Canones

the social life of early medieval canonical collections

Category: Collections

This page presents the team’s blog posts as they study early medieval canonical collections.

Peritia article: ‘Law is Said in Many Ways’

12 May 2026 /

Cover of Peritia journalGideon de Jong (team member of both SOLEMNE and Anchoring Innovation) has just published an article, tackling one of the most vexing questions of historical research into canon law: is canon law ‘law’? Harnessing his legal knowledge and historical skills, Gideon studies the Irish  is generally called canon law and which itself (in some manuscripts) includes a theoretical reflection on the definition of law. Scholars have questioned the extent to which early medieval canon law, and specifically this collection, conforms to law in a meaningful sense. Inspired by H. L. A. Hart’s concept of law, seminal in contemporary legal theory, Gideon’s article argues that laws can be understood only from a participant perspective or ‘internal point of view’. The way the words , and are used throughout the collection points to the presence of this perspective. The article thus makes the case for treating the as canon law.

Thanks to funding from Anchoring Innovation, the article in Peritia is fully Open Access and can be found here.

Gideon de Jong, ‘”Law is Said in Many Ways”: An Attempt at Conceptual Clarification of Canon Law in the Collectio canonum Hibernensis’, Peritia 36 (2025), 71-97. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.PERIT.5.153301

Florilegium Vesulensium

12 January 2024 /

The last seven folios of Vesoul, Bibliothèque municipal, MS 73 (79) contain an intriguing canonical florilegium, which derives from the late eighth- or early ninth-century Collectio canonum Sangermanensis. The Florilegium Vesulensium(Flor.Ves.) is thereby one of several (partial) reworkings and extracts of the Collectio canonum Sangermansis—itself highly dependent on the Hibernensis.⁠1Roger E Reynolds, ‘Unity and diversity in Carolingian canon law collections: the case of the Collectio Hibernensis and its derivatives’, in: U.-R. Blumenthal (ed.), Carolingian essays: Andrew W. Mellon lectures in early Christian Studies (Washington, DC, 1983), pp. 99–135, at 119-23. Internal evidence demonstrates that the immediate exemplar for the Flor.Ves. was the Sangermanensis as it survives in Paris, BnF lat. 12444. A study of the Flor.Ves. is therefore particularly interesting, not only because we know what the compiler included from the Sangermanensis, but also because we have a good sense of what he/she chose to omit.

The Florilegium Vesulensium opens on folio 81r in Vesoul, Bibliothèque municipal, MS 73 (79)

The Florilegium Vesulensium opens on folio 81r in Vesoul, Bibliothèque municipal, MS 73 (79)

A transcription of the Florilegium Vesulensium is provided here.

This post is a copy taken from svenmeeder.nl

 

  • 1
    Roger E Reynolds, ‘Unity and diversity in Carolingian canon law collections: the case of the Collectio Hibernensis and its derivatives’, in: U.-R. Blumenthal (ed.), Carolingian essays: Andrew W. Mellon lectures in early Christian Studies (Washington, DC, 1983), pp. 99–135, at 119-23.

The Collectio 91 capitulorum

4 November 2023 /
The opening rubric ('Incipit institutio canonum') of the Collectio 91 capitulorum in Vesoul, Bibliothèque municipal, MS 79 (73)

Normative texts need to be authoritative to be effective in communicating norms and rules. Recent scholarship has shown a renewed interest in the authoritative status of the texts within early medieval works of canon law and the ways in which authority is reflected in the practice of attribution, promulgation, or organization. A small canonical collection known as the Collectio 91 capitulorum appears to flout the received knowledge. My recent article in Early Medieval Europe presents this modest collection. It explores the relationship between ‘authority’ and canon law in general, and examines the negotiation of authority within this collection in particular.

Radboud University Nijmegen
European Research Council

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