Ivo of Chartres, Saint: Epistolae

This is the collection of letters of Ivo, bishop of Chartres from 1090 until his death in 1115, one of the leading canonists and churchmen of his time. It opens with letters of Pope Urban II concerning Ivo’s election and consecration, including the pope’s charge to the newly consecrated bishop on the burden of governing souls, followed by Ivo’s own letters to Urban II and many others. The labels show correspondents such as Archbishop Richer of Sens, Countess Adela of Blois, the theologian Roscelin, and King Philip I of France.

Ivo’s letters deal with many of the major issues of his age: the marriage of Philip I and Bertrada of Montfort, which Ivo opposed and for which he suffered, investiture and the relation between spiritual and temporal powers, simony, clerical discipline and many questions of canon law and pastoral care. They were collected during his lifetime and widely copied as models of legal reasoning and epistolary style, and they are a primary source for the history of the French Church around 1100.