Danica Summerlin – författare

The Sources of Medieval Canon Law: A User’s Guide is a comprehensive handbook for those working with medieval canon law sources of the period 1000–1500 (CE). It provides an accessible introduction to the myriad of complex legal sources used within the medieval church.The book’s primary objective is to orient non-specialists with these sources and their potential contributions to historical study, while also raising awareness of how they can be misused. With thirteen chapters written by experts unpicking how to evaluate and deploy these sources, this volume aims to demystify them and explain how they can be used accurately and carefully by those who are new to working with legal material. Each chapter will briefly introduce a particular type of source and then, using selected case studies, demonstrate how such sources should be approached in order to be best-used in scholarly arguments, while also discussing the pitfalls and possibilities encountered in their use, while suggesting ways to avoid the former. Following this standard structure across chapters, the volume thus acquaints users with the sources of medieval canon law, from papal letters and conciliar canons to the paratexts and commentaries written in and for scholastically-trained lawyers, and from procedural manuals and canonical collections to local court documents.A valuable for researchers at any level, from academics to undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book provides a critical introduction to an immense and complicated body of material.

The Sources of Medieval Canon Law: A User’s Guide is a comprehensive handbook for those working with medieval canon law sources of the period 1000–1500 (CE). It provides an accessible introduction to the myriad of complex legal sources used within the medieval church.The book’s primary objective is to orient non-specialists with these sources and their potential contributions to historical study, while also raising awareness of how they can be misused. With thirteen chapters written by experts unpicking how to evaluate and deploy these sources, this volume aims to demystify them and explain how they can be used accurately and carefully by those who are new to working with legal material. Each chapter will briefly introduce a particular type of source and then, using selected case studies, demonstrate how such sources should be approached in order to be best-used in scholarly arguments, while also discussing the pitfalls and possibilities encountered in their use, while suggesting ways to avoid the former. Following this standard structure across chapters, the volume thus acquaints users with the sources of medieval canon law, from papal letters and conciliar canons to the paratexts and commentaries written in and for scholastically-trained lawyers, and from procedural manuals and canonical collections to local court documents.A valuable for researchers at any level, from academics to undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book provides a critical introduction to an immense and complicated body of material.

Alexander III's 1179 Lateran Council, was, for medieval contemporaries, the first of the great papal councils of the central Middle Ages. Gathered to demonstrate the renewed unity of the Latin Church, it brought together hundreds of bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries to discuss and debate the laws and problems that faced that church. In this evaluation of the 1179 conciliar decrees, Danica Summerlin demonstrates how these decrees, often characterised as widespread and effective ecclesiastical legislation, emerged from local disputes which were then subjected to a period of sifting and gradual integration into the local and scholarly consciousness, in exactly the same way as other contemporary legal texts. Rather than papal mandates that were automatically observed as a result of their inherent papal authority, therefore, Summerlin reveals how conciliar decrees should be viewed as representative of contemporary discussions between the papacy, their representatives and local bishops, clerics, and scholars.