A scholar or expert in papal decrees and religious law during the Middle Ages.
From Latin decretum (decree) + -ist (one who specializes in). Medieval canon lawyers who studied and interpreted official church decrees became known by this term.
Decretists were basically the medieval version of Supreme Court law clerks—they spent their entire careers parsing papal documents and arguing about what a single phrase really meant. Some decretists became so famous that their commentaries were used in courts for centuries.
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