At first glance there is something rather odd about a volume of essays dedicated, in part, to Christian jurists of the first millennium because for the second half of that period jurists were rather thin on the ground. For the average educated non-specialist there is a gap between the Roman jurists of the second and third centuries cited extensively in Codex Theodosianus of the fifth century and the various works in Justinian's Corpus Iuris Ciuilis of the sixth century, men like Papinian, Gaius, Paulus, Modestinus, and Ulpian, and Decretum Gratiani of the twelfth. During those six hundred years most would be hard pressed to identify a single jurist in the Christian world. Are the twenty-five contributors of twenty-four essays in this volume drawing attention to little-known jurists, are they redefining what a jurist is, or are they simply concerned with legal history more broadly? The latter is certainly a possibility, given that part one of the volume is dedicated to legal collections in a broad sense, and more about the first part later.
However, the fifteen essays in the second part are devoted to individuals, and one would expect them to be the jurists in the title. If one comes to this volume with firmly-fixed boundaries between those who made the law, those who practised the law, and those who commented on the law (legislators, lawyers, and jurists), then one could be rather disappointed. Essays about Leo I, Gelasius, and Gregory I (chapters 13-14, 17), fifth- and sixth-century Roman bishops, or Benedict's rule (chapter 16)--a chapter that necessarily considers the product more than the person--are about law makers or the makers of law-like norms. Essays on individuals like Lactantius, Ambrosiaster, and Augustine (chapters 10-12) are about men who operate out of a legal theory or even a theology of law, but who cannot be classed as jurists per se nor did they contribute directly to canonical collections, so even if they did have some interesting attitudes about civil and church law their inclusion in the volume is something of a surprise. This is not to say, however, that the chapters are not worth reading; they have much to offer by way of Christianity and the law, just not about legal collections (although David Hunter does attempt to see a connection between Amrosiaster's thoughts on the Pauline privilege and later canon law). What I found missing from Brian Gronewoller's chapter on Augustine was comments about Augustine's contribution to the African synods and how Canones in causa Apiarii or Registri ecclesiae Carthaginensis excerpta fostered the development of canonical collections. Even the essays on Dionysius Exiguus, Isidore of Seville, and pseudo-Isidorus Mercator (chapters 15, 18-19) are about individuals who constructed canonical collections. Of course, Gratian himself brought together conciliar canons and papal decretals, directly following on from the work of those predecessors, but he also attempted to resolve conflicts in the laws through commentary, something not found in the works of those predecessors. Gratian was a jurist in the ways that the others were not. If one can put aside such neat distinctions, which may be rather artificial and unhelpful to begin with, then there is much in this volume that sheds light on what should not remain an obscure period. Jurist here is used in a broad sense, which certainly helps to give a coherence to the theme.
The great benefit of this volume is that it considers Christian law in a wide perspective, concerned not only with laws but with law-like norms: laws (chapters 2-3), monastic rules (9), penitential prescriptions (6, 8), and canons (4-5, 7). Each text type is analysed and commented upon in connection with an associated practice that was intended to achieve a desired result. The success of these texts depended upon their practicality and these chapters consider that issue. All of this is well spelt out in Philip Reynolds' introductory essay, which admirably locates the subject matter within a broader framework of religious and civil law and theology. This chapter should be read by all students of legal history for the overview that it provides, particularly on the question of terminology. My only criticism here is about the comments on the history of papal decretals, but this is more a criticism of the authors concerned with papal matters, upon whom Reynolds has drawn. To say that Siricius' letter to Himerius of Tarragona is the first decretal is to read teleologically. Yes, it was so considered by those who, in later centuries, incorporated letters of Roman bishops into legal collections and yes, Siricius did want Himerius to take his reply as being as binding as an imperial rescript, but the very fact that Siricius refers to the decisions of his own predecessors (statute sedis apostolicae) indicates that he did not think he was instituting a new legal genre nor should it lead one to conclude that what a Roman bishop in the fifth century said in any particular letter had universal rather than geographically constricted applicability. A decade of my own publishing on this very question has had no impact on scholarly investigation.
Equally helpful as an overview, this time on Roman law in its many guises and operations is Jill Harries' essay (chapter 2). Alexander Callander Murray's essay (chapter 3) on the post-Roman kingdoms not only reminds us of the importance of this period and provides a useful summary of various law codes of these early medieval kingdoms but also offers some sage comment about legal historiography and the appropriateness of contrasting Roman with Germanic law. Gregory Halfond's essay (chapter 4) on ecclesiastical councils invites the reader to dwell on the question of the ways in which conciliar canons were meant to be regarded as laws, how the intersected with Gallic, Frankish, Visigothic, and Carolingian secular law, and on the reception of conciliar canons.
While there is much in the essay by Clemens Gantner and Stefan Schima (chapter 5) about the papacy to be applauded, the source material is almost exclusively German. Although Innocent I is afforded three pages in the essay, not one of my numerous publications on him is cited. To say that Cyprian said that validly baptized schismatics and heretics needed to be re-baptized (p. 133) is completely mistaken on two counts: only people whose initiation had been in a schismatic (or heretical, the words are relatively interchangeable in Cyprian) community needed to undergo a fresh ceremony, and such a ceremony was no rebaptism since the first ceremony, being completely invalid, was no baptism at all. The recognition that what Roman bishops of the late fourth and early fifth centuries wrote needs to be read in light of who the recipient was and that the rights of the Roman bishop over others was geographically differentiated throughout the empire is to be endorsed, although the authors seem to backtrack on this recognition when looking at Innocent and the African churches (p. 139). The statement that either Damasus or Siricius issued the first papal decretal (p. 137) is, as mentioned above, projecting back onto the author a view held by later compilers of canonical collections. The questionable idea that Patroclus of Arles helped secure Zosimus' election as Roman bishop is 418 is repeated without qualification (p. 140). In a chapter that surveys nine centuries there are bound to be individual points open to ongoing debate. If I seem overly critical of this chapter, it is only because it is a topic of my own expertise.
Incidentally, an understanding of developments in Gaul during Zosimus' time would help provide a context in which to understand Susan Wessel's comments about Leo I's involvement in Gaul (p. 285). What I do believe we find with Leo is a sense that he was perhaps the first Roman bishop to have a sense that his responses to questions from other churches were decretals, in the sense of the word as used in later centuries, a sense built upon even further by the time of Gelasius, as Bronwen Neil shows. Her discussion on Gelasius' letters and their later use in canonical collections is exemplary.
Mayke de Jong's essay (chapter 6) on public penance and the Carolingians first appeared in 2003 and it is a pity that it has not been updated to take into account recent work on early Christian penance, such as that produced by Kevin Uhalde of Ohio University. Canonical collections is a complicated and arcane story and perhaps it is understandable, though regrettable, that Roy Flechner is as brief as it is, at just over 14 pages of text, not counting the sources and reading list. The inclusion of Rob Meens's essay (chapter 8) on penance in monasticism, Albrecht Diem's (chapter 9) on monastic rules, and Hugh Feiss' on Benedict's rule (chapter 16) show just how broad and relevant the topic of legal collections is and how those in religious life contributed both to canonical and penitential developments.
The final essays on Isidore of Seville (chapter 18), pseudo-Isidorus Mercator (chapter 19)--a topic of incredible importance for the development of canon law and sympathetically handled here--, Jonas of Orléans (chapter 20), Hincmar of Reims (chapter 21), Regino of Prüm (chapter 22), and Buchard of Worms (chapter 23), take us much further into the Middle Ages and ensure a good chronological balance in the material covered in this volume. As an introduction to early Christian law and legal attitudes this volume will be welcomed by both specialist and non-specialist alike, even though it sits a little more awkwardly in its series than do it predecessor volumes, which have geographic limits.