Abstract
In the medieval papacy’s quest for centralized authority, legation was fast becoming an effective administrative and legal weapon. As direct beneficiaries, emblems, and vessels of Roman (i.e., papal) authority, legates achieved a considerable measure of ideological success during the eighth and ninth centuries. This apparent ‘growth of legation’ represents a pivotal phase in the institutional lifespan of this ecclesiastical office, which coincided with — or was even the direct result of — a series of astute Roman bishops and a landmark re-orientation of political allegiances with the Frankish kingdom.1 Provided with ‘the peace and security necessary for the elaboration of a papal government and for a papal rule in central Italy’,2 the papacy began reasserting its claims to power and authority over this period with increasing vigour. As representatives of this developing papal machinery, which was itself emerging in scale from a local to a Western-European and supra-national institution,3 papal legates benefited directly from any and all transformations to the papal-hierocractic theme. While it has been suggested that the practice of early medieval legation only shows ‘the forces and tendencies at work to extend representational authority rather than any concrete extension itself’,4 this chapter argues that some deliberate and symbolic changes were indeed taking shape.
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