Decretals and Lawmaking

doi:10.1017/9781139177221.013

12 - Decretals and Lawmaking

from Part II - The Sources and Dissemination of Medieval Canon Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022

Gisela Drossbach

Edited by

Anders Winroth and

John C. Wei

Show author details

Anders Winroth: Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Decretals, epistolae decretales, are papal letters that have a claim to universal validity and clarify questions of Church law. Already in Late Antiquity, petitioners would submit legal or disciplinary questions to the Roman emperor, who in response would provide authoritative answers in imperial rescripts. Papal decretal law was the product of an analogous procedure. Private parties would ask the pope to adjudicate their disputes, and in response the pope would set forth authoritative answers in decretal letters. The oldest fully preserved papal decretal is by Pope Siricius (384–99). Only with the pontificate of Alexander III (1159–81), however, did the number of decretals skyrocket and, as a result, there take place the further legal development and elaboration of the ius novum. Just two generations after Gratian’s Decretum (c. 1140), papal legislative acts had developed and changed canon law like never before.

Keywords

papal decretals Alexander III Lucius III Decretal collections Papal legislation

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Medieval Canon Law , pp. 208 - 229

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139177221.013 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Select Bibliography

Bertram, Martin. “Die Dekretalen Gregors IX.: Kompilation oder Kodifikation?” In Magister Raimundus: Atti del Convegno per il IV centenario della canonizzazione di San Raimondo de Penyafort (1601–2001), ed. Longo, Carlo. Dissertationes historicae 28, 61–86. Rome, 2002.Google Scholar

Drossbach, Gisela. “Bologna – München – Halberstadt: Die Collectio Halensis ein Werk des Johannes Teutonicus? (Halle, ULB, Ye 80).” In Rechtshandschriften des deutschen Mittelalters: Produktionsorte und Importwege; Tagungsband des Arbeitsgesprächs an der Herzog August Bibliothek (Juni 2010), ed. Drossbach, Gisela and Carmassi, Patrizia, 189–208. Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 29. Wiesbaden, 2015.Google Scholar

Drossbach, Gisela “Die Entwicklung des Kirchenrechts als raumübergreifendes Kommunikationsmodell im 12. Jahrhundert.” In Zentrum und Netzwerk: Kirchliche Kommunikationen und Raumstrukturen im Mittelalter, ed. Drossbach, Gisela and Schmidt, Hans-Joachem, 43–63. Scrinium Friburgense 22. Berlin, 2008.Google Scholar

Drossbach, Gisela “Schools and Decretals in the 12th century – The Collectio Francofurtana.” BMCL 24 (2000), 65–82.Google Scholar

Krafl, Pavel, ed. Sacri canones servandi sunt: Ius canonicum et status ecclesiae saeculis XIII–XV. Opera Instituti historici Pragae, Series C, Miscellanea 19. Prague, 2008.Google Scholar

Landau, Peter. “Die Phi-Glosse der Collectio Casselana.” In Medieval Church Law and the Origins of the Western Legal Tradition: A Tribute to Kenneth Pennington, ed. Müller, Wolfgang P. and Sommar, Mary, 159–169. Washington, DC, 2006.Google Scholar

Landau, Peter “Kanonistische Ergänzungen zur Germania & Bohemia Pontificia: Päpstliche Dekretalen an Empfänger im Reich zwischen 1140 und 1198.” In Sacri canones servandi sunt: Ius canonicum et status ecclesiae saeculis XIII–XV, ed. Pavel Krafl. Opera Instituti historici Pragae, Series C, Miscellanea 19, 241–257. Prague, 2008.Google Scholar

Longo, Carlo, ed. Magister Raimundus: Atti del Convegno per il IV centenario della canonizzazione di San Raimondo de Penyafort (1601–2001). Dissertationes historicae 28. Rome, 2002.Google Scholar

Loschiavo, Luca, Mancini, Giovanna, and Vano, Cristina. Novellae constitutiones: l’ultima legislazione di Giustiniano tra Oriente e Occidente, da Tribonio a Savigny; Atti del Convegno internazionale, Teramo, 30–31 ottobre 2009. Rome, 2011.Google Scholar

Roumy, Franck. “Une collection inédite d’authenticae: composée en Normandie à la fin du XII^e siècle.” In Novellae constitutiones: l’ultima legislazione di Giustiniano tra Oriente e Occidente, da Tribonio a Savigny; Atti del Convegno internazionale, Teramo, 30–31 ottobre 2009, ed. Loschiavo, Luca, Mancini, Giovanna, and Vano, Cristina, 155–205. Rome, 2011.Google Scholar

Wei, John C. “The Extravagantes in the Decretist Summa ‘Reverentia sacrorum canonum’.” BMCL 29 (2012), 169–182.Google Scholar