Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/319

 of Decretals codified by Raymund of Pennafort from the Extravagants of the recent Popes and added to the Decretum of Gratian. In 1335 Matthew Paris tells us the Pope was urging the adoption of them throughout Christendom. But they were not received in England, although they continued to be the code by which English causes were decided at Rome, and began to be an integral part of the education of English canonists. And here again we have to distinguish between the scientific or implicit and the explicit authority of these books. Great as the influence of Justinian's code has been, there are very few countries in Europe where it has been received as more than a treasury of jurisprudence; the 'Siete partidas' of Alfonso the Wise was a book of jurisprudence, not a code of law; the independence of the Gallican Church turns, as a historical question, on the non-reception of Roman decrees, the acceptance of the council of Basel, and the non-reception of portions of the Tridentine canons, the incidental working of which must, notwithstanding, have been irresistible and undeniable. So in England neither the civil law nor the canon law was ever received as authoritative, except educationally, and as furnishing scientific confirmation for empiric argument; or, in other words, where expressly or accidentally it agrees with the law of the land. Nay, the scientific treatment itself serves to confuse men's minds as to the real value of the text; and in both laws the opinions of the glossers are often cited as of equal authority with the letter of the law or canon.

But this same date 1236 brings me to another point; the beginning of the Codex receptus of Canon Law in England; in spite of the Council of Merton and the closing of the law schools of London. Since the Conquest most of the archbishops had held provincial synods and issued provincial canons; but many of these were acts of a temporary character only, and, even when they received support and confirmation from the kings, seldom amounted to more than the enforcement of discipline which had previously been authorised by papal or conciliar decrees. These canons are extant in the pages of the annalists, but remain rather among the Responsa Prudentum than as materials for a code. Just, however, as