IMC 2026: Sessions
Session 706: Old Sources, New Stories in Medieval Canon Law, III: The Histories of Texts and Collections in the 'Classical' Period of Medieval Canon Law, 12th-13th Centuries
Tuesday 7 July 2026, 14:15-15:45
| Sponsor: | Institute of Medieval Canon Law (IMCL) |
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| Organisers: | Greta Austin, Department of Religion, Spirituality & Society, University of Puget Sound, Washington Danica Summerlin, School of History, Philosophy & Digital Humanities, University of Sheffield |
| Moderator/Chair: | Peter Clarke, Department of History, University of Southampton |
| Paper 706-a | The Early Life of Gratian's Decretum (Language: English) Index terms: Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 706-b | Writing the 'Biography' of a Medieval Canon Law Collection: The Example of Bernard of Pavia (Language: English) Index terms: Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 706-c | 'Per libros antiquos probatur': On the Legal Value of Ancient Documents (Language: English) Index terms: Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, Law, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Abstract | These sessions focus on drawing out new stories about medieval canon law, asking diverse and novel questions of our traditional, time-worn sources, looking at (and beyond) questions of temporalities. Our third session starts from the idea of canonical material as ‘living texts’, to ask how we can tell the histories and biographies of collections and specific excerpts, and how writing their medieval stories can challenge or rework existing interpretations. Using case studies including the early years of the Decretum of Gratian, the collections of a single author or even a single text whose interpretation changed over time, this session has at heart a question about what historians can see when investigating the biographies of medieval texts. |