The
Decretum Gratiani or
Concordia discordantium canonum (in some manuscripts
Concordantia discordantium canonum) is a collection of
Canon lawCanon Law, the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. The academic degrees in canon law are the J.C.B. , J.C.L...
compiled and written in the twelfth century as a legal textbook by a
juristA jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
(perhaps) named
GratianGratian, was a 12th century canon lawyer from Bologna. He is sometimes wrongly referred to as Franciscus Gratianus, or Johannes Gratianus, or Giovanni Graziano...
. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which became known as the
Corpus Juris Canonici and which retained legal force in the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
up until Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 1917, when the a revised Code of Canon Law (Codex Juris canonici) was promulgated by Pope Benedict XV.
The
Decretum Gratiani or
Concordia discordantium canonum (in some manuscripts
Concordantia discordantium canonum) is a collection of
Canon lawCanon Law, the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. The academic degrees in canon law are the J.C.B. , J.C.L...
compiled and written in the twelfth century as a legal textbook by a
juristA jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
(perhaps) named
GratianGratian, was a 12th century canon lawyer from Bologna. He is sometimes wrongly referred to as Franciscus Gratianus, or Johannes Gratianus, or Giovanni Graziano...
. It forms the first part of the collection of six legal texts, which became known as the
Corpus Juris Canonici and which retained legal force in the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
up until Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 1917, when the a revised Code of Canon Law (Codex Juris canonici) was promulgated by Pope Benedict XV. (The Code became binding throughout the Western Church the Pentecost Sunday of the following year, 19 May 1918.)
Two Recensions of Gratian's Decretum
Thanks to
Anders WinrothAnders Winroth is a history professor at Yale University.After graduation from Stockholm University, Winroth did his master's and doctoral studies at Columbia University on the Decretum of Gratian. He discovered that the original version was only about half the size of the commonly known text...
, we now know that the
Decretum existed in two published recensions. The first recension dates to some time after 1139, while the second recension dates to 1150 at the latest. There are several major differences between the two recensions:
- the first recension is a more coherent and analytical work;
- the second recension places a much greater emphasis on papal primacy and power;
- the second recension includes Roman Law extracts taken directly from the Corpus Juris Civilis, whereas the first recension does not display any great familiarity with Roman jurisprudence.
These differences have led Winroth to conclude that Roman Law was not as far developed by 1140 as scholars have previously thought. He has also argued that the second recension was due not to the original author of the first recension (whom he calls Gratian 1), but rather another jurist versed in Roman law. However, Winroth's thesis of two Gratians remains controversial.
This field of inquiry is hampered by our ignorance of the compiler's identity and the existence of manuscripts with abbreviated versions of the text or variant versions not represented by Winroth's two recensions, for instance, the manuscript St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 673 (=Sg), which some have argued contains the earliest known version (borrador) of the
Decretum, but which other scholars have argued contains an abbreviation of the first recension expanded with texts taken from the second recension.
Sources
Gratian's sources were Roman law, the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
, the writings of (or attributed to) the
Church FathersThe Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, particularly those of the first five centuries of Christian history. The term is used of writers and teachers of the Church, not necessarily saints...
,
papal bullA Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a pope. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end to authenticate it....
s, the acts of
church councilsAn ecumenical council is a conference of the bishops of the whole Christian Church convened to discuss and settle matters of Church doctrine and practice...
and
synodA synod is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application...
s. In most cases, Gratian did not obtain this material from a direct reading of the sources, but rather through intermediate collections. Thanks to the research of modern scholars - in particular, Charles Munier, Titus Lenherr, and Peter Landau - we now know that Gratian made use of a relatively small number of collections in the composition of most of the
Decretum, these being:
- Anselm (II) of Lucca’s canonical collection, originally compiled around 1083 and existing in four main recensions: A, B, Bb, and C. Peter Landau suggests that Gratian probably employed a manuscript containing an expanded form of recension A which he calls recension A’;
- the Collectio tripartita attributed to Ivo of Chartres
Saint Ivo ' of Chartres was the Bishop of Chartres from 1090 until his death and an important canon lawyer during the Investiture Crisis....
, usually thought to date to 1095;
- the Panormia of Ivo of Chartres
Saint Ivo ' of Chartres was the Bishop of Chartres from 1090 until his death and an important canon lawyer during the Investiture Crisis....
, also usually dated to 1095, although several scholars have argued for a later date and some even question Ivo's authorship;
- Gregory of St. Grisogono
Gregory of St. Grisogono was a cardinal and author on canon law. He is known for his work Polycarpus, i.e.. Canonum collectio "Polycarpus".According to R. A. FletcherUp-to-date the Polycarpus certainly was...
's Polycarpus, completed some time after 1111;
- the Collection in Three Books, composed some time between 1111 and 1139, though dated by some to around 1123;
- the Glossa ordinaria to the Bible.
Other sources are known to have been used in the composition of particular sections of the
Decretum:
- Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
's Etymologies for DD. 1-9 (the so-called Treatise on Laws);
- Alger of Liège
Alger of Liège , known also as Alger of Cluny and Algerus Magister, a learned French priest who lived in the first half of the 12th century....
's Liber de misericordia et iustitia for C. 1;
- the Sententiae magistri A. for the De penitentia and some other sections.
Effect
Gratian himself named his work
Concordia Discordantium Canonum - "Concord of Discordant Canons." The name is fitting: Gratian tried to harmonize apparently contradictory canons with each other, by discussing different interpretations and deciding on a solution. This
dialecticDialectic is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. The word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues...
al approach allowed for other law professors to work with the Decretum and to develop their own solutions and commentaries.
These commentaries were called
glossA gloss is a brief summary of a word's meaning, equivalent to the dictionary entry of that word, but only a word or two in length. It is typically used for the meaning of a word in another language, and hence a simple translation....
es. Editions printed in the 15th, 16th or 17th centuries frequently included the glosses along with the text. Collections of glosses were called "gloss apparatus" or
Lectura in Decretum (see also
glossatorThe scholars of the 11th and 12th century legal schools in Italy, France and Germany are identified as glossators in a specific sense. They studied Roman Law based on the Digestae, the Codex of Justinian, the Authenticae The scholars of the 11th and 12th century legal schools in Italy, France and...
). Systematic commentaries were called
Summae. Some of these
Summae were soon in circulation as well and obtained the same level of fame as the
Decretum itself. Early commentators included
PaucapaleaPaucapalea was a canon lawyer of the twelfth century. He produced the first commentary on the Decretum of Gratian, his teacher.-External links:***...
and Magister Rolandus.
The most important commentators were probably
Rufin of BolognaRufinus was an Italian canon lawyer. He composed a Summa on Gratian's Decretum before 1159.Stephen of Tournai quoted from his Summa several times....
(died before 1192) and
HuguccioHuguccio was an Italian canon lawyer . His major non-legal work is the Magnae Derivationes or Liber derivationum, dealing with etymologies, based on the earlier Derivationes of Osbernus of Gloucester.He studied at Bologna, probably under Gandolphus, and taught canon law in the same city, perhaps...
(died 1210). Less well-known was the commentary of
Simon of BisignanoSimon of Bisignano was a teacher of canon law in Bologna in the 1170s. He composed a Summa on the Decretum Gratiani between March 1177 and March 1179. Like Paucapalea, he, too, might have been a student of Gratian himself....
, which consisted of the
Glosses on the Decretum and the
Summa Simonis.
External links
- Full Latin text from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
- Otto Vervaart's introduction to Canon Law
- Domus Gratiani
- The Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law in Munich