Law and Theology in Twelfth-century England


Book Description

This book explores the legal and theological thought of Master Vacarius (c.1115/20 - c.1200), the renowned twelfth-century jurist. It focuses on this Italian master's four works, composed in the second half of the twelfth century, which deal with the resolution of conflict in law and theology. Vacarius is a paradox for scholars. They have found it difficult to reconcile his role as a legal teacher, notably through his textbook the Liber pauperum ('Book of the Poor'), which established a school of Roman law at Oxford, with his 'extra-legal' works on marriage, Christology and heretical theology. This study accounts for this paradox by exploring these three extra-legal treatises, composed in the 1160s and 1170s, in light of Vacarius' legal textbook. The author argues that Vacarius applies the legal method of the ius commune (European common law) to theological and sacramental debates. In this way, Vacarius represents a trend in medieval intellectual history, particular to the twelfth-century renaissance, which has been little appreciated to date - the hermeneutic of the 'lawyer-theologian'.




The Haskins Society Journal 16


Book Description

The Haskins Society presents papers from leading scholars on the political and social history of the Western European world through the Viking times via the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to the break-up of the Carolingian state in the mid-13th century.




The Cambridge History of Medieval Canon Law


Book Description

Canon law touched nearly every aspect of medieval society, including many issues we now think of as purely secular. It regulated marriages, oaths, usury, sorcery, heresy, university life, penance, just war, court procedure, and Christian relations with religious minorities. Canon law also regulated the clergy and the Church, one of the most important institutions in the Middle Ages. This Cambridge History offers a comprehensive survey of canon law, both chronologically and thematically. Written by an international team of scholars, it explores, in non-technical language, how it operated in the daily life of people and in the great political events of the time. The volume demonstrates that medieval canon law holds a unique position in the legal history of Europe. Indeed, the influence of medieval canon law, which was at the forefront of introducing and defining concepts such as 'equity,' 'rationality,' 'office,' and 'positive law,' has been enormous, long-lasting, and remarkably diverse.




The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Law and Literature


Book Description

A comprehensive and wide-ranging account of the interrelationship between law and literature in Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Tudor England.




Power and Justice in Medieval England


Book Description

How the medieval right to appoint a parson helped give birth to English common law Appointing a parson to the local church following a vacancy—an “advowson”—was one of the most important rights in medieval England. The king, the monasteries, and local landowners all wanted to control advowsons because they meant political, social, and economic influence. The question of law turned on who had the superior legal claim to the vacancy—which was a type of property—at the time the position needed to be filled. In tracing how these conflicts were resolved, Joshua C. Tate takes a sharply different view from that of historians who focus only on questions of land ownership, and he shows that the English needed new legal contours to address the questions of ownership and possession that arose from these disputes. Tate argues that the innovations made necessary by advowson law helped give birth to modern common law and common law courts.




Law and Theology in the Middle Ages


Book Description

This is a thought provoking examination of the tension between ecclesiastical and secular authority in medieval Europe. Focusing on a wide range of concepts and themes, this is a wide ranging and accessible text.




The European Book in the Twelfth Century


Book Description

The 'long twelfth century' (1075–1225) was an era of seminal importance in the development of the book in medieval Europe and marked a high point in its construction and decoration. This comprehensive study takes the cultural changes that occurred during the 'twelfth-century Renaissance' as its point of departure to provide an overview of manuscript culture encompassing the whole of Western Europe. Written by senior scholars, chapters are divided into three sections: the technical aspects of making books; the processes and practices of reading and keeping books; and the transmission of texts in the disciplines that saw significant change in the period, including medicine, law, philosophy, liturgy, and theology. Richly illustrated, the volume provides the first in-depth account of book production as a European phenomenon.




Medieval Canon Law


Book Description

It is impossible to understand how the medieval church functioned and, in turn, influenced the lay world within its care without understanding "canon law". This book examines its development from its beginnings to the end of the Middle Ages, updating its findings in light of recent scholarly trends. This second edition has been fully revised and updated by Melodie H. Eichbauer to include additional material on the early Middle Ages; the significance of the discovery of earlier versions of Gratian’s Decretum; and the new research into law emanating from secular authorities, councils, episcopal acta, and juridical commentary to rethink our understanding of the sources of law and canon law's place in medieval society. Separate chapters examine canon law in intellectual spaces; the canonical courts and their procedures; and, using the case studies of deviation from orthodoxy and marriage, canon law in the lives of people. The main body of the book concludes with the influence of canon law in Western society, but has been reworked by integrating sections cut from the first edition chapters on canon law in private and public life to highlight the importance of this field of research. Throughout the work and found in the bibliography are references to current literature and resources in order to make researching in the field more accessible. The first appendix provides examples of how canonical texts are cited while the second offers biographical notes on canonists featured in the work. The end result is a second edition that is significantly rewritten and updated but retains the spirit of Brundage’s original text. Covering all aspects of medieval canon law and its influence on medieval politics, society, and culture, this book provides students of medieval history with an accessible overview of this foundational aspect of medieval history.




Felony and the Guilty Mind in Medieval England


Book Description

Explores the role of criminal intent in constituting felony in the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury.




European Transformations


Book Description

Medievalists explore geographical regions and themes to expose the best current thinking about what was and what was not distinctive about the twelfth century.