Liber Septimus
three separate canonical collections
The Liber Septimus (Latin for "Seventh book") may refer to one of three Catholic canon law collections of quite different value from a legal standpoint which are known by this title.
Constitutiones Clementinae, 1314
The Constitutiones Clementis V or Constitutiones Clementinæ are not officially known as "Liber Septimus". However, they were so designated by historians and canonists of the Middle Ages, and even on one occasion by pope John XXII in a 1321 letter to the Bishop of Strasburg. This collection was not even considered a "Liber" (book).
It was officially promulgated by Clement V in a consistory held at Monteaux, near Carpentras (southern France) on 21 March 1314, and sent to the University of Orléans and the Sorbonne in Paris. The death of Clement V, occurring on 20 April following, gave rise to certain doubts as to the legal force of the compilation. Consequently, John XXII by his bull Quoniam nulla, of 25 October 1317, promulgated it again as obligatory, without making any changes in it. Johannes Andreæ compiled its commentary, or glossa ordinaria. It was not an exclusive collection, and did not abrogate the previously existing laws not incorporated in it (see Corpus Juris Canonici and Papal Decretals).
Decretales Clementis Papæ VIII, 1598
The name has also been given to a canonical collection officially known as Decretales Clementis Papæ VIII. It owes the name of "Liber Septimus" to Cardinal Pinelli, prefect (president) of the special congregation appointed by Sixtus V to draw up a new ecclesiastical code, who applied this title to it in his manuscript notes; Prospero Fagnani and Benedict XIV imitated him in this, and it has retained the name.
The public source identifies “Liber Septimus” as three separate canonical collections. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Liber, Septimus and three.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 28, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q119873111. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1314, 1321, 1317 and 1598.
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This entry incorporates text from “Liber Septimus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.