Volume 107, Issue 1

The threefold summons of an absent defendant in the context of synodal proceedings – which had been admittedly formed by influence from the respective process in Roman law – is an important component of the ecclesiastical judicial procedure. In this paper I examine in detail all the extensive narratives of threefold summonses preserved in conciliar acts of the fifth and sixth centuries, that is, the cases of Nestorius of Constantinople and John of Antioch at the council of Ephesus (431), the case of the archimandrite Eutyches at the Resident Synod of Constantinople (448), the case of Athanasius of Perrhe at the local synods of Hierapolis (early 440s) and Antioch (445) as well as at the Council of Chalcedon (451), the case of Dioscorus of Alexandria at the Council of Chalcedon, and the case of Anthimus of Constantinople at the Resident Synod of Constantinople (536). In the final part I proceed to an assessment of this process’ evolution over the period in question. The principal conclusion is that by the time of Justinian the ecclesiastical threefold summons procedure had become consolidated and systematised.

Early lists of Roman ecclesiastical leaders and their changing perception in the Middle Ages . These early lists of Roman ecclesiastical leaders are the subjects of thorough historical and philological research. Characteristical new perspectives and results concern the theological-ideological system and its influence on the jurisdictional theory and practice. As to the recording in the Middle Ages, the prominent and changing role of the bishops Clement and Sylvester in various areas is demonstrated.

The Summa Monacensis and its Relatives . In his study on the birth of the Parisian school of canon law Peter Landau argues that the Summa Parisiensis was not written in Paris, as has commonly been thought, but in Sens, and that the Summa Monacensis marks the beginning of the Parisian school of canon law. The question of precedence having remained open, the Summa Monacensis and and its relatives, the so-called circle of the Summa Monacensis, indeed are an important foundation of the Parisian school of canon law. The present study tries to elucidate the internal relations of the circle of the Summa Monacensis. More precisely, drawing on some major works of the circle, it tries to prove Stephan Kuttner’s hypothesis of a common source attributed to an unknown master. It will be argued that there seems to have been a common source, of which each work of the circle represents a unique form of tradition. Following Landau’s argumentation, it will also be argued that the common source should be attributed to the author of the Summa Monacensis.

This article intervenes in the previous scholarly conversations of Kenneth Pennington, Charles Donahue, Jr., and Anne J. Duggan and suggests through the reassessment of the surviving evidence, a revisionist interpretation. It argues that Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) was not only a pope with legal expertise reflected in the remarkable consistency of his numerous decisions concerning cases of marriage formation that came to his attention in an ad hoc manner, but also, that he was, and he believed himself to be a legislating pope through his plenitude of power. He, rather than Alexander III (1159–1181), was responsible for creating and implementing the consensual “policy”, in the strictest definition of the term, for the formation of Christian marriage. Through a careful investigation of the pertinent papal letters of Innocent III found primarily in his registers, this article reconfirms and demonstrates Stephan Kuttner’s impression of the consistency of the letters as internal proof of the pope’s legal skill that he suggested long ago in 1974.

Leges fundamentals: Laws Higher than Others? Their Development from the Concept to the Term . This article investigates the tradition of laws with a higher, central authority, which can be found in the Christian tradition from the Middle Ages to the 16 th century, when the Calvinist party finally coined the term “loi fondamentale”. The contrast to other national discussions shows the different starting points and contents of a notion, which rapidly became a common European heritage and merged with the equally new concept of “constitution”.

Contract law in the early modern period has always been the subject of intensive research. The present article is intended as a contribution to this. It presents the contract doctrine of an Italian Jesuit, Paolo Comitoli. He was a moral theologian and author of the “Doctrina de contractu”. The paper begins with a biographical introduction and an overview of Comitoli’s writings. News about Comitoli’s life, however, is sparse and widely dispersed. The following section focuses on Comitoli’s concept of and his definition of contract. A brief explanation of Comitoli’s concept of contract attributes follows. Comitoli saw in these attributes the identity-forming characteristics of all contracts and used these elements to place the traditional problems of contract theory in a new framework.

The teacher of Canon Law Henning Goeden (um 1450–1521) at the universities of Erfurt and Wittenberg and the academic teaching of Canon Law at Wittenberg University. An essay on the occasion of his death 500 years ago . The essay deals with the professor of Canon Law Henning Goeden at the Central German universities Erfurt (founded 1392) and Wittenberg (founded 1502). It contains important facts of Goeden’s academic biography, of his scientific and practical work ( consilia ), his church offices and his relationship to the Lutheran reformation. The practice of teaching of Canon Law within the system of lections at the Wittenberg Law Faculty under the conditions of the reformation and the increasing influence of Protestant Ecclesiastical Law is considered too.

No Weimar Constitution without a guarantee of the corporate status of religious communities? The discussion about article 137 section 5 of the Weimar Constitution and its content in the National Assembly of Weimar . Some researchers hold that without the constitutional guarantee of the corporate status of religious communities in article 137 section 5 the Weimar Constitution in 1919 would not have come about. The minutes of the constituent Weimar National Assembly, however, do not indicate that the guarantee of the corporate status was in danger to fail in default of political consensus. Rather, the decision in favour of a constitutional guarantee of the corporate status had already been made early in the debate. Yet it remained unclear and controversial which rights this status contained, except of the right to taxation explicitly guaranteed by article 137 section 6 of the Weimar Constitution. The deputies assumed that the specific rights of the religious communities were not determined by Article 137 section 5 of the Weimar Constitution, but by the legislation of the German Länder.

This short note edits and studies (briefly) the contents of two previously unpublished letters from the Archivo Catedralicio de Toledo. The two letters describe the case of a young sub-deacon in the archdiocesan parish of San Nicolas, whose mother was born a Muslim but converted prior to the young cleric’s conception. The conflict over his status required a visit to Rome, and resulted in a clarification of a gray area in canon law.