Is this your first visit to our web pages? Then you may well wonder just what canon law actually is. Well, it has nothing to do with cannons, despite the old joke that says, "The first principle of canon law is: Don't stand in front of the cannon." Canon law is something completely different. In fact the earlier meaning of the word "canon" is actually "rule" or "guideline", according to the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (d. 636 CE). You might already be familiar with this term from Art History where they talk about "the canon of forms," or from the much-loved piece we know as "Pachelbel's Canon," referring to a musical form that repeats itself over and over according to a pattern or rule. In the course of time, the word "canon" came to be used in the world of law to refer to church-related issues. Eventually the term included all of the ecclesiastical laws, regulations, and norms such as: synodal decisions; secular laws with ecclesiastical applications; and papal letters and encyclicals. The medieval legal scholar, Gratian of Bologna, used the word canon in this sense in his famous work, the Decretum, written about 1140. People who study canon law are called "canonists." The word "canon" is also used to refer to a person who holds a certain type of office in the church, usually the canons of a cathedral (who, indeed, might even be canonists!). The word "canonical" can be used to refer either to something that is correct (i.e. that follows the rule or canon), or simply to something that has to do with the church or with the clergy, e.g. canonical garb is what priests wear. If someone is "canonized" it means that they have been declared a saint -- and, one assumes, this means that they followed the rules.

And why is canon law still important today? Because the historical background that provided the elements of modern European law (and to an extent English and American law as well) are from two basic sources: the traditions of civil (Roman) law and of canon law as they were understood in the European Middle Ages. Law students in Germany, for example, study "Jura," that is laws, plural, referring to the combined traditions of canon law and civil law. And to this day, the courtroom procedure in many continental countries still follows the procedural rules set down by the civilians (specialists in civil law) and canonists of the Middle Ages. The list of modern connections to medieval canon law could go on and on, including not only European examples, but also Anglo-American issues like the concept of equity.

Interested in more information ? Read Otto Vervaart's web site for a start:

Literature:

James Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, London ²1996; Jean Gaudemet, Église et Cité. Histoire du droit canonique, Paris 1994. Richard Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law, Athens 1996; Herbert Kalb, Juristischer und Theologischer Diskurs und die Entstehung der Kanonistik als Rechtswissenschaft, öarr 47 (2000), 1-33. Peter Landau, Der Einfluß des kanonischen Rechts auf die europäische Rechtskultur. In: Europäische Rechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte. Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung, ed. Reiner Schulze, Schriften zur Europäischen Rechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte Bd.3, Berlin 1991, 39-57; id., Die Bedeutung des kanonischen Rechts für die Entwicklung einheitlicher Rechtsprinzipien. In: Die Bedeutung des kanonischen Rechts für die Entwicklung einheitlicher Rechtsprinzipien, ed. Heinrich Scholler, Baden-Baden 1996, Arbeiten zur Rechtsvergleichung, Schriftenreihe der Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung, Bd. 177, 23-47, id., Die Anfänge der Unterscheidung von Ius Publicum und Ius Privatum in der Geschichte des Kanonischen Rechts. In: Das Öffentliche und Private in der Vormoderne, edd. Gert Melville, Peter v. Moos, Norm und Struktur Bd. 10, Köln 1998, 629 - 638;