The Library
1577 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
201–300
1 work
c. 254–258
Greek
Gregory Thaumaturgus · c. 213 – c. 270
Written after a barbarian raid on Pontus, ruling on Christians who took advantage of the chaos: those who kept plunder, those who informed on neighbours, those who joined the raiders, and the women taken captive, who are declared guiltless.
301–400
5 works
306
Greek
Peter of Alexandria · d. 311
Fourteen rulings grading the penance owed by Christians who failed under persecution — those who bribed officials, those who sent slaves in their place, those who fled — with a different penalty for each.
357–378
Greek
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
Over three hundred letters of consolation, canon law, church politics, famine relief, and friendship, including the canonical letters that still govern Orthodox penitential practice.
c. 375–380
Greek
Anonymous
Eight books compiling and expanding the earlier church orders, covering clergy, worship, widows, martyrs, and closing with a full liturgy and a set of canons.
c. 375–380
Greek
Anonymous
Eighty-five short rules on ordination, clerical conduct, excommunication, and the church calendar, transmitted as the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions.
397
Latin
The Council of Carthage
Rulings of a North African synod on clergy, discipline, and the books that may be read in church as divine scripture.
501–600
3 works
c. 500–526
Latin
Dionysius Exiguus · c. 470–c. 544
Greek conciliar canons translated into Latin and gathered with the decretals of the popes into a single ordered collection.
c. 540–544
Syriac
Mar Aba I · d. 552
Rulings by a convert from Zoroastrianism who became patriarch, chiefly on marriage law, forbidding the close-kin unions customary in Persian society.
c. 546
Latin
Breviatio Canonum
Ferrandus of Carthage · d. c. 546
Two hundred and thirty-two canons drawn from Greek and African councils and rearranged by subject rather than by council.
601–700
3 works
c. 690, from his rulings
Latin
Theodore of Tarsus · 602–690
Rulings by a Greek archbishop of Canterbury on penance, marriage, food, and the reconciliation of Irish and Roman practice, collected by a disciple.
692
Greek
The Quinisext Council
A hundred and two canons on clerical marriage, fasting, the depiction of Christ as a man rather than a lamb, and a long list of practices to be abandoned.
c. 690–725
Latin
Collectio Canonum Hibernensis
Anonymous
Canons arranged by topic and drawn as readily from the Old Testament and Irish synods as from Roman councils, with each source named.
801–900
2 works
c. 847–852
Latin
Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae
Pseudo-Isidore
A vast collection of genuine canons interleaved with forged papal letters of the earliest centuries, designed to protect bishops from metropolitans and lay rulers.
860
Latin
Hincmar of Reims · c. 806–882
A long legal opinion on a king's attempt to divorce his queen, covering consent, consummation, sorcery, and the validity of trial by ordeal.
901–1000
2 works
c. 906
Latin
Libri Duo de Synodalibus Causis
Regino of Prüm · c. 840–915
A handbook for bishops on visitation, with the questions to be put to each parish, and a famous canon dismissing as delusion the belief that women ride out at night with Diana.
c. 994–996
Latin
Abbo of Fleury · c. 945–1004
A defence of monastic exemption from episcopal control, arguing from canon law that monasteries answer to Rome and describing the three orders of Christian society.
1001–1100
4 works
c. 1008–1012
Latin
Burchard of Worms · c. 950–1025
Twenty books of canon law for a working bishop, the nineteenth of which is a penitential listing in detail the folk practices confessors should ask about.
c. 1081–1083
Latin
Anselm of Lucca · 1036–1086
A canon law collection assembled to support the reform papacy, with a book on the lawful use of force against schismatics that had no real precedent.
c. 1080–1090
Greek
Nikon of the Black Mountain · c. 1025–c. 1100
A compilation on monastic discipline and canon law for houses in Syria, addressing what to do when different monasteries follow incompatible rules.
c. 1093–1096
Latin
Ivo of Chartres · c. 1040–1115
Canon law collections with a prologue on what to do when authoritative texts contradict each other — distinguish strict law from dispensation, and read each canon in its circumstances.
1101–1200
5 works
c. 1139–1150
Latin
Decretum Gratiani
Gratian · 12th century
Nearly four thousand canons arranged as cases and questions, with the contradictions between them argued out and reconciled rather than merely listed.
c. 1157–1164
Latin
Rufinus of Bologna · 12th century
The first full commentary on Gratian, defining natural law and working out where custom, papal decree, and conscience each hold.
c. 1160–1170
Latin
Stephen of Tournai · 1128–1203
A lucid commentary on Gratian written for French students, later followed by a bitter letter complaining that theology students now argue about the Trinity in the street.
c. 1170–1195
Greek
Theodore Balsamon · c. 1130–after 1195
A commentary on the whole body of church canons, reconciling them with imperial law and ruling on what remained in force.
c. 1188–1190
Latin
Huguccio of Pisa · d. 1210
The most detailed commentary on Gratian, ranging over marriage, papal power, and whether a pope who falls into heresy may be judged by the church.
1201–1300
3 works
1234
Latin
Liber Extra
Raymond of Peñafort · c. 1175–1275
Papal decisions since Gratian, edited into five books and promulgated as the exclusive law of the church, with all earlier collections declared superseded.
c. 1238
Arabic
Al-Majmu al-Safawi
Al-Safi ibn al-Assal · 13th century
A systematic code of church and civil law for Egyptian Christians, drawing on Byzantine, Syriac, and Islamic legal material.
c. 1271–1276
Latin
Speculum Iudiciale
William Durandus · c. 1230–1296
A complete manual of judicial procedure — summons, evidence, witnesses, appeals — for church courts, which by then handled marriage, wills, and much else.
28 of 1577 works