ABSTRACT

In the Preface, Burchard raised a number of concerns about the current state of Church law as he understood it. Before isolating each of his individual criticisms, it is important to note the wide-ranging nature of his critiques. Burchard identified and attacked a number of problems that he saw as currently besetting canon law. Burchard's Preface is an invaluable source of information about the Decretum. The Preface tells us, in Burchard's own words, what he rejected from the existing books of canon law, what theoretical problems he identified in the tradition, and how he proposed to handle the problems. This chapter examines the canons he chose to include on jurisprudential issues. These canons in Decretum book 3 illuminate his ideas about how priests should arrive at legal answers and about which authorities they should consult.