Gratian was a twelfth century canon lawyer, traditionally described as a monk and teacher at a monastery in Bologna, who worked in ecclesiastical centers including Tuscany, Bologna, Rome and Chiusi, where he served as bishop before his death around 1150. He compiled the Concordia discordantium canonum, known as the Decretum Gratiani, finalized in a vulgate version soon after the Second Council of the Lateran in 1139, which attempted to reconcile centuries of seemingly contradictory church canons into one coherent, systematically organized body of law. The Decretum served as the primary source for canon lawyers until Pope Gregory the Ninth's own Decretals gained official status in 1234, and Gratian's pioneering of systematic canonical jurisprudence earned him the title Pater Juris Canonici, the Father of Canon Law.
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