Décrétale

A décrétale (in Latin episola decretalis or litteræ decretales ) is a letter by which the Pape, in answer to a request, enacts a rule with regard to disciplinary matters or canonical. The décrétale can be taken as well on a general subject as particular; she is opposed to the pontifical decree, taken by the pope of her own boss.

Collected by the canonists jointly with the conciliar decrees, they take part of the development of the canonical right to the Middle Ages. Among the most famous collections, one can quote those of Burchard de Worms and Yves of Chartres, as well as the '' Décret '' of Gratien.

It is a collection of the written letters by the popes of the first centuries in answer to the questions which were addressed to them by bishops or ordinary persons. The first collection of this kind is due to the monk Denys Small the, which lived with Rome towards 550. Into the 6th century and the 10th century, compilers inserted in this collection of the letters which exaggerated the power of the popes: one knows these letters under the name of Fausses décrétales. Among the collections of Décrétales, it is necessary to quote that of Gratien, commonly called the Décret, formed in 1151, and the additional code that Gregoire IX made write by Dominican the Raymond de Peñafort, and that one calls Extra , i.e. apart from the Decree of Gratien: it is composed of five books, that Boniface VIII increased by a sixth, known under the name of Sexte. One adds to it two more other collections, one, known as Clémentines , containing the letters of Clément V, the other, known as Extravagantes (C. - with-D. remained apart from the principal code), containing the decisions of the popes since Urbain IV until Sixth IV. The collection of the Dècrétales was several times printed.

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