Five-minute digest
Decretum (Concord of Discordant Canons)
Summary
The Decretum of Gratian, whose own title was the Concord of Discordant Canons (Concordia discordantium canonum), is the founding textbook of canon law, the law of the Western Church. It was compiled at Bologna around 1140, at the same time that teachers there were reviving the study of Justinian's Roman law. Before Gratian, the Church's law was scattered in many collections of canons from councils, popes and Church Fathers, which often contradicted one another. Gratian gathered several thousand of these texts and tried to show how they could be reconciled. His method was new. He arranged the texts by topic, and between them he wrote his own comments, called dicta, in which he posed questions, set authorities against each other and proposed distinctions that resolved apparent conflicts: one canon applies in one circumstance, another in another; one states a general rule, another an exception. This method of reasoning by question and distinction shaped medieval university teaching in law and theology alike. The Decretum has three parts. The first, in 101 Distinctions, treats the sources of law and the clergy. It opens with the distinction between natural law and human custom, teaching that natural law is contained in the Law and the Gospel, which command each person to do to others what he would have done to himself, and that natural law takes precedence over custom and enacted law. The second part presents 36 Causes, imaginary cases each raising several questions, on topics such as simony, Church property, marriage, heresy, just war and penance. The third part treats the sacraments and worship. The Decretum was never officially promulgated by a pope, but it became the standard text in the schools. Teachers wrote glosses on it, popes issued new decretals to supplement it, and together these formed the Corpus of Canon Law, in force in the Catholic Church until the Code of 1917. Through canon law the Decretum influenced European ideas of marriage by consent, due process, natural rights and the limits of rulers. Recent scholarship has shown that it grew in at least two stages, so the work is best understood as the product of Gratian and his early students.
Top Lessons
Reconciling authorities
Gratian took contradictory texts seriously and sought distinctions that showed how they fit together. Careful reasoning can find harmony where others see only conflict.
Natural law first
Gratian taught that natural law, found in the Law and the Gospel, outranks custom and human legislation. Human law must answer to God's law.
Law in the Church
The Decretum shows that the Church needed order and justice in its own life. Law can serve charity when it protects the weak and settles disputes fairly.