The study of medieval canon law from the time of the early Church to the later middle ages is curated by ICMACwith members from all over the world. This year they organize seven sessions, some of which in collaboration with Episcopus.

The sessions are sponsored by Iuris Canonici Medii Aevi Consociatio (ICMAC) and EPISCOPUS: Society for the Study of Bishops & Secular Clergy in the Middle Ages

Canon Law, I: Canonical Reform in the Context of Insular-Continental Exchanges, 500-900 [Session No: 1009]
Efforts to renew and reform laws and customs reflect moments of crisis, wherein actors perceive a discrepancy between their ideals and their social-political realities. Such moments arose frequently in the context of ‘Insular’ and ‘Continental’ encounters from 500-900, when the Irish and Anglo-Saxon churches entered into increasingly close contact with their Continental counterparts. These encounters brought into relief the differences between these churches’ respective disciplinary and legal traditions, and resulted in several ideological crises and movements for canonical reform. This session will explore some of the ways in which these interactions led to significant innovations in medieval canon law.

Canon Law, II: Legal Procedures in Theory and Practice [Session No: 1109]
Over the course of the 12th century, the developing Romano-Canonical legal process was affected by the schools and by the quotidian difficulties faced by its practitioners. This session focuses on how various aspects of the procedure – papal legation, archiepiscopal resignations, and witnesses – were implemented or altered to suit the realities of a situation. The papers examine the intricate relationship between the different reasons behind individuals’ employment of canon law.

Canon Law, III: Re-Interpreting Medieval Canon Lawyers and Their Sources [Session No: 1209]
This session investigates how we remember and understand law and legal sources. Focussing particularly on canon lawyers and canon law texts from 1100 on, it looks at interpretations and editions, and how those have changed over time. The last century has seen great changes in historical perspectives on Ivo of Chartres (one of the greatest of the medieval canonists), on the use of medieval papal letters in later legal and theological sources, and on the purpose and nature of the ecumenical church councils. These papers look at the influence of those changes, and assess the contributions of more recent scholarship to new interpretations of medieval canon law.

Canon Law, IV: Textual Authority in the Conciliar Setting and Its Afterlife [Session No: 1309]
The medieval ecclesiastical council was, above all, a place to enact and to disseminate reforming ideas. Looking at the council across three centuries, this session investigates how existing canonical texts and new decrees were adopted and used in that particular environment. Councils were a hub of legal activity, but little is known of the mechanisms and processes by which they used existing regulations or of the ways in which they attempted to disseminate their own, the twin interests of this session.

Canon Law, V: Theology and Political Theory in Canon Law [Session No: 1509]
Canon law melded with theological and political thinking. This session asks questions of the close relationship between these genres which, to contemporaries of the ‘Reform’ movement of the late 11th and 12th centuries, probably did not exist as separate and distinct fields. The papers will explore the interweaving of liturgical, legal, and scriptural commentary; of the politically polemical libelli and legal justifications; and of political changes and the law with regards to clerical celibacy.

Canon Law, VI: The Intersection of Law and Daily Life [Session No: 1609]
This session looks at the quotidian realities of canon law in a broad context. It investigates how canonical collections and legal material emerged from and then, in turn, shaped the creation of the foundations of medieval ecclesiastical society, including ideas such as bishoprics and the papal ability to make exemptions. The 11th and 12th centuries were a time when ideas and language morphed and changed frequently. Only by questioning the ways in which the daily use of those ideas affected those changes can their implications be understood.

Canon Law, VII: Testing the Boundaries of Theology and Canon Law in the Later Middle Ages [Session No: 1717]
The boundary between theology and canon law was always thin in the medieval period, and arguably did not exist until well into the 13th century. The relationship between the two was not just in the minds of scholars, but also in the development of legal procedure and, in turn, in theological approaches. By investigating the interaction between canon law and theology in the later Middle Ages, during a time when the two were theoretically distinct but overlapped in practice, this session will investigate the intricacies of that relationship and how it functioned after the appearance of separate schools of theology and canon law.