368 Introduction Judaism focuses on law, and Christianity on belief. This truism, obviously, is flawed. Institutionalized religious groups tend to develop organizational structures, norms, and practices that become associated with “law,” and Christianity is no exception. Christianity includes law. The law of Catholicism has a long, complex history. Only in the late Middle Ages did the Corpus iuris canonici centralize Catholic law. In previous centuries, Catholic law took many diverse forms. The period studied here, from Charlemagne up until the papal reform movements of the mid-eleventh century, spans three and a half centuries. Not only is the period long, and the geographical area wide-ranging, but the evidence for medieval Catholic law did not always survive, and the evidence that exists is often widely ranging and decentralized. During this period – unlike later centuries – the papacy was generally quite uninvolved in Church law, apart from Pope Nicholas I. Early medieval Church law provides important windows onto ritual, liturgy, Church organization, and even everyday life. It also offers glimpses of a past Catholic Church in which multiple forces, especially bishops rather than the Bishop of Rome, shaped Church law. This chapter argues that in the early medieval period under examination here, Catholic law both reflected and reinforced a largely “horizontal” Church structure, in which bishops played a central role, often in close engagement with secular lords and rulers. The first part of the chapter surveys the types of existing evidence for early medieval Church law, from the Carolingians up until the Gregorian Reform of c.1050. The second part focuses on continui- ties between the Carolingian reforms and the tenth and early eleventh centu- ries. Recent scholarship has increasingly argued that the Carolingian reforms did not end with the fragmentation of the Carolingian empire. Building on that work, this chapter describes three examples of continuities between the 14 Canon Law in the Early Middle Ages Greta Austin Vol_II_Rollo-Koster_9781108493826_C014.indd 368 24-07-2024 08:00:59