Gregorian Reform Research Articles

Saint Peter Damiani and His Canonical Sources: A Preliminary Study in the Antecedents of the Gregorian Reform. By J. Joseph Ryan. (“Studies and Texts”, 2) Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1956. 213 pp. $2.50.

Saint Peter Damiani and His Canonical Sources: A Preliminary Study in the Antecedents of the Gregorian Reform. By J. Joseph Ryan. (“Studies and Texts”, 2) Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1956. 213 pp. $2.50. - Volume 27 Issue 3

Saint Peter Damiani and his Canonical Sources: a Preliminary Study in the Antecedents of the Gregorian Reform. By J. Joseph Ryan. (Studies and Texts, 2). Pp. xviii + 213. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1956. n.p.

Saint Peter Damiani and his Canonical Sources: a Preliminary Study in the Antecedents of the Gregorian Reform. By J. Joseph Ryan. (Studies and Texts, 2). Pp. xviii + 213. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1956. n.p.

J. Joseph Ryan, Saint Peter Damiani and his canonical sources. A preliminary Study in the Antecedents of the Gregorian Reform. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Article J. Joseph Ryan, Saint Peter Damiani and his canonical sources. A preliminary Study in the Antecedents of the Gregorian Reform. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies was published on August 1, 1957 in the journal Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung (volume 43, issue 1).

I. Gregorian Reform in Action: Clerical Marriage in England, 1050–1200

Few men have ever shown a more sublime faith in the divine origin of their mission than the papal reformers of the eleventh century. They set to work with a ‘modest proposal’ to destroy two of the most intimate and powerful foundations of clerical society: they aimed to abolish simony and with it the lay control of patronage; they tried to destroy the family life of the clergy. From one point of view they were doing only what every policeman does—they were trying to enforce the established law. From another point of view their platform was a devastating social revolution. If we may admire the high idealism of Leo IX, Humbert, Hildebrand and Peter Damian, we must also concede that their work had many victims; the legislation of the eleventh-century Popes on clerical marriage must have produced as many broken homes and personal tragedies as the morals of Hollywood. Both Damian the ascetic and Heloise the deserted wife have a claim on our sympathy as historians; and both found their supporters in their own day. Between the unbending demand for the enforcement of celibacy and the view of the Anonymous of York that it was entirely proper for the clergy to be married there were many possible positions. The Anonymous (writing at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries) was propounding opinions already obsolescent; and clerical marriage found few defenders in the middle and late twelfth century. But if the field narrowed, the subtleties of the problem were more fully appreciated. The twelfth century was an age of growing sophistication in lay circles as well as clerical. Nowhere was this more true than in the world of love and of marriage; in that century (whatever the lot of womankind as a whole) the romantic ideal was born, under whose spell we still live. It is the variety and the subtlety of the view-points which give my subject its interest, and also its intractability. Clerical marriage is an exceedingly delicate topic, though it has not always been delicately treated.

The Vita Apostolica: Diversity or Dissent

The concept vita apostolica embraced three basic principles: imitation of the primitive church, poor, simple, and penitential, with interests and activities restricted to the spiritual domain; a passionate love for souls at home and far afield; and evangelical poverty in common, either predicated on mendicancy or mitigated by the work of one's own hands. It became, during the age of Gregorian reform and after, a compelling program instinct with the fervor, spontaneity, and humanity of the first community at Jerusalem (Acts, iv, 32; cf. Luke, x, 1–12). It postulated reform and criticism in a restless age of expanding economic and geographical horizons, a more rational political system, an increasingly complex social organization, a multiplicity of divergent intellectual currents, and corresponding new spiritual needs. Such a momentous evolution of society, challenging the status quo in all its parts, demanded a reappraisal of the resources and ends of the church, the most powerful and tenacious defender of tradition.

The Houses of Tuscany and of Pierleone in the Crisis of Rome in the Eleventh Century

In the entire course of the Middle Ages no movement surpasses, in enduring importance and absorbing interest, that known as the Gregorian Reform, or, less correctly, the War of Investitures. It is the movement that had its most determined leader in Pope Gregory VII.

The Christian Calendar and the Gregorian Reform

The Christian Calendar and the Gregorian Reform

Reform of the Calendar: Mean Value of the Year

I SEE there is to be a meeting at Rome in 1922 to consider questions concerning the calendar. I should like to direct attention to the fact, apparently little known—I, at least, have never seen it in any book—that if we make the year equal to 365 218/900 days we get a very good approximation, and one which can be applied by omitting leap-years at certain complete centuries, something like what is being done under the present Gregorian rule. If we say that “a century-year shall be a leap-year only if it gives a remainder of 2 or 7 when divided by 9,” we have a rule which is much more approximate than the Gregorian rule, and one which has been followed de facto since 1582 (year of the Gregorian reform). The new rule would not differ in its application from the Gregorian rule before the year 2400. The Gregorian year, 365 97/400 days, differs from the true tropical year by 26 seconds; if the above modified rule were introduced the difference would be reduced to 2 seconds.