Jus novum (c. 1140-1563) Jus novissimum (c. 1563-1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of the faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life The Catholic Church utilizes the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West,[1] much later than Roman law but predating the evolution of modern European civil law traditions.
Church of Carthage), and a collection of (38) papal letters (Epistolæ decretales) dating from the reign of Pope Siricius (384–398) to that of Anastasius II (died 498).
It was continuously enlarged and modified, the most famous modification being a version supposedly send by Pope Adrian I to Charlemagne in 774 and therefore known today as the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana.
Africa possessed a late fourth-century collection known as the Breviarium Hipponense as well as an early fifth-century collection known as the Codex Apiarii causae; also the Breviatio canonum, or digest of the canons of the councils by Fulgentius Ferrandus (died c. 546), and the Concordia canonum of Cresconius Africanus, an adaptation of the Dionysiana (about 690).
Also from Gaul/France are the collections known today as the Collectio canonum quadripartita and the Libri duo de synodalibus causis composed by Regino of Prüm.
The Collectio canonum Hibernensis or Irish collection of canons, compiled in the 8th century, influenced both England, Gaul and (though much later) Italy.
[6] Around the year 700 there developed in either England or Germany a collection of penitential canons attributed to Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 690).
There were many such books circulating in Europe from the seventh to the eleventh century, each penitential containing rules indicating exactly how much penance was required for which sins.
[7] Iberia (i.e. Spain) possessed the Capitula Martini, compiled about 572 by Martin, Bishop of Braga (in Portugal), and the immense and influential Collectio Hispana dating from about 633, attributed in the 9th century to Isidore of Seville.
The Pseudo-Isidorian collection, the authenticity of which was for a long time admitted, has exercised considerable influence on ecclesiastical discipline, without however modifying it in its essential principles.
[10] In 1234 Pope Gregory IX promulgated the first official collection of Canons, called the Decretalia Gregorii Noni or Liber Extra.
After the completion of the Corpus Juris Canonici, subsequent papal legislation was published in periodic volumes called Bullaria.
[14] The combination of logical, moral, and political elements contributed to a systematization that was quite different from a merely doctrinal or dogmatic analysis of legal rules, however complex and however coherent.
[15]In the thirteenth century, the Roman Church began to collect and organize its canon law, which after a millennium of development had become a complex and difficult system of interpretation and cross-referencing.
After the Council of Trent, an attempt to secure a new official collection of church laws was made about 1580, when Gregory XIII charged three cardinals with the task.
A private individual, Pierre Mathieu of Lyons, also wrote a Liber Septimus Decretalium, inserted in the appendix to the Frankfort (1590) edition of the Corpus Juris Canonici.
Pius X determined to undertake this work by his decree "Arduum sane munus" (19 March 1904), and named a commission of cardinals to compile a new "Corpus Juris Canonici" on the model of the codes of civil law.
In 1959, Pope John XXIII announced, together with his intention to call the Second Vatican Council and a Synod of the Diocese of Rome, that the 1917 Code would be completely revised.
The revision, the 1983 Code of Canon Law, was promulgated by the apostolic constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges on 25 January 1983, taking effect on 27 November 1983.