Monday, December 14, 2015

Does This Thing Still Work?

I last posted eighteen twenty months ago. As an assistant professor I have been busy, and as an assistant professor on sabbatical (as of May this year) I have been, strange to say, busier still. I am writing a book on the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries, and all the energies that would normally go into writing blog posts have gone into writing chapters instead.

That said, I hope to resume semi-regular posting from here on out. I want to continue my series on the Theory of Pseudo-Isidore. My long review of Fried's Constitutum Constantini is still missing its final part, and I want to finish that too. (The two projects are intertwined, which is why they are both outstanding.)

Over the holidays, gentle readers. Over the holidays.

In the meantime, here is a numbered list of stuff:

1) Pseudo-Isidore has made his debut on Footnoting History.

2) My new manifesto on all things Pseudo-Isidorian is now forthcoming in Speculum. It will be called "Ebo of Reims, Pseudo-Isidore and the Date of the False Decretals." 

3) The big event in the world of Pseudo-Isidore studies this past year was the publication of a new monograph by Clara Harder: Pseudoisidor und das Papsttum: Funktion und Bedeutung des apostolischen Stuhls in den pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen (Cologne, 2014). If you read German, you should read Harder's book. My very long review is here.

4) I have agreed to edit the False Decretals for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In a separate post I will outline my plan for the edition. 

5) Note these other recent publications:

Karl Ubl and Daniel Ziemann, eds. Fälschung als Mittel der Politik? Pseudoisidor im Licht der neuen Forschung (Hanover, 2015). This volume collects essays from a 2013 colloquium that Ubl and Ziemann organized at Cologne. Have some abstracts.

Steffen Patzold, Gefälschtes Recht aus dem Frühmittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Herstellung und Überlieferung der pseudoisidorischen Dekretalen (Heidelberg, 2015). Patzold argues that the C-recension of the False Decretals, ascribed by convention to the High Middle Ages because no C-recension manuscripts antedate the twelfth century, in fact originated in the era of the forgeries at Corbie. I have a great deal to say about this important study and its relevance for understanding the A/B recension. With luck that will come.