Folia Theologica et Canonica 9. 31/23 (2020)
Ius canonicum
82 PÉTER ERDŐ a division of the whole diocese into parishes.57 St Martin, as well as Victricius of Rouen, also undertook missionary activity outside their own dioceses.58 Thus down to the end of the fourth century the diocese appears as the focus of Christian life and mission. As regards the stability of the responsibilities of presbyters appointed to serve in rural churches, from the fifth century there was a growing tendency to give these priests the permanent authorisation to exercise certain pastoral and liturgical functions rather than simply a delegation or a temporary commission. Country presbyters received the right (and the associated duty) to preach59 and from the seventh century, in Spain for example, also to administer penance.60 Later, from the ninth century onwards, the habit of people going for confession to their proper “parish priest” became more widespread.61 62 The IV Lateran Council would go on to prescribe annual confession to one’s sacerdos proprius.61 The stably held faculty which distinguished the central church of a given rural area from any oratories set up in the same district was the right to confer baptism. These central churches were known as ecclesiae baptismales. This right too was originally a delegation from the bishop, but later it became a right held stably by the priest in charge of one of the churches in question.63 The parish priest, which is to say the priest who ran the principal church of a district, also had to take care of the instruction of the young, especially in Italy and the south of France. This was already required by St Caesarius of Arles at the Council of Vaison in 529.64 As these rights gradually became more permanent, the ecclesiastical office of parish priest began to take shape. One way for a country church to be established was for a great landowner to build a church on his land. The system of proprietary churches (i.e. Eigenkirche) was widespread in the post-Roman kingdoms from the very beginning 57 Baus, K. - Beck, H.-G. - Ewig, E. - Vogt, H. J., Die Reichskirche nach Konstantin dem Großen. Zweiter Halbband: Die Kirche in Ost und West von Chalkedon bis zum Frühmittelalter (451-700): Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte (ed. Jedin, H.), I-VII, Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1962- 1979 [1985], II/2. 222. 58 Baus, K. - Ewig, E., Die Reichskirche nach Konstantin dem Großen. Erster Halbband: Die Kirche von Nikaia bis Chalkedon: Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte (ed. Jedin, H.), I-VII. Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1962-1979 [1985], II/l. 221-222. 59 Cf. e.g., Conc. Vasense (529) c. 2. 60 Cf. Baus, K. - Beck, Fl.-G. - Ewig, E. - Vogt, H. J., Die Reichskirche, 223. 61 Cf Basdevant-Gaudemet, B., Les lieux de culte, 313. 62 Conc. Lateran. IV (1215) const. 21. 63 Cf. e.g., Leisching, P., Pfarrsprengel, in Erler, A. - Kaufmann, E. (Hrsg.), Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte [hereafter: HRG], I-V. Berlin 1971-1998. III. 1719-1723, 1719. 64 Conc. Vasen. (529) c.l, Concilia Galliae A. 511-A.695, ed. De Clercq, C. (CCL 148A), Tumholti 1963. 78: Hoc placuit, ut omnes presbyteri , qui sunt in parrociis constituti, secundum consuetudninem, quam per totam Italiam satis salubriter teneri cognouemus, iuniores lectores, quantoscumque sine uxoribus habuerunt, secum in domo, ubi ipsi habitare uidentur, recipiant et eos quomodo boni patres spiritaliter nutrientes psalmis parare, diuinis lectionibus insistere et in lege Domini erudire contendant (...).
