Gratian, Concordia discordantium canonum
| Title | Gratian, Concordia discordantium canonum |
|---|---|
| Key | GR |
| Alternative title | Decretum Gratiani |
| Wikidata Item no. | Q1182119 |
| Size | Very large (more than 2000 canons) |
| Terminus post quem | 1139 |
| Terminus ante quem | 1150 |
| Century | saec. XII |
| Place of origin | Bologna |
| European region of origin | Northern Italy |
| Main author | Anders Winroth |
| No. of manuscripts | very many (100+) |
Gratian was a teacher of canon law in Bologna around 1140. He compiled his own textbook which he called Concordia discordantium canonum ("Harmony from Discordant Canons"). The work became know as the Decretum for short, thus signaling his intention to reconcile systematically contradictory statements of ecclesiastical law.
Gratian's Decretum
The Decretum was produced in a two-stage process, with Gratian himself finishing a first recension at some point probably soon after 1139, before being made Bishop of Chiusi in Tuscany, where he appears to have died on 10 August, c. 1145. This first recension contained 1860 canons which Gratian discussed in almost 1000 discursive comments (“dicta”) of varying length. He began by discussing the characteristics of law and then clerical office and life in a long treatise as yet without subdivisions. He divided the rest of the Decretum into 36 causae (“cases”), each of which describes an imagined situation from which Gratian derived and discussed up to eleven legal questions. The first causa is devoted to simony, the sin of selling ecclesiastical office. Causae 2-8 concern legal procedure, while later causae treat ecclesiastical property and tithes, monastic law, oaths, just war, and heresy. The last quarter of his work, causae 27-36 makes up a substantial treatise on marriage law, into which Gratian inserted, as causa 33, quaestio 3, a long and innovative treatise on penance.
We might imagine that Gratian left teaching abruptly, never finishing and polishing his collection. His successors thought the work was incomplete, so they added some 2000 further chapters to it, drawn mainly from the same sources as Gratian had used for the first recension. Their additions are distributed across the entire Decretum and include rather few dicta, often making the second recension appear a less tightly argued work than the first. Somewhat later, they added the third part of the Decretum, known as de consecratione, a collection of canons (but no dicta) concerning such sacramental law (baptism, confirmation, consecration of church buildings and objects) as Gratian had not treated in the first recension.
The text of the Decretum was subject to even more editorial work over several decades after the completion of the second recension. Some two hundred chapters were added, often drawing on Burchard's Liber decretorum, which had not been used for either the first or the second recension. These additions are called paleae (chaff, in distinction from the grain of the rest of the work). In some cases editorial work cancelled canons that were duplicated or otherwise less desirable. The cancelled canons are, confusingly, also called paleae, although some scholars refer to them as duplicates instead.
Gratian in the Clavis canonum Database
Gratian's Decretum (GR) was added to the database in 2021. It is based on Friedberg's edition. Hopefully, a modern edition of the first recension will be included in the future.
Manuscripts and Editions
Manuscripts
For manuscripts, see Category:Manuscript of GR (10 entries) and the List of Gratian Manuscripts (some 600 entries).
Complete Editions
For early editions, see the bibliographies by Will and Adversi. The Decretum was very often printed, typically including some form of the Glossa ordinaria, between 1471 and 1616.
- Gratian's work was first printed by Heinrich Eggestein of Strasbourg in 1471 (Copy of Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol. 1 and 2, available online). The edition also contains the Glossa ordinaria, in what is probably the printed version that is most faithful to the medieval tradition. ater editions, especially after 1500, contain often radically edited versions.
- The official Roman edition of 1582 is available from UCLA, with a useful clickable table of contents. The editio Romana also contains the Glossa ordinaria in a version that has been much revised in comparison with the medieval tradition.
- The most recent complete edition of the second recension of Gratian's text is the one that Emil Friedberg published 1879 in Leipzig and available online here (and elsewhere). The Munich digital copy is usefully equipped with a table of contents, page images, and text. The Clavis database entries link to this digital version, too.
- The working edition of the first recension, produced by Anders Winroth, is available online. You will also find useful materials here, e.g. an overview over the manuscripts.
Partial Editions
Several scholars have in recent decades published new editions of sections of the Decretum:
- Titus Lenherr, Die Exkommunikations- und Depositionsgewalt der Häretiker bei Gratian und den Dekretisten bis zur Glossa ordinaria des Johannes Teutonicus, Münchener theologische Studien, III. Kanonistische Abteilund 42 (St. Ottilien: Eos, 1987), 18-56. C.24 q.1.
- Regula Gujer, Concordia discordantium codicum manuscriptorum? Die Textentwicklung von 18 Handschriften anhand der D.16 des Decretum Gratiani, Forschungen zur kirchlichen Rechtsgeschichte und zum Kirchenrecht 23 (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2004), 392-415. D.16.
- Enrique De León, La "cognatio spiritualis" según Graciano, Pontificio Ataneo della Santa Croce: Monografie giuridiche 11 (Rome, Giuffré, 1996), 138-168. C.30, qq.1, 3, and 4.
- Atria Larson, Gratian's Tractatus de penitentia: A New Latin Edition with English Translation, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 14 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 2-279. C.33 q.3 De penitentia. Includes an English translation.
- Jean Werckmeister, Décret de Gratien, causes 27 à 36: Le mariage; Édition, traduction, introduction et notes, Source canoniques 3 (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 78-699. C.27-C.36, except de penitentia (C.33 q.3). Includes a French translation.
Literature
Aldo Adversi, "Saggio di un Catalogo delle edizioni del 'Decretum Gratiani' posteriori al secolo XV." Studia Gratiana 6 (Bologna, 1959), p. 281-451.
Jürgen Buchner, Die Paleae im Dekret Gratians: Untersuchung ihrer Echtheit, Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum , Facultas Iuris Canonici 127, (Rome, 2000).
Atria Larson, Master of Penance: Gratian and the Development of Penitential Thought and Law in the Twelfth Century, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 11 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2014).
John Wei, Gratian the Theologian, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 13 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2016).
Rudolf Weigand, Die Glossen zum Dekret Gratians: Studien zu den frühen Glossen und Glossenkompositionen, Studia Gratiana 25-26 (Rome, 1991).
Erich Will, "Decreti Gratiani incunabula: Beschreibendes Gesamtverzeichnis der Wiegendrucke des Gratianischen Dekretes" Studia Gratiana 6 (Bologna, 1959), p. 1-280.
Anders Winroth, The Making of Gratian's Decretum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
