15 - Local Knowledge of Canon Law, c. 1150–1250

Summary

The history of medieval Church law has been written largely from the perspective of the ius commune. Following in the footsteps of Gratian, modern scholars have focused their attention first and foremost on ecclesiastical law as a learned and universal phenomenon, privileging the development of canonistic doctrine grounded in papal decretals and the statutes of general councils and taught in the emerging schools of the Latin West in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Yet, as jurists of the “classical period” themselves recognized, the picture of canon law in the high Middle Ages would be incomplete without a consideration of its production and reproduction at a regional and local level. In provinces, dioceses, and parishes, people might of course have gained an understanding of canonical legislation and jurisprudence from such seminal texts as Gratian’s Decretum, the so-called Quinque compilationes antiquae, and the Liber extra, but one should be careful not to overestimate the impact of these works. Though attested to in an impressive number of manuscripts and of undeniably great influence, their distribution was nonetheless spotty and they were surely not on the shelves of all medieval churchmen, including many of those wielding ecclesiastical jurisdiction.