Gratian and the School of Laon

GRATIAN AND THE SCHOOL OF LAON By JOHN WEI Gratian, the "Father of the Science of Canon Law," had at least a passing familiarity with the scholastic theology of the early twelfth century.1 His Concordia discordantium canonum or Decretum displays a knowledge of many doctrines debated and discussed in the schools of northern France and also employs the dialectical method for reconciling contradictory authorities pioneered by the scholastics. How did Gratian become acquainted with these methods, doctrines, and ideas? What written sources, if any, introduced him to early scholastic theology? Ever since Stephan Kuttner's groundbreaking article on Gratian's theological sources, there has been widespread agreement that the sentence collections attributed to the school of Laon provide no answers to these questions .2 Instead, scholars have looked to other sources to explain Gratian's knowledge of early scholastic theology, in particular, the writings of Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor.3 In this article, I would like to reexamine 1 Stephan Kuttner, "The Father of the Science of Canon Law," The Jurist 1 (1942): 2-19, first coined this phrase. This article will employ the following abbreviations: AHDLMA = Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge; BMCL = Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, n.s.; RDC = Revue de droit canonique; RTAM = Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale; ZRG KA - Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung. 2 Stephan Kuttner, "Zur Frage der theologischen Vorlagen Gratians," ZRG KA 23 (1934): 243-68; repr. in Kuttner, Gratian and the Schools of Law, 1140-1234 (London, 1983). Cf. Franz Placidus Bliemetzrieder, "Gratian und die Schule Anselms von Laon," Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrechl 112 (1932): 37-63. 3 For speculation on Gratian's relationship to Abelard, see Heinrich Denifle, "Die Sentenzen Abaelards und die Bearbeitungen seiner Theologie vor Mitte des 12. Jhs.," Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters 1 (1885): 402-624, at 619-20; Friedrich Thaner, Abälard und das canonische Recht (Graz, 1900); Joseph de Ghellinck, Le mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle, 2nd rev. ed. (Bruxelles, 1948), esp. 207, 494-95; D. E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard: The Influence of Abelard's Thought in the Early Scholastic Period (Cambridge, 1969), 214-23; Christoph H. F. Meyer, Die Distinktionstechnik in der Kanonistik des 12. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte des Hochmittelalters (Leuven, 2000), 174-77. For speculation on Gratian's relationship to Hugh, see Kuttner, "Zur Frage," esp. 268; Giuseppe Mazzanti, "Graziano e Rolando Bandinelli," in Studi di storia del diritto, vol. 2 (Milan, 1999), 79-103; Anders Winroth, "Neither Slave nor Free: Theology and Law in Gratian's Thoughts on the Definition of Marriage and Unfree Persons ," in Medieval Church Law and the Origins of the Western Legal Tradition: A Tribute to Kenneth Pennington, ed. Wolfgang P. Müller and Mary E. Sommar (Washington, DC, 2006), 97-109, at 103-5. 280TRADITIO the relationship between Gratian and the school of Laon. I will focus on the first-recension Decretum, since its author — whom I will call Gratian — was probably not the same person as the redactor of the more widely diffused and significantly enlarged version of this work edited by Emil Friedberg4 and now generally referred to as the second recension.5 Based on new manuscript research, I will show that Gratian probably knew and used Deus itaque summe, a sentence collection associated with the school of Laon.6 The tracts on charity and penance of this work were major sources for distinctions 2 and 3 of the De penitentia (= C.33 q.3 of Gratian's Decretum). Not only did Gratian use them as a source for patristic texts, he also incorporated excerpts from these tracts into his dicta. Gratian's extensive use of Deus itaque summe, I will argue, shows that the school of Laon exercised a significantly greater influence on his intellectual formation than previously suspected, particularly with regards to his dialectical method. Although scholars usually claim that Gratian's knowledge of the scholastic method derives from Abelard's Sic et non, I hope to show that there are equally — if not more — cogent reasons for connecting it to Deus itaque summe and...