The Canons of the Third Lateran Council of 1179
Their Origins and Reception
Author: Danica Summerlin Series: Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series
Investigates papal government in the later-twelfth century, focusing on the decrees issued at papal councils, and their reception.
Despite the growing centralisation of medieval papal government, this study argues that twelfth-century papal councils - a critical mechanism for contemporary papal government - relied on input from local clerics to formulate the conciliar decrees and, later, ensure their dissemination, thereby limiting the influence of the papacy.
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Summary
Investigates papal government in the later-twelfth century, focusing on the decrees issued at papal councils, and their reception.
Despite the growing centralisation of medieval papal government, this study argues that twelfth-century papal councils - a critical mechanism for contemporary papal government - relied on input from local clerics to formulate the conciliar decrees and, later, ensure their dissemination, thereby limiting the influence of the papacy.
Description
Alexander III's 1179 Lateran Council, was, for medieval contemporaries, the first of the great papal councils of the central Middle Ages. Gathered to demonstrate the renewed unity of the Latin Church, it brought together hundreds of bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries to discuss and debate the laws and problems that faced that church. In this evaluation of the 1179 conciliar decrees, Danica Summerlin demonstrates how these decrees, often characterised as widespread and effective ecclesiastical legislation, emerged from local disputes which were then subjected to a period of sifting and gradual integration into the local and scholarly consciousness, in exactly the same way as other contemporary legal texts. Rather than papal mandates that were automatically observed as a result of their inherent papal authority, therefore, Summerlin reveals how conciliar decrees should be viewed as representative of contemporary discussions between the papacy, their representatives and local bishops, clerics, and scholars.
Critic Reviews
“'Undergraduate and graduate students interested in the impact of canon law should profit greatly from this work, as should those interested in dialogues between sacred and secular, theology and canon law, and the papacy and regional churches.' Jessalynn Lea Bird, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies”
'Summerlin uses manuscript evidence intelligently, shining a strong scholarly torch on dark places in the thickets of textual and manuscript data provided by earlier scholars in highly technical studies. She is at home in the major scholarly languages, notably German, so crucial in this field. Her laborious and skilful work makes for a dense text, but there are clear conclusions to each chapter. Her findings are striking and, to this reviewer, convincing.' David d'Avray, Journal Of Ecclesiastical History
About the Author
Danica Summerlin is Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield where her research focuses on the role of canon law in government and society in the central Middle Ages. She is one of three leaders of an international project revamping the Clavis Canonum, a key database for the study of medieval canonical collections available online via the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. She is the co-editor of The Use of Canon Law in Ecclesiastical Administration, 1000–1234 (2018) with Melodie H. Eichbauer.
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