Papal Power Research Articles

The Curious Case of Ancona: “Levantines,” Accommodation, and the Exigencies of Papal Power in Adriatic Italy, 1532–1555

The Curious Case of Ancona: “Levantines,” Accommodation, and the Exigencies of Papal Power in Adriatic Italy, 1532–1555

Differences in the civilizational development of the West and the east of Europe (Russia)

In the conditions of the SVO, interest in civilizational differences has grown, the course "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood" has been introduced in universities. The article substantiates the thesis that the culture of the Russian civilization (in the spheres of religion, literacy, writing, law, world perception, art, education systems, science, crafts, etc.) rose from the culture of the GreekByzantine civilization. The differences between Greece and Rome in ancient times, Russia from the West of Europe in the Middle Ages, Russia from Western civilization in modern and postmodern times are shown. The differences in the interpretation of Christianity in Catholicism-Protestantism from Orthodoxy are highlighted. From the slavery of Rome, the domination of the barbarians, the crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunt, absolute scholasticism in philosophy, papocaesarism with its absolutism of papal power and totalitarian attitude towards the flock-subjects and – most importantly – genocide against "their" and other peoples arose. In contrast, Byzantium and Russia with their "caesaropapism" and "symphony of the authorities" relied on a sensitive borrowing of customs and culture of neighbors, the receptivity of other views and beliefs. Thanks to this, the West has always been rigidly antipathetic to any deviations from the "general line" of power, up to total terror, fascism, Nazism, racism and the slave trade. The Russian civilization, relying on the values of ancient Greece and Byzantium and the Mongolian Yassa, preferred the values of empathy (internationalism and collectivism) and therefore was guided primarily by the New Testament. It is this axiological contradiction that determines the age-old Russophobia of the West in relation to Russia, which prevents the legitimization of racism-hegemonism of the West.

Sacrifice and the limits of sovereignty 1589–1613

ABSTRACT Although sovereign power is often defined as transcending legal and religious norms, the work of historians like Prodi and Agamben has drawn our attention to the ways in which modern accounts of sovereignty depend fundamentally upon the fusion and transformation of these norms. In Latin Christendom, this process was enabled by the juridical quality of ecclesiastical authority, its expression through laws similar in form and structure to those of civil power. There was, however, an important strand of Catholic thinking from the late-sixteenth century which emphasised the centrality of sacrifice, rather than law or jurisdiction, in creating communities. For Catholic polemicists like Rossaeus (William Reynolds) sacrifice came before law and the juridical organisation of human society was secondary to the ritual and ceremonial. This article will examine the roots of this claim in post-Tridentine discussions of the Mass as a sacrifice and will go on to show how it was used to defend the primacy of the Catholic Church, particularly in 1590s France. It will consider the impact of this argument and suggest its importance in provoking new and more powerful articulations of both royal sovereignty and papal power.

A New History of Christian Empire: Excavating Pope Sylvester’s Oratory, 1636

This article examines how antiquarians in Rome used archaeological evidence—a site excavated from under the church of San Martino in Monti in 1636—to argue that Pope Sylvester (314–335) exercised spiritual and temporal authority over the Roman Empire. The document which had formed the bedrock of papal sovereignty, the Donation of Constantine, was shown to be a forgery in the early modern period. Protestant reformers pointed to the document’s contradictions to dismantle the Catholic Church’s claims that its preeminence originated in the privileges bestowed on Sylvester by the Emperor Constantine. I use archival materials and a history of the site published in 1639 to describe how antiquarians claimed that they found the house church of Sylvester, which he converted into a church after Constantine’s baptism and then used to host a Roman Council in 324 (before Nicaea). I offer a new perspective on Catholic confessional historiography by observing how antiquarians used material evidence to provide a foundation for early papal power in the Roman Empire, thereby bypassing the need for spurious documents such as the Donation. This new tradition, which lives on today despite modern archaeological critiques, illustrates the malleability of Catholic epistemologies and historiography in the wake of textual criticism.

Shakespeare, Papal Temporal Power, Resistance Theory, Regicide, and Tyrannicide

ABSTRACT The socioreligious context of Shakespeare’s plays was shaped by the international contest for authority precipitated, first, by popes’ exercise of their supposed deposing power in the 1570 and 1580 excommunications of Queen Elizabeth, and, second, by Protestant and Catholic theories of political resistance. As a dramatist who repeatedly included regicide in his plays, Shakespeare was aware of the contemporary political and religious relevance of king-killing. Avoiding the familiar forms of overt Protestant propagandizing, he staged a confrontation between English monarchical and papal power in King John, but in other plays he explored regicide and tyrannicide against the background of resistance theories that implied the need for a monarch to maintain a sufficient degree of popular support to claim legitimacy. At a time of nation-state formation, Shakespeare celebrated English nationalism, but turned a critical eye on the behavior of particular rulers, leaving his audiences free to interpret his plays’ religiopolitical complexities.

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.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

LYON, NICAEA AND KARAKORUM IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ALEXANDER NEVSKY

In the course of contacts with Pope Innocent IV and his representatives, Alexander Nevsky and his father Yaroslav Vsevolodovich expressed their readiness to accept Catholicism and recognize the papal power in church affairs. These contacts took place in the context of the broader ecumenical processes of the 1240s-1250s, led by the heads of the Roman and Byzantine Churches. Rus’ princes and hierarchs took an active part in these processes, remaining faithful to the Byzantine Church. The Mongol threat, which affected all Christians in Europe and the Middle East, directly contributed to the intensification of efforts to restore church unity.

Charles Dumoulin's Annotations in a Lyon Edition of the Decretum

Charles Dumoulin's Annotations in a Lyon Edition of the Decretum1 Thomas Izbicki In 1554 Ioannes Pidaeius, a printer in Lyon, published an edition of Gratian's Decretum. The most notable aspect of this edition was the addition of marginal annotations by the jurist Charles Dumoulin (Carolus Molinaeus) on both the text and the Ordinary Gloss. Dumoulin also numbered the canons, but not the paleae, in the Decretum.2 Dumoulin's annotations, signed 'C. M.', combined history, jurisprudence and Gallican ecclesiology. They also showed signs of a sympathy for Reformed theology, which the author had developed by 1540.3 The author of the notes participated in efforts to correct Gratian's text, but he also used history to undermine papal power in the church.4 Dumoulin's controversial opinions led to the edition being placed on the Index together with orders that those annotations be obliterated. As has been noted, efforts to remove these annotations were not universally successful.5 Scholarship on Dumoulin has not treated these marginal notes systematically, nor has it given adequate [End Page 179] attention to the inclusion of the annotations in the seventeenth-century editions of his Opera.6 The controversial opinions of Dumoulin were not new to this edition of the Decretum. His annotations refer to earlier writings and editions. The writings were: Commentarii in consuetudines Parisienses (begun in 1539);7 De usuris (1547);8 Commentarius ad edictum Henrici secondi contra parvas datas et abusus Curiae Romanae (1550); Commentarius analyticus in regulas Cancellariae Romanae hactenus in regno Franciae receptas (1552).9 The editions were of the Consilia of Alexander of Imola (1543) and the works of Philippus Decius (1553). (Decius was a jurist who had supported the effort of the 'conciliabulum' of Pisa [1512-1517]to depose Pope Julius II).10 In addition, Dumoulin had contributed annotations to a 1553 edition of the Liber extra or Decretals of Gregory IX.11 Careful study of a copy of the Lyon 1554 edition, reveals more than just censorship of Dumoulin's signed notes. Texts [End Page 180] signed 'C. M.' occasionally were ignored, and wrongly attributed notes (as will be seen) were censored. In addition, Dumoulin's notes were inserted where there already were summaries or glosses signed with the sigla of earlier canonists. (Those authors most often cited were Laurentius Hispanus, Huguccio of Pisa, Guido de Baysio (archdeacon of Bologna and known as the Archdeacon rather than as Guido de Baysio) and Johannes de Fantutiis.) In addition, the references in the Paris Opera can be incomplete because of omissions or incorrect, citing as Dumoulin's texts not attributable to him. How Dumoulin's annotations were inserted alongside earlier materials can be shown by looking at the glossed text to Si papa[D.40 c.6], which dealt with the legal vulnerability of a pope who fell into doctrinal error. Earlier editions of the Decretum provided brief notes concerning the contents of the canon's glosses by Johannes Teutonicus. The Paris 1539 edition of the Decretum provides an example of such notes:12 p.44va: 'Prelati tacere non debent. Papa iudicatur a nemine', a note to Johannes Teutonicus' gloss s.v. A nemine. p.44va: 'Papa an de crimine accusari possit', also attached to A nemine. p. 44va:A note that was an addition to Johannes Teutonicus' gloss A nemines.v. dicitur heresis: 'Dic quod hereticus dicitur pluribus modis: vt nota. xxiiii. q. iii. Inter (C.24 q.3 c.26) et extra. de here. Firmissime (X 5.7.3)'. p.44va: Also an addition to Teutonicus' gloss s.v. Si peccauerit in te frater tuus:'vt ii. q. i. si peccauerit'. p.44va: Also an addition to Teutonicus' gloss s.v. esset denunciatio: 'Sub. etiam denunciatio fit ad correctionem ad quam compelli non potestcum superiorem non habeat. Arc.' citing a text of Guido de Baysio on D.40 c.6.13 p.44va: A comment on the end of Teutonicus' gloss but without a lemma: 'Imperator pro quo peccato deponi potest'? The Lyon 1554 edition inserts a note by Dumoulin after these marginal comments on p.131a: 'Prelati tacere non debent. Papa iudicatur a nemine'. [End Page 181] p.131a-b: D.40...

Novella XVII in the Light of Lex Iulia de Maiestate: Hilarius of Arles Case Study

The main focus of this paper is an analysis of Novella XVII issued by Valentinian III, with the aim of giving a general idea on the religious policy of the Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III. The edict titled De episcoporum ordinatione is a great example of a legislative act falling between ius sacrum and ius publicum. It shows a rather extraordinary imperial intervention provoked by a conflict between Pope Leo and Hilary, bishop of Arles. The latter was accused of various ignoble deeds which corresponded with some of the definitions of crime as described in Lex Iulia de Maiestate from the 1st century BC. Other deeds that Hilary was accused of, however, cannot really be understood as a public offence aimed at the Emperor or the State. Under the influence of Leo, Valentinian officially acknowledged the preeminence of the Church of Rome in the Western Empire, giving grounds for further emanation of the papal power.

Pius II and the Andreis (1462): Textual Circulation, Crusade Promotion and Papal Power

This article investigates the Andreis, an account of the 1462 Roman adventus of St Andrew’s head relic. While the text is most commonly known from Book VIII of Pope Pius II’s Commentaries (1462-64), it appeared in discrete parts and circulated independently from 1462. The Andreis is revealed as a compilation of texts by several authors, undermining Pius’ traditional role as the sole author of the Andreis and later Commentaries. Additionally, the Andreis is identified as an early festival book, with similar norms of circulation, impact, and elite presentation. Recreating the adventus through texts written for the event, the Andreis reflects contemporary expectations for festival books, while also encouraging support for an Ottoman crusade. Thus, circulating separately and later as part of the Commentaries, the Andreis contributed to Pius’ crusade campaign and reputation, arguing for the pope’s authority as Peter’s heir, his popularity as a leader, and his rightful role as the protector of Eastern Christians.

From Archangels to Virtual Pilgrims: A Brief History of Papal Digital Mobilization as Soft Power

The perpetual public display of successful mass mobilization and pilgrimage has become a pillar of papal soft power. During the 20th century, the papacy had repeatedly demonstrated its ability to use new technologies for public communication, media content production and mass mobilization. John Paul II endorsed the establishment of the first Vatican website and an official papal e-mail account, which provided Catholics a new form of communication with the Holy Father. During the pontificate of Benedict XVI, the papacy created several Twitter accounts, which would become the backbone of papal digital mobilization. Francis built on the success of his predecessors as he initiated the modernization of the Holy See’s media department. However, with the growth of the Internet and the stress test of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mechanics of mobilization, pilgrimage and power have considerably changed. With the religious role of the popes taken as a given, the paper looks into the history of papal mobilization, the role of the Internet and why it is not used to its full potential yet.

Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages. By Steven A.Schoenig. Pp. xiii, 545, Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016, $75.00.

The Heythrop JournalVolume 62, Issue 4 p. 781-781 Book Review Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages. By Schoenig, Steven A.. Pp. xiii, 545, Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016, $75.00. Norman Tanner, Norman Tanner Bournmouth, UKSearch for more papers by this author Norman Tanner, Norman Tanner Bournmouth, UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 August 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.13970Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume62, Issue4Special Issue: Augustine and Anselm of CanterburyJuly 2021Pages 781-781 RelatedInformation

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...

Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser on Transnational Governance and the Future of Christendom

This article considers the writings of Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser within the context of European religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, amid the perceived Ottoman threat to Christendom. In their fictional works, these authors imagine an overarching authority that might replace the traditional papal power of oversight and deposing in order to regulate temporal sovereigns and foster a unity of Christian princes within Europe. Even as they can be read as reimagining Christendom, their fictional works reflect what Charles Taylor has called the “disenchantment” of sacred spaces within his philosophical history of the emergence of secularity within European cultures.

St. Robert Bellarmine, Conciliarism, and the Limits of Papal Power

Abstract This article will examine Bellarmine’s first anti–conciliarist work, found in the Disputationes de controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, emphasizing his theological treatment of the pope’s authority relative to the authority of a council and his repudiation of conciliarism. Bellarmine sees the conciliarists as attacking the divinely instituted Petrine structure of the Church. He does not advocate for an absolute papal monarchy in which there are no ‘constitutional’ limitations on the papacy. For Bellarmine, Christ and his Word, as found in Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, have supreme authority in the Church: one which the magisterium, whether papal or conciliar, must accept in humility and pass on unsullied. Only Christ has a true fullness of power; the pope has a fullness only relative to that of the bishops. Nevertheless, Christ immediately instituted the pope as the supreme head of the Church on earth, and as such, the pope has supreme ecclesiastical power over the whole Church on earth. Lastly, the article examines Bellarmine’s position on papal heresy.

Une fortune canonique imprévue : la postérité médiévale d’un passage desQuaestiones super libros Regumde Claude de Turin

In his XXX quaestiones super libros Regum Claudius of Turin, contrary to his habit, adds a commentary of his own on the reforms of the king Ezechias (4 Reg 18,4): When an old institution, good in its origin, becomes bad, it must be suppressed whithout loss of time (Claudius aims at the cult of images). This sentence, repeated with or without its biblical context, had a large audience in the Middle Ages, but always anonymously. As a small return to Claudius, this much criticised opponent, it became an official maxim in ecclesiastical politics when it was received successively by Placidus of Nonantola, Gratian the canonist (who gave it in a paradigmatic form), and afterwards in the xivth cent. by William Durandus the Young, Guillaume Le Maire, Friedrich von Göttweig, William of Occam, and Conrad von Megenberg, and ultimately in the xvth century by Antoninus of Florence and by pope Paul II. Thus the sentence was useful to various causes (defence of the Church and of Pontifical elections against the Empire; abrogation of excessive privileges or of inappropriated decisions; limitation of the papal power; suppression of the Templars) and contributed to the evolution of the Canon Law to pragmatism in helping to formulate the idea that it is necessary to adjust law to the times.

Hagiographie und Recht. Narrativierung von Recht und Verrechtlichung des Narrativs in der Vita des Gregor von Agrigent

AbstractThis article examines three episodes from the Life of Gregory of Agrigento, drafted in Greek in the 9th century, in which juridical material and procedure inform the hagiographical narrative, and vice versa. It argues that both spheres depend on, and contribute to, a common ‘nomos’, an idea of the righteous, lawful and cooperative coexistence of imperial and papal power in the church of Sicily. While this coexistence is anachronistic in the hagiographer’s own times, he constructs it through the narrativization of law and the juridification of narrative.

Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages by Steven A. Schoenig, SJ.

Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages by Steven A. Schoenig, SJ.

Unity, Authority, and Ecclesiastical Power: Augustinian Echoes in the Works of Jean Gerson at the Council of Constance

This article analyzes the presence of Augustine in the texts which Jean Gerson (1363–1429) wrote during the years of the Council of Constance. In particular, it focuses on how the Parisian chancellor made use of quotations from Augustine on doctrinal authority (De civitate Dei 10.23), biblical exegesis (Epistola 40 3; Contra epistolam Manichaei 5.6), and on the power of the keys (Sermo 295 2) to support his views on the role theologians had in defining the truths of the faith, their place within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the nature and limits of papal power, and the relationship between pope and council.