The Sources of Medieval Canon Law

A User's Guide
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-032-89686-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 318 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources

The Sources of Medieval Canon Law: A User’s Guide is a comprehensive handbook for those working with medieval canon law sources of the period 1000–1500 (CE). It provides an accessible introduction to the myriad of complex legal sources used within the medieval church.

The book’s primary objective is to orient non-specialists with these sources and their potential contributions to historical study, while also raising awareness of how they can be misused. With thirteen chapters written by experts unpicking how to evaluate and deploy these sources, this volume aims to demystify them and explain how they can be used accurately and carefully by those who are new to working with legal material. Each chapter will briefly introduce a particular type of source and then, using selected case studies, demonstrate how such sources should be approached in order to be best-used in scholarly arguments, while also discussing the pitfalls and possibilities encountered in their use, while suggesting ways to avoid the former. Following this standard structure across chapters, the volume thus acquaints users with the sources of medieval canon law, from papal letters and conciliar canons to the paratexts and commentaries written in and for scholastically-trained lawyers, and from procedural manuals and canonical collections to local court documents.

A valuable for researchers at any level, from academics to undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book provides a critical introduction to an immense and complicated body of material.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

H. Eichbauer, Melodie

Summerlin, Danica

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures

List of Contributors

Introduction

Melodie H. Eichbauer and Danica Summerlin

1. Papal Letters & Decretals

Danica Summerlin

2. Conciliar Canons

Rowan Dorin

3. What is a Canonical Collection?

Christof Rolker

4. Corpus Iuris Canonici

Stephan Dusil

5. Scholarly Texts: Genres for Teaching and Studying the Corpus Iuris Canonici

Atria A. Larson

6. Physicality of Working with Paratexts

Melodie H. Eichbauer

7. Non-Papal Letters: Capillaries of the Legal Corpus

John Ott

8. The Ordines iudiciorum

Bruce Brasington

9. Local Courts

Sarah White

10. Papal Court Records

Kirsi Salonen

11. Handbooks of Penance

Adriaan Gaastra

12. Navigating the Corpus of Canon Law in the Later Middle Ages

Raphaël Eckert

13. Sources of Medieval Canon Law in the ‘Electronic Age’

Danica Summerlin and Melodie H. Eichbauer

Resource Guide and Finding Aids

Fundamental Works

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Melodie H. Eichbauer specializes in legal and ecclesiastical history from ca. 1000 to ca. 1500. A professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, her research interests focus on legal pluralism and the evolution of legal principles. She is particularly interested in the dissemination of legal knowledge; the interpretation of law; and the ways in which social, political, and intellectual developments and trends shaped both during the height of the medieval period. By examining the larger processes linking law to the world in which it functions, she hopes to show new ways of thinking about current issues.

Danica Summerlin researches and teaches the history of Europe in the central Middle Ages at the University of Sheffield. Focusing mostly on the institutional church and the development and use of law, her research encompasses canon law, manuscripts, and the social and institutional aspects of religious and legal history. Fundamental to all her interests is the question of how law and legal ideas spread and functioned in the medieval world, including questions of jurisdiction, personnel, and texts; the role of the papacy; and the role played by legal pluralism in legal practice in the Middle Ages.