The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140-1234: From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX

Abstract

In recent years, the study of medieval canon law has increasingly become a topic of interest to the wider community of medieval historians. Often seen in the past as a forbidding subject requiring erudite (even recondite) specialisation in palaeography, codicology and philology—all of which had to be brought to bear before the legal texts could be even remotely assessed for their content—medieval historians have come to recognise both the utility and the importance of studying legal manuscripts, the transmission of canon and Roman law sources as well as the development of jurisprudence for a better understanding of the dynamics of medieval religion and culture. This has been a welcome development and one that, in part, lay behind the genesis of the History of Medieval Canon Law series of which this volume forms part. It covers what is known as the ‘Classical period’—that is, from Gratian's initial teaching of canon law in the early twelfth century up to the promulgation of the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX in 1234—and serves both as a vade mecum for specialists as well as a reference volume providing concise but detailed syntheses on key topics in the development of a common jurisprudence or what is called the ius commune for the broader community of medievalists.