The Landscape of Medieval Judicial Sources: From Schools and Popes to Councils and Books

This article surveys the judicial landscape of medieval Europe by highlighting transformations in the way that theoretical jurisprudence and the practice of law intersected.After discussing the prominent role of theoretical and normative texts in the development of legal history as a discipline, it focuses on three areas where the contours of medieval judicial sources are especially ripe: the place of education and the unique role of canon law in the legal world of the Middle Ages; the rise of centralized papal government as a driver for the professionalization of law in the thirteenth century; and of church councils as ecclesiastical events that turned into judicial institutions during and after the Great Western Schism (1378-1418).Finally, it discusses the role of the Council of Constance and the Council of Basel in the changing writing practices of the later Middle Ages, and points to the shifts in the relative authority of the papacy over time as a way of organizing the wealth of judicial sources from the Middle Ages into discrete periods.