structural:scholar_edition
Canon law

In the field of canon law Boniface VIII had considerable influence. Earlier collections of canon law had been codified in the Decretales Gregorii IX, published under the authority of Pope Gregory IX in 1234, but in the succeeding sixty years, numerous legal decisions were made by one pope after another. By Boniface's time a new and expanded edition was needed. In 1298 Boniface ordered published as a sixth part (or Book) these various papal decisions, including some 88 of his own legal decisions, as well as a collection of legal principles known as the Regulæ Juris. His contribution came to be known as the Liber Sextus. This material is still of importance to canon lawyers or canonists today, to interpret and analyze the canons and other forms of ecclesiastical law properly. The " Regulae Iuris " appear at the end of the Liber Sextus (in VI°), and now published as part of the five Decretales in the Corpus Juris Canonici. They appear as simple aphorisms, such as "Regula VI: Nemo potest ad impossibile obligari." ('No one can be obligated for something impossible.') Other systems of law also have their own Regulæ Juris, whether by the same name or something serving a similar function.