The sources of law were the customs (kutums) of provinces, districts and cities, royal decrees and orders of feudal lords. In the sixth century collections of customary law appeared (one of them is Bomanoir’s work “Kutums of Bovesi”). In the 15th century many collections of customs were approved by royal decrees. The development of French law was noticeably influenced by canon law and Roman law.
Canon law arose originally as the law of the Christian Church as a whole. Then, after the schism of the church, two separate branches of canon law developed. In Western and Central Europe, canon law developed under the influence of the “papal revolution” and became an independent and effective system of medieval law. The Eastern branch of canon law, which took shape within the Greek Orthodox Church, was active in Byzantium as well as in a number of other countries of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, but did not have the same authority as canon law in the West.
The great importance of the norms of canon law in Western European society was determined by a number of factors. First of all, canon law here was developed and supported by the powerful Roman Catholic Church and the papacy, whose political power has already been mentioned. Canon law was universal and extraterritorial, since its norms were in force in all countries which accepted Catholicism. It knew no national boundaries and united all Catholics into one. Canon law was also noted for the breadth of the social relations it regulated. It covered both secular and spiritual issues and was binding on both clergy and laity. Finally, canon law was given special weight by its traditional character, as it had its roots in antiquity, in Greek philosophy and in Roman legal culture. Canon law absorbed and transmitted to subsequent generations a whole series of norms of Roman law, its language, which is reflected in the formula: “the church lives by Roman laws” (ecclesia vivit legae romanae).
The process of systematization of canon law in the Middle Ages culminated in the compilation in 1500 of a vast corpus, which since 1580 was recognized as the official source of law of the Roman Catholic Church. By analogy with the Codification of Justinian, it was called the Code of Canon Law (Corpus juris canonici). Medieval canon law covered a wide range of issues and played an important role in the legal life of Western European countries. It regulated the organization of ecclesiastical authority (the right of the pope to appoint to ecclesiastical posts, the procedure of disputes between priests, etc.), as well as the relations of the church with secular authority, the status of church property and the regime of ownership and use of church lands, sources of church income, etc.