tha removal of certain grievances of the Prankish episcopate. Being circulated as a supplement to Ansegisus it gained a considerable reputation, but was never officially recog nized.[1] The libri poenitentiales, or manuals of penance, are of importance as the foundation of the criminal branch of the canon law. The earliest ones of any note in the Western Church originated in England and Ireland, as for instance the Liber Davidis (Irish) of the 4th century, the penitential of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, in the 7th century, and in the 8th those of the Venerable Bede and of Egbert, archbishop of York. The Irish church - discipline was introduced among the Franks, by whom the Pcenitcntiale Cohimbani and the Canones and Judicia Cummeani (two Irish missionaries) were extensively used.[2] (Consult Jacobson in Herzog s Real - Encyclopddie, art. " Bussbiicher.") The development of church-law was further influenced by the Ordines Komani, or books of ritual, the Ordines Judiciorum, or rules of procedure in the ecclesiastical courts, and the collections of formula or precedents used in the preparation of formal or official
documents, notably the Liber Diurnus, a pontifical collection of the 8th century.
The Pseudo-Isidore continued to be the chief repertory of canon law till the time of Gratian ; but many other collections more or less corrupt, differing from the^ earlier ones in their arrangement according to systematic instead of chronological order, were made during these three centuries. It will be sufficient to name the following, as they seem to have been used by Gratian in compiling his great work : 1. A collection of the 9th century, dedicated to Archbishop Anselm (II.) of Milan (Collect Anselmo Dedicata), based mostly on the Hispana, and interesting as the first work of authority containing extracts from the Pseudo-Isidore ; 2. The Libri Duo de Synodalibus Causis et Disciplinis Ecdesiasticis of the 10th century, by Regino, abbot of the monastery of Priim in the Eiffel, drawn from Frankish and German sources;[3] 3. The Colledarium or Decretum of Bishop Burchard of Worms, in twenty books, compiled in the llth century;[4] The Pannormia of Bishop Ivo of Chartres, dating from the 12th century,[5] and another work by the same author known as the Decretum ;[6] 5. The Liber de Misericordia et Justitia of Algerus of Lie"ge, composed between 1120 and 1128.[7]
II. The Corpus Juris Canonici.—The manuals of church law above referred to had not only become embarrassing by their number but laboured under defects that seriously impaired their practical utility. They con tained much that was obsolete and much that was con tradictory, many of them mixed up civil with church law, and their arrangement was unmethodical and cumbrous. These faults were to some extent remedied in the great collection that was formed between the middle of the 1 2th and the end of the 16th centuries, and became the recognized canon law code. The Corpus Juris Canonic/ , as it was called, consists of six portions, which may be classed under two heads, the Decretum and the Decretals.
1. The Decretum Gratiani. Up to this time canon law was regarded as a branch of theology, and was studied only the seminaries attached to cathedrals or monasteries. ratian, a Camaldolensian monk of Bologna, first taught iteration. is a separate science towards the middle of the 12th entury. The school of Roman law founded in that city thirty or forty years before by Irnerius was then flourishing, incl Gratian, living within the sphere of the new movement, secame ambitious of introducing a similar scientific cultiva- ion of canon law. He selected the whole subsisting law of the church from among the mass of canons, decretals, writings of the fathers, and ecclesiastical historians, fec., and digested it into the systematic work since called after aim the Decretum Gratiani, which soon superseded all preceding compilations. It was early known by the name of the Concordia Discordantium Canonum, from an expres sion in one of the author s notes (" auctoritatum dissonantia ad concordiam revocari") ; but whether Gratian himself made use of either name is uncertain. The work consists of three parts (paries). The first, treating of the sources of canon, law and of ecclesiastical persons and offices, is divided according to the method of Paucapalea, Gratian s pupil, into 101 distinctiones, which are subdivided into canones. The second part consists of 36 causce (cases proposed for solution), subdivided into qucestiones (the several questions raised by the case), under each of which are arranged the various canones (canons, decretals, &c.) bearing on the question. But causa xxxiii. qu&stio 3, headed Tractatus de Pcenitentia, is divided like the main part into seven distinctiones, containing each several canones. The third part, which is entitled De Cotisecratiowe, gives, in five distinctiones, the law bearing on church ritual and the sacraments. The following is the method of citation. A reference to the first part indicates the, initial words or number of the canon and the number of the distinctio, e.g., can. Propter ecclesiasticas, dist. xviii. or c. 15, d. xviii. The second part is cited by the canon, causa, and qua xtio, e.g., can. Si quis suadente, C. 17, qu. 4, or c. 29, C. xvii,qu. 4. The treatise De Pcenitentia, forming the 3d qucestio of the 33d causa of the second part, is referred to as if it were u separate work, e.g., c. Principium, D. ii. de prenit. or c. 45, D. ii. de poenit. In quoting a passage from the third part the canon and distinctio are given, e.g., c. Missar. solenn. D. I. de consecrat., or c. 12, D. I, de consecr.
The original notes appended by Gratian to many of the canons (Dicta Gratiani), though not entitled to the Dicta same weight as the text, are of great authority as emanat- Gratiani. ing from the " father of canon law." The passages headed " Palea " (about fifty in number) are supposed to be Paleoe. additions made by Gratian s pupil Paucapalea, and are of equal credit with the rest of the work. The notes in the modern editions with the prefix " corr. Rom." are by the Correctores fiomani, who published a revised text under the sanction of Pope Gregory XIII.
down to the year 1139. During the following century, owing to the struggles of the popes and emperors, and the general extension of ecclesiastical jurisdictions, the pontifical constitutions increased greatly in frequency. Innocent III. alone (pater juris) is said to have published 4000 laws. These constitutions went by the name of decretales extrava gantes (i.e., extra decretum Gratiani vagantes). Of the fifteen known collections of them, five especially, which in contrast to that of Gregory IX. are called the Compilationes Antiques. Compila attained a high reputation in the schools and the courts. ^" es The Compilatio Prima, or oldest of them, is the Breviarium Extravagantium of Bishop Bernard of Pavia,[8] which is noteworthy as the model of arrangement for all subsequent
collections. It is divided into five books treating of (1)
- ↑ It is printed in vol. i. pp. 801-1232, of Baluze s Capitularia Regum Francorum, Paris, 1677.
- ↑ These are all printed by Wasserschleben in Die Bvssordnungen dcr Abendlandischen Kirche mil einer Rechtsgeschichtlichen, Einleitung, Halle, 1851.
- ↑ Edition by Wasserschleben, Leipsic, 1840.
- ↑ D. Burchardi Wormaciensis Decretorum, libri xx., Cologne, 1543, and other editions.
- ↑ Edition by Melch. a Vosmediano, Louvain, 1557.
- ↑ Edited by Molinoeus, Louvain, 1661.
- ↑ Printed by Martene in Novus Thesaurus Anecdotorum, vol. v. On these collections see Petr. et Hieron. Ballerinii, De Antiquis Collec- ticmibus et Collectoribus Canonum ad Gratianum usque Tractatus, p, iv. c. 10-18, Venice, 1757 ; and Wasserschleben, Beitrage zur Ge- schichte der Vorgratianischen Kirchenrechtsquellen, Leipsic, 1839.
- ↑ Printed in Labbe, Antiques Collectiones Decretalium, Paris, 160ft.
