Download PDF | (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks) Ian S. Robinson - The Papacy 1073-1198_ Continuity and Innovation-Cambridge University Press (1996).
576 Pages
THE PAPACY 1073-1198
Before the middle of the eleventh century the pope was far from being the active leader of the Church that he is today: he restricted himself to the local concerns of the diocese of Rome and was virtually ignored by the outside world. This book is a study of the transformation of the role of the pope in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, from which he emerged as monarch of the universal Church, dedicated to reform and to making the Church independent of secular control. The most important role in the new model government was given to the cardinals, who henceforward were the principal advisers, agents and electors of the popes.
These developments were accelerated by schism and political conflict: on three occasions the lawful pope was driven into exile by an antipope supported by a powerful secular ruler. Professor Robinson's text emphasises the growing importance of the college of cardinals and the practical aspects of papal government. It offers the most detailed analytical study yet available of this key period in the history of the papacy.
PREFACE
This is a study of the papacy and its relations with western Christendom in the period from the accession of Gregory VII to the death of Celestine III. In order to compress so large a subject into a relatively small book, my approach has inevitably been selective. I must, therefore, begin by explaining precisely which aspects of papal history are treated in this study. Firstly, my subject-matter is the papacy's relations with the churches and kingdoms of the west. To have included a survey of papal relations with Byzantium and the other neighbours of western Christendom would have made the book far too long and so I was obliged to omit this complex topic. The first part of my book presents the institutions of the papal government in action. Chapter one deals with the problems of governing the city of Rome and the lands of the papacy ('the Patrimony of St Peter').
The following six chapters examine the institutions by means of which the papacy sought to govern the western Church: the college of cardinals and the curia (chapter two), the papal council (chapter three), the papal legation (chapter four), papal judicial institutions and the pope's legislative authority (chapter five), the papal protection accorded to religious houses (chapter six) and papal financial institutions (chapter seven). All these institutions were either created or remodelled to serve the needs of the reform papacy in the later eleventh century. All survived the drastic rethinking of papal policy in the 1120s and 1130s (which some historians have called 'the end of the reform papacy') and greatly extended their operations in the course of the twelfth century.
The second part of the book is devoted to the papacy's involvement in the secular politics of western Christendom. It is concerned with the political ideas of the papal curia (chapter eight), the papal role in the promotion of the crusade (chapter nine) and the two relationships which dominated papal political calculations in this period: that with the Norman principalities of southern Italy (chapter ten) and that with the empire (chapter eleven). Each of these topics is examined from the point of view of the papal curia, as an aspect of papal reforming or political strategy; and the effect of this approach is necessarily to produce a study much narrower in its range than would be appropriate, for example, in a general history of the western Church. My treatment of the religious orders in chapter six provides an obvious illustration of this. One of the most important features of the history of the Church in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries was the development of new conceptions of the religious life and the foundation of new religious orders.
In this major innovation in the life of the Church the role of the papacy seems often to have been a rather limited one, which provides an obvious contrast with the decisive role of the thirteenth-century papacy in the history of the religious life. The popes of the later eleventh and twelfth centuries appear in the history of the religious orders not as innovators but as protectors. They were urgently requested by the new religious houses and by their founders and patrons to use St Peter's legitimating authority on their behalf and to confer on the houses the powerful protection (patrocinium) of St Peter. My discussion of the papacy's relations with the religious orders, therefore, concentrates on these papal institutions - the legitimating role and patrocinium - rather than on contemporary monastic institutions. A similar case is that of heretical movements, another topic which would command considerable space in a general history of the western Church in this period. The eleventh- and twelfth-century popes did not respond to the problem of heresy in the decisive manner of their thirteenth-century successors.
Their response remained largely on a theoretical level: the theory of the pope as defender of the catholic faith and the theory of the lay power as the 'secular arm' of the Church. These are consequently the aspects of the problem of heresy which are treated here (respectively in chapters two and three and in chapter eight). The enormous subject of the crusade is likewise treated here solely from the papal point of view (chapter nine). Considerations of space have also prevented me from providing a full bibliography. However, readers who wish to make a more detailed study of topics covered in this book will find in the footnotes a guide to the extensive secondary literature on the papacy in the period 1073-1198.
The footnotes are intended also to give students some impression of the range and character of the available primary sources. These notes above all emphasise my indebtedness to the distinguished scholars who are currently working in this field. The century-and-a-quarter covered by this book was the period in which the popes ceased to be concerned exclusively with the narrow affairs of their diocese of Rome and began to exercise that universal jurisdiction throughout Christendom claimed by the tradition of the Roman church. That tradition was summarised ca. 1150 by Bernard of Clairvaux for the instruction of his pupil, Pope Eugenius III. According to your canons, some are called to a share of the responsibilities, but you are called to the fullness of power. The power of others is confined within definite limits, but your power extends even over those who have received power over others . . . [The pope] must rule not the people of this or that city or region or kingdom, . . . not one people but all people . . . the universal Church spread throughout the world, made up of all the churches.
The popes of the years 1073-1198 intended to use this unique authority to reform the Church. These years witnessed two successive papal reform movements. The first of these, inaugurated in the Roman councils of Gregory VII in 1074 an d IO75> w a s t n e wellknown 'Gregorian reform' of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The papal reform which had begun under imperial auspices in the middle of the eleventh century was a movement dedicated to the eradication from the Church of simony and clerical marriage. In the early Church 'simony' had been defined as the sale of priestly ordination by a bishop; but the term had subsequently been extended to cover all trafficking in holy things.
In the eleventh century the term 'simony' was most frequently used for the sale of the office of bishop or abbot by the secular ruler. It was regarded by the reform papacy as the earliest and most dangerous of the heresies of the Christian Church. By the time of the accession of Gregory VII in 1073 the papacy had reached the conclusion that the most potent cause of simony was the royal control over ecclesiastical appointments which was characteristic of western Christendom in the eleventh century. Bishops and abbots were usually elected in the king's presence and must perform feudal homage to the king, from whom they received the investiture of their office and the property attached to it. The Gregorian reform was an attempt to end this secular control of ecclesiastical appointments and the resultant subordination of the priesthood (sacerdotium) to the royal power (regnum). The reformers' objective was, in Gregory VII's words, 'to snatch [the Church] from servile oppression, or rather tyrannical slavery, and restore her to her ancient freedom'. The reforming measures and the political strategy adopted by Gregory VII provoked a conflict with the most formidable secular ruler in the west, King Henry IV of Germany, which continued long after the deaths of the two antagonists. Historians have called this conflict 'the Investiture Contest' after the ceremony of investiture, which symbolised the traditional lay control of the Church. The second papal reform movement of our period was less dramatic than the Gregorian reform. Unlike Gregory VII's struggle for the freedom of the Church, it did not lead to conflict with the secular power. The new reform programme was introduced in Innocent II's council of Clermont in 1130 and it was elaborated in successive councils, culminating in the Third Lateran Council of Alexander III in 1179. The new programme was concerned not with the freedom of the Church, but with the discipline of the clergy and the inculcating of Christian standards among the laity.
It was in order to reform the Church that the popes of the period 1073-1198 sought to communicate with the faithful throughout western Christendom by means of papal legates and papal councils. It was in the interests of reform that the papal government became more efficient and that papal judicial procedures were made more effective. Reform is the first underlying theme of this study: the second theme is schism and its effects on the papacy. Three papal schisms dominated the history of the papacy in this period: the schism of the antipope 'Clement III' (1080-1100) and his short-lived successors (1100, 1102, 1105-11, 1118-21); the schism of'Anacletus II'(1130- 8); the schism of the antipopes 'Victor IV (1159-64), 'Paschal III' (1164-8) and 'Calixtus III' (1168-78). Each of these antipopes was supported by a secular ruler powerful enough to drive the lawful pope out of Rome and into exile: 'Clement III' by Emperor Henry IV, 'Anacletus II' by King Roger II of Sicily, 'Victor IV and his successors by Emperor Frederick I.
The popes of the schism of the late eleventh and early twelfth century found refuge mainly in southern Italy; the popes of the later schisms found refuge in central and northern Italy and in France. These three schisms were not resolved in Rome: it was ecclesiastical and secular opinion throughout western Christendom which ultimately accepted the claims of the popes and rejected those of the antipopes and their secular champions. The aphorism in which Bernard of Clairvaux described the fate of Innocent II in the schism of the 1130s - 'he was expelled from the city and accepted by the world' - applied equally to the other popes who were driven out of Rome by antipopes at the end of the eleventh century and during the twelfth century. Urban II, Paschal II and Calixtus II in the first of these schisms, Innocent II in the 1130s and Alexander III in the schism of 1159-77 were ultimately victorious in their struggle against the antipopes because they were 'accepted by the world'; but they must first persuade princes and churchmen throughout the west of the legitimacy of their cause. These efforts at persuasion inevitably brought the papacy closer to the world outside Rome. It was not only the three schisms of our period that forced popes to leave Rome. During the years 1073-1198 Rome became a dangerous residence because of the hostility of the Romans towards the pope.
In the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries papal independence was threatened by the ambitions of noble families. After 1143 the threat was intensified by the foundation of a Roman commune which claimed jurisdiction over the city. The popes maintained their freedom of action by creating a system of government which made them independent of the Romans, by exploiting the resources of the papal territories ('the Patrimony of St Peter') and by means of their alliance with western princes. How far the popes succeeded in emancipating themselves from Rome in this period is evident from a glance at the origins of the nineteen popes of the years 1073-1198. Only five were Romans: Gregory VII, Innocent II, Anastasius IV, Clement III and Celestine HI. Three were southern Italians: Victor III, Gelasius II and Gregory VIII. Eight came from central or northern Italy: Paschal II (Bleda), Honorius II and Lucius II (Bologna), Celestine II (Castello), Lucius III (Lucca), Urban III (Milan), Eugenius III (Pisa) and Alexander III (Siena). There was one Frenchman (Urban II), one Burgundian (Calixtus II) and one Englishman (Hadrian IV). The same impression of emancipation from Rome can be found in the college of cardinals during this period.
The reform papacy of the later eleventh century gave an 'international' character to the cardinalate, which it continued to bear during the twelfth century. The appointment of French and above all of central and northern Italian cardinals reflected the importance of these regions for the twelfth-century papacy. The college of cardinals was by far the most important institution in the papal government of the twelfth century. The cardinals served the pope as his principal advisers, the chief administrators of his government, his most trusted legates; so that it is impossible to write a history of the papacy in this period without investigating the college of cardinals and its factions. This book is therefore as much a study of the cardinals as of the popes. I should like to record my grateful thanks to Ms Gillian Maude and Mr William Davies of the Cambridge University Press for their valuable advice and tireless assistance. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the staff of the libraries in which I have been privileged to work in recent years: to the staff of the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, especially Mr Roy Stanley; to the staff of the Lesesaal and Handschriftenabteilung of the University Library, Bonn; to the staff of the Library of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and of the Staatsbibliothek, Munich; to the staff of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbuttel.
Important material was found for me by friends working in other libraries: Elizabeth Diamond-Rublack (Tubingen), Sheila Watts (Gottingen) and Niall 6 Ciosain (Florence). I was particularly fortunate in the support and encouragement of my colleagues, Professor Aidan Clarke and Dr Patrick Kelly. My family in Germany — Waldi and Werner Becker in Bad Godesberg, Dagmar and Walter Hammerstein in Nassau - generously provided me with an ideal environment in which to work. I record my grateful thanks to them and above all to my longsuffering wife, who must be extremely glad that this book is finished.
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