Medieval Canon Law

by James A. Brundage

It is impossible to understand how the medieval church functioned -- and in turn influenced and controlled the lay world within its care -- without understanding the development, character and impact of `canon law', its own distinctive law code. However important, this can seem a daunting subject to non-specialists. They have long needed an attractive but authoritative introduction, avoiding arid technicalities and setting the subject in its widest context. James Brundage's marvellously fluent and accessible book is the perfect answer: it will be warmly welcomed by medievalists and students of ecclesiastical and legal history.

Genres: History, Medieval, Law, Medieval History, Religion, Christianity

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 1995

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, intermittently, is a very fun and interesting book. Canon law has the distinct feature of being either hugely interesting or hugely boring, with startlingly little middle ground, and this book follows this pattern pretty well. It's a near-impossibly large topic to cover in one, 200 page book, and Brundage does about as well as I think anyone could. But the fact that so much information is covered so quickly, jumping from topic to topic, keeps this in the 3.5 star range for me. Still, it's a great intro to the topic for anyone interested.

The first 70 pages of this book (approximately the first third) attempts to give a chronological history of canon law. This is probably the driest part of the book, since the subject is technical enough that it's really not terribly interesting unless you can dive into it with some depth. That's not what Brundage is aiming to do, and it serves well enough as a brief history of the main beats in canonical history. For better or worse though, it reads pretty much like an undergraduate history textbook.

The second hundred pages are much more interesting, as Brundage dives into the broader thematic impact of canon law. Rather than a list of canonical collections and textual histories, this section gets into meatier social problems. The fourth chapter has excellent discussions of the intricacies of medieval marriage - what exactly is consent? when is consent nullified by force of violence? what happens if the consent lacks witnesses? how does verb tense affect the nature of an engagement? - as well as economic issues. This latter was particularly fun, as it presents a different ecclesiastical attitude towards economics than is generally provided. Instead of a church that's skeptical of all new mercantile activity, Brundage's canonists are fine with economics but much more concerned about the moral intent driving economies. Buying up a bunch of wheat then selling it elsewhere at a higher price is perfectly acceptable. Buying up a bunch of wheat and jacking up the prices during a famine is not.

The fifth and sixth chapters are my favorite by a good margin. The fifth deals with the development of political theory in canon law, particularly the impact of emergence of the concept of a corporation (not in the sense of a modern business, but in the sense of an entity possessing legal personhood). This is addressed much more extensively in Brian Tierney's amazing Foundations Of The Conciliar Theory: The Contribution Of The Medieval Canonists From Gratian To The Great Schism and, for the early modern period, Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. The sixth chapter deals with changing legal procedure, and how the medieval canonical system shifted from a presumption of innocence to a more inquisitorial model in the thirteenth century. There's also a small but interesting section on the emergence of a person's intent as the defining feature in a criminal trial, rather than the tangible impact of their crime.

[Dominic Muresan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine a church that is so legalistic that you actually need lawyers to navigate it... Yup, that's the medieval church.

Not asking questions like: why?, but going straight to the complexities of the subject, the author explains the development of Canon law from Collection to collection, from jurist to jurist, ending with some wonderful chapters dealing on the Canon Law's impact on the laity, jews, muslims and the rest of the european history.

Extremely helpful, yet containing too much in too little space, this is a classic that will convince any beginner Medievalist of the importance of studying canon law. But, above all this, it is an actually FUN book to read... how??

9/10

[Stacy Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful introduction but it felt like it was missing some important details like trial by ordeal.

[Solomon Selah · Rating 4 out of 5]

An elegant introduction, with a coherent logic, fluent context, and no reading difficulties. Although the author does not use history to divide the development of canon law, the author's ideas are clear:

1. the struggle between clerical and secular power
2. the stratification of the ecclesiastical system
3. the system of exchange of knowledge among scholars
4. the relationship between canon law and Roman law and the formation of universal law
5. the professionalization of legal personnel
and
6. the daily application of canon law (heresy inquisition and marriage).

The penultimate chapter does not quite match this book, because it is copied from the first edition. Lastly, the following Appendix is useful.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read; an accessible introduction to the topic, as the series editor mentioned. I recommend it.

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and concise. It is informative without being overly detailed.