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Edward Peters

6 December 2006

1. Getting Acquainted

2. Really Getting Started

3. Using the four fundamental categories

of citations

4. Small points for specialists

5. Resources needed to use Pio-Benedictine footnotes

Not all provisions in

the 1917 Code have footnotes. If you need

to know which ones

don't have footnotes

(God knoweth why),

see Fontes IX: 2-11.

In canons with

numbered subdivisions,

a footnote for a subdivision applies only

to that subdivision.

Canons can, and many

do, have more than

one footnote.

In the 1917 Code,

footnote numbering

starts over with

each page. Because different editions

arranged pages

differently, footnote numbers often changed from edition to edition

The Men behind

the Man behind

the 1917 Code

These four categories

of sources can be traced back to the consultors'

first directions for the codification project,

when they specified examination of "the Corpus, ... the Tridentine Council, the acts of the Roman Pontiffs, and ...

the decrees of the Sacred Roman Congregations

or Ecclesiastical Tribunals..." See Gasparri, Preface,

in Peters trans., 17.

When multiple

citations are made

to the same authority

(such as, here,

Benedict XIV or the

Holy Office), that

authority is not re-identified each time.

You just have to

supply it.

"It is unquestioned

that the footnotes to

the canons of The

Code of Canon Law

are of inestimable

benefit in the interpretation of law."

Edward Roelker,

7 Jurist 355 (1947)

Find in a Library

Friedberg,

Corpus Iuris Canonici

Gratian's first

20 Distinctions

(Fontes IX: 14), along

with what is called

their Ordinary Gloss,

are available in English.

See:

Thompson & Gordley, trans., Gratian: The Treatise on Laws

(CUA, 1993)

It's a terrific work,

laid out as students

would have studied it

for hundreds of years.

Friedberg uses

column numbers,

not page numbers.

Click here for a list

of citations to

translations of

small parts of

Gratian's Decretum.

The Quinque Libri

Decretalium

Gregoriani IX

are available on-line:

I II III IV V

If a title heading is

given in a Corpus

footnote, it may be disregarded, as

the title number is

sufficient to identify the source. It's rather like today, if someone cites

to "Book III: Teaching Office," one does not

need to know that

Book III is called "Teaching Office" in

order to find it in

the Code.

The Regulae Iuris

are found in two

places within the

Corpus: a short list

is found at the end in Gregory's Decretals

and is cited as part of

Book V, title 41; the

more important list is

found in the Liber

Sextus. It has a special citation system:

"Reg. 1, R.J., in VI°"

means "Rule 1 of the

Regulae Iuris in

the Liber Sextus."

In Corpus citations,

"un." does not simply mean "one"; it means

that there is only one

entry in the list

to begin with.

To find out quickly

which chapters of Gregory's Decretals

were impacted by later legislation contained in

the Corpus, irrespective

of Gasparri's use of such materials, click on my

Ius Decretalium page.

Sometimes genius

took a short cut.

Gasparri

Some provisions in

the 1917 Code have footnotes that refer to

the footnotes of other

provisions. This was doubtless a time-saving device. It is clear, though, that Gasparri considered "vide etiam"

footnotes as

footnotes for both

the original and the referred provisions.

Documents named in

the Fontes tables of contents are necessarily arranged by date, so one could look for dates in them as well.

Plan 9 from

Outer Space

premiered in 1959.

John XXIII announced

the revision of the

Pio-Benedictine Code.

in 1959.

Coincidence?

The latest,

pre-1917 Code

versions of liturgical books I have

found are:

Missale Romanum

1912, 1914

Pontificale Romanum

1888, 1891

Caeremoniale Episcoporum

1853, 1860

Rituale Romanum

1891, 1913

There are nine plans

from outer space for the take-over of the world.

There are nine volumes

in Gasparri's Fontes.

Coincidence?

Cdl. Seredi

carried on Gasparri's work after his death

A viewer comments:

"Yours is the worst webpage I ever saw."

Ed responds:

Well, my next one

will be better.

What they really said:

The Curt Jester

relapsed catholic

dotCommonweal

the (new) legal writer

Canon Law Pio-Benedictine Footnotes & Fontes

Yes, the footnotes to the 1917 Code are intimidating, but now, there's hope!

CanonLaw.info and the spirit of Ed Wood, are proud to present . . .

Dr. Ed's solaranite-powered guide

to the footnotes of the 1917 Code

The Amazing

Criswell predicts

that you will soon be

using the footnotes

to the 1917 Code!

Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the past, for that is where you and I have spent all of our lives. You are interested in the unknown. The mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of the "Footnotes to the 1917 Code". We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived the terrifying ordeal of figuring out how to use Pio-Benedictine footnotes. My friends, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friends, can your hearts stand the shocking facts about the . . .

Codicis Iuris Canonici Fontes?

1. Getting acquainted

Large blocks of finely printed, densely packed, alpha-numeric Latin abbreviations. What could be less inviting? (okay, besides going to the Albuquerque ball with Danny the co-pilot at 4 a.m.)? Put-off by the seeming impenetrability of Pio-Benedictine footnotes, many novice researchers give up on consulting them without even trying. And that's a pity. The provisions of the Pio-Benedictine Code reflect nearly two millennia of accumulated pastoral and legal wisdom, and their footnotes identify more effectively than can be imagined the almost-countless occasions for refining that wisdom. Let's see how.

The first canon of Book II of the 1917 Code of Canon Law reads as follows:

Can. 87. By baptism a human is constituted a person in the Church of Christ with all of the rights and duties of Christians unless, in what applies to rights, some bar obstructs, impeding the bond of ecclesiastical communion, or there is a censure laid down by the Church.

There is a footnote to this canon, as it happens, one that contains a sample of almost everything one might find in a Pio-Benedictine footnote. We will use this footnote as a model below, but for now let's just see what it looks like:

C. 31, C. XXIV, q. 1; c. 51, D. I, de poenit.; c. 2, 15, de haereticis, V, 2, in VI°; Conc. Trident., sess. VII, de baptismo, can. 7, 8, 13, 14; sess. XIV, de poenitentia, c. 2; Eugenius IV (in Conc. Florentin.), const. "Exsultate Deo", 22 nov. 1439, § 10; Benedictus XIV, const. "Etsi pastoralis", 26 maii 1742, § VII, n. XI; ep. encycl. "Inter omnigenas", 2 febr. 1744, § 16; ep. "Postremo mense", 28 febr. 1747, n. 52; ep. "Singulari", 9 feb. 1749, § 2, 12-16; Pius IX, litt. ap. "Multiplices inter", 10 iun. 1851; Syllabus errorum, prop. 54; Leo XIII, litt. encycl. "Sapientiae", 10 ian. 1890; S. C. S. Off., instr. (ad Archiep. Quebecen.), 16 sept. 1824, ad 2; 19 apr. 1837; instr. 22 iun. 1859; 7 apr. 1875; (Bucarest), 8 maii 1889; instr. (ad Vic. Ap. Nankin.), 26 aug. 1891; S. C. de Prop. Fide (C. G. - Albaniae), 18 apr. 1757, ad 5; (C. G.), 19 aug. 1776; instr. (ad Praef. Ap. Mission. Epiri), 25 febr. 1837; litt. encycl. (ad Ep. Indiar.), 25 apr. 1902.

Don't be concerned if almost nothing in this footnote makes sense yet. Almost nothing in Plan Nine from Outer Space makes sense, but that doesn't detract from the fun of watching it. So, after you've let your how-am-I-ever-going-to-do-my-JCL-thesis-if-I-can't-even-read-the-footnotes-to-the-1917-Code anxiety recede, take a deep breath, and look more carefully at each line in the note.

Surely you recognized the names of some popes (e.g., Benedict XIV or Pius IX). That tells you something, namely, that papal writings contributed to the formation of Pio-Benedictine law. You probably also recognized several dates (e.g., November 22, 1439, and April 25, 1902). From that you see first that Cdl. Gasparri used the European dating convention (day-month-year) in his citations but, more importantly, you see that documents from many centuries were culled during the drafting of this canon. The 1917 Code was not thrown together by folks with no sense of canonical history. Finally, you might have recognized the names of some locations such as Quebec, Bucharest, or Nanking. Even that is useful: it underscores that the 1917 Code, a law intended to be applied throughout the Catholic world, drew on experiences garnered from around the world. Or at least in this canon it did.

Not a bad set of observations for someone who thinks he can't figure out what's contained in the footnotes to the 1917 Code. But now, on to bigger things.

2. Really getting started

Patrolman Jamie was right: It's tough to find something when you don't know what you're looking for.

There are basically only four kinds of canonical resources listed in the footnotes of the 1917 Code. Not every Pio-Benedictine footnote presents citations to all four types of sources, but if you know in advance what you can find, it will make it much easier to determine whether you've found it. The four types of sources that might be listed in a given footnote are: Corpus Iuris Canonici, Council of Trent, Papal Writings, and Roman Curia.

If we color-code those categories thus

Corpus Iuris Canonici

Council of Trent

Papal Writings

Roman Curia

and highlight them in our Canon 87 footnote, we see:

See? That's not so bad. Again, don't worry if you can't decipher the citations within each grouping. For now, we only want to establish that virtually all Pio-Benedictine footnotes are limited to these four fundamental categories. Moreover, citations to these sources will always be presented in the above order. Thus, with only a little practice, one will be able to tell instantly whether, say, any Corpus Iuris Canonici references are found in a given footnote. Likewise, if one is looking only for, say, Tridentine contributions to legal formulations, there is no need to hunt through an entire, sometimes quite lengthy, footnote to find out whether there are any Tridentine citations. You now know exactly where in the footnote