Decretal
Encyclopedia
Decretals is the name that is given in Canon law to those letters of the pope
which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law.
They are generally given in answer to consultations, but are sometimes due to the initiative of the pope
s. These furnish, with the canons of the councils, the chief source of the legislation of the church, and formed the greater part 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 fonts used in the 1917 code, many canons in this code can easily be retraced in their relationship to and dependency on medieval decretals as well as Roman law
.
In themselves the medieval decretals form a very special source which throws light on medieval conflicts and the approaches to their solution. They are sometimes concerned with very important issues touching on many aspects of medieval life, for example marriage
and legal procedure
.
, 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), i. e. an answer of the pope when he has been appealed to or his advice has been sought on a matter of discipline.
Papal decretals are therefore not necessarily general laws of the Church, but frequently the pope ordered the recipient of his letter to communicate the papal answer 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 generally stated that the most ancient decretal is the letter of Pope Saint Siricius (384-398) to Himerius
, Bishop of Tarragona in Spain, dating from 385; but it would seem that the document of the fourth century known as "Canones Romanorum ad Gallos episcopos" is simply an epistola decretalis of his predecessor, Pope Damasus
(366-384), addressed to the bishops of Gaul
(Babut, La plus ancienne décrétale, Paris, 1904). The decretals ought to be carefully distinguished from the canons of the councils; from the epistol dogmatic, i. e. the pontifical documents touching on Catholic doctrine; from the constitutiones, or pontifical documents given motu proprio
, i.e. documents issued by the pope without his being asked to do so or consulted upon a subject.
Finally, under the name decretals are known certain collections, containing especially, but not exclusively, pontifical decretals. These are the canonical collections of a later date than the "Decretum" of Gratian (about 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 Gregory IX.
Decretals are known by the first two Latin words that begin the letter.
and Ivo of Chartres
made influential collections. From the Collectio Francofurtana (around 1180) onwards collections get a more systematic character and a school appears, the decretalists, who compile, organise and study the decretals as the basis of canon law. In quick succession four so-called compilationes appeared between 1191 and 1226, a sign of the growing importance of papal decretals. The fifth compilation, the Compilatio Quinta was made by the canonist Tancred
(d. about 1235) for Honorius III
in 1226, who sent it immediately to the University of Bologna
. It was organized in five books
Pope Gregory IX
commissioned the Dominican
Raymund of Peñafort to edit a comprehensive collection of papal decretals. This collection of nearly 2000 decretals appeared in 1234 as the Decretales Gregorii IX, also known as the Liber Extra, which was also immediately sent to the universities of Bologna and Paris. In 1298 pope Boniface VIII
published the next major collection of decretals. He entrusted three canonists with its redaction. This collection is known as the Liber Sextus.
In the fourteenth century a few small collections followed: the Constitutiones Clementinae or Clementines (1317), edited by Anastasius Germonius
and published by pope John XXII
, and the Extravagantes Johannes XXII (1325-1327).
Collections are known as either systematic or primitive, with the chief distinguishing characteristic being the use of headings to organize the work. This organizational scheme makes a collection systematic.
, and like the "Decretum" of Gratian were glossed, i. e. notes bearing on the explanation and interpretation of the text were added to the manuscripts.
The first collection, the "Breviarium extravagantium" or summary of the decretals not contained in the "Decretum" of Gratian (vagantes extra Decretum), was compiled by Bernard of Pavia in 1187-1191. It contains papal decretals to the pontificate of Clement III inclusive (1187-1191). The compilation known as the third (Compilatio tertia), written however prior to the second collection (Compilatio secunda), contains the documents of the first twelve years of the pontificate of Innocent III (8 January, 1198 — 7 January, 1210) which are of a later date than those of the second compilation, the latter containing especially the decretals of Clement III and Celestine III (1191-1198). The "Compilatio tertia" is the oldest official collection of the legislation of the Roman Church; for it was composed by Cardinal Petrus Collivacinus of Benevento by order of Innocent III (1198-1216), by whom it was approved in the Bull "Devotioni vestræ" of 28 December, 1210.
The second compilation, also called "Decretales mediæ" or "Decretales intermediæ", was the work of a private individual, the Englishman John of Wales
(Johannes de Walesio, Walensis or Galensis). About 1216 an unknown writer formed the "Compilatio quarta", the fourth collection, containing the decretals of the pontificate of Innocent III which are of a later date than 7 January, 1210 and the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council held in 1215. Finally, the fifth compilation is, like the third, an official code, compiled by order of Honorius III (1216-1227) and approved by this pope in the Bull "Novæ causarumn" (1226 or 1227).
It must also be noted that several of these collections contain decretals anterior to the time of Gratian, but not inserted by him in the "Decretum". Bernard of Pavia divided his collection into five books arranged in titles and chapters. The first book treats of persons possessing jurisdiction (judex), the second of the civil legal processes (judicium), the third of clerics and regulars (clerus), the fourth of marriage (connubium), the fifth of delinquencies and of criminal procedure (crimen). In the four other collections the same logical division of the subject-matter was adopted. (For the text see Friedberg, Quinque compilationes antiquæ, Leipzig, 1882.)
and confessor
, St. Raymond of Peñaforte (Pennafort), a Dominican
, to form a new canonical collection destined to replace all former collections.
The term was first applied to those papal documents which Gratian had not inserted in his "Decree" (about 1140), but yet were obligatory upon the whole Church, also to other decretals of a later date, and possessed of the same authority. Bernard of Pavia designated under the name of "Breviarium Extravagantium" or Digest of the "Extravagantes", the collection of papal documents which he compiled between 1187 and 1191. Even the Decretals of Gregory IX (published 1234) were long known as the "Liber" or "Collectio Extra", i.e. the collection of the canonical laws not contained in the "Decree" of Gratian.
This term is now applied to the collections known as the "Extravagantes Joannis XXII" and the "Extravagantes communes", both of which are found in all editions of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". When Pope John XXII
(1316-1334) published the decretals known as the Clementines, there already existed some pontifical documents, obligatory upon the whole Church but not included in the "Corpus Juris". This is why these Decretals were called "Extravagantes". Their number was increased by the inclusion of all the pontifical laws of later date, added to the manuscripts of the "Corpus Juris", or gathered into separate collections. In 1325 Zenselinus de Cassanis added a gloss to twenty constitutions of Pope John XXII, and named this collection "Viginti Extravagantes pap Joannis XXII". The others were known as "Extravagantes communes", a title given to the collection by Jean Chappuis in the Paris edition of the "Corpus Juris" (1499 1505). He adopted the systematic order of the official collections of canon law and classified in a similar way the "Extravagantes" commonly met with (hence "Extravagantes communes") in the manuscripts and editions of the "Corpus Juris".
This collection contains decretals of the popes Martin IV, Boniface VIII (notably the celebrated Bull Unam Sanctam
), Benedict XI, Clement V, John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI, Urban V, Martin V, Eugene IV, Callistus III, Paul II
and Sixtus IV (1281-1484). Chappuis also classified the "Extravagantes" of John XXII under fourteen titles, containing in all twenty chapters. These two collections are of lesser value than the three others which form the "Corpus Juris Canonici"; they possess no official value, nor has custom bestowed such on them. On the other hand, many of the decretals comprised in them contain legislation obligatory upon the whole Church, e.g. the Constitution of Paul II, "Ambitios", which forbade the alienation of ecclesiastical goods. This is however not true of all of them; some had even been formally abrogated at the time when Chappuis made his collection; three decretals of John XXII are reproduced in both collections.
Both the collections were printed in the official (1582) edition of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". This explains the favour they enjoyed among canonists. For a critical text of these collections see Friedberg, "Corpus Juris Canonici" (Leipzig, 1879 1881), II.
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
which formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law.
They are generally given in answer to consultations, but are sometimes due to the initiative of the pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
s. These furnish, with the canons of the councils, the chief source of the legislation of the church, and formed the greater part of the Corpus Iuris Canonici before they were formally replaced by the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917. However, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri
Pietro Gasparri
Pietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic archbishop, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and signatory of the Lateran Pacts.- Biography :...
led the papal commission for the revision of canon law and later on published a guide to the fonts used in the 1917 code, many canons in this code can easily be retraced in their relationship to and dependency on medieval decretals as well as Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
.
In themselves the medieval decretals form a very special source which throws light on medieval conflicts and the approaches to their solution. They are sometimes concerned with very important issues touching on many aspects of medieval life, for example marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
and legal procedure
Procedural law
Procedural law or adjective law comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings. The rules are designed to ensure a fair and consistent application of due process or fundamental justice to all cases that come before...
.
Definition and early history
In the wide sense of the Latin term decretalis (in full epistola decretalis) signifies a pontifical letter containing a decretumDecretum
Decretum may refer to:*The Decretum Gratiani is a collection of Canon law compiled in the twelfth century by a jurist named Gratian.*Decretum Gelasianum, traditionally attributed to Pope Gelasius I, contains a list of works adjudged apocryphal....
, 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), i. e. an answer of the pope when he has been appealed to or his advice has been sought on a matter of discipline.
Papal decretals are therefore not necessarily general laws of the Church, but frequently the pope ordered the recipient of his letter to communicate the papal answer 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 generally stated that the most ancient decretal is the letter of Pope Saint Siricius (384-398) to Himerius
Himerius of Tarragona
Himerius of Tarragona was bishop of Tarragona during the 4th century.He is most notable as being the recipient of the Directa Decretal, written by Pope Siricius in February 385 AD. It took the form of a long letter to Himerius replying to the bishop’s requests on various subjects sent several...
, Bishop of Tarragona in Spain, dating from 385; but it would seem that the document of the fourth century known as "Canones Romanorum ad Gallos episcopos" is simply an epistola decretalis of his predecessor, Pope Damasus
Pope Damasus I
Pope Saint Damasus I was the bishop of Rome from 366 to 384.He was born around 305, probably near the city of Idanha-a-Velha , in what is present-day Portugal, then part of the Western Roman Empire...
(366-384), addressed to the bishops of Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
(Babut, La plus ancienne décrétale, Paris, 1904). The decretals ought to be carefully distinguished from the canons of the councils; from the epistol dogmatic, i. e. the pontifical documents touching on Catholic doctrine; from the constitutiones, or pontifical documents given motu proprio
Motu proprio
A motu proprio is a document issued by the Pope on his own initiative and personally signed by him....
, i.e. documents issued by the pope without his being asked to do so or consulted upon a subject.
Finally, under the name decretals are known certain collections, containing especially, but not exclusively, pontifical decretals. These are the canonical collections of a later date than the "Decretum" of Gratian (about 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 Gregory IX.
Decretals are known by the first two Latin words that begin the letter.
Decretal collections
The early collections of decretals were not commissioned by the popes. A number of bishops collected decretals and tried to organize them into collections. Burchard of WormsBurchard of Worms
Burchard of Worms was the Roman Catholic bishop of Worms in the Holy Roman Empire, and author of a Canon law collection in twenty books, the "Collectarium canonum" or "Decretum".-Life:...
and Ivo of Chartres
Ivo of Chartres
Saint Ivo ' of Chartres was the Bishop of Chartres from 1090 until his death and an important canon lawyer during the Investiture Crisis....
made influential collections. From the Collectio Francofurtana (around 1180) onwards collections get a more systematic character and a school appears, the decretalists, who compile, organise and study the decretals as the basis of canon law. In quick succession four so-called compilationes appeared between 1191 and 1226, a sign of the growing importance of papal decretals. The fifth compilation, the Compilatio Quinta was made by the canonist Tancred
Tancred of Bologna
Tancred of Bologna or of Germany , commonly just Tancredus, was a Dominican preacher and canonist. He is easily conflated with a contemporary Dominican, Tancred Tancredi, and the two are sometimes indistinguishable in the sources and have been treated as one person, though this is known to be...
(d. about 1235) for Honorius III
Pope Honorius III
Pope Honorius III , previously known as Cencio Savelli, was Pope from 1216 to 1227.-Early work:He was born in Rome as son of Aimerico...
in 1226, who sent it immediately to the University of Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
. It was organized in five books
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...
commissioned the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
Raymund of Peñafort to edit a comprehensive collection of papal decretals. This collection of nearly 2000 decretals appeared in 1234 as the Decretales Gregorii IX, also known as the Liber Extra, which was also immediately sent to the universities of Bologna and Paris. In 1298 pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the Simonists.- Biography :Gaetani was born in 1235 in...
published the next major collection of decretals. He entrusted three canonists with its redaction. This collection is known as the Liber Sextus.
In the fourteenth century a few small collections followed: the Constitutiones Clementinae or Clementines (1317), edited by Anastasius Germonius
Anastasius Germonius
Anastasius Germonius was an Italian Canon lawyer, diplomatist and archbishop of Tarantaise, who belonged to the family of the marquises of Ceve, in Piedmont, where he was born....
and published by pope John XXII
Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII , born Jacques Duèze , was pope from 1316 to 1334. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy , elected by a conclave in Lyon assembled by Philip V of France...
, and the Extravagantes Johannes XXII (1325-1327).
Collections are known as either systematic or primitive, with the chief distinguishing characteristic being the use of headings to organize the work. This organizational scheme makes a collection systematic.
The Quinque Compilationes Antiquae Decretalium
The "Decretum" of Gratian was considered in the middle of the twelfth century as a corpus juris canonici, i. e. a code of the ecclesiastical laws then in force. As such however, it was incomplete and many new laws were made by succeeding popes; hence the necessity of new collections. Five of these collections exhibited pontifical legislation from the "Decretum" of Gratian to the pontificate of Gregory IX (1150-1227). These are known as the "Quinque compilationes antiquæ". On account of their importance they were made the text of canonical instruction at the University of BolognaUniversity of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, and like the "Decretum" of Gratian were glossed, i. e. notes bearing on the explanation and interpretation of the text were added to the manuscripts.
The first collection, the "Breviarium extravagantium" or summary of the decretals not contained in the "Decretum" of Gratian (vagantes extra Decretum), was compiled by Bernard of Pavia in 1187-1191. It contains papal decretals to the pontificate of Clement III inclusive (1187-1191). The compilation known as the third (Compilatio tertia), written however prior to the second collection (Compilatio secunda), contains the documents of the first twelve years of the pontificate of Innocent III (8 January, 1198 — 7 January, 1210) which are of a later date than those of the second compilation, the latter containing especially the decretals of Clement III and Celestine III (1191-1198). The "Compilatio tertia" is the oldest official collection of the legislation of the Roman Church; for it was composed by Cardinal Petrus Collivacinus of Benevento by order of Innocent III (1198-1216), by whom it was approved in the Bull "Devotioni vestræ" of 28 December, 1210.
The second compilation, also called "Decretales mediæ" or "Decretales intermediæ", was the work of a private individual, the Englishman John of Wales
John of Wales
John of Wales, OFM , a.k.a. John Waleys and Johannes Guallensis, was a Franciscan theologian who wrote several well-received Latin works, primarily preaching aids, in Oxford and Paris in the late-thirteenth century....
(Johannes de Walesio, Walensis or Galensis). About 1216 an unknown writer formed the "Compilatio quarta", the fourth collection, containing the decretals of the pontificate of Innocent III which are of a later date than 7 January, 1210 and the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council held in 1215. Finally, the fifth compilation is, like the third, an official code, compiled by order of Honorius III (1216-1227) and approved by this pope in the Bull "Novæ causarumn" (1226 or 1227).
It must also be noted that several of these collections contain decretals anterior to the time of Gratian, but not inserted by him in the "Decretum". Bernard of Pavia divided his collection into five books arranged in titles and chapters. The first book treats of persons possessing jurisdiction (judex), the second of the civil legal processes (judicium), the third of clerics and regulars (clerus), the fourth of marriage (connubium), the fifth of delinquencies and of criminal procedure (crimen). In the four other collections the same logical division of the subject-matter was adopted. (For the text see Friedberg, Quinque compilationes antiquæ, Leipzig, 1882.)
The Decretals of Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX ordered in 1230 his chaplainChaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
and confessor
Confessor
-Confessor of the Faith:Its oldest use is to indicate a saint who has suffered persecution and torture for the faith, but not to the point of death. The term is still used in this way in the East. In Latin Christianity it has come to signify any saint, as well as those who have been declared...
, St. Raymond of Peñaforte (Pennafort), a Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
, to form a new canonical collection destined to replace all former collections.
Later collections
The decretals of the successors of Gregory IX were also arranged in collections, of which several were official, notably those of popes Innocent IV, Gregory X and Nicholas III, who ordered their decretals to be inserted among those of Gregory IX. In addition to these, several unofficial collections were drawn up. The inconveniences which Gregory IX had wished to remedy presented themselves again. For this reason Boniface VIII made a new collection of decretals which he promulgated by the Papal Bull "Sacrosanctæ" of 3 March, 1298. This is the "Sextus Liber Decretalium"; it has a value similar to that of the Decretals of Gregory IX. Boniface VIII abrogated all the decretals of the popes subsequent to the appearance of the Decretals of Gregory IX which were not included or maintained in force by the new collection; but as this collection is of later date than that of Gregory IX, it modifies those decisions of the latter collection which are irreconcilable with its own. Clement V, also, undertook to make an official collection, but death prevented him from perfecting this work. His collection was published by John XXII on 25 October, 1317, under the title of "Liber septimus Decretalium", but it is better known under the name of "Constitutiones Clementis V" or "Clementinæ". This is the last official collection of decretals. The two following collections, the last in the "Corpus Juris Canonici", are the work of private individuals. They are called "Extravagantes", because they are not included in the official collections. The first contains twenty Constitutions of John XXII, and is named "Extravagantes Joannis XXII"; the second is called "Extravagantes communes" and contains the decretals of different popes commonly met with in the manuscripts and editions. They were brought to their modern form by Jean Chappuis in 1500 and 1503.Extravagantes
This term (Latin Extra 'outside' + vagari 'to wander') is employed to designate some papal decretals not contained in certain canonical collections which possess a special authority, i.e. they are not found in the Decree of Gratian or the three official collections of the "Corpus Juris" (the Decretals of Gregory IX, the Sixth Book of the Decretals and the Clementines).The term was first applied to those papal documents which Gratian had not inserted in his "Decree" (about 1140), but yet were obligatory upon the whole Church, also to other decretals of a later date, and possessed of the same authority. Bernard of Pavia designated under the name of "Breviarium Extravagantium" or Digest of the "Extravagantes", the collection of papal documents which he compiled between 1187 and 1191. Even the Decretals of Gregory IX (published 1234) were long known as the "Liber" or "Collectio Extra", i.e. the collection of the canonical laws not contained in the "Decree" of Gratian.
This term is now applied to the collections known as the "Extravagantes Joannis XXII" and the "Extravagantes communes", both of which are found in all editions of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". When Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII , born Jacques Duèze , was pope from 1316 to 1334. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy , elected by a conclave in Lyon assembled by Philip V of France...
(1316-1334) published the decretals known as the Clementines, there already existed some pontifical documents, obligatory upon the whole Church but not included in the "Corpus Juris". This is why these Decretals were called "Extravagantes". Their number was increased by the inclusion of all the pontifical laws of later date, added to the manuscripts of the "Corpus Juris", or gathered into separate collections. In 1325 Zenselinus de Cassanis added a gloss to twenty constitutions of Pope John XXII, and named this collection "Viginti Extravagantes pap Joannis XXII". The others were known as "Extravagantes communes", a title given to the collection by Jean Chappuis in the Paris edition of the "Corpus Juris" (1499 1505). He adopted the systematic order of the official collections of canon law and classified in a similar way the "Extravagantes" commonly met with (hence "Extravagantes communes") in the manuscripts and editions of the "Corpus Juris".
This collection contains decretals of the popes Martin IV, Boniface VIII (notably the celebrated Bull Unam Sanctam
Unam sanctam
On 18 November 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam which historians consider one of the most extreme statements of Papal spiritual supremacy ever made...
), Benedict XI, Clement V, John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI, Urban V, Martin V, Eugene IV, Callistus III, Paul II
Pope Paul II
Pope Paul II , born Pietro Barbo, was pope from 1464 until his death in 1471.- Early life :He was born in Venice, and was a nephew of Pope Eugene IV , through his mother. His adoption of the spiritual career, after having been trained as a merchant, was prompted by his uncle's election as pope...
and Sixtus IV (1281-1484). Chappuis also classified the "Extravagantes" of John XXII under fourteen titles, containing in all twenty chapters. These two collections are of lesser value than the three others which form the "Corpus Juris Canonici"; they possess no official value, nor has custom bestowed such on them. On the other hand, many of the decretals comprised in them contain legislation obligatory upon the whole Church, e.g. the Constitution of Paul II, "Ambitios", which forbade the alienation of ecclesiastical goods. This is however not true of all of them; some had even been formally abrogated at the time when Chappuis made his collection; three decretals of John XXII are reproduced in both collections.
Both the collections were printed in the official (1582) edition of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". This explains the favour they enjoyed among canonists. For a critical text of these collections see Friedberg, "Corpus Juris Canonici" (Leipzig, 1879 1881), II.