Canon Law Collections Research Articles

Hierarchies, religious boundaries and Jewish spirituality in medieval Germany

Two interrelated processes were at work in the socio-religious development of the majority among whom the Jews lived. The first, in Gerd Tellenbacrfs phrase, was a polemical "struggle for right order,"2 marked by attempts on the part of competing institutions and religious cultures to establish, legitimate, and defend correct boundaries and relationships, that is, what they saw as the proper hierarchical structure of society.3 This trend is reflected most clearly in the Investiture Controversy and subsequent conflicts between the popes, who asserted their right to implement the prerogatives attributed them in early collections of Canon Law, and the German Emperors, who adhered to a theory of sacred monarchy. At stake was the question of which institution, Church or State, would have primacy and dominate Christian society.

The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law in the Middle Ages; Medieval Councils, Decretals, and Collections of Canon Law. Selected Essays. By Stephan Kuttner. (Collected Studies Series, 113, 126.) Pp. 394 and 365. Variorum Reprints, 1980. Each volume £22. - Church Law and Constitutional Thought in the Middle Ages. By Brian Tierney. (Collected Studies Series, 90.) Pp. 340.

The History of Ideas and Doctrines of Canon Law in the Middle Ages; Medieval Councils, Decretals, and Collections of Canon Law. Selected Essays. By Stephan Kuttner. (Collected Studies Series, 113, 126.) Pp. 394 and 365. Variorum Reprints, 1980. Each volume £22. - Church Law and Constitutional Thought in the Middle Ages. By Brian Tierney. (Collected Studies Series, 90.) Pp. 340.

The Letters of Pope Innocent III to Ireland

The purpose of this short communication is to call attention to an attempt to establish a definitive calendar of Pope Innocent III’s letters to Ireland, and also to indicate very briefly the value of those letters. The two chief ways in which papal letters have been transmitted are through originals or through copies. Copies of letters have survived in a variety of ways: in monastic or episcopal cartularies, in the rolls of royal chancery, in collections of canon law, but for this period mainly in the official papal registers.The dispersal of monastic archives during the Reformation period, together with the deliberate destruction of papal letters after 1536, partly explains why comparatively few original papal letters of medieval popes to the British Isles have survived. For Ireland, only five original letters of Innocent III are at present known to exist. Two of these are confirmations of property: one to the monastery of St Andrew of Stokes of its possessions in Ireland; and the other to the convent of Graney. The three remaining letters are connected with the peace settlement between Pope Innocent III and King John.

The Letters of Innocent III to Ireland

It would be impossible to give the exact number of letters sent by Innocent III to Ireland. All that can be done is to study the ways in which these letters could have survived, and in so doing to establish a calendar of the extant letters. These letters could have been transmitted in two main ways: through originals, or through copies. Copies of the letters, however, could have survived in a variety of ways, through monastic or episcopal cartularies, through the rolls of the royal chancery, through the collections of canon law, but mainly through the official papal register.