Canon Law

Canon Law

Canon Law can be the law of any religion, but the phrase most commonly refers to the law of the Roman Catholic Church.

Legal Materials

The Canon Law Research Guide by Don Ford covers Catholic, Easter Rite, Orthodox, Anglican Lutheran and Mormon law.

Roman Catholic: Roman Catholic Canon law is codified in Codex Juris Canonici (i.e., the Code of Canon Law). The Vatican posts an English translation. Commentaries on the Code include the University of Navarre’s Code of Canon Law Annotated and the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland’s The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit(Liturgical Press).

The Canon Law Society of America publishes a translation of the Code of Canon Lawas well as the Canon Law Digest, “a compilation of official documents relating to canon law.”

The Columbia Law School Library has a substantial canon law collection and a first-rate document delivery service. The Biblioteca Pontificia Università della Santa Croce(the library at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross) in Rome has an extensive collection of canon law collection and staff members with expertise in the area.

Letters and other writings by the Pope are posted in Papal Encyclicals Online.

The “Christian Canon Law” section of Religious Legal Systems: A Brief Guide to Research and Its Role in Comparative Law by Marylin Johnson Raisch discusses the basic sources of Catholic Canon law with links to online resources.Eastern Canon Law: The canon law of the Eastern churches in communion with the Roman Catholic Church is codified in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. An English translation is sold by the Canon Law Society of America.

Vatican City Law: The Vatican City State is governed by a mixture of Canon law, Italian law, and its own laws. For more about the VCS legal system see, Researching the Law of the Vatican City State by Stephen Young & Alison Shea and/or “Separating State from Church: A Research Guide to the Law of the Vatican City State,” 99:3 Law Library Journal 589 (2007).

General Principles of Canon Law

In 1918, in the book “A Commentary and Summary of the New Code of Canon Law”, the author, Rev. Stanislaus Woywod wrote:

“It is stated in the first Canon of the Code that its laws are obligatory only for Catholics of the Latin Rite, except in those points which of their very nature affect also the Oriental Church. This ruling is not new, it has obtained for many centuries. On account of the great difference in manners and customs between the peoples of the East and those of Europe, and of countries christianized by missionaries of the Latin Rite, the Holy See wisely modifies for the Oriental Church some laws in accordance with requirements. A special Congregation for the Orientals has been established at Rome to regulate the affairs of the Catholics of the various Oriental Rites. The laws on points of faith and morals, however, of their very nature bind all Catholics
in union with the See of St. Peter, for in principles of faith and morals all who wish to be members of the Catholic Church can acknowledge but one guide, viz., the infallible teaching authority of the Supreme Pastor and his colleagues, the bishops, in unison with their head. (Canon 1.)”

Estate and Churches Early History

And now for the greater part of the Continent comes the time when ecclesiastical law is the only sort of law that is visibly growing. The stream of capitularies ceased to flow; there was none to legislate; the Frankish monarchy was going to wreck and ruin; feudalism was triumphant. Sacerdotalism also was triumphant, and its victories were closely connected with those of feudalism. The clergy had long been striving to place themselves beyond the reach of the state’s tribunals. The dramatic struggle between Henry II. and Becket has a long Frankish prologue.82 Some concessions had been won from the Merovingians; but still Charles the Great had been supreme over all persons and in all causes. Though his realm fell asunder, the churches were united, and united by a principle that claimed a divine origin. They were rapidly evolving law which was in course of time to be the written law of an universal and theocratic monarchy. The mass, now swollen by the Isidorian forgeries, still rolled from diocese to diocese, taking up new matter into itself.

It became always more lawyerly in form and texture as it appropriated sentences from the Roman law-books and made itself the law of the only courts to which the clergy would yield obedience. Nor was it above borrowing from Germanic law, for thence it took its probative processes, the oath with oath-helpers and the ordeal or judgment of God. Among the many compilers of manuals of church law three are especially famous: Regino, Abbot of Prüm (906–915), Burchard, Bishop of Worms (1012–23), and Ivo, Bishop of Chartres (ob. 1117). They and many others prepared the way for Gratian, the maker of the church’s Digest, and events were deciding that the church should also have a Code and abundant Novels. In an evil day for themselves the German kings took the papacy from the mire into which it had fallen, and soon the work of issuing decretals was resumed with new vigour. At the date of the Norman Conquest the flow of these edicts was becoming rapid.

Source: Sir Frederick Pollock, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (1895)

Orthodox Churches and Protestant Churches

For more information about this section, in the context of legal history, see the main entry in this legal encyclopedia.

The Codes of Canon Law (1917 and 1983)

For more information about this section, in the context of legal history, see the main entry in this legal encyclopedia.

Courses and Classes

For more information about this section, in the context of legal history, see the main entry in this legal encyclopedia.

The Legal History of Canon Law: its Growth

Slowly and by obscure processes a great mass of ecclesiastical law had been forming itself. It rolled, if we may so speak, from country to country and took up new matter into itself as it went, for bishop borrowed from bishop and transcriber from transcriber. Oriental, African, Spanish, Gallican canons were collected into the same book and the decretal letters of later were added to those of earlier popes. Of the Dionysiana we have already spoken. Another celebrated collection seems to have taken shape in the Spain of the seventh century; it has been known as the Hispana or Isidoriana, for without sufficient warrant it has been attributed to that St. Isidore of Seville (ob. 636), whose Origines served as an encyclopaedia of jurisprudence and all other sciences. The Hispana made its way into France, and it seems to have already comprised some spurious documents before it came to the hands of the most illustrious of all forgers.

Source: Sir Frederick Pollock, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (1895)

The Legal History of Western Canon Law

This section provides an overview of Western Canon Law

Canon Law

From the book The Clergyman’s Hand-book of Law, about Canon Law (1): We will now turn to the first period of canon law, which covers the early history of the Church up to the reign of Constantine the Great.8

Canon law is composed of the following elements:

1. Holy Scriptures;

2. Ecclesiastical tradition;

3. Decrees of Councils;

4. Bulls and rescripts of Popes;

5. The writings of the Fathers;

6. Civil law.

Resources

Notes and References

  1. Charles M. Scanlan, The Clergyman’s Hand-book of Law. The Law of Church and Grave (1909), Benziger Brothers, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago

See Also

  • Religion
  • Church

Resources

See Also

    • Legal Traditions
    • Historical Laws
    • Bible
    • Hospitals
    • Islamic law
    • Jewish Law

Further Reading

Spanish Translation of canon law

This is the legal translation of English to Spanish in relation to canon law and / or a definition of this topic: Derecho Canónico (in Spanish, without translation of the dictionary entry).

Hierarchical Display of Canon law

Law > Sources and branches of the law > Legal science > Internal law of religions
Social Questions > Culture and religion > Religion > Christianity > Anglicanism
Social Questions > Culture and religion > Religion > Christianity > Catholicism
Social Questions > Culture and religion > Religion > Christianity > Orthodoxy

Canon law

Concept of Canon law

See the dictionary definition of Canon law.

Characteristics of Canon law

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Resources

Translation of Canon law

Thesaurus of Canon law

Law > Sources and branches of the law > Legal science > Internal law of religions > Canon law
Social Questions > Culture and religion > Religion > Christianity > Anglicanism > Canon law
Social Questions > Culture and religion > Religion > Christianity > Catholicism > Canon law
Social Questions > Culture and religion > Religion > Christianity > Orthodoxy > Canon law

See also

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