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.
The privilegium fori is a generic term for legal privileges to be tried in a particular court or type of court of law. Typically, it is an application of the principle of trial by one's peers, either by such a jury or at least by a specific court from that social segment, such as a soldier by a court martial, a cleric by an ecclesiastical court.
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.
Astesanus of Asti was an important Franciscan canon lawyer and theologian, from Asti in Piedmont. His major work is Summa de casibus conscientiae, a confessional work, in manuscript from around 1317 and comprising eight volumes and three indices. Its writing is said to have been at the prompting of Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.
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.
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. In 1990, Eastern Catholic canon law was codified in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which is currently in effect for the Eastern Catholic Churches.
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.
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.
John of Tynemouth was a medieval English clergyman and canon lawyer. He was among the first teachers of canon law at what later became Oxford University, where he was by 1188. By the late 1190s John had joined the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter. Besides his position in the household, he also held a number of ecclesiastical positions, which earned him a substantial income. After Walter's death, John continued to serve as a lawyer as well as hold clerical offices. He died in 1221 and a number of his writings survive.
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. 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.
Honorius of Kent was a medieval English Archdeacon of Richmond and canon lawyer.
Margaritae are collections of canon law and decretals.
Peter Landau was a German jurist, legal historian and expert on canon law.
The legal history of the Catholic Church is the history of 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.
