The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Religion
The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304
Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Church history -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
The Pope also gradually established his authority as supreme and sole
lawgiver within the Church. The _Dictatus Papae_ asserts that for
him alone it is lawful to frame new laws to meet the needs of the
time. Meanwhile the Forged Decretals had found their place in the
various collections of the Canons made in the eleventh and early
twelfth centuries. In the middle of the twelfth century Gratian, a
Benedictine monk of Bologna, put out his _Concordantia discordantium
Canonum_, commonly known as the _Decretum Gratiani_, which
combined a theoretical disquisition with illustrations drawn from the
documents which had appeared in previous collections. This became the
standard mediaeval treatise in ecclesiastical law, and its appearance
much encouraged the systematic study of the Canon law. The Popes of
the succeeding century and a half made great additions to the law of
the Church, partly through the decrees issued by the General Lateran
Councils, partly by their own edicts. Such new matter was embodied
from time to time. Thus in 1234 the Dominican Raymund de Pennaforte
gathered five books of Decretals at the command of Gregory IX;
Boniface VIII was responsible for a sixth book in 1298, while other
additions were made by Clement V (1308) and John XXII (1317). All
these, together with the earlier compilations and some later
additions, formed the _Corpus Juris Canonici_. This enormous body
of law was full of contradictions and not devoid of falsification and
forgery. The growing study of it caused the foundation of Chairs at
the universities, and the Popes found it a most convenient method to
publish their new decrees through the lecture-rooms. The old Canon Law
was entirely superseded by the later Papal Law.
[Sidenote: Power over Councils.]
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