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1. Contents The Corpus Iuris Canonici (Collection of canon law) is a set of six collections of law that functioned as the primary source of Roman Catholic church law from the Middle Ages until 1918, when it was superseded by the Codex Iuris Canonici. The Corpus was first named as such in the brief Cum pro munere pastorali (1580) of Gregory XIII (1572–85). Along with Roman law, the elements of the Corpus had become a part of European common law. 1.1. Decretum Gratiani The Decretum Gratiani (Decree of Gratiani), originally entitled Concordia discordantium canonum, came into bein…

According to the definition of U. Stutz (1895), a proprietary church is one in which a proprietor exercises control and spiritual leadership. Particularly in the West there have been such churches since the early Middle Ages. Stutz thought they derived from a Teutonic house-priesthood in proprietary temples. Yet they existed already in the fourth century on the great estates of the Roman nobility and as privately established district churches. Their origin lies in the economic development of lor…

The term “investiture,” in the sense of the ceremonial conferral of symbols of office or honor, comes from the law of property under the Carolingian Empire, where it referred to a purchaser’s acquisition of authority over a piece of real estate in the form of a concrete vesting order or by the transference of representative symbols (e.g., a stalk). In the secular world investiture with the property later became a constitutive part of feudal law. In church law similar symbolic acts of investiture occurred when a patron appointed a minister to a propr…

[English Version] (ius spolii) bez. eine seit der Spätantike bezeugte Gewohnheit, den Nachlaß eines Klerikers durch andere Kleriker oder Laien in Anspruch zu nehmen. Dieser Anspruch widersprach dem Prinzip, daß die Güter verstorbener Kleriker möglichst dem Kirchenvermögen zufließen sollten. Bereits das Konzil von Chalcedon 451 verbot die Aneignung des Vermögens eines Bischofs durch die Kleriker nach dessen Tod (c.22). Das S. wurde auch von Bischöfen und Archidiakonen beim Nachlaß von Äbten und Pre…

[English Version] Stutz, Ulrich (6.5.1868 Zürich – 5.7.1938 Berlin). Studium der Rechtswiss. in Zürich und Berlin u.a. bei Otto von Gierke (1841–1921) und P. Hinschius; 1895 a.o. Prof. in Basel, 1896 o.Prof. in Freiburg i.Br., 1904 in Bonn, dort Gründung eines Kirchenrechtlichen Instituts; 1917 Wechsel nach Berlin, wohin S. auch sein Institut mitnahm. Bereits 1900 gründete er die KRA, 1910 erfolgte die Gründung der ZSRG.K, deren Hg. er bis zu seinem Tode blieb; ab 1897 wirkte er auch als Hg. der ZS…

[German Version] are those canonists who made the interpretation of the decretal collections (Decretals) the focal point of their scholarly work. Anonymous canonists around 1180, who divided the decretal material into systematically organized collections, can be considered the first decretalists. In Bologna, Bernhard of Pavia stands at the beginning around 1190 as the author of the Breviarium extravagantium decretalium (Compilatio I). He also wrote the first textbook of decretal law. The large glossary to the fifth Compilationes antiquae, in which decretal …

[German Version] The Decretum Gratiani ( Corpus Iuris Canonici ) – original title: Concordia discordantium canonum – the great collection of canon law (Canon law/Church law: I, 2) with explanations ( dicta), was associated with the name Gratianus by 1140. This book with more than 3,800 chapters became the authoritative textual basis for medieval canonistics. There are few assured traditions available concerning the life of the author and compiler, Gratian, besides his name and the designation Magister. Information concerning his birthplace and his membership in the Cama…

[German Version] (Jun 14, 1843, Frankfurt am Main – Feb 19, 1919, Halle an der Saale). Born as the son of Zacharias Löwenthal, a Jewish publisher from Frankfurt, Loening gained his habilitation after studying law (in Berlin and elsewhere) in Heidelberg in 1868. As professor of state, church, and administrative law, from 1872 Loening worked first in Strasbourg, then in Dorpat and Rostock, and finally from 1888 in Halle, where he was rector of the university from 1899 to 1900. From 1901, he represented the University of Halle in the Prussian first chamber. His major work in public law was the Leh…

[German Version] (May 6, 1868, Zürich – Jul 5, 1938, Berlin), studied law in Zürich and Berlin; his teachers included Otto v. Gierke (1841–1921) and P. Hinschius. In 1895 he was appointed associate professor in Basel and in 1896 full professor in Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1904 he moved to Bonn, where he founded an institute of canon law; in 1917 he and his institute moved to Berlin. In 1910 he founded the Kirchenrechtliche Abhandlungen, followed in 1910 by the Kanonistische Abteilung of the Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, which he edited until his death; in 1…

[German Version] (Dec 25,1835, Berlin – Dec 13, 1898, Berlin). Hinschius received his doctorate in 1855 after studying law in Berlin as a student of A.L. Richter. Following his Habilitation in 1859, he worked on an edition of the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals, which was published in 1863. He was subsequently awarded professorships in Halle (1863) and in Berlin (1865), followed by a chair in Kiel (1868) and finally in Berlin (1872). He participated in church synods, was a parliamentary delegate for a …

[German Version] (Sep 24, 1823, Wismar – Apr 9, 1900, Wilten) studied law in various places, including Berlin. After receiving his degree from Rostock, he converted to Catholicism and began to teach as professor of Roman law at Budapest in 1855; his academic career then took him through Innsbruck and Graz in 1871 to a chair of canon law in Vienna. He was also politically active as a conservative; from 1882 to 1897, he sat on the Austrian supreme court and in 1885 was made a lifetime member of the …

[German Version] are the medieval canonists who devoted themselves to the interpretation of the Decretum Gratiani ( Corpus Iuris Canonici ) published around 1140. The decretists began with Paucapalea, a student of Gratian. The school of the decretists in Bologna authored a number of important canonistic works in the years before 1190. After 1160, a French school of canonists arose centered in Paris. Arou…

[German Version] The legal institution of infamy, adopted into canon law from Roman law, means loss of honor and hence severe degradation within the church. First found in legal sources in 419, it took on great importance for the church through the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals (9th cent.) and later through inclusion of these texts in the Decretum Gratiani ( Corpus Iuris Canonici ). Infamy precluded bringing legal charges or testifying in court and was an impediment to ordination. Post-Gratianic canon law distinguished infamia facti, actual loss of reputation, and infamia iuris, impose…

[German Version] derives from epistolae decretales. Since Late Antiquity, this term has referred to papal letters that authoritatively rule on legal questions with binding effect. Pope Siricius issued the first transmitted decretal in 385 to Bishop Himerius of Tarragona. The major canon collections of c. 500 ce transmitted the decretals as legal sources of equal value alongside the conciliar canons. The papal decretal is the church's counterpart to the imperial …

[German Version] The development of the concept of common law began in the legal doctrine of the High Middle Ages as a complementary notion to that of statutory law, whereby the medieval jurists could also draw on Roman legal texts. The most significant contributions to the definition of common law in the scholarly jurisprudence of the Middle Ages were made by the canonists. As early as the 12th century, the doctrine establishing the plenitudo potestatis of the pope had already led the formulation of the principle that the validity of common law rested on the t…

[German Version] I. The Decretum Gratiani – II. The Liber Extra – III. The Liber Sextus – IV. The Clementines – V. The Extravagants Since the end of the 16th century, the term Corpus Iuris Canonici has referred to the comprehensive collection of Catholic church law that developed out of various mutually complementary legal collections from 1140 onward. The designation became prevalent after it was used in the 1580 brief of Pope Gregory XIII, Cum pro munere pastorali, issued on the occasion of the publication of an official edition of the Decretum Gratiani. The so-called Editio Romana …

[German Version] (before 1180, Wildeshausen bei Oldenburg – Nov 4, 1252, Strasbourg). After joining the Dominican order, with the papal legates he successfully preached crusade in Germany, starting in 1224. In 1227 or 1228 he was appointed to the Apostolic Penitentiary. From 1231 to 1233, he served as Dominican provincial of Ungaria. Appointed bishop of Djakovo in Croatia in 1233, he combated the Bogomils. In 1237 he was sent as papal legate to the court of Asen II, the tsar of the Bulgars. From 1…

[German Version] ( ius spolii) refers to the custom, attested since Late Antiquity, of allowing the estate of a cleric to be claimed by other clerics or laity. This claim contravened the principle that the property of deceased clergy should preferably accrue to the church. Canon 22 of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 already prohibited appropriation of a bishop’s property by the clergy ¶ after the bishop’s death. The right of spoils was also claimed by bishops and archdeacons in the case of the estate of abbots and presbyters, although councils of the 6th and …

[German Version] This term refers to the members of a commission instituted after the Council of Trent by Pope Pius IV in 1566, who were entrusted with the preparation of an official edition of the Corpus Iuris Canonici . It included five cardinals and a large number of doctors of canon law. Gregory XIII approved the text of the Editio Romana in 1580 as authentic. His decree concerned only the authenticity of the text and in no way conferred the character of a law code on the Corpus Iuris Canonici. The Correctores Romani were to trace back in the Decretum Gratiani ( Corpus Iuris Canonici …

[German Version] was a theologian and canonist in 12th-century Bologna. Though the precise dates of his life are not recorded, his teaching activity fell roughly between 1160 and 1180. His chief work is a compilation of theological maxims from 1160/1170 that draws upon Peter Lombard. Several glosses (Gloss) on Gratian's Decretum have also been preserved. Huguccio and Bernhard of Pavia were among his students. His canonistic glosses are often quoted by the Anglo-Norman school of canonists. Gandulf's theological position concerning the doctrine o…

[German Version] In the canonistics (Church law: IV, 1, 2.a) appended to the Decretum Gratiani ( Corpus Iuris Canonici ), explanatory glosses were already added to the text of the Decretum before 1150. The authors of the glosses can sometimes be identified by their sigla (Decretists). According to recent research (Weigand), seven gloss compositions may be dinstinguished among the early glosses of the 12th century. The concluding Glossa ordinaria on Gratian was written by Johannes Teutonicus. A Glossa ordinaria corresponds to each of the later sections of the Corpus Iuris Canonici: Be…

[German Version] This concept refers to the legal situation whereby in the early Middle Ages churches belonged as ecclesiae propriae to individual persons or to a monastery, who therefore possessed extensive rights over these buildings and their use. U. Stutz held that the root of this praxis lay in the pre-Christian Germanic custom of having domestic priests in private temple…

[German Version] (Jun 17, 1849, Kleinheubach – May 14, 1932 Berlin), professor of church, civil and criminal law in Rostock (1879–1881), Erlangen (1883–1888), Bonn (1888–1895), and Berlin (after 1895). His scholarly work initially included church law, beginning with a monograph on the important Temporaliensperre [1876, Suspension of temporalities] which was important in the Kulturkampf . His principal work on church law is the Lehrsystem des Kirchenrechts und der Kirchenpolitik [1894, System of church law and church politics], whose separately published first se…

[German Version] I. History – II. The Present – III. Orthodox Church – IV. The Study of Canon Law and Church Law – V. Practical Theology – VI. Oriental Orthodox Canon Law I. History 1. Early Church. The church has had laws ever since Christians recognized the need for a generally recognized authority to regulate the uncertainties, problems, and controversies involving church discipline brought about by the rapid expansion of Christianity. After the death of the initial authority figures (e.g. the fou…