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Canon Law
pendix to many old editions of the Corpus juris canonici, never met with much recognition or use. Gregory XIII. appointed a commission to prepare an official Liber septimus, but the work, which finally included the dogmatic decrees of Florence and Trent, was not completely printed until 1598, in the pontificate of Clement VIII. , under whose name it appeared; and then Clement, for some reason now unknown, refused to approve it. No further systematic collection of later decretals has been undertaken, though frequent chronological arrangements of them have been published under the title of Bullaria (see Briefs, Bulls, and Bullaria).
7. Corpus Juris Canonici: It remains to give an account of the Corpus juris canonici, by which name it has been customary since the sixteenth century to designate the collection formed by combining the Decretum Gratiani, the decretals of Gregory IX., the Liber sextus, the Clementina, and the two collections of Extravagantes made by Chappuis. The name was applied to Gratian's work in the twelfth century, and by Innocent IV to the Gregorian collection; Pierre d'Ailly, in his treatise De necessitate reformationis, written at the opening of the Ceuncil of Constance, speaks of the reservations prescribed " in corpore juris canonici," where there is no doubt that he means the sum of the collections named above, with the exception of the as yet non-existent Extravagantes. During the council the term Corpus juris or jus scriptum was constantly employed in contradistinction to the post- Clementine Extravagantes, and similarly at the Council of Basel. The legal authority of the Extravagantes was, in fact, frequently contested, and the thesis of the independent validity of every papal pronouncement, which had had practical effect since Innocent III., no longer recognized. So far, then, this distinction was justified, and while no new accepted collection was added to the Clementina the previously accepted Corpus might be considered as closed. The name does not occur in the oldest printed editions, which is to be explained by the fact that the component parts were usually printed separately. In the sixteenth century it became usual for these parts, together with Chappuis's two collections of Extravagantes, to be published by the same house in three volumes, the first containing Gratian's work, the second the decretals of Gregory IX., and the third the remainder with the glosses. In the latter half of this century, however, it was more common to omit the glosses and bind the whole in one volume, so that the inclusive title now becomes usual. The edition of Demochares (Paris, 1550, 1561) showed a certain amount of critical spirit, but with little result. During the sessions of the Council of Trent the need of revision was clearly apparent, and Pius IV in 1563 established a commission of cardinals and other scholars for this purpose. Under his successors, Pius V. and Gregory XIII., it was confirmed and enlarged to thirty-five members. The work of these Correctores Romani, as they are called, was completed in 1580, and the resulting revised edition published at Rome in 1582. Though they had rendered valuable service, much remained
to be done, as was made evident by the editions of Antonius Augustinus and Berardus — to say nothing of the modern ones. The earlier editions usually contained a number of appendices, including the Institutiones juris canonici of Paul Lancelot, professor at Perugia under Paul IV (1555-59), the Liber septimus of Petrus Matthaeus, etc.
For the internal relations of the Roman Catholic Church the Corpus juris canonici is still the authority in common law, though with some limitations. The appendices are not considered authoritative, especially those just named, unless the single decretals contained in the last of them have been universally received; and the same principle applies to the Extravagantes. The position taken at the councils of Constance and Basel was not affected by the edition of Gregory XIII., whose purpose was not to give them an official character by including them, but merely to establish a correct and authentic text of the documents which had. previously been included in widely circulated collections. Acting on the same principle in regard to this edition of Gregory XIII., most modern canonists deny the positive authority of the Decretum Gratiani as such, since it was a mere private collection, never officially authorized by the Church or the pope, and regard it only as a valuable collection of documents for the history of canon law. This view was even expressed in a decision of the Rota Romana, too long to quote here, and more than once by Benedict XIV But though thismay be theoretically the case, yet in practise the Decretum has retained a large measure of authority: and Gregory XIII. himself would scarcely have displayed so much zeal in having it edited and completed if he had regarded it as no more than a private compilation, without legal authority. Its contents, however, have in the lapse of time been to a great extent modified or rendered obsolete by later decretals, so that its practical importance is small.
Besides the general principle that a new law supersedes an older one, which has destroyed the validity of so much that is in the Corpus juris (not merely in Gratian's part of it), the course of secular legislation since the fourteenth century has had a marked influence in the same direction. The canon law covers not merely the doctrine,, worship, sacraments, and discipline of the Church, but a vast mass of other things in which ecclesiastical interests were supposed to be concerned, such as vows, oaths, betrothals, wills, funerals, benefices, church property, tithes, and the like. The reaction against the all-embracing claims of the Church has taken many of these things out of the hands of the ecclesiastical tribunals (see Jurisdiction, Ecclesiastical), while by its proclamation of the principle of the unity of national law and government it has reduced the Church to the position of any other corporation within the limits of the State; and thus a large number of canonical provisions, such as those covering the procedure againsc heretics, which conflict with the civil constitution, have necessarily become ineffective. In France, Belgium, and Italy it is still regarded as a part of the general body of law. In the German.
Canon .L.aw Canon of Scripture