Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Camorra" to "Cape Colony" / Volume 5, Slice 2

by Various

It would be impossible to enumerate here all the Gallic councils which contributed towards the canon law of that country; we will mention only the following:—Arles (314), of great importance; a number of councils in the district Councils. of Arles, completed by the Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua of St Caesarius;[7] the councils of the province of Tours; the assemblies of the episcopate of the three kingdoms of the Visigoths at Agde (506), of the Franks at Orleans (511), and of the Burgundians at Epaone (517); several councils of the kingdoms of the Franks, chiefly at Orleans; and finally, the synods of the middle of the 8th century, under the influence of St Boniface. Evidently the impulse towards unity had to come from without; it began with the alliance between the Carolingians and the Papacy, and was accentuated by the recognition of the liber canonum.

In Spain the case, on the contrary, is that of a strong centralization round the see of Toledo. Thus we find Spanish canon law embodied in a collection which, though perhaps not official, was circulated and received everywhere; In Spain. this was the Spanish collection, the Hispana.[8] The collection is well put together and includes almost all the important canonical documents. In the first part are contained the councils, arranged according to the regions in which they were held: Greek councils, following a translation of Italian origin, The Hispana. but known by the name of Hispana; African councils, Gallican councils and Spanish councils. The latter, which form the local section, are further divided into several classes: firstly, the synods held under the Roman empire, the chief being that of Elvira[9] (c. 300); next the texts belonging to the kingdom of the Suevi, after the conversion of these barbarians by St Martin of Braga: these are, the two councils of Braga (563 and 572), and a sort of free translation or adaptation of the canons of the Greek councils, made by Martin of Braga; this is the document frequently quoted in later days under the name of Capitula Martini papae; thirdly, the decisions of the councils of the Visigothic Church, after its conversion to Catholicism. Nearly all these councils were held at Toledo, beginning with the great council of 589. The series continued up to 694 and was only interrupted by the Mussulman invasion. Finally, the second part of the Hispana contains the papal decretals, as in the collection of Dionysius.

From the middle of the 9th century this collection was to become even more celebrated; for, as we know, it served as the basis for the famous collection of the False Decretals.

The Churches of Great Britain and Ireland remained still longer outside the centralizing movement. Their contribution towards the later system of canon law consisted in Great Britain and Ireland. two things: the Penitentials and the influence of the Irish collection, the other sources of local law not having been known to the predecessors of Gratian nor to Gratian himself.

The Penitentials[10] are collections intended for the guidance of confessors in estimating the penances to be imposed for various sins, according to the discipline in force in the Anglo-Saxon countries. They are all of Anglo-Saxon or Penitentials. Irish origin, and although certain of them were compiled on the continent, under the influence of the island missionaries, it seems quite certain that a Roman Penitential has never existed.[11] They are, however, of difficult and uncertain ascription, since the collections have been largely amended and remodelled as practice required. Among the most important we may mention those bearing the names of Vinnianus (d. 589), Gildas (d. 583), Theodore of Canterbury (d. 690), the Venerable Bede (d. 735) and Egbert of York (732-767); the Penitentials which are ascribed to St Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio (d. 615), and Cumean (Cumine Ailbha, abbot of Iona); in the Prankish kingdom the most interesting work is the Penitential of Halitgar, bishop of Cambrai[12] from 817 to 831. As penances had for a long time been lightened, and the books used by confessors began to consist more and more of instructions in the style of the later moral theology (and this is already the case of the books of Halitgar and Rhabanus Maurus), the canonical collections began to include a greater or smaller number of the penitential canons.

The Irish collection,[13] though it introduced no important documents into the law of the Western Church, at least set canonists the example of quoting passages from the Irish collection. Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. This collection seems to date from the 8th century; besides the usual sources, the author has included several documents of local origin, beginning with the pretended synod of St Patrick.

In the very middle of the 9th century a much enlarged edition of the Hispana began to be circulated in France. To this rich collection the author, who assumes the name of Isidore, the saintly bishop of Seville, added a good number The false decretals. of apocryphal documents already existing, as well as a series of letters ascribed to the popes of the earliest centuries, from Clement to Silvester and Damasus inclusive, thus filling up the gap before the decretal of Siricius, which is the first genuine one in the collection. The other papal letters only rarely show signs of alteration or falsification, and the text of the councils is entirely respected.[14] From the same source and at the same date came two other forged documents—firstly, a collection of Capitularies, in three books, ascribed to a certain Benedict (Benedictus Levita),[15] a deacon of the church of Mainz; this collection, in which authentic documents find very little place, stands with regard to civil legislation exactly in the position of the False Decretals with regard to canon law. The other document, of more limited scope, is a group of Capitula given under the name of Angilram, bishop of Metz. It is nowadays admitted by all that these three collections come from the same source. For a study of the historical questions connected with the famous False Decretals, see the article [Decretals (False)]; here we have only to consider them with reference to the place they occupy in the formation of ecclesiastical law. In spite of some hesitation, with regard rather to the official character than to the historical authenticity of the letters attributed to the popes of the earlier centuries, the False Decretals were accepted with confidence, together with the authentic texts which served as a passport for them. All later collections availed themselves indiscriminately of the contents of this vast collection, whether authentic or forged, without the least suspicion. The False Decretals did not greatly modify nor corrupt the Canon Law, but they contributed much to accelerate its progress towards unity. For they were the last of the chronological collections, i.e. those which give the texts in the order in which they appeared. From this time on, canonists began Systematic collections. to exercise their individual judgment in arranging their collections according to some systematic order, grouping their materials under divisions more or less happy, according to the object they had in view. This was the beginning of a codification of a common canon law, in which the sources drawn upon lose, as it were, their local character. This is made even more noticeable by the fact that, in a good number of the works extant, the author is not content merely to set forth and classify the texts; but he proceeds to discuss the point, drawing conclusions and sometimes outlining some controversy on the subject, just as Gratian was to do more fully later on.

During this period, which extended from the end of the 9th century to the middle of the 12th, we can enumerate about forty systematic collections, of varying value and circulation, which all played a greater or lesser part in preparing the juridical renaissance of the 12th century, and most of which were utilized by Gratian. We need mention only the chief of them—the Regino. Collectio Anselmo dedicata, by an unknown author of the end of the 9th century; the Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis,[16] compiled about 906 by Regino, abbot of Prüm, and dedicated to Hatto of Mainz, relatively a very original treatise; the enormous compilation Burchard. in twenty books of Burchard, bishop of Worms (1112-1122), the Decretum or Collectarium,[17] very widely spread and known under the name of Brocardum, of which the 19th book, dealing with the process of confession, is specially noteworthy. Towards the end of the 11th century, under the influence of Hildebrand, the reforming movement makes itself felt in several collections of canons, intended to support the rights of the Holy See and the Church against the pretensions of the emperor. To this group belong an anonymous collection, described by M.P. Fournier as the first manual of the Reform;[18] the collection of Anselm, bishop of Lucca,[19] in 13 Anselm Deusdedit. books (1080-1086); that of Cardinal Deusdedit,[20] in 4 books, dedicated to Pope Victor III. (1086-1087); and lastly that of Bonizo,[21] bishop of Sutri, in 10 books (1089). In the 12th century, the canonical works of Ivo of Chartres[22] are of great importance. His Panormia, compiled Ivo of Chartres. about 1095 or 1096, is a handy and well-arranged collection in 8 books; as to the Decretum, a weighty compilation in 17 books, there seems sufficient proof that it is a collection of material made by Ivo in view of his Panormia. To the 12th century belong the collection in the MS. of Saragossa (Caesaraugustana) to which attention was drawn by Antonio Agustin; that of Cardinal Gregory, called by him the Polycarpus, in 8 books (about 1115); and finally the Liber de misericordia et justitia of Algerus,[23] scholasticus of Liége, in 3 books, compiled at latest in 1123.

But all these works were to be superseded by the Decretum of Gratian.