The Development of Canon Law

During the fifth century, the weakness of imperial authority in the West led to the strengthening of the Church and its acquisition of greater political power.

The chief sources of Church law were the decretals of the Popes (the acts through which the Popes, as heads of the Church, exercised their legislative, administrative and judicial powers), the canons of the Church councils, and various patristic writings concerned with matters of administrative policy and Church doctrine.^[718] From the fourth century, several compilations of Church law appeared in the West and the most important were the Collectio Dionysiana (composed in Rome by the monk Dionysius Exiguus on the basis of Apostolic and conciliar canons) and the Hispana that were compiled in the early sixth and early seventh centuries respectively. Early in the ninth century an extended version of the Collectio Dionysiana, known as Dionysio-Hadriana (attributed to Pope Hadrian I), was declared by Charlemagne as the chief code of Church law that applied throughout his empire. In the ninth century, there also appeared a collection of both fictitious and genuine canons that became known as the False Decretals (this included the so-called ‘Donation of Constantine’, a forged document that alleged Emperor Constantine had transferred considerable secular power to the Pope). The aim of this work was apparently to strengthen the claim of Papacy and Church authorities to temporal power. Its legal importance lies in the fact that both the spurious and the genuine materials it contained were utilized by later canonists in their development of the canon law system. Another important collection of the same period was the Lex Romana canonice compta, which embodied the rules of Roman law adapted and applicable to the ecclesiastical legal system.^[719] Reference should also be made to the Collectio Anselmo dedicata (c.

As noted, the eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed the revival of legal studies in Western Europe. During the same period, canon law also became the object of systematic study. The task of the canonists was to amalgamate and harmonize the mass of canons contained in earlier canonical collections, and this involved eliminating contradictions and updating matters as necessary. Their ulti­mate aim was to develop, expand and systematise canon law as an independent body of law and not merely as a set of rules for ecclesiastics. The work that succeeded in transforming canon law into a complete system was the Decretum or Concordia discordantium canonum, composed by Gratian (a monk at the monas­tery of Santi Felice e Naborre in Bologna) around the middle of the twelfth century. The Decterum Gratiani, as this work became known, was both a code of and a treatise on canon law. It presented in a systematic way and without inconsistencies and contradictions the rules governing priesthood, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Church property, marriage and the sacraments and services of the Church.^[720] Gratian’s method of arranging the materials was similar to that followed by the drafters of Justinian’s Institutes.^[721] Although it was published as an unofficial private work, Gratian’s Decretum was soon recognized as an authoritative state­ment of the canon law as it stood in his era. Like the codification of Justinian, it became the object of systematic study in the universities.^[722] Students could obtain their degree either in civil law or in canon law, or they could qualify as bachelors of both civil and canon law.

The canon lawyers initially welcomed the revival of the study of civil law, since canon law, it seemed, could learn much from the civil law.

In the period following the publication of the Decretum, a number of compila­tions supplementary to Gratian’s work were issued by the Popes. These embraced the Liber Extra, also known as Liber Extravagantium, of Gregory IX, published in 1234^[724]; the Liber Sextus Decretalium, published by Boniface VIII in 1298^[725]; and the Constitutiones Clementinae of 1317.^[726] In 1501, aprivate collection of decretals that were not included in earlier compilations was published under the title Extravagantes. All the above works were republished in 1580 by Pope Gregory XIII as parts of an official collection comprising the entire body of canon law (Corpus Iuris Canonici), which became the ecclesiastical equivalent of Justinian’s Corpus Iuris Civilis⁴ Like Roman law, canon law played an important part in the development of law in Europe. Its influence is particularly noticeable in the areas of the law of marriage, the law of succession and the law of obligations. Moreover, canon law has had a considerable influence in the fields of criminal law and the law of procedure.^{[727] [728]}

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