Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Literacy, books and readers
- TECHNIQUE AND TRADE
- COLLECTIONS AND OWNERSHIP
- READING AND USE OF BOOKS
- I BOOKS FOR SCHOLARS
- II PROFESSIONS
- 18 The canon law
- 19 The civil law
- 20 The books of the common law
- 21 Medicine and science
- III THE LAY READER
- Appendix
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Photo credits
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Bibliographic index of printed books
- Plate Section"
- References
18 - The canon law
from II - PROFESSIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Literacy, books and readers
- TECHNIQUE AND TRADE
- COLLECTIONS AND OWNERSHIP
- READING AND USE OF BOOKS
- I BOOKS FOR SCHOLARS
- II PROFESSIONS
- 18 The canon law
- 19 The civil law
- 20 The books of the common law
- 21 Medicine and science
- III THE LAY READER
- Appendix
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Photo credits
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Bibliographic index of printed books
- Plate Section"
- References
Summary
This chapter describes what is known about the existence and the use of canon law books in Britain. It may be admitted at the outset that segregation of the literature of the canon law from that of the civil law, covered in the chapter by Alain Wijffels, is somewhat artificial. The two learned laws were combined for many purposes in the European ius commune. Nonetheless, the canon law always maintained a distinct identity. Many books dealt primarily with canonical problems or texts, and the canon law was in a real sense the dominant partner in the ius commune. It is not inappropriate to treat it as a distinct entity.
The canon law’s importance
Together with rules drawn from the Roman law, the canon law provided the principal source of the jurisprudence in the English ecclesiastical courts. These courts, held by every bishop and archdeacon, as well as by many lesser clerics, played a wide and important role in the legal life of medieval England. Indeed, they held significant jurisdiction over the law of marriage, wills and probate, and part of the law of defamation, well into the nineteenth century. In addition, they long exercised a ‘criminal’ jurisdiction over both the clergy and the laity, extending from the sins of the flesh, such as adultery and fornication, to more properly religious offences such as absenting oneself from the parish church or doctrinal dissent.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain , pp. 387 - 398Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
References
1982 ‘The civil lawyers’, in (ed.), Profession, vocation, and culture in later medieval England: essays dedicated to the memory of A. R. Myers, Liverpool.Google Scholar
1979 ‘English purchases of printed books from the Continent 1465–1526’, English Historical Review, 94.Google Scholar
(ed.) 1967
William Hay’s lectures on marriage, Stair Society
24, Edinburgh.
1898
Catalogue of the library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth, Cambridge.
1992
An index of authors and works in Cistercian libraries in Great Britain, Kalamazoo MI.
1952
English books and readers 1475 to 1557, Cambridge (rpt 1969).
1955 ‘The Oculus sacerdotis and some other works of William of Pagula’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 5.Google Scholar
1965 ‘The Summa summarum and some other English works of canon law’, in and (eds.), Proceedings of the second international congress of medieval canon law, Vatican City.Google Scholar
1889
Collected papers, Cambridge.
(ed.) 1826
Decisions of the Court of Session … 1766–1791, collected by Sir David Dalrymple of Hailes … sel. by M. P. Browne, 2 vols., Edinburgh.
1961 ‘William Lyndwood’s Provinciale’, Jurist, 21 (rpt , Medieval texts and studies, Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar
1968
Thomae de Chobham Summa confessorum, ed. , Louvain and Paris.
1969
The King’s Hall within the university of Cambridge in the later Middle Ages, Studies in medieval life and thought, 3rd ser., 1, Cambridge.
1971
The history of All Souls College library, ed. , London.
(ed.) 1967
London Consistory Courtwills 1492–1574, London Record Soc.
3, London.
1914 ‘The canon law in England’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 34.Google Scholar
1979
A short-title catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501–1600, in Aberdeen University Library, Oxford and New York.
1668
De usu et authoritate juris civilis Romanorum in dominiis principum Christianorum, Leipzig (rpt Vienna and Cologne 1990).
1963
Twelfth-century decretal collections and their importance in English history, London.
and
1961
Early Scottish libraries, Glasgow. (Supplements: , Bibliothek, 4 (1963); 9 (1978); 10 (1981); 11 (1982); 12 (1985).)
(ed.) 1975
Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 1483–1528, Buckinghamshire Record Soc.
19, London.
and
1961 ‘A sixteenth-century inventory of the libraryof Corpus Christi College, Cambridge’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3, 33.Google Scholar
1840
History of the University of Cambridge, ed. and , Cambridge.
(ed.) 1987–91
The Register of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury 1486–1500, 2 vols., Canterbury and York Society, London.
1990
Roman canon law in Reformation England, Cambridge.
1992 ‘Canon law in post-Reformation England’, in Canon law in Protestant lands, Berlin.Google Scholar
1831
English monastic libraries, London.
1971 ‘Panormitanus and the council of Basel’, in (ed.), Proceedings of the third international Congress of medieval canon law, Vatican City.Google Scholar
and (eds.) 1938–47
The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414–1443, 4 vols., Oxford.
1903
The ancient libraries of Canterbury and Dover, Cambridge.
1909 ‘The catalogue of the library of the Augustinian friars at York’, Fasciculus Ioanni Willis Clark dicatus, Cambridge.Google Scholar
1983
Library catalogues of the English Renaissance, Berkeley and Los Angeles (1956); rev. rpt .
1969–92
Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, 4 vols. (vol. IV with ), Oxford.
1971
Records of All Souls College Library 1437–1600, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, n.s., 16, Oxford.
1978 ‘Oxford college libraries before 1500’, in and (eds.), The universities in the late Middle Ages, Louvain.Google Scholar
1985
Books, collectors and libraries: collected studies, ed. , London and Ronceverte WV.
and
1964–87
Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society, London
1964 (); Supplement to the second edn, Royal Historical Society, London
1987 (ed. ).
1896 ‘Wyckham’s books at New College’, in (ed.), Collectanea, 3rd ser., Oxford Historical Society 32.Google Scholar
1903
Early Yorkshire schools, 2 vols., Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series 33, Leeds.
1986
Books in Cambridge inventories: book-lists from Vice-Chancellor’s Court probate inventories in the Tudor and Stuart periods, 2 vols., Cambridge.
, and (eds.) 1992
Garrett Godfrey’s accounts, c. 1527–1533, Cambridge Bibliographical Society Monograph 12, Cambridge.
1937–8 ‘The library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in the sixteenth century’, The Library. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 4th ser., 18.Google Scholar
1977 ‘The Reformation and popular culture’, in and (eds.), Church and society in England: Henry VIII to James I, London.Google Scholar
1679
Provinciale seu constitutiones Anglie, Oxford (rpt 1968).
(); and ‘Notes on the former edition’, Oxford Historical Society 16 (= Collectanea, 2nd ser.), 1890 ().Google Scholar
and (eds.) 1885–90 ‘The Day-Book of John Dorne, bookseller in Oxford A. D. 1520’, Oxford Historical Society 5 (= Collectanea, 1st ser.), 1885, and ‘Corrections and additions ….’Google Scholar
1902
Trinity Hall, London.
1978 ‘Two sixteenth-century catalogues of St John’s College library’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 7, 2.Google Scholar
1873
The University of Cambridge from the earliest times to the royal injunctions of 1535, Cambridge.
1951 ‘Notes on King’s College Library in the fifteenth century’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, I, 3.Google Scholar
1954
A catalogue of the fifteenth-century printed books in the University Library Cambridge, Cambridge.
1988 ‘Towards a legal-historical bibliography: a census of 16th-century legal imprints’, Ius commune, 15.Google Scholar
1985 ‘Two medieval parish books from the diocese of Ely: New College MS. 98 and Wisbech Museum MS. 1’, in et al. (eds.), East Anglian and other studies presented to Barbara Dodwell: Reading Medieval Stud., 11.Google Scholar
1990
The medieval canon law: teaching, literature and transmission, Cambridge.
(ed.) 1857
Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories from the ecclesiastical court, Chetham Society 33, Manchester.
1991
The theology of John Fisher, Cambridge.
1911
Old English libraries. The making, collection, and use of books during the Middle Ages, New York and London (rpt 1970).
1992
Utrumque ius: eine Einführung in das Studium der Quellen des mittel-alterlichen gelehrten Rechts, Berlin.
1864 ‘Catalogue of the library of Queens’ College, 1472’, Antiquarian Communications: Being Papers Presented at the Meetings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Soc., 2.Google Scholar
1936
Sources and literature of Scots law, Stair Society 1, Edinburgh.
1977
Doctors’ Commons, Oxford.
1988
The character and influence of the Roman civil law: historical essays, London and Ronceverte, WV.
1982
Religion, law, and the growth of constitutional thought 1150–1650, Cambridge.
F. 1875–80
Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts, 3 vols., Stuttgart (rpt
1956).
(ed. and trans.) 1989
Fasciculus morum. A fourteenth-century preachers’ handbook, University Park PA.
1992a
Late sixteenth-century lists of law books at Merton College, Cambridge.
1992b ‘Sir Edward Stanhope’s bequest of books to Trinity College, 1608’, and (eds.), Private libraries in Renaissance England. A collection and catalogue of Tudor and early Stuart book-lists, 4 vols. to date, Binghamton NY and Marlborough, 1992–5, I.Google Scholar
1993a ‘Law books at Cambridge 1500–1640’, in (ed.), The life of the law: proceedings of the tenth British legal history conference, London.Google Scholar
1908 ‘Gloucestershire medieval libraries’, Trans. of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Soc., 31.Google Scholar
1952
Medieval ecclesiastical courts in the diocese of Canterbury, Oxford.