Protestant Ecclesiastical Law and the Ius Commune

Protestants almost never called their ecclesiastical norms ‘canons.’ When Protestant jurists or theologians wrote ‘canon law’ (Ius canonicum) in their works, it was clear to their readers that they meant Roman canon law. Surprisingly, Protestant jurists often cited Roman canon law and its jurisprudence long after Martin Luther burned books of Roman canon law at the Elster gate in Wittenberg. These jurists also continued to teach courses at the universities that treated the Ius canonicum. Consequently, an essay on Protestant canon law must confront the question: how much Roman canon law and the jurisprudence of the medieval Ius commune remained embedded in the Reformers’ legislation and jurisprudence and how much was rejected? Until relatively recently scholars answered that question largely according to their confessional affiliations

Lex Naturalis and Jus Naturale

After the air attacks of September 11, 2001 the United States government decided to fortify all public government buildings and spaces of importance in Washington, D.C. that might be targets of future attacks. The expenditures for these projects ran to millions of dollars and included the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. These extensive fortifications were inspired by widespread fear at all levels of the American government that extreme measures were needed to protect themselves and government buildings. This culture of fear quickly became an accepted part of American political discourse. Fear was no longer cowardly; it became a badge of courage. Streets around government buildings were closed. Streets that remained open were provided with retractable barriers. A security cordon around the White House was greatly expanded. The public was denied entrance to the grand staircase on the West side of the Capitol buildings. Armed police were placed on every corner of Capitol Hill twenty-four hours a day. To secure perimeters metal bollards were placed around buildings and public spaces at a cost of $10,000 each. They could not protect against air attacks or suicide bombers--only truck and car bombs-but that fact did not deter the frenzy of construction that still continues. Thousands of bollards were put in place. The directors of every government agency stumbled over one another to arrange that their spaces be surrounded by these symbols of fear. The question that every director in Washington must have asked themselves again and again was How could their buildings be bereft of these symbols that made a public statement of their importance? Even the coal burning steam plant on Capitol Hill-the worst source of pollution in Washington-was fortified.\u27 The bollards around the Supreme Court were the only ones decorated with a Latin word: Lex. Why did the judges choose lex and not ius for those protective fences

Ecclesiastical Liberty on the Eve of the Reformation

Traces the concept of libertas ecclesiae and libertas ecclesiastica from the early Church to the 17th century. The focus of the essay is how the Fifth Lateran Council from 1512-1517 used the concept of ecclesiastical liberty to defend and establish the freedom of prelates and clergy from lay power and lay violence

Reform in 1215: Magna Carta and the Fourth Lateran Council

By 1215 King John had lost almost all of his northern continental possessions. The core of the Angevin empire, Normandy, was lost. Anglo-French barons who still held lands in Normandy owed their primary allegiance to King Phillip Augustus, not to King John. The barons and churchmen who remained under his sovereignty chaffed under his rule. It is clear from the document that the barons forced John to sign when they met with John on Runnymede in 15 July 2015, they intended to impose reform on the king. We might sum up their objectives as being the administration of justice and defending their customary rights in what remained of the John’s kingdom

The Biography of Gratian, the Father of Canon Law

The research on the pre-Vulgate manuscripts has been enormously interesting and, not surprisingly, has created areas of disagreement about aspects of Gratian’s life, work, and teaching. These scholarly debates have given birth to a fruitful and vigorous exploration into the teaching and development of law in the first half of the twelfth century.5 The issues are many. Perhaps the most important is the lack of consensus about how long Gratian worked on the Decretum and how long he taught. That will be the focus of this Essay