Jus Antiquum
The most ancient collections of canonical legislation are certain very early Apostolic documents, known as the Church Orders: for instance, the Didache ton dodeka apostolon or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles", which dates from the end of the first or the beginning of the 2nd century; the Apostolic Church-Ordinance; the Didascalia, or "Teaching of the Apostles"; the Apostolic Canons and Apostolic Constitutions. These collections have never had any official value, no more than any other collection of this first period. However, the Apostolic Canons and, through it, the Apostolic Constitutions, were influential for a time in that later collections would draw upon these earliest sources of church law.
It was in the East, after Constantine I's Edict of Milan of toleration (313), that arose the first systematic collections. We cannot so designate the chronological collections of the canons of the councils of the 4th and 5th centuries (314-451); the oldest systematic collection, made by an unknown author in 535, has not come down. The most important collections of this epoch are the Synagoge kanonon, or the collection of John the Scholastic (Joannes Scholasticus), compiled at Antioch about 550, and the Nomocanons, or compilations of civil laws affecting religious matters (nomos) and ecclesiastical laws (kanon). One such mixed collection is dated in the 6th century and has been erroneously attributed to John the Scholastic; another of the 7th century was rewritten and much enlarged by the schismatical ecumenical patriarch Photius (883).
In the Western Church three collections of canons have exercised an influence far beyond the limits of the country in which they were composed; they are the Collectio Dionysiana, the lengthy Collectio canonum Hibernensis ('Irish Collection of Canons'), and the Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore. The Dionysiana, also called Corpus canonum, Corpus codicis canonum, was the work of Dionysius Exiguus who died between the years 540 and 555; it contains his Latin translation of the canons of the councils of the Eastern Church and a collection of (38) papal letters (Epistolæ decretales) dating from the reign of Pope Siricius (384-398) to that of Anastasius II (died 498). The authority of this Italian collection, at once quite considerable at Rome and in Italy, was greatly increased after Pope Adrian I sent to Charlemagne in 774 a modified and enlarged copy of the collection, thenceforth known as the "Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana", and the Synod of Aachen (802) accepted it as the Codex canonum ('Book of Canons') of the immense Empire of the Franks.
The lengthy Irish collection of canons, compiled in the 8th century, influenced both England, Gaul and Italy. The latter country also possessed two 5th-century Latin translations of the Greek synods (the collection erroneously called Isidoriana or Hispana, and the Collectio Prisca); also an important collection of pontifical and imperial documents (the Avellana, compiled during the pontificate of Gregory the Great, 590-604). Africa possessed a collection of 105, or more exactly 94, canons, compiled about 419; also the Breviatio canonum, or digest of the canons of the councils by Fulgentius Ferrandus (died c. 546), and the Concordia canonum of Cresconius Africanus, an adaptation of the Dionysiana (about 690). In Gaul are found, at the beginning of the 6th century, the Statuta Ecclesiæ antiqua, erroneously attributed to Africa, and among many other collections the Quesnelliana (end of the fifth or beginning of the 6th century) and the Dacheriana (about 800), both so called from the names of their editors, Paschase Quesnel and d'Achéry. In England there developed a collection of canons which are attributed to Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 690). Also, during the early Middle Ages, throughout Europe but especially in the North, numerous local Penitentiales or handbooks of private penance were made, each a typically haphazard collection of types of punishment suggested for various sins; in various ways these penitentials, ultimately Irish in origin, came to affect the canon law collections which were developed on the continent.
Iberia (i.e. Spain) possessed the Capitula Martini, compiled about 572 by Martin, Bishop of Braga (in Portugal), and a Codex canonum or Collectio Hispana dating from about 633, attributed in the 9th century to St. Isidore of Seville. In the 9th century arose several apocryphal collections, viz. those of Benedictus Levita, of Pseudo-Isidore (also Isidorus Mercator, Peccator, Mercatus), and the Capitula Angilramni. An examination of the controversies which these three collections give rise to will be found elsewhere (see False Decretals). The Pseudo-Isidorian collection, the authenticity of which was for a long time admitted, has exercised considerable influence on ecclesiastical discipline, without however modifying it in its essential principles. Among the numerous collections of a later date, we may mention the Collectio Anselmo dedicata, compiled in Italy at the end of the 9th century, the Libellus de ecclesiasticis disciplinis of Regino of Prum (died 915); the Collectarium canonum of Burchard of Worms (died 1025); the collection of the younger St. Anselm of Lucca, compiled towards the end of the 11th century; the Collectio trium partium, the Decretum and the Panormia of Yves of Chartres (died 1115 or 1117); the Liber de misericordia et justitia of Algerus of Liège, who died in 1132; the Collection in 74 Titles — all collections which Gratian made use of in the compilation of his Decretum
See Collections of ancient canons
Read more about this topic: Corpus Juris Canonici