Decretal

They are generally given into consultations but are sometimes assumption due to the initiative of the pope himself. These furnish, with the canons of the councils, the chief character of the legislation of the Church, and formed the greater element of the Corpus Iuris Canonici before they were formally replaced by the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917. However, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri led the papal commission for the revision of canon law and later on published a guide to the fontes command used in the 1917 code. numerous canons in this program can easily be retraced in their relationship to and dependency on medieval decretals as well as Roman law.

In themselves, the medieval decretals defecate a very special character which throws light on medieval conflicts and the approaches to their solution. They are sometimes concerned with very important issues touching on numerous aspects of medieval life, for example: marriage or legal procedure.

Definition and early history

In a wider sense, the Latin term decretalis in full: epistola decretalis signifies a pontifical letter containing a decretum, or pontifical decision.

In a narrower sense, it denotes a decision on a matter of discipline.

In the strictest sense of the word, it means a papal rescript rescriptum, anof the pope when he has been appealed to or his dominance has been sought on a matter of discipline.

Papal decretals are therefore non necessarily general laws of the Church, but frequently the pope ordered the recipient of his letter tothe papal reply to the ecclesiastical authorities of the district to which he belonged; and it was their duty then to act in conformity with that decree when analogous cases arose. It is loosely stated that the nearly ancient decretal is the letter of Pope epistol dogmatic the pontifical documents touching on Catholic doctrine, from the constitutiones, or pontifical documents given motu proprio documents issued by the pope without being call or being consulted upon a subject.

Finally, under the earn "decretals" are invited certain collections, containing especially, but not exclusively, pontifical decretals. These are the canonical collections of a later date than the Decretum of Gratian approximately 1150. The commentators on these collections are named decretalists, in contradistinction to the decretists, or those who commented upon the "Decretum" of Gratian. Eventually some of these collections received official recognition; they form what is now known as the "Corpus Juris Canonici". An account follows of the collections of decretals, particularly of those of Pope Gregory IX.

Decretals are known by the number one two Latin words that begin the letter, called the incipit.