Index Canonicus

In addition to articles from journals and collected works, monographs, databases, archival material and bequests, encyclopaedia articles and relevant internet links can be searched. The data of selected review organs are also included in the Index Canonicus. The Index Canonicus offers special searches on ecclesiastical and secular court decisions as well as on universal and particular laws. When licensable, the full texts of essays, reviews and books can be accessed directly.

The Index Canonicus is a free open access offering to the worldwide specialist community. The publishers of the Index Canonicus are

• the Specialised Information Service in Theology [Fachinformationsdienst (FID) Theologie] at Tübingen University Library together with the two theological faculties in Tübingen
• the Institute for Canon Law at the Faculty of Catholic Theology (University of Münster) in cooperation with the
  • canon law departments of the universities of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Freiburg, Mainz, Regensburg and Tübingen
  • and the canonical departments of the dioceses of Hamburg, Osnabrück and Limburg
• the Chair of Canon Law at the Institute for Practical Theology of the Faculty of Catholic Theology (University of Innsbruck)

We hope you enjoy discovering the Index Canonicus and are grateful for your feedback!

As part of the cooperation, KALDI has so far been able to add around a further 9,000 data sets (as of February 2023).

DaKaR is a cooperation of currently nine parties. These are the chairs of canon law at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, the University of Regensburg, the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, the Catholic University in Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and the Westfälische Wilhelms-University in Münster and, as non-university institutions, the Vicariates General in Hamburg, Limburg and Osnabrück. In the past, the Vicariate General of Erfurt and the Chair of Church History at Radboud University Nijmegen have also participated.

In 2016, the Index Theologicus team asked for the first time whether cooperation and thus a larger joint database was possible. In 2021, the DaKaR was fully migrated to the Index Theologicus and thus also to the Index Canonicus. At present, around 2000 new titles are added each year by DaKaR and improvements are also made to the "old" data, so that the search in the Index Canonicus can be continually improved with the help of the DaKaR network.

Since 2019, the Specialised Information Service (“Fachinformationsdienst” or FID) in theology at the UB Tübingen has been indexing literature on canon law in cooperation with the chair of church law at the Catholic faculty of theology of the University of Innsbruck, publisher of the canon law database KALDI. The Institute for Canon Law (“Institut für Kanonisches Recht”) in Münster, publisher of the canon law database DaKaR, joined this cooperative enterprise in 2021.

Since the data from both KALDI and DaKaR was migrated in the Index Theologicus, the indexing of literature on canon law has been performed cooperatively and has been available to the global research community since 2022 under the name Index Canonicus.

The titles available in the Index Canonicus constitute a subset of the Index Theologicus. They are chosen according to selection criteria related to the research field. As a specialised subsystem of the more general Index Theologicus, the Index Canonicus constitutes a targeted offer for research in church law and provides additional benefits through its comprehensive indexing and its field-related selection of literature.

The Specialised Information Service (FID) in theology provides the library tools necessary for cataloguing and indexing the literature to its cooperation partners. It is also responsible for the hosting, automatic procedures and technical implementation of the service.

Now you may enter the desired codex followed by the desired canon. For c. 517 of the CIC/1983, enter "cic83 517". This works analogously with the CCEO (cceo) and the CIC/1917 (cic17).

You will now receive all titles for which a reference to the corresponding Canon could be found.

Special search for the "new canones" for Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus (2015) and Pascite gregem Dei (2021): It is possible to search specifically for these canones. To do this, the advanced search must be set and then searched for the keyword "Strafrechtsreform"(reform of criminal law) or "Eheprozessrechtsreform"(reform of matrimonial procedure) and, for example, for the Canon "CIC83 1311". The result will only show articles that contain both keywords.

For a detailed introduction to the codex search see here.

Good luck with your Codex Search!

You may narrow down the search according to certain criteria by selecting the corresponding facets. For example, you can select the “Electronic” media type, the “Article” format and the “German” language. The number of titles is now reduced to about 2,300.

Search by content

IxTheo Classification

For this purpose, you can use the advanced search by clicking on “Advanced Search” underneath the search field. There, you will find the IxTheo classifications among others. The following classes are available for Church Law:

• SA Church law; state-church law
• SB Catholic Church law
• SC Church law; Anglican Church
• SD Church law; Protestant Church
• SE Church law; Orthodox Church

You may select the corresponding classes by clicking on them. You may also select a range of classes by holding the “shift”-key while clicking on the start and finishing items of the range. If you want to select several individual classes, just hold the “Command”-key (on Apple computers) or the “Ctrl”-key (on Windows computers) while clicking on each item.

After selecting your options, just click on “Find” to start a search on the IxTheo classifications you selected.

Search Terms

Enter the term in the search field and leave the search category on “All Fields”. IxCan will then search for the term you entered in all search fields.

To conduct a search by content, you may find the search category “Subject” very useful. In this case, the search is conducted on subject headings assigned by our staff.

IxCan - Find Topic

When you select this option, it opens an additional search field in which you may enter your search term. This term is then used as the starting point of the browsing.

1st example: enter the term “Canon Law”. You will then see a list of subject heading strings in which the term "Canon Law" occurs in combination with other terms.

2nd example: enter the terms “canon law” and “Woman”. You will then see a list of subject heading strings which contain the words “canon law” and “Woman”.

Browse the Catalogue

The standard browsing function of the software used by IxCan (VuFind) makes it possible to browse through various fields: DDC-Classification, IxTheo-Classification, Topic (subject heading), Author and Publisher. In a further step, you may determine the items you wish to browse by using other fields.

For example, select “Author”, then “By IxTheo-Classification”, then “SA Church law; state-church law”. You will then see a list of authors who have worked in this subject field, sorted according to the number of their works catalogued in the IxCan.

Browse Alphabetically

With this search option, you can decide at which point in the alphabet you would like to start the search. After you’ve selected the browsing category (you may select among Topic, Author, Title or DDC-Classification), enter the letter at which you would like to start to browse.

1st example: select “By Author” and enter “Z” next to “starting from”. You will then get a list of all authors whose name starts with the letter “Z”.

2nd example: select “By Title” and enter “Tr” next to “starting from”. You will then get a list of all the titles which start with the letter “Tr”.

Alerting function

The alerting function lets you know when new articles from certain journals and new volumes from certain series are available. You may decide in which cases you would like to get a corresponding message.

In order to receive such “alerts” for a journal or a series, you must mark the corresponding entry for the journal or series as a whole. You can do this by clicking on the “Bell” symbol which you will find on the right side of the corresponding entry. You can manage the list of publications marked for an alert in your account under the heading “New Issue Alerting”.

1st example: in order to get alerts for the Theologische Quartalschrift, search for the title of this journal or enter the abbreviation “ThQ” in the search field. Then select under “Format” the “Journal” facet. You will get two entries as a result: one for the printed, and one for the online version of the journal. In this case, it would be preferable to mark both media types for an alert.

2nd example: in order to get alerts for the series “Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament”, search for the title of the series or enter the abbreviation “WUNT” in the search field. You will then get a list of entries. Mark the series by clicking on the “Bell” symbol.

We will try to make the selection of journals and series for the alerting function more user-friendly in the future. We plan to offer the possibility of marking whole blocks of journals which are catalogued in the IxTheo according to their academic discipline.

Saving search requests

Your current search requests are temporarily stored in the search history. If you would like to have permanent access to certain search requests, you can save them permanently in your account. You may then use them again through a simple mouse click. This feature might be useful for complex requests or for subjects in which you have a continuing interest. In this way, you will find the latest literature on a given subject or area of knowledge.

Saving favorites

You can save interesting titles directly in your account by clicking on the “Asterisk” symbol which you will find on the right side of the corresponding entry. They are then permanently accessible, and you don’t have to waste any time searching for them again. In order to sort such “favorites”, they are kept in lists which you define yourself. In this way, you can assign interesting titles to specific research projects or subjects.

In your account, you can also export your favorites, send them per e-mail or print them.

The person / corporation information page allows users to search for specific authors, corporations and conferences (or conference proceedings).

Retrieve all persons, corporations and conferences by clicking on FIND. You can refine your search by selecting the appropriate criteria in the facets:

• Record Type: Person / Corporation / Conference (Proceeding)
• External References: Authority files / Links to Wikipedia, Links to archives etc.
• Occupation: Theologian / Historian / Priest etc.
• Language: German / English / French etc.
• Location: Berlin / London / New York etc.

Person information pages offer some biographical information and further links, e.g. to Wikipedia, archives and external resources.

The information stored in IxCan on this person are processed and displayed in a clear manner:

• Literature from the author
• Literature on the author
• Relationships to other persons
• Topics (subject headings) on which the author published
• A chronology of publications

A few examples of well-known authors:

• Anne Asselin
• Winfried Aymans
• Anne Bamberg
• Eugenio Corecco
• Sabine Demel
• Eduard Eichmann
• Pietro Gasparri
• Karl-Theodor Geringer
• Stephan Haering
• Judith Hahn
• Heribert Heinemann
• Matthäus Kaiser
• Astrid Kaptijn
• Joseph Listl
• Klaus Lüdicke
• Klaus Mörsdorf
• Hubert Müller
• Helmuth Pree
• Bruno Primetshofer
• María J. Roca
• Heribert Schmitz
• Hugo Schwendenwein
• Myriam Wijlens