No More Learning

686 (#732) ############################################

686
Monasticism in the thirteenth century
injunctions has often been disputed, on the ground of the formal language
in which they are cast, and in the absence of reports of the visitations
after which they were issued. More material is available now than formerly
for the critical study of their texts; and it is impossible to avoid the
conclusion that their language refers to faults which had actually been
discovered in the monasteries to which they were addressed. Precautionary
injunctions to a monastery against abuses from which it was entirely free
exist only in imaginations which picture medieval institutions as superior
to the ordinary rules of common sense. There is abundant proof that
these injunctions were composed, as Rigaud wrote of the typical series
directed to the monks of Saint-Ouen at Rouen in December 1949,
secundum ea que inventa fuerunt per visitacionem nostram ibidem.
The decrees of the Lateran Council were followed within little mo
more
than a quarter of a century by the statutes of Gregory IX for the reform
of the Benedictine order. These, involving detailed regulations on points
of discipline and prescribing fixed penalties for their breach, were certainly
not very sedulously regarded. Rigaud, in his visitations, frequently found
that monasteries were without copies of them; and in 1253 the Abbot
and convent of Jumièges, complaining to Innocent IV that they found
the difficulties in maintaining the order of their house much increased by
the rigid wording of the Gregorian statutes, were dispensed from observing
their contents, so far as they were not of the substance of the Rule.
Such a permission might lend itself to a very liberal interpretation. Any
attempt, indeed, to curb laxness of discipline in monasteries by hard-and-
fast legislation was impossible. The natural tendency of establishments
of old foundation was to that type of life which the monks of Fountains
in 1132 had found inadequate for their spiritual needs at York. It was
only here and there that visitors discovered monasteries which were in a
really scandalous condition. Selby, in the second half of the thirteenth
century, under the rule of unsatisfactory abbots, was anything but a
pattern of a respectable and God-fearing life to the neighbouring parts
of Yorkshire. Some of the nunneries of the diocese of Rouen had suc-
cumbed to the temptations to which undefended communities of women
were peculiarly liable. Other instances could be cited ; but the typical
faults of monasteries were failures to comply with the standard demanded
by the Rule. Heads of houses, moved by family considerations or other
inducements, admitted unsuitable persons to the novitiate and profession.
Accounts were negligently rendered; the common seal of the house was
not securely kept; slackness in the services of the church was observable;
silence was not kept in cloister and the common buildings; fasting and
the prohibition of meat were constantly disregarded. The conduct of the
scattered cells or priories attached to the greater abbeys was a difficult
problem. These, for the most part, were small establishments without
conventual buildings, committed to the charge of a prior and one or two
monks, whose main duty was that of looking after the local estates of


## p. 687 (#733) ############################################

I
Causes of the decline of discipline
687
their house and collecting their fruits. Such, with few exceptions, were
the numerous priories in England possessed by French monasteries. Some-
times, in direct contravention of the Rule, a single religious without a
companion was in charge of a priory; and, even where the requisite pair
of monks was in residence, fasts were not kept and flesh-meat was in
general use.
Monastic rules, however, are counsels of perfection ; and St Benedict
had foreseen that his disciples would have to reckon with the constant
recalcitrance of human nature. It was inevitable that some monasteries
should sink into decay and abandon discipline altogether, and that small
breaches of the Rule should become habitual in others. Of the crowds
of men and women who locked into monasteries during the periods of
Cluniac and Cistercian reform, many were doubtless prompted by a me
temporary emotion to escape from the world to refuges in the quiet of
which they hoped to save their souls, while to others the comparative
ease of a life of prayer may have outweighed its prospective hardships.
It was certain, at any rate, that no monastery could hope to be without
some unfit persons, whom it would tax the energy of the abbot to control.
Where the abbot himself was ineffective or engrossed with temporal
affairs, the sin of acedia was sure to make headway. Grumbling and
internal discord were a sure evidence of decline; if, as Rigaud found,
the custom of making open complaints in chapter had fallen into disuse,
private animosities Hourished instead; and where, as at Bardney, in the
last years of the thirteenth century, a convent was openly at war with a
tactless and overbearing abbot, and the strife became matter of common
talk, or where, as at Fountains in the same period, the house was so
deeply in debt that the Crown found it necessary to appoint an official -
receiver, the reputation of a monastery was seriously injured.
The growth of the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century diverted
popular enthusiasm from the monastic orders proper. While the Cister-
cians continued, year after year, to found new monasteries, their rate of
progress was much slower than it had been at first; and the other orders
were much less active. They had become part of the established condition
of things; and the benefactions which had placed them in possession of
lands and churches were less numerous than formerly, and were being
diverted into other channels. The popularity of the friars was not likely
to leave the conduct of the older orders without criticism : it is significant
that the two visitors of monasteries at this time from whom we have the
most ample records, Archbishops Rigaud and Peckham, were both Fran-
ciscans whose zeal in commenting upon monastic abuses can hardly, with
the best intentions, have been free from the prejudices of their early
training
By this time, great and far-reaching reforms like those of Cluny and
Cîteaux were no longer to be contemplated. The unsettled state of society
which had contributed to their success was at an end ; with the growth
CH. XX.


## p. 688 (#734) ############################################

688
Later Orders in Italy
of national institutions and sentiment, the development of another world-
wide order, breaking down the barriers of race under the protection of
a universal Church, was as impossible as a new crusade. The old quarrel
between the keys and the sword was to enter upon a new phase as a
merely political contest, the points at issue in which were to be debated
by jurists and publicists, and were not to be decided by the missionaries
of religion. Henceforward, new orders were of a purely local character,
and their outposts beyond the country in which they took birth were
few. Reform, moreover, acquired a tendency to lay stress on certain
definite points, such as strict enclosure and the change of heads of houses
at regularly recurring intervals, which indicate a movement in a different
direction from that of the older reforms.
From time to time, new movements, somewhat on the lines of Camaldoli
and Vallombrosa, achieved some success in Italy. In the early part of
the twelfth century the hermit John of Matera founded the order of
Pulsano in Apulia ; and his friend and companion, William of Vercelli,
the founder of Monte Vergine, became the first general of an order which,
with the encouragement of King Roger, was well received in Sicily. The
monasteries founded in Calabria and the Basilicata from Flora, the
retreat of the famous hermit Gioacchino (Joachim) before 1192, were
affected by the influence of the Cistercian monasteries in which he had
lived, and interpreted the Rule of St Benedict with such austerity that
Gregory IX forbade migrations from them to Cistercian houses, as in-
fringing the prohibition to monks to pass from one order to another of
less strict observance. The Rule of St Benedict was also adopted in 1231
at Monte Fano by Silvestro Gozzolini, the founder of the Silvestrines or
Blue Benedictines. Rather more than twenty years later, another order of
Benedictinised hermits gathered together under Peter of Morrone. After
his election to the Papacy in 1294, his monks took the name of Celestines.
During his short and inglorious tenure of his office as Pope, he introduced
Celestines into Monte Cassino, from which they were quickly removed by
Boniface VIII. The order, however, survived its founder and established
houses in France and Germany. All these orders were Neapolitan in
origin; but in 1313 another was born further north, at Acona in the
diocese of Arezzo, to which Bernardo Tolomei and two Sienese noblemen
retired. This was the beginning of the strict order of Monte Oliveto, the
name given to Acona from the olive-groves which recalled the memory
of our Lord's agony in Gethsemane. It had a considerable vogue in Italy,
and was permitted to receive members from other orders, the Carthusian
excepted.
A comprehensive attempt at monastic reform was made by the Cis-
tercian Benedict XII, formerly Abbot of Fontfroide in the diocese of
Narbonne. His constitutions for the Cistercian order, Fulgens sicut stella,
issued in July 1335, are chiefly remarkable for their regulations against
the indiscriminate use of flesh-meat, which had been introduced into certain


## p. 689 (#735) ############################################

The Benedictine Constitutions, 1336 and 1339
689
monasteries, on the plea of custom, upon certain days in the week. It
was now banished from the refectory, but permitted, with no very stringent
restrictions, in the common hall of the infirmary and at the abbot's table
in his lodging; while all flesh-meat was to be cooked in the special kitchen
attached to the infirmary. Benedict also attempted to check the con-
struction of private rooms or cells, which led to irregularities. A separate
lodging for the abbot had become, in all orders, a permissible transgression
of the Rule, due to the necessities of his office; and separate chambers in
the infirmary were a convenience that could not easily be disallowed.
The division of the dormitory into cubicles was absolutely prohibited ;
but the prohibition, if observed for a time, was soon disregarded. Clauses
against private allowances to monks and the distribution of dividends
between the abbot and convent were directed against the growth of pro-
prietas ; and safeguards were enforced for the financial administration of
monasteries.
The constitutions for Black monks (Benedictines and Cluniacs), issued
in 1336, and for Austin canons, in 1339, re-enacted the order for triennial
chapters, establishing thirty-nine Benedictine and twenty-two Augustinian
provinces. These constitutions formed the chief basis on which later
visitors of monasteries framed their enquiries. With regard to such
customs as the use of flesh-meat their provisions were cautious and lenient;
but cells in the dormitory, except for the old and infirm, were as strictly
forbidden as in Cistercian houses. The maintenance of the common life
and the expulsion of customs tending to the acquisition of private property
were insisted upon. Secular persons were, as far as possible, to be banished
from the company of the brethren; and monks and canons were not per-
mitted to go outside their monasteries without reasonable cause or without
a companion. The integrity of monastic property might not be broken
without the deliberation and consent of the whole or a majority of the
community; the danger of indiscriminate or improperly conducted sales
and leases of land was, as contemporary and later documents shew, one
that could not be too sedulously anticipated. While, especially in the
case of canons, residence outside monasteries on benefices or in priories
was recognised as part of the order of things, it was essential that the
numbers of each community should be kept up to their full strength.
For monasteries which might decay in observance or in financial resources,
regulations were made for bringing in new blood in the first case, and for
union with other houses in the second.
Most important are the long and full chapters providing for the
support of student monks and canons at universities. Each house of
twenty members was to send one ; each of above twenty, one or more,
according to its resources. Already the Benedictine house at Oxford,
Gloucester Hall, had been founded for English monks; and, after the
publication of these constitutions, the house for Durham monks came
into existence. At Cambridge, no special Benedictine college was founded
C. MED, H. VOL. V. CH. XX.


## p. 690 (#736) ############################################

690
State of learning in monasteries
till the next century; but monks from various East Anglian houses went
there earlier, and Benedictines from Norwich, for example, were to be
found at Edmund Gonville's Hall of the Annunciation. If these provisions
were adhered to, the ordinary monastery of any size would usually contain
a few monks who had made a study of theology or Canon Law under
qualified teachers; and in later years we frequently find abbots and priors
with university degrees, such as William Welles, Abbot of St Mary's,
York, who was one of the English envoys to the Council of Basle. Welles
and two other abbots of St Mary's with similar qualifications were
promoted to bishoprics ; St Albans, Gloucester, and other houses also
furnished bishops from among their abbots. On the other hand, fifteenth-
century visitors in England found this statute often neglected ; and in
1438 there occurs the case of a young monk of Spalding who, sent to the
university, found his means of support withheld, and was obliged to
maintain himself by pawning the books which he had borrowed for his
studies from the convent library. Similarly, the constitution which
ordained that a teacher should be provided in the monastery for novices
and others who wished to learn was often imperfectly observed. If there
were learned men in monasteries in the later Middle Ages, it is impossible
to avoid the conclusion that monasteries as a whole were not homes of
learning. The remarkable activity of monastic chroniclers ceases, with a
few exceptions, as the fourteenth century advances ; and, if libraries were
still enriched with manuscripts and churches with splendid office-books
like the Westminster and Sherborne missals, there is no indication that
the gifts of writing and illuminating were general. The detailed reports
of visitations of monasteries by Bishop Alnwick of Lincoln (1436-1449)
leave the impression that learning in religious houses was somewhat de-
ficient. In only three houses was a monk or canon invited to deliver the
visitation sermon; and it is significant that when some monks at Bardney
wished to draw up a charter, for which they had fraudulently procured
the common seal, none of them knew how to do it, and the blank parch-
ment had to be sent to a notary in Lincoln. Neither the Benedictine
constitutions nor visitation documents contain information which warrants
the supposition, often stated as a fact, that monasteries undertook the
education of the children of the neighbourhood. Both are explicit upon the
undesirability of admitting secular persons into a monastery ; episcopal
visitors sedulously strove to limit the admission of children as boarders
in nunneries, which was a source of pecuniary profit to the house, as such
children generally came from well-to-do families, and afforded more dis-
traction to the nuns than benefit to their young lodgers. So far as the
maintenance and education of poor children in the almonries of monasteries
was concerned, the custom was gradually falling into disuse in the fifteenth
century. Alnwick found, in more than one instance, that their numbers
were smaller than those which monasteries could afford to support; and
the few maintained at Leicester simply acted as errand-boys for the canons.


## p. 691 (#737) ############################################

Evidence of visitation documents
691
Visitation reports and injunctions also disclose that the Benedictine
constitutions were constantly transgressed by convents in need of ready
inoney. The bad habit of granting corrodies or allowances in money and
victuals to secular persons was forced upon monasteries by patrons who
wished to provide for clerks or old servants at a minimum of expense to
themselves. But corrodies could also be sold to applicants, and thus a
convent was often burdened with a number of lodgers and pensioners
who had paid a lump sum for their privileges and became the actual
profiters by the speculation. Property suffered by sales and disadvan-
tageous leases ; timber was cut down and sold before it was ready for
felling. In these circumstances, monastic finance became a difficult
problem ; the status domus often shewed a deficit, and efforts to cut down
expenses, where habits of life had become fixed, were unavailing. The
evidence shews that the management of finance constantly fell into the
hands of a few, who did much as they chose; a masterful abbot or prior
could obtain possession of the purse of the convent, or a weak one could
leave it to the control of obedientiaries who squandered money and
rendered few or no accounts. Petitions for the appropriation of churches
contain statements of poverty brought about by the decay of property,
rises in prices, heavy taxation, and the exercise of the duty of hospitality
to all and sundry, a duty which was profitable where a monastery was
a centre of pilgrimage, but irksome where it merely was a resort of casual
travellers. But there is no doubt that poverty was the result of careless
finance, and, as was natural, brought general negligence and other evils
in its train. Even in well-managed and prosperous monasteries, the state
of things offered a strange contrast to the requirements of the Rule. The
appropriation of a considerable part of the common fund to the abbot,
who kept a large household of knights, squires, and grooms, and had his
own staff of obedientiaries chosen from the monks, his frequent journeys
to London and his manor-houses, were incentives to his monks to live
luxuriously, to acquire private property, and to stray outside their house
at pleasure. Too much stress may be laid upon the faults of individuals;
for a visitor's business was to lay stress on such faults, and he did not
waste time in praising cloistered virtue. It was rarely in England that
a great monastery was found in such a lamentable state of disorder as
existed at Ramsey in 1437, though serious irregularities in smaller houses
were not uncommon. It may certainly, however, be said that the patriarchs
of western monachism, if they could have visited such eminent houses as
Westminster, Durham, or Glastonbury in the fourteenth or fifteenth
centuries, would hardly have concluded that they were fulfilling their
vocation.
In England, however, from which these general considerations are
drawn, conditions were comparatively favourable. If the Benedictine
constitutions were not carefully observed, triennial chapters of monks and
canons were held, and there was no general call for monastic reform. The
CH. XX.
44-2


## p. 692 (#738) ############################################

1
692
The later days of monasticism
pestilences of the fourteenth century worked havoc in many houses and
depreciated the value of their property; at this date it seems certain
that the great mortality among Cistercian conversi eliminated this element
from the order, and necessitated the leasing of granges to farmers or their
cultivation by hired labour. On the other hand, during the Hundred
Years' War, the wisdom of Cistercian polity was exemplified; while
Cluniac priories, in common with the small alien cells, were seized by the
Crown as members of a foreign order, Cistercian abbeys, with their less
exacting bond to Cîteaux, were left untouched. The orthodox Lancastrian
kings favoured monasteries, and, even in suppressing alien priories and
granting them to non-monastic foundations, they were careful to dis-
tinguish between conventual priories, which were preserved, and those
which were merely manors belonging to foreign houses. The Wars of the
Roses, if they did not encourage monastic discipline, at any rate spared
monasteries. Even in face of the serious charges laid to the account of
the monks of St Albans by Archbishop Morton, it cannot be said that,
in the period immediately preceding the suppression, decline was more
evident than it had been at a much earlier date. Abbots were still regulars;
the custom, so disastrous in other countries, of granting abbeys in com-
mendam, never prevailed in England to any noticeable extent. At the
same time, the foundation of monasteries, rare in the fourteenth century,
ceased altogether in the fifteenth. Of the few monasteries founded after
the beginning of the reign of Edward III, the most important were the
seven Charterhouses added to the two previously existing. William de
la Pole hesitated over the form of his proposed foundation at Hull,
which his Michael
gave
to the Carthusians. It was in the
prayers
this strictest of orders, living apart from the world in silence and poverty,
that the courtiers of the last Plantagenet kings saw the best assurance
of salvation. The last monasteries of any importance to be founded in
England were Henry V's Charterhouse of Shene and the double house of
nuns and canons of the Brigitine order at Syon.
In France, the disasters of the Hundred Years' War, with the prevalence
of anarchy, not only destroyed monastic discipline, but left monasteries
incapable of recovery. Similarly, in Italy and Germany, disturbed by
party factions and intestine warfare, and shaken by the strife of Pope and
Emperor and by the great schism in the Church, monastic life was at a
low ebb, the Benedictine constitutions were a dead letter, and monasteries
ruled by commendatory abbots were virtually secularised. Enthusiasts,
however, were not wanting in Italy who sought to establish congregations
on lines of strict observance of the Benedictine Rule. Carthusians and
Olivetans still set an example of discipline; and Cistercians seem for a
time to have remained superior to the general apathy. The small order
of Corpus Christi, founded at Gualdo in Umbria in 1318, established the
abbey of Santa Maria dei Campi near Foligno in 1373, to which its
priories were subordinated. Approved by Gregory XI and by Boniface IX
son
of


## p. 693 (#739) ############################################

Development of the congregational system
693
it was affiliated to the Cistercians in 1393. Twenty years later it was
freed from this nominal dependence, and, preserving Cistercian customs,
remained independent until, late in the sixteenth century, it was merged
in the order of Monte Oliveto.
The ruin and revival of the older monasteries is well illustrated by
the history of the abbey of Santa Giustina at Padua, which in 1407
contained only three religious. Gregory XII gave it in commendam to
the Cardinal of Bologna, who attempted to restore it with the aid of
Olivetans. The old monks, however, were brought back by the influence
of the Venetian republic; and in 1408 Lodovico Barbo, Prior of the canons
of San Giorgio in Alga, was appointed Abbot, became a Benedictine,
and reinforced the house with two of his canons and two Camaldolese
from Murano. From this germ began the reformed congregation of Santa
Giustina, which, coming into life in 1421, held its first chapter-general
in 1424, and gradually included the older Benedictine monasteries of Italy
within its limits. This congregation, which, after the union of Monte
Cassino with it in 1504, adopted the title Cassinese, marks the beginning
of modern monasticism. Its fundamental principle was essentially different
from that of the provincial federations ordered by the Benedictine con-
stitutions. Its chapters were not mere assemblies of a consultative body
charged with the preservation of unity between bodies which, for all
practical purposes, were self-ruling; they were meetings of a central
executive which controlled the congregation as though it were a single
monastery. So far, it resembled the Cluniac system ; but that system,
with a permanent autocrat at its head, was open to abuse, especially in
an age when the custom of granting the dignity of abbot in commendam
to some wealthy ecclesiastic who was not even a monk had done so much
to disorganise regular observance. The congregation changed its president,
abbots, and other officers at every chapter. Thus not only the individuality
of monasteries was suppressed, but their right of free election was taken
away; the supremacy of the abbot over the Benedictine house was practi-
cally abandoned, and the abbots became merely the obedientiaries of the
general chapter.
While the congregational system involved this important change in
the Benedictine system of government, it supplied an adequate method
for dealing with the critical condition of monastic life in an age which
called for wholesale reform. Its rise was contemporary with the conciliar
movement; and it was the Pope elected by the Council of Constance
who, at the request of Albert of Austria, sent commissaries to reform the
monasteries in his dominions. From this source came the reform of Melk
in the diocese of Passau, which, beginning in 1418, spread to other
Austrian houses. Neither Melk, however, nor Castel in the diocese of
Eichstädt, which set the example of reform in Bavaria, organised con-
gregations on the strict model; and their position with regard to the
monasteries which imitated them resembled that of the so-called heads
CH. XX.


## p. 694 (#740) ############################################

694
The Congregation of Windesheim
of congregations at an earlier date. The reform of Bursfeld in the duchy
of Brunswick led in 1464 to the establishment of the first regular congre-
gation in Germany.
One of the most remarkable reforms of this later period sprang from
the house of canons regular at Windesheim near Zwolle in Friesland. Its
founder, Florens Radewin, was a disciple of Gerhard Groot of Deventer;
he after 1374 had gathered round him a body of clerks who, without
formal monastic organisation, were called the Brethren of the Common
Life and are famous in the annals of Christian mysticism. After Gerhard's
death in 1384 his work was carried on by Radewin; and the foundation
of Windesheim shortly afterwards fulfilled his ultimate aims. In 1395
a congregation was formed consisting of Windesheim and three other
houses ; and statutes were promulgated in 1402. In this union the auto-
nomy of the constituent members was respected; the prior-superior of
Windesheim was merely a moderator, nor was the expedient of annual
or triennial elections of priors adopted. The congregation, however, held
tenaciously to uniformity of habit and customs, and was slow to admit
monasteries which did not readily conform to its rules. It was only by
a compromise on the question of habit that the monastery of Neuss, with
some allied houses, was united to Windesheim in 1430. Its influence,
however, worked wonders in the Low Countries and in Germany; and
one of its sons, Johann Busch, was among the most prominent reformers
of claustral discipline in his age. Of the difficulties with which he had to
contend and the stern determination with which he met them he has left
us a full record. In house after house of canons and nuns, in which the
substantial vows were neglected or wholly abandoned, he met with fear,
suspicion, or active hostility. His efforts, however, attended with not
a little danger, had at least a temporary success, and were undertaken
with the concurrence of diocesan authorities who recognised the importance
of the restoration of order in the cloister. The congregation of Windes-
heim maintained the high spiritual ideals of its founder ; in some of its
houses a Carthusian severity of life was pursued. Groenendael in Brabant,
of which the famous mystic Jan Ruysbroek had been prior in the fourteenth
century, joined its stricter observance in 1448; and the reputed author
of the Imitatio Christi was a canon of its monastery at Kempen.
The house of Jesus of Bethlehem at Syon, already mentioned, belonged
to an order, established in Sweden in the middle of the fourteenth century,
which was in part an Augustinian reform. The order of the Saviour,
founded by the Swedish princess St Bridget, was the last attempt at a
community of both sexes in one monastery. Side by side with a cloister
of sixty nuns there was another, in which thirteen priest-canons, four
deacons, and eight conversi lived. Thus, as in previous attempts of a
similar kind, the spiritual and temporal needs of the nuns were supplied
by a male convent; the abbess, as at Fontevrault, being the head of the
whole community. The order was approved by Urban V; and, although


## p. 695 (#741) ############################################

Fifteenth-century attempts at reform
695
its monasteries were not numerous, the magnificent endowment of Syon,
which at the suppression was among the most prosperous of English
houses, gives it a special importance.
No congregational movement was initiated by the Benedictines and
canons regular of England before the suppression; and the events of the
Reformation period put an end to the congregation of Bursteld in
Germany. In Spain, the gradual growth of a Benedictine congregation
proceeded from the priory of San Benito el Real at Valladolid, founded
by John I of Castile towards the close of the fourteenth century, which
attracted other monasteries into union with it. The congregation, with
its system of perpetual enclosure and frequent change of priors, was
recognised by Innocent VIII, and the Prior of Valladolid was made an
abbot by Alexander VI. If the Papacy throughout the fifteenth century
was more remarkable for political than for religious zeal, successive
Popes at any rate countenanced the restoration of order in monasteries.
Eugenius IV, in his early years one of the founders of the reformed house of
secular canons at San Giorgio in Alga, displayed an activity in furthering
reform which contrasted favourably with the divided efforts of the Council
of Basle to assert its authority against the Pope's. The zeal of Ambrogio
of Camaldoli, the faithful henchman of Eugenius, restored discipline in
his own order and was used to stir up the flagging energy of others. In
1444 Eugenius, acting upon information from France and Spain, urged
the Cistercian chapter-general to take measures to combat slackness. The
Cistercians had revised their constitutions in 1350 ; but growing disunion
was felt in their ranks, and in 1426 the forward spirits of the order in
Spain had formed a separate congregation under the headship of the
Abbot of Poblet, which was eventually recognised by one chapter-general
and disowned by the next. The arrest of decline was impossible; when,
in 1475, Sixtus IV revived the constitution of Benedict XII against the
promiscuous use of Hesh-meat, the power of dispensation permitted to
abbots led to the complete loss of that uniformity of practice which was
a substantive principle of the order. In 1485 came the decision of the
chapter-general to allow flesh-meat on three days a week in a separate
refectory as the general practice. This concession, however, was no avenue
to reform; and in 1487 Innocent VIII issued fresh constitutions for the
improvement of monasteries. Early in 1494 a number of French abbots
met at the college of the order in Paris and drew up articles of reform
which shew that its shortcomings were those habitual in monasteries of
other bodies. Monks roamed outside their houses in secular habits; within
the monastery they lived too comfortably; the gates were not closed
at the proper hours; there was unchecked communication with secular
persons, and women were allowed to enter the cloister. It is significant
of the strength of the opposition that these articles were quashed on
petition by the Parlement of Dijon, on the ground that they had not
been drawn up at Cîteaux, within its jurisdiction. The order was saved
CH. XX.


## p. 696 (#742) ############################################

696
The Reformation and monasticism
from extinction only by the perseverance of the Spanish congregation in
face of rebuffs, and by the activity of a group of new monasteries in the
Low Countries and western Germany. In 1497 a congregation was formed
in Tuscany and Lombardy; and, in the century following the Council of
Trent, the congregational system was extended to the whole order.
To the same period belongs the extension of the system to France;
for, although sporadic reforms had taken place there about the end of the
fifteenth century, like that of Chézal-Benoît in the diocese of Bourges,
recognised in 1516 as the head of a small congregation, the sufferings of
France during the long wars with England, and the civil strife of
Burgundians and Armagnacs, had vitally injured her religious life. The
growth, however, of later congregations is beyond the scope of this clfapter.
The Reformation, bringing complete extinction to the monasteries of
countries and provinces which rejected the papal authority, put an end
to the medieval monastic system. Monasticism, in the later centuries of
the Middle Ages, had lost touch with the main currents of progress ;
once the vital force at the back of ecclesiastical reform, it had now become
merely a department of ecclesiastical affairs which exercised little influence.
It had long lost the position in which it could control the Papacy and
command the reverence of the secular power. Such incidents as the sup-
pression of the Templars, the seizure of the alien priories in England,
the summary dissolution of small and inactive houses by papal bulls,
were evidences of monastic weakness and precedents for wholesale acts of
confiscation and destruction. While Henry VIII took advantage of his
breach with Rome to put an end to the English monasteries, the monas-
teries and military orders of Spain were equally at the mercy of the most
Catholic king, if it had been to his advantage to pursue the same line of
policy. The monastery, however, is an institution which in every age
meets a certain class of human needs. Though deprived of its old promi-
nence, it survived the troubles of the Reformation. Under the fostering
care of national congregations, it entered upon a new phase of existence;
and, if it was still subject to the inevitable alternation of lapse and revival,
such bodies as the congregation of Saint-Maur were still to exhibit a
pious fervour comparable to that of Cluny and Cîteaux in their best days,
and a learning which more than equalled the best traditions of Monte
Cassino and Saint-Victor. If the ordinary medieval monastery has been
somewhat overrated as a centre of learning and education, the later
achievements of Benedictinism in this direction have renewed the lustre
of the age when religious houses, in the midst of a chaotic society, were
chief among the formative influences of European civilisation.


## p. 697 (#743) ############################################

697
CHAPTER XXI.
ROMAN AND CANON LAW IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
I.
The age of the Crusades was also the age of the revival of legal
studies in Italy. These studies were devoted chiefly to two legal systems
closely related to each other not only in their historical origin and evo-
lution but also in their form and content. Neither the Civil Law nor the
Canon Law had originated in the medieval centuries immediately pre-
ceding the Italian legal renascence.
Both of these systems were outgrowths
of the age of antiquity; both of them were integral parts of the civilisa-
tion which the Middle Ages inherited from the ancient world. The Civil
Law—the medieval Roman Law—was a system created by the ancient
Romans and transmitted by them to the peoples of the East and the
West; while the Canon Law, an adaptation and expansion of the
Roman Law to meet the purposes of the Christian Church, was in its
origins and earlier development not less a creation of the Roman legal
genius than the Civil Law itself.
At the time, however, when by slow processes of movement and change
ancient society was gradually transforming itself into medieval society,
these two bodies of law were in different stages of evolution. The Roman
Law had already passed the period of its maturity in the time of the
classical jurists and was in process of adaptation to meet the altered social
conditions of the world. Canon Law, on the other hand, was still in the
earlier stages of its growth. This difference between the state of Roman Law
and the state of Canon Law at the beginning of the medieval epoch—a
difference marked by the character of the sources and the literature of the
two systems and by the scope and manner of the application of these
legal materials to human affairs-determined in many ways the main
lines of their separate but related histories in the Middle Age. In the
case of the Roman Law the work of the medieval centuries was to adapt,
modify, and apply a system which the Romans of antiquity had already
perfected; while in the case of the Canon Law, on the other hand, the
work of the Middle Age was to develop, expand, and apply a system which
the ancient Roman world had only begun to evolve for the needs of the
youthful Church.
The main purpose of the present chapter is to sketch in outline the
history of these two systems of law throughout the medieval age. Two
preliminary matters must engage our attention, however, at the very
outset of the enquiry. It will be necessary, in the first place, to observe
CH. XXI.


## p. 698 (#744) ############################################

698
Origins in antiquity
the processes of the inner growth and the world-wide spread of the
Roman Law in the age of antiquity, for this earlier development lies at
the very basis of the history of the Roman system in the Middle Ages;
and, at the same time, we must gain some notion of the nature of the
Roman legal materials that were to influence the growth of law in
medieval times. A second subject of study, not less important than the
first, is the history of the origins of Canon Law in the age of antiquity,
and of its general development and its sources in the periods of the
Middle Age. Not until we understand these two preliminary matters can
we proceed to the study of our main subject, the history of the Roman
and Canon Laws in the Later Roman Empire of the East, in the Germanic
kingdoms of the West during the early medieval centuries, and in the
several national areas — Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and England-
of the later Middle Age. What were the processes whereby the Roman
and Canon Laws spread throughout the world—in the East as well as
in the West—during the medieval epoch? What was the result of the
contact of these laws with other legal systems ? Where and how were
the two Romanic systems studied ; and what was the influence of such
studies ? These are some of the historical problems with which we shall
be concerned.
We shall not, therefore, restrict our attention to the age of the
Crusades and the revival of juristic studies. To do so would result in the
loss of perspective and conceal from our gaze all but a small part of the
complete picture. The complete picture, however, must be at best but
a rough sketch, an impressionist design. The sources and the literature
of the history of Roman and Canon Law in ancient and medieval times
fill thousands of volumes. Only a few of these can be drawn upon for
the purposes of this chapter. Only a few of the rich and varied colours
of medieval legal life can be spread upon our canvas. All but the barest
outlines must be left undrawn.
Let us begin with the two preliminary subjects which are to furnish
us with the background of our picture.
II.
The history of the evolution of the Roman Law and of its world-wide
extension can be traced in unbroken continuity throughout twenty-
five centuries. In one sense the ancient history of this greatest of all
the legal systems of antiquity reaches its end when the decay of the
classical jurisprudence set in, as a part of the general decline of the
Roman world, about the middle of the third century after Christ. In
another sense, however, the ancient period of Roman legal history does
not finally terminate until the completion and promulgation of Justinian's
1 The bibliography to this chapter contains certain of the more important
sources and writings.


## p. 699 (#745) ############################################

Periods of Roman legal history
699
codification in the first part of the sixth century. The transition from
ancient to medieval times was in fact a slow process of centuries; and in
no respect is this more noticeable than in the history of the law. Legal
decay, adaptation, and transformation were at work in the regions of the
West long before the time of Justinian; and from his time onwards these
processes also became a marked feature of the legal history of the East.
In legal history the chronological boundaries of great eras cannot be
marked out with nicety and precision. Transition sometimes takes decades
or even centuries.
Let us for the moment fasten our attention upon the authenticated
evolution of Roman Law during the ten centuries before the death of
Justinian; for the first three hundred years of the city we are without
adequate historical evidence. Within this long period of a thousand
yearsthe customs of a small city-community were transformed into an
elaborate system of justice and extended by conquest to the ancient
world. During the epoch from the establishment of the Republic until
the subjugation of central and southern Italy, the composite of fas, ius,
and boni mores which characterised the ancient custom of the regal
period became the ius civile, the ius proprium civium Romanorum, and
was codified in the Lex XII Tabularum (B. C. 451). The latter half of
the Republican age was marked by the growth of the ius gentium and
the ius honorarium. Various influences affected both the form and the
substance of the law; and among them were provincial conquests, the
growth of commerce and the influx of foreigners, the institution of the
peregrin praetorship, the simplification of procedure, and the introduction
of new remedies under the Aebutian law. The spread of literature and
philosophy, as well as the decline of religion and morals, also influenced
the law. The growth of the law—which in this period was composed of ius
civile, ius gentium, and ius honorarium---owed little to legislation; but the
law's debt to custom, to the edicts of magistrates, and to professional juris-
prudence, was very great. The centuries of the Empire before the time
of Diocletian were the age of the ius naturale and the maturity of Roman
jurisprudence; while the age of codification stretched from Diocletian to
Justinian-an age when the Emperors were supreme as the sole legislators
and when Christianity, as the religion of the State, exerted a powerful
influence on legal growth. Within these chief periods of Roman legal
history, so briefly sketched, the law was not only altered in its form and
substance, but it was gradually diffused throughout all the provinces of
the Empire. The inner growth of the law as a system of justice and its
world-wide extension went hand in hand as aspects of one and the same
historical process. Certain features of this process demand our attention.
Both Roman policy and Roman Law recognised the personality of
1 Details will be found in the two volumes of Karlowa’s Römische Rechtsgeschichte.
A shorter account of Roman legal history is given by Puchta in the first volume of
his Institutionen.
CH. XXI.


## p. 700 (#746) ############################################

700
Ius civile and Ius gentium
1
law as a fundamental principle! By conquest Rome brought within her
dominion many non-Roman peoples in all parts of the ancient world,
peoples who at the time they became subject to Rome were already living
under their own national customs and laws. On the principle of the person-
ality of law the Roman ius civile applied only to Roman citizens; while
the peregrini, even under Roman rule, continued to live according to
their native systems of law. Thus, there existed under Roman political
sway many diverse legal systems, of which the Roman ius civile was only
one; and the Roman Law did not, therefore, dominate the entire territory
of the Roman State from the beginning. Indeed, it was only gradually,
by a long process of development, that the Roman system displaced native
legal institutions in the provinces ; and even in the end it did not every-
where supersede them. In many parts of the Empire native systems
persisted and survived Roman rule; they contributed their share to the
development of law in the Middle Ages.
The existence within the Roman domain of many diverse bodies of
law, the ius civile of the Romans and the laws of the peregrini-raised
the problem as to which of these several national laws should be applied
to the relations of Romans with peregrins and of peregrins of one nation-
ality with those of another. The Romans solved this problem, not by
the development of a system similar to modern international private law,
or the conflict of laws, but by the evolution of a third body of law
different from either one of the national laws of the two parties. This
third body of law was known as the ius gentium. Gaius states that the
ius gentium was the law common to all peoples; and the words of Gaius
find their place in due time in the Digest. But this theory of the nature
of the ius gentium does not correspond with the facts, for in truth the
ius gentium was a branch or part of the Roman Law itself: it was that
part of the Roman system which had been evolved, both by the edicts of
the Roman magistrates possessing jurisdiction over peregrins and by the
work of the Roman jurists, to regulate the inter-relations of persons of
different nationality. The principles of the ius gentium were drawn in
part from the Roman ius civile; in part they were new principles, distinct
from Roman ius civile, derived in large measure from the national laws
of the peregrins, but shaped, both in form and spirit, in accordance with
Roman ideas of justice. The ius gentium embodied the newer legal ideas,
and at many points it was in conflict with the principles of the ancient
ius civile. Applied in the first instance to the cases where there was a
collision of two national laws, the ius gentium was later invoked in cases
involving two members of the same nation and thus in cases between two
Roman citizens; and in fact the ius gentium was used extensively in the
settlement of disputes between Roman citizens. The evolution of the ius
gentium as a new and integral part of the Roman system was thus a
1 See Kipp, Geschichte der Quellen des römischen Rechts, 3rd edn, $$ 2, 3.
2 Gai. 1, 1 = D. 1, 1, 9.


## p. 701 (#747) ############################################

Spread of Roman Law in ancient times
701
powerful factor in the spread of Roman Law and in the process of the
unification of law throughout the Roman dominion.
Another factor of no less importance was the gradual extension of
Roman citizenship to the peregrini; for each extension of citizenship
meant the extension of the application of the Roman ius civile. This
development reached its climax in the beginning of the third century,
when Caracalla, in his famous Edict (212), abolished the distinction be-
tween citizens and peregrini by granting full citizenship (civitas) to all
in the Roman world'. In theory at least, the main result of the Edict
was that all (omnes, Trávtes) in the Empire were now amenable both to
the ius civile and the ius gentium. In fact, however, the general appli-
cation of the ius civile throughout the Empire was never fully carried out
in practice. Even after the Edict the distinction between citizens and
peregrini was not completely obliterated; for there still continued to be
inhabitants of the Empire who were not citizens? There is evidence,
furthermore, that in various parts of the Empire the old national laws
of the peregrins survived not only Caracalla's Edict but also the
Justinianean legislation. For the persistence of those laws in certain of
the eastern provinces of the Empire the Syrian-Roman Law Books is
ample authority.
The history of the evolution and spread of Roman Law in the ancient
world is in divers ways enlightening to the student of the medieval history
of that system. Not only does it give him clear ideas as to the nature of
the system, its component parts, its rules and principles, its sources and
its juristic literature; but it also shews him that, extensive as was the
spread of the Roman Law, it never completely obliterated all the other
legal systems of antiquity. Although an account of the concrete rules
and principles of Roman Law, as they are to be found in Roman legal
sources, more particularly in the Theodosian Code and in Justinian's law-
books, does not fall within the compass of our present survey", we must
nevertheless take pains to observe two main results of the evolution and
1 D. 1, 5, 17: Ulpianus libro vicensimo secundo ad edictum. In orbe Romano qui
sunt ex constitutione imperatoris Antonini cives Romani effecti sunt. Scholars are
in general agreement that Ulpian's statement of the effect of Caracalla's Edict (the
text of which has not been preserved) is too wide. Kipp, op. cit. $3, remarks: Es
ist unzweifelhaft, dass damit zuviel gesagt ist. On the effect of the Edict, see Girard,
Manuel élémentaire de Droit Romain, 3rd edn, p. 114; Buckland, Roman Law from
Augustus to Justinian, 1921, pp. 99-101, where references to the ancient and modern
literature of the subject will be found. For a fuller discussion of the subject, see
Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des römischen Kaiser-
reichs, Chap. vi.
2 Buckland, op. cit. p. 99: “[lt] is clear that even under Justinian, barbarian
inhabitants of the confines of the empire, some originating there, some immigrant,
and some settled by compulsion, were not treated as cives. ”
3 For a brief account of this remarkable law-book and of recent researches con-
cerning it, see Kipp, op. cit. 23.
4 See supra, Vol. 11, Chapter 111.
CH. XXI.


## p. 702 (#748) ############################################

702
Survival of non-Roman laws
spread of the Roman system during the periods of ancient history, for
these results materially affect the medieval development.
Let it be noted, in the first place, that the world-wide diffusion of the
Roman Law in antiquity partly prepared the way for its further extension
in the Middle Age. The Roman Law penetrated far and wide, in the East
and in the West, and gave the ancient world a legal unity such as it had
never before enjoyed; and yet this legal unity was of the kind which left
in force, even though altered, many local laws and customs of non-Roman
origin. Medieval times began, therefore, with the Roman Law in posses-
sion of only parts, though extensive parts, of the world-wide legal field.
In the East the Greek Law had never been wholly absorbed or obliterated
by Roman Law in ancient times; it lived on in many regions under
Roman rule? In the period of the Byzantine Empire it continued to
come into contact with the Roman Law, more particularly the Justinianean
law, and it helped to fashion the Graeco-Roman Law of the East. Like-
wise in the West the Middle Ages began with Roman Law in only partial
occupation of the field. The Western provinces of the ancient Empire
had been Romanised in varying degrees of intensity; the Romanisation
of Italy differed widely from that of Britain. The differences between the
legal histories of Western regions in medieval and modern times are due
in no small measure to the differences in the extent of Romanisation in
antiquity. The historian of European Law must constantly take account
of the fact that the planting of Roman culture, including culture in law,
had been intensive in some regions, partial or slight in others. In no
extensive region of the West was Roman Law the sole law at the
beginning of the Middle Age. Throughout vast areas Germanic racial
customs held dominance. Nor were Germanic customs the only rivals
of the Roman Law as the world passed into the medieval epoch. In
various regions Celtic customs had survived the changes effected by the
spread of Roman power and, later, by the migrations of the Germanic
tribes. Indigenous customs other than Celtic also lived on during the
periods of Roman and Germanic movement and pressure. Here and there
Greek Law, planted in southern Europe during the days of Hellenic coloni-
sation, still persisted.
The second main result of the ancient development of Roman Law,
in so far as that development affects medieval law, was the accumulation
of a mass of legal sources. The history of Roman Law in the Middle Age
is, to a large extent, the history of the world-wide diffusion of the manu-
scripts of these legal texts and their employment by legislators, judges,
practitioners, and jurists in the work of adapting Roman Law to medieval
social conditions. The facts of this vast process are so complex, so inti-
mately interwoven in the network of medieval events, movements, and
tendencies, so bound up with diverse social, political, and economic
conditions in the many parts of the world, that they are bewildering even
1 The establishment of this fact is one of the valuable results of Mitteis' researches.


## p. 703 (#749) ############################################

Legal characteristics of the Middle Ages
703
to one who is trained to single out the main and determining lines
of historical development. In truth, to write the medieval history of
Roman Law in all its fulness would mean the writing of the history of
medieval civilisation—the life of Europe ever moving, ever changing, in the
course of the centuries. Not forgetting this wider aspect of Roman legal
history in the Middle Age, let us observe that, so far as the diffusion of the
texts of the Roman Law is concerned, there are two features of the complex
historical process which illumine our path and guide us to understanding.
The first point which we have to note and remember is that the medieval
world is not one vast community under a single system of law and govern-
ment; it is a world made up of many communities, differing one from
another in race, in language, in social and legal institutions. Within the
Byzantine Empire there is an appreciable degree of political and legal
unity; and, at times, there is also political and legal unity of a sort in the
West. But the dominant note in the political and legal history of the
Middle Age is particularism, diversity, disunion. The system of the
personality of law in the early Middle Age means particularism and
diversity; and, with the growth of feudalism and the idea that law is
territorial, as distinct from personal, regional diversities take the place of
racial diversities in law. As a result, there is at first no tendency to uni-
formity in respect of Roman Law throughout medieval Europe as a whole.
A limited legal uniformity is at length introduced by the Frankish
Capitularies; but, on the whole, uniformity in law is more marked in
modern than in medieval times, and even in modern times it is but a partial
uniformity based in large measure on common origins. Since the time of
the ancient Roman Empire, Europe has never been one State with one law.
Even in the period of the medieval Empire and the medieval Church it
was composed of many States, each with its own separate legal system'.
There is, secondly, the point to be remembered that during the
Middle Ages each political unit adopts and adapts in ways of its own the
texts of the Roman Law that come to its hands. There is no power
from above which imposes certain texts over the whole of Europe? .
Some of the texts which are adopted and adapted by the separate units
are pre-Justinianean, while some of them are parts of Justinian's codifica-
tion itself. In the early Middle Age in the West the pre-Justinianean texts
have at first a preference: it is only gradually that the Justinianean materials
acquire a dominanceover the earlier ones. Nor is it surprising to find that of
all the texts of the Roman Law the institutional treatises and systematic
1 The legal map of medieval Europe is not unlike the legal map of the United
States of America to-day; for the States of the Federal Union--nearly fifty in number
-all possess their own separate legal systems. Save in Louisiana, where the Civil
Law prevails, uniformity in law throughout the Union is based in large measure on
the reception of the Common Law of England by the separate States.
2 The effect of the Frankish Capitularies should, however, be noted. See pp.
727-8, infra.
CH, XXI.


## p. 704 (#750) ############################################

704
Diffusion of Roman legal texts
1
1
codifications have the greatest influence upon the spread of Roman legal
rules and ideas in the Middle Age; for these materials are easier to grasp
and to embody in legislation and the practice of courts than are the texts
of a morelimited and special character. Furthermore, they are more compre-
hensive and they thus meet more completely the social needs of the time.
Of the pre-Justinianean texts there were three which exerted a far-
reaching influence in spreading Roman Law: the two private compilations
or codes, known as the Codex Gregorianus (about A. D. 300) and the
Codex Hermogenianus (probably before A. D. 323), and, notably, the great
Code of the Emperor, the Codex Theodosianus (A. D. 438). Although the
Gregorian and Hermogenian Codes were private works, they were never-
theless regarded as authoritative down to the time of Justinian, and they
were not superseded by the far more important Code of Theodosius; for
while the Codex Theodosianus did not embody materials before Constantine,
the Gregorian Code reached back to the time of Hadrian'. In the East
the Codex Theodosianus was superseded by the codification of Justinian;
but in the West it long influenced legal growth in the Germanic kingdoms,
large parts of it being embodied in Alaric's Breviary and other legal
sources. In the East, Justinian's codification-gradually moulded, especi-
ally in the Basilics, to meet Eastern needs-was of paramount importance
from Justinian's time down to the fall of the Byzantine Empire and even
later. In the West, the pre-Justinianean sources, particularly the Theodo-
sian Code, long continued to play a greater rôle than the texts of Justi-
nian. With the progress of time, however, the Institutes, Digest, Code,
and Novels of Justinian spread everywhere throughout the regions of the
West. The revival of juristic studies in Italy was by far the most im-
portant of all the factors making for this far-reaching influence of the
Justinianean law. Not only were the law-books of Justinian the subject of
study and instruction in the law schools; they were incorporated in the
law itself by the practice of the courts and by the acts of the legislators.
Ultimately they became the very essence of the medieval Roman Law of
Western countries—the Corpus iuris civilis.
Other aspects of the medieval history of Roman Law will be considered
in later parts of this chapter. For the moment let us turn our attention
to the second preliminary subject of our study—the history of the origins
of Canon Law in antiquity and of its general development and sources in
the periods of the Middle Age.
III.
While the Canon Law is the law of the Christian Church, a law
created and enforced by organs of the Church, it embodies nevertheless
rules derived from the Old Testament and thus from times long before
the birth of Christ? ; and, in general, the Canon Law no less than the Civil
1 Buckland, op. cit. pp. 38-40.
2 Canones et Decreta sacrosancti oecumenici Concilii Tridentini (Sessio Quarta :


## p. 705 (#751) ############################################

Differences between Civil and Canon Law
705
Law is a bequest from antiquity. Not only do the earlier stages in the
growth of the Canon Law fall within the period from the birth of Christ
to the end of the age of antiquity, but the Canon Law itself is in large
measure an off-shoot from the main stem of Roman legal growth, deriving
from the older system many of its rules and principles. In its origins and
in much of its later development the Canon Law is as much the product
of Roman civilisation as the Civil Law itself.
From the point of view of medieval history there are, however, many
points of difference between the Civil Law and the Canon Law. Not only
is the Civil Law primarily the secular law of the State, while the Canon
Law is primarily the law of the Christian Church; the difference between
the stages of growth reached by the two laws at the close of ancient times
also affects materially their medieval courses of evolution. As we have
seen, the Middle Age adopts and adapts a system of Civil Law which
antiquity had perfected, while it takes over and slowly brings to perfec-
tion a system of Canon Law which antiquity had only begun to develop:
the Canon Law is the younger system. This difference leaves its mark on
the history of the sources of the two systems during the medieval epoch.
It accounts for the fact that the historian of Canon Law, as distinct from
the historian of Civil Law, must spend much of his time in tracing the
evolution of a growing and expanding system and in describing and
explaining the successive additions to the sources of that system before,
during, and after the formation of the Corpus iuris canonici.
The fortunes of the Church followed the fortunes of the Empire,
within the frontiers of which it had its origin and earlier growth. The
division of the Empire into its western and eastern halves resulted in a
corresponding division of the Church. This process of ecclesiastical
division was practically complete by the end of the sixth century; but
only in 1054 was the schism of Eastern and Western Churches finally
consummated'. The eastern and the western halves of the Church
thus went their separate ways as the Greek Catholic Church and
the Roman Catholic Church; and this splitting of the one Catholic
Church into two necessarily resulted in the division of the Canon Law
into two bodies of rules and principles, the Eastern or Greek Canon Law
and the Western or Latin Canon Law. These two bodies of Canon Law
possess common elements; they are closely related to each other in
various ways; but yet they are distinct one from the other in many other
ways and their histories must be separately traced. The early Greek
Canon Law consists only of Eastern conciliar canons; it admits no purely
Latin elements; and it cannot, therefore, lay claim to universality.
decretum de canonicis scripturis): . . . omnes libros tam veteris quam novi testamenti,
cum utriusque unus Deus sit auctor . . . pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipit et
veneratur. According to Gratian only the moral rules of the Old Testament form
ius divinum. See Decretum, prima pars, distinctio VI, c. II; Friedberg, Kirchenrecht,
4th edn, $ 31.