The sources of the Isidorian Decretals, now satisfactorily determined, were: the writings of the Church Fathers, particularly Rufinus (d. 410); the works of Cassiodorus (b. 470); Jerome's Vulgate; the _Liber Pontificales_; the general theological literature down to the ninth century; various collections of laws like _Breviarium Alaricianum_, the _Lex Visigothorum_, and the Frankish capitularies; the genuine archives of the Church like papal letters and decretals, Church canons, and minutes of Church councils; the correspondence of Archbishop Boniface (d. 754); and the forgeries. Before this collection appeared there had been several others formed in the Western Church:[330:1] 1. Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian, who lived at Rome as a monk in the sixth century, made a collection of the fifty Apostolic Canons; decrees of the Eastern and African Church councils from 375 to 451; and letters of Popes from 314 to 498. This collection was used by Charles the Great as a basis in part for the Frankish laws. 2. Isidore of Seville, early in the seventh century, made a second collection, very much like the first one just described. 3. Then Isidore Mercator, about the middle of the ninth century put out a third collection which embraced those by Exiguus and Isidore of Seville and included all the forgeries. This last collection opens with a preface, then has a spurious letter from Aurelius to Damasus, and a forged answer; a selection from the fourth council of Toledo; a list of councils; and two spurious letters from Jerome to Damasus, with replies. After these documents the collection proper begins. It consists of three parts. The first includes the fifty Apostolic Canons; fifty-nine spurious decretals from Clement to Melchiades (90-314); a treatise _On the Primitive Church and the Council of Nicæa_; and the spurious "Donation of Constantine."[331:1] The second part opens with a genuine quotation from the Spanish collection of the decretals of the Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish councils down to 683. The third part also begins with a quotation from the _Hispania_ and then gives the decretals of the Popes from Sylvester (d. 335) to Gregory II. (d. 731), of which thirty-five are forged and others contain many interpolations; and, finally, the _Capitula Angilramni_.