Grotius’s Doctrine of Alliances with Infidels and the Idea of Respublica Christiana

Grotiana ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-39
Author(s):  
Orazio Condorelli
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Joint Action ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The Face ◽  
Divine Law ◽  
Medieval Canon Law

In the framework of the issue of the observance of promises and agreements (De iure belli ac pacis, bk. ii), Grotius discusses the question of whether Christians should be allowed to conclude treaties or alliances (federa) with those who were named infideles in the canonical and theological terminology. The question was ancient: since the early Middle Ages, alliances of Christians with infidels had been labeled as ‘impious’ (impium fedus). Grotius’s solutions are based on the converging traditions of medieval canon law and theology: treaties and alliances with infidels are intrinsically lawful according to natural and positive divine law, although they should be avoided in certain circumstances. Grotius’s concern, however, was not so much to affirm the theoretical lawfulness of the fedus cum infidelibus. The outcome of his argument consists in promoting the cohesion of Christians: he thinks that a joint action of the Christian nations is a moral and juridical obligation in the face of the aggressions caused by the enemies of Christendom.

The Question of Francia (400–816)

On Hospitals ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 59-79
Author(s):  
Sethina Watson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Common Life ◽  
Hospital Reform ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Many

The consistency of the character of hospitals in law, as observed in Chapter 2, suggests a customary legal inheritance that preceded classical canon law. Part II turns now to the early middle ages to discover that inheritance. This chapter begins that process by unpicking the long-held model of the early medieval hospital. It surveys the many hypotheses for the origins of hospital law in the West, which claim that hospital law adopted from the East and accommodated via Frankish councils. The chapter confronts the latter of these claims and re-examines its twin pillars: a legal formula of ‘murderers of the poor’ (necator pauperum) and a hospital reform at Aachen (816). The first hinges on the council of Orléans (549), whose efforts were aimed at one royal foundation, King Childebert and Queen Ultrogotha’s xenodochium at Lyons. The council of Aachen’s (816) rules for canons and canonesses prescribed a way of common life for these religious, with different facilities for each for the poor. The chapter argues that the efforts of both councils were singular, and carefully circumscribed. Frankish councils were not to take an interest in xenodochia until c.850. Legal initiatives regarding hospitals began elsewhere.

Freedom and protection

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kriston R. Rennie
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Church Reform ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Papal Authority

This book examines the history of monastic exemption in France. It maps an institutional story of monastic freedom and protection, which is deeply rooted in the religious, political, social, and legal culture of the early Middle Ages. Traversing many geo-political boundaries and fields of historical specialisation, this book evaluates the nature and extent of papal involvement in French monasteries between the sixth and eleventh centuries. Defining the meaning and value of exemption to medieval contemporaries during this era, it demonstrates how the papacy’s commitment, cooperation, and intervention transformed existing ecclesiastical and political structures. Charting the elaboration of monastic exemption privileges from a marginalised to centralised practice, this book asks why so many French monasteries were seeking exemption privileges directly from Rome; what significance they held for monks, bishops, secular rulers, and popes; how and why this practice developed throughout the early Middle Ages; and, ultimately, what impact monastic exemption had on the emerging identity of papal authority, the growth of early monasticism, Frankish politics and governance, church reform, and canon law.

The Church and the Law in the Early Middle Ages

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 7-35
Author(s):  
Rosamond McKitterick
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Procedural Knowledge ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Manuscript ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function

Two case studies from eighth-century Rome, recorded in the early medieval history of the popes known as the Liber pontificalis, serve to introduce both the problems of the relations between secular or public and ecclesiastical or canon law in early medieval Rome and the development of early medieval canon law more generally. The Synod of Rome in 769 was convened by Pope Stephen III some months after his election in order to justify the deposition of his immediate predecessor, Pope Constantine II (767–8). Stephen's successor, Pope Hadrian, subsequently presided over a murder investigation involving Stephen's supporters. The murders and the legal process they precipitated form the bulk of the discussion. The article explores the immediate implications of both the murders and the convening of the Synod of Rome, together with the references to law-making and decree-giving by the pope embedded in the historical narrative of the Liber pontificalis, as well as the possible role of the Liber pontificalis itself in bolstering the imaginative and historical understanding of papal and synodal authority. The wider legal or procedural knowledge invoked and the development of both canon law and papal authority in the early Middle Ages are addressed. The general categories within which most scholars have been working hitherto mask the questions about the complicated and still insufficiently understood status and function of early medieval manuscript compilations of secular and canon law, and about the authority and applicability of the texts they contain.

Signs of Salvation: The Evolution of Stigmatic Spirituality Before Francis of Assisi

2013 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-68
Author(s):  
Carolyn Muessig
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Face ◽  
Biblical Commentaries ◽  
The Ideal

Francis of Assisi's reported reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224 is widely held to be the first documented account of an individual miraculously and physically receiving the wounds of Christ. The appearance of this miracle, however, in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, is not as unexpected as it first seems. Interpretations of Galatians 6:17—“I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body”—had been circulating in biblical commentaries since the early Middle Ages. These works posited that clerics bore metaphorical and sometimes physical wounds(stigmata)as marks of persecution, while spreading the teaching of Christ in the face of resistance. By the seventh century, the meaning of Galatians 6:17 had been appropriated by bishops and priests as a sign or mark of Christ that they received invisibly at their ordination, and sometimes visibly upon their death. In the eleventh century, Peter Damian articulated a stigmatic spirituality that saw the ideal priest, monk, and nun as bearers of Christ's wounds, a status achieved through the swearing of vows and the practice of severe penance. By the early twelfth century, crusaders were said to bear the marks of the Passion in death and even sometimes as they entered into battle. By the early thirteenth century, “bearing the stigmata” was a pious superlative appropriated by a few devout members of the laity who interpreted Galatian 6:17 in a most literal manner. Thus, this article considers how the conception of “bearing the stigmata” developed in medieval Europe from its treatment in early Latin patristic commentaries to its visceral portrayal by the laity in the thirteenth century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document