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 code of 1917 in a continuous dialogue with the secular law. The profound knowledge of this development, which is fundamental for the European law, will enable students to get new interpretations, both from a cultural and methodological perspective. 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 the area the ius Ecclesiae, apparently immutable because based on an unchangeable divine law, but actually urged by continuous new tensions and dynamics.

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 origins: Christians and Jews, Christians and the Roman Empire, the expansions of Christianity.

- The beginning of the Church legal system: the canon sources, in particular the procedure council and law and the pontifical decrees; the side contributions, in particular the Patristic and the Roman law. The first canon-liturgical collections. A new society leads out: ordines fidelium, local organization, Episcopal collegiality and hierarchical system.

- An outline of 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 the “national Churches” and the breaking of regulation. The Church in the barbarian kingdoms: splendor 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 canonical collections. The collections of the post-Carolingian and imperial reformation.

III. The golden age of Canon law

- The Gregorian Reform and the fight for investitures. The Dictatus Papae. The choice of a Pope 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, the Customary law.

- The importance of Bologna in the study of canon law. Law and theology at the age of Gratiano. The Concordia discordantium canonum. The decretists and the roman law. The pope's ius novum and the first decretalistica. The creation of the Corpus Iuris Canonici.

- The classical doctrine: types, methods, schools and teachers. The mediaeval universities.

- The mediaeval 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 canon 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 canonist schools in 1600s -1700s.

- The state integration of the Churches and ecclesiastic law.

- Canonist repercussions 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 codifications: the Church constitutional order in the Vatican Council I. The problem of canonical codification. The marking process of Codex Iuris Canonici.

 

 

For the integration of 1, 2, 3, credits, the student must contact the teacher by e-mail to decide a custom program.

Erasmus students must contact the teacher by e-mail to agree a custom program.

Readings/Bibliography

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

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

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

G. DALLA TORRE, G. BONI, Conoscere il diritto canonico, Edizioni Studium, Roma, ristampa, 2009.

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

Teaching methods

The course consists of lectures and seminars.

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

Students will be informed about dates and times of the seminars during the lectures or through notices, also on the Faculty web site. The teacher uses slides that will be made available to the students.

The students who attend the course will be invited to take part actively in the analysis of the themes studied in class: they 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.

Assessment methods

Only the student who has already taken the exams of Constitutional law and Private law is admitted to the oral exam.

The verification of learning consists in a final exam which will explore the acquisition of knowledge and skills requested trough an oral examination sustained directly with the professor.

The exam will cover the issues described in the “Course contents” section.

In this way the student will be able to show not only the learned knowledge, but also the critical and methodological capacities gained.

In the same time he will have to demonstrate to have some specific abilities. First of all, the possession of a mastery of expression and an appropriate technical language. The second one is the ability to move in safety within the system of the sources of this matter. The student moreover must have a clear perception of the information received and, finally, he must have properly understood the issues addressed in class and elucidated in the textbooks of reference.

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

Thesis

For the assignment of thesis the student must go to the reception of the teacher to discuss and decide the theme.

Teaching tools

During the lessons, Professor Geraldina Boni will supply and recommend teaching aids and further learning material, according to students' specific requests and interests.

The teacher uses slides that will be made available to the students to help them in the comprehension of the issues and the institutions explained during the lesson.

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 will receive the students on the same day.

Suggested readings:

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

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

G. DALLA TORRE, Santità e diritto. Sondaggi nella storia del diritto canonico, seconda edizione, G. Giappichelli editore, Torino, 2008.

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

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

Office hours

See the website of Geraldina Boni