[Footnote 124: For an illustration see the _Poenit. pseudo-Theod._, c. iv (19), § 24, in WASSERSCHLEBEN, _op. cit._, 582. The best account of the three classes of penitentials is that of GEFFCKEN, _op. cit._, 62-65, which is here followed. See also ESMEIN, _op. cit._, II, 60; BENNECKE, _Ehebruch_, 54 ff.]
_e_) _Final settlement of the Christian doctrine in the canon law._--From the age of Charles the Great the ultimate triumph of the strict ecclesiastical theory of divorce was entirely assured. But there yet remained a twofold task which it would still require centuries to accomplish. On the one hand, the discordant utterances of the Fathers, the popes, and the councils had to be harmonized or explained away; while, at the same time, the results thus gained had to be exactly formulated and wrought into the intricate system of matrimonial jurisprudence. This was the work reserved for the canonists, and especially for the two great "masters," Gratian and Peter Lombard. On the other hand, the practice of the church must be made more thoroughly to coincide with her theory. A means must be found by which the people could be constrained, so far indeed as that was ever to be realized, to accept the canon law as a guide in the affairs of actual life. This end the church was destined to win by gaining exclusive control of divorce procedure as a part of her general competence in matrimonial causes.
Under the Roman law, as also by that of the Jews, divorce was a private transaction. The intention of the person repudiating his spouse was declared orally[125] before seven witnesses. The state might, indeed, punish the crimes causing the separation or enforce the penalties for unjust action, thus incidentally passing on the legality of the divorce itself; but if the proper forms were observed, the private divorce, whether one-sided or by mutual consent, was valid, and the state gave no action either for enforcing the separation or for the restitution of conjugal life.[126]
[Footnote 125: During the empire a written form, the _libellus repudii_, or letter of divorce, came into use; but the delivery of the _libellus_ was not essential to the divorce: GEFFCKEN, _op. cit._, 27: _ap._ SCHLESINGER, in _Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte_, V (1866), 203 ff.]