ABSTRACT

Burchard's education, which can be described as broadly theological, included interpreting and reading the Bible, and reading the writings of Church Fathers as well as classical ones. His training probably shaped his expectations of and ideals for a book of canon law, and it also provided him with the tools with which to create a new such book. The traditions and knowledge handed down from the Apostles came to be a second form of revelation: Church custom. Canons in the Decretum described custom as a source of law. They suggest that the practices and ideas handed down from the Apostles in an unbroken tradition, in the form of ecclesiastical customs, could be another way in which God manifested his will to humans. The Decretum provides some evidence for an increasing 'legalization' of penance, and for an increased episcopal interest in teaching systematic legal thinking.