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Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Medieval and Early Modern Jurists

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Report No. r223

Johannes (?Gerhardus) Monachus

fl. late 13th–early14th c.

 

Alternative Names

Johannes de ?Kina; Johannes de ?Zinna; Gerhardus (Gebhardus, Gerardus) de Rheinau

 

Biography/Description

A Cistercian monk, J. wrote a treatise called Iuris defensorium that in large part derives from the Libellus fugitivus of Nepos de Monte Albano. The use of the Liber sextus suggests a date of composition not much after 1298, at any rate before the appearance of the Clementines in 1317. J. should not be confused, as he frequently is, with his contemporary Jean Lemoine (in Latin also Johannes Monachus), q.v., who was not a Cistercian (or even a monk). J. is correctly identified in TUI 1584 as ‘Johannes Monachus Cistersiensis ordinis’.

Cataloguers of incunabula have convinced themselves the J. is not the author of the Iuris defesorium, but that it was written by one Gerardus (or Gebhardus) de Rheinau, whom they sometimes call a monk (Short Title Catalogue, referring to the BSB catalogue). That the author of the Defensorium was named Gebhard or Gerhard is an idea that goes back to Schulte, whose argument can be found in ADB and more elaborately in QL. The manuscripts, not all of which Schulte had seen and none of which we have seen, might tell us more. As it is, we may be dealing with a man who had one given name (Gerhard or something like that) in the secular world and another in religion (Johannes). The incunabula and early pritings, some of which we have seen, all give his name as Johannes.

 

Entry by: KP rev BP 2015

 

Text(s)

 
No. 1

Iuris defensorium.

 

Text(s) – Manuscripts

No. 1

Iuris defensorium.

 
Manuscript

Erfurt, Stadt u. Regionalbibl. 69

 
 

München, BSB Clm 5313, fol. 278–292

 
 

München, BSB Clm 8785

 
 

Praha, Univ. Knihovna III.B.21, fol. 90–117

 
 

Wien, ÖNB 4139, fol. 275–291

 

Text(s) – Early Printed Editions

No. 1

Iuris defensorium.

 
Early Printed Editions

Modus legendi abbreviaturas cum aliis tractatibus iuridicis: Defensorium iuris. Strasbourg: Adolf Rusch, not after 1 Nov. 1475. Probably the 1st ed. It appears in a number of incunabulum collections of similar nature (WorldCat).

 
 

Johannis monachi Cistersensis in utraque censura consumatissimi advocatis perutile: et procuratoribus omnino necessarium iuris defensorium feliciter. [Milano]: [Ulrich Scinzenzeller], c. 1488 X 1491 (GW M13392) (online). This seems to be the first printing in which the work heads the collection. After this WorldCat lists editions, among others, of Venezia 1502, Köln ?1507, Nürnberg 1510 (online), Nürnberg 1512, and Köln 1576, but it is not in the Tractatus ex variis iuris interpretibus (Lyon 1549) so far as has yet been determined.

 
 

Tractatus universi iuris. Venezia: F. Ziletti, 1584, 3.2.122rb-28va.

 

Literature

J. von Schulte, QL 2.314–16.