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if one of them baptizes their child, but that it was discovered that this was
wrong according to general canon law, and the passage was thus reformu-
lated in some manuscripts.36 Árni’s Christian Law says, as expected, that
the parents need not separate.37 The textual situation is similar to that dis-
cussed above in the context of women administering emergency baptism.
So, when did European canon law start to say that parents could continue
to live together after this kind of emergency baptism?
the pivotal text was a letter that Pope John VIII wrote in 879 to
Bishop anselm of Limoges in france. a layman called Stephen had sought
the help of the pope. Stephen had baptized his son, who was very sick,
since he could not bring him to a priest quickly enough. Bishop anselm
had ordered Stephen to separate from his wife, because of the spiritual
kinship that was created between the couple when their son was baptized.
the pope ruled that anselm had been wrong to do so, and that Stephen
should stay married to his wife for as long as they lived.38
Given that a pope had decided already in 879 that parents need not
separate if one of them baptized their child, why did the old Christian
Law of Iceland, composed centuries later, at first say the opposite? a
papal statement did not, however, automatically become law. the jurists
of Europe paid no attention to this particular precedent until the second
half of the eleventh century.39 John VIII’s decretal did not become widely
36 Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Af fornum lögum og sögum, 39–46, ascribes key importance with regard
to this development to a ruling which archbishop Jón Birgisson of trondheim, according to
the Law of frostathing, had issued on emergency baptisms. Since there are no substantial
verbal echoes in Icelandic law, which in any case did not accept all of the archbishop’s ruling,
there is no reason to ascribe the development to norwegian influence, when Icelandic clergy
had direct access to the European legal tradition, e.g., in the cathedral libraries.
37 “Kristinréttur Árna,” ch. 8: “Beriz sva at at moðir eða faðir sciri barn iþeima nauðsẏniom.
þa scolo eigi þess kẏns gvðsifiar scilia hiu scap þeira.”
38 the letter is edited by Erich Caspar in Epistolae 7, Monumenta Germaniae Historica
(Berolini: apud Weidmannos, 1928), 156; it is listed as JE 3258 in Philipp Jaffé and
Wilhelm Wattenbach, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post
Christum natum 1198 (2 ed.; Lipsiae: Veit, 1888) and as J3 6796 in Philipp Jaffé et al., Regesta
Pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII 3 (3
ed.; Gottingae: Vandenhoeck et ruprecht, 2017). Its appearance in the first recension of
Gratian’s Decretum is at C. 30 q. 1 c. 7, see Decretum Gratiani, ed. by Anders Winroth
(2018), gratian.org.
39 twenty-two appearances of this text in canonical collections pre-dating Gratian’s Decretum
appear in Linda fowler-Magerl’s database Clavis canonum, www.mgh.de/ext/clavis
(incipit: “ad limina*”); none of these appear in manuscripts predating the second half
THE CANON LAW OF EMERGENCY BAPTISM