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Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Medieval and Early Modern Jurists

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Report No. c038

Jacobus de Ravanis

c. 1230 X 1240 – 1296

 

Alternative Names

Jacobus de Ravenneio; Jacobus de Ravigneio; Jacques de Revigny; Jacques de Révigny

 

Biography/Description

We have retained J’s traditional Latin name despite the fact that it can lead the misimpression that he came from Ravenna. That he came from a place called ‘Revigny’ is clear, perhaps the one in Lorraine (dép. Jura), perhaps the one in Champagne now called Revigny-sur-Ornain (dép. Meuse). The date of his birth is guesswork, based on known dates in his later life. In 1289, he became bishop of Verdun (dép. Meuse), being at the time of his elevation archdeacon of Toul (dép. Meurthe-et-Moselle). He died at Ferentino (prov. Frosinone) in 1296, where he was on his way to Anagni to submit to the pope various conflicts that he was having with members of his diocese.

After an uncertain formation in the arts and/or theology, J. went to the university of Orléans to study civil law. He is first recorded around the year 1260, when, while still a student, he responded to a repetitio of the Bolognese professor Franciscus Accursius, the son of the author of the great gloss, on the topic of the calculation of damages and was said to have put Franciscus to silence. J. mentions the Orléans professor Joannes de Monciaco (d. c. 1266) as principal teacher. He is also said to have attended the lectures of Simon Parisiensis (d. 1273), Guido de Cumis, and Guichardus de Lingonis. L. taught at Orléans probably into the 1280s, leaving to pursue a career in the church that ended with his not-particularly-successful tenure of the see of Verdun.

Recent scholarship has tended to make J. the intellectual powerhouse of the ‘school of Orléans’, putting Petrus de Bella Pertica in second rank, despite the fact that the latter was better known in Italy. The latter is thought of more as a vehicle by which the Orléans method was brought to Italy, although much about that transmission still remains to be explored. What is becoming increasingly clear is a complicated chain of influence, Joannes de Monciaco, Simon Parisiensis, and Guido de Cumis are all known to have studied at Bologna, probably with Jacobus Balduini (d. 1235), a noted critic of the Bolognese mainstream that ran from Joannes Bassianus to Azo to Accursius’ great gloss. Certainly, J. shows a willingness to criticize the great gloss. His position on custom is complicated. On the one hand, he criticizes the customs; on the other, he incorporates customary ideas into his writings. He is also interested, as the Bolognese glossators tended not to be, in the administrative law that is contained in the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Administrative law was, of course, of considerable use to the church, though Soetermeer suggests that J’s ideas on the topic did not reach the canonists until Baldus’ commentaries on various books of the Liber extra.

What survives of J’s work and what he is thought to have written are complicated questions, better treated below text by text.

Source: F. Soetermeer (with additions by M. Bassano), in DHJF 867–870

Entry by: CD 4.vi.2021

 

Text(s)

 
No. 00

Note. Derived from F. Soetermeer, in DGI..

 
No. 01

Lectura Codicis. Printed in Paris in 1519 and apparently deliberately misattributed to Petrus de Bella Pertica, as Carolus Molinaeus (Charles du Moulin) noted some years after it was published. See H. Kiefner, ‘Zur gedruckten Codexlectura’.

 
No. 02

Lectura Digesti veteris. Known only in manuscript; it is as extensive as the commentary on the Codex.

 
No. 03

Repetitiones. Some 146 are now known, of which 78 are about a text in the Codex and 61 about a text in the Digestum vetus. See L. Waelkens, La théorie; K. Bezemer, Les répétitions.

 
No. 04

Lectura Institutionum. Printed in 1504 in an unsatisfactory edition under the name of Bartolus, it is thought to have been, at least partially, the work of J’s student Radulfus de Haricuria (Raoul d’Harcourt). See L. Waelkens, ‘La lectura’; K. Bezemer, ‘Legal Remedies’, 71–72. The recently edited commentary on JI.4.6 (De actionibus), however, seems to be (F. Soetermeer, in DGI: ‘sans aucune doute’) the work of J.

 
No. 05

Lectura Digesti novi. Known only in manuscript.

 
No. 06

Lectura Autenticorum. Known only in manuscript.

 
No. 07

Dictionarium iuris. Known only in one manuscript without the name of the author, it is cited by Albericus de Rosate in his Dictionarium iuris. The authorship of J., or at least of the base text, is supported by G. d’Amelio (‘Il Dictionarium), D. Maffei (‘Riflessioni’), and G. Giordanengo (‘Sur un fragment’), but not by R. Feenstra (‘Quaestiones’). It is perhaps to be connected with the recently discovered Tactatus de verborum significatione attributed in the manuscript to Petrus de Bella Pertica (D. Maffei, ‘Riflessioni’).

 
No. 08

Summa feudorum. Attributed by the modern editor to J., that attribution is denied by R. Feenstra (‘Review’), and Jacobus Balduini is suggested as an alternative by K. Bezemer (‘Jacobus’).

 

Text(s) – Manuscripts

No. 00

Note.

 
Manuscript

Except in the case of the Summa feudorum, the list is confined to those cited by F. Soetermeer, in DGI.

 
No. 02

Lectura Digesti veteris.

 
Manuscript

c038Txt02Leiden, Bibl. Rijksuniv. ABL (ex D’Ablaing) 2 (online)

 
 

Napoli, BN III.A.6

 
No. 05

Lectura Digesti novi.

 
Manuscript

c038Txt05Chartres, BM 145 (burned in 1944)

 
 

Douai, BM 648, fol. 78–128

 
 

Paris, BN lat. 14350, fol. 1–143

 
 

c038Txt05Città del Vaticano, BAV Ottob. lat. 1299 (fragments, not yet analyzed in BAV [DVL])

 
No. 06

Lectura Autenticorum.

 
Manuscript

c038Txt06Chartres, BM 310 (Burned in 1944; photographs are said to exist in the Meijers archive at Leiden.)

 
 

Madrid, BN 573

 
No. 08

Summa feudorum.

 
Manuscript

c038Txt08Parma, Bibl. Palatina 1227, fol. 10ra-11vb, 16ra-18ra (Ed. by A. Stella, in ‘Summa feudorum’ 17–55. He describes the contents of the manuscript in idem, at 3, with a reference to the more elaborate description by J. Acher, in NRHD 30 (1906) 125–178.)

 

Text(s) – Early Printed Editions

No. 00

Note.

 
Early Printed Editions

At this point, the list is confined to those cited by F. Soetermeer in DGI..

 
No. 01

Lectura Codicis.

 
Early Printed Editions

Paris, 1519.

 
No. 04

Lectura Institutionum.

 
Early Printed Editions

Pavia, 1504.

 

Text(s) – Modern Editions

No. 00

Note.

 
Modern Editions

See also Literature: Waelkens La théorie; Bezemer, Les répétitions.

 
No. 04

Lectura Institutionum.

 
Modern Editions

La Lectura sur le titre De actionibus (Inst. 4, 6) de Jacques de Revigny. Édition du texte, précédée de prolégomènes, ed. L. J. Van Soest-Zuurdeeg (Leiden 1989).

 
No. 08

Summa feudorum.

 
Modern Editions

Ed. C. Pecorella in ‘Jacobus de Ravanis, Summa Feodorum’, Studi parmensi, 6 (1956) 287–322. (Criticized in R. Feenstra, ‘Review’; the 2nd ed attempts to answer the criticisms.) Reprinted in: Jacobus de Ravanis, Summa feudorum, 2nd ed. (Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di giurisprudenza dell’Università di Parma 11; Milano 1959).

 
 

Ed. A. Stella in ‘The Summa Feudorum of MS Parm. 1227: a Work by Iacobus Aurelianus (1250ca.)?’, Reti Medievali Rivista, 20.2 (2019) 271–327 (1–57 in PDF) (online). (Argues, with exemplary modesty, for Jacobus Aurelianus (Jacques d’Orléans) as the author, on the basis of parallels in the references to him in Wien, ÖNB, Cvpl. 2094, and in Baldus’ Lectura Feudorum. The edition (17–55 in the PDF) approaches the diplomatic and inspires confidence.)

 

Literature

(A more complete bibliography with updates to 2011 can be found in the online Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, last visited 5.vi.2021. Another bibliography, less up-to-date but more comprehensive, is in DHJF. We include here what is needed to support the Biography and attempt to gather the scattered works of K. (=C. H.) Bezemer on the topic of J.)

G. Giordanengo, ‘Sur un fragment de dictionnaire juridique’, in Monoscritti, editoria e biblioteche dal Medioevo al’età contemporanea. Studi offerti a Domenico Maffei per il suo ottantesimo compleanno, M. Ascheri and G. Colli, ed. (Roma 2006) 1.347–368.

K. Bezemer, ‘Jacobus Balduini: Probably the Author of the Summa feudorum Parmensis’, TRG, 74 (2006) 325–335.

K. Bezemer, ‘A French Gentleman [Raoul d’Harcourt] in Italy or Bal masqué of the Ultramontani’, in Excerptiones iuris: Studies in Honour of André Gouron, B. Durand and L. Mayali, ed. (2000) 49–69.

D. Maffei, ‘Riflessioni su Jacques de Revigny e Pierre de Belleperche’, in Life, Law and Letters. Historical Studies in Honour of Antonio García y García, P. Linehan, ed. (SG 28–29; Roma 1998) 605–612.

K. Bezemer, ‘The Law School at Orléans as School of Public Administration’, TRG, 66 (1998) 247–277.

K. Bezemer, What Jacques Saw. Thirteenth-century France through the Eyes of Jacques de Revigny, Professor of Law at Orléans (Ius commune Sonderheft 99; Frankfurt 1997). (Highly favorable review by A. Watson in Edinburgh Law Review, 2 (1998) 242.)

K. Bezemer, ‘French Customs in the Commentaries of Jacques de Revigny’, TRG, 62 (1994) 81–112.

L. Waelkens, ‘La Lectura Institutionum de Raoul d’Harcourt’, RIDC, 3 (1992) 79–91.

K. Bezemer, ‘Legal Remedies for Non-Roman Law in Medieval Doctrine. The condictio ex consuetudine and Similar Actions’, TRG, 60 (1992) 63–80.

C. H. Bezemer, ‘Les quaestiones disputatae dans les commentaires de Jacques de Revigny’, TRG, 58 (1990) 5–38.

C. H. Bezemer, Les répétitions de Jacques de Revigny. Recherches sur la répétitions comme forme d’enseignement juridique et comme genre litéraire, suivies d’un inventaire des textes. Édition du texte, précédée de prolégomènes (Leiden 1987).

L. Waelkens, La théorie de la coutume chez Jacques de Revigny. Édition et analyse de sa répetition su la loi De quibus (D. 1. 3, 32) (Leiden 1984).

G. D’Amelio, ‘Il Dictionarium iuris di Jacques de Révigny’, TRG, 40 (1972) 43–68.

R. Feenstra, ‘Quaestiones de materia feudorum de Jacques de Revigny’, Studi senesi, 84 (1972) 379–401. Reprinted in: idem, Fata iuris romani (Leiden 1974) 298–320.

H. Kiefner, ‘Zur gedruckten Codexlectura des Jacques de Revigny’, TRG, 31 (1963) 5–38.

R. Feenstra, ‘Review of C. Pecorella, Jacobus de Ravanis. Summa feudorum’, TRG, 25 (1957) 411–416.

F. von Savigny, Geschichte 5.605–615.