Corpus Juris Canonici

The Corpus Juris Canonici is a collection of important rules and laws used by the Canon law of the Catholic Church. It was especially for the Latin Church and helped decide matters in special church courts. These courts could be found in places like each diocese or even in bigger courts in Rome called the Roman Rota.

Over time, these rules were updated. In 1917, a new set of laws called the 1917 Code of Canon Law was created and started being used in 1918. Even that code was later replaced in 1983 by the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which is the one used today by the Latin Church. The Corpus Juris Canonici helped shape how the Catholic Church made decisions for many years.

Definitions

The term Corpus Juris Canonici means "Body of Canon Law" and was used from the 1200s to describe the system of canonical law in the Catholic Church.

It refers to a collection of important church laws. Over time, it came to include several key groups of laws, such as the Decretum by Gratian and the Decretals of popes like Gregory IX, Boniface VIII, and Clement V. By the 1500s, these collections were officially grouped together under this name. The Church does not have a fixed, unchanging set of laws that cannot be updated.

Jus novum and Corpus juris canonici

Decretum Gratiani

Main article: Decretum Gratiani

Around 1150, a man named Gratian, who taught theology at the University of Bologna, wrote a book called Concordia discordantium canonum. Others called it Decretum Gratiani, which is the name most people use today. He wrote it to help people study the rules of the Catholic Church, called canon law. Even though many liked and used this book, the Church never made it an official collection of rules.

Extravagantes

Main article: Extravagantes

Laws made after Gratian’s book were called “Extravagantes,” meaning laws not in Gratian’s work. These were gathered into new groups, and five early groups were especially important. Two of these, the third and fifth, were official collections of the Roman Church. Other important groups appeared later, named after the libraries where they were found, like “Bambergensis” and “Lipsiensis.” Soon, new official collections began.

Decretales Gregorii IX

Main article: Decretals of Gregory IX

In 1230, Gregory IX asked Raymond of Penyafort to create a new collection of laws, called the “Decretals of Gregory IX.” The Pope made these laws official in 1234. This collection is also called the “Liber extra,” meaning “the book beyond” Gratian’s work.

Liber Sextus

Boniface VIII made another set of rules on 3 March 1298, called the “Sixth Book of the Decretals” (Liber Sextus), which included the Regulæ Juris.

Liber Septimus

John XXII added the last official set of Canon law rules, called the “Liber Septimus Decretalium,” also known as “Constitutiones Clementis V” or “Clementinæ.”

Extravagantes Joannis XXII and Extravagantes communes

Later, experts added important rules from popes after John XXII to the collections of laws. These were called “Extravagantes,” including twenty rules from John XXII himself and others up to 1484. In a Paris edition from 1499–1505, Jean Chappuis organized these rules into two groups: “Extravagantes Joannis XXII” and “Extravagantes communes.”

Legal status and structure of codifications

The "Corpus Juris Canonici" was a complete set of laws for the Catholic Church, but the parts it included had different levels of importance. Some collections, like the "Decree" of Gratian, were not official laws themselves, but the documents inside them were very important. Custom even made some unofficial rules from Gratian’s "Decree" into real laws.

Other collections, such as those by Gregory IX and Boniface VIII, were official and their decisions remained laws unless later rules replaced them. These collections are treated as single, united sets of laws, where later decisions override earlier ones if there are disagreements.

The "Decretals" of Gregory IX, Boniface VIII, and the "Clementinæ" are each split into five books (liber), then into titles (titulus), and further into chapters (caput). They cover topics like church leaders, court procedures, clergy, marriage, and wrongdoings. The summaries of each title are considered law if they fully explain the rule, but the chapter summaries are not law.

Manner of statutory citation

When people talk about these old books of church rules, they use a special way to point to exactly what they mean. They tell which chapter, which book, and which title they are talking about. For example, the rules made by Gregory IX are called “X,” meaning “extra to Gratian’s work.” The rules from Boniface VIII are called “in VIº,” meaning “in the Sixth.” And the rules called the “Clementines” are called “in Clem.”

If a title only has one chapter, it is called “c. unic.” and if it is the last chapter, it is called “c. ult.” Sometimes, instead of the chapter number, the first words of the chapter are used, like “c. Odoardus.” These ways of pointing out chapters can be found in the index tables in all the printed versions of these books. The “Extravagantes Communes” are quoted in the same way, using the short form “Extrav. Commun.” The “Extravagantes of John XXII” are also divided into titles and chapters and are called “Extrav. Joan. XXII.”

Post-Tridentine Revision

After the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1563, St. Pius V asked a group of experts in 1566 to create a new version of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". They focused on fixing mistakes in an important part called the "Decree" by Gratian. Later, Gregory XIII said that the new version should not change the original text.

This updated version was published in Rome in 1582 and became the standard for all later versions. Other well-known versions came out in different cities over the years, but some had changes that made them less useful. A version from 1833 to 1839 by Richter was helpful because it included important notes. Another version from 1879 to 1881 by Friedberg was also very good, though it changed some parts of the original text.