ed in their proceedings by the
"episcopal laws," a system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, composed
of the canons of councils, the decrees of popes, and the maxims of the
more ancient fathers. This, like all other codes of law, had in the
course of centuries received numerous additions. New cases perpetually
occurred; new decisions were given; and new compilations were made and
published. The two, which at the time of the Conquest prevailed in the
spiritual courts of France, and which were sanctioned by the charter
of William in England, were the collection under the name of Isidore,
and that of Burchard, Bishop of Worms.

About the end of the century appeared a new code from the pen of Ivo,
Bishop of Chartres, whose acquaintance with the civil law of Rome
enabled him to give to his work a superiority over the compilations of
his predecessors. Yet the knowledge of Ivo must have been confined to
the Theodosian code, the institutes and mutilated extracts from the
pandects of Justinian. But when Amalphi was taken by the Pisans in
1137, an entire copy of the last work was discovered; and its
publication immediately attracted, and almost monopolized, the
attention of the learned. Among the students and admirers of the
pandects was Gratian, a monk of Bologna, who conceived the idea of
compiling a digest of the canon law on the model of that favorite
work; and soon afterwards, having incorporated with his own labors the
collections of former writers, he gave his "decretum" to the public in
1151. From that moment the two codes, the civil and canon laws, were
deemed the principal repositories of legal knowledge; and the study of
each was supposed necessary to throw light on the other. Roger, the
bachelor, a monk of Bec, had already read lectures on the sister
sciences in England, but he was advanced to the government of his
abbey; and the English scholars, immediately after the publication of
the decretum, crowded to the more renowned professors in the city of
Bologna. After their return they practised in the episcopal courts;
their respective merits were easily appreciated, and the proficiency
of the more eminent was rewarded with an ample harvest of wealth and
preferment.

This circumstance gave to the spiritual a marked superiority over the
secular courts. The proceedings in the former were guided by fixed and
invariable principles, the result of the wisdom of ages; the latter
were compelled to follow a system of jurisprude