CONCORDIA DISCORDANTIUM CANONUM

Concordia discordantium canonum (kon-kor-dee-<<schwa>> dis-kor-dan-shee-<< schwa>>m k<<schwa>>-nohn-<<schwa>>m). [Latin “the harmony of the discordant canons”] Hist. A collection of eccle-siastical authorities compiled by Gratian, an Italian monk, ca. 1140. • Gratian analyzed questions of law by drawing conclusions from side-by-side comparisons of a variety of texts. Later canonist scholarship usu. pro-ceeded from Gratian’s work. — Also termed Decretum Gratiani; Decretum.

“Another body of jurisprudence was coming into being. From humble beginnings the canon law had grown into a mighty system. Already it asserted its right to stand beside or above the civil law. The civil law might be the law of earth, ius soli; here was the law of heaven, ius poli…. Many men had been endeavouring to state that law, but the fame of earlier labourers was eclipsed by that of Gratian. A monk of Bologna, that city which was the centre of the new secular jurisprudence, he published … a book which he called Concordia discordantium canonum, but which was soon to become for all mankind simply the Decretum Gratiani, or yet more simply the Decretum. It is a great law-book. The spirit which animated its author was not that of a theologian, not that of an ecclesiastical ruler, but that of a lawyer…. The Decretum soon became an authoritative text-book and the canonist seldom went behind it…. The canonist had for it rather that reverence which English lawyers have paid to Coke upon Littleton ….” 1 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I 112–13 (2d ed. 1898). [Blacks Law 8th]