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Notoriety: A Mediaeval Change of Attitude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

G. R. Evans
Affiliation:
Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
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Scripture refers to an ‘informer’ in the story of the rich man who had a steward, and was told that he was mismanaging his master's resources (Luke 16: 1ff). The Vulgate has hic diffamatus est apud ilium. We hear nothing more about the informer in this parable, or what became of him. He is not reproached for his action.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 1997

References

1 The question of bearing false witness against one's neighbour, forbidden by the commandment (Exodus 20: 16), belongs to a different area, for the informer may very well be telling the truth. On the issue of propriety in a witness, and all the formal restrictions which attach to his acceptability in a court, the mediaeval texts have a great deal to say. but for reasons of space that must form the subject of a different study.

2 Digest 48.16.6.3 (Paul). Cf. Code 9.2.7, falsis necne notoriis may be closer to the mediaeval notorius. Gratian has notorius twice, but of the offence not the person, cf. Causa 2.6.41 (titulus); Causa 2.1.1.

3 By the early fourteenth century. It appears at the Council of Pisa in 1409. Latham has it in 1280 (Revised Medieval Latin Wordlist).

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28 Gratian, Rubric to Causa 2 q.1.c.1.

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44 Summa ‘Elegantius in iure divino’, V (27) ed. G. Fransen and S. Kuttner. Monunenta Iuris Canonici. Series A: Corpus glossatorum, 1. Vol. 2, p. 64.

45 Theodosian Code 9.38.3 (398 AD). This notion reappears in the twelfth century, for example in the Summa ‘Elegantius’, where it is asked whether fresh allegations ought to be accepted after sentence has been pronounced: Part VII. 2a. p. 153.

46 Burchard of Worms. Decreta, xvi. 9. PL 140.911.

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