticana (see above), but the correspondence between the paper volumes (current state) and those in parchment is not absolute. In the first volumes, the individual letters are canceled with pen strokes, executed by hand as the copying proceeded; overall, these registers are more authoritative than copies because the text is more correct, especially in the spelling of proper names. They contain litterae communes and litterae secretae.
The Reg. Lateranensia contain the letters dispatched by the Chancery and constituted the Registrum commune; they are the continuation of the litterae communes of the Reg. Avenionensia and are closely related, in the subject matter of the letters, to the registers of Supplications. The series is homogeneous and uniform; the registers are all paper and of the same format, with the letters grouped by subject. Many volumes were lost during the sack of Rome and even more during the transfer to Paris ordered by Napoleon; it is estimated that the current holdings represent slightly more than half and, for some pontificates, barely a third of the original. For particular information on the more recent series, see K. A. Fink (cf. BIBL.).