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Canon law |
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
You can find an updated versio of this page at my website www.rechtshistorie.nl.
This page aims in the first place at everybody new to this subject (also in Dutch, French and
Italian).
An updated version of my pages on medieval caon law is presented at www.rechtshistorie.nl
Canon law is another word for ecclesiastical law. The Greek word "kanon" means a
guideline or rule. Canon law has a history of nearly two millennia. On this page
the subject is the law of the Catholic Church, mainly during the Middle Ages. In
this period canon law reaches great heights and gained considerable importance.
Special pages concern text editions
for medieval canon law and medieval legal
procedure.
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
The ecclesiastical law of Antiquity was formed on one side during church councils, and on the other hand in cooperation with the secular authorities, or even completely by these authorities. The Roman emperor Constantine acknowledged the Christian belief in 312 with the famous Edict of Milan on religious tolerance. In 325 he even presided over the Council of Nicea. During the fourth century Christianity won more followers. In 380 it became the Roman state religion. In this way Roman law could apply to the Church, too. Therefore the Digest and the Justinian Code from the sixth century are also important for canon law.
Councils and synods are often held under royal patronage during the Early Middle Ages. It is doubtful whether the councils had any great influence at all. There are no contemporary collections of the earliest conciliar decrees. Many decisions were repeated in the acts of later councils. The Carolingians did some efforts towards unification of church life, including canon law. Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims did order the fabrication of falsified canonical collections, which had a great influence on later developments. The most famous falsified collection is the Pseudo-Isidoriana. Scores of collections came into circulation, varying greatly in volume, range and quality. Church law became locally widely different and difficult to understand. Roman law did not function any more as the example to imitate. There were no law schools. Canon law did not develop along straight paths and (papal) master plans. Another source for canon law are the penitentials, the "libri paenitentiales". The "ordines iudicarii" inform us about the variety of early canonical legal procedure. The early developments are centuries later still visible. Medieval canon law did not develop along straight lines, nor did the Church.
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
The classical period of canon law (circa 1100-circa 1300)
About 1050 more systematically organized legal
collections arise which outdo older collections in the number of decrees
collected. Using a small number of them, for instance the Decretum by Ivo of
Chartres, the famous "Concordantia discordantium canonum", usually called
"Decretum Gratiani", could be
created relatively quickly between 1120 and 1140. The texts of the decrees are
connected to each other with short remarks ("dicta"). In Bologna one started to
teach canon law. Under the influence of the revived Roman law it
got a new form and its authority grows. Bishops did ask the pope increasingly
for verdicts on their cases. The cases themselves stem mostly from France and England.
The pope sent other bishops or abbots as judges delegate to pronounce their
verdict. Papal decisions had the form of decretals. Their number grew
particularly fast under pope Alexander III. These decretals, too, were avidly
sought after and put together into private
collections, which in their turn caused the creation of five great
"compilationes". The greatest of medieval councils was held under pope Innocent
III, the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. In 1234 pope Gregory IX ordered the
Spanish Dominican Raymund of Peñafort to harmonise these compilations and to
edit their content, into an official collection in five books, often called the
"Liber Extra", available online
with only the text or as a searchable database. Boniface
VIII ordered three canonists to compile the next papal decretal collection, the
"Liber Sextus", published in 1298. Shortly afterwards followed the "Clementinae"
(named after Clement VII) and the "Extravagantes Johannis XXII". The
allegations of these law books are sometimes difficult to understand, because
they were heavily abbreviated.
Like
the lawyers who studied Roman law the canonists started to
work. Those who studied and commented on the Decretum Gratiani were called
decretists. Of them the best known are Stephan of Tournai, Rufinus, Laurentius
Hispanus, Geoffrey of Trani and Huguccio of Pisa. Their colleagues who focused
on the decretals got dubbed decretalists. Here the names of Bernard of Parma,
Johannes Teutonicus, Innocent IV and Henricus de Segusio (Hostiensis, because he
became cardinal of Ostia) deserve mentioning. Both decretists and decretalists
wrote "summae", great syntheses, and "lecturae", line by line commentaries. For
each collection a standard gloss (commentary in the margins) came into
existence. This was done also for the acts of Lateran IV.
The interaction between Roman and canon law renewed in particular legal procedure. A kind of "romano-canonical" process was created. Of this the best known canonical feature is the "inquisitio", originally a kind of process in which a court starts the investigation (instead of the parties involved). The inquisitio became notorious by its abuse at trials of heretics, and from the 16th century on during witch trials. In his "Speculum iuris" Guillelmus Durandus (circa 1235-1296) created an encyclopaedia of legal procedure. The papal courts played a great role in canon law, especially the Rota Romana. Canon law influenced in particular the procedures for elections. It was on matrimonial law that medieval canon law put the most lasting marks.
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
The lay lawyer Johannes Andreae (died 1348) was the most influential canonist of the fourteenth century. He wrote commentaries on many works. The romanist Baldus de Ubaldis (1327-1400), too, wrote a canon law commentary, on the first three books of the Liber Extra. One has called Nicolaus de Tudeschis (1386-1445) the last classical canonist. He was a professor at Siena, abbot of a Sicilian monastery and archbishop of Palermo (hence his nickname Panormitanus).
Canonists worked at the high courts, in the services of bishops and cathedral chapters, they teached at law faculties or made themselves a career in the Church. Some popes were canonists, notably Innocent IV. Francesco Zabarella became the archbishop of Florence and a cardinal (hence also known as Cardinalis). Guido de Baysio was the archdeacon of Bologna (Archidiaconus), and thus also head of the university. Well known theologians like Jean Gerson, Pierre d'Ailly and Nicolaus of Kues knew their way in canon law. From canonists, too, legal advice in the form of consilia has survived, for example from Oldradus de Ponte (see for instance his nrs. 35 and 92), Panormitanus and Zabarella.
Canon law did not just concern the Church. It pertained to both private and public life. Lawyers argued that canon law could apply because of a person's rank and standing ("ratione personae"), because of the matter involved ("ratione materiae") and when justice had not been done or sins had remained unremitted ("ratione peccati"). Thus canon law could be relevant for people engaged and married, students, travellers, crusaders, widows, merchants and money lenders.
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
The study of medieval canon law
Already in the sixteenth century some scholars were interested in medieval canon law. The Spanish bishop Antonio Agustìn did pioneering work in this field. A number of old collections is named after their discoverers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Luc d'Achery and the Dacheriana). Baluze, Mansi and Muratori, too, deserve to be mentioned here. In the nineteenth century German scholars like Theiner, Hinschius, Schulte and Maassen took the lead. The twentieth century brings international cooperation, and great scholars like Fournier, Le Bras, Gaudemet, Fransen, Cheney, Duggan, Holtzmann, Heyer, Weigand and Stephan Kuttner (1906-1997) with his Institute of Medieval Canon Law, founded in 1955, since 1996 in Munich.
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
First some introductions to medieval canon law:
For the study of medieval canon law one cannot miss the following books:
Important are the following parts of the Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, edited at Louvain-la-Neuve:
Some scientific journals on medieval canon law:
Stéphane Boiron and Franck Roumy have written a fine overview of recent publications on canon law (in French).
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
On Internet two sites offer a kind of database for manuscripts on canon law:
Antiquity and Early Middle Ages The classical period, 1100-1300 1300-1500 Study Literature Links
ov - October 7, 2010 / November 2014 - thanks to Jörg Müller, Munich