LANFRANCO da CREMA (or da CREMONA). — Born in 1189, died at Bologna on 27 February 1229; remembered as one of the celebrated jurist masters of Bologna.
According to Diplovotaccio, he is said to have taught the utrumque ius (canon and civil law), but Sarti raises doubts, because in his day the union of the two laws had not yet been achieved. His glosses, however, reveal a civil-law culture, and his citations of canonists also suggest his knowledge of ecclesiastical law. From an internal examination of his glosses, it may be inferred that he composed and glossed the first three Compilationes antiquae. The celebrated Tancred made use of them in compiling his Apparatus. His glosses bear the sigla L., La., Lan., which sometimes caused him to be confused with Laurentius, the Spanish canonist. Kuttner attributes the reputation of L. as a canonist to this confusion of sigla, which he, along with others, considers an error. Gillmann demonstrated that the glosses attributed to L. are in fact by Laurentius. It seems, however, that L. was the first to conceive the unity of the utrumque ius and that he was among the first to teach the two combined laws for an extended period at Bologna.
In 1203 he went with others to establish the Studium at Vicenza, which did not, however, have a long life and was dissolved in 1209; he returned to Bologna almost immediately. Around 1217 he entered as an oblate (the Necrologium of S. Salvatoris calls him conversus) among the Canons Regular of S. Maria del Reno near Bologna, to whom, at his death, he left many possessions. He is occasionally cited by the ancient canonists.