An Index Verborum to Gratian's Decretum: The Reason to Computerize It

Abstract

This chapter discusses the reason to computerize an Index Verborum to Gratian's Decretum. An index or a concordance is always valuable to someone who knows how to make use of it. But for some texts, the index is more than simply useful; it is indispensable. Such is the case, in particular, for the Decretum Gratiani, the subject of a program of Centre de recherches et de documentation des institutions chrétiennes (CERDIC) of the Université des sciences humaines de Strasbourg. Because of the importance and the complexity of the work, the use of the computer to make a word list of the Decretum seemed not only to be indicated but indisputably necessary in the analysis of this exceptional medieval document, the Concordia discordantum canonum, better known under the name of the Decretum. It was written by Gratian while he was a professor at the University of Bologna, during the first third of the 13th century, probably by 1140. The Decretum contains about 4,000 texts, a larger total than is found in any earlier collection.