Abstract

When the medieval canonists described papal power, they employed the terminology of Roman law. Although the canonists did develop terms such as plenitudo potestatis to describe papal jurisdictional power independently of Roman law, most of their statements of papal prerogatives were not taken from earlier ecclesiastical traditions, but from the writings of Roman imperial jurisconsults. Consequently, the pope was legibus solutus; he had omnes leges in scrinio pectoris; he was lex animata and he held the office of the living God on earth. jQuery.click { event.preventDefault(); })