CAN ON LAW. A body of ecclesiastical law, which originated in the church of Rome, relating to matters of which that church has or claims jurisdiction.
A canon is a rule of doctrine or of discipline, and Is the term generaliy applied to designate the or dinances of councils and decrees of popes. The position which the canon law Nobtains beyond the papal dominions depends on the extent to which it is sanctioned or permitted by the government of each country ; and hence the system of canon law as it is administered in different countries va ries somewhat.
In the wording of a canon it is not enough to admonish or to express disapprobation; its wording must be explicitly permissive or prohibitory, backed by the provision, ex pressed or admittedly understood, that its infringement will be visited with punish ment. Cent. Dict.
Though this system of law is of primary impor tance in Roman Catholic countries alone, it still maintains great influence and transmits many of its peculiar regulations down through the jurisprudence of Protestant countries which were formerly Roman Catholic. Thus, the canon law has been a distinct branch of the profession in the ecclesiastical courts of England for several centuries ; but the recent modifications of the jurisdiction of those courts have done much to reduce its independent Importance. The Corpus Juris Canonici is drawn from various sources—the opinions of the ancient fatliers of the church, the decrees of councils, and the decretal epistles and bulls of the holy see, together with the maxims of the civil law and the teachings of the Scriptures. These sources were first drawn upon for a regular ecclesiastical system about the time of Pope Alexander III. ono, when one Gratian, an Italian monk, animated by the discovery of Jus tinian's Pandects, collected the ecclesiastical consti tutions also into some method in three books, which he entitled Concordia Discordantium Canonum. These are generally known as Decretum Gratiani. They were never promulgated as a code, like the preceding.
The subsequent papal decrees to the time of the pontificate of Gregory IX. were collected in much the same method, under the auspices of that pope, about the year 1234, in five books, entitled Deere talia Gregorii Noni2. A sixth book was added by Boniface VIII., about the year 1298, which is called Sextus Decretalium, or Libor Sextus. The Clemen tine Constitution, or decrees of Clement V., were in like manner authenticated in 1313 by his succes sor, John XXII., who also published twenty consti tutions of his own, called the extravagantes Joannis, so,called because they were in addition to, or beyond the boundary of, the former collections, as the ad ditions to the civil law were called Novels. To these have since been added some decrees of later popes, down to the time of Sixtus IV„ in five books, called Extravagantes communes. And all these to gether—Gratian's Decrees, Gregory's Decretals, the Sixth Decretals, the Clementine Constitutions, and the Extravagants of John and his successors—form the Corpus Juria Canonici, or body of the Roman canon law; 1 Bla. Corn. 82; Encyclopedic, Droit Canonique, Droit Public Ecclesiasttque Dict. de Jur. Droit Canonique; Erskine, Inst. b. t. 1, s. 10. This body of canon law was the jus commune of the church in England. The English provincial constitutions merely formed a suppiement to it and were valid only as Interpreting or enforcing the pa pal decrees ; 1 Holdsw. H. E. L. 355. It forms no part of the law of England, unless it has been brought into use and acted on there ; 11 Q. B. 649. See generally Encyci. Br., sub voce, Canon Law ; Maitland, Canon Law ; Jenks' Teutonic Law ; 1 Sel. Essays on Anglo-Amer. Leg. Hist, 46.
See, in general, Ayliffe, Par. Jur. Can. Ang.; Shelford, Harr. & D. 19 ; Preface to Burn, Ecci. Law, Tyrwhitt ed. 22; Hale, Civ. L. 26; Bell's Case of a Putative Marriage, 203; Diet. du Droit Canonique; Stair, Inst. b. 1, t. 1, 7 ; 1 Poll. & Haiti. 90; 2 Sel. Essays on Anglo-Amer. Leg. Hist. 258. ' See EXTRAVAGANTES.