Editing Decretal (section)

{{Short description|Catholic legal document}}
{{more citations needed|date=September 2014}}
{{canon law}}'''Decretals''' ({{langx|la|litterae decretales}}) are letters of a [[pope]] that formulate decisions in [[canon law (Catholic Church)|ecclesiastical law]] of the [[Catholic Church]].<ref name="McGurk10">McGurk. ''Dictionary of Medieval Terms''. p. 10</ref>

They are generally given in answer to consultations but are sometimes given due to the initiative of the pope himself.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Decretals |volume=7 |page=915 |last= Boudinhon |first= Auguste}}</ref> These furnish, with the canons of the councils, the chief source of the legislation of the church, and formed the greater part of the ''[[Corpus Iuris Canonici]]'' before they were formally replaced by the [[1917 Code of Canon Law|''Codex Iuris Canonici'' of 1917]]. However, Cardinal [[Pietro Gasparri]] led the papal commission for the revision of canon law and later on published a guide to the ''fontes'' (sources) used in the 1917 code. Many canons in this code can easily be retraced in their relationship to and dependency on medieval decretals as well as [[Roman law]].

In themselves, the medieval decretals form a very special source which throws light on medieval conflicts and the approaches to their solution. They are sometimes concerned with very important issues touching on many aspects of medieval life, for example: [[marriage]] or legal [[Procedural law|procedure]].