James A. Brundage - Medieval Canon Law

It is impossible to understand how the medieval church functioned and, in turn, influenced the lay world within its care without understanding canon law. This book examines its development from its beginnings to the end of the Middle Ages, updating its findings in light of recent scholarly trends.

This second edition has been fully revised and updated by Melodie H. Eichbauer to include additional material on the early Middle Ages; the significance of the discovery of earlier versions of Gratians Decretum; and the new research into law emanating from secular authorities, councils, episcopal acta, and juridical commentary to rethink our understanding of the sources of law and canon laws place in medieval society. Separate chapters examine canon law in intellectual spaces; the canonical courts and their procedures; and, using the case studies of deviation from orthodoxy and marriage, canon law in the lives of people. The main body of the book concludes with the influence of canon law in Western society, but has been reworked by integrating sections cut from the first edition chapters on canon law in private and public life to highlight the importance of this field of research. Throughout the work and found in the bibliography are references to current literature and resources in order to make researching in the field more accessible. The first appendix provides examples of how canonical texts are cited while the second offers biographical notes on canonists featured in the work. The end result is a second edition that is significantly rewritten and updated but retains the spirit of Brundages original text.

Covering all aspects of medieval canon law and its influence on medieval politics, society, and culture, this book provides students of medieval history with an accessible overview of this foundational aspect of medieval history.

Melodie H. Eichbauer is Professor of Medieval History at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. She is the editor of A Cultural History of Genocide, Vol. 2: The Middle Ages (2021) and co-editor of The Use of Canon Law in Ecclesiastical Administration (2018). Her research focuses on the dissemination of legal knowledge; the interpretation of law; and the ways in which social, political, and intellectual developments and trends shaped both between ca. 1000 and ca. 1500.

James A. Brundage (19292021) was Professor Emeritus of History and, prior to his retirement, Ahmanson-Murphy chair of Medieval European History at the University of Kansas, USA. His publications included The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts (2008), Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (1996) edited with Vern L. Bullough, and Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (1987).

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Medieval Canon Law 2ed

Melodie H. Eichbauer, Expanded and revised version of the First Edition by James A. Brundage

https://www.routledge.com/The-Medieval-World/book-series/PEAMWD

Second Edition

Melodie H. Eichbauer

Expanded and revised version of the

First Edition by

James A. Brundage

Cover image: Pope Boniface VIII consulting his cardinals with scribes of the papal chancery recording the proceedings. Liber sextus of Pope Boniface VIII. The British Library, Add MS 23923, fol. 2. [https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/illustration-of-pope-boniface-viii-and-his-cardinals]

Second edition published 2023

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2023 Melodie H. Eichbauer and James A. Brundage

The right of Melodie H. Eichbauer and James A. Brundage to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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First edition published by Routledge 1995

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ISBN: 978-0-367-74241-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-74240-9 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-15673-4 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003156734

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For Prof. Brundage who inspired so many

This book attempts to sketch the broad outlines of the development of the canon law of the Western church from its beginnings to the end of the Middle Ages, which, in this context at least, means until the commencement of the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century. Growing numbers of medievalists during the second half of the twentieth century have come to realize that canon law formed a crucial component of medieval life and thought. Its rules affected the lives and actions of practically everyone, its enforcement mechanisms were increasingly able to reach into everyday affairs at all social levels, from peasant villages to royal households, and the ideas debated in the canon law schools constituted an influential and pervasive element in medieval intellectual life. The records of contentious matters that came before canonical courts as well as the archives of ecclesiastical administrators who applied (or failed to apply) canonical rules make up a very large fraction of the evidence that survives from the Middle Ages.

Serious study of medieval canon law quickly becomes highly technical. [Law] schools make tough law, observed Frederic William Maitland, and as usual he was right on the mark. Canon law was extremely tough indeed, not only in the sense that it was institutionally strong and sturdy, but also in the sense that it was difficult and technical. Medievalists have usually preferred to shy away from its technical mysteries. I have tried in this book to avoid most technical details. I should, however, alert readers that canonical waters, although alluring, can also be treacherous and warn historians that they must be prepared to steer carefully when they embark on investigations that may bring them into the vicinity of canonical shoals.