Apostolic period In the primitive Christian ages there were apocryphal collections attributed to the Apostles, which belong to the
genre of the
Church Orders. The most important of these are the
Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, the
Apostolic Constitutions, and the
Apostolic Canons. During the period under discussion (i. e. to the middle of the eleventh century) there was a constant use of the papal decretals by the compilers of canonical collections from the sixth century on. At the beginning of the collection were then placed the decrees of Nicæa (325); subsequently the canons of Antioch (341) were included, in which shape it was known to the Fathers of Chalcedon. In the latter part of the fifth century the canons of Laodicæa (343–81), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), were incorporated with this ecclesiastical code, and finally (after the canons of Neo-Cæsarea) the decrees of Sardica (343–44), in which form the collection was in use during the sixth century. Though unofficial in character, it represents (inclusive of sixty-eight canons taken from the "Canonical Epistles" of St. Basil, I, III) the conciliar discipline of the Greek Church between 500 and 600. After the emperor's death (565), the patriarch extracted from ten of
the former's constitutions, known as Novellæ, some eighty-seven chapters and added them to the aforesaid collection. The oldest versions of these canons quoted in the papal decretals are no longer extant. Suffice it to mention the collection known as the "Chieti" or "Vaticana Reginæ", through which a very old and distinct version of the decrees of the Council of Nicæa has reached us.
Collections of the Spanish Church These comprise the collections that arose in the lands once under Visigothic rule — Spain, Portugal, and Southern Gaul. In this territory councils were very frequent, especially after the conversion of
King Reccared (587), and they paid much attention to ecclesiastical discipline. [B]oth the dissemination of canon law collections within the Anglo-Saxon church and the study of canon law collections by Anglo-Saxon clergy were considerable indeed; even if they were not as popular as in some Continental churches, canon law collections served the Anglo-Saxon church as indispensable disciplinary, educational and administrative tools. Beginning in the seventh and eighth centuries, and fuelled by the early Anglo-Saxon church’s strong ties to Roman models, one sees in England the considerable influence of Italian canon law collections, most notably the
collectiones Dionysiana,
Sanblasiana and
Quesnelliana. It was particularly at
York and especially at
Canterbury under the guidance of
Archbishop Theodore that instruction in and study of these collections appears to have been carried out with the most fervour. In the eighth century, imbued with the legal teachings of these collections, reform-minded Anglo-Saxon personnel descended on the
Low Countries and the lands east of the
Rhine, bringing with them the institutional framework and disciplinary models they had inherited from their Roman and Celtic mentors. These included the collections already mentioned and also copies of the
Collectio Hibernensis and several different types of
penitential handbooks. It was also during this time that an important redaction of the
Collectio vetus Gallica was disseminated on the Continent, due in part to the activities of Anglo-Saxon personnel. This acme of Anglo-Saxon canonical scholarship―exemplified from the seventh to late eighth century by such figures as
Wilfrid,
Ecgberht,
Boniface, and
Alcuin―seems to have ended sometime in the ninth century, probably as a result of the devastation of the
Viking raids, which inflicted heavy losses upon England’s material and intellectual culture. In England, interest in and the manuscript resources necessary to carry out the study of Continental canonical sources would never again under the Anglo-Saxons reach the level they had attained in the first two hundred years of the English church's existence. Following the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon church seems to have developed an increasingly strong tradition of operating juridically within the pre-existing secular legal framework. In this tradition―which lasted from at least the end of the ninth century until the
Conquest and beyond―the legal and disciplinary spirit of the English church stood close to and drew support from the emerging strength of
West Saxon kingship. Consequently, for the duration of the Anglo-Saxon period Continental canon law collections played a correspondingly smaller role in influencing the law and discipline of the church and its members. But they never became obsolete, and indeed an upsurge of interest in these collections can be seen taking place in the tenth and early eleventh centuries. New genres of canonical literature had been gaining in popularity on the Continent since the early ninth century. Most important among these, as far as Anglo-Saxon history is concerned, were the large penitential and canonico-penitential collections of the
Carolingian period. A number of these collections crossed the
Channel into England during the tenth century and were well received by the Anglo-Saxon episcopacy. By the beginning of the eleventh century, especially with the activities of Abbot
Ælfric and
Archbishop Wulfstan, study of canon law collections had once again attained a degree of sophistication in England. Nevertheless, despite England’s increasingly tight connections to the ecclesiastical traditions of the Continent―where the study of canon law thrived in the eleventh century―there are few signs that Ælfric’s and Wulfstan’s achievements in canonical scholarship were continued by their Anglo-Saxon successors in any significant way. Following the Conquest England saw the introduction of
Norman libraries and personnel into England, a development that marks a very real terminus to the history of the Anglo-Saxon canonical tradition. The new ecclesiastical reforms and drastically different canonical preoccupations of Archbishop
Lanfranc put the study of canon law in England upon entirely new foundations. With the accumulation of new texts and collections, and with the development of new scientific principles for their interpretation, ground was laid for Anglo-Norman England’s contribution to the monumental canonical reforms of the twelfth century―reforms in which the by now long outmoded Anglo-Saxon canonical tradition played (almost) no part. The most celebrated of the Celtic canonical productions is the
Collectio Hibernensis, of the early part of the eighth century, whose compiler put together previous ecclesiastical legislation in sixty-four to sixty-nine chapters, preceded by extracts from the "Etymologiæ" of St. Isidore of Seville concerning synodal regulations. The preface states that for the sake of brevity and clearness and to reconcile certain juridical antinomies, effort is made to render the sense of the canons rather than their letter. It is a methodical collection to the extent that the matters treated are placed in their respective chapters, but there is much confusion in the distribution of the latter. In spite of its defects, this collection made its way into France and Italy and until the twelfth century influenced the ecclesiastical legislation of churches in both countries (Paul Fournier, ''De l'influence de la collection irlandaise sur les collections canoniques
). Here also belong the collections of ecclesiastical formulæ
(see Books of Formularies), especially the Liber Diurnus of the Roman Chancery, compiled probably between 685 and 782 (Patrologia Latina
CV, 11), edited by Garnier (Paris, 1680) and anew by M. de Rozières (Paris, 1869) and by Th. Sickel (Vienna, 1889). Special mention is due to the Penitential Books (Libri Pœnitentiales''), collections of penitential canons, councils and catalogues of ecclesiastical sanctions, to which were gradually added rules for the administration of the
Sacrament of Penance.
Collections of ecclesiastico-civil laws Early canon law often adopted provisions from local secular laws. Some secular authorities also passed legislation on religious issues, either with church cooperation (as with the
Carolingian kings) or without it (as with the Byzantine emperors). Moreover, priests were occasionally asked to decide on purely secular matters. Therefore, books of civil laws relevant to ecclesiastical topics (known as
nomocanones in the East) were often published. These included: • Collections of
Roman Law. This law interested quite particularly the ecclesiastics of the barbarian kingdoms that rose on the ruins of the Western Empire, since they continued to live by it (Ecclesia vivit lege romana); moreover, apart from the laws of the Anglo-Saxons, the legislation of all the barbarian peoples of Gaul, Spain, and Italy was profoundly Influenced by the Roman law. (a) The "Lex romana canonice compta", apparently compiled in Lombardy during the ninth century, and handed down in a manuscript of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. It includes portions of the "Institutiones" of the "Codex" of Justinian and of the "Epitome" of Julian. • Capitularies of the
Frankish Kings. The laws of the latter were very favourable to religious interests; not a few of them were the result of the mutual deliberations of both the civil and the ecclesiastical power. Hence the exceptional authority of the
royal capitularies before ecclesiastical tribunals. In the first half of the ninth century
Ansegisus,
Abbot of Fontenelles (823–33), collected in four books capitularies of Charlemagne,
Louis the Pious and
Lothaire I; the first two books contain provisions concerning the "ecclesiastical order", the latter two exhibit the "law of the world". Ansegisus himself added three appendixes. His work was widely used in France, Germany and Italy, and was quoted in
diets and councils as an authentic collection.
Overview This rapid sketch exhibits the vitality of the Church from the earliest centuries, and her constant activity for the preservation of ecclesiastical discipline. During this long elaboration the Greek Church unifies her legislation, but accepts little from beyond her own boundaries. On the other hand, the Western Church, with perhaps the sole exception of Africa, makes progress in the development of local discipline and exhibits an anxiety to harmonize particular legislation with the decretals of the popes, the canons of general councils, and the special legislation of the rest of the Church. Doubtless in the above-described collection of canons, the result of this long disciplinary development, some forged decrees and collections must appear. Nevertheless, the influence of these apocryphal works on other canonical collections was restricted. The latter were, almost universally, made up of authentic documents. Canonical science in the future would have been nourished exclusively from legitimate sources had not a larger number of forged documents appeared about the middle of the ninth century (Capitula of
Benedict Levita, Capitula Angilramni, Canons of Isaac of Langres, above all the collection of Pseudo-Isidore. See
False Decretals). But ecclesiastical vigilance did not cease; in the West especially, the Church kept up an energetic protest against the decay of her discipline; witness the many councils, diocesan synods and mixed assemblies of bishops and civil officials, also the numerous (over forty) new canonical collections from the ninth to the beginning of the twelfth century and whose methodical order foreshadows the great juridical syntheses of later centuries. Being compiled, however, for the most part not directly from the original canonical sources, but from immediately preceding collections, which in turn often depend on apocryphal productions of the ninth century, they appear tainted to the extent in which they make use of these forgeries. Such taint, however, affects the critical value of these collections rather than the legitimacy of the legislation which they exhibit. While the "False Decretals" affected certainly ecclesiastical discipline, it is now generally recognized that they did not introduce any essential or constitutional modifications. They gave a more explicit formulation to certain principles of the constitution of the Church, or brought more frequently into practice certain rules hitherto less recognized in daily use. The German collections, while not failing to admit the rights of the papal primacy, are seemingly concerned with the adaptation of the canons to actual needs of time and place; this is particularly visible in the collection of Burchard of Worms. The Italian collections, on the other hand, insist more on the rights of the papal primacy, and in general of the spiritual power. M. Fournier indicates, as especially influential in this sense, the Collection in Seventy-four Titles. Both tendencies meet and unite in the works of Yvo of Chartres. The compilations of this epoch may, therefore, be classed in these two broad categories. ==End of the ninth century to Gratian (1139–1150)==