00939 - History of Canon Law

Learning outcomes

The course of History of Canon Law aims at making students well aware of the long journey covered by the Church juridical order from its origins up to the Pio-Benedictine codification (1917) in a continuous and uninterrupted dialogue with secular law. The knowledge of this evolutionary path, which is essential and fundamental for the European legal experience, will enable students to develop new interpretations both from a cultural and a methodological perspective: a skill that will prove fruitful also for a full understanding of current legal problems, especially in that same European context in which the extraordinary tradition of the ius commune was experienced. The various phases of the history of Canon law will be examined from a hermeneutic criterion according to which a better understanding of the past can be gained through the study of the problems of our age and the question about our future. All the more so in an area like that of the ius Ecclesiae, which appears still because it is based on an unchangeable divine law, but that is actually and constantly urged by new tensions and dynamics. Exploring this evolutionary parable not only aims at providing a knowledge, but also to develop parameters of interpretation that are valid for a positive jurist as well.

Course contents

The contents of the course are the following, arranged by theme:

 

I. The first Millennium of formation: the encounter with Roman law

• Introduction: the concept of history of Canon law and the relations with other historical sciences; the issue of periodization.
• The origins: Christians and Jews, Christians and the Roman Empire, the expansion of Christianity.
• The beginning of the legal system of the Church: canonistic sources, in particular procedures and laws from councils and pontifical decrees; lateral contributions, especially Patristic doctrine and Roman law. The first canonistic-liturgical collections. A new society takes shape: ordines fidelium, local organization, collegiality of Bishops and hierarchical system.
• The Eastern Church and its collections.
• Origin and development of the Pope's primacy in the Western world.

 

II. The first Millennium of formation: the encounter with Germanism

• Development of “national Churches” and legislative fragmentation. The Church in the barbarian kingdoms: splendors and dangers of the alliance.
• The Irish monasticism and the Libri poenitentiales.
• The penetration of “Germanism” into ecclesiastical institutions.
• The Carolingian age and the false canonistic collections. The collections of the post-Carolingian and imperial reformation.

 

III. The golden age of Canon law

• The Gregorian Reform and the investiture controversy. The Dictatus Papae. The selection of a Supreme Pontiff and his powers: the Pope's plenitudo potestatis.
• The creative sources of law in the classical age: the pontifical legislation, the council legislation, the synodal legislation, customary law.
• The importance of Bologna in the study of Canon law. Law and theology at the age of Gratian. The Concordia discordantium canonum. The decretists and Roman law. The Pope's ius novum and the first decretalistica. The creation of the Corpus Iuris Canonici.
• The classical doctrine: typologies, methods, schools and teachers. The medieval universities.
• The medieval councils and the other forms of synodality.
• From sacramental to corporative ecclesiology.
• The crisis of the Pope's monarchy and the conciliaristic hypothesis.

 

IV. The Tridentine law

• The Lutheran contestation of the canonistic order.
• The Council of Trent: the Tridentine law and the pastoral reformation. The relations with secular power.
• The “reform” of Roman curia and the production of ius pontificium.
• Methods and canonistic schools in 1600s -1700s.
• The State integration of the Churches and Ecclesiastical law.
• The canonistic impact of Gallicanism, Jansenism and Jurisdictionalism.

 

V. The Pio-Benedictine Code

• The ecclesiology of Restoration and the ius publicum ecclesiasticum. The Church and the States: agreements and breaches. Towards the 1917 codification: the constitutional order of the Church in the First Vatican Council. The problem of a canonistic codification. The formation of the Codex Iuris Canonici.

 

This year, an in-depth study will be dedicated to the responses provided by Canon law to epidemics over the centuries, in order to compare them to the provisions laid down by ecclesiastical authorities in 2020 in the face of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Contemporary ecclesial events will also be studied in a historical perspective.

 

For the integration of 1, 2, 3, credits, students must contact the Professor by e-mail to define a custom program.

Erasmus students must contact the Professor by e-mail to define a custom program.

Readings/Bibliography

All the students have to prepare for the exam on the following text:

C. FANTAPPIÈ, Storia del diritto canonico e delle istituzioni della Chiesa, il Mulino, Bologna, 2011, pp. 369.

 

In addition, students have to choose one of the following alternatives for the special part:

G. BONI, A. ZANOTTI, La Chiesa tra nuovo paganesimo e oblio. Un ritorno alle origini per il diritto canonico del terzo millennio?, G. Giappichelli Editore, Torino, 2012, pp. XIV-198.

G. DALLA TORRE, G. BONI, Conoscere il diritto canonico, Edizioni Studium, Roma, reprint, 2009, pp. VIII-204.

 

In the course of her lessons, the Professor will supply and recommend teaching aids and further learning material, following students' specific requests and interests. The materials will be gradually uploaded on the Professor’s website and made available to students.

Teaching methods

The course will develop through lectures, seminars and meetings with experts. 

Lectures will be given in the Ist semester. As a consequence, students obtaining their attendance certificate in the current academic year are allowed to take their exam only from the month of January.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars  and the meetings with the experts during the lectures or through notices, also on the Faculty website. The Professor uses slides (or other supplementary material) that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform.

Students who attend the course will be invited to actively take part in the analysis of the themes studied in class: students will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the Professor – a written paper about specific issues they are particularly interested in, which will be previously corrected and discussed together, and then evaluated during the final exam, thus concurring to the overall assessment. For this purpose, one or more practice sessions will be held in classroom or online, in parallel to lessons, in which methods for searching for sources and bibliographic materials, and for the formal writing, structuring and drafting of juridical texts will be explained: on this occasion, students will be given time for questions, requests for clarification and further information.

A service of teaching tutorship is provided to students who need clarification about the content of the course and the exam. Students who want to ask for its operating modes have to contact the Professor by e-mail in order to receive communications.

Assessment methods

Only students who have already taken the exams of Constitutional law and Private law are admitted to the final exam.

The verification of learning outcomes consists in an exclusively oral final exam, which will explore the acquisition of the required knowledge and skills through an oral examination sustained with the Professor.

The exam will cover the issues described in the “Course contents” section. The examination entails the assignment of a grade.

Through such exam, the knowledge learned and the critical and methodological skills acquired by the student will be assessed.

In addition to the possession of a mastery of expression and of an appropriate technical language, the student will also have to prove to be able to move confidently within the system of the legal sources on the matter, to have a clear perception of the received information and to have understood and adequately deepened the themes that were addressed in class and explained in the reference textbooks, which will have to be described and argued properly. Learning such skills is easier during the course, the attendance of which is recommended in order to improve the learning process and therefore the student’s performance during the exam.

 

Namely, about the oral exam:

As previously mentioned, the aim of the oral exam is to assess the actual achievement of the learning outcomes: therefore, both the knowledge of the relevant legal issues and the student’s capability to apply it in order to realize the required logical-deductive connections will be taken into account.

By way of a mere example, the assignment of the final grade will be based on the following criteria:

Sufficient knowledge of a very small number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that only emerge through extensive support by the interviewer, with the use of a language that is not incorrect but is not completely accurate either → 18-19;

Fairly good knowledge of a limited number of the topics addressed during the course and analytical skills that are autonomous only on purely executive issues, with the use of a correct but not fully confident and exhaustive language → 20-24;

Good knowledge of a wide number of the topics addressed during the course and capability to develop autonomous analytical skills, with an efficient and confident use of a technically specific language → 25-29;

Extensive and substantially exhaustive knowledge of the whole program addressed during the course, capability to develop very good legal reasonings and to critically analyze and connect different topics, with a fully confident use of a technically specific language that shows a mature ability to develop original reflections → 30-30L.

The students who attend the course will also be given the opportunity to prepare – with the assistance of the teacher – a paper about specific issues they’re particularly interested in, which will be evaluated during the final exam and will concur to the overall assessment.

Students who need compensatory tools for reasons of disability or Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) will communicate to the teacher their needs so as to be directed to the dedicated person and arrange on the adoption of the most appropriate measures: the same also applies with regard to the final exam.

Students have to book the final exam on the web application AlmaEsami.

 

Thesis

For the assignment of a thesis, students must go to the Professor's office hours in order to discuss and select the subject.

Teaching tools

During the lessons, the Professor will supply and recommend texts and further learning material to complete the preparation.

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars and the meetings with experts during the lectures and through notices on the Faculty website.

The Professor uses slides that will be made available to students on the Virtuale (Virtual Learning Environment) platform in order to help them understanding the issues and the institutes explained during the lessons.

Students who need compensatory tools for reasons of disability or Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) will communicate to the teacher their needs so as to be directed to the dedicated person and arrange on the adoption of the most appropriate measures.

The collaborators of the Chair and the Professor receive the students on the same day.

A service of teaching tutorship is provided to students who need clarification about the content of the course and the exam. Students who want to ask for its operating modes have to contact the Professor by e-mail in order to receive communications.

 

Suggested readings:

J. GAUDEMET, Storia del diritto canonico. Ecclesia et Civitas, Edizioni San Paolo, Cinisello Balsamo (Milano), 1998, pp. 810.

J. GAUDEMET, Il matrimonio in Occidente, Società Editrice Internazionale, Torino, 1989, pp. 434.

G. DALLA TORRE, Santità e diritto. Sondaggi nella storia del diritto canonico, Second edition, G. Giappichelli Editore, Torino, 2008, pp. X-210.

Especially:

G. BONI - A. ZANOTTI, Sangue e diritto nella Chiesa. Contributo ad una lettura dell'Occidente cristiano, il Mulino, Bologna, 2009, pp. 351.

G. BONI, La canonizzazione dei santi combattenti nella storia della Chiesa, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano, 2012, pp. 177.

Office hours

See the website of Geraldina Boni