Recognising jurisdictions within the church before the Liber Extra

This paper investigates how local and papal jurisdictions were interpreted in the later-twelfth century church and its growing body of novel law. Focussing on the period before 1234, it uses a letter sent by Pope Alexander III in the 1160s to the bishop of Lincoln over a relatively minor matter as a case study. The letter responded to an issue of illicit ordination in the diocese but tangentially touched on questions of hierarchy and jurisdiction in the church, particularly the relationship between the ever-strengthening papal law and local episcopal jurisdictions. By tracing the route through which this letter became ‘law’ in the 1234 Liber Extra, this paper will once again emphasize the importance of local legal actors in shaping canon law in the period between 1140 and 1234, but look to how even tangential matters can put forward subtle arguments around the recognition of different jurisdictions within the church at the time by legal actors both at and away from the papal curia.