John XXII Research Articles

“Pro arduis negociis destinandum” – Papal Delegates and the Neapolitan Succession (1328–1352)

The Neapolitan succession was one of the most problematic issues of Hungarian foreign policy in the Angevin period. As has been emphasized in the secondary literature, the Holy See, especially Pope John XXII (1316–1334) and Clement VI (1342–1352), played an active role in the negotiations between the Hungarian and the Neapolitan crowns. The diplomatic mediation of the papal court was carried out mainly by papal delegates with different types of authorizations. The primary aim of the present paper is to examine the details of these commissions and reveal who the clerics appointed by the Holy See to handle this delicate diplomatic matter were, what title they were given for the time of their delegations, and most importantly, what the outcomes of their commissions were. The paper focuses on the time when the papacy was most actively involved in the diplomatic events concerning the Neapolitan succession, namely from the death of Charles, duke of Calabria, the sole heir of Robert, king of Naples (1328), until the agreement of Joanna I and Louis I in 1352.

Оговорка папы, или О соблюдении соборных правил в средневековом Крыму

Introduction. In the papal bulls concerning the establishing of the bishopric of Cherson and the metropolis of Vosporo in 1333, a specific point is made on erecting these towns from the status of locus to that of civitas and metropolis, contravening their status in the hierarchy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Methods and materials. In order to understand what had formed the legal basis for establishing the Catholic hierarchy, documents of the Constantinople Patriarchate are attracted. Analysis. The Greek archbishoprics of Cherson and Vosporo are mentioned in the lists of bishoprics of Notitiae episcopatuum and in the acts of the Constantinople Patriarchate. However, by 1333, both of the archbishoprics suffered difficulties: an archbishop of Cherson had not been mentioned in the acts since 1280, as his archbishopric dropped out of the main list of the Notitiae episcopatuum under the reign of the emperor Andronicus II Palaiologos. The metropolis of Vosporo had not been mentioned in documents since the middle of the 13th century. Thus, Pope John XXII chose the right time to substitute vacant sees by Latin bishops. The pope, however, paid much attention to observing the canonical borders of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as set by Rule 28 of the Chalcedonian Council. Results. The attention paid by the Roman pontiffs to observing council rules helps us to correct the perception of parallel church hierarchies coexisting in the Black Sea Region in the 14th – 15th centuries. The presenting of bishops with the same titles, even of different confessions, was not considered normal and was understood as a schism to be overcome. Similar game rules may be traced to the examples of other sees of the North Pontic Region, as Sugdaia and Phoulloi, Solchat and Zichia.

La Vita del povero et humile servo de Dio Francesco: una memoria negata.

The Vita del povero et humile servo de Dio Francesco is a fourteenth-century compilation, the volgarizzamento of some latin franciscan sources including the Liber Chronicarum written by Angelo Clareno. It was probably assembled in the circles of the friars called “fraticelli”: after the declarations of Pope John XXII, they were persecuted and declared heretics for their profession of absolute poverty. The text did not have great success in the world of Franciscan studies. This article aims to retrace its editorial history and propose new hypotheses about its genesis and circulation methods, starting from the analysis of the manuscript tradition – which counts four manuscripts. The purpose is to reconsider this compilation in the light of the most recent studies about medieval translation and the history of dissidence, in order to reconstruct an historical-literary framework born under the influence of Angelo Clareno and Pietro di Giovanni Olivi.

The Saga of Abbot Germanos of St George of Mangana in Nicosia and Greek-Latin Ecclesiastical Relations on Cyprus in the Reign of Pope John XXII

Abstract Based on published and hitherto unpublished papal letters, this paper reconstructs the fascinating story of Abbot Germanos of St George of Mangana, one of the wealthiest Greek monasteries in Latin-ruled Cyprus. Beginning with an updated exposition of the monastery’s Byzantine origins and Constantinopolitan ties, the paper continues with Germanos’ appeals to Pope John XXII (1316-1334) concerning the settling of a dispute between Germanos himself and a group of his monks in the 1320s. Germanos’ case thus becomes a window for exploring the motivations of historical actors in a world shaped by the politics of Latin domination in the East, the agenda of papal supremacy, the Bulla Cypria constitution, and Latin and Byzantine monastic traditions and practices. The need to address these conditions in a realistic way, while serving institutional and personal interests, enabled the development of complex networks that cut across the binary of Greek vs. Latin. The editio princeps of Pope John XXII’s first letter to Germanos (8 July 1322) is an invaluable addition to the Mangana affair portfolio, contributing to a fuller picture of the crisis, providing information on the protagonists and the monastery, and reflecting papal pastoral concerns in the East.

Pater sancte … the position of papal nuncio in Outremer according to Pierre de Manso's letter to Pope John XXII

Our narrative sources for the history of Cyprus largely fall silent for the period between the death of Pope Clement V in 1314 and the passing of King Hugh IV of Lusignan in 1359. The Vatican Archive helps fill the gaps, notably the papal letters addressed to the apostolic nuncios stationed on Cyprus, who played a particularly important role in the reign of Pope John XXII (1316–34). One of these nuncios, Pierre de Manso, wrote a surviving letter to the pope, dated 1332 and edited here in an appendix, which provides precious information about the nature of this office in the early fourteenth century. With the help of the author's forthcoming edition of the over 600 letters of Pope John concerning the kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, this paper investigates the roles, responsibilities, and problems of papal nuncios on Cyprus, encountering sometimes fierce opposition from the crown and from other members of the Latin clergy, especially in the collection of papal taxes. It offers an in-depth examination regarding sources of papal income from Cyprus – primarily clerical tithes, annates, and spoils from deceased prelates – and the difficulties in raising it, how the money was transported to Avignon, and how funds meant to support Cilician Armenia were diverted to finance papal warfare in Italy. It also looks at Pope John's policy of controlling all episcopal, archiepiscopal, and patriarchal appointments. An appendix highlights the shortcomings of existing calendars of papal letters concerning Cyprus and argues for a southern French origin of Pierre de Manso.

Cultural Encounter, Race, and a Humanist Ideology of Empire in the Art of Trecento Venice

Cultural Encounter, Race, and a Humanist Ideology of Empire in the Art of Trecento Venice

The Irish Remonstrance: Prototype for the Declaration of Arbroath

It has long been known that there are similarities between the Declaration of Arbroath and the text known as the Irish Remonstrance which antedates it by three years and survives only in Scottish sources. Both are letters to Pope John XXII complaining of injustices the senders experience at English hands, asking him to intervene that they may be left in peace having a prince of their own ruling over them, the Declaration asserting that the Scots have chosen Robert I as their king, the Remonstrance that the Irish have selected his younger brother, Edward Bruce. Being diplomatic letters both naturally follow a set formula but this paper argues that, when broken into their constituent parts, they make (most notably in their exordium and narratio) a series of about a dozen important points in support of their case, in such a matching sequence as to indicate that the author of the Declaration relied heavily on the text of the Remonstrance. Given the high regard in which the Declaration is justifiably held, and the rather poor opinion modern scholarship has had of its Irish exemplar, the paper advocates a re-evaluation of the latter.

A Longing for Peace: Putting the Declaration of Arbroath in Context

The general context surrounding the despatch to Avignon of the Declaration of Arbroath has been acknowledged and understood for some time. However, a detailed examination of the diplomatic to-ing and fro-ing between Scotland, England and the papacy in the years before and after 1320 reveals several significant aspects that have hitherto been overlooked. The most important is the pivotal role played by the death of the heir to the Scottish throne in Ireland in 1317, which prompted King Robert to engage directly with Pope John XXII, something the former had studiously avoided until then. This reflected the ultimate failure of Scottish military policy designed to force a peace treaty out of Edward II based on Scottish independence and a Bruce kingship. Henceforth Scotland’s leaders worked hard to appear model members of Christendom’s elites, despite the ongoing excommunication for their earlier contumacy. The interdict was finally lifted only a few months before Robert’s death and shortly after the conclusion of a ‘final’ peace with Edward III’s regency government (brought about by good old-fashioned military action).

The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery: Collected Essays by Patrick Zutshi

Reviewed by: The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery: Collected Essays by Patrick Zutshi Blake Beattie The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery: Collected Essays. By Patrick Zutshi. (Florence: SISMEL. Edizioni del Galluzzo. 2021. Pp. xiv, 466. €68,00. ISBN: 9788892900646. Starting with John XXII (1316–34), the popes of Avignon built up a remarkably elaborate administrative machinery that generated a voluminous body of official paperwork, on which so much of the study of the Avignonese papacy rests. The essential connections between the two–that is, the institutions of the papal bureaucracy, on the one hand, and their documentary output, on the other–has long stood at the heart of Patrick Zutshi’s scholarship. In this volume Zutshi presents twenty essays, all but two of which have been previously published, here revised, updated, and organized into a cohesive (if not quite fully monographic) study of “the largest and perhaps the most complex of the various departments within the Roman curia” (p. 4) at fourteenth-century Avignon, the chancery. The result is a brightly lit window into the inner workings of the single most advanced and sophisticated administrative system of the European Middle Ages, from one of the leading scholars in the field. The essays gathered together here span much of Zutshi’s career. Chapters 13 and 19 first appeared in the late 1980s; chapters 9 (“At the Point of Death: Licences to Choose a Confessor in mortis articulo Issued by the Avignon Popes,” pp. 179–203) and 12 (“The Autograph Letters of the Avignon Popes,” pp. 241– 252) were written for the book (2021). Following a foundational first chapter (a crystalline introduction to the high and late medieval papal chancery and the different types of documents it produced), the book is thereafter divided into five thematically organized sections. The first contains five chapters—one of which (no. 3) [End Page 807] was coauthored with the late Peter Linehan–which concern themselves with “Petitions and Registers” (pp. 27–138). Chapters 7–9 pertain to “The Chancery and Its Production” (pp. 141–203); chapters 10–12, to “The Role of the Pope” in the production of chancery output (pp. 207–51). Zutshi’s long-standing interest in the Avignon papacy and England is evinced by five chapters (13–17) on “Papal Letters and English History” (pp. 255–357). Neatly, the final three chapters (18–20) address “Papal Letters for the University of Cambridge,” where Zutshi served for years as Keeper of Manuscripts and University Archives. The sometimes byzantine intricacies of the curia and its departments can be daunting, but Zutshi is a sure and steady hand. An institutional scholar in the tradition of Guillaume Mollat, he guides readers easily through the chancery, its workings, and the different types of its documentary products. Zutshi has a superb sense of the bureaucratic spirit that animated the Avignon papacy and communicates it with clarity and precision. His work is everywhere informed by meticulous textual scholarship. Zutshi is never far from the manuscripts—indeed, most chapters contain appendices in which he presents exemplars of the documentary texts he elucidates. Much more than simply a useful assemblage of previously published works, The Avignon Popes and Their Chancery stands as the first major, stand-alone, monograph-length study of its subject, in any language (p. ix); as both a supremely informative overview and an eminently informative reference work, it will long be essential reading for scholars of the later medieval papacy and of medieval institutional history more broadly. Blake Beattie University of Louisville Copyright © 2022 The Catholic University of America Press

“Iidem Episcopus et Ecclesia, quos speciali affectione prosequimur”. Pope John XXII and Iohannes Grothonis, bishop of Cracow (1326-1347)

The article presents a study on the relations between John XXII, one of the most prominent Avignon popes, and Iohannes Grothonis, one of the prelates with the strongest character in the 14th-century Polish episcopacy. Sources from pontifical archives show that Grothonis often addressed the pope, requesting help with local matters, both ecclesiastical and political. John XXII’s answers to the issues he was asked to solve help in reconstructing the nature of the problems (often jurisdictional ones) that led the bishop to address the highest ecclesiastical authority. Most of the pope’s answers to the episcopal letters were positive. The author analyses the problems of the 14th-century Polish bishop in light of the relevant papal documents.

Дринаго – Белград в средновековните карти „портолани“

The strange name of the city of Drinago first appeared on Angelino Dalorto’s “portolan” map from 1325. In later “portolans” made by other cartographers, the name continues to be used. In terms of its geographical location, the city of Drinago in question corresponds to Belgrade. The name Drinago itself is a distorted variant of the Latin-Hungarian name of the city “Alba de Nander” > “Denader” > “Drinago”. It is especially interesting that Dalorto placed above the city an image of a flag with the monogram “Ш” of the ruling Bulgarian dynasty of the Shishmanids. This shows that, around 1325 when the map was drawn, Belgrade was under the rule of Tsar Michael Shishman. This is indirectly confirmed by a letter of Pope John XXII from 1329 to the Bishop of Belgrade, in which he mentions that the city is under the rule of the Bulgarian Empire. Thus, the information on the map is confirmed by the Pope’s letter.

Jacques Fournier and the Poverty Controversy: New Evidence from a Neglected Gospel Commentary

The Franciscan doctrine of absolute poverty became one of the most controversial matters under discussion in the 1320s. Even after John XXII's poverty decrees, it did not cease attracting the attention of prominent theorists. This article examines the so-far neglected contribution by the key theologian of the Avignon court and future pope, Jacques Fournier (c.1285–1342). His monumental Matthew commentary contains a lengthy discussion of evangelical poverty. Comparing this text with various counsels drafted for the pope, this article brings to light Fournier's stance on poverty, placing it within the debates held at Avignon during the conflict between John XXII and Ludwig the Bavarian.

A Threat to Invade Cyprus: Pope John XXII, Walter of Brienne Duke of Athens, and the Latin East in 1331

Abstract The Brienne family first laid claim to the throne of Cyprus in the 1260s. The family subsequently rose high in the service of the Angevin kings of Naples and continued to assert their claim from time to time, but they seem never to have been a serious threat to Lusignan rule. Nevertheless, recently discovered papal letters demonstrate that as late as 1331 there were concerns that Walter VI of Brienne, duke of Athens, would divert to Cyprus a planned expedition against the Catalans occupying his duchy. Although King Robert the Wise of Naples was the rival of King Hugh IV of Cyprus for the title of king of Jerusalem, the letters also reveal that Pope John XXII called upon Robert to prevent such an invasion, as other newly uncovered letters show the pope to have done when the Genoese threatened to send invasion fleets to the island in 1317 and 1328. The new letters are published in an appendix.

Edremit Deniz Savaşı (1334)

Türk gazilerinin XIV. yüzyılın ilk çeyreğinde yaptıkları sürekli akınlar Yakındoğu'da üsleri bulunan Hristiyan devletlerin tepkisini çekmiştir. Bu akınların kaynağı Batı Anadolu'da yer alan denizci Türk beylikleriydi. Onlardan birisi olan Karesi Beyliği, Doğu Roma imparatorluğu çevresinde ve Kuzey Ege'de önemli bir tehdit haline gelmiştir. 1320'lerden itibaren Türk denizcileriyle savaşmakta olan Venediklilerin Avrupa'da Türkler aleyhinde propagandaları da böyle bir seferin oluşmasına katkıda bulunmuştur. Buna rağmen Fransa kralı VI. Philippe ve Papa XXII. Iohannes'in esas arzuları Kudüs'ün Hristiyanlar tarafından geri alınmasıdır. Venediklerin Türk aleyhtarı söylemleri ve Türk gazilerinin akınları Ege Denizi'nde bir Haçlı ligi oluşturulması fikrini kuvvetlendirdi. 1331'den itibaren başlayan ilk müzakereler 1332 yılında Rodos'ta yapılan görüşmeyle sonuçlanmış, çeşitli sebeplerle ittifakın tam oluşması 1334'e kadar sürmüştür. Birleşik Haçlı donanması Karesi Beyliği'nin Bergama kolunun lideri Yahşi Bey'i boyunduruk altına almak için harekete geçip Edremit Körfezi'ne gelmiş, bunun sonucunda 1334 tarihli Edremit Deniz Savaşı yaşanmıştır. Savaşı Haçlı ordusu kazanmış, Karesi donanması ağır bir hezimete uğramıştır. Edremit Deniz Savaşı galibiyeti 1291'de Akka'nın düşmesinin ardından Haçlıların ilk önemli başarısı olmuş ve daha sonraki Haçlı liglerinin kurulmasını temellendirmiştir.

Toward the Golden Bull and against the Pope: The Role of Custom and Honor in King Ludwig IV's Nuremberg and Frankfurt Appellations (1323–24)

AbstractThis article addresses the onset of a decades-long conflict between the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire King Ludwig IV of Bavaria and the papacy. When Ludwig intervened on behalf of antipapal factions in northern Italy in 1323, Pope John XXII issued an ultimatum demanding that Ludwig immediately cease to exercise the royal power and title on the pretext that he had never received papal approval of his royal election. Failure to comply meant that the king would fall under sentence of excommunication. Ludwig responded with nearly identical appeals issued in Nuremberg and Frankfurt. Against previous arguments that these appeals were either legal documents operating within the confines of Roman Canon law or artifacts of protomodern realpolitik, this article argues that the “Nuremberg” and “Frankfurt Appellations” emerged from the king's preoccupation with his honor. His Appellations utilized the language and form of Roman Canon law to defame his opponent while he sought to ennoble and justify his actions with a rhetoric mirroring that in supposed repositories of imperial customary law such as theSachsen- andSchwabenspiegel. In arguing that German custom superseded the jurisdiction of papal law in his Appellations, Ludwig elevated a discourse concerning royal elections to the highest levels of imperial politics where it would remain and find inclusion, in intent if not precise formulation, in the famed Golden Bull of 1356.

The ‘Crocodile’ of Carcassonne. Dominican Sanctity and Bernard Gui’s Life of Martin Donadieu († 1299)

A “crocodile” was how the fourteenth-century Dominican inquisitor, bishop, and hagiographer Bernard Gui and his nephew, Peter Gui, characterized the Carcassonnais Dominican friar, Martin Donadieu († 1299) in their vita of Brother Martin. Unlike Dominican saints’ lives from the thirteenth century who had often performed highly public, thaumaturgical miracles that demonstrated the power of the Church in the swiftly changing urban environment, Martin enacted none of his own, while those that he experienced were comparatively unimpressive. To the Guis, Martin was like a crocodile, for while he excelled when immersed in the “waters” of Dominican preaching-he was somewhat bumbling when on the “dry land” that constituted the rest of his daily life. Initially, according to Peter Gui, Pope John XXII had wished to canonize Martin, but eventually settled on Thomas Aquinas. Nevertheless, Bernard later wrote his life of Martin and Peter wrote a brief continuation, emphasizing Martin as a flawed human being whose saintliness came because of his total embrace of the Dominican vocation. In this way, Martin Donadieu became a metonym for the Carcassonne Dominicans that proclaimed the holiness of their mode of life.

Iglesia, imperio y poder en el primer tercio del siglo XIV. El enfrentamiento entre el papado, Luis IV de Baviera y los Visconti de Milán desde la iglesia de Santiago de Compostela

El pulso entre Papado e Imperio ha sido una constante en el contexto de la teoría política de la Edad Media. La oposición entre ambos tuvo en los años 20 del siglo XIV un nuevo episodio en el panorama europeo: el enfrentamiento material, doctrinal y político entre Juan XXII y Luis de Baviera, con los Visconti de Milán como peones destacados, y al hilo del cual se empezarán a delimitar las posiciones en la pre-configuración de los Estados Modernos. Este artículo analiza las cuatro comunicaciones relativas a la cuestión que el papa Juan XXII dirige entre 1324 y 1330 al arzobispo de Santiago de Compostela, Berenguel de Landoira, bien próximo al pontífice. Tales fuentes, no localizadas por lo de ahora en otras sedes y de las cuales editamos un documento, permiten desarrollar la incidencia del cambio en la teoría política en el noroeste peninsular así como el seguimiento de la cuestión.

L’epistola a Cangrande, la scomunica dello Scaligero (6 aprile 1318) e la bozza “Ne pretereat”.

This article provides a detailed reconstruction of the events that occurred in Northern Italy between 1317 and April 1318, i.e. from the time when Pope John XXII ordered the inquisitors Bernard Gui and Bertrand de la Tour to undertake a diplomatic mission to when the imperial vicars were actually convicted for bearing such a title. It analyses the political climate in which the epistle to Cangrande della Scala may have been written, bearing in mind that according to the decree, anyone who addressed the vicars in question with that title would be subject to excommunication as well. The article also reconsiders the reception of the draft “Ne pretereat”, which was used by Bernardo Gui to prepare public opinion for the dissolution of the empire.

A Treasure Trove of Medieval Prophecy: The Origin of Vaticanus Latinus 3819 Reconsidered

Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3819 is an important anthology of medieval prophetic texts that has appeared frequently in scholarship ever since Herbert Grundmann first drew attention to it in the 1920s. Grundmann argued that the manuscript was produced during the pontificate of John XXII (r. 1316-34) and that it must have been of Italian or southern French origin. These parameters have shaped virtually all subsequent discourse concerning Vat. lat. 3819. However, scholars have long overlooked the final item in the manuscript, an extract from a major prophetic work of the thirteenth century, the Super prophetas of pseudo-Joachim of Fiore, traditionally known as Super Esaiam prophetam. I argue that this extract must have been copied at Avignon underpapal auspices sometime between 1375 and 1407, during the height of the GreatSchism of the Western Church, and that it was probably copied with the explicitintention of appending it to the rest of this prophetic compilation. I derive my evidence for this assertion from the manuscript’s repeated appearances in medieval library inventories and from a rigorous codicological examination that reveals subtle differences between this extract and the rest of the manuscript in script, decoration, and layout. The significance of this finding is twofold. First, it helps elucidate the transmission of Joachite material across Europe and the special role that Languedoc, particularly Avignon, played in this process. Second, it serves as another indicator of how Joachim’s influence reached the highest levels of the Church, suggesting that the Avignon popes engaged with the prophetic future during a critical moment of the Church’s history, which underscores in turn the centrality that Joachim of Fiore and his influence ought to have in our understanding of the Middle Ages. This study concludes with a detailed description of Vat. lat. 3819, paying special attention to this final extract.

Beyond Reformation: An Essay on William Langland's Piers Plowman and the End of Constantinian Christianity

<i>Beyond Reformation: An Essay on William Langland's</i> Piers Plowman <i>and the End of Constantinian Christianity</i>