In the history of canon law, the decretalists of the thirteenth century formed a school of interpretation that emphasised the decretals, those letters issued by the Popes ruling on matters of church discipline (epistolae decretales), in preference to the Decretum Gratiani (1141), which their rivals, the decretists, favoured.[1] The decretalists were early compilers of the papal decretals, and their work, such as that of Simon of Bisignano (c.1177), was used by the dominant decretist school.[2]
The decretalist practice can be divided into three periods. The first (c.1160–1200) is characterised by the collection of decretals; the second (c.1200–1234) by the organisation of the collections and the first signs of decretal exegesis; and the final (1234–1348) by extensive exegesis and analysis.[2] Important early decretalists include Bernard of Pavia, who wrote the Summa Decretalium, the Summa de Matrimonio and the Brevarium Extravagantium, and Henry of Susa, whose Summa Copiosa melded canon law with Roman law and was influential into modern times.[1]
Canon law is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the individual national churches within the Anglican Communion. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these four bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law.
Giovanni d'Andrea or Johannes Andreæ was an Italian expert in canon law, the most renowned and successful canonist of the later Middle Ages. His contemporaries referred to him as iuris canonici fons et tuba. Most important among his works were extensive commentaries on all of the official collections of papal decretals, papal judgments in the form of letters to delegated judges that were at the core of canon law.
Decretals are letters of a pope that formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law of the Catholic Church.
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.
Raymond of Penyafort was a Catalan Dominican friar in the 13th century, who compiled the Decretals of Gregory IX, a collection of canonical laws that remained a major part of Church law until the 1917 Code of Canon Law abrogated it. He is honored as a saint in the Catholic Church and is the patron saint of canon lawyers.
Huguccio was an Italian canon lawyer.
The canon law of the Catholic Church is "how the Church organizes and governs herself". It is the system of laws and ecclesiastical legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West, while the unique traditions of Eastern Catholic canon law govern the 23 Eastern Catholic particular churches sui iuris.
Gerard la Pucelle was a peripatetic Anglo-French scholar of canon law, clerk, and Bishop of Coventry.
In the history of canon law, a decretist was a student and interpreter of the Decretum Gratiani. Like Gratian, the decretists sought to provide "a harmony of discordant canons", and they worked towards this through glosses (glossae) and summaries (summae) on Gratian. They are contrasted with the decretalists, whose work primarily focused on papal decretals.
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.
Collections of ancient canons contain collected bodies of canon law that originated in various documents, such as papal and synodal decisions, and that can be designated by the generic term of canons.
The Decretals of Gregory IX, also collectively called the Liber extra, are a source of medieval Catholic canon law. In 1230, Pope Gregory IX ordered his chaplain and confessor, Raymond of Penyafort, a Dominican, to form a new canonical collection destined to replace the Decretum Gratiani, which was the chief collection of legal writings for the church for over 90 years. It has been said that the pope used these letters to emphasize his power over the Universal Church.
Bartholomew of Exeter was a medieval Bishop of Exeter. He came from Normandy and after being a clerk of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was made Archdeacon of Exeter in 1155. He became Bishop of Exeter in 1161. Known for his knowledge of canon law, he was involved in the Becket controversy after the appointment of Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. After Becket's death, although he was frequently at the royal court, he mainly attended to his diocese. A number of works by him survive, including sermons and treatises on law and theology.
Regular clergy, or just regulars, are clerics in the Catholic Church who follow a rule of life, and are therefore also members of religious institutes. Secular clergy are clerics who are not bound by a rule of life.
The term Extravagantes is applied to the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, to designate some papal decretals not contained in certain canonical collections which possess a special authority. More precisely, they are not found in Gratian's Decretum or the three official collections of the Corpus Juris Canonici.
Rufinus was an Italian canon lawyer, described as the most influential canonist at the University of Bologna in the mid 12th century. He composed a Summa on Gratian's Decretum before 1159, which soon became the most influential commentary in Bologna, surpassing all previous ones in detail and length.
Honorius of Kent was a medieval English Archdeacon of Richmond and canon lawyer.
The Catholic Church utilizes the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West, much later than Roman law but predating the evolution of modern European civil law traditions. The history of Latin canon law can be divided into four periods: the jus antiquum, the jus novum, the jus novissimum and the Code of Canon Law. In relation to the Code, history can be divided into the jus vetus and the jus novum. Eastern canon law developed separately.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the canon law of the Catholic Church:
The Quinque compilationes antiquae is a set of five collections of twelfth and thirteenth century decretals totalling between 1,971 and 2,139 chapters.
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Bernardus Papiensis, Breviarium extravagantium, 1779
