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The Council of Lateran IV (1215) was a landmark in the history of European law, when it required ecclesiastical courts to entrust the jurisdiction of the diocese to a person learned in canon law, among other things. This provision was the corollary of the rule that medieval canon law judges were, as a rule, persons who were well versed in the law and who had typically acquired their knowledge at universities. The situation was somewhat different in Hungary, where there was no university in the Middle Ages, but the extensive jurisdiction of the Holy See meant that the institutions of domestic law had to be applied, and the use of lawyers who knew Hungarian law was therefore indispensable. An important feature of medieval ecclesiastical jurisprudence was that, because of the high level of canon law knowledge required, judges were happy and often called upon the assistance of learned canon lawyers (iurisperiti) in complex cases. These lawyers, with their outstanding knowledge, were typically specialists in Roman canon law (ius novum) in the western countries of Europe, but in Hungary they were more likely to be specialists in the customary law of the nobility. Both groups of persons included the most qualified jurists of their time, and the institutional background for the acquisition of knowledge was provided by the universities. It was in these universities that learned law was taught, and not only substantive law but also a new model of procedural law (inquisitio) was created, based on the late Roman investigative trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article approaches, in a hierocratic perspective, Cardinal Jacob of Preneste's legation to the eastern fringe of Christianitas, more precisely to Transylvania, focusing on aspects such as the reasons behind the cardinal's visit to the Kingdom of Hungary, his right to interfere in the internal affairs of said kingdom, and the extent to which he fulfilled the planned objectives. If we look at the overall picture, the legation of Cardinal Jacob of Preneste fell short of expectations, at least from a hierocratic point of view, as it failed to fully impose the discipline requested by the Holy See. If we tally the erroneous decisions, we could even conclude that in most cases the papal legate, Cardinal Jacob of Preneste, actually acted against the interests of the Roman Curia, whose legate he was. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study analyses from a historical and juridical point of view the evolution of Church-State relation inside the Danubian Monarchy, focusing mainly on the repercussions of a legislation advancing in its process of secularization upon the Catholic Church, in general, and the Greek-Catholic Curch in particular. The Church and the State confronted in the second half of the 19th century with the demarcation of their spheres of influence and power. Evolving, from alliance to separation, the relation between the Catholic Curch and State in Austria meant, as a matter of fact, the heading of an irreversible path. By its end, the Catholic Church ceased to by the old worldly power, becoming an emintently spiritual institution, situated at the edge of the society. From a church of state as it once used to be, changed itself in a certain confession, along the other confessions inside the empire. It was the result of some transfigurations which had started a long while ago, but which visible had accelerated in the second half of the 19th century. The starting point of thise aceelerated process was emphasized by the Concordat signed in 1855, between Austria and the Holy See, when the Catholic Church apparently recovered inside the monarchy its role of temporal power detained since the 18th century. In practice, the „restoration‟ was incomplete and for a short period of time. After only several years, the Concordat stopped as being recognised, first in Hungary (1867), and afterwards in Austria (1870). Its repudiation meant that the Church vertiginously sliped towards the edge of the society. The end of this path was underlined in Hungary by the institutionalization of compulsory civil marriage and of the ledger (1894), throughout which the State took the definitely control over marriage, as the last major fief belonging to the Church. Reduced in this way at the necessitous circle of a Sunday exercise, the only hope for the Church was to assume with conscientiousness her real vocation: the spiritual salvation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]