Canon law in post-Imperial Gaul

• Main Author: Griffith, Patrick Joseph Edward
• Other Authors: Heather, Peter
• Published: King's College London (University of London) 2018
• Subjects: 900
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.754962

This dissertation traces the transition of ‘canon law’, the episcopate’s own legislation on matters of ecclesiastical organisation, clerical discipline and select aspects of lay religious activity, from the context of a functioning Roman Empire and into the successor kingdoms, which dominated Gaul in the fifth and sixth centuries. Ecclesiastical canons developed in the early fourth century from the ‘internal’ rules of minority Christian communities, and by the fifth had matured into organisational and disciplinary norms deeply intertwined with Empire’s own institutions and legal system. This dissertation examines the effect the ‘ending’ of the imperial system had upon canon law in Gaul. It seeks to reintegrate canon law into the extensive historiographical debates over the utility of Late-Antique normative legislation, as a source capable of illuminating the myriad social, economic and institutional transformations underway in Gallic society. It will attempt to highlight and above all to explain changes in the form, content and application of conciliar canons, the key component of canon law in this context, in terms which emphasize the shifting institutional and legal-cultural landscape. In particular, this dissertation will argue that the period c.570 – 614 saw the manifestation of an ecclesiastically-driven legal culture, which arose from the relatively unique matrix of political and institutional conditions presented by Merovingian Gaul. It will also seek to highlight previously undervalued historical contingencies, such as the impact upon legal culture of ‘Arian’ rulership in the first generation of Gallic successor states, and the complex interplay between political fragmentation on the one hand and the survival of ecclesiastical institutions and legislation which were intrinsically pan-Mediterranean.