THE JURISDICTION OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURT IN WESTERN EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Abstract

The article is devoted to defining the scope and features of personal, territorial and subject-matter jurisdiction of Western European ecclesiastical proceedings in the Middle Ages. The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court of certain social groups and certain categories of civil and criminal cases according to the prescriptions of canon law, the decrees of church councils and papal decretals is analyzed. It was established that cases concerning faith and morals, as well as all cases concerning persons under church jurisdiction, were subject to the jurisdiction of a purely ecclesiastical court. It is noted that church land ownership was the basis of the economic, political, and judicial power of medieval church prelates and institutions in Western Europe. The population living on church lands was subject to the church court. The author draws attention to the fact that church jurisdiction had different boundaries and forms according to the status of persons and categories of cases: in some cases, church judges acted as representatives of the spiritual authority of the Christian church (protecting public morality and spirituality), in others – as secular lords and landowners with the right of secular court over their subordinates. It has been determined that the personal jurisdiction of the church court in the West was much broader than in Byzantium. Christianity has significantly influenced all spheres of civil legal relations without exception, but this influence has been especially obvious and most significant in family and marital relations. It was concluded that the ecclesiastical court was competent to deal with: 1) all persons of the clergy in all disputed cases among themselves; 2) the entire population (both clergy and lay) in a clearly defined list of cases; 3) certain social strata of the lay population in all cases. The most important category of cases brought before the church court were cases of termination of marriage and declaration of marriage invalid.