[132] It is preferably cited by Hincmar of Rheims in his decree concerning the divorce of Lothar and Teutberge; and since Regino of Prüm it belongs to the standing armor of the canonists, until it receives its immortalization in the decree of Gratian (c. 33, qu. 2, c. 1): Geffcken, op. cit., 52, note.
[133] Geffcken, op. cit., 52. Cf. on this decree and its use by the canonists Esmein, op. cit., II, 89, notes.
[134] "Wenn trotzdem die Zeit der Karolinger als diejenige Epoche zu bezeichnen ist, in welcher die Kirche den ihren endgültigen Sieg im Kampfe um das Ehescheidungsrecht besiegelnden Fortschritt machte, so wird dieser Fortschritt weniger auf dem Gebiete des materiellen Rechtes als auf demjenigen des Ehescheidungsverfahrens gesucht werden müssen."—Geffcken, op. cit., 68.
Geffcken criticises Sdralek, Hincmars Gutachten über die Ehescheidung des Königs Lothar II., 108 ff., who holds that the Frankish civil court has full authority to decree divorces. According to Sohm, "Die geistliche Gerichtbarkeit im fränk. Reich," ZKR., IX, 218, 242 ff., the Frankish matrimonial law is "temporal law, and receives its development through temporal custom and legislation." The canons are statutes for the spiritual and not for the temporal law; and only through the public lawgiver do they have any effect upon the legal principles governing marriage. "By virtue of public law marriage is subordinate to the state and not to the church." The spiritual law is no law for the temporal court; and in matrimonial causes the spiritual court is no court according to public law. There exists, in fact, in the Frankish empire no spiritual jurisdiction in the sense of public law. With this view Geffcken, op. cit., 68 n. 3, agrees; while rejecting as inconsistent therewith Sohm's later statement in ZKR., XVII, 179, that the judgment of the temporal as well as that of the spiritual court was necessary for a divorce. Compare Boehmer, Ehegesetze im Zeitalter Karls des Grossen, 108-16, who explains the contradictory enactments of the period as the result of the two systems of jurisprudence—the temporal and the spiritual.
[135] See the remarkable capitulary of Lothar I., 825. For the correction of all sins and crimes (quibuslibet culpis atque criminibus) the count is associated with the bishop. When excommunication fails to correct the offender, "a comite vinculis constringatur": quoted by Geffcken, op. cit., 72; cf. Esmein, op. cit., I, 13, 14.
[136] Geffcken, op. cit., 74.
[137] See Geffcken's argument based on the Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis of Regino, abbot of Prüm (883-915): op. cit., 77-79. In England under King Cnut the bishop already appears to have had jurisdiction in divorce cases, although not until more than a century later was the matrimonial jurisdiction of the English ecclesiastical courts fully established: Pollock and Maitland, Hist. of Eng. Law, II, 364, 365.
[138] The following is the form of the iuramentum de reconciliatione coniugatorum taken by Geffcken (op. cit., 79) from cc. 241, 242, of Regino's book: The man shall swear: "Ab isto die in antea istam tuam coniugem, nomine illam, quam iniuste dimiseras, ita tenebis, sicut per rectum maritus suam debet habere coniugem in dilectione et debita disciplina, nec eam per ullum malum ingenium a te separabis, nec ea vivente aliam accipies. Sic te Deus adiuvet." The oath of the woman runs: "A modo in antea istum tuum maritum, quem iniuste dimiseras, ita tenebis et amplexaberis, et ei in servitio, in amore et in timore ita eris subiecta et obediens, sicut per rectum uxor suo debet subiecta esse marito, nec unquam ab eo te separabis, nec illo vivente alteri viro te sociabis in coniugio aut adulterio. Sic te Deus adiuvet."
[139] See Wunderlich's excellent edition of Tancredi summa de matrimonio, especially 16 ff., on the impediments, and 70 ff., on causes of separation.
[140] Thus, for example, Gratian accounts for the liberty of divorce and remarriage accorded in the letter of Gregory II. (confusing him with Gregory I.) by assuming that it was in consequence of a papal dispensation in favor of the English (Decret. Grat., dictum to c. 18, C. XXXII, qu. 7), although elsewhere he more sensibly rejects Gregory's action as unorthodox. Peter Lombard makes no mention of Gregory's letter and with Gratian rejects as false the passage of pseudo-Ambrose allowing separation and remarriage for adultery (Esmein, op. cit., II, 76); while others get out of the difficulty through the gratuitous assumption that pseudo-Ambrose refers, not to simple adultery, but to a case of incest committed by a woman with a relative of her husband, affinitas superveniens. Gratian will not accept this explanation, on the ground that, according to the theory of affinitas superveniens, husband and wife are treated alike. Yet, with delicious inconsequence, he proceeds to explain why pseudo-Ambrose had given the man alone the right to remarry in case of the wife's adultery, without granting the woman the reciprocal privilege. In the text of Ambrose, he says, the words vir and mulier are not employed in their proper sense, but figuratively. Each is used for man irrespective of sex. Vir is from virtus, and means man as a strong being resisting temptation; mulier is from mollities (softness), and it is used to denote the weak-minded man guilty of sin (Dec. Grat., dictum to c. 18, C. XXXII, qu. 7. Cf. Esmein, op. cit., II, 76; Freisen, op. cit., 582, 805). Ivo of Chartres, bent on sustaining the rigid theory of indissolubility, cites cc. 5 and 9 of the decree of Verberie in its favor, deliberately suppressing the clauses allowing the man to remarry (see his Decretum, X, 169; VIII, 189; also his Panormia, VI, 91: Geffcken, op. cit., 82); and Gratian, by adopting Ivo's text for c. 9 instead of the original, gets around a similar difficulty (Freisen, op. cit., 803). Celestin III. and Urban III. allowed the faithful spouse divorce and remarriage when the other becomes an infidel or a heretic; but the later canonists evaded this authority by claiming that these popes spoke merely as "simple doctors" (Esmein, op. cit., II, 80).