Folia Theologica 22. (2011)
Szuromi Szabolcs Anzelm O.Praem.: Medieval Canonical Sources and Categories of Singular Administrative Acts
112 Anzelm Sz. SZUROMI principles, legal categories and the terminologies that can be found in the early and matured medieval canon law.23 In spite of this, those assertions that regard the system of canon law as merely an adaptation of Roman Law are ill-grounded, because the Church, as the New Testament people of God, has been operating from the time of Her foundation from such well-determined doctrinal and disciplinary frameworks that are bound fundamentally and essentially to the person of Jesus Christ, to His teaching, and to His act of founding the Church.24 The presence of the essential effect of Roman Law may be found most conspicuously in the general norms (normae generales) of canon law, in the practical operation of the Roman Curia, and in the ecclesiastical canonical procedural law. Within these themes, we should refer to the adaptations up to the canon law now in effect relating to the species of canonical law (its genre, external form, content) and its binding power; canonically significant characteristics of the natural person; desuetude and usucaption; and the reception of the order of litigation of the Age of Caesars into procedural law. As regards singular administrative acts, the canonical collections of the 11th century deal with the rescriptum, privilegium and dispensatio. See for example the Decretum Burchardi Wormatiensis (1004-1022) Book I25 and XIII26 (e.g., BW 1. 2927); the Collectio canonum Anselmi Lucensis (1081-1083)28 Book VI29 (Ans. 6. 23 Cf. Thireau, J-h., Introduction historique au droit, Paris 2001. 100-105. Schioppa, A. P., Storia del diritto in Europa. Dal medioevo all'età contemporanea (Collezione di testi e di studi), Bologna 2007. 28-29. 24 Erdő, P., Theologie des kanonischen Rechts. Ein systematisch-historischer Versuch, Münster 1999.100-101; cf. Szuromi, Sz. A., Authority and sacramentality in the Catholic Church (A Canonical-Theological Schema), in Arrieta, J. I. (a cura di), Jus divinum (XIII Congresso Internazionale di Diritto Canonico, 17-21 settembre 2008, Venezia), Venezia 2010. 1143-1163, especially 1143— 1145. 25 PL CXL. 549-618. 26 PL CXL. 883-890. 27 PL CXL. 557. 28 Cf. Szuromi, Sz. A., Anselm of Lucca as a Canonist. Critical summary on importance of the Collectio Anselmi Lucensis, in Rivista internazionale di diritto comune 16 (2005) 225-239. 29 Thaner, F. (ed.), Anselmi collectio canonum una cum collectione minore, I—II. Oeniponte 1901-1915 (repr. Aalen 1965) 265-356.
