Liber Extra

The Liber Extra (also known as Decretales Gregorii IX) is a large collection of decretals compiled by Raimund of Penyafort and completed in 1234. Alongside the Decretum Gratiani, the Liber Extra is considered the most important ecclesiastical law collection of the Middle Ages and early modern period.

Gregory IX entrusted Raimund of Penyafort with the task of reorganizing the material in the Quinque compilationes antiquae. Rainmund completed his work within four years. He made significant changes to the texts, shortening them and giving them a general orientation to minimize contradictions between individual decretals. The Liber Extra, the result of his efforts, contains 1871 chapters, mostly extracts from 12th century decretals, with a small portion coming from older canon law. Compared to the Quinque compilationes, 383 decretals were omitted, and new ones were included from Pope Innocent III and Gregory IX.

The Liber Extra is organized into five books and arranged chronologically by title and chapter. Although it was not a codification or officially promulgated, Gregory IX in 1234 commanded its use in legal instruction and judicial practice in a letter called Rex pacificus. Many scholars treat the Liber Extra as a codification, or at least something coming very close to codification. Scholarship is divided concerning the exact legal status of those decretals not included in Liber Extra, especially for those decretals from pre-Gratian times.

Some 700 manuscripts of the Liber Extra are known. For a list, see http://www.dhi-roma.it/bertram_extrahss.html

Editions and Literature

Scholarship still relies on Friedberg's Liber Extra edition:

• Decretalium D. Gregorii Papae compilatio. In: Emil Friedberg (ed.): Decretalium collectiones: Decretales Gregorii P. IX., Liber sextus decretalium Bonifacii P. VIII, Clementis P. V. constitutiones, Extravagantes tum viginti Joannis P. XXII. tum communes (= Corpus Iuris Canonici. Band 2). Leipzig 1881, col. 1–928