Page 12 - 43 Appendix

generally admitted to be forgeries, the

Donation of Constantine and the Pseudo-

Isidorian Decretals are of primary

importance. “The ‘Donation of Constantine’ is

the name traditionally applied, since the later

Middle Ages, to a document purporting to

have been addressed by Constantine the

Great to Pope Sylvester I, which is found first

in a Parisian manuscript (Codex lat. 2777) of

probably the beginning of the ninth century.

Since the eleventh century it has been used as

a powerful argument in favor of the papal

claims, and consequently since the twelfth it

has been the subject of a vigorous

controversy. At the same time, by rendering

it possible to regard the papacy as a middle

term between the original and the medieval

Roman Empire, and thus to form a theoretical

basis of continuity for the reception of the

Roman law in the Middle Ages, it has had no