SOMME. — The term “Summa” had numerous meanings in the Middle Ages: from that of a very extensive encyclopedic compilation (the scientific output of s. Alberto Magno, Guglielmo di Auvergne, or Raimondo Lullo could be so described, even though it does not bear the name) to that of modest summaries, such as the Summa totius, Autun (v.) provides a rapid compendium of the entire history of the Church, or such as the S. of Simone di Hinton, in which the articles of the Symbol, the Decalogue, the petitions of the Pater, the Sacraments, the virtues, the gifts, the beatitudes, the vices, etc., are set forth in succession.
The purposes that their authors set themselves also varied greatly: to provide preachers with sermon topics; notaries with models of letters for every eventuality; jurists with summaries of laws; confessors or penitents with rules of conduct or solutions to cases of conscience; and, for teaching purposes, to present students with a brief synthesis in such a way as to encourage them to make use of II. It is in this latter direction that, in the 12th and 13th centuries, the theological S. would be situated, marked by the threefold concern of encyclopedic, synthetic, and didactic presentation.
I. THEOLOGICAL S
The S. of s. Thomas, the classical example of this type of production in the field of theology, makes it possible to establish its characteristics. Its purpose, as he expresses it in the prologue, is to set forth everything pertaining to Catholic doctrine; that is, it intends to treat the entire scientific complex of the « sacra doctrina », and is therefore not limited to the study of a single treatise, for example, the De Sacramentis or the De vitiis. This treatment is conceived and carried out by s. Thomas, « eo modo tradere secundum quod congruit ad eruditionem incipientium ». In essence, it is a work of coordination and scientific rethinking, not a simple compilation of Sententiae by the Fathers and ancient writers, as were the deflorationes and the Libri Sententiarum of the preceding centuries; the result is a construction in which all the resources of the intellect operating in the light of faith are employed. Finally, these S. are true syntheses, more or less imposing, constructed in the effort to deepen the data of Revelation.The internal structure of the theological S. could undergo variations, since each person had his own way of constructing a synthesis: Abelard, Hugh of St Victor, and s. Thomas did not adopt the same criterion; the method, technical presentation, divisions, and subdivisions vary from author to author, even though the mode of argument is identical in its broad lines, according to scholastic thought. The characteristic of the theological S., however, is always the same: the same effort at synthesis, complete exposition, and adaptation.
Contrary to other works of the period, and despite their undeniable concern with entering the school, the theological S. did not enter the scholastic curriculum. Many works of that time are nothing more than the written form or echo of scholastic activity. Sermons were actually preached before university students. Commentaries on the « Sentences » are the fruit of the instruction imparted day by day by the bachelor « sententiarius ». Biblical commentaries supplied material for the courses of the master of theology; commentaries on Aristotle were generally « read » in the faculty of arts or in similar courses; ordinary disputations and the Quodlibeti (v.) were actually debated before being written down.
The S. stand at the margins of this scholastic teaching, although some may have been more or less connected with II. They are by no means a scholastic exercise; unknown, therefore, to the Statutes, they are exempt from any regulation or supervision. They may, however, be the work either of a bachelor (such as that of Ulrich of Strasbourg) or of a master, composed at any point in his professional career: that of s. Thomas was begun in Italy, in Rome and Viterbo, continued in Paris, and completed in Naples. Gerard of Bologna began his S. after leaving teaching, when he became prior general of the Carmelites. Such S. are in no way affected, in the arrangement of their subject matter or in their composition, by scholastic requirements. This is particularly apparent when one compares the S. with the commentaries on the Sentences, which might also aspire to provide a complete account of Christian doctrine. The bachelor who reads the « Sentences » is required to follow a text and to provide the corresponding commentaries. If he departs from it too far and dwells excessively on particular questions, the regulations call him to order. He expounds the thought of another, even when he makes reservations and additions. He always remains within the framework established by Peter Lombard, even if he would personally prefer to make a different synthesis. The author of an S., on the other hand, is not bound by these laws: this explains the flourishing of such works during the thirteenth century.
The transition from the « Sentences » to the S. took place gradually, as the commentaries and the author’s personal thought asserted themselves over the simple collection of patristic
texts. The four books of the « Sentences » Peter Lombard (v.) were a first successful attempt which, after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), acquired a renown certainly not anticipated by its author. After Peter Lombard came Gandolfo of Bologna, and then, around 1152–60, Robert of Melun, whose two books, treating the Incarnation in the first part, constitute a genuine S. In 1160 appeared the S. Quoniam homines of Alan of Lille, with its Platonic coloring and genuinely personal positions. Peter of Poitiers, making use of Lombard’s work, published around 1168–70 his Sententiarum libri quinque, which in certain manuscripts bear the title Summa. Around the same time, in 1165, Simon of Tournai wrote his Summa or Institutiones in sucrum paginam, whose structure comprises, after an introduction De termone theologico, a first treatise De Deo et divina natura, followed by De rebus divinis quae sunt ipse Deus, id est de personis; immediately thereafter, De rebus divinis quae sunt a Deo: the angels, man (creation, the Fall, original sin, and the virtues); De Christo incarnato pro homine ipso reparando (the Incarnation, the Law, and the Decalogue); and finally De Sacramentis Christi per quae fit reparatio hominis.
Immediately afterward, around 1180–90, Master Martin composed his S. in three parts; he was inspired by those POLITEISMO (v.). Between 1190 and 1197 came the Summa de Sacramentis of Peter the Cantor; around the same period (1193–1200), the Speculum universale of Radulfus Ardens, and almost immediately afterward the S. of Prevostino of Cremona, which was added to his Summa de officiis and Summa contra haereticos. In 1201–1202 Peter of Capua dedicated his S. to the archbishop of Palermo, Walter. Between 1202 and 1206 appeared the S. of Bamberg, for a long time attributed to Stephen Langton, which adopted the tripartite division: God and his work; the Incarnation; the Sacraments. There subsequently appeared the S. of Robert of Courçon (1204–1207), that of William of Auxerre (1215–20), and those of Ardengus and Herbert of Auxerre, both of which explained and summarized the preceding work. William of Auxerre’s Summa aurea enjoyed considerable success: in its four books it treats: De mundo archetypo; De mundo creato; De reparatione peccati: the Incarnation and Redemption, followed by the treatise on the virtues and the Decalogue; and finally De Sacramentis together with the Last Things.
From this point onward, if not earlier, the S. of theology bear the imprint of something like a desire to free themselves from the scheme of the « Sentences » of Pietro Lombardo and to range over a freer field, which was immediately thereafter imposed upon bachelors and commentators. Despite the title Quaestiones super libros quatuor Sententiarum, Rolando di Cremona (v.), completed in 1232, is much more an S. than a commentary. The same, indeed to an even greater extent, may be said of the Summa de bono of the chancellor Filippo, who constructs his synthesis around the notion of the good, uncreated and created. After Guiardo di Laon and Guglielmo di Durham (of whom only rare excerpts remain), there soon appeared the Mysterium divinale of Guglielmo di Auvergne (1223–40), the Summa de creaturis composed by Alberto Magno at the beginning of his scholarly activity, before 1246, and, after 1270, at the end of that activity, the Summa theologica. The composition of the Summa universae theologiae of Alessandro di Ales extended, with its ramifications, over a very long period (before 1245–after 1257). After the work of Guido l'Elemosiniere, the anonymous S. of Basel (B. IX. 18; c. 1240–51) brings us to S. Tommaso with his great S.: Summa contra Gentiles; Summa theologiae. This work exercised an influence analogous to that previously exerted by the Sentences of Pietro Lombardo: it became the subject of study and commentary. But the creative current continued. The unfinished S. of Ulrico di Strasburgo was contemporary with that of S. Tommaso: composed between 1262 and 1272, this Summa de bono was to be divided into 8 books; only the first 6 are known. A little later, Oliv (v.), with his Quaestiones super Sententias, set forth the highly developed elements of a theological S. that likewise remained unfinished. The S. of Enrico di Gand, divided into three parts, made extensive use of his disputed questions, reworking them,
them, and was already largely composed in 1280. With Gerardo di Bologna, we enter the 14th century. His Summa theologiae was written between 1313 and 1317; it drew inspiration both from Enrico di Gand and from S. Tommaso di Aquino. The S. of Nicola di Strasburgo (before 1323), like the anonymous Summa de bono (cod. Vat. lat. 4305), drew chiefly from S. Tommaso and S. Alberto Magno. At that point the vein dried up; the great period of scholasticism came to a close; thereafter theologians devoted themselves chiefly to commentaries or to more limited works. Only a few S. (9 out of 23) have so far been published.
S. as a literary genre arose from the « glosse summanti », that is, from explanations summarizing the content of a law. When this explanation summarizes and arranges the material contained in one or more titles of the Corpus Iuris, one has a summa tituli or summa titulorum. If these extend to all the titles of one part of the Corpus Iuris, for example, of the Code, one is already faced with an S. in the proper sense. It should be noted, however, that until the second half of the twelfth century the S. of the title was still regarded as an independent unit, and thus one spoke, for example, of Summae Codicis. Only from that time onward did the designation Summae also imply that the work was conceived as a uniform literary genre, while still respecting the order and autonomy of the individual titles, which were joined through the so-called continuationes titulorum. Systematization, fundamentally partial, became general insofar as the Summae of the Code also introduced, in their respective places, material from the other parts of the Corpus Iuris.
The systematizing glosses on a title or on part of one are also called Summulae when written and transmitted as independent works treating particular points or questions of special interest and usefulness. They may be compared with modern monographs; for this reason, until quite recent times, they were also indiscriminately called tractatus, that is, genuine systematic monographs.
The first Summulae are to be attributed to Bulgarus (1166). Four are known today (De regula Catoniana = D. 34, 7; De stipulationibus = D. 45, 1, 83, 2; De dolo = D. 4, 3, 7; De iuris et facti ignorantia = C. 1, 18). He was followed by Hugo with the De petitione hereditatis (C. 3, 31). The first S. in the strict sense, namely, on the Code, is by Roger of Piacenza: an initial recension is known as the Summa Trecensis, which was composed around the middle of the twelfth century at Bologna. It is the source of an S. with practical and popular aims, called La Codi, written in Provençal and subsequently translated into French, Castilian, Catalan, and Latin. The second recension extends only to C. 4, 57 and had, in the Summa Tubingensis, an anonymous continuator. Piacentino (v.) wrote, in two stages, the second S. on the Code. The third is by Giovanni Bassiano (lost). Azone, his pupil, revised it and then wrote his own S. on the Code, so complete and perfect that it remained a schoolbook until the seventeenth century. The last three books of the Code, regarded by the schools as a collection in their own right, also have their respective S. Piacentino (v.) composed an incomplete one, which Pillio continued to C. 11, 62.
Alongside the Summae Codicis, the Summae Institutionum soon arose. In addition to one anonymous work originating in the school of Bulgarus, those of Piacentino, probably one by Giovanni Bassiano, and Azone’s great work have been transmitted; the latter stands worthily beside his Summa Codicis.
The Summae on the Digest have only a complementary function in relation to those written on the Code. For this reason, the only one preserved appears to be a miscellany, whose literary authorship was probably shared by Bulgarus, Giovanni Bassiano, Azone, and Ugolino. Giovanni Bassiano is also credited with a Summa on the Authenticum, updated by Accursius. Giovanni Bassiano was probably also the author of a Summa feudorum. Pillio certainly wrote one, revised by Jacopo Colombi. Especially important is Jacopo d’Ardizzone’s Summa feudorum. After Accursius, quite a few other Summae of feudal law appeared. The Summa legis Langobardorum is not to be attributed to the school of Bologna, but rather to that of Pavia. The famous Liber pauperum of Faccarius, written at Oxford for poor students, is rather an extract of legal texts with glosses. Some famous works of the French school, which was particularly inclined toward systematic exposition, may with greater justification be compared with the S.: the Book of Tübingen, the Book of Ashburnham, and the Exceptions legum Romanarum Petri, of which the first two works would be earlier recensions; all date from the first decades of the twelfth century. The Brachylogus and the Epitome Exactis regibus should also be added. In an improper sense, other works too are called S., for example, the Summa contradictionum, erroneously attributed to Guglielmo da Cabriano, which belongs to the genus of the Quaestiones legitimae. This still-fluid terminology, already mentioned, is also apparent in the works of canon-law scholarship.
III. S. «DICTAMINIS ET ARTIS NOTARIAE». — Closely related to the science of law are the Summae dictaminis and those artis notariae. The former are literary-grammatical in character, the latter juridical-practical. Whereas the former have as their principal aim the accuracy and beauty of style, the latter seek to provide notaries with legally correct forms for the various juridical transactions. The ars notaria became a genuine faculty in the Universities and gave rise to a series of theoretically well-founded and elaborated S. Each region had its own formulary. Rhetoricians and grammarians, for their part, adapted their formularies to this juridical-practical requirement. Alongside the S., the traditional name Formularium also remained in use.
The progenitor of these new formularies, of a scientific-systematic type, is said to be the one attributed to Irnerius himself. Among the earliest are those of Ranieri da Perugia, Bencivenni da Norcia, Salatiele, Giovanni, and especially Rolandino Passagerii da Bologna, all from the thirteenth century. Among the Summae dictaminis, special mention should be made of those of Trasamundo, from the end of the twelfth century; Tommaso da Capua, notary and chancellor of Pope Innocent III; Riccardo di Pofi; Berardo di Napoli, from the thirteenth century; and Jacques di Dinant.
The rich production of S. in decretist scholarship must be catalogued according to schools. First among them is that of Bologna, which, besides some anonymous works, has a series of S. written by well-known decretists: the Summae mixtae of Paucapalea (ed. Schulte 1890), Rufinus (ed. Singer 1902), Stephen of Tournai (partially ed. Schulte 1891), Giovanni da Faenza, and Simone da Bisignano; the largest and most complete of all Uguccione da Pisa (v.) written around 1190. The last of these Bolognese S. of the second half of the 12th century is the so-called Regimensis (by Pietro di Benevento?). Summa tantum, or purely systematic-synthetic S., is practically represented only by the S. of Rolando Bandinelli (Alessandro III, ed. Thaner 1874).
A highly productive decretist school of S. also flourished in Paris; since for the most part the authors are unknown, they are distinguished according to the Incipit or according to the place of compilation or preservation of the unique or earliest-discovered manuscript. Among the other minor and fragmentary works, the Summae tantum deserve notice: Elegantius in iure divina (Coloniensis), Imperatoriae maiestatis (Monocensis), and the Summa of Sicardo di Cremona, which, correctly, according to the most recent findings (St. Kuttner, in Melanges Joseph de Ghellinck. S. J., II, Gembloux 1951, p. 783 ff.), should be attributed to the French school rather than to the Bolognese one. The Summula decretalium quaestionum of Evrardus Vprensis is a combination of S. and Quaestiones. Summae in the manner of an apparatus include Magister Gratianus in hoc opere (Parisiensis), Tractatus Magister, Permissio quaedam, Reverentia sucrorum canonum, and Et est sciendum (Glossae Stuttgartiensis), all from the second half of the 12th century. The largest, Animal est substantia (Bambergensis), already dates from the beginning of the 13th century. The Anglo-Norman school produced, still in the 12th century, Omnis qui iuste (Lipsiensis), together with the related works De iure canonico and In nomine, all belonging to the mixed type. In addition, there are the purely systematic works De multiplici iuris divisione and Prima primi uxor. The Decreta minora of Odo da Dover summarize the Decree and the commentary at the same time.
The decretalists, that is, the commentators on the collections of the papal Decretals, no longer composed, except for a few very rare exceptions, Summae mixtae, but only systematic works which, like those of their legist colleagues, are called Summae titulorum and are intended as didactic books that systematically expound the legal and doctrinal material, following the titles of the collections. The prototype of these Summae titulorum is that of Bernardo da Pavia from the end of the 12th century. Besides some anonymous works, mention should be made of the S. of Ambrosio and Damaso Ungaro, written between 1210 and 1215. For Gregory IX’s Decretals, S. were composed by Giovanni da Petesella Compostellano, above all by Goffredo di Trani (frequently cited), Bernardo Parmense de Botone, Enrico di Merseburg, and Baldovino di Brandenburgo.
A Summa of a particular kind is the famous Summa aurea of Enrico da Susa (v. BARTOLOMITI, ENRICO). There are also, in the classical canon law of the 13th century, S. that combine, in a concise exposition, all the legal material of the Decree and the Decretals in a freely arranged systematic order. They are sometimes, more precisely, called Specula iuris. In addition to the metrical S. called Iuris Ysagoge from the beginning of the 13th century, mention should be made here of the incomplete work of the young Raimondo da Peñafort (ca. 1221), the Summa iuris, which intended to treat the whole of law in seven books; of these, only the first two survive in a single extant manuscript, probably the only ones that were completed. Toward the end of the 13th century, the Summa Summarum was composed in England; in the book’s very title it is also called Speculum and Repertorium. Another type of S. is constituted by the Summae quaestionum, which, having originated in the French and Anglo-Norman school, probably through Riccardo Anglico (de Mores), were also brought to Bologna at the end of the 12th century. They combine Summae and Quaestiones, inasmuch as, after the summarizing gloss on each title, a series of corresponding cases is discussed. Of particular note are the Summa Quaestionum of Magister Honorius, an Englishman, and that of Richardus Anglicus.
There are also monographic S., that is, works that treat a particular subject systematically and which, for this reason, would better be called treatises, like the corresponding works among the legists. They concern above all marriage and trials.
Among the Summae de matrimonio, mention should be made of those of Bernardo di Pavia, Tancredi, s. Raimondo di Peñafort (the second recension of the preceding one), Roberto Flamesburgense, and Giovanni Andrea, who follows, however, the sixth book of Boniface VIII. Much more numerous are the Summae de ordine iudiciario, also more commonly called Ordines iudiciarii, which, because of the evident connection between the two fields, treat civil and canon law and doctrine. Among the many works of this kind (some anonymous), special mention is deserved by those of Riccardo Anglico, Tancredi, Roffredo Beneventano, Guglielmo de Drogheda, Bonaguida d’Arezzo, Martino di Fano, Egidio Foscarari, and, in particular, the so-called Speculum iuris of Guglielmo Durantis. There are also S. on other subjects, such as de electione, de excommunicatione, etc.
V. «SUMMAE» CASUUM etc. — The Summae casuum, de casibus conscientiae, de confessione, confessorum, de poenitentia deserve separate treatment. In themselves they are juridical, but because they are intended for use in the internal forum of confession and do not exclude dogmatic and moral doctrine in the strict sense, they partake of both fields.
Strictly speaking, one can distinguish the Summae de poenitentia from the Summae confessorum or de casibus conscientiae. But the terminology itself does not make a clear distinction: s. Raimondo, for example, also calls his Summa de casibus a Summa de poenitentia. These works systematically gather all the legal, doctrinal, and canonical material necessary for the minister of private penance. In all of them the S. is presented in a more or less concise form—that is, a summary of the subject in question—after which practical cases are introduced and resolved, and casuistry, so desired and useful in matters of penance, is added to the systematic treatment. The order is generally logical-systematic, though sometimes alphabetical as well.
The first Summa confessorum, also called Poenitentia, is that written between 1208 and 1210 by Roberto Flamesburgense, in 5 books. After the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) came the S. of Tommaso da Chabham, of the two Dominicans Paolo Ungaro and Corrado di Hoexter, of Giovanni di Kent, and of Pietro di Poitiers. All these were surpassed by the famous Summa de casibus of s. Raimondo da Peñafort, divided into 3 books written between 1227 and 1234; in the following two years he added to it, as Book IV, de matrimonio. The Summa received glosses and abridgements (among them the Summa pauperum or Summa de Summa, by Adamo Teutonico), which demonstrate the extensive use made of it by everyone. The Franciscan Monaldus wrote the Summa Monaldina before 1217, the first alphabetical one; between 1280 and 1298 the Dominican Giovanni da Friburgo wrote the Summa Joannina, which also had an abridgement and a German translation. At the same time the Franciscan Giovanni di Saxonia (Erfurdensis) wrote his work, and around 1311 Alberto da Brescia O. P. did likewise. In the fourteenth century there emerged the Summa Astesana, divided into 8 books (title 32 of Book V contains a collection of penitential canons of considerable renown), by Astesanus O. F. M.; an anonymous Summa rudium for less learned priests; and the Summa Pisana (Magistrutia, Pisanella) of Bartolomeo a S. Concordio O. P., which in 1444 received a supplement by Niccolò da Osimo O. F. M. Around 1486 A. Carleto da Chivasso wrote the famous Summa Angelica, and in 1483 Baptista de Salis (Trovamala) O. F. M. produced the first version of the Summa Baptissima or Rosella, in alphabetical order, which he later expanded in a second version. At the beginning of the sixteenth century Giovanni Cagnazzo da Tabia composed the Summa Tabiana, and Silvestro Prierias (Mazzolino) O. P. the Summa Sylvestrina or Summa Summarum, arranged in alphabetical order. - Vedi tav. LXIII.
Alfonso M. Stickler