Regino of Prum: Two Books on Synodal Causes and Ecclesiastical Disciplines

Regino of Prum (ca. 840-915), after being deposed as abbot of Prum, became a notable musical theorist, historical chronicler, and student of the canons. His Two Books on Synodal Causes and Ecclesiastical Disciplines have generally been seen as practical handbooks to be used in the decision of synodal cases. Although they may have been used in the course of episcopal visitations, they are not to be read as limited to such use. They are to be regarded primarily as a pedagogical tool, intended to remedy an ignorance of the canonical tradition by the clerics in his part of the world. They are intended to be of use to all who have some position of responsibility within the Church and, ultimately, to every member of the Church. They are meant to help form every Christian, but particularly those clerics who have the responsibility to issue judgments and hear confessions in the Church, and to develop in them a disciplined discernment and a habit of addressing issues as they arise in personal and community life in the light of Scripture and of the long experience of the Church. They are brilliantly arranged around the device of questionnaires which fosters a case-based and tentative approach to the resolution of problems while avoiding abstraction and striving to mitigate legalism. The work was influential in its own region, but obtained much greater resonance through its eventual absorption into the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, thus affecting the whole Western canonical tradition.