Papal Curia Research Articles

Kardynał Bessarion i jego księgozbiór

Cardinal Bessarion (ca. 1400–1472), a theologian born in Trebizond and educated in Byzantium, made a career in the hierarchy of the Byzantine clergy and attracted the attention of the imperial family. He was one of the most active participants of the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439). Following the failure of the church union in Constantinople, Bessarion came to work for the papal curia in Rome. As a cardinal he used his income and contacts to help Byzantine refugees and Greeks living under the rule of the Republic of Venice, especially after the fall of Constantinople. Fearing that the loss of statehood could mean that the heritage of Greek culture would fall into oblivion, Bessarion created a great library containing the masterpieces of Ancient Greek literature, the classical philosophical works, and the texts of the Eastern Church Fathers. In 1468, he donated this collection to the Republic of Venice, and in such a manner founded one of the first public libraries in Europe.

The Cistercian monastery of S. Martino al Monte in the 13th century through papal documents: first considerations on the relations with the Roman curia

This essay aims to reconstruct the history of the Cistercian monastery of S. Martino al Monte, located near Viterbo (Lazio), and focuses on its relations with the papacy and the papal curia during the 13th century. The analysis of the monastery’s documentation, especially papal records, has revealed that the first half of the century was a fruitful time for the Cistercian community. The monastery strengthened its relations with the Roman curia thanks to the personality of some eminent abbots who were involved in the workings of the curia, and to the support of some cardinals who promoted the Cistercian coenobium, subsidized its building renovation, and sponsored the abbey's interests in the curia. The monastery also enlarged its patrimonial endowment and reorganized its administrative and accounting system to improve the management of its possessions.

‘Theologians know best’: Paris-trained crusade preachers as mediators between papal, popular and learned crusading pieties

ABSTRACT The study of the crusades would be transformed if scholars started not with papal letters but with evidence demonstrating how organisers in various periods and regions served as brokers between papal, popular and learned discourses and crusading pieties. Surviving preaching materials suggest that Paris masters promoting various crusades forefronted contemporary reform campaigns targeting usurers, sexual incontinence and heresy. Preachers anticipated or responded to audiences’ concerns about specific elements of crusading, outlining various forms of participation while situating the crusade within a web of familiar or novel devotional practices. Promoters could ignore, (re)interpret and adapt the images and particulars presented in papal letters and often forwarded knowledge of local circumstances and substantial queries to the papal curia, thereby influencing future papal communications. Individual popes reacted in a responsive rather than dictatorial manner in both communication and policy, while papal communications were always subject to local interpretation and negotiated reception and implementation.

Propugnaculum sive Clipeus Christianitatis •

Propugnaculum sive Clipeus Christianitatis •

Middle English Manuscripts and Their Legacies: A Volume in Honour of Ian Doyle

Middle English Manuscripts and Their Legacies: A Volume in Honour of Ian Doyle

The Papacy and the English Religious, 1305–52

Abstract: This article examines the local effects of papal centralisation of ecclesiastical administration in the first half of the fourteenth century. It traces as a case study the impact on English monastic communities of papal privileges and exemptions, papal attempts to regulate religious observance, the expansion of the papal judicial system, and the growth of papal appointments of heads of houses. It concludes that the reality differed from the high theory of papalist claims to immediate and universal jurisdiction. Papal power ultimately depended on the consent of local actors and an increasingly assertive Crown, and burgeoning administrative activity at the papal curia did not translate into increased power and influence.

Nur mit Papier, Feder und Wachs

Summary Only with Paper, Pen and Wax. The Lawyers of Emperor Henry VII in Italy between Legal Practice and Political Advice This article examines the role of the learned jurists and judges at the “Italian court” of Emperor Henry VII (1308 – 1313) as legal practitioners and political advisors on the basis of a contemporary text, the so-called “Consilium” written by the court judge Milanzo. This text, written in the spring of 1313, shows Milanzo in dialogue with the emperor and his closest circle of advisors. Milanzo not only answers to open legal questions, but also presents the emperor with his own plan for an important political and military project: to integrate the city of Venice into the Empire “only with paper, pen and wax”. This plan was apparently convincing, for Milanzo was subsequently entrusted with its implementation. The political engagement that is evident from Milanzo’s text can possibly be explained biographically: many of the jurists who can be traced to Henry’s court held leading positions in the Italian communes and signories, at the papal curia or at episcopal courts and universities. This prosopographical explanation for the often-stated influence of the learned jurists on Henry VII’s politics, is concretised in this article on the basis of selected biographies.

Embroidering the Life of Thomas Becket during the Middle Ages: Cult and Devotion in Liturgical Vestments

From the early studies of Tancred Borenius (1885–1948) to the present, the iconography of the archbishop Thomas Becket has drawn attention among scholars. Numerous studies have been published on the representation of Becket’s martyrdom in mural painting, sculpture, and reliquary caskets. Despite this attention, many questions concerning the selection of episodes embroidered in liturgical vestments and textiles, as well as the commissioning of these objects, remain unresolved. How devotion to Becket spread globally in the Western world has not yet been satisfactorily determined, and there may have been a number of different factors and transmitters. Thus, medieval embroidery could also have been a driving force behind the development and the dissemination of Becket’s cult—notably in the ecclesiastical and, more specifically, episcopal milieu across the Latin Church. This type of production quickly reached ecclesiastical patrons, who were interested in the opportunity of wearing a headpiece or vestments (copes and chasubles) that would serve as reminders of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was the perfect opportunity for a papal curia that, since Alexander III, had tasked itself with promoting Thomas Becket’s legacy, integrating the saint within Christian martyrial history and within a history of a militant Church.

“Married the Sister of His Late Wife”

The study examines the social practices and cultural attitudes concerning kin-marriages of both the aristocracy and the common man. The analysis of lay petitions handed in to the papal curia asking the dispensation of kin-marriages highlights the dynamic relationship of social practices and official norms and reveals changing attitudes and practices to marriage, kinship and law from the 15th to the 17th century.

Curialists and Hungarian Church Benefices in the 14th Century

The papal government was characterized by centralization in the 14th century in which the tax system and the papal beneficial policy were two main factors. The Avignon popes strived to extend their influence on every stratum of the ecclesiastical hierarchy by rewarding the members of the curia’s dévéloping administrativé systém with bénéficés in thé local churchés. Thé changés in thé functioning of the papal curia offered a great opportunity for a growing number of qualified clerics to build successful careers in the papal service. The process briefly described above had an impact on the contemporary ecclesiastical structure of the Hungarian Kingdom, as more and more clerics tried to obtain benefices with papal protection, especially in the second half of the 14th century. Soon not only papal officers, but cardinals and the members of their entourage held Hungarian ecclesiastical titles as well. The main aim of the present paper is to analyse the lifepath of a curialist, Petrus Begonis. First procurator of cardinal Guillaume de la Jugie, later papal chaplain, Petrus Begonis was granted various church offices – also in the Hungarian Kingdom – and charged with diverse diplomatic tasks in different parts of Europe (Hungary, Holy Roman Empire, Italy). His ecclesiastical career – spanning from the reign of Clement VI to that of Urban VI – gives an insight in the functioning of the papal curia in Avignon and helps us comprehend the administrational changes in the 14th century.

The Legation of Gui de Boulogne in the Hungarian Kingdom

Following the first Italian campaign of Louis I, the papal court tried to prevent the Hungarian king from attacking the Kingdom of Naples for the second time. Pope Clement VI sent a prominent member of the papal curia as legatus a latere to Louis I to negotiate: Gui de Boulogne, cardinal presbyter of S. Caecilia. As the consequence of the shortness of his stay in the Hungarian Kingdom, the legatine activity of the cardinal has rather been neglected by the historiography until now. The main aim of this present study is therefore to examine Gui dé Boulogne’s légation in Hungary in detail, as well as to propose a new approach for the analysis and consider the topic from the institutional-historical point of view.

The Secret of the Apostolic Grave: The Tomb of Peter between the Middle Ages and Modernity

The tomb of St Peter under the Vatican basilica was one of the most famous, although mysterious, shrines of Europe. The actual object of worship was a tiny plot on which memorial structures and altars had been erected in sequence, but this fact became known only after the archaeological excavations of the 1940s. In the Middle Ages, the tomb of Peter was regarded as a forbidden, inviolable shrine. The legends developed that included fictitious information about the structure of the tomb. During the Renaissance, the liturgical and ceremonial space of the Vatican basilica, now the principal temple of the Pope, underwent subtle changes making the shrine even less accessible. With the development of the “papal monarchy”, the basilica became the ‘throne of Peter’, and the apostolic tomb, by now regarded as the foundation of the church, was perceived by some Roman humanists as the heart of the universe. The altar over the tomb became the centre of New St. Peter’s, but while the temple was being built, some members of the papal curia began to doubt the actual existence of the sacred grave. These doubts, dangerous as they were for the ‘papal monarchy’, contributed to the consolidation of its sacrosanct status, along with reverence for the shrine, observance of the ancient tradition and the ideological importance of the tomb.

A pápai Kúria tagjai és a magyar javadalmak a 14. században: Petrus Begonis életpályája

The papal government was characterized by centralisation in the 14th century in which the tax system and the papal beneficial policy were two main factors. The Avignon popes strived to extend their influence on every stratum of the ecclesiastical hierarchy by rewarding the members of the Curia’s developing administrative system with benefices in the local churches. The changes in the functioning of the papal curia offered a great opportunity for a growing number of qualified clerics to build successful careers in the papal service. The process briefly described above had an impact on the contemporary ecclesiastical structure of the Hungarian Kingdom, as more and more clerics tried to obtain benefices with papal protection, especially in the second half of the 14th century. Soon not only papal officers, but cardinals and the members of their entourage held Hungarian ecclesiastical titles as well. The main aim of the present paper is to analyse the lifepath of a curialist, Petrus Begonis. First procurator of cardinal Guillaume de la Jugie, later papal chaplain, Petrus Begonis was granted various church offices – also in the Hungarian Kingdom – and charged with diverse diplomatic tasks in different parts of Europe (Hungary, Holy Roman Empire, Italy). His ecclesiastical career – spanning from the reign of Clement VI to that of Urban VI – gives an insight in the functioning of the papal curia in Avignon and helps us comprehend the administrational changes in the 14th century.

Stilus—modus—usus. Regeln der Konflikt- und Verhandlungsführung am Papsthof des Mittelalters / Rules of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Papal Court in the Middle Ages ed. by Jessica Nowak, and Georg Strack

Reviewed by: Stilus—modus—usus. Regeln der Konflikt- und Verhandlungsführung am Papsthof des Mittelalters / Rules of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Papal Court in the Middle Ages ed. by Jessica Nowak, and Georg Strack Peter McDonald Nowak, Jessica, and Georg Strack, eds, Stilus—modus—usus. Regeln der Konflikt- und Verhandlungsführung am Papsthof des Mittelalters / Rules of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Papal Court in the Middle Ages (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 44), Turnhout, Brepols, 2019; hardback; pp. viii, 351; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503585079. This volume is the first of two from a collaboration sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to investigate norms of interaction with the medieval papal curia, informed by the work of Gerd Althoff and Franz Felten on the 'rules [End Page 251] of the game' (Spielregeln). The sixteen papers examine primary sources that traverse the meanings of stilus and its cognates modus and usus, from hard legal rules and formulas to unwritten etiquette. The thematic companion volume will cover emotions, gifts, rituals, ceremonies, networks, global history, and gender. The first five studies analyse ecclesiastical lawsuits heard before the pope in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries: Klaus Hebers on the post-Reconquista primatial claims of Toledo; Daniel Berger on the status of Compostela; Markus Krumm on conflict between Montecassino and Benevento; Claudia Zey on St Peter's in Oudenburg's independence from St Médard's in Soissons; and Harald Muller on the litigation before Innocent III over Evesham Abbey's exemption. The papers illuminate from litigants' records the development of formal legal process and court rules (mos), the variable role of payments and gifts, delaying tactics, and unwritten rules such as brevity in address and good form in social interaction (for example not discussing cases at the pope's table). Legal forms grew more prescriptive, but performative and rhetorical gestures remained important. Maria Pia Alberzoni puts into historical context, in church disputes from Milan, Innocent III's decretals, which established tests for authenticity of papacy documents. Litigation then gives way to diplomatic. Thomas Smith documents thirteenth-century English bishops' use of the stilus curiae in writing to Rome, occasional exceptions when bishops would presume on their status to address the pope at length, and cultivation of curial networks of influence. Barbara Bombi shows that the fourteenth-century English royal chancery, contrary to earlier scholarly consensus, used the stilus curiae in communication with the papacy. The archives of the Crown of Aragon provide rich insight into the Avignon curia, but Sebastian Roebert cautions that Heinrich Finke's edition in Acta Aragionensia is fragmented and misleading. Privileges, dispensations, benefices, and politics are the principal subjects of these interactions. Andreas Kistner uses fourteenth-century cardinals' wills to explore neglected dimensions of law and custom. Kerstin Hitzbleck and Claudia Märtl study literary depictions of the curia, Hitzbleck the De squaloribus curiae Romanae of theologian and bishop Matthew of Cracow (d.1410), which denounced worldliness and simony, especially in papal provisions, and Märtl the writings of fifteenth-century humanist historians in the curia. These document curial methods, including Pius II's simplifying of petitioning to reduce fraud. But Pius's attempts to introduce humanistic style into papal documents foundered because it lacked the protections against forgery provided by the established stilus curiae. Resident ambassadors became fixtures in the fifteenth century. Isabella Lazzarini uses a curialist's diary to illustrate protocol and conflicts over precedence. Gabriele Annas identifies the reports of the resident proctors of the Teutonic Order as sources on conflict management. Duane Henderson analyses the extensive reporting on curial life from Milanese ambassadors, but notes their tendency to play up their own influence. Finally, Claudia Märtl surveys the emergence from 1470 of printed guides to stilus and usus for petitioners and for proctors at the Rota. [End Page 252] The editors do not attempt a synthesis, content to 'cut the first swathes through the thicket of sources' (p. 18). They propose that scholars distinguish between stilus, hard rules of drafting and procedure, and modus, the less formal 'rules of the game'. The fluidity of medieval language may, however, defy neat characterization. The studies are episodic, although there is some cross...

L’abbaye de Fontfroide et son abbé devenu vice-chancelier de l’Église romaine, Arnaud Nouvel (1296-1317)

Among the abbots of the ancient abbey of Fontfroide in the diocese of Narbonne were Pope Benedict XII and the vice-chancellor of the Papal curia, Arnaud Nouvel. Manuscript and printed sources enable us to follow the career of Nouvel from the time of his nomination to the officialité of Toulouse to his death in 1317. They focus especially on the privileged period that Fontfroide enjoyed during his time as abbot and then as cardinal. A protege of the counts of Foix and close to Pope Clement V, Arnaud Novel knew how to ensure the abbey benefited from the favour that he enjoyed. Increases in its temporal wealth, papal protection, and the cardinal’s own generosity: all contributed to make the two first decades of the fourteenth century the last period of splendour of the medieval history of Fontfroide.

Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c. 1000–c. 1500 ed. by Thomas W. Smith

Reviewed by: Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c. 1000–c. 1500 ed. by Thomas W. Smith Beth C. Spacey Smith, Thomas W., ed., Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c. 1000–c. 1500, Brepols, Turnhout, 2020; hardback; pp. 412; 19 b/w illustrations, 2 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503585291. This is a superb and substantial collection. Thomas Smith has successfully marshalled twenty-two chapters in this interdisciplinary exploration of power and authority in the medieval Church, curating a varied yet coherent compilation. While some of the chapters are more explicitly linked to the book's central themes than others, the collection nonetheless succeeds in demonstrating how enormously variable Church power and authority was in form, justification, and expression over time and space. A key issue that emerges across the contributions concerns the Church's ability to move beyond claims to authority to act upon those claims, and how often those mechanisms of power were dependent upon local cooperation. The range of disciplines and approaches represented in this collection is commendable and highlights that much important research continues to be undertaken in what remains a vigorous field, and that many fruitful avenues of inquiry remain. Part I explores ideas of papal authority. Ian Robinson examines how eleventh-century ecclesiasts drew on fifth- and ninth-century ideas of judicial supremacy in their own discussions of papal primacy. Benedict Wiedemann explores how letters from the papal curia of Innocent III drew upon different methods to legitimize the Pope's authority as regent of the Kingdom of Sicily during the minority of Frederick II, while Rebecca Rist addresses the question of whether the popes of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were anti-Judaic or anti-Semitic. Laura Cleaver examines how the genealogical diagrams contained in four thirteenth-century English manuscripts portrayed papal power and authority through the positioning of depictions of popes and their contemporaries. Part II looks to the authority of papal representatives. Smith uses the case study of thirteenth-century Languedoc to examine how the absence of local support could affect papal legates' ability to wield power, while Gábor Barabás outlines the varied fortunes of legates in thirteenth-century Hungary, from cooperation to incarceration. Philippa Mesiano uses the case of thirteenth-century papal nuncio Master Rostand Masson to consider how papal representatives exercised power [End Page 262] in their diplomatic destinations. Finally, Jean Dunbabin identifies how papal representatives could respond pragmatically to the local diplomatic landscape, by exploring a case of dual secular-ecclesial rulership in late thirteenth-century Sicily. Part III considers relations between the papacy and the Eastern Churches. The chapter by the late Bernard Hamilton examines papal attitudes towards the separated Eastern Churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the papacy's prioritization of 'corporate' over 'individual' conversion. James Hill analyses the entanglement of papal power and its ability to achieve unity with and reform of the Byzantine and Armenian Churches respectively, while Mike Carr argues that the Avignon papacy did wield authority in its regulation of Latin trade with Muslims, as evidenced by trade licences. Part IV examines the cultural history of ecclesiastical authority and power. Matthew Ross traces cultural life at the medieval curia through the examination of the papal chapel. Jan Vanderburie analyses the symbolism of the Oignies treasures associated with Jacques de Vitry, arguing that Jacques deliberately drew on specific imagery in his self-fashioning. Catherine Lawless uses two images from the Florentine Franciscan context to explore the relationship between the power of female mysticism and the authority of friars, the latter of which recognized the devotional power of the former and acted as mediators with the realm of male ecclesiastical power. Kirsty Day demonstrates how examples of royal and noble women associated with female Franciscan communities in Bohemia and the Polish duchies challenge the narrative of women religious as defiers of male ecclesiastical authority. Part V discusses ecclesiastical communities. Nicholas Vincent considers how secular authorities exercised power over bishops, examining the conventions for the ordering of bishops in the witness lists of Henry II's charters. Maroula Perisanidi considers how Eustathios of Thessalonike offers an alternative model of spiritual and moral authority in...

History and Antiquities of Dutch Catholicism in Jacobus de la Torre’s 1656 Relatio seu descriptio status religionis Catholicae in Hollandia

ABSTRACT Created to provide the papal curia with an update on Catholicism in the nominally Protestant Dutch Republic, the 1656 Relatio seu descriptio status religionis Catholicae in Hollandia of Jacobus de la Torre, the third apostolic vicar of the Holland Mission, offers far more than an administrative report. Through an extensive series of historical digressions, he sets up a detailed account of the history of the Holland Mission, chronicling not only its recent political and religious history, but also inventorying its historical heritage. Drawing inspiration from contemporary secular historiography, de la Torre thus creates a “national history” of the Holland Mission that not only celebrates the religious heritage of Dutch Catholicism, but also deftly mobilises history to influence ongoing church-political debates. Using historical arguments, he sets the Holland Mission up as the legitimate successor of the Archdiocese of Utrecht and defines relations between various groups of clerics active in its territories.

The Papacy, Conciliarism and Crusade, 1449–1517

Between the Council of Basle and the Fifth Lateran Council the papal curia was subject to much pressure to convene a new general council to address the urgent need for a crusade. This essay examines the relationship between the forceful lobbying for a council by Europe's rulers, and the persistence of conciliarist sentiments in society at large, particularly among its educated elite. While secular rulers were exploiting the vulnerability of the popes for their own ends, it would be reductive to interpret their demands for a council as crudely manipulative rather than as the expression of broadly-based fears and aspirations.

Arbitration, Delegation, Conservation: Marginalized Mechanisms for Dispute Resolution in the Pre-Reformation English Church

The records of diocesan and peculiar courts of late medieval England have received extensive academic scrutiny, generating a reasonably clear picture of a hierarchical pyramid ultimately headed by the papal curia. However, that picture is an incomplete depiction of the totality of the ecclesiastical mechanisms of dispute resolution. Existing scholarship largely ignores the use of arbitrated extra-curial settlements to avoid litigation (or, alternatively, a formal sentence). Concentration on the provincial court hierarchy also marginalizes the more directly papal courts of judges delegate and assorted local agents with judicial powers, which functioned within England between 1300 and the Reformation and bypassed the normal fora. Drawing on a wide range of scattered source material, this article introduces these neglected elements of the church's legal system, including the resident papal conservators appointed at the request of petitioners to exercise a general delegated papal judicial authority on their behalf, whose existence has been almost completely unnoticed. It suggests the significance of arbitration, delegation and conservation within the wider structure, and the need to give them much more attention if the practical importance of canon law in pre-Reformation England is to be properly understood and appreciated.

Bishop Bateman and Bury St Edmunds: The Two Laws Clash

Abstract Bishop Bateman’s assertion of his authority over the exempt abbey of Bury St Edmunds in 1345 brought him into conflict with a house closely linked to both papacy and Crown, and came at a time of Anglo-papal tensions. Bateman was no anti-papalist but, as a legal rigorist, wanted to satisfy himself about Bury’s claims to exemption and restrain its monks’ extra-mural misbehaviour. He had some basis for this in canon law, but the ensuing lawsuit at the papal curia seemed to be going against him until swept aside by a writ of prohibition. The monastery looked to the Crown as its chief protector, and the English courts asserted royal rights aggressively. They found Bateman and his commissaries in contempt for breaching the prohibition and for asserting that only the pope could confer exemption; the abbey’s papal privileges were only confirmations of royal charters. They confiscated Bateman’s temporalities and imposed massive fines, and the pope was powerless to intervene. This amounted to a repudiation of 250 years of canon law, harking back to the eleventh-century Eigenkirche. But Edward III needed Bateman as a diplomat, and imposed a compromise under which both sides withdrew their suits and he pardoned the bishop. As Anglo-papal relations settled after 1350, the Crown let canon law stand and did not enforce the doctrines developed in this case. Edward was content with bringing his bishops to heel, and the two systems resumed their normal co-operation. Still, the courts had set a new precedent for royal control.