§121. THE FUTURE STATE. 763
penance. Bernard of Thiron bore witness that he saw the devils carry an unfaithful monk's soul out of the window.1
The severity of the purgatorial pains is vouched for in this story by Thomas of Chantimpre,2 for which he quotes Albertus Magnus. A good man, after suffering from a severe sickness for a year, had this alternative offered him by an augel : to go to purgatory and suffer for three days or endure for a year longer his sickness and then go directly to glory. He chose the first. So his soul took its departure, but the purgatorial agony of a day seemed like the pains of ages and the sufferer was glad to have the opportunity of returning to his body, which was still unburied, and endure his sickness for another year.
Such stories are numerous and reveal the coarse theology which was current in convent and among the people.
1 See Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediyer, etc., p. 49.
2 See Kaufinann, Thos. von Chantimpre, pp. 117 sq.
CHAPTER XV.
POPE AND CLERGY. § 122. The Canon Law.
LITERATURE : Decreturn Gratiani emendatum et notationibus illustratum. Una cum glossis, Gregorii XIII. Pont. Max. jussu editum, 6 vols. Rome, 1582. — Corpus juris canonici, ed. J. H. BOEHMER, 2 vols. Halle, 1747, with Introductions by BOEHMER on Gratian's Decretum, I. 1-42, and the later collections of decretals, II. 1-34. — Best critical ed. by A. L. RICHTER, 2 vols. Leip., 1839, revised ed. by E. FRIEDBERG, Leip., 1879- 1881, 2 vols. (vol. I., Decret. Gratiani, vol. II., DecretaUum collectiones). — J. FR. vox SCHLT/TE (Old-Cath. Prof, in Bonn): D. Gesch. der Quellen und Lit. des kanonischen Eechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart, 3 vols. Stuttg., 1875-1880. — DODD : Hist, of Canon Law, Oxf., 1884. — T. HINSCHIUS : D. Kirchenrecht d. Katholiken und Protestanten, etc., 6 vols. Berl., 1869-1897. — E. FRIEDBERG : Lehrbuch des kath. und evangel. Kirchenrechts^th ed.,Leip., 1903. — A. VON KIRCHEN- HEIM : Kirchenrecht, Bonn, 1900. — P. HERGENROTHER (Rom. Cath.) : Lehrbuch d. kathol Eechts, 2d. ed., Freib., 1905. —Other works by WALTER, 14th ed., 1871. — RICHTER-DOVE, 8th ed., Leip., 1877.— PHIL- LIMORE : The Eccles. Law of the Ch. of Engl., 2 vols. London, 1873, Supplem., 1876. — F. W. MAITLAND : Bom. Can. Law in the Ch. of Engl., Lond., 1898. — The artt. in Herzog, vol. X. Kanonen-Sammlungen, Kanonisches Eechtsbuch, Kirchenrecht. — STUBBS : Const. Hist, of Engl., II. 170 sqq., III. 295-388. —For extensive list of works on Canon Law, see FRIEDBERG : Kirchenrecht, pp. 3-11, and HERGKN- ROTHER : Kirchenrecht, pp. 15 sqq.
NOT the least of the characteristic and imposing products of the mediaeval Church was the gigantic fabric of the canon law.1 It is embodied in a series of collections con taining enactments of councils and papal decretals, begin ning with the collection of Gratian in the twelfth century and ending with the decretals of John XXII. in the four-
1 Jus canonicum or ecclesiastica constitutio, in distinction from the civil code, jus civile. See Deer. Grat. Dist., III. Friedberg's ed., I. 5. The term "cawones" was the prevailing term till the 12th century when the ex pression jus canonicum came into general use.
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teenth century. The canon law became the legal buttress of the papal theocracy and remained the ruling code till the Reformation.
The science of canon law looks back to Gratian as its father, and Bologna was the chief centre for its study. Although works on the subject were produced in other lands, Italy, through her universities, was far in the lead in their production till late in the fifteenth century.1
Under the Roman state, the religious laws — the jus sa crum, jus pontificium — were not a distinct body of legisla tion. In the Christian Church the conception of a distinct and superior divine law existed from the beginning. The for mulation of a written code followed the meeting of Christian synods and their regulations. As the jurisdiction of the hierarchy and the institution of the mediaeval papacy were developed, this legislation came to include civil obligations and all civil penalties except the death penalty.2 The Church encroached more and more upon the jurisdiction of the civil court. Conflict was inevitable. Not only was the independence of civil law as a distinct branch of procedure threatened, but even its very existence. It was not till the fourteenth century that the secular governments were able successfully to resist such encroachments and to regain some of the just prerogatives of which the civil courts had been robbed. " Oh, that the canon law might be purged from the superfluities of the civil law and be ordered by theology," exclaimed Roger Bacon, writing in the thirteenth century. " Then would the government of the Church be carried on honorably and suitably to its high position."3
Gratian's work was preceded by the Penitential Books and a number of imperfect collections of ecclesiastical deci-
1 See Schulte, I. 2 sq.
2 Dollinger-Friedrich, Papstthum, p. 403, says, "Leaving out the execu tion of the death penalty, I do not know a single function of the state which the Church did not assume. Is it, therefore, strange that the thought should arise, that the state is really superfluous or that its only significance is to act as a dumb executioner of the will of the Church ? "
3 Bridges's ed. , I. p. Ixxxiii,