Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- The roles of books
- Book production
- Readership, libraries, texts and contexts
- 9 Library catalogues and indexes
- 10 University and monastic texts
- 11 Law
- 12 Books for the liturgy and private prayer
- 13 Compilations for preaching and Lollard literature
- 14 Spiritual writings and religious instruction
- 15 Vernacular literature and its readership
- 16 History and history books
- 17 Archive books
- 18 Scientific and medical writings
- 19 Music
- 20 Illustration and ornament
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Photo credits
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Plates 1
- Plates 2
- References
11 - Law
from Readership, libraries, texts and contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- The roles of books
- Book production
- Readership, libraries, texts and contexts
- 9 Library catalogues and indexes
- 10 University and monastic texts
- 11 Law
- 12 Books for the liturgy and private prayer
- 13 Compilations for preaching and Lollard literature
- 14 Spiritual writings and religious instruction
- 15 Vernacular literature and its readership
- 16 History and history books
- 17 Archive books
- 18 Scientific and medical writings
- 19 Music
- 20 Illustration and ornament
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Photo credits
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Plates 1
- Plates 2
- References
Summary
Two distinct bodies of law were dominant in England in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries: the law of the Church, or canon law, and the law of the land – that is, the king’s law, or, as it came to be known in the thirteenth century, the common law. The two bodies developed in theoretical complexity and in detail of coverage, with an ever-growing number of explicit laws (canons, decretals, ordinances and statutes) being matched by a mass of customary variations. Separate legal professions came to specialize in the two types of law, and for their benefit books were written in which the different laws were more or less systematically set out and expounded. For both laws some juristic underpinning was provided by the civil law – the law of the later Roman empire, as set out in the sixth century by the emperor Justinian. Both on account of its influence on the canon law and the nascent common law and because of its own importance, the civil law’s texts and commentaries must also be considered here.
Canon law
General councils in the twelfth century
The Church’s law – as also its fundamental creeds and its theology – was anciently developed in the General or Ecumenical Councils, such as those of Nicaea I (325), Chalcedon (451) and Nicaea II (787). These councils’ canons were made known in England from the seventh century onwards. The councils of the Western Church (Constantinople IV, 869–70, and then Lateran I, 1123, and others) were attended by large numbers of archbishops and bishops and other senior ecclesiastics, who brought back home the texts of the conciliar canons.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain , pp. 250 - 290Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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