Laity in Medieval Canon Law: 12th – 15th Century

Abstract

Gratian’s Decretum – composed only few years after the Concordat of Worms, concluding the dramatic Struggle for the Investitures – assigns to the laymen a restricted role in Church’s life. On one side, it resounds the still vivid memory of the violences inferred by the secular potentes; on the other one, it is prevailing a mistrust against the laymen deemed as mostly ignorant (ydiotae). Such a picture changes when some laymen became leaders in civil and canon law as well. Their participation first to the anti-heretical inquisition and later to the intricate vicissitudes of the Great Schism, enabled them to reach a new distinguished position in the ecclesiastical world.