Appendix
571
of the collection, since the document is first cited in the Admonitio of
the capitulary of Quiercy, in 857.
The author of these forgeries is not known. It is probable that they
[683]
emanated from the aggressive new church party which formed in the
ninth century at Rheims, France. It is agreed that Bishop Hincmar of
Rheims used these Decretals in his deposition of Rothad of Soissons,
who brought the Decretals to Rome in 864 and laid them before Pope
Nicholas I.
Among those who challenged their authenticity were Nicholas
of Cusa (1401-1464), Charles Dumoulin (1500-1566), and George
Cassender (1513- 1564). The irrefutable proof of their falsity was
conveyed by David Blondel, 1628.
An early edition is given in Migne Patrologia Latina, CXXX. For
the oldest and best manuscript, see P. Hinschius, Decretales Pseudo-
Isidorianiae at Capitula Angilramni (Leipzig, 1863). Consult The
New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (1950), vol.
9, pp. 343-345. See also H. H. Milman, Latin Christianity (Vols.),
vol. 3; Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, The Pope and the Council
(1869); and Kenneth Scott Latourette, A history of the Expansion of
Christianity (1939), vol. 3; The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, art.
“False Decretals,” and Fournier, “Etudes sure les Fausses Decretals,”
In Revue D’Historique Ecclesiastique (Louvain) vol. 7 (1906), and
vol. 8 (1907).
Page 57. The Dictate of Hildebrand (Gregory VII).—For the origi-
nal Latin version see Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, Ann. 1076, vol.
17, pp. 405, 406 of the Paris printing of 1869; and the Monumenta
Germaniae Historica Selecta, Vol. 3, p. 17. For an English translation
see Frederic A. Ogg, Source Book of Medieval History (New York:
American Book Co., 1907), ch. 6, sec. 45, pp. 262-264; and Oliver
J. Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal, Source Book for Medieval His-
tory (New York: Charles Scribner’s sons, 1905), sec. 3, item 65, pp.
136-139.
For a discussion of the background of the Dictate, see James Bryce,
The Holy Roman Empire, Rev. Ed., Ch. 10; and James W. Thompson
and Edgar N. Johnson, An Introduction to Medieval Europe, 300-1500,
pages 377-380.
Page 59. Purgatory.—Dr. Joseph Faa Di Bruno thus defines purga-
tory: “Purgatory is a state of suffering after this life, in which those