"Excerptiones d. Egberti Eboracensis Archiepiscopi e dictis et canonibus sanctorum patrum concinnatæ, et ad ecclesiastciæ politiæ institutionem conducentes", in Concilia, decreta, leges, constitvtiones in re ecclesiarum orbis Britannici ... ab initio christianæ ibidem religionis, ad nostram usque ætatem ... Tom. I: ... a primis Christi seculis usque ad introitum Normannorum .., ed. H. Spelman, with J. Stephens and J. Spelman (London, 1639). Spelman's edition comprises four works, the first of which is the Wigorniensis
Genre
canon and penitential law collection
Subject
church law, administration and discipline; ecclesiastical and lay penance
The Collectio canonum Wigorniensis (also known as the Excerptiones Ecgberhti or as "Wulfstan's canon law collection") is a medievalcanon law collection originating in southern England around the year 1005.
It exists in multiple recensions, the earliest of which — "Recension A" — consists of just over 100 canons drawn from a variety of sources, most predominantly the ninth-century Frankish collection of penitential and canon law known as the Collectio canonum quadripartita. The author of Recension A is currently unknown. Other recensions also exist, slightly later in date than the first. These later recensions are extensions and augmentations of Recension A, and are known collectively as "Recension B".
These later recensions all bear the unmistakable mark of having been created by Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York, possibly sometime around the year 1008, though some of them may have been compiled as late as 1023, the year of Wulfstan's death. The collection treats a range of ecclesiastical and lay subjects, such as clerical discipline, church administration, lay and clerical penance, public and private penance, as well as a variety of spiritual, doctrinal and catechistic matters. Several "canons" in the collection verge on the character of sermons or expository texts rather than church canons in the traditional sense; but nearly every element in the collection is prescriptive in nature, and concerns the proper ordering of society in a Christian polity.
P. Wormald, The making of English law: King Alfred to the twelfth century. Vol. I: legislation and its limits (Oxford, 1999; repr. 2000).
Wulfstan’s canon law collection, eds J.E. Cross and A. Hamer, Anglo-Saxon texts 1 (Cambridge, 1999).
A Wulfstan manuscript, containing institutes, laws and homilies (British Museum Cotton Nero A.I), ed. H.R. Loyn, Early English manuscripts in facsimile 17 (Copenhagen, 1971).
Related Research Articles
Wulfstan was an English Bishop of London, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York. He is thought to have begun his ecclesiastical career as a Benedictine monk. He became the Bishop of London in 996. In 1002 he was elected simultaneously to the diocese of Worcester and the archdiocese of York, holding both in plurality until 1016, when he relinquished Worcester; he remained archbishop of York until his death. It was perhaps while he was at London that he first became well known as a writer of sermons, or homilies, on the topic of Antichrist. In 1014, as archbishop, he wrote his most famous work, a homily which he titled the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, or the Sermon of the Wolf to the English.
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The Decretum Gratiani, also known as the Concordia discordantium canonum or Concordantia discordantium canonum or simply as the Decretum, is a collection of canon law compiled and written in the 12th century as a legal textbook by the jurist known as Gratian. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which together became known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. It was used as the main source of law by canonists of the Roman Catholic Church until the Decretals, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX in 1234, obtained legal force, after which it was the cornerstone of the Corpus Juris Canonici, in force until 1917.
Ecgbert was an 8th-century cleric who established the archdiocese of York in 735. In 737, Ecgbert's brother became king of Northumbria and the two siblings worked together on ecclesiastical issues. Ecgbert was a correspondent of Bede and Boniface and the author of a legal code for his clergy. Other works have been ascribed to him, although the attribution is doubted by modern scholars.
A penitential is a book or set of church rules concerning the Christian sacrament of penance, used for regular private confession with a confessor-priest, a "new manner of reconciliation with God" that was promoted by Celtic monks in Ireland in the sixth century AD, under the Egyptian monastic influence of St John Cassian. It consisted of a list of sins and the appropriate penances prescribed for them, and served as a type of manual for confessors.
The Collectio canonum Hibernensis is a systematic Latin collection of Continental canon law, scriptural and patristic excerpts, and Irish synodal and penitential decrees. Hib is thought to have been compiled by two Irish scholars working in the late 7th or 8th century, Cú Chuimne of Iona and Ruben of Dairinis.
The Corpus Juris Canonici is a collection of significant sources of the Canon law of the Catholic Church that was applicable to the Latin Church. It was replaced by the 1917 Code of Canon Law which went into effect in 1918. The 1917 Code was later replaced by the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the codification of canon law currently in effect for the Latin Church.
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The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons.
The Collectio canonum quadripartita is an early medieval canon law collection, written around the year 850 in the ecclesiastical province of Reims. It consists of four books. The Quadripartita is an episcopal manual of canon and penitential law. It was a popular source for knowledge of penitential and canon law in France, England and Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries, notably influencing Regino's enormously important Libri duo de synodalibus causis. Even well into the thirteenth century the Quadripartita was being copied by scribes and quoted by canonists who were compiling their own collections of canon law.
The Libellus responsionum is a papal letter written in 601 by Pope Gregory I to Augustine of Canterbury in response to several of Augustine's questions regarding the nascent church in Anglo-Saxon England. The Libellus was reproduced in its entirety by Bede in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, whence it was transmitted widely in the Middle Ages, and where it is still most often encountered by students and historians today. Before it was ever transmitted in Bede's Historia, however, the Libellus circulated as part of several different early medieval canon law collections, often in the company of texts of a penitential nature.
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The Paenitentiale Ecgberhti is an early medieval penitential handbook composed around 740, possibly by Archbishop Ecgberht of York.
The Paenitentiale Theodori is an early medieval penitential handbook based on the judgements of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. It exists in multiple versions, the fullest and historically most important of which is the U or Discipulus Umbrensium version, composed (probably) in Northumbria within approximately a decade or two after Theodore's death. Other early though far less popular versions are those known today as the Capitula Dacheriana, the Canones Gregorii, the Canones Basilienses, and the Canones Cottoniani, all of which were compiled before the Paenitentiale Umbrense probably in either Ireland and/or England during or shortly after Theodore's lifetime.
The Collectio canonum Quesnelliana is a vast collection of canonical and doctrinal documents prepared (probably) in Rome sometime between 494 and (probably) 610. It was first identified by Pierre Pithou and first edited by Pasquier Quesnel in 1675, whence it takes its modern name. The standard edition used today is that prepared by Girolamo and Pietro Ballerini in 1757.
The Canons of Edgar are a set of early eleventh-century ecclesiastical regulations produced in Anglo-Saxon England by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the canon law of the Catholic Church:
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