as an
epoch of trouble: the great Schism of the West, the profound divisions
which were its result, the abuses which were to issue in the
Reformation, were conditions little favourable for a reorganization of
the ecclesiastical laws. Thus we are brought to the third period.

3. _After the Council of Trent._--The numerous important decrees made by
the council of Trent, in the second part of its sessions, called _de
reformatione_, are the starting-point of the canon law in its latest
stage, _jus novissimum_; it is this which is still in force in the Roman
Church. It has in no way undermined the official status of the _Corpus
juris_; but it has completed the legislation of the latter in many
important respects, and in some cases reformed it.

Final state of the law.

The law during this period, as abstracted from the texts and
compilations, suggests the following remarks. The laws are formulated in
general terms, and the decisions in particular cases relegated to the
sphere of jurisprudence; and the canonists have definitely lost the
function which fell to them in the 12th and 13th centuries: they receive
the law on authority and no longer have to deduce it from the texts. The
legislative power is powerfully centralized in the hands of the pope:
since the reforming decrees of the council of Trent it is the pontifical
constitutions alone which have made the common law; the ecumenical
council, doubtless, has not lost its power, but none were held until
that of the Vatican (1870), and this latter was unable to occupy itself
with matters of discipline. Hence the separation, increasingly marked,
between the common law and the local laws, which cannot derogate from
the common law except by concession of the Holy See, or by right of a
lawfully authorized custom. This centralization, in its turn, has
greatly increased the tendency towards unity and uniformity, which have
reached in the present practice of the Roman Church a degree never known
before, and considered by some to be excessive.

Dispersion of the texts.

If we now consider the laws in themselves, we shall find that the
dispersed condition of the legislative documents has not been modified
since the closure of the _Corpus juris_; on the contrary the enormous
number of pontifical constitutions, and of decrees emanating from the
Roman Congregations, has greatly aggravated the situation; moreover, the
attempts which have been made to resume the interrupted pro