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‘Tempering the Wind …’: Moderation and Discretion in Late Twelfth-Century Papal Decretals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Medieval canon law has generally had a bad press. Its professionalization in the period c. 1140 to 1234 can easily be caricatured as the emergence of a rigid, centralized, and authoritarian system which paid small heed to the needs of the people it was supposed to serve. This conclusion is readily sustained by perusal of the Liber Extra, the Gregorian Decretales of 1234, which enshrined the legal developments of the period, from about 1140, which followed the establishment of Gratian’s Decretum as the principal authority for the teaching and practice of canon law. The genesis of the Liber Extra is well known. Pope Gregory IX commissioned Raymond of Peñafort to compile an authoritative collection of papal decretals and conciliar legislation to supplement Gratian’s Decretum, and it drew, principally but not exclusively, on the so-called Quinqe compilationes antique which had been compiled for teaching purposes in Bologna between c. 1189–91 and 1226.’ And when the work was completed, it was authorized by the bull Rex pacificus, which ordered that ‘everyone should use only this compilation in judgements and in the schools (ut hac tantum compilatione universi utantur in iudiciis et in scholis); and a copy was duly dispatched to the canon law school in Bologna. The image of centralized, authoritarian lawmaking could not be clearer; and that perception is reinforced by an examination of its structure, where the individual extracts are organized systematically under Titles, which define the subject matter. Such a compilation, like the Quinque compilationes themselves, was the result of an analytical method, which totally obscured the processes of consultation which had preceded many of the decisions, as well as depriving them, in many cases, of their historical context in terms of the identity of the pope, the recipient, the litigants, and the local circumstances. What emerged was a disembodied code, shorn of the nuances and hesitations which had characterized the decisions which it enshrined.
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References
1 Quinque compilationes antiquae necnon collectio canonum Lipsiensis, ed. Friedberg, E. (Leipzig, 1882; repr. 1956)Google Scholar, for Compilano prima and Compilano secunda [hereafter: 1 Camp. and 2 Comp.].
2 Decretales Gregorii IX [hereafter: Decretales] (CIC 2:3).
3 For example, De officio et potestate iudicis delegati (Decretales, 1.29); De appellationibus, recusationibus, et relationibus (Decretales, 2.28); De matrimonio contracto contra interdicium ecclesiae (Decretales, 4.16); Qui filii sint legitimi (Decretales, 4.17), etc.
4 Note that Raymond’s compilation, the Liber Extra (Decretales), contained only the excerpts printed in Roman font in Friedberg’s edition; it was the latter who inserted, in italics, the often extensive passages which Raymond had omitted: Decretales, xlv, ‘Ut vero quae inserui a Gregoriano textu discerni possent, ilia italicis quos vocant typis exprimenda curavi’.
5 Decretum Gratiani [hereafter: Gratian], C.29 q.2 c.8 (CIC 1: 1095). ‘Coniugia servorum non dirimantur, etiam si diversos dominos habeant… Et hoc in illis observandum est, ubi legalis coniunctio fuit, et per voluntatem dominorum.’
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15 Holtzmann, , ‘Krone und Kirche’, 388–90, no. 6 Google Scholar (Quoniam inparte, now dated 1163–73), at 389, §2.
16 Ibid., 391–2, no. 8 (Audiuimus quod, 10 Dec. 1169), at 392, §2.
17 Decretales, 2.9.3 (CIC 2: 271–2), here wrongly addressed ‘Triburiensi Archiepiscopo’; cf. Holtzmann, , ‘Krone und Kirche’, 388, no. 5 Google Scholar, without text (Licet tarn ueteris, 1164–81).
18 Ibid.: ‘liceat parochianis vestris diebus dominicis et aliis festis, praeterquam in maioribus anni solennitatibus, si alecia terrae se inclinaverint, eorum captioni ingoiente necessitate intendere’; cf. Holtzmann, ibid.
19 Ibid., 388–90, no. 6 (Quoniam inparte, now dated 1163–73), at 388–9, § 1.
20 Ibid., 389, §4.
21 Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et media aetatis, ed. Société des Bollandistes (Brussels, 1898–1902; repr. in 2 vols, 1949), nos 7850–6.
22 Holtzmann, ‘Krone und Kirche’, 384–6, no. 2 (Uestre discretions, now dated 1163–73), at 3 86, § 6. But Alexander pointed out (ibid., § 5), relying on the current legend, that it was [Pope] Sylvester, not Eusebius, who had baptized the emperor Consentine!
23 Decisions addressed to one recipient in one context could enter the tradition of written law and be circulated as authoritative definitions through the schools and courts of Europe. For the rapid transmission of some of Adrian IV’s decretals, see Duggan, ‘Servus servorum Dei’, 185–90, 202–7, esp. nos 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
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25 Gratian, C.31 q.1 c.4 (CIC 1: 1109). ‘Tribur’ was a mistake. The council was held at Meaux in 845. See Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. Mansi, J. D., cont. Martin, I. B. and Petit, L., 53 vols (Florence/Venice, 1759–98; Paris, 1901–27; repr. Graz, 1960–61), 14: 835 Google Scholar, c. 69.
26 Jaffé, Regesta, 13904; 1 Comp. 4.18.6, Decretala, 4.17.6 (CIC 2: 712).
27 Decretales, 3.33.1, ad fin. (CIC 2: 588), supplied by Friedberg from earlier collections, including 2 Comp. 3.20.2.
28 2 Comp. 2.9.2 = Decretales, 2.16.2 (Clem. III); 2 Comp. 4.12.3 = Decretales, 4.18.4; 2 Comp. 4.4.2 = Decretales, 4.6.6 (Celest. III); 2 Comp. 3.20.2 = Decretales, 3.33.1 (omitting the passages cited here, which were supplied by Friedberg); 2 Comp. 2.12.4 = Decretales, 2.20.27; 2 Comp. 4.9.3 = Decretales, 4.15.5; 2 Comp. 2.11.un = Decretales, 2.25.1.
29 The assumption that Innocent had been a pupil of Huguccio was challenged by Pennington, K., ‘The Legal Education of Pope Innocent III’, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 4 (1974), 70–7 Google Scholar; but compare Moore, J. C., ‘Lotario dei Conti di Segni (Pope Innocent III) in the 1180s’ Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 29 (1991), 255–8.Google Scholar
30 Die Register Innocenz III., 2: Pontifikatsjahr, 1199/1200; Texte, ed. Hageneder, O., Maleczek, W., and Strnad, A. A., Publikationen der Abteilung für historische Studien des Österreichischen Kulturinstituts in Rom, 2. Abt., 1st ser., 2 vols (Rome/Vienna, 1979), 2: 88–9, no. 48 (50)Google Scholar, Quoniam te novimus, to Hugh, bishop of Ferrara, ‘Per hanc autem responsionem quorundam malitie obviatur, qui in odium coniugum, vel quando sibi invicem displicerent, si eas possent in tali casu dimittere, simularent heresim, ut ab ipsa nubentibus coniugibus resilirent’ It was this correction which entered the legal tradition as Decretales, 4.19.7 (CIC 2: 722–3, at 723).
31 His great work was the Decretum (1008–1012; 1023): PL 140, 537–1065 (from Jean Foucher’s 1549 edition); cf. Balberghe, E. van, ‘Les éditions du Décret de Burchard de Worms’, Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale 37 (1970), 5–22 Google Scholar; Fransen, G., ‘Le Décret de Burchard de Worms: valeur du texte de l’édition; essai de classement des manuscrits’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fùr Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistishe Abteilung 63 (1977), 1–19, at 3 Google Scholar; Fuhrmann, H., Einfluss und Verbreitung der Pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica 24, 3 vols (Stuttgart, 1972–74), 2: 442–85, 576–82.Google Scholar
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33 Ibid., 58–9, 126: ‘Sicut quedam sunt que aut pro necessitate temporum aut pro consideracione etatum oportet temperali illa semper consideracione seruata ut in his que dubia fuerint aut obscura id nouerimus sequendum quod nee preceptis euangelicis contrarium nee decretis sanctorum patrum inueniatur aduersum.’ There is an unresolved debate about whether Ivo composed the Prologus for the Panormia or for the Decretum: see the summary in ibid., 9–10.
34 Ibid., 90, 140: ‘cessante necessitate, debent et ipse cessare, nec est pro lege habendum quod aut utilitas suasit aut necessitas imperauit.’ On an analogous principle, see Gouron, A., ‘Cessante causa cessat effectus: à la naissance de l’adage’, Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres (1999), 299–309 Google Scholar. Compare Innocent I (PL 63, 259–60): ‘cessante necessitate, cessat pariter quod urgebat.’
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36 Gratian, D. 14 c.2 (CIC 1:33)
37 The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162–1170, ed. and trans. Duggan, A. J., Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols (Oxford, 2000), 1: 224–5, no. 54 (Melgueil, c.22 August 1165).Google Scholar
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