Search

The Lectura Odofredi is a fund of anecdotes on the beginnings of the Bolognese law school. But his reliability is often questioned, and researches have revealed that many passages in his work on the early history of the Bolognese law school can't be accepted as a truth. An interesting passage of his Lectura on the Digest (2,14,39) conducts us to Hungary. Odofredus recounts that the barons of this country conspired against the queen, and a Hungarian archbishop gave them an ambiguous reply which he interpreted in bonam partem, when he was judged by the pope. This paper analyses the sources of Odofredus. As a result of the research, the author concludes that the direct source of Odofredus probably was the Chronica maiora of Matthew Paris, who took it from the world chronicle of Albericus Trium Fontium. The latter probably used a verbal source directly from Hungary, because many Cistercian monks of his region were called to Hungary, and they build their monastery on the tenures confiscated from the killers of the queen. Odofredus didn't use a direct Hungarian source, he never went to Hungary. The story of Alberic, who took it from a direct source, is still relatively exact, but the chronicle of Matthew Paris doesn't speak about a political anecdote, as it was, but about a real historical fact. It was Matthew Paris who distorted the story and the history, Odofredus has only copied him. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]