EXTRAVAGANTES

Extravagantes is a term introduced after the publication of the Decretum of gratian to describe all papal texts not found in, but "circulating outside" (extravagantes ), that collection. After Gregory IX had promulgated his authentic series of extravagantes in 1234 (see gregory ix, decretals of), suppressing all others, the term was used with reference to texts that appeared after his compilation. Similarly, when an authentic collection of post-Gregorian Extravagantes was published by Boniface VIII in 1298 in the liber sextus, to the abrogation of all others, the word Extravagantes denoted decretals that came after the Sext. In fact, since the clementinae that were issued in 1317 were not an exclusive collection like the Decretals and Sext and since no other authentic collection of decretals appeared from 1317 until the Roman edition of the corpus iuris canonici in 1582, all other papal decretals after 1298 are, properly speaking, extravagantes not to the Clementines but to the Sext. However, the extravagantes printed in the Corpus of 1582 do not cover all papal decrees from the Sext onward, for the Corpus simply took over two unofficial collections of post-Sext extravagantes that Jean Chappuis, a Parisian lawyer, had published in his edition of the Corpus (1500, 1503). These, in fact, did not go beyond 1484 (Sixtus IV).

The first, the extravagantes of John XXII, is a collection of 20 decretals of John XXII from 1317 to 1320, which Gesselin de Cassanges put together and glossed in 1325. These extravagantes, which were already well known (see, e.g., John Koelner de Vankel, Summarium Extravagantium Ioannis XXII, Cologne 1483, 1488, 1493, 1494, 1495), were arranged by Chappuis under 14 titles and 20 chapters taken from the Decretals of Gregory IX.

The second, Extravagantes communes, is a collection of 70 decretals from Urban IV (1261–64) to Sixtus IV (1471–84), which Chappuis put together in 1500 from decretals "commonly circulating" and to which he added four more in 1503 (one from Benedict XII; three from John XXII, which were also in Gesselin's extravagantes but had had an independent existence since 1319, when William of Mont Lauzun composed a commentary on them). Chappuis distributed these extravagantes in five books after the manner of the Decretals, but there are no entries in Bk. four on marriage. The bulk of the decretals come from the period 1261 to 1342 (one of Urban IV; one of Martin IV; 11 of Boniface VIII, including unam sanctam; six of Benedict XI; six of Clement V; 33 of John XXII; two of Benedict XII); there are only five from the period 1342 to 1458 (Clement VI, Martin V, Eugene IV, Callistus III), with four from Paul II (1464–71) and six from Sixtus IV (1471–84).

These two sets of extravagantes are uneven in quality, on occasion repeating material of the Sext or Clementines. They were never received in the schools, and the Roman edition of 1582 did not authenticate them as collections. The usual citation is by book, title, and chapter for the Communes (Corp IurCanExtravag.Com 1.8.1) and by title and chapter for those of John XXII (CorpIurCanExtravag Jo XXII 4.1).

Bibliography: e. fournier, Questions d'histoire du droit canonique (Paris 1936), pt. 2: "Les Recueils de décretales 'extravagantes' de 1234 à 1294." a. m. stickler, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 3:67. j. f. von schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des kanonischen Rechts, 3 v. in 4 pts. (Stuttgart 1875–80; repr. Graz 1956) 2:59–67. a. m. stickler, Historia iuris canonici latini: v. 1, Historia fontium (Turin 1950) 1:268–272. a. tardif, Histoire des sources du droit canonique (Paris 1887). a. van hove, Commentarium Lovaniense in Codicem iuris canonici 1, v. 1–5 (Mechlin 1928–); v. 1, Prolegomena (2d ed.1945) 1:373–375. p. torquebiau, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. r. naz, 7 v. (Paris 1935–65) 4:640–643.

[l. e. boyle]