Gratian compiles the Decretum

1140

A Bolognese law teacher, probably a Camaldolese monk, assembled some four thousand excerpts from papal letters, council canons, and Church Fathers into a systematic textbook that reconciled their contradictions. The Decretum became the foundation of every canon law course for the next eight centuries. Its method of presenting opposing authorities and then resolving them influenced legal reasoning far beyond the church, shaping the dialectical style of university education itself.