BOOK: Philipp N. SPAHN, Die Bibel als Norm? Das Ringen um das Recht der Kirche in Streitschriften aus der Zeit des Investiturstreits, ca. 1050–1140 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2022), ISSN 9783465045441

(Image source: Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Profound changes in the handling of texts characterised the period since the middle of the 11th century and significantly contributed to the scientification of canon law. The effects of these methodological changes on how contemporaries worked with biblical texts, however, have remained largely unexplored. This study aims to fill this research lacuna by using the example of the controversy literature produced in the context of the Investiture Contest. It shows the significance of the struggle for a correct understanding of the biblical text for the scientification of canon law, on the one hand, and that of the Bible for the law of the Church, on the other. More-over, these debates with and about the biblical texts paved the way for a paradigmatic shift away from custom as the central figure of thought in early medieval secular law. In its place, truth be-came the paradigm of a new era, and would go on to change much more than the Church and its law.

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