GILBERTUS ANGLICUS

Bolognese canonist of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, date and place of birth in England unknown; with alanus anglicus he may have entered the Dominican Order (at Bologna) after 1220.

His chief work is a collection (c. 1202) of decretal letters from the pontificate of Alexander III (1159–81) to 1202 (fourth year of Innocent III). It had two stages. In a first version he included in an appendix, outside the framework of the titles, some 32 decretals of Innocent III that in a second, definitive recension he inserted into the body of the collection under their appropriate headings; some of these texts appear to have been copied from registers in Innocent III's chancery (see papal registers) . In all, the collection contains some 258 decretals in 290 chapters; it falls into five books, following the classic division (iudex, iudicium, clerus, connubia, crimen ) of the Breviarium (or Compilatio prima antiqua ) of Bernard of Pavia, 1181–82 (see quinque compilationes antiquae). A critical list of the collection has been published by Von Heckel. Gilbertus's collection was utilized by other collections, e.g., that of bernard of compostella, the elder (1208), by means of which it influenced the official Compilatio (tertia antiqua ) of Innocent III's decretals (1210). With the collection of Alanus Anglicus it was the formal source of the compilation of john of wales (Compilatio secunda antiqua, 1210–12); it influenced also the Compilatio quarta of joannes teutonicus (1216–17). Gilbert glossed his own collection [one short gloss was printed by J. Junker, Summen und Glossen, Savigny-Stiftung f. Rechtsgeschichte Kan Abt. 15 (1926) 486], and these glosses were used by Albert and tancred when composing their apparatuses on the Compilatio secunda.

Bibliography: j. f. schulte, "Die Compilationen Gilberts und Alanus," Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften im Wein, Philos. hist. Klasse 65 (1870) 595–698. Repertorium der Kanonistik 223, 225, 302, 309, 310–313, 345, 348. r. von heckel, "Die Dekretalensammlungen des Gilbertus und Alanus nach den Weingartner Handschriften," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte Kanonistische Abteilung 29 (1940) 116–357, 180–225 (critical register), 340. Historia iuris canonici latini v. 1, Historia fontinum 231. c. lefebvre, Dictionnaire de droit canonique 5:966–967. See also the Bulletin of the Institute of Research and Study in Medieval Canon Law in Traditio 14 (1958) 464–466; 17 (1961) 534.

[l. e. boyle]