Definition
Papal decretals and constitutions that circulated outside the organized body of canon law before being formally incorporated into it. The term refers specifically to two collections: the Extravagantes of Pope John XXII (twenty constitutions issued between 1317 and 1334) and the Extravagantes Communes (a broader collection of decretals from various popes, spanning roughly 1261 to 1484, compiled by Johannes Chappuis and published in 1500). Together these two collections form the final stratum of the Corpus Juris Canonici, the foundational body of Roman Catholic canon law that governed ecclesiastical courts across Western Christendom until the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
The Extravagantes followed, in chronological layering, the Decretum of Gratian, the Decretals of Gregory IX (Liber Extra), the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII, and the Clementines of Clement V. They were called extravagantes — meaning, roughly, "wandering outside" — because they initially floated apart from those established collections, not yet digested or arranged within the received canonical order.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Within the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, those papal decretals not contained in certain canonical collections which possess a special authority.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not included in Webster's 1913; the term had no general English circulation outside ecclesiastical and legal contexts.
Editorial note: The word "extravagant" in modern English carries connotations of excess or wastefulness — meanings entirely unrelated to this term. The legal-canonical sense derives from the Latin extravagantes, meaning those things "wandering outside" a formal collection. Researchers encountering the word in historical legal sources should resist any association with the modern English adjective.
Common Confusion
EXTRAVAGANTES is sometimes loosely treated as synonymous with "papal decretals" or "papal constitutions" generally. It is not. The term designates a specific, defined layer of the Corpus Juris Canonici — the post-Clementine additions — and not the whole of papal legislative output. Researchers should also distinguish the Extravagantes from the Clementines, which immediately precede them in canonical ordering and are a distinct collection promulgated by Clement V and officially published by John XXII in 1317.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in ecclesiastical law, medieval legal history, or the history of Western jurisprudence will encounter the Extravagantes primarily as a citation reference in pre-modern legal texts, canon law commentaries, and ecclesiastical court records. Several practical points bear attention.
First, the term appears in historical sources both before and after formal incorporation into the Corpus Juris Canonici. Early references describe them as authoritative but unorganized; later references treat them as settled canonical text. The research context determines which sense applies.
Second, the Corpus Juris Canonici — including the Extravagantes — was effectively superseded for the Roman Catholic Church by the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1917, revised again in 1983. For research purposes, the Extravagantes retain significance primarily in historical ecclesiastical law, in disputes predating the 1917 Code, and in Anglican and other traditions that retained selective reliance on pre-Reformation canon law.
Third, citations in historical common law sources to canon law — particularly in areas touching marriage, legitimacy, testamentary capacity, and tithes — may invoke the authority of the Extravagantes, often without identifying them as such. Researchers tracing the canonical foundation of a common law rule may need to work backward through the Corpus Juris Canonici to locate the operative text.
Fourth, the Extravagantes Communes and the Extravagantes of John XXII are sometimes cited interchangeably in secondary literature. They are distinct collections. Precision in citation matters when locating a specific decretal.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the essential definition without meaningful disagreement. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's provide the most complete accounts. Bouvier adds the useful Latin gloss quasi vagantes extra corpus juris — "as if wandering outside the body of law" — which clarifies the nomenclature more cleanly than the English paraphrase alone. Both Black's editions note that the term persisted even after the Extravagantes were formally incorporated, a point that explains apparent anomalies in historical citations referring to them as extravagantes even within the Corpus.
Burrill's and Rapalje & Lawrence offer no substantive independent content on this term. The Wiktionary definition accurately captures the modern reference use of the term but does not distinguish the two separate collections or their place in canonical chronology — an omission that matters for research precision.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: none identifies the specific two collections by name, none flags the 1917 displacement of the Corpus Juris Canonici, and none addresses the relevance of the Extravagantes to common law jurisdictions through the channel of ecclesiastical court influence. These are the gaps most likely to affect a corpus researcher.
Jurisdictional Note
The Extravagantes operated as binding authority in ecclesiastical courts across Catholic Western Europe through the Reformation period and, for Roman Catholic ecclesiastical tribunals, until 1917. In common law jurisdictions, including England, pre-Reformation ecclesiastical courts applied canon law — including the Extravagantes — in matters of marriage, probate, and certain moral offenses. Post-Reformation English ecclesiastical courts retained selective reliance on pre-existing canon law where not displaced by statute or royal injunction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Canon Law; Corpus Juris Canonici; Papal Decretals; Ecclesiastical Courts