Episcopal Power and Personality in Medieval Europe, 900–1480 ed. by Peter Coss et al.

Abstract

Reviewed by: Episcopal Power and Personality in Medieval Europe, 900–1480 ed. by Peter Coss et al. Thomas A. Fudge Coss, Peter, Chris Dennis, Melissa Julian-Jones, and Angelo Silvestri, eds, Episcopal Power and Personality in Medieval Europe, 900–1480 (Medieval Church Studies, 42), Turnhout, Brepols, 2020; cloth; pp. vii, 303; 1 b/w illustration, 5 colour plates; R.R.P. €85.00; ISBN 9782503585000. It is difficult to exaggerate the role of bishops in medieval Europe. They often had to navigate a delicate tightrope between the demands of the Church and the pressures of the state. But what is a bishop? These figures are hardly shadowy, and they were thought to hold power directly from God and functioned as divine representatives on earth, while their charisma reflected and influenced their communities of activity. They were leaders, politicians, warriors, and officials of the Church, sometimes functioning in all of these roles simultaneously. This volume assesses the medieval episcopate in terms of power and personality. It is a collection of fourteen essays that emerged from a 2015 conference that discussed these themes. The volume seeks to clarify issues around the interface between the personalities of bishops and how this shaped their office, suggests how the reader might best decipher traces of personality in the sources, and how one might untangle the barnacled traditions of hagiography, canonization, and chronicler accounts, all of which tend to add nuance, interpretation, and multiple agendas to the lives and work of these important figures. Naturally, there are silences and limitations in surviving accounts. The editors have drawn together an impressionistic tapestry of episcopal power and personality based on a wide range of sources including chronicles, hagiographical texts, liturgical manuscripts, architecture, and character sketches mined from a variety of historical narratives created between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. What do we learn? Importantly, that bishops are best understood not in their cathedrals but in relation to society around them. Some of these prelates were failures, others wildly successful. But how does one measure success a millennium ago? Crucial here, as the authors underscore, are the relationships fostered and sustained with lay power. Some of the narratives reflect serious rivalries. Could bishops flourish if hostility prevailed between prince and prelate? It cannot be [End Page 202] gainsaid, the authors argue, that bishops were affected by political narratives that played out around them. True enough, but to what extent did the bishops shape those narratives? We read tales of conviction wherein negligent bishops allowed their sees to be overrun by greedy dogs and demonic heresies. What a predicament! Other prelates were warriors dressed in holy vestments, but if the incumbent appeared to lack the requisite masculine traits as required by warrior cultures (twelfth-century Poland for example) then he might be rejected. Sacred and secular expectations clashed. This imperilled the bishop's duty to govern the Church, exercise spiritual authority and maintain a modicum of control over the people in his province. With such momentous responsibilities, the historian is stymied to learn that the early twelfth-century episcopate of William II, Bishop of Troia (southern Italy), left no evidence at all to help determine his thinking about the cure of souls or his influence on religious practice and piety within his sphere of activity. Episcopal registers, wills, charters, correspondence, biographies, hagiographies, and chronicles are either non-existent or fail to shed any light. Personalities and power are represented in the sources revealing glimpses of the episcopate on a broad canvas. An archpriest fled Bologna in disguise in 1239, only later to be made bishop. Monk-bishops embraced two religious worlds, as did prince-bishops. Some were scholars, others were saints, and still others were soldiers. Others were compelled by secular rulers to desecrate the bones of deceased saints, and we find tales depicting bishops behaving badly. Some of these are simply rhetorical devices, but others reflect the venality of some bishops who described themselves as sinners. Bishops used their clout to promote education and establish scholarships. A twelfth-century prelate of Trier often travelled in disguise. Others were unafraid to oppose Rome and we read of letters received from the sitting pontiff thrown to the ground when they did...