VOLUME V SLICE II Camorra to Cape Colony (continued 7)

When Lord Liverpool was struck down in a fit on the 17th of February 1827, Canning was marked out by position as his only possible successor. He was not indeed accepted by all the party which had followed Liverpool. The duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel and several other members of the ministry, moved perhaps by personal animosity, and certainly by dislike of his known and consistent advocacy of the claims of the Roman Catholics, refused to serve with him. Canning succeeded in constructing a ministry in April—but the hopes and the fears of friends and enemies proved to be equally unfounded. His health had already begun to give way, and broke down altogether under the strain of the effort required to form his ministry. He had caught cold in January at the funeral of the duke of York, and never recovered. He died on the 8th of August 1827, at Chiswick, in the house of the duke of Devonshire, where Fox had died, and in the same room.

See Speeches, with a memoir by R. Therry (London, 1826); A.G. Stapleton, Political Life of Canning, 1822-1827 (2nd ed., London, 1831); Canning and His Times (London, 1859); Lord Dalling and Bulwer, Historical Characters (London, 1868); F.H. Hill, George Canning (London, 1887); Some Political Correspondence of George Canning, ed. E.J. Stapleton (2 vols., 1897); J.A.R. Marriott, George Canning and His Times, a Political Study (London, 1903); W. Alison Phillips, George Canning (London, 1903), with reproductions of contemporary portraits and caricatures; H.W.V. Temperley, George Canning (London, 1905).

CANNIZZARO, STANISLAO (1826-1910), Italian chemist, was born at Palermo on the 13th of July 1826. In 1841 he entered the university of his native place with the intention of making medicine his profession, but he soon turned to the study of chemistry, and in 1845 and 1846 acted as assistant to Rafaelle Piria (1815-1865), known for his work on salicin, who was then professor of chemistry at Pisa and subsequently occupied the same position at Turin. During the Sicilian revolution he served as an artillery officer at Messina and was also chosen deputy for Francavilla in the Sicilian parliament; and after the fall of Messina in September 1848 he was stationed at Taormina. On the collapse of the insurgents he escaped to Marseilles, in May 1849, and after visiting various French towns reached Paris in October. There he gained an introduction to M.E. Chevreul’s laboratory, and in conjunction with F.S. Cloëz (1817-1883) made his first contribution to chemical research in 1851, when they prepared cyanamide by the action of ammonia on cyanogen chloride in ethereal solution. In the same year he was appointed professor of physical chemistry at the National College of Alexandria, where he discovered that aromatic aldehydes are decomposed by alcoholic potash into a mixture of the corresponding acid and alcohol, e.g. benzaldehyde into benzoic acid and benzyl alcohol (“Cannizzaro’s reaction”). In the autumn of 1855 he became professor of chemistry at Geneva university, and six years later, after declining professorships at Pisa and Naples, accepted the chair of inorganic and organic chemistry at Palermo. There he spent ten years, studying the aromatic compounds and continuing to work on the amines, until in 1871 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry at Rome university. Apart from his work on organic chemistry, which includes also an investigation of santonin, he rendered great service to the philosophy of chemistry when in his memoir Sunto di un corso di Filosofia chemica (1858) he insisted on the distinction, till then imperfectly realized, between molecular and atomic weights, and showed how the atomic weights of elements contained in volatile compounds can be deduced from the molecular weights of those compounds, and how the atomic weights of elements of whose compounds the vapour densities are unknown can be ascertained from a knowledge of their specific heats. For this achievement, of fundamental importance for the atomic theory in chemistry, he was awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society in 1891. Cannizzaro’s scientific eminence in 1871 secured him admission to the Italian senate, of which he was vice-president, and as a member of the Council of Public Instruction and in other ways he rendered important services to the cause of scientific education in Italy.

CANNOCK, a market town in the western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England, in the district known as Cannock Chase, 130 m. N.W. from London by the London and North Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1891) 20,613; (1901) 23,974. The church of St Luke is Perpendicular, enlarged in modern times. The famous political preacher, Henry Sacheverell, held the living early in the 18th century. Cannock has tool, boiler, brick and tile works. Cannock Chase, a tract generally exceeding 500 ft. in elevation, extends on an axis from north-west to south-east over some 36,000 acres. It was a royal preserve, and remains for the most part an uncultivated waste, but it is also a rich coalfield, and there are mines in every direction. Brownhills, Burntwood and Chase Town, Great Wyrley, Hednesford, Hammerwich, and Pelsall are townships or villages of the mining population.

CANNON (a word common to Romance languages, from the Lat. canna, a reed, tube, with the addition of the augmentative termination -on, -one), a gun or piece of ordnance. The word, first found about 1400 (there is an indenture of Henry IV. 1407 referring to ”canones, seu instrumenta Anglicè gunnes vocata”), is commonly applied to any form of firearm which is fired from a carriage or fixed mounting, in contradistinction to “small-arms,” which are fired without a rest or support of any kind.1 An exception must be made, however, in the case of machine guns (q.v.), and the word as used in modern times may be defined as follows: “a piece of ordnance mounted upon a fixed or movable carriage and firing a projectile of greater calibre than 1½ in.” In French, however, canon is the term applied to the barrel of small arms, and also, as an alternative to mitrailleuse or mitrailleur, to machine guns, as well as to ordnance properly so-called. The Hotchkiss machine gun used in several navies is officially called “revolving cannon.” For details see Artillery, Ordnance, Machine Guns, &c. Amongst the many derived senses of the word may be mentioned “cannon curls,” in which the hair is arranged in horizontal tubular curls one above the other. For “cannon” in billiards see Billiards.

In the 16th and 17th centuries the “cannon” in England was distinctively a large piece, smaller natures of ordnance being called by various special names such as culverin, saker, falcon, demi-cannon, &c. We hear of Cromwell taking with him to Ireland (1649) “two cannon of eight inches, two cannon of seven, two demi-cannon, two twenty-four pounders,” &c.

Sir James Turner, a distinguished professional soldier contemporary with Cromwell, says: “The cannon or battering ordnance is divided by the English into Cannon Royal, Whole Cannon and Demi-Cannon. The first is likewise called the Double Cannon, she weighs 8000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 60, 62 or 63 pound weight. The Whole Cannon weighs 7000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 38, 39 or 40 pound. The Demi-Cannon weighs about 6000 pound and shoots a bullet of 28 or 30 pound. ... These three several guns are called cannons of eight, cannons of seven and cannons of six.” The generic sense of “cannon,” in which the word is now exclusively used, is found along with the special sense above mentioned as early as 1474. A warrant of that year issued by Edward IV. of England to Richard Copcote orders him to provide “bumbardos, canones, culverynes ... et alias canones quoscumque, ac pulveres, sulfer ... pro eisdem canonibus necessarias.” “Artillery” and “ordnance,” however, were the more usual terms up to the time of Louis XIV. (c. 1670), about which time heavy ordnance began to be classified according to the weight of its shot, and the special sense of “cannon” disappears.

1 The original small arms, however, are often referred to as hand cannon.

CANNON-BALL TREE (Couroupita guianensis), a native of tropical South America (French Guiana), which bears large spherical woody fruits, containing numerous seeds, as in the allied genus Bertholletia (Brazil nut).

CANNSTATT, or Kannstatt, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Württemberg, pleasantly situated in a fertile valley on both banks of the Neckar, 2½ m. from Stuttgart, with which it has been incorporated since 1904. Pop. (1905) 26,497. It is a railway centre, has two Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, two bridges across the Neckar, handsome streets in the modern quarter of the town and fine promenades and gardens. There is a good deal of business in the town. Railway plant, automobiles and machinery are manufactured; spinning and weaving are carried on; and there are chemical works and a brewery here. Fruit and vines are largely cultivated in the neighbourhood. A large population is temporarily attracted to Cannstatt by the fame of its mineral springs, which are valuable for diseases of the throat and weaknesses of the nervous system. These springs were known to the Romans. Besides the usual bathing establishments there are several medical institutions for the treatment of disease. Near the town are the palaces of Rosenstein and Wilhelma; the latter, built (1842-1851) for King William of Württemberg in the Moorish style, is surrounded by beautiful gardens. In the neighbourhood also are immense caves in the limestone where numerous bones of mammoths and other extinct animals have been found. On the Rotenberg, where formerly stood the ancestral castle of the house of Württemberg, is the mausoleum of King William and his wife.

Cannstatt (Condistat) is mentioned early in the 8th century as the place where a great court was held by Charlemagne for the trial of the rebellious dukes of the Alamanni and the Bavarians. From the emperor Louis the Bavarian it received the same rights and privileges as were enjoyed by the town of Esslingen, and until the middle of the 14th century it was the capital of the county of Württemberg. Cannstatt was the scene of a victory gained by the French over the Austrians on the 21st of July 1796.

See Veiel, Der Kurort Kannstatt und seine Mineralquellen (Cannstatt, 1875).

CANO, ALONZO (1601-1667), Spanish painter, architect and sculptor, was born at Granada. He has left in Spain a very great number of specimens of his genius, which display the boldness of his design, the facility of his pencil, the purity of his flesh-tints and his knowledge of chiaroscuro. He learned architecture from his father, Miguel Cano, painting from Pacheco and sculpture from Juan Martinez Montañes. As a statuary, his most famous works are the Madonna and Child in the church of Nebrissa, and the colossal figures of San Pedro and San Pablo. As an architect he indulged in too profuse ornamentation, and gave way too much to the fancies of his day. Philip IV. made him royal architect and king’s painter, and gave him the church preferment of a canon. His more important pictures are at Madrid. He was notorious for his ungovernable temper; and it is said that once he risked his life by committing the then capital offence of dashing to pieces the statue of a saint, when in a rage with the purchaser who grudged the price he demanded. His known passionateness also (according to another story) caused him to be suspected, and even tortured, for the murder of his wife, though all other circumstances pointed to his servant as the culprit.

CANO, MELCHIOR (1325-1560), Spanish theologian, born at Tarançon, in New Castile, joined the Dominican order at an early age at Salamanca, where in 1546 he succeeded to the theological chair in that university. A man of deep learning and originality, proud and a victim to the odium theologicum, he could brook no rivalry. The only one who at that time could compare with him was the gentle Bartolomeo de Caranza, also a Dominican and afterwards archbishop of Toledo. At the university the schools were divided between the partisans of the two professors; but Cano pursued his rival with relentless virulence, and took part in the condemnation for heresy of his brother-friar. The new society of the Jesuits, as being the forerunners of Antichrist, also met with his violent opposition; and he was not grateful to them when, after attending the council of Trent in 1545, he was sent, by their influence, in 1552, as bishop of the far-off see of the Canaries. His personal influence with Philip II. soon procured his recall, and he was made provincial of his order in Castile. In 1556 he wrote his famous Consultatio theologica, in which he advised the king to resist the temporal encroachments of the papacy and, as absolute monarch, to defend his rights by bringing about a radical change in the administration of ecclesiastical revenues, thus making Spain less dependent on Rome. With this in his mind Paul IV. styled him “a son of perdition.” The reputation of Cano, however, rests on a posthumous work, De Locis theologicis (Salamanca, 1562), which stands to-day unrivalled in its own line. In this, a genuine work of the Renaissance, Cano endeavours to free dogmatic theology from the vain subtleties of the schools and, by clearing away the puerilities of the later scholastic theologians, to bring religion back to first principles; and, by giving rules, method, co-ordination and system, to build up a scientific treatment of theology. He died at Toledo on the 30th of September 1560.

(E. Tn.)

CANOE (from Carib. canáoa, the West Indian name found in use by Columbus; the Fr. canot, boat, and Ger. Kahn, are derived from the Lat. canna, reed, vessel), a sort of general term for a boat sharp at both ends, originally designed for propulsion by one or more paddles (not oars) held without a fixed fulcrum, the paddler facing the bow. As the historical native name for certain types of boat used by savages, it is applied in such cases to those which, like other boats, are open within from end to end, and the modern “Canadian canoe” preserves this sense; but a more specific usage of the name is for such craft as differ essentially from open boats by being covered in with a deck, except for a “well” where the paddler sits. Modern developments are the cruising canoe, combining the use of paddle and sails, and the racing canoe, equipped with sails only.

The primitive canoes were light frames of wood over which skins (as in the Eskimo canoe) or the bark of trees (as in the North American lndians’ birch-bark canoe) were tightly stretched. The modern painted canvas canoe, built on Indian lines, was a natural development of this idea. The Indian also used, and the African still uses, the “dug-out,” made from a tree hollowed by fire after the manner of Robinson Crusoe. Many of these are of considerable size and carrying capacity; one in the New York Natural History Museum from Queen Charlotte’s Island is 63 ft. long, 8 ft. 3 in. wide, and 5 ft. deep, cut from a single log. The “war canoe” of paddling races is its modern successor. In the islands of the Pacific primitive canoes are wonderfully handled by the natives, who make long sea voyages in them, often stiffening them by attaching another hull (see Catamaran).

In the earlier part of the 19th century, what was known as a “canoe” in England was the short covered-in craft, with a “well” for the paddler to sit in, which was popularly used for short river practice; and this type still survives. But the sport of canoeing in any real sense dates from 1865, when John MacGregor (q.v.) designed the canoe “Rob Roy” for long journeys by water, using both double-bladed paddle and sails, yet light enough (about 70 ℔) to be carried over land. The general type of this canoe is built of oak with a cedar deck; the length is from 12 ft. to 15 ft., the beam from 26 in. to 30 in., the depth 10 in. to 16 in. The paddle is 7 ft. long and 6 in. wide in the blade, the canoeist sits low in a cockpit, and in paddling dips the blades first on one side and then the other. The rig is generally yawl.

In 1866 the Royal Canoe Club was formed in England, and the prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) became commodore. Its headquarters are at Kingston-on-Thames and it is still the leading organization. There is also the British Canoe Association, devoted to cruising. After the English canoes were seen in Paris at the Exhibition of 1867, others like them were built in France. Branches and clubs were formed also at the English universities, and in Liverpool, Hull, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The New York Canoe Club was founded in 1871. One member of the Royal Canoe Club crossed the English Channel in his canoe, another the Irish Channel from Scotland to Ireland, and many rivers were explored in inaccessible parts, like the Jordan, the Kishon, and the Abana and the Pharpar at Damascus, as well as the Lake Menzaleh in the Delta of the Nile, and the Lake of Galilee and Waters of Merom in Syria.

W. Baden Powell modified the type of the “Rob Roy” in the “Nautilus,” intended only for sailing. From this time the two kinds of pleasure canoe—paddling and sailing—parted company, and developed each on its own lines; the sailing canoe soon (1882) had a deck seat and tiller, a smaller and smaller cockpit, and a larger and larger sail area, with the consequent necessary air and water-tight bulkheads in the hull. Paul Butler of Lowell, Mass., added (1886) the sliding outrigger seat, allowing the canoeist to slide out to windward. The final stage is the racing machine pure and simple, seen in the exciting contests at the annual August meets of the American Canoe Association on the St Lawrence river, or at the more frequent race days of its constituent divisions, associated as Canadian (47 clubs), Atlantic (32 clubs), Central (26 clubs) and Western.

The paddling canoe, propelled by single-bladed paddles, is also represented in single, tandem and crew (“war canoe”) races, and this form of the sport remains more of the amateur type. The “Canadian,” a clinker or carvel built mahogany or cedar or bass-wood canoe, or the painted canvas, bark or compressed paper canoe, all on the general lines of the Indian birch bark, are as common on American rivers as the punt is on the Thames, and are similarly used.

See MacGregor, A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe (1866), The Rob Roy on the Baltic, &c.; W. Baden Powell, Canoe Travelling (1871); W.L. Alden, Canoe and the Flying Proa (New York, 1878); J.D. Hayward, Camping out with the British Canoe Association; C.B. Vaux, Canoe Handling (New York, 1888); Stephens, Canoe and Boat Building (New York, 1881).

CANON. The Greek word κανών means originally a straight rod or pole, and metaphorically what serves to keep a thing upright or straight, a rule. In the New Testament it occurs in Gal. vi. 16, and 2 Cor. x. 13, 15, 16, signifying in the former passage a measure, in the latter what is measured, a district. The general applications of the word fall mainly into two groups, in one of which the underlying meaning is that of rule, in the other that of a list or catalogue, i.e. of books containing the rule. Of the first, such uses as that of a standard or rule of conduct or taste, or of a particular form of musical composition (see below) may be mentioned, but the principal example is of the sum of the laws regulating the ecclesiastical body (see Canon Law). In the second group of uses that of the ecclesiastical dignitary (see below), that of the list of the names of those persons recognized as saints by the Church (see Canonization), and that of the authoritative body of Scriptures (see below) are examples.

Music.—A canon in part-music is the form taken by the earliest compositions in harmony, successive or consequent parts having the same melody, but each beginning at a stated period after its precursor or antecedent. In many early polyphonic compositions, one or more voices were imitated note for note by the others, so that the other parts did not need to be written out at all, but were deduced from the leaders by a rule or canon. Sir Frederick Bridge has pointed out that in this way the term “canon” came to supersede the old name of the art-form, Fuga ligata. (See also under Fugue, Contrapuntal Forms and Music.) When the first part completes its rhythmical sentence before the second enters, and then continues the melody as an accompaniment to the second, and so on for the third or fourth, this form of canon in England was styled a “round” or “catch”; the stricter canon being one in which the succession of parts did not depend on the ending of the phrase. But outside England catches and canons were undifferentiated. The “round” derived its name from the fact that the first part returned to the beginning while the others continued the melody; the “catch” meant that each later part caught up the tune. The problem of the canon, as an artistic composition, is to find one or more points in a melody at which one or more successive parts may start the same tune harmoniously. Catches were familiar in English folk music until after the Restoration; different trades having characteristic melodies of their own. In the time of Charles II they took a bacchanalian cast, and later became sentimental. Gradually the form went out as a type of folk music, and now survives mainly in its historical interest.

(H. Ch.)

The Church Dignitary.—A canon is a person who possesses a prebend, or revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or collegiate church. Though the institute of canons as it at present exists does not go back beyond the 11th century it has a long history behind it. The name is derived from the list (matricula) of the clergy belonging to a church, κανών being thus used in the council of Nicaea (c. 16). In the synod of Laodicea the adjective κανονικός is found in this sense (c. 15); and during the 6th century the word canonicus occurs commonly in western Europe in relation to the clergy belonging to a cathedral or other church. Eusebius of Vercelli (d. 370) was the first to introduce the system whereby the cathedral clergy dwelt together, leading a semi-monastic life in common and according to rule; and St Augustine established a similar manner of life for the clergy of his cathedral at Hippo. The system spread widely over Africa, Spain and Gaul; a familiar instance is St Gregory’s injunction to St Augustine that at Canterbury the bishop and his clergy should live a common life together, similar to the monastic life in which he had been trained; that these “clerics” at Canterbury were not monks is shown by the fact that those of them in the lower clerical grades were free to marry and live at home, without forfeiting their position or emoluments as members of the body of cathedral clergy (Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 27). This mode of life for the secular clergy, which became common in the west, seems never to have taken root in the east. It came to be called vita canonica, canonical life, and it was the object of various enactments of councils during the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries. The first serious attempt to legislate for it and reduce it to rule was made by Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (c. 750), who composed a rule for the clergy of his cathedral, which was in large measure an adaptation of the Benedictine Rule to the case of secular clergy living in common. Chrodegang’s Rule was adopted in many churches, both cathedral and collegiate (i.e. those served by a body of clergy). In 816 the synod of Aix-la-Chapelle (see Mon. Germ. Concil. ii. 307) made further regulations for the canonical life, which became the law in the Frankish empire for cathedral and collegiate churches. The Rule of Chrodegang was taken as the basis, but was supplemented and in some points mitigated and made less monastic in character. There was a common dormitory and common refectory for all, but each canon was allowed a dwelling room within the cloister; the use of flesh meat was permitted, and the clothing was of better quality than that of monks. Each canon retained the use of his private property and money, but the revenues of the cathedral or church were treated as a common fund for the maintenance of the whole establishment. The chief duty of the canons was the performance of the church services. Thus the canons were not monks, but secular clergy living in community, without taking the monastic vows or resigning their private means—a form of life somewhat resembling that of the fathers of the London or Birmingham Oratory in our day. The bishop was expected to lead the common life along with his clergy.

The canonical life as regulated by the synod of Aix, subsisted in the 9th and 10th centuries; but the maintenance of this intermediate form of life was of extreme difficulty. There was a constant tendency to relax the bonds of the common life, and attempts in various directions to restore it. In England, by the middle of the 10th century, the prescriptions of the canonical life seem to have fallen into desuetude, and in nine cathedrals the canons were replaced by communities of Benedictines. In the 11th century the Rule of Chrodegang was introduced into certain of the English cathedrals, and an Anglo-Saxon translation of it was made under Leofric for his church of Exeter. The turning point came in 1059, when a reforming synod, held at the Lateran, exhorted the clergy of all cathedral and collegiate churches to live in community, to hold all property and money in common, and to “lead the life of the Apostles” (cf. Acts ii. 44, 45). The clergy of numerous churches throughout Western Europe (that of the Lateran Basilica among them) set themselves to carry out these exhortations, and out of this movement grew the religious order of Canons Regular or Augustinian Canons (q.v.). The opposite tendency also ran its course and produced the institute of secular canons. The revenues of the cathedral were divided into two parts, that of the bishop and that of the clergy; this latter was again divided among the clergy themselves, so that each member received his own separate income, and the persons so sharing, whatever their clerical grade, were the canons of the cathedral church. Naturally all attempt at leading any kind of common life was frankly abandoned. In England the final establishment of this order of things was due to St Osmund (1090). The nature and functions of the institute of secular canons are described in the article Cathedral.

See Du Cange, Glossarium, under “Canonicus”; Amort, Vetus Disciplina Canonicorum (1747), to be used with caution for the earlier period; C. du Molinet, Réflexions historiques et curieuses sur les antiquités des chanoines tant séculiers que réguliers (1674); Herzog, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.), art. “Kapitel”; Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (2nd ed.), art. “Canonica vita” and “Canonikat.” The history of the canonical institute is succinctly told, and the best literature named, by Max Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, 1896, i. § 55; also by Otto Zöckler, Askese und Mönchtum, 1897, pp. 422-425. On medieval secular canons a standard work is Chr. Wordsworth’s Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral (1892-1897); see also an article thereon by Edm. Bishop in Dublin Review, July 1898.

(E. C. B.)

In the Church of England, the canons of cathedral or collegiate churches retain their traditional character and functions, though they are now, of course, permitted to marry. Their duties were defined by the Canons of 1603, and included that of residence at the cathedrals according to “their local customs and statutes,” and preaching in the cathedral and in the churches of the diocese, “especially those whence they or their church receive any yearly rent or profit.” A canonry not being legally a “cure of souls,” a canon may hold a benefice in addition to his prebend, in spite of the acts against pluralities. By the Canons of 1603 he was subject to discipline if he made his canonry an excuse for neglecting his cure. By the act of 1840 reforming cathedral chapters the number of canonries was greatly reduced, while some were made applicable to the endowment of archdeaconries and professorships. At the same time it was enacted that a canon must have been six years in priest’s orders, except in the case of canonries annexed to any professorship, headship or other office in any university. The obligatory period of residence, hitherto varying in different churches, was also fixed at a uniform period of three months. The right of presentation to canonries is now vested in some cases in the crown, in others in the lord chancellor, the archbishop or in the bishop of the diocese.

Honorary canons are properly canons who have no prebend or other emoluments from the common fund of the chapter. In the case of old cathedrals the title is bestowed upon deserving clergymen by the bishop as a mark of distinction. In new cathedrals, e.g. Manchester or Birmingham, where no endowment exists for a chapter, the bishop is empowered to appoint honorary canons, who carry out the ordinary functions of a cathedral body (see Cathedral).

Minor canons, more properly styled priest-vicars, are appointed by the dean and chapter. Their function is mainly to sing the service, and they are selected therefore mainly for their voices and musical qualifications. They may hold a benefice, if it lies within 6 m. of the cathedral.

In the Protestant churches of the continent canons as ecclesiastical officers have ceased to exist. In Prussia and Saxony, however, certain chapters, secularized at the Reformation, still exist. The canons (Domherren) are, however, laymen with no ecclesiastical character whatever, and their rich prebends are merely sources of endowment for the cadets of noble families.

See Phillimore, Eccles. Law, 2 vols. (London, 1895).

(W. A. P.)

The Scriptures.—There are three opinions as to the origin of the application of the term “canon” to the writings used by the Christian Church. According to Semler, Baur and others, the word had originally the sense of list or catalogue—the books publicly read in Christian assemblies. Others, as Steiner, suppose that since the Alexandrian grammarians applied it to collections of old Greek authors as models of excellence or classics, it meant classical (canonical) writings. According to a third opinion, the term included from the first the idea of a regulating principle. This is the more probable, because the same idea lies in the New Testament use of the noun, and pervades its applications in the language of the early Fathers down to the time of Constantine, as Credner has shown.1 The “κανών of the church” in the Clementine homilies,2 the “ecclesiastical κανών”3 and the “κανών of the truth” in Clement and Irenaeus,4 the κανών of the faith in Polycrates,5 the regula fidei of Tertullian,6 and the libri regulares of Origen7 imply a normative principle. Credner’s view of κανών as an abbreviation of γραφαὶ κανόνος, equivalent to Scripturae legis in Diocletian’s Act,8 is too artificial, and is unsanctioned by usage.

The earliest example of its application to a catalogue of the Old or New Testament books occurs in the Latin translation of Origen’s homily on Joshua, where the original seems to have been κανών. The word itself is certainly in Amphilochius,9 as well as in Jerome10 and Rufinus.11 As the Latin translation of Origen has canonicus and canonizatus, we infer that he used κανονικός, opposed as it is to apocryphus or secretus. The first occurrence of κανονικός is in the 59th canon of the council of Laodicea, where it is contrasted with ἰδιωτικός and ἀκανόνιστος. Κανονιζόμενα, “canonized books,” is first used in Athanasius’s festal epistle.12 The kind of rule which the earliest Fathers thought the Scriptures to be can only be conjectured; it is certain that they believed the Old Testament books to be a divine and infallible guide. But the New Testament was not so considered till towards the close of the 2nd century, when the conception of a Catholic Church was realized. The collection of writings was not called Scripture, or put on a par with the Old Testament as sacred and inspired, till the time of Theophilus of Antioch (about 180 a.d.). Hence Irenaeus applies the epithets divine and perfect to the Scriptures; and Clement of Alexandria calls them inspired.

When distinctions were made among the Biblical writings other words were employed, synonymous with Κανονιζόμενα or κεκανονισμένα, such as ἐνδιάθηκα, ὡρισμένα. The canon was thus a catalogue of writings, forming a rule of truth, sacred, divine, revealed by God for the instruction of men. The rule was perfect for its purpose. (See Bible: section Canon.)

The term “canonical,” i.e. that which is approved or ordered by the “canon” or rule, is applied to ecclesiastical vestments, “canonicals,” and to those hours set apart by the Church for prayer and devotion, the “Canonical Hours” (see Breviary).

(S. D.)

1 Zur Geschichte des Kanons, pp. 3-68.

2 Clement Hom., ap. Coteler. vol. i. p. 608.

3 Stromata, vi. 15, p. 803, ed. Potter.

4 Adv. Haeres. i. 95.

5 Euseb. H.E. v. 24.

6 De praescript. Haereticorum, chs. 12, 13.

7 Comment. in Mat. iii. p. 916, ed. Delarue.

8 Monumenta vetera ad Donatistarum historiam pertinentia, ed. Dupin, p. 168.

9 At the end of the Iambi ad Seleucum, on the books of the New Testament, he adds, οὐτος ἀψευδέστατος κανών ἂν εἴη τῶν θεοπνεύστων γραφῶν.

10 Prologus galeatus in ii. Reg.

11 Expos. in Symb. Apost. 37, p. 374, ed. Migne.

12 After the word is added καὶ παραδοθέντα, πιστευθέντα τὲ θεῖα είναι. Opp. vol. i. p. 961, ed. Benedict.

CANONESS (Fr. chanoinesse, Ger. Kanonissin, Lat. canonica or canonica virgo), a female beneficiary of a religious college. In the 8th century chapters of canons were instituted in the Frankish empire, and in imitation of these certain women took common vows of obedience and chastity, though not of poverty. Like nuns they had common table and dormitory, and recited the breviary, but generally the rule was not so strict as in the case of nuns. The canonesses often taught girls, and were also employed in embroidering ecclesiastical vestments and transcribing liturgical books. A distinction was drawn between regular and secular canonesses, the latter being of noble family and not practising any austerity. Some of their abbesses were notable feudal princesses. In Germany several foundations of this kind (e.g. Gandersheim, Herford and Quedlinburg), which were practically secular institutions before the Reformation, adopted the Protestant faith, and still exist, requiring of their members the simple conditions of celibacy and obedience to their superior during membership. These institutions (Stifter) are now practically almshouses for the unmarried daughters of noble families. In some cases the right of presentation belongs to the head of the family, sometimes admission is gained by purchase; but in modern times a certain number of prebends have been created for the daughters of deserving officials. The organization of the Stift is collegiate, the head bearing the ancient titles of abbess, prioress or provostess (Pröbstin), and the canonesses (Stiftsdamen) meet periodically in Konvent for the discussion of the affairs of the community. The ladies are not bound to residence. In many of these Stifter quaint pre-Reformation customs and ceremonies still survive; thus, at the convent of St John the Baptist at Schleswig, on the day of the patron saint, the room in which the Konvent is held is draped in black and a realistic life-size wax head of St John on a charger is placed in the centre of the table round which the canonesses sit.

CANONIZATION, in its widest sense, an act by which in the Christian Church the ecclesiastical authority grants to a deceased believer the honour of public cultus. In the early Church there was no formal canonization. The cultus applied at first to local martyrs, and it was only in exceptional circumstances that a kind of judiciary inquiry and express decision became necessary to legitimate this cultus. The peculiar situation of the Church of Africa explains the Vindicatio martyrum, which was early practised there (Optatus Milevit., i. 16). In the cultus rendered to confessors, the authorization of the Church had long been merely implicit. But when an express decision was given, it was the bishop who gave it. Gradually the canonization of saints came to be included in the centralizing movement which reserved to the pope the most important acts of ecclesiastical power. The earliest acknowledged instance of canonization by the pope is that of Ulric of Augsburg, who was declared a saint by John XV. in a.d. 993. From that time the pontifical intervention became more and more frequent, and, in practice, the right of the bishops in the matter of canonization continued to grow more restricted. In 1170 the new right was sufficiently established for Pope Alexander III. to affirm that the bishops could not institute the cultus of a new saint without the authority of the Roman Church (Cap. Audivimus, Decret. De Rell. et venerat. Sanctorum, iii. 115). The 12th and, especially, the 13th centuries furnish many examples of canonizations pronounced by the popes, and the procedure of this period is well ascertained. It was much more summary than that practised in modern times. The evidence of those who had known the holy personages was collected on the spot. The inquiry was as rapid as the judgment, and both often took place a short time after the death of the saint, as in the cases of St Thomas of Canterbury (died 1170, canonized 1173), St Peter of Castelnau (died on the 15th of January 1208, canonized on the 12th of March of the same year), St Francis of Assisi (died on the 4th of October 1226, canonized on the 19th of July 1228), and St Anthony of Padua (died on the 13th of June 1231, canonized on the 3rd of June 1232).

At this period there was no marked difference between canonization and beatification. In modern practice, as definitively settled by the decrees of Pope Urban VIII. (1625 and 1634), the two acts are totally distinct. Canonization is the solemn and definitive act by which the pope decrees the plenitude of public honours. Beatification consists in permitting a cultus, the manifestations of which are restricted, and is merely a step towards canonization.

The procedure at present followed at the Roman curia is either exceptional or common. The approval of immemorial cultus comes within the category of exceptional procedure. Urban VIII., while forbidding the rendering of a public cultus without authorization from the Holy See, made an exception in favour of the blessed who were at that time (1625) in possession of an immemorial cultus, i.e. dating back at least a century (1525). The procedure per viam casus excepti consists in the legitimation of a cultus which has been rendered to a saint for a very long time. The causes of the martyrs (declarationis martyrii) also are exceptional. Juridical proof is required of the fact of the martyrdom and of its cause, i.e. it must be established that the servant of God was put to death through hatred of the faith. These are the two cases which constitute exceptional procedure.

The common procedure is that in which the cause is prosecuted per viam non cultus. It is, in reality, a suit at law, pleaded before the tribunal of the Congregation of Rites, which is a permanent commission of cardinals, assisted by a certain number of subordinate officers and presided over by a cardinal. The supreme judge in the matter is the pope himself. The postulator, who is the mandatory of a diocese or ecclesiastical commonalty, is the solicitor. He must furnish the proofs, which are collected according to very stringent rules. The promoter of the faith, popularly called the “devil’s advocate” (advocatus diaboli), is the defendant, whose official duty is to point out to the tribunal the weak points of the case.

The procedure is loaded with many formalities, of which the historical explanation lies in the tribunals of the ancient system, and which considerably delay the progress of the causes. The first decisive step is the introduction of the cause. If, by the advice of the cardinals who have examined the documents, the pope pronounce his approval, the servant of God receives the title of “Venerable,” but is not entitled to any manifestation of cultus. Only in the event of the claimant passing this test successfully can the essential part of the procedure be begun, which will result in conferring on the Venerable the title of “Blessed.” This part consists in three distinct proceedings: (1) to establish a reputation for sanctity, (2) to establish the heroic quality of the virtues, (3) to prove the working of miracles. A favourable judgment on all three of these tests is called the decree de tuto, by which the pope decides that they may safely proceed to the solemn beatification of the servant of God (Tuto procedi potest ad solemnem V.S.D.N. beatificationem). In the ceremony of beatification the essential part consists in the reading of the pontifical brief, placing the Venerable in the rank of the Blessed, which is done during a solemn mass, celebrated with special rites in the great hall above the vestibule of the basilica of St Peter.

The process of canonization, which follows that of beatification, is usually less lengthy. It consists principally in the discussion of the miracles (usually two in number) obtained by the intercession of the Blessed since the decree of beatification. After a great number of formalities and prayers, the pope pronounces the sentence, and indicates eventually the day on which he will proceed to the ceremony of canonization, which takes place with great solemnity in the basilica of St Peter.

The extremely complicated procedure which is prescribed for the conduct of the cases in order to ensure every opportunity for exercising rigour and discretion, considerably retards the progress of the causes, and necessitates a numerous staff. This circumstance, together with the custom of ornamenting the basilica of St Peter very richly on the day of the ceremony, accounts for the considerable cost which a canonization entails. To prevent abuses, a minute tariff of expenses was drawn up during the pontificate of Leo XIII.

The Greek Church, represented by the patriarch of Constantinople, and the Russian Church, represented by the Holy Synod, also canonize their saints after a preliminary examination of their titles to public cultus. Their procedure is less rigorous than that of the Roman Church, and as yet has been but imperfectly studied.

See J. Fontanini, Codex Constitutionum quas summi pontifices ediderunt in solemni canonizatione sanctorum (Rome, 1729, a collection of original documents); Pr. Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV.), De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione (Bologna, 1734-1738), several times reprinted, and more remarkable for erudition and knowledge of canon law than for historical criticism; Al. Lauri, Codex pro postulatoribus causarum beatificationis et canonizationis, recognovit Joseph Fornari (Romae, 1899); F.W. Faber, Essay on Beatification, Canonization, &c. (London, 1848); A. Boudinhon, Les Procès de béatification et de canonisation (Paris, 1905); E. Golubinskij, Istorija Kanonizaçii sviatich v russko j çerkvi (Moscow, 1903).

(H. De.)

CANON LAW. Canon law, jus canonicum, is the sum of the laws which regulate the ecclesiastical body; for this reason it is also called ecclesiastical law, jus ecclesiasticum. It is also referred to under the name of canones, sacri canones, a title of great antiquity, for the κανόνες, regulae, were very early distinguished from the secular laws, the νόμοι, leges.

The word κανών, canon, has been employed in ecclesiastical literature in several different senses (see Canon above). The disciplinary decisions of the council of Nicaea, for example (can. 1, 2, &c.), employ it in the sense of an Word “canon.” Different meanings. established rule, ecclesiastical in its origin and in its object. But the expression is most frequently used to designate disciplinary laws, in which case canons are distinguished from dogmatic definitions. With regard to form, the decisions of councils, even when dogmatic, are called canons; thus the definitions of the council of Trent or of the Vatican, which generally begin with the words “Si quis dixerit,” and end with the anathema, are canons; while the long chapters, even when dealing with matters of discipline, retain the name of chapters or decrees. Similarly, it has become customary to give the name of canons to the texts inserted in certain canonical compilations such as the Decretum of Gratian, while the name of chapters is given to the analogous quotations from the Books of the Decretals. It is merely a question of words and of usage. As to the expression jus canonicum, it implies the systematic codification of ecclesiastical legislation, and had no existence previous to the labours which resulted in the Corpus juris canonici.

Canon law is divided into public law and private law; the former is concerned with the constitution of the Church, and, consequently, with the relations between her and other bodies, religious and civil; the latter has as its object Divisions. the internal discipline of the ecclesiastical body and its members. This division, which has been found convenient for the study of canon law, has no precedent in the collections of texts. With regard to the texts now in force, the name of jus antiquum, ancient law, has been given to the laws previous to the Corpus juris canonici; the legislation of this Corpus has been called jus novum, new law; and finally, the name of recent law, jus novissimum, has been given to the law established by the council of Trent and subsequent papal constitutions. There is a further distinction between the written law, jus scriptum, laws made by the councils or popes, which are to be found in the collections, and the unwritten law, jus non scriptum, a body of practical rules arising rather from natural equity and from custom than from formal laws; with this is connected the customary law. In the Church, as in other societies, it has happened that the unwritten customary law has undergone a gradual diminution in importance, as a consequence of centralization and the accumulation of written laws; nowadays it need not be reckoned with, save in cases where local customs are involved. The common law is that which is intended to regulate the whole body; special or local law is that which is concerned with certain districts or certain categories of persons, by derogation from or addition to the common law.

By the sources or authors of the canon law are meant the authorities from which it is derived; they must obviously be of such a nature as to be binding upon the whole religious body, or at least upon a specified portion of it. In the Sources. highest rank must be placed Christ and the Apostles, whose dispositions for the constitution and government of the Church are contained in the New Testament, completed by tradition; for the Church did not accept the disciplinary and ritual provisions of the Old Testament as binding upon her (see Acts xi., xv.). To the apostles succeeded the episcopal body, with its chief the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter, whose legislative and disciplinary power, by a process of centralization, underwent a slow but uninterrupted development. It is then to the episcopate, assembled in ecumenical council, and to its chief, that the function of legislating for the whole Church belongs; the inferior authorities, local councils or isolated bishops and prelates, can only make special laws or statutes, valid only for that part of the Church under their jurisdiction. Most of the canons, however, which constitute the ancient law, and notably those which appear in the Decretum of Gratian, emanate from local councils, or even from individual bishops; they have found a place in the common law because the collections of canons, of which they formed the most, notable part, have been everywhere adopted.

Having made these general observations, we must now consider the history of those texts and collections of canons which to-day form the ecclesiastical law of the Western Church: (1) up to the Decretum of Gratian, (2) up to the council of Trent, (3 and 4) up to the present day, including the codification ordered by Pius X.

1. From the Beginning to the Decretum of Gratian.—At no time, and least of all during the earliest centuries, was there any attempt to draw up a uniform system of legislation for the whole of the Christian Church. The various communities ruled themselves principally according to their customs and traditions, which, however, possessed a certain uniformity resulting from their close connexion with natural and divine law. Strangely enough, those documents which bear the greatest resemblance to a small collection of canonical regulations, such as the Didache, the Didascalia and the Canons of Hippolytus, have not been retained, and find no place in the collections of canons, doubtless for the reason that they were not official documents. Even the Apostolical Constitutions (q.v.), an expansion of the Didache and the Didascalia, after exercising a certain amount of influence, were rejected by the council in Trullo (692). Thus the only pseudo-epigraphic document preserved in the law of the Greek Church is the small collection of the eighty-five so-called “Apostolic Canons” (q.v.). The compilers, in their several collections, gathered only occasional decisions, the outcome of no pre-determined plan, given by councils or by certain great bishops.

These compilations began in the East. It appears that in several different districts canons made by the local assemblies1 were added to those of the council of Nicaea which were everywhere accepted and observed. The first example seems Greek collection. to be that of the province of Pontus, where after the twenty canons of Nicaea were placed the twenty-five canons of the council of Ancyra (314), and the fifteen of that of Neocaesarea (315-320). These texts were adopted at Antioch, where there were further added the twenty-five canons of the so-called council in encaeniis of that city (341). Soon afterwards, Paphlagonia contributed twenty canons passed at the council of Gangra (held, according to the Synodicon orientale, in 343),2 and Phrygia fifty-nine canons of the assembly of Laodicea (345-381?), or rather of the compilation known as the work of this council.3 The collection was so well and so widely known that all these canons were numbered in sequence, and thus at the council of Chalcedon (451) several of the canons of Antioch were read out under the number assigned to them in the collection of the whole. It was further increased by the twenty-eight (thirty) canons of Chalcedon; about the same time were added the four canons of the council of Constantinople of 381, under the name of which also appeared three (or seven) other canons of a later date. Towards the same date, also, the so-called “Apostolic Canons” were placed at the head of the group. Such was the condition of the Greek collection when it was translated and introduced into the West.

In the course of the 6th century the collection was completed by the addition of documents already in existence, but which had hitherto remained isolated, notably the canonical letters of several great bishops, Dionysius of Alexandria, St Basil and others. It was at this time that the Latin collection of Dionysius Exiguus became known; and just as he had given the Greek councils a place in his collection, so from him were borrowed the canons of councils which did not appear in the Greek collection—the twenty canons of Sardica (343), in the Greek text, which differs considerably from the Latin; and the council of Carthage of 410, which itself included, more or less completely, in 105 canons, the decisions of the African councils. Soon after came the council in Trullo (692), also called the Quinisextum, because it was considered as complementary to the two councils (5th and 6th ecumenical) of Constantinople (553 and 680), which had not made any disciplinary canons. This assembly elaborated 102 canons, which did not become part of the Western law till much later, on the initiative of Pope John VIII. (872-881). Now, in the second of its canons, the council in Trullo recognized Its final form. and sanctioned the Greek collection above mentioned; it enumerates all its articles, insists on the recognition of these canons, and at the same time prohibits the addition of others. As thus defined, the collection contains the following documents: firstly, the eighty-five Apostolic Canons, the Constitutions having been put aside as having suffered heretical alterations; secondly, the canons of the councils of Nicaea, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicea, Constantinople (381), Ephesus (the disciplinary canons of this council deal with the reception of the Nestorians, and were not communicated to the West), Chalcedon, Sardica, Carthage (that of 419, according to Dionysius), Constantinople (394); thirdly, the series of canonical letters of the following great bishops—Dionysius of Alexandria, Peter of Alexandria (the Martyr), Gregory Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Amphilochus of Iconium, Timotheus of Alexandria, Theophilus of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria, Gennadius of Constantinople; the canon of Cyprian of Carthage (the Martyr) is also mentioned, but with the note that it is only valid for Africa. With the addition of the twenty-two canons of the ecumenical council of Nicaea (787), this will give us the whole contents of the official collection of the Greek Church; since then it has remained unchanged. The law of the Greek Church was in reality rather the work of the Byzantine emperors.4

The collection has had several commentators; we need only mention the commentaries of Photius (883), Zonaras (1120) and Balsamon (1170). A collection in which the texts are simply reproduced in their chronological order is obviously inconvenient; towards 550, Johannes Scholasticus, patriarch of Constantinople, drew up a methodical classification of them under fifty heads. Finally should be mentioned yet another kind of compilation still in use in the Greek Church, bearing Nomocanon. the name of nomocanon, because in them are inserted, side by side with the ecclesiastical canons, the imperial laws on each subject: the chief of them are the one bearing the name of Johannes Scholasticus, which belongs, however, to a later date, and that of Photius (883).

The canon law of the other Eastern Churches had no marked influence on the collections of the Western Church, so we need not speak of it here. While, from the 5th century onwards a certain unification in the ecclesiastical law began to take place within the sphere of the see of Constantinople, it was not till later that a similar result was arrived at in the West. For In the West. several centuries there is no mention of any but local collections of canons, and even these are not found till the 5th century; we have to come down to the 8th or even the 9th century before we find any trace of unification. This process was uniformly the result of the passing on of the various collections from one region to another.

The most remarkable, and the most homogeneous, as well as without doubt the most ancient of these local collections is that of the Church of Africa. It was formed, so to speak, automatically, owing to the plenary assemblies of the Africa. African episcopate held practically every year, at which it was customary first of all to read out the canons of the previous councils. This gave to the collection an official character. At the time of the Vandal invasion this collection comprised the canons of the council of Carthage under Gratus (about 348) and under Genethlius (390), the whole series of the twenty or twenty-two plenary councils held during the episcopate of Aurelius, and finally, those of the councils held at Byzacene. Of the last-named we have only fragments, and the series of the councils under Aurelius is very incomplete. The African collection has not come to us directly: we have two incomplete and confused arrangements of it, in two collections, that of the Hispana and that of Dionysius Exiguus. Dionysius knows only the council of 419, in connexion with the affair of Apiarius; but in this single text are reproduced, more or less fully, almost all the synods of the collection; this was the celebrated Concilium Africanum, so often quoted in the middle ages, which was also recognized by the Greeks. The Spanish collection divides the African canons among seven councils of Carthage and one of Mileve; but in many cases it ascribes them to the wrong source; for example, it gives under the title of the fourth council of Carthage, the Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua, an Arlesian compilation of Saint Caesarius, which has led to a number of incorrect references. Towards the middle of the 6th century a Carthaginian deacon, Fulgentius Ferrandus, drew up a Breviatio canonum,5 a methodical arrangement of the African collection, in the order of the subjects. From it we learn that the canons of Nicaea and the other Greek councils, up to that of Chalcedon, were also known in Africa.

The Roman Church, even more than the rest, governed itself according to its own customs and traditions. Up to the end of the 5th century the only canonical document of non-Roman origin which it officially recognized was Rome. the group of canons of Nicaea, under which name were also included those of Sardica. A Latin version of the other Greek councils (the one referred to by Dionysius as prisca) was known, but no canonical use was made of it. The local law was founded on usage and on the papal letters called decretals. The latter were of two kinds: some were addressed to the bishops of the ecclesiastical province immediately subject to the pope; the others were issued in answer to questions submitted from various quarters; but in both cases the doctrine is the same. At the beginning of the 6th century the Roman Church adopted the double collection, though of private origin, which was drawn Dionysius Exiguus and his collection. up at that time by the monk Dionysius, known by the name of Dionysius Exiguus, which he himself had assumed as a sign of humility. He was a Scythian by birth, and did not come to Rome till after 496, his learning was considerable for his times, and to him we owe the employment of the Christian era and a new way of reckoning Easter. At the desire of Stephen, bishop of Salona, he undertook the task of making a new translation, from the original Greek text, of the canons of the Greek collection. The manuscript which he used contained only the first fifty of the Apostolic Canons; these he translated, and they thus became part of the law of the West. This part of the work of Dionysius was not added to later; it was otherwise with the second part. This embodied the documents containing the local law, namely 39 decretals of the popes from Siricius (384-398) to Anastasius II. (496-498). As was natural this collection received successive additions as further decretals appeared. The collection formed by combining these two parts remained the only official code of the Roman Church until the labours undertaken in consequence of the reforming movement in the 11th century. In 774 Pope Adrian I. gave the twofold collection of the Scythian monk to the future emperor Charlemagne as the canonical book of the Roman Church; this is what is called the Dionysio-Hadriana. This was an important stage in the history of the centralization Dionysio-Hadriana. of canon law; the collection was officially received by the Frankish Church, imposed by the council of Aix-la-Chapelle of 802, and from that time on was recognized and quoted as the liber canonum. If we consider that the Church of Africa, which had already suffered considerably from the Vandal invasion, was at this period almost entirely destroyed by the Arabs, while the fate of Spain was but little better, it is easy to see why the collection of Dionysius became the code of almost the whole of the Western Church, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon countries; though here too it was known.

The other collections of canons, of Italian origin, compiled before the 10th century, are of importance on account of the documents which they have preserved for us, but as they have not exercised any great influence on the development of canon law, we may pass them over.

The Dionysio-Hadriana did not, when introduced into Gaul, take the place of any other generally received collection of canons. In this country the Church had not been centralized round a principal see which would have In Gaul. produced unity in canon law as in other things; even the political territorial divisions had been very unstable. The only canonical centre of much activity was the Church of Arles, which exercised considerable influence over the surrounding region in the 5th and 6th centuries. The chief collection known throughout Gaul before the Dionysio-Hadriana Quesnel collection. was the so-called collection of Quesnel, named after its first editor.6 It is a rich collection, though badly arranged, and contains 98 documents—Eastern and African canons and papal letters, but no Gallic councils; so that it is not a collection of local law. We might expect to find such a collection, in view of the numerous and important councils held in Gaul, but their decisions remained scattered among a great number of collections none of which had ever a wide circulation or an official character.

It would be impossible to enumerate here all the Gallic councils which contributed towards the canon law of that country; we will mention only the following:—Arles (314), of great importance; a number of councils in the district Councils. of Arles, completed by the Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua of St Caesarius;7 the councils of the province of Tours; the assemblies of the episcopate of the three kingdoms of the Visigoths at Agde (506), of the Franks at Orleans (511), and of the Burgundians at Epaone (517); several councils of the kingdoms of the Franks, chiefly at Orleans; and finally, the synods of the middle of the 8th century, under the influence of St Boniface. Evidently the impulse towards unity had to come from without; it began with the alliance between the Carolingians and the Papacy, and was accentuated by the recognition of the liber canonum.

In Spain the case, on the contrary, is that of a strong centralization round the see of Toledo. Thus we find Spanish canon law embodied in a collection which, though perhaps not official, was circulated and received everywhere; In Spain. this was the Spanish collection, the Hispana.8 The collection is well put together and includes almost all the important canonical documents. In the first part are contained the councils, arranged according to the regions in which they were held: Greek councils, following a translation of Italian origin, The Hispana. but known by the name of Hispana; African councils, Gallican councils and Spanish councils. The latter, which form the local section, are further divided into several classes: firstly, the synods held under the Roman empire, the chief being that of Elvira9 (c. 300); next the texts belonging to the kingdom of the Suevi, after the conversion of these barbarians by St Martin of Braga: these are, the two councils of Braga (563 and 572), and a sort of free translation or adaptation of the canons of the Greek councils, made by Martin of Braga; this is the document frequently quoted in later days under the name of Capitula Martini papae; thirdly, the decisions of the councils of the Visigothic Church, after its conversion to Catholicism. Nearly all these councils were held at Toledo, beginning with the great council of 589. The series continued up to 694 and was only interrupted by the Mussulman invasion. Finally, the second part of the Hispana contains the papal decretals, as in the collection of Dionysius.

From the middle of the 9th century this collection was to become even more celebrated; for, as we know, it served as the basis for the famous collection of the False Decretals.

The Churches of Great Britain and Ireland remained still longer outside the centralizing movement. Their contribution towards the later system of canon law consisted in Great Britain and Ireland. two things: the Penitentials and the influence of the Irish collection, the other sources of local law not having been known to the predecessors of Gratian nor to Gratian himself.

The Penitentials10 are collections intended for the guidance of confessors in estimating the penances to be imposed for various sins, according to the discipline in force in the Anglo-Saxon countries. They are all of Anglo-Saxon or Penitentials. Irish origin, and although certain of them were compiled on the continent, under the influence of the island missionaries, it seems quite certain that a Roman Penitential has never existed.11 They are, however, of difficult and uncertain ascription, since the collections have been largely amended and remodelled as practice required. Among the most important we may mention those bearing the names of Vinnianus (d. 589), Gildas (d. 583), Theodore of Canterbury (d. 690), the Venerable Bede (d. 735) and Egbert of York (732-767); the Penitentials which are ascribed to St Columbanus, the founder of Luxeuil and Bobbio (d. 615), and Cumean (Cumine Ailbha, abbot of Iona); in the Prankish kingdom the most interesting work is the Penitential of Halitgar, bishop of Cambrai12 from 817 to 831. As penances had for a long time been lightened, and the books used by confessors began to consist more and more of instructions in the style of the later moral theology (and this is already the case of the books of Halitgar and Rhabanus Maurus), the canonical collections began to include a greater or smaller number of the penitential canons.

The Irish collection,13 though it introduced no important documents into the law of the Western Church, at least set canonists the example of quoting passages from the Irish collection. Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. This collection seems to date from the 8th century; besides the usual sources, the author has included several documents of local origin, beginning with the pretended synod of St Patrick.

In the very middle of the 9th century a much enlarged edition of the Hispana began to be circulated in France. To this rich collection the author, who assumes the name of Isidore, the saintly bishop of Seville, added a good number The false decretals. of apocryphal documents already existing, as well as a series of letters ascribed to the popes of the earliest centuries, from Clement to Silvester and Damasus inclusive, thus filling up the gap before the decretal of Siricius, which is the first genuine one in the collection. The other papal letters only rarely show signs of alteration or falsification, and the text of the councils is entirely respected.14 From the same source and at the same date came two other forged documents—firstly, a collection of Capitularies, in three books, ascribed to a certain Benedict (Benedictus Levita),15 a deacon of the church of Mainz; this collection, in which authentic documents find very little place, stands with regard to civil legislation exactly in the position of the False Decretals with regard to canon law. The other document, of more limited scope, is a group of Capitula given under the name of Angilram, bishop of Metz. It is nowadays admitted by all that these three collections come from the same source. For a study of the historical questions connected with the famous False Decretals, see the article Decretals (False); here we have only to consider them with reference to the place they occupy in the formation of ecclesiastical law. In spite of some hesitation, with regard rather to the official character than to the historical authenticity of the letters attributed to the popes of the earlier centuries, the False Decretals were accepted with confidence, together with the authentic texts which served as a passport for them. All later collections availed themselves indiscriminately of the contents of this vast collection, whether authentic or forged, without the least suspicion. The False Decretals did not greatly modify nor corrupt the Canon Law, but they contributed much to accelerate its progress towards unity. For they were the last of the chronological collections, i.e. those which give the texts in the order in which they appeared. From this time on, canonists began Systematic collections. to exercise their individual judgment in arranging their collections according to some systematic order, grouping their materials under divisions more or less happy, according to the object they had in view. This was the beginning of a codification of a common canon law, in which the sources drawn upon lose, as it were, their local character. This is made even more noticeable by the fact that, in a good number of the works extant, the author is not content merely to set forth and classify the texts; but he proceeds to discuss the point, drawing conclusions and sometimes outlining some controversy on the subject, just as Gratian was to do more fully later on.

During this period, which extended from the end of the 9th century to the middle of the 12th, we can enumerate about forty systematic collections, of varying value and circulation, which all played a greater or lesser part in preparing the juridical renaissance of the 12th century, and most of which were utilized by Gratian. We need mention only the chief of them—the Regino. Collectio Anselmo dedicata, by an unknown author of the end of the 9th century; the Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis,16 compiled about 906 by Regino, abbot of Prüm, and dedicated to Hatto of Mainz, relatively a very original treatise; the enormous compilation Burchard. in twenty books of Burchard, bishop of Worms (1112-1122), the Decretum or Collectarium,17 very widely spread and known under the name of Brocardum, of which the 19th book, dealing with the process of confession, is specially noteworthy. Towards the end of the 11th century, under the influence of Hildebrand, the reforming movement makes itself felt in several collections of canons, intended to support the rights of the Holy See and the Church against the pretensions of the emperor. To this group belong an anonymous collection, described by M.P. Fournier as the first manual of the Reform;18 the collection of Anselm, bishop of Lucca,19 in 13 Anselm Deusdedit. books (1080-1086); that of Cardinal Deusdedit,20 in 4 books, dedicated to Pope Victor III. (1086-1087); and lastly that of Bonizo,21 bishop of Sutri, in 10 books (1089). In the 12th century, the canonical works of Ivo of Chartres22 are of great importance. His Panormia, compiled Ivo of Chartres. about 1095 or 1096, is a handy and well-arranged collection in 8 books; as to the Decretum, a weighty compilation in 17 books, there seems sufficient proof that it is a collection of material made by Ivo in view of his Panormia. To the 12th century belong the collection in the MS. of Saragossa (Caesaraugustana) to which attention was drawn by Antonio Agustin; that of Cardinal Gregory, called by him the Polycarpus, in 8 books (about 1115); and finally the Liber de misericordia et justitia of Algerus,23 scholasticus of Liége, in 3 books, compiled at latest in 1123.

But all these works were to be superseded by the Decretum of Gratian.

2. The Decretum of Gratian and the Corpus Juris Canonici.—The work of Gratian, though prepared and made possible by those of his predecessors, greatly surpasses them in scientific value and in magnitude. It is certainly The Decretum of Gratian. the work which had the greatest influence on the formation of canon law; it soon became the sole manual, both for teaching and for practice, and even after the publication of the Decretals was the chief authority in the universities. The work is not without its faults; Gratian is lacking in historical and critical faculty; his theories are often hesitating; but on the whole, his treatise is as complete and as perfect as it could be; so much so that no other work of the same kind has been compiled; just as there has never been made another Book of the Sentences. These two works, which were almost contemporary (Gratian is only about two years earlier),24 were destined to have the same fate; they were the manuals, one for theology, the other for canon law, in use in all the universities, taught, glossed and commented on by the most illustrious masters. From this period dates the more marked and definitive separation between theology and ecclesiastical law.

Of Gratian we know practically nothing. He was a Camaldulensian monk of the convent of St Felix at Bologna, where he taught canon law, and published, probably in 1148, his treatise called at first Concordantia discordantium canonum, but soon known under the name of the Decretum. Nowadays, and for some time past, the only part of the Decretum considered is the collection of texts; but it is actually a treatise, in which the author endeavours to piece together a coherent juridical system from the vast body of texts, of widely differing periods and origin, which are furnished by the collections. These texts Dicta Gratiani. he inserts bodily in the course of his dissertation; where they do not agree, he divides them into opposite groups and endeavours to reconcile them; but the really original part of his work are the Dicta Gratiani, inserted between the texts, which are still read. Gratian drew his materials from the existing collections, and especially from the richer of them; when necessary, he has recourse to the Roman laws, and he made an extensive use of the works of the Fathers and the ecclesiastical writers; he further made use of the canons of the recent councils, and the recently published decretals, up to and including the Lateran council of 1139. His immense Contents. work consists of three parts (partes). The first, treating of the sources of canon law and of ecclesiastical persons and offices, is divided according to the method of Paucapalea, Gratian’s pupil, into 101 distinctiones, which are subdivided into canones. The second part consists of 36 causae (cases proposed for solution), subdivided into quaestiones (the several questions raised by the case), under each of which are arranged the various canones (canons, decretals, &c.) bearing on the question. But causa xxxiii. quaestio 3, headed Tractatus de Poenitentia, is divided like the main part into seven distinctiones, containing each several canones. The third part, which is entitled De Consecratione, gives, in five distinctiones, the law bearing on church ritual and the sacraments. The Mode of citation. following is the method of citation. A reference to the first part indicates the initial words or number of the canon and the number of the distinctio, e.g. can. Propter ecclesiasticas, dist. xviii. or c. 15, d. xviii. The second part is cited by the canon, causa and quaestio, e.g. can. Si quis suadente, C. 17, qu. 4, or c. 29, C. xvii., qu. 4. The treatise De Poenitentia, forming the 3rd quaestio of the 33rd causa of the second part, is referred to as if it were a separate work, e.g. c. Principium, D. ii. de poenit. or c. 45, D. ii. de poenit. In quoting a passage from the third part the canon and distinctio are given, e.g. c. Missar. solenn. D.I. de consecrat., or c. 12, D.I. de consecr.

Considered from the point of view of official authority, the Decretum occupies an intermediate position very difficult to define. It is not and cannot be a really official code, in which every text has the force of a law. It has never Authority. been recognized as such, and the pretended endorsement of it by Pope Eugenius III. is entirely apocryphal. Moreover, it could not have become an official code; it would be impossible to transform into so many laws either the discordant texts which Gratian endeavoured to reconcile or his own Dicta; a treatise on canon Law is not a code. Further, there was as yet no idea of demanding an official compilation. The Decretum has thus remained a work of private authority, and the texts embodied in it have only that legal value which they possess in themselves. On the other hand, the Decretum actually enjoys a certain public authority which is unique; for centuries it has been the text on which has been founded the instruction in canon law in all the universities; it has been glossed and commented on by the most illustrious canonists; it has become, without being a body of laws, the first part of the Corpus juris canonici, and as such it has been cited, corrected and edited by the popes. It has thus, by usage, obtained an authority perfectly recognized and accepted by the Church.25

Gratian’s collection, for the very reason that it had for its aim the creation of a systematic canon law, was a work of a transitional character. Henceforth a significant differentiation began to appear; the collections of texts, the After Gratian. number of which continued to increase, were clearly separated from the commentaries in which the canonists continued the formation and interpretation of the law. Thus the way was prepared for official collections. The disciples of Gratian, in glossing or commenting on the Decretum, turned to the papal decretals, as they appeared, for information and the determination of doubtful points. Their idea, then, was to make collections of these points, to support their teaching; this is the origin of those Compilationes which were soon to be embodied in the collection of Gregory IX. But we must not forget that these compilations were intended by their authors to complete the Decretum of Gratian; in them were included the decretals called extravagantes, i.e. quae vagabantur extra Decretum. This is why we find in them hardly any documents earlier than the time of Gratian, and also why canonists have continued to refer to the decretals of Gregory IX. by the abbreviation X (Extra, i.e. extra Decretum).

There were numerous collections of this kind towards the end of the 12th and at the beginning of the 13th century. Passing over the first Additiones to the Decretum and the “Quinque compilationes.” Appendix concilii Lateranensis (council of 1179), we will speak only of the Quinque compilationes,26 which served as a basis for the works of Raymond of Pennaforte. The first and most important is the work of Bernard, provost and afterwards bishop of Pavia, namely, the Breviarium extravagantium, compiled about 1190; it included the decretals Bernard of Pavia, “Breviarium.” from Alexander III. to Clement III., together with certain “useful chapters” omitted by Gratian. The important feature of the book is the arrangement of the decretals or sections of decretals in five books, divided into titles (tituli) logically arranged. The five books treat of (1) ecclesiastical persons and dignitaries or judges; (2) procedure; (3) rights, duties and property of the clergy, i.e. benefices, dues, sacraments, &c., with the exception of marriage, which is the subject of book (4); (5) of penalties. There is a well-known hexameter summing up this division:

Judex, judicium, clerus, connubia, crimen.

This is the division adopted in all the official collections of the Corpus juris. By a bull of the 28th of December 1210 Innocent “Compilatio tertia.” III. sent to the university of Bologna an authentic collection of the decretals issued during the first twelve years of his pontificate; this collection he had caused to be drawn up by his notary, Petrus Collivacinus of Benevento, his object being to supersede the collections in circulation, “Secunda.” which were incomplete and to a certain extent spurious. This was the Compilatio tertia; for soon after, Joannes Galensis (John of Wales) collected the decretals published between the collection of Bernard of Pavia and the pontificate of Innocent III.; and this, though of later “Quarta.” date, became known as the Compilatio secunda. The quarta, the author of which is unknown, contained the decretals of the last six years of Innocent III., and the “Quinta.” important decrees of the Lateran council of 1215. Finally, in 1226, Honorius III. made an official presentation to Bologna of his own decretals, this forming the Compilatio quinta.

The result of all these supplements to Gratian’s work, apart from the inconvenience caused by their being so scattered, was the accumulation of a mass of material almost as considerable as the Decretum itself, from which they Decretals of Gregory IX. tended to split off and form an independent whole, embodying as they did the latest state of the law. From 1230 Gregory IX. wished to remedy this condition of affairs, and gave to his penitentionary, the Dominican Raymond of Pennaforte, the task of condensing the five compilations in use into a single collection, freed from useless and redundant documents. The work was finished in 1234, and was at once sent by the pope to Bologna with the bull Rex pacificus, declaring it to be official. Raymond adopts Bernard of Pavia’s division into five books and into titles; in each title he arranges the decretals in chronological order, cutting out those which merely repeat one another and the less germane parts of those which he preserves; but these partes decisae, indicated by the words “et infra” or “et j,” are none the less very useful and have been printed in recent editions. Raymond does not attempt any original work; to the texts already included in the Quinque compilationes, he adds only nine decretals of Innocent III. and 196 chapters of Gregory IX. This first official code was the basis of the second part of the Corpus juris canonici. The collection of Gregory IX. is cited as follows: the opening words of the chapter are given, or else its order or number, then the title to which it belongs; earlier scholars added X (extra); nowadays, this indication is omitted, and the order or number of the title in the book is given instead, e.g. Quum olim, de Consuetudine, X.; or cap. 6, de consuet. (I. iv.); that is to say, book I., title iv., de consuetudine, chapter 6, beginning with the words Quum olim.

Though Gregory IX. wished to supersede the compilationes, he had no idea of superseding the Decretum of Gratian, still less of codifying the whole of the canon law. Though his collection is still in theory the chief monument of Their relation to the general law. ecclesiastical law, it only marked a certain stage and was before long to receive further additions. The reason for this is that in most cases the decretals did not formulate any law, but were merely solutions of particular cases, given as models; to arrive at the abstract law it was necessary to examine the solution in each case with regard to the circumstances and thus formulate a rule; this was the work of the canonists. The “decretalists” commented on the new collection, as the “decretists” had done for that of Gratian; but the canonists were not legislators: even the summaries which they placed at the head of the chapters could not be adduced as legislative texts. The abstract law was to be found rather in the Summae of the canonists than in the decretals. Two important results, however, were achieved: on the one hand, supplementary collections on private authority ceased to be made, for this Gregory IX. had forbidden; on the other hand, the collections were no longer indefinitely swelled by the addition of new decisions in particular cases, those already existing being enough to form a basis for the codification of the abstract law; and for this reason subsequent collections contain as a rule only the “constitutions” of popes or councils, i.e. rules laid down as of general application. Hence arose a separation, which became more and more marked, between legislation and jurisprudence. This change was not produced suddenly, the old method being at first adhered to. In 1245 Innocent IV. sent to the universities a collection of 45 decretals, with the order that they should be inserted under their proper titles in the collection of Gregory IX. In 1253 he sent a further list of the first words (principia) of the complementary constitutions and decretals; but the result was practically nil and the popes gave up this system of successive additions. It was, however, found expedient to publish a new official collection. At the instance of the university of Bologna, Boniface VIII., himself an eminent canonist, had this prepared by a committee of canonists and published it in 1298. As it came as an addition to the five The “Liber Sextus.” books of Gregory IX., it was called the sixth book, the Liber Sextus. It includes the constitutions subsequent to 1234, and notably the decrees of the two ecumenical councils of Lyons, and is arranged in books and titles, as above described; the last title, de regulis juris, contains no less than eighty-eight legal axioms, mostly borrowed from Roman law. The Liber Sextus is cited like the decretals of Gregory IX., only with the addition of: in sexto (in VI^o.).

The same observations apply to the next collection, the Clementinae. It was prepared under the care of Clement V., and even promulgated by him in consistory in March 1314; but in consequence of the death of the pope, which The “Clementinae.” took place almost immediately after, the publication and despatch of the collection to the universities was postponed till 1317, under John XXII. It includes the constitutions of Clement V., and above all, the decrees of the council of Vienne of 1311, and is divided, like preceding collections, into books and titles; it is cited in the same way, with the additional indication Clem-(entina).

At this point the official collections stop. The two last, which have found a place in the editions of the Corpus, are collections of private authority, but in which all the “Extravagantes” of John XXII. documents are authentic. Evidently the strict prohibition of the publishing of collections not approved by the Holy See had been forgotten. The Extravagantes (i.e. extra collectiones publicas) of John XXII. number 20, And “communes.” and are classified under fourteen titles. The Extravagantes communes (i.e. coming from several popes) number 73, from Boniface VIII. to Sixtus IV. (1484), and are classified in books and titles. These two collections were included in the edition of Jean Chappuis in 1500; they passed into the later editions, and are considered as forming part of the Corpus juris canonici. As such, and without receiving any complementary authority, they have been corrected and re-edited, like the others, by the Correctores romani. They are cited, like the decretals, with a further indication of the collection to which they belong: Extrav. Jo. XXII., or inter-comm-(unes).

Thus was closed, as the canonists say, the Corpus juris canonici; but this expression, which is familiar to us nowadays, is only a bibliographical term. Though we find in the 15th The “Corpus juris canonici.” century, for example, at the council of Basel the expression corpus juris, obviously suggested by the Corpus juris civilis, not even the official edition of Gregory XIII. has as its title the words Corpus juris canonici. and we do not meet with this title till the Lyons edition of 1671.

The history of the canonical collections forming the Corpus juris would not be complete without an account of the labours of which they were the object. We know that the universities of the middle ages contained a Faculty The study of canon law. of Decrees, with or without a Faculty of Laws, i.e. civil law. The former made doctores decretorum, the latter doctores legum. The teaching of the magistri consisted in oral lessons (lecturae) directly based on the text. The short remarks explanatory of words in the text, originally written The glosses. in the margin, became the gloss which, formed thus by successive additions, took a permanent form and was reproduced in the manuscripts of the Corpus, and later in the various editions, especially in the official Roman edition of 1582; it thus acquired by usage a kind of semi-official authority. The chief of the glossatores of the Decretum of Gratian were Paucapalea, the first disciple of the master, Rufinus (1160-1170), John of Faenza (about 1170), Joannes Teutonicus (about 1210), whose glossary, revised and completed by Bartholomeus Brixensis (of Brescia) became the glossa ordinaria decreti. For the decretals we may mention Vincent the Spaniard and Bernard of Botone (Bernardus Parmensis, d. 1263), author of the Glossa ordinaria. That on the Liber Sextus is due to the famous Joannes Andreae (c. 1340); and the one which he began for the Clementines was finished later by Cardinal Zabarella (d. 1417). The commentaries not so entirely concerned with the text were called Apparatus; and Summae was the name given to The “Summae.” general treatises. The first of these works are of capital importance in the formation of a systematic canon law. Such were the Summae of the first disciples of Gratian: Paucapalea (1150),27 Rolando Bandinelli28 (afterwards Alexander III., c. 1150), Rufinus29 (c. 1165), Étienne of Tournai30 (Stephanus Tornacensis, c. 1168), John of Faenza (c. 1170), Sicard, bishop of Cremona (c. 1180), and above all Huguccio (c. 1180). For the Decretals we should mention: Bernard of Pavia31 (c. 1195), Sinibaldo Fieschi (Innocent IV., c. 1240), Henry of Susa (d. 1271), commonly called (cardinalis) Hostiensis, whose Summa Hostiensis or Summa aurea is a work of the very highest order; Wilhelmus Durantis or Durandus, Joannes Andreae, Nicolas de Tudeschis (abbas siculus), &c. The 15th century produced few original treatises; but after the council of Trent the Corpus juris was again commented on by distinguished canonists, e.g. the Jesuit Paul Laymann (1575-1635), the Portuguese Agostinho Barbosa (1590-1649), Manuel Gonzalez Tellez (d. 1649) and Prospero Fagnani (1598-1687), who, although blind, was secretary to the Congregation of the Council. But as time goes on, the works gradually lose the character of commentaries on the text, and develop into expositions of the law as a whole.

We can mention here only the chief editions of the Corpus. The council of Trent, as we know, ordered that the official books of the Roman Church—sacred books, liturgical books, Editions. &c.—should be issued in official and more correct editions; the compilations of ecclesiastical law were also revised. The commission of the Correctores romani,32 established The “Correctores romani.” about 1563 by Pius IV., ended its work under Gregory XIII and the official edition, containing the text and the glosses, appeared at Rome in 1582. Richter’s edition (2 vols., Leipzig, 1839) remains valuable, but has been greatly surpassed by that of E. Friedberg (Leipzig, “Institutiones Lancelotti.” 1879-1881). Many editions contain also the Institutiones composed at the command of Paul IV. (1555-1559) by Giovanni Paolo Lancelotti, a professor of Bologna, on the model of the Institutes of Justinian. The work has merits, but has never been officially approved.

Though the collections of canon law were to receive no more additions, the source of the laws was not dried up; decisions of councils and popes continued to appear; but there was no attempt made to collect them. Canonists obtained the recent texts as they could. Moreover, it was an epoch of trouble: the great Schism of the West, the profound divisions which were its result, the abuses which were to issue in the Reformation, were conditions little favourable for a reorganization of the ecclesiastical laws. Thus we are brought to the third period.

3. After the Council of Trent.—The numerous important decrees made by the council of Trent, in the second part of its sessions, called de reformatione, are the starting-point of the canon law in its latest stage, jus novissimum; it is this which is still in force in the Roman Church. It has in no way undermined the official status of the Corpus juris; but it has completed the legislation of the latter in many important respects, and in some cases reformed it.

The law during this period, as abstracted from the texts and compilations, suggests the following remarks. The laws are formulated in general terms, and the decisions in particular cases relegated to the sphere of jurisprudence; Final state of the law. and the canonists have definitely lost the function which fell to them in the 12th and 13th centuries: they receive the law on authority and no longer have to deduce it from the texts. The legislative power is powerfully centralized in the hands of the pope: since the reforming decrees of the council of Trent it is the pontifical constitutions alone which have made the common law; the ecumenical council, doubtless, has not lost its power, but none were held until that of the Vatican (1870), and this latter was unable to occupy itself with matters of discipline. Hence the separation, increasingly marked, between the common law and the local laws, which cannot derogate from the common law except by concession of the Holy See, or by right of a lawfully authorized custom. This centralization, in its turn, has greatly increased the tendency towards unity and uniformity, which have reached in the present practice of the Roman Church a degree never known before, and considered by some to be excessive.

If we now consider the laws in themselves, we shall find that the dispersed condition of the legislative documents has not been modified since the closure of the Corpus juris; on the contrary the enormous number of pontifical Dispersion of the texts. constitutions, and of decrees emanating from the Roman Congregations, has greatly aggravated the situation; moreover, the attempts which have been made to resume the interrupted process of codification have entirely failed. As regards the texts, the canon law of to-day is in a very similar position to that of English law, which gave rise to J.S. Mill’s saying: “All ages of English history have given one another rendezvous in English law; their several products may be seen all together, not interfused, but heaped one upon another, as many different ages of the earth may be read in some perpendicular section of its surface.”33 Nothing has been abrogated, except in so far as this has been implicitly demanded by subsequent laws. From this result insoluble controversies and serious uncertainties, both in the study and practice of the law; and, finally, it has become impossible for most people to have a first-hand knowledge of the actual laws.

For this third period, the most important and most considerable of the canonical texts is the body of disciplinary decrees of the council of Trent (1545-1563). In consequence of the prohibition issued by Pius IV., they have not Decrees of the Council of Trent. been published separately from the dogmatic texts and other acts, and have not been glossed;34 but their official interpretation has been reserved by the popes to the “Congregation of the cardinal interpreters of the Council of Trent,” whose decisions form a vast collection of jurisprudence. Next in importance come the pontifical constitutions, which Pontifical constitutions. are collected together in the Bullarium; but this is a collection of private authority, if we except the Bullarium of Benedict XIV., officially published by him in 1747; further, the Bullarium is a compilation arranged in chronological order, and its dimensions make it rather unwieldy. In the third place come the decrees of the Roman Congregations, which have the force of law. Several Decrees of the Curia. of these organs of the papal authority have published official collections, in which more place is devoted to jurisprudence than to laws; several others have only private compilations, or even none at all, among others the most important, viz. the Holy Office (see Curia Romana). The resulting confusion and uncertainty may be imagined.