decretalist

English

Etymology

decretal +‎ -ist

Noun

decretalist (plural decretalists)

1. (historical) A member of a 13th-century school of interpretation of canon law that emphasized the decretals (letters issued by the Popes on matters of church discipline) in preference to the Decretum Gratiani (1141), which their rivals, the decretists, favoured.
   • 1990, Julia Bolton Holloway, Constance S. Wright, Joan Bechtold, Equally in God's Image: Women in the Middle Ages, page 135:

     If the decretalists were concerned that prospective spouses be able to carry out their moral obligations, they were no less interested in preserving spousely rights after the conjugal knot was tied.

Related terms

• decretalism