TheLiber Septimus (Latin for "Seventhbook") may refer to one of threeCatholic canon law collections of quite different value from a legal standpoint which are known by this title.
TheConstitutiones Clementis V orConstitutiones Clementinæ are not officially known as "Liber Septimus". However, they were so designated by historians andcanonists of theMiddle Ages, and even on one occasion bypope John XXII in a 1321 letter to theBishop of Strasburg. This collection was not even considered a "Liber" (book).[1]
It was officiallypromulgated byClement V in aconsistory held atMonteaux, nearCarpentras (southern France) on 21 March 1314, and sent to theUniversity of Orléans and theSorbonne in Paris. The death of Clement V, occurring on 20 April following, gave rise to certain doubts as to the legal force of the compilation. Consequently,John XXII by hisbullQuoniam nulla, of 25 October 1317, promulgated it again as obligatory, without making any changes in it.Johannes Andreæ compiled its commentary, orglossa ordinaria. It was not an exclusive collection, and did not abrogate the previously existing laws not incorporated in it (seeCorpus Juris Canonici andPapal Decretals).[1]
The name has also been given to a canonical collection officially known asDecretales Clementis Papæ VIII. It owes the name of "Liber Septimus" toCardinal Pinelli,prefect (president) of the specialcongregation appointed bySixtus V to draw up a new ecclesiastical code, who applied this title to it in his manuscript notes;Prospero Fagnani andBenedict XIV imitated him in this, and it has retained the name.[1]
TheDecretales Clementis Papæ VIII is divided into five books, subdivided into titles and chapters, and contains disciplinary anddogmaticcanons of theCouncil of Florence,First Lateran Council andthat of Trent, andapostolic constitutions of twenty-eight popes fromGregory IX toClement VIII.[1]
It was to supply the defect of an official codification of the canon law from the date of the publication of theConstitutiones Clementinæ (1317), thatGregory XIII appointed about the year 1580 a body ofcardinals to undertake the work. In 1587, Sixtus V established the special congregation to draw up a new ecclesiastical code. The printed work was submitted toClement VIII in 1598 for his approbation, which was refused. A new revision undertaken in 1607-08 had a similar fate, the reigningpope Paul V declining to approve theLiber Septimus as the obligatory legal code of the Church.[1]
The refusals of approbation by Clement VIII and Paul V are to be attributed not to the fear of seeing the canons of the Council of Trent glossed by canonists (which was forbidden by the bull ofPius IV,Benedictus Deus, confirming the Council of Trent), but to the political situation of the day. Indeed, several states had refused to admit some of the constitutions inserted in the new collection, and the Council of Trent had not yet been accepted by theFrench government; it was therefore feared that the Governments would refuse to recognize the new code. It also seems a mistake to have included in the work decisions that were purely and exclusively dogmatic and as such entirely foreign to the domain of canon law. This collection, which appeared about the end of the sixteenth century, was edited by François Sentis ("Clementis Papæ VIII Decretales", Freiburg, 1870).[1]
Pierre Mathieu (Petrus Matthæus), acanonist of the sixteenth century, published in 1590, under the title of "Septimus Liber Decretalium" ('Seventh Book ofDecretals'), a collection of canons arranged according to the order of the papalDecretals of Gregory IX, containing some decretals of preceding popes, especially of those from the reign ofSixtus IV (1464–71) to that ofSixtus V, in 1590. It was an entirely private collection and devoid of scientific value. Some editions of theCorpus Juris Canonici (Frankfort, 1590; Lyons 1621 and 1671;Justus Henning Boehmer's edition, Halle, 1747) contained the text of this "Liber septimus" as an appendix.[1]
