Introduction

Canon law was a product of and an integrating component within medieval religion and politics. It became a bastion of conservative, and at times blatantly reactionary, sentiment within the late medieval church. Critics of the Roman church frequently identified what they most disliked about the medieval religious establishment with canon law and canonists. Evangelical Protestants on the Continent typically cast off a good deal more of the heritage of medieval canon law than did their Anglican brethren in England. Despite fierce disagreements in post-Reformation Europe and the Americas over the role of religious law in Christian life, numerous elements of the medieval canonistic tradition remain embedded in the civil laws of modern national states. Laws concerning marriage, family relationships, inheritance, sexual conduct, and other types of personal behavior often retain substantial elements of medieval church law at their core. Western societies to this day vigorously resist efforts to displace those core elements.