Skip to Main Content

Legal history: western Europe & Scandinavia: MA: Canon law

Sources

Subject search SOLO using

Canon law - Sources   or individual titles

Please note: the Law Bod holds very little printed material in canon law on its open shelves. Some may be available in other Bodleian Reading Rooms - but a considerable proportion will be available for readers to request to their choice of Bodleian Reading Room from Closed Stacks. (Further help with Requesting an item from Closed Stack.)

Corpus Iuris Canonici

One strong thread in a "ius commune" (common law) of medieval western Europe. (In parallel with Roman law)

The teaching of "the universal church" underpinned the intellectual, social, economic and political worlds of medieval Europe.

Just like Roman law, Canon law  had an intellectual revival in the (12th.

In 1140  Gratian, an Italian monk teaching at University of Bologna, produced his Concordia discordantium canonum (Concord of Discordant Canons) - often simply referred to as his Decretum or Decreta. It brought together and reconciled apparently contradictory papal decrees, and extracted the general principles underlying the preceeding centuries of canon law. It was to be a key element of the Corpus iuris canonici until the reforms of 1918.

Notable collections of  Decretal & Conciliar texts (collections of subsequent papal legislation, cases etc) were ordered by Pope Gregory IX in 1234, Boniface VIII (Liber Sextus of 1298) and Constitutiones Clementinae [V] published by John XXII in 1317.


In the new universities,  both canon law and Roman law were the postgraduate disciplines and attracted the intense scholastic scrutiny of the best minds. It could also lead to a very succesful practical career.

Commentary

Finding printed resources

Canonists -- Europe -- History -- To 1500 ;
Canon law -- History -- To 1500 ;
Practice of law -- Europe -- History
Law -- Study and teaching -- Europe -- History

It may be sensible to remove the "To 1500" limitation.

Please note: the Law Bod holds very little printed material in canon law on its open shelves. Some may be available in other Bodleian Reading Rooms - but a considerable proportion will be in Closed Stacks. (Further help with Requesting an item from Closed Stack.)