Gratian Slept Here: The Changing Identity of the Father of the Systematic Study of Canon Law

Abstract

Who was Gratian? It is hardly necessary to justify the interest of such a question. The Concordia discordantium canonum is one of the most influential law books of all time — a teacher's case book which became, for over 700 years, the law of the Catholic Church; a book which is at the roots of Western legal thought, ecclesiastical and lay; a vast storehouse of prior legislation and judgments, a set of masterful hypotheticals, and a rich commentary distinguished by its shrewdness and wisdom. In any time, in any land, its author would be honored for his achievement and sought after for his skill. His book was composed in a literate age in a milieu which valued learning, and even more than learning, valued law. Surely the composer has left some traces of himself and not vanished into the mists of myth.

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