St. Raymund and the Decretals

The present year marks two notable anniversaries associated with events which had wide spread importance, though very different results within the area of Law. The one was the publication of the famous Decretals of Gregory IX in 1234, a compilation of ecclesiastical law brought together by a Dominican friar, St. Raymund of Penafort, in the direction of centralization in Church government, which took its rise from the great Hildebrand, steadily but surely moved forward through the reigns of successive popes, and finally almost came to rest with Pope Gregory IX. Then there is that other most tragic event, three hundred years later, in 1534, the passing of the Act of Supremacy, whereby the death blow was struck at Canon Law, as far as England is concerned, and any lively influence that it might still have exerted on our own legal institutions was stifled at its source, though in shadowy forms it lingered on. But in the following year even the study of Canon Law was crushed out, when Cromwell as Henry VIII’s vicegerent visited the Universities and issued injunctions to the effect that lectures on the Decretals and the conferring of degrees in Canon Law should be abolished. The sequel was a notable depression also in the study of civil law in this country.All but the prejudiced sectarian have come to acknowledge the Papacy as a wonderful piece of machinery and organization, not only within the sphere of religion and political prestige, but as a centre of law and government.