Discipline and Diversity in the Medieval English Sunday

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 202-211
Author(s):  
Diana Wood

The medieval Church had strict disciplinary rules about how Sunday should be observed, but in England there was considerable diversity in interpreting and honouring them. The medieval English Sunday is a vast and challenging subject, yet despite this, and the controversy excited by the Sunday Trading Act of 1994 which allowed shops to open, it has excited little recent attention.The discipline of Sunday was laid down in the Third Commandment (Exod. 20: 8–11), where Christians were ordered to keep holy the Sabbath day and told ‘In it thou shalt not do any work.’ This was reinforced in canon law, in episcopal mandates, in commentaries, in theological treatises, in sermons, inpastoralia, and in popular literature. The Sunday Christ, the image of Christ surrounded by craftsmen’s tools, which enshrined the idea that Sunday working with such implements crucified him anew, adorned the walls of many late medieval English parish churches. Secular rulers, starting with Wihtred of Kent (695), included Sabbath-keeping in their legislation. Diversity occurred in the varying interpretations of the law on Sunday observance, and in the patchiness of its enforcement. The questions to be addressed here are, firstly, what actually constituted Sunday? Secondly, what were people supposed to do on Sundays, and did they do it? Finally, how well observed was the work prohibition as applied to Sunday trading?

1964 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 132-144
Author(s):  
Charles Duggan

Ecclesiastical historians are already aware of the richness of the British Museum in canonical manuscripts of all kinds. The Royal Library alone preserves at least one copy of the greater number of major canonical collections, as well as an imposing range of the works of leading commentators, decretists and decretalists alike, glosses and summae, together with the fascinating, if minor, canonistic exercises known as distinctiones, abbreviations, casus, quaestiones, transformationes and notabilia. A history of the canon law of the medieval Church could in most essentials be written on the basis of these considerable and varied sources. What is perhaps rather less familiar is the particular value of these manuscripts to the historian of the medieval English Church, both in a positive and a negative way: negative in the sense of the ample evidence provided of a rapid and wide-spread reception of ecclesiastical common law in England; and positive in the sense of the record preserved of the initiative and originality revealed by English canonists, and of the contribution which they made in turn to the law of the Universal Church.


1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-114
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Janczewski

This article shows one of lawgivers - the Bishops Conference who can make the law of sacraments in the particular Church. Tells about rights of the Conference on the question of constitute the sacramental law. The first part of the article is about competences which the Bishops Conference has from Vaticanum II, the second part about the competences from post Vaticanum legislation. The third part shows competences which Code of Canon Law 1993 gives to Conference.


Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 315-318
Author(s):  
Jane Beal

Matthew Cheung Salisbury, a Lecturer in Music at University and Worcester College, Oxford, and a member of the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford, wrote this book for ARC Humanities Press’s Past Imperfect series (a series comparable to Oxford’s Very Short Introductions). Two of his recent, significant contributions to the field of medieval liturgical studies include The Secular Office in Late-Medieval England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015) and, as editor and translator, Medieval Latin Liturgy in English Translation (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2017). In keeping with the work of editors Thomas Heffernan and E. Ann Matter in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, 2nd ed. (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2005) and Richard W. Pfaff in The Liturgy of Medieval England: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2009), this most recent book provides a fascinating overview of the liturgy of the medieval church, specifically in England. Salisbury’s expertise is evident on every page.


Author(s):  
Chen Lei

This chapter examines the position of third party beneficiaries in Chinese law. Article 64 of the Chinese Contract Law states that where a contract for the benefit of a third party is breached, the debtor is liable to the creditor. The author regards this as leaving unanswered the question of whether the thirdparty has a right of direct action against the debtor. One view regards the third party as having the right to sue for the benefit although this right was ultimately excluded from the law. Another view, supported by the Supreme People’s Court, is that Article 64 does not provide a right of action for a third party and merely prescribes performance in ‘incidental’ third party contracts. The third view is that there is a third party right of action in cases of ‘genuine’ third party contracts but courts are unlikely to recognize a third party action where the contract merely purports to confer a benefit on the third party.


Author(s):  
Ly Tayseng

This chapter gives an overview of the law on contract formation and third party beneficiaries in Cambodia. Much of the discussion is tentative since the new Cambodian Civil Code only entered into force from 21 December 2011 and there is little case law and academic writing fleshing out its provisions. The Code owes much to the Japanese Civil Code of 1898 and, like the latter, does not have a requirement of consideration and seldom imposes formal requirements but there are a few statutory exceptions from the principle of freedom from form. For a binding contract, the agreement of the parties is required and the offer must be made with the intention to create a legally binding obligation and becomes effective once it reaches the offeree. The new Code explicitly provides that the parties to the contract may agree to confer a right arising under the contract upon a third party. This right accrues directly from their agreement; it is not required that the third party declare its intention to accept the right.


Author(s):  
Joseph Canning

Late medieval Roman and canon law jurisprudence provided the origins of European notions of a universal rule of law in two senses: a legal order of universal extent and a structure of higher norms of universal application. Whereas modern international law is primarily concerned with the horizontal relationship between states, medieval jurists mainly considered the vertical relationship between universal and territorial powers. They developed de iure–de facto arguments to justify a plurality of sovereign states within an overall universal legal structure. Contributions to the elaboration of theories of just war were also made. We must be cautious about claiming that late medieval jurists contributed to the development of early international law as normally understood. Nevertheless, early-modern theorists of international law referred back to the work of their medieval juristic predecessors. A new research question is emerging about the usefulness of using the term ‘international’ in interpreting medieval jurists.


Author(s):  
Richard H. Helmholz

This chapter discusses the scope of principles of fiduciary duty as they appear in the canon law. It first provides a historical background on canon law and its relation to fiduciary law, noting that the medieval church and principles of fiduciary duty were interconnected in direct and positive ways. In fact, the church was governed by many of the same principles of fiduciary law that are found in modern trust law, and these principles were fully and authoritatively stated in the Corpus iuris canonici during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The chapter proceeds by analyzing the Corpus iuris canonici and its two books: Gratian’s Concordia discordantium canonum, also known as the Decretum, and the books of Decretals. It also traces the development of fiduciary law inherent in some of the canonical texts and explains how fiduciary principles came to be enforced in the canon law, citing examples of the width of the scope of fiduciary principles found in English court practice, including a duty applied only to the clergy. Finally, it considers whether the modern law of trusts was shaped in any way by canonical influence.


Author(s):  
Daniel B. Kelly

This chapter analyzes how law and economics influences private law and how (new) private law is influencing law and economics. It focuses on three generation or “waves” within law and economics and how they approach private law. In the first generation, many scholars took the law as a starting point and attempted to use economic insights to explain, justify, or reform legal doctrines, institutions, and structures. In the second generation, the “law” at times became secondary, with more focus on theory and less focus on doctrines, institutions, and structures. But this generation also relied increasingly on empirical analysis. In the third generation, which includes scholars in the New Private Law (NPL), there has been a resurgence of interest in the law and legal institutions. To be sure, NPL scholars analyze the law using various approaches, with some more and some less predisposed to economic analysis. However, economic analysis will continue to be a major force on private law, including the New Private Law, for the foreseeable future. The chapter considers three foundational private law areas: property, contracts, and torts. For each area, it discusses the major ideas that economic analysis has contributed to private law, and surveys contributions of the NPL. The chapter also looks at the impact of law and economics on advanced private law areas, such as business associations, trusts and estates, and intellectual property.


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