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, through which the ecclesial events of current times will be read in a historical perspective, are the following, arranged by theme:

 

THE ORIGINS

• History of Canon law: object of the survey and relations with other historical sciences
• The term 'canon' as a mirror of Christian dualism
  
• The law of which Church and with what method? A periodization
• Disputes about the historicity of Christ: Christian and non-Christian sources
• Law or Gospel? The objections to Canon law
• Judaism and Christianity
• The formation of the canon of the New Testament
• Hellenism and Christianity
• The Church and the Roman Empire. The persecutions
• From the 'Constantinian shift' to Theodosius' edict
• Categories of sources
• Pseudo-Apostolic collections

 

SOURCES OF LAW PRODUCTION AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY IN THE EARLY CENTURIES

• Bishops' gatherings in response to heresies. The conciliar practice
• The first eight ecumenical councils and the collections of conciliar canons
• The primacy of the bishop of Rome. The decretals and the Dionysiana
• Canon law and Roman law
• Anchorites and monks. The Benedictine rule
• The East and the Eastern canonical collections
• The shaping and structuring of the Christian society: baptism and laity; women: widows, deaconesses, virgins; clerics and the requirements in those to be ordained
• Ecclesiastical properties, institutions of charity, administration of justice

 

EARLY MIDDLE AGES

• The barbarians and the year 476: a noiseless fall
• The Church, the Early Middle Ages and its 'stages'
• The Merovingian monarchy and the Church
• The Visigothic monarchy and the Church
• The Longobards and the papacy
• The alliance with the Franks: the unction of Pepin
• The beginning of the temporal power of the Church
• Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire: between reality and inventio
• The flourishing of a political thought: the relations between sacerdotium et imperium and the germ of a hierarchy
• The Carolingian 'renaissance': the canonical, monastic, liturgical and cultural reform
• The 'germanization' of Canon law: influence on ecclesiastical structures
• Louis the Pious, the partition and the end of the Holy Roman Empire
• From a fleeting radiance to the saeculum obscurum of the papacy: the ninth and tenth centuries
• Sources of law in Early Middle Ages: councils, bishops' statutes, monastic rules and capitulars
• Collections in the Carolingian period
• The golden age of fakes: from the forged documents of the religious to the false canonical collections in the mid-ninth century
• The collections of the post-Carolingian and imperial reform
• Irish and Anglo-Saxon monasticism, public penance and private penance. The penitential books
• Social changes: justice and the deepening of the chasm between clergy and laity
• The demarcation of time between heaven and earth: the Christian calendar and the veneration of martyrs and saints
• Modifications in the discipline of sacraments and marriage
• The treatment of 'strangers' and the care for the unfortunate
  

 

THE CLASSICAL PERIOD

PART I: THE GREGORIAN REFORM

• The Ottonian and Salian renovatio Imperii
• The Gregorian reform: the problems of the Church in the eleventh century. The Cluny model, new spiritual movements and the patarines
• The reform under German popes (1046-1057) and Tuscan-Lorrain popes (1057-1073)
• The 1059 In nomine Domini decree
• The head-on conflict between Gregory VII and Henry IV. The end of the investiture controversy
• The Dictatus papae (March 3-4, 1075). Fundamental principles. The Pope's rights in the Church (personal privileges, legislative power, rights towards the hierarchy, jurisdiction). The Pope's rights towards princes
• Matilda of Canossa and the canonists of her time: from Anselm of Lucca to Anselm of Aosta, Bonizo of Sutri and Placidus of Nonantola
  

 

PART II: THE APOGEE OF CANON LAW

• The 'harmony from dissonance': Bernold of Constance, Ivo of Chartres, Alger of Liège, Abelard
• The birth of Canon law science: Gratian
• Decretistic and Roman law
• Collections after Gratian: from the Quinque compilationes antiquae to Gregory IX's Decretals. The formation of the Corpus iuris canonici
• Changes in the sources of law: decretals, conciliar canons, synodal statutes, customary law

 

PART III: THE SOCIETAS ECCLESIAE IN LATE MIDDLE AGES

• The plenitudo potestatis of the vicarius Christi
  
• The conclave. A brief itinerary in the history of the election of the Pontiff among ancient times, Middle Ages and... current times
• The Roman Curia from its origins to the fifteenth century
• The ecclesial organization. The episcopate, cathedral chapters, parishes, right of patronage, laity and clergy, exercise of jurisdictional power
• Papal canonization and the regulation of the veneration of relics, the seven sacraments, marriage among consent, contract and sacrament, the status of women and children
• The metamorphosis of consecrated life, heresies, the Medieval inquisition
• Lay vocation and associationism: from female monasteries to confraternities, through the crusades and military orders

 

Students who attend the lessons will be offered the opportunity to carry out an in-depth work on a subject of their choice, with the help of the Professor. During the lessons, attending students will be informed about the reduction of the program (and of the parts of the handbook) that they will have to study.

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

G. BONI, I. SAMORÈ, Il diritto nella storia della Chiesa. Lezioni, Editrice Morcelliana, Brescia, 2023.

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.

Students who attend the lessons will be offered the opportunity to carry out an in-depth work on a subject of their choice, with the help of the Professor. During the lessons, attending students will be informed about the reduction of the program (and of the parts of the handbook) that they will have to study.

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:

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

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

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

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. 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