Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority 9789048554607

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241)
1. ‘Our Lord Hugo’: Gregory IX Before the Pontificate
2. Gregory IX and the ‘Lombard Question’
3. Gregory IX and the Search for an Anglo-French Peace, 1227–1241
4. Gregory IX and the Crusades
5. Gregory IX and the Greek East
6. Gregory IX and Denmark
7. Gregory IX and Spain
8. Gregory IX and Mission
9. Penitet eum satis?: Gregory IX, Inquisitors, and Heresy as Seen in Contemporary Historiography
10. The Third Quadriga: Gregory IX, Joachim of Fiore and the Florensian Order
11. Gregory IX and the Liber Extra
12. Gregory IX and Rome: Artistic Patronage, Ceremonies and Ritual Space
Index

Citation preview

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241)

Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West The essential aim of this series is to present high quality, original, and international scholarship, covering all aspects of the Medieval Church and its relationship with the secular world in an accessible form. Previous publications have covered such topics as aspects of Medieval Papal History, including neglected twelfth- and thirteenth-century popes, Monastic and Religious Orders for men and women, Canon Law, Liturgy and Ceremonial, Art, Architecture and Material Culture, Ecclesiastical Administration and Government, as well as aspects of Clerical Life, Councils and so on. Our authors are encouraged to challenge existing orthodoxies on the basis of thorough examination of relevant sources. These books are intended to engage scholars worldwide. Series editors Brenda M. Bolton, University of London Anne J. Duggan, King’s College London Damian J. Smith, Saint Louis University

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority

Edited by Damian J. Smith

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Hugo (Gregory IX), identified as cardinal bishop of Ostia, dedicating an altar to Gregory the Great in the chapel of San Gregorio at the Sacro Speco at Subiaco (photo: Claudia Bolgia) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 436 4 978 90 4855 460 7 e-isbn doi 10.5117/9789463724364 nur 684 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

7

Abbreviations 9 Preface 13 Introduction: Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241)

15

1. ‘Our Lord Hugo’: Gregory IX Before the Pontificate

23

2. Gregory IX and the ‘Lombard Question’

71

Damian J. Smith, Brenda M. Bolton

Brenda M. Bolton

Gianluca Raccagni

3. Gregory IX and the Search for an Anglo-French Peace, 1227–1241 101 Nicholas Vincent

4. Gregory IX and the Crusades

127

5. Gregory IX and the Greek East

151

6. Gregory IX and Denmark

191

7. Gregory IX and Spain

215

8. Gregory IX and Mission

235

9. Penitet eum satis?: Gregory IX, Inquisitors, and Heresy as Seen in Contemporary Historiography

253

Michael Lower

Nikolaos G. Chrissis

Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen

Damian J Smith

Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt

Andrea Sommerlechner

10. The Third Quadriga: Gregory IX, Joachim of Fiore and the Florensian Order Julia Eva Wannenmacher†

277

11. Gregory IX and the Liber Extra 301 Edward A. Reno III

12. Gregory IX and Rome: Artistic Patronage, Ceremonies and Ritual Space Claudia Bolgia

329

Index 359

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6

Fig. 7 Fig. 8

List of Illustrations Rome, Lateran Hospital, map: 1. ward; 2. portico [From Giovannoni, ‘Restauri’, p. 483]333 Rome, Lateran Hospital, ward, south side (photo: author)333 Rome, Lateran Hospital, ward, façade (photo: author)334 Rome, Lateran Hospital, ward, façade, upper part (photo: author)335 Rome, Lateran Hospital, portico on Via Santo Stefano Rotondo (photo: author)337 Rome, Lateran Hospital, portico on Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, fourteenth-century insignia of the Confraternity of the Raccomandati del Santissimo Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum (photo: author)337 Rome, S. Eusebio, porch, marble inscription recording the consecration of the church by Gregory IX in 1238 (photo: author)341 Alessandro Strozzi, Plan of Rome, 1474, pen drawing (Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana , Cod. Redi 77, fols 7v-8r) with notable sites of Gregory IX in red circles: 1. Lateran cathedral and papal palace; 2. St Peter’s (with prominent bell tower); 3. Pons Sancta Maria; 4. Santa Maria del Popolo; 5. S. Adriano; 6. S. Eusebio343

Abbreviations Abp/abp Abpric AHP Auvray BMCL Bp/bp Bpric BRAH Cb CCCM Cd Cod. 1 Comp.–5 Comp. Cp DA Decretum DD DG DHGE Ecumenical Councils

HER Eubel

Archbishop Archbishopric Archivum Historiae Pontificiae Les Registres de Grégoire IX (1227–41), ed. L. Auvray (Paris, 1890–1955) Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law Bishop Bishopric Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia cardinal bishop Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis cardinal deacon Codex Iustinianus Quinque compilationes antiquae necnon collectio canonum Lipsiensis, ed. E. Friedberg (Leipzig, 1882; repr. Graz 1956) cardinal priest Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters Decretum Gratiani; Corpus Iuris Canonici, i Diplomatarium Danicum, ed. A. Afzelius et al. (Copenhagen, 1938–) Documentos de Gregorio IX (1227–1241) referentes a España, ed. S. Dominguez Sánchez (León, 2004) Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. J. Alberigo et al., 3rd edn, 2 vols (Bologna, 1973); the same text, with the same pagination, is available with an English translation: Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. N.P. Tanner, S.J., 2 vols (Georgetown, 1990) English Historical Review C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica Medii Aevi, 1 (Munich, 1923)

10 

Foedera Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici Horoy JE, JK, JL

JEH Liber Pontificalis Manrique Mansi

MGH MGH Briefe MGH Constitutiones MGH Diplomata regum MGH Deutsches Mittelalter MGH Epp. selectae

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authorit y

T. Rymer, Foedera, conventiones, litterae et cujuscunque generis acta publica, vol. 1 part i, ed. A. Clarke and F. Holbrooke (London, 1816) Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879–1881) Honorii III, romani pontificis, opera omnia, quae exstant, ed. C.-A. Horoy, 5 vols (Paris, 1879–1882) P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ad annum 1198, ed. S. Loewenfeld, F. Kaltenbrunner, and P.W. Ewald, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1885–1888; 1 st edn, 1851; repr. Graz, 1956). Cited from the initials of the editors in the 2nd edn as JK to the year 590, JE for 590–882 and JL for 883–1198 Journal of Ecclesiastical History Le Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 2nd Ser. 3, 2nd edn., 3 vols (Paris, 1955–1957) A.Manrique, Annales Cistercienses, 4 vols (Lyons, 1649 repr. 1970). Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. J. D. Mansi, cont. I.B. Martin and L. Petit, 53 vols (Florence/Venice, 1759–1798; Paris, 1901–1927; repr. Graz, 1960–1961) Monumenta Germaniae Historica, inde ab anno Christi quintesimo usque ad annum millesimum et quingentesimum (Hanover/Berlin, 1824–) Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit (Bohlau, 1949–) Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum, 8 vols (Hanover/Leipzig, 1893–1927) = MGH Leges (in 4to), Sectio IV Diplomata regum et imperatorum Germaniae (Hanover, et al., 1872–) Deutsches Mittelalter. Kritische Studientexte des Reichsinstituts für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 4 vols (Leipzig/Weimar, 1937–1949) Epistolae selectae in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae historica separatim editi, 6 vols in 5 (Berlin, 1916–1925)

Abbreviations

MGH Libelli de lite MGH SRG

MGH SRG, NS MGH SS Neues Archiv

MOPH PL Potthast

Pressutti Reg. Inn. RHF RISS RNI RS

11

Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum, ed. E. Sackur, 3 vols (Hanover, 1891–1897) Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae historica separatim editi, 78 vols (Hanover, et alibi, 1839–2007; variously re-edited and reprinted) Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, New Series (Berlin, 1922–) Scriptores (in folio), 32 vols in 34 (Hanover, 1826–1934). Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für Ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde zur Beförderung einer Gesammtausgabe der Quellenschriften deutscher Geschichten des Mittelalters Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum historica Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina (Patrologia latina), 221 vols, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1841–1864) A. Potthast, Regesta pontificum romanorum inde ab a. post Christum natum MCXCVIII ad a. MCCCIV, 2 vols (Berlin, 1874–1875; repr. Graz, 1957) Regesta Honorii Papae III, ed. P. Pressutti, 2 vols (Rome, 1888-1895) Die Register Innocenz’ III, ed. O. Hageneder, A. ­Sommerlechner et al., vols I-XV (Vienna, 1964–2022) Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. M. Bouquet and others, 24 vols (Paris, 1738–1904) Rerum Italicarum Scriptores Regestum Innocentii III papae super negotio Romani imperii, ed. F. Kempf (Rome, 1947) Rolls Series: Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores. Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, published […] under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, 99 vols (London, 1858–1896)

12 

Tăutu Theiner X ZSSRG. KA

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authorit y

Acta Honorii III (1216–1227) et Gregorii IX (1227–1241), ed. A.L. Tăutu (Rome, 1950) Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium historiam illustrantia, ed. A. Theiner (Rome, 1863) Liber Extra: Decretales Gregorii IX: Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische Abteilung

Preface The pontificate of Gregory IX (1227-1241) is associated with the culmination of the struggle between the papacy and the Empire, and the pope often characterized as intransigent and implacable, determined to bring about the destruction of the Hohenstaufen and the triumph of the Roman Church. Yet everything about Gregory’s pontificate and the man is complex. The pope of the Inquisition and the great expansion of the Crusades, Gregory was also a peacemaker, lawgiver, advocate of Christian mission and the friend and supporter of the friars, his courage or obstinacy perhaps driven by doubts about his own worth and the influence of the apocalyptic thought of Joachim of Fiore. The twelve studies in this volume, covering the period from Gregory’s promotion as cardinal in 1198 until his death in 1241, seek to unravel some of the mysteries concerning the pope and present a more detailed and intricate picture of his relations with secular powers and the Church. The editor of this volume, the sixth in a series concerning the popes of the High Middle Ages, owes many debts of gratitude: to Dr Christoph Egger, who planned this project and commented on many of the chapters; to the patience of the various scholars involved; to the Leeds Medieval International Congress, where many of the original papers were presented; to Margaret Mary Summers and Judith Nelams, of the History Department of Saint Louis University, who corrected flaws in spelling and style; to the Amsterdam University Press for their forbearance and careful editing. DJS



Introduction: Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241) Damian J. Smith, Brenda M. Bolton

For sheer drama, very few of the notable set pieces in the long history of the papacy have matched that of February 1240. With the formidable Emperor Frederick II and his army having first entered the valley of Spoleto, then taken the cities of Viterbo and Montefiascone, as well as various castles of the Church, and now threatening the invasion of Rome itself, backed by the increasingly vociferous support of the ever-f ickle Romans (‘Let the emperor come. Let him come and receive the City!’), Gregory IX, in extremis, his cause apparently lost, played the final desperate weapon in his depleted armoury: Behold the relics through whom your city is venerated; I cannot do more than another man!1

Taking the crown from his own head he placed it upon the skull of St Peter and then upon the skull of St Paul and called out: Defend Rome, you saints! If the men of Rome refuse to do so!2 1 ‘Annales Placentini Gibellini’, in MGH SS, xviii, 483: ‘Et omnes Romani clamabant: Veniat, veniat, imperator et accipiat Urbem! Unde papa audiens vociferationem eorum timuit valde et congregatis Romanis extrasit foras reliquias beatorum Petri et Pauli dicens: Ecce reliquie pro quibus civitas vestra veneratur; ego autem non possum facere magis altero homine!;’ ‘Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplia’ in Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard, 5 vols (London, 1863–1869, RS no. 36), iii, 153; Historia Diplomatica Friderici II, ed. J.L.A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6 vols (Paris, 1852–61), v, pt. 2, 776–9; ‘Vita Gregorii IX’, in Le Liber censuum de l’église romaine, ed. P. Fabré, 2 vols (Paris, 1889–1905), ii, 35–6; A. Spataro, Velud fulgor meridianus. La vita di papa Gregorio IX. Edizione, traduzione e commento, Vita e Pensiero, Ordines. Studi su istituzioni e società nel medioevo europeo 8 (Milan, 2018), 141–3. 2 ‘Annales Placentini Gibellini’, 483: ‘Vos sancti defendite Romam, si homines Romani nollunt defendere!’

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_intro

16 Damian J. Smith, Brenda M. Bolton

Then, taking with him not only the skulls of the saints but the relic of the True Cross, moving in solemn procession to the church of Saint Peter, Gregory there preached to the people: This is the church and these are the relics of the Romans, which you must protect unto death, and which we commit to God’s protection and to yours. Yet I shall not flee but rather I shall await here the mercy of God.3

Offering them the general indulgence of the Apostolic See, Gregory thus successfully rallied the Romans to his cause, with many of them taking up the sign of the Cross in defence of the Church, while Frederick, realizing he could achieve nothing more, withdrew to Apulia. 4 This is Gregory IX – masterful, energetic, courageous, unyielding. This is Gregory IX – confrontational, obsessed, ‘a hate-filled stubborn old man’, as Kantorowicz delicately described him.5 Nobody (except the man himself) has ever questioned the zeal of Gregory’s faith. Even though ‘the Inquisition’ had a long pre-history, certainly stretching back to Lucius III’s Ad abolendam, the formal beginnings of the institution are most associated with Gregory.6 It was he who issued the bull Excommunicamus of February 1231 and there provided the penalties, including the ultimate punishment, for the various groups defined as heretics – Cathars, Patarenes, the Poor of Lyons and many more (all of them tied together by their tails) – as well as their defenders and supporters.7 It was he who issued Declinante iam mundi of May 1232, which, without altogether side-lining the episcopate, entrusted the task of capturing the little foxes who despoiled the vineyard of the Lord to the order of Preachers.8 And it was he who in Vox in Rama in the summer of 1233 gave credence to the 3 ‘Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplia’, 153: ‘Haec est ecclesia, et hae sunt reliquiae Romanorum, quas usque ad mortem tueri debetis, quas protectioni Dei et vestrae commitimus. Ego autem non fugio, sed hic misericordiam Dei expecto!’; Historia Diplomatica Friderici II, v, pt. 2, 778. 4 ‘Annales Placentini Gibellini’, 483; ‘Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplia’, 153–4; Historia Diplomatica Friderici II, v, pt. 2, 778. 5 E. Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite (Berlin, 1931): ‘Aber wie dieser haßerfüllte starrköpfige Greis bis zur letzten Stunde unbeirrt seinen Weg verfolgte, gleichgültig dagegen, daß man ihn einen Ketzer nannte oder daß die Nächsten ihn verließen, war er bei allen kleinen Unlauterkeiten dennoch nicht nur ein gefährlicher, er wurde auch allmählich ein großer Gegner.’ 6 (Ad abolendam) JL, 15109; 1 Comp. 5.6.11; X 5.7.9; H. Maisonneuve, Etudes sur les origines de l’inquisition (Paris, 1960). And see Andrea Sommelechner, ‘Penitet eum satis? Gregory IX, inquisitors and heresy as seen in contemporary historiography’, in this volume. 7 DG, no. 169; Auvray, no. 539. 8 DG, no. 212; Potthast, no. 8932.

Introduc tion: Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241)

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wilder flights of the tortured imagination of Conrad of Marburg concerning a supposed Luciferian sect with toad and black cat accompaniment.9 Neither should it be forgotten that it was Gregory IX, who, however briefly, broke with Western tradition and placed in doubt the validity of baptisms in the Greek rite, nor that it was during his pontificate and on his order, in May 1231, that twelve monks of Kantara on Cyprus were executed as heretics because of their persistent denunciation of the Latin practice of using unleavened bread for the Eucharist.10 The zeal which can be seen in the pursuit of heretics was equally manifest in the expansion and increasing sophistication of crusading (which was quite often conducted against heretics). It is certainly the case that historians tend to associate this transformation of the Crusades with Gregory’s predecessor and relative, Innocent III (1198–1216).11 Yet is it not the case that it was Gregory IX who completed what Innocent had started, as the Crusades, which had most usually been confined to the Holy Land and (through the earlier significant influence of Paschal II) to the Iberian Peninsula, became the weapon of destruction against all enemies and all dangers, beyond Christendom and within? Now the war against Frederick, now Constantinople, now the previously unimaginable threat of the Mongols, might be uppermost in the pope’s thoughts. It appeared that almost everywhere had become a theatre for crusading warfare. To what extent, both here and elsewhere, it was the pope who took the initiative and to what extent he reacted to events are central questions of this book and the answers require looking at each case and at all of the evidence. Yet nobody would suggest he did not react at all. As we shall see, it was through Gregory’s policy of vow redemption, which was to have serious long-term implications, that crusading was finally opened to all, and it was because of Gregory that people were now obliged to hear crusade sermons preached.12 Given the struggle against Frederick, the development of inquisitions, and the expansion of the crusades, it might appear surprising indeed that at various points this volume considers Gregory IX as a peacemaker, just as one might find it initially difficult to see his predecessor and namesake, Gregory VII, in the same light.13 Rather we might simply agree with the imperial official, Piero della Vigna, who, after initially having a good opinion 9 Auvray, no. 1391; Potthast, no. 9229–31. 10 (Baptisms) Auvray, no. 740; (Kantara) Bullarium Cyprium, ed. C. Schabel, 2 vols (Nicosia, 2010), i, no. d–6. And Nikolaos Chrissis, ‘Gregory IX and the Greek East’, in this volume. 11 See particularly, H. Roscher, Papst Innocenz III. und die Kreuzzüge (Göttingen, 1968). 12 Michael Lower, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusades’, in this volume. 13 And yet, see H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998), 576–82.

18 Damian J. Smith, Brenda M. Bolton

of the pope, in the wake of the emperor’s second excommunication and of the papal crusade against him, accused Gregory IX of: [C]reating unrest throughout the regions of the earth because he was always excessively prone to make war.14

Yet it is evident from his early legatine experience that Gregory was determined and effective in calming cities and communes alike and most particularly in Lombardy in 1221 he served Honorius III and Frederick simultaneously, while winning fulsome praise from both.15 Though the Negotium Lombardie eventually broke down, the pope’s efforts to bring about a rapprochement between England and France, his use of papal dispensation to end ‘the mortal enmity between Danes and Slavs’, the ratification of the treaty which saw the kingdoms of León and Castile united, remind us that, although in each instance he would be the facilitator rather than the initiator of concord, Gregory firmly believed in the age-old desires, Roman and Christian, for peace and harmony.16 The attack on heresy itself had now become the negotium pacis et fidei, and the peace and harmony of Christian society, as well as being beneficial in itself, was a necessary prerequisite for the wider victory against the enemies of the Christian people.17 So, too, was the reform of the religious life. Gregory was certainly a strong supporter of the Florensian order and also shared a special affinity with the Cistercians, probably born of his close friendship with Rainier of Ponza, formerly monk of Fossanova, and he shared Rainier’s dismay at their internal quarrels.18 As cardinal and then pope, Gregory is associated with 14 Vie et correspondance de Pierre la Vigne: ministre de l’empereur Frédéric II avec une étude sur le mouvement réformiste au 13e siècle, ed. J.L.A. Huillard Bréholles (Paris, 1865), 400: ‘Credo quod Gregorius qui dictus est nonus | Fuit apostolicus vir, sanctus et bonus | Sed per mundi climata strepit ejus sonus | Quod ad guerras fuerat semper nimis pronus.’ 15 (Frederick) Constitutiones et Acta Publica Imperatorum et Regum, ed. L. Weiland, MGH (Hanover, 1896), ii, 114–5, at 115, no. 91. (Honorius III) Registri dei cardinali Ugolino d’Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, ed. G. Levi, Istituto Storico Italiano, Fonti per la storia d’Italia (Rome, 1890), 133–4 no. 107; 138–9 no. 111. 16 Gianluca Raccagni, ‘Gregory IX and the Lombard Question’; Nicholas Vincent, ‘Gregory IX and the Search for an Anglo-French Peace’; Torben Nielsen, ‘Gregory IX and Denmark’; Damian J. Smith, ‘Gregory IX and Spain’, all in this volume. 17 On the origins of the phrase, see M. Zerner, ‘Le “Negotium pacis et f idei” ou l’affaire de paix et de foi, une désignation de la croisade albigeoise à revoir’, Prêcher la Paix et discipliner la société: Italie, France, Angleterre (XIIIe–Xve siècle), ed. R.M. Dessì (Turnhout, 2005), 63–102. 18 B. Griesser, ‘Rainer von Fossanova und sein Brief an Abt Arnald von Cîteaux (1203)’, Cistercienser Chronik, 60 (1953), 151–67 at 165; Manrique, iv, 60 no. 10. On Rainier of Ponza, see by M. Rainini, Il profeta del Papa. Vita e memoria di Rainier da Ponza eremita di curia (Milan, 2016);

Introduc tion: Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241)

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the development of the new religious movements which so greatly shaped the spiritual life of the Later Middle Ages, although that association was a complicated one. His relationship with Dominic was close and comfortable, while that with both Francis and Clare of Assisi was at times uncomfortable, the needs of the Church as an institution, as Gregory saw it, unavoidably clashing with their strict observance of poverty. In Quo elongati, of September 1230, Gregory officially exempted the friars from Francis’s Testament, while Clare would not achieve the life of intense poverty and dependence on the friars for her communities for which she had hoped.19 It is worth remembering, however, that four of the saints strongly associated with the new movement were canonized by Gregory (Francis, in 1228; Anthony of Padua, in 1232; Dominic, in 1234; Elizabeth of Hungary in 1235).20 Francis was canonized within just two years of his death, Anthony less than a year after his. It was, however, Dominic, closest of all his mendicant allies and fellow preacher in Lombardy in 1221, who inexplicably had to wait thirteen years for similar recognition. Was this all simply a matter of Gregory developing his own power in alliance with the tractable friars, whose well-being in large part depended upon him? Did he manipulate Francis, as well as his own part in the story of Francis, mainly to promote himself? Possibly. The life of Francis by Thomas of Celano, commissioned by Gregory and informed by Brother Elias, both in its initial version of 1230 and in the abbreviated version produced in 1232, certainly emphasized the pope’s influence.21 Yet we might also allow that Gregory’s various expressions of doubt concerning his own faith were not insincere and that he may well have derived some of and Julia Wannenmacher, ‘The Third Quadriga: Gregory IX, Joachim of Fiore and the Florensian Order’, Brenda Bolton, ‘Our Lord Hugo: Gregory IX before the pontificate’, in this volume. 19 H. Grundmann, ‘Die Bulle Quo elongati Papst Gregors IX.’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 54 (1961), 1–23 at 18-23; O. Capitani, ‘Gregorio IX’, Enciclopedia dei Papi, 3 vols (Rome, 2000), ii, 370. 20 Potthast, no. 8242, 8937–8, 9489, 9925–6. We should not forget the eighth-century Irish erudite, St Virgil of Salzburg, the apostle of Carinthia, who was also canonized by Gregory, in June 1233 (Potthast, 9237–8); a fine recovery from the previous criticism he had received from Pope Zachary and St Boniface for his perceived views on the inhabitants of ‘another world and other men beneath the earth’, Boniface (J. Carey, ‘Ireland and the Antipodes: the Heterodoxy of Virgil of Salzburg’, Speculum, 64 (1989), 1–10 at 1). After the tomb of the long-forgotten Virgil at the cathedral of Salzburg had been rediscovered by chance in 1181, many miracles were worked there and a popular cult developed rapidly (K. Amon, ‘Virgils Nachleben – Heiligsprechen und Kult’, in Virgil von Salzburg Missionar und Gelehrter, ed. H. Dopsch, R. Juffinger (Salzburg, 1985), 384–99). 21 Thomas of Celano, ‘The First Life of St Francis’, in St Francis of Assisi: writings and early biographies, ed. M.A. Habig (Chicago, 1983), 227–355; J. Dalarun, The Rediscovered Life of St Francis of Assisi: Thomas of Celano, trans. T. Johnson (New York, 2016).

20 Damian J. Smith, Brenda M. Bolton

his own fortitude through the support of the holy man whom he revered, whose simple purity he admired.22 For although he demonstrated an exceptional eloquence and mastery of preaching, Gregory is recorded on several occasions early in his career as fearing that his faith was being tested to the extreme by the spirit of blasphemy, spiritus blasphemiae, leading to moments of lethargy (torpor), self-doubt and temptation.23 He seems to have experienced profound spiritual doubts after receiving news of the death of Rainier (d.1207–1209),24 but his uncertainties and doubts appear to have coincided with rare periods of inactivity. In 1220, between his legations to Tuscany and Umbria, Gregory, weighed down by his many sins, wrote to implore none other than Clare of Assisi to obtain mercy for him through her tears and prayers while,25 in 1226, after the failure of the Fifth Crusade, his friend Jacques de Vitry gave him the finger reliquary of Mary of Oignies (d.1213) which had provided him with protection and spiritual consolation. And in 1227, Gregory, writing to the Poor Clares of Sant’Apollinare in Milan, went as far as to claim his unworthiness for election, because of his many temporal concerns and lack of time for contemplation.26 22 Thomas of Celano, ‘First Life’, ch. 27. lxxii, 289–90, appears to convey Hugo’s mindset well: ‘When at one time he [Francis] had come to Rome because the interests of his order demanded it, he longed greatly to speak before Pope Honorius and the venerable cardinals. When the lord Hugo, the glorious bishop of Ostia, who venerated the holy man of God with a special affection, understood this, he was filled with both fear and joy, admiring the fervour of the holy man but conscious of his simple purity. But confident of the mercy of the Almighty, which in the time of need never fails those who trust in it, the bishop [Hugo] brought Francis before the lord pope and the revered cardinals; and standing before such great princes, after receiving their permission and blessing, he began to speak fearlessly. Indeed, he spoke with such great fervour of spirit, that, not being able to contain himself for joy, when he spoke the words with his mouth, he moved his feet as though he were dancing, not indeed lustfully, but as one burning with the fire of divine love, not provoking laughter, but drawing forth tears of grief. For many of them were pierced to the heart in admiration of divine grace and of such great constancy in man. But the venerable lord bishop of Ostia was kept in suspense by fear, and he prayed with all his strength to the Lord that the simplicity of the blessed man would not be despised since the glory of the saint would reflect upon himself as would his disgrace, in as much as he had been placed over Francis’ family as a father.’ 23 J. Vandeburie, ‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciarí’: Ugolino dei Conti di Segni’s Doubts and Jacques de Vitry’s Intervention’, Studies in Church History, 22 (2016), 87–101, at 87–8. 24 E. Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, Archivio della Società di Storia Patria, 2 (1879), Varietà ii, 363–7, at 367. 25 K. Esser, ‘Die Briefe Gregors IX. an die hl. Klara von Assisi’, Franziskanische Studien, 35 (1953), 274–95, at 274. 26 M.P. Alberzoni, ’Servus vestrum et ancillarum Christi omnium. Gregorio IX e la vita religiosa femminile’, Franciscan Studies, 64 (2006), 145–78, at 164–5.

Introduc tion: Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241)

21

Little concerning Gregory is uncomplicated. The same pope who fulminated wildly in Vox in rama, issued the calming Parens scientiarum in 1231 to the masters and students of Paris, which resolved the discord of the great dispersion of 1229, protected and reenforced the rights of the university, made clear the obligation of the chancellor in selecting suitable teachers, and left in the hands of the scholars the regulation of the manner and time of lectures and disputations, costumes to be worn, and the burial of the dead.27 Some masters and students may have disapproved of the pope’s insistence that the university summer vacation could not exceed one month (and that the bachelors could continue their lectures even then), but the protection Gregory had offered them was to matter to universities generally in the long-term. Nor can it be forgotten that it was this same Gregory who charged his multi-talented chaplain and confessor, the Dominican Ramon de Penyafort, with the task of producing a compilation of canon law which would replace all existing collections, to be used as an authoritative textbook by the students and teachers at Bologna, as well as in the courts and elsewhere. Approved by the pope’s Rex pacificus of September 1234, the decretals of Gregory IX, or Liber Extra, which included a significant quantity of Gregory’s own letters, proved the most influential book of medieval law, serving its purpose until 1917 when Benedict XV promulgated the first actual code of canon law.28 As we shall see, the pope who resolved to root up and destroy those towers and palaces of the Roman nobles which obscured the magnificent view of the Lateran palace, was equally determined to build hospitals for the poor, as well as to plant trees by the rivers of Terni.29 As master of ceremonies, he could use the sound of the great bell which he commissioned for Saint Peter’s, the rich colour of the Seljuk carpets he was gifted, the fragrance of perfumes and flowers, to intoxicate the senses and sway the crowd to his side. Certainly, from his first days as Cardinal Hugo, at a banquet at Cistercian Casamari, theatre had been a part of Gregory’s life, when he defiantly produced the letter in which Innocent III demanded that the perfidious Markward of Anweiler renounce the regency of the kingdom 27 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. E. Chatelain, H. Denifle, 4 vols (Paris, 1888-97), i, 136–9, no. 79; S. Young, Scholarly Community at the Early University of Paris: theologians, education and society, 1215–1248 (Cambridge, 2014), 64–101. 28 (Rex pacificus) Auvray 2083; Potthast 9694. (Liber Extra) Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1881), vol. 2. (Benedict XV) Codex Iuris Canonici, ed. P. Gasparri (Rome, 1918). And Ed Reno, ‘Gregory IX and the Liber Extra’, in this volume. 29 Claudia Bolgia, ‘Gregory IX and Rome: artistic patronage, ceremonies and ritual space’, in this volume.

22 Damian J. Smith, Brenda M. Bolton

of Sicily.30 Forty years on, confronted by the ward whom he and Innocent had sought to protect, Gregory’s flair for the dramatic was to serve Rome well again. In the pages which follow, in far greater detail and treating a wider range of issues, historians of thirteenth-century Church and society explore many of the major questions surrounding one of the most engaging and perplexing figures in the story of the medieval papacy and the times in which he lived. Although the figure of Frederick II necessarily hovers over many of the chapters, we have not sought to produce a book with its sole focus on the papal-imperial struggle because this has been done often and recently especially well.31 As ever it is hoped that these essays will lead to further questioning, still deeper studies, and greater understanding of one of the world’s most influential institutions.

About the Authors Damian J. Smith is Professor of Medieval History in the Department of History at Saint Louis University, USA. He is the author/editor/translator of numerous books and articles concerning the Medieval Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Church. He is currently writing a history of the reign of James I of Aragon (1213–1276). Brenda Bolton taught medieval history at Westfield College, later Queen Mary & Westfield College and finally at Queen Mary University of London. She has published widely on various aspects of ecclesiastical history with a particular concentration on the pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216) and on papal administration in the Patrimony of St Peter during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

30 Gesta Innocentii PP. III, in PL, ccxiv, 44. 31 B. Whalen, The Two Powers: the papacy, the empire, and the struggle for sovereignty in the thirteenth century (Philadelphia, 2019).

1.

‘Our Lord Hugo’: Gregory IX Before the Pontificate Brenda M. Bolton

Abstract Coinciding with the pontificates of Innocent III (1198–1216) and Honorius III (1216–1227), Hugo’s cardinalate provided a period of diplomatic and practical experience as both advocate and papal auditor. In delivering Innocent III’s mandate of submission to Markward of Anweiler in 1199, his courage was rewarded when, between 1209 and 1221, as cardinal bishop of Ostia and legate a latere with plenipotential power, further legations took him to Germany, Tuscany, and Lombardy. Whilst his dealings with Otto IV proved ultimately unsuccessful, his strong defence of the faith against heresy, his pacification of the North Italian communes and his active campaigns to preach and raise troops for the Fifth Crusade all added to his reputation. In religious matters, on hearing Jacques de Vitry’s account at Perugia in 1216 of large numbers of penitential Umbrian women seeking a religious lifestyle, by 1219 Hugo had himself succeeded in gathering four convents into the Order of the Poor Ladies of the Valle Spoletana. Keywords: Legate, Fifth Crusade, North Italian communes, heresy, penitential women

Were we to accept without qualification the brief and formulaic second and third chapters of the Vita Gregorii noni, an anonymous, official biography emanating from the Curia during the summer of 1240 whilst the pope still lived, we might be forgiven for believing that his twenty-nine years of pre-papal service to the Church had passed almost unnoticed.1 1 Vita Gregorii IX, in Le Liber Censuum de l’Église Romaine, ed. P. Fabre and L. Duchesne, 2 vols (Paris, 1899–1910), ii, 18–36, at 18–19, caps 1–3. Revised edition, A. Spataro, Velud fulgor meridianus.

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch01

24 Brenda M. Bolton

It should be no surprise, therefore, that two decades ago the forty-four subsequent, often polemical and overwhelmingly hagiographical chapters of the Vita which cover Gregory IX’s fourteen-year pontificate were also authoritatively dismissed as ‘of scant assistance’ in the reconstruction of this papal biography.2 In conformity with the Liber pontificalis, the second chapter of the Vita locates his origins firmly in the Campania, recording his mother’s descent from the local nobility of Anagni and his father’s from the Conti di Segni whilst also noting his relationship in the third degree to Innocent III (1198–1216) through their common great-great grandfather.3 There follows a long list of his attributes – huge perspicacity, sound memory, profound knowledge of the liberal arts, mastery of law – a river of Ciceronian eloquence – scrupulous master of the Sacred Page, zealous in the faith, upright in virtue, righteous in justice, consoler of the wretched, sower and cultivator of religion, lover of chastity and exemplar of all sanctity – such qualities leading to Gregory’s immediate promotion. 4 The first paragraph of the third chapter emphasizes his role in instigating and instituting new religious movements of penitents and enclosed religious women, in giving a rule to the Friars Minor, in placing Francis as its minister and guide, and for his strong support of the Order. At this point the biographer moves on to events of the pontificate down to 1240. As prefigured in the Vita, Gregory’s rapid promotion saw him advance from papal chaplain to cardinal deacon of Sant’Eustacio (1198–1206), and ultimately to cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri (1206–1227).5 He found himself frequently (and once unexpectedly) protecting the Patrimony of St Peter whilst consistently displaying unfailing support for ecclesiastical jurisdiction across the peninsula. As papal legate with plenipotential power La vita di papa Gregorio IX. Edizione, traduzione e commento, Vita e Pensiero, Ordines. Studi su istituzioni e società nel medioevo europeo 8 (Milan, 2018), at 78–81 and 147–51. 2 ‘Di scarso aiuto’, O. Capitani, ‘Gregorio IX’, in Enciclopedia dei papi, 3 vols (Rome, 2000), ii, 363–79, at 363; idem., ‘Gregorio IX’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 59 (Rome, 2002), 166–98, at 166; Spataro, La Vita, ix. 3 ‘[…] tertio gradu consanguinitatis attingens’, Liber Censuum, ii, 18; Spataro, La Vita, 78 and 147–8; R. Aubert, DGHE 21 (Paris, 1986), 1437–8, at 1437: ‘il n’était pas proprement parler le neveu du pape Innocent III mais il avait un trisaïeul commun’. 4 ‘[…] fluvius eloquentie Tulliane […] religionis plantator et cultor’, Liber Censuum, ii, 18; Spataro, La Vita, 78. 5 W. Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III. (Vienna, 1984), 126–33; idem., ‘Zwischen lokaler verankerung und universalem Horizont. Das kardinalskollegium unter Innocenz III.’, in Innocenzo III, Urbs et Orbis, Atti del Congresso Internazionale, Roma, 9–15 settembre, 1998, ed. A. Sommerlechner, 2 vols (Rome, 2003), i, 102–74, at 141–6.

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to transmit directives from Rome, he aspired to mount a strong defence of the faith against heresy, as well as seeking to pacify the Tuscan and Lombard communes, combining his objectives with active campaigns to preach and raise troops for the Fifth Crusade. His spiritual and religious initiatives are revealed through his contacts with Rainier of Ponza, monk of Fossanova, confessor to Innocent III, socius of Joachim of Fiore, and finally hermit on the Island of Ponza. He was also a friend to Jacques de Vitry, the popular preacher who shared his aspirations for the newly developing female religious groups in Tuscany and the Valle Spoletana, to whose cause he devoted himself. These twenty-nine years demonstrate that the future pope’s influence extended far beyond his association with the first Friars Minor and later as their protector, significant as that undoubtedly was. We must now step briefly aside to consider issues of nomenclature. Although the Vita records Gregory’s place of birth and family origins, we would not know that he had a brother, Adenolfo, or that his father’s name was Mathias, were it not for an entry in Honorius III’s register concerning a hospital foundation in Anagni.6 A further question now arises. In the absence of a given name in the Vita, which then was Gregory’s preferred form of address? Was it as ‘Hugo’ or rather as ‘Hugolino’, the latter widely used in recent historiography? On this matter, his nineteenth- and early twentieth-century biographers were divided. Joseph Felten, whilst agreeing that his name was actually Hugo,7 nevertheless argued for the nickname Hugolino and used it consistently throughout his 1886 volume, claiming to be following most of the chronicles.8 However, in 1911, Ernst Brem asserted that ‘he always called himself Hugo’ and did likewise himself.9 Just over a century later, Maria Pia Aberzoni has suggested the need for a ‘clarification of terminology’ by which the widely-used diminutive ‘Hugolino’ ought now to be abandoned definitively on the grounds that he neither used the name himself in his own documents nor indeed does it appear in any other 6 Licet pie mentis, 19 March 1226, Pressutti, ii, 411–2, no. 5870: ‘[…] Adenulfus de Mathia germanus H. Ostiensis episcopi;’ Auvray, Registres, i, 1007–10, no. 1840: ‘Adenulfus, domini Mathie, tunc Anagnine civitatis rector.’ See P. Montaubin, ‘Bastard Nepotism: Niccolò di Anagni, a nephew of Pope Gregory IX, and Camerarius of Pope Alexander IV’, in Pope, Church and City. Essays in Honour of Brenda M. Bolton, ed. F. Andrews, C. Egger and C. Rousseau, The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500, 56 (Leiden, 2004), 129–76 at 132–3 and 173. 7 J. Felten, Papst Gregor IX (Freiburg, 1886), 1–50 at 7: ‘Der eigentliche Name Gregors war Hugo.’ 8 Ibid., 7 n. 1; Hugo (Hugolinus) in Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 126–33, at 126, n. 8 for a list of chroniclers who used Hugolino. 9 ‘Er selbst nennt sich immer Hugo’, E. Brem, Papst Gregor IX. bis zum Beginn seines Pontifikats. Ein biographischer Versuch (Heideberg, 1911), 1 n. 1.

26 Brenda M. Bolton

contemporary source.10 In fact, as she points out, using the example of Francis of Assisi’s Testament of 1226, he is more often mentioned impersonally as ‘dominus episcopus Ostiensis’ and only rarely by his personal name.11 To advance this argument, we can consider further evidence from a completely unofficial and private letter – not one newly discovered – but one which, when reconsidered in this context, may help to add a new dimension to the discussion and direct us towards a sounder interpretation of Gregory’s pre-pontifical career. The letter in question was dispatched from Subiaco sometime between 6 August and c.10 September 1202, whilst Innocent III and the Curia were seeking respite in the Apennines from the fierce heat of the Roman summer.12 In it we find not only a contemporary use of the name Hugo but also a list of yet more distinctive and ‘independent’ qualities of character, which serve as early precursors to those claimed by the Vita nearly four decades later.13 The author was an anonymous breviator at the Curia, its ailing recipient, Raynaldo, bishop-elect of Capua.14 Hugo was by then in his 10 M.P. Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia alla curia di Gregorio IX’ in Gregorio IX e gli ordini mendicanti, Atti del XXXVIII Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 7–9 ottobre 2010, Società internazionale di studi francescani – Centro inter-universitario di studi francescani, Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto, 2011), 73–121, at 76–7. Also in eadem, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia (1217–1221) e l’organizzazione della crociata’, in Legati, delegati e l’impresa d’Oltremare (secoli XII–XIII / Papal Legates, Delegates and the Crusades (12th–13th Century), Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi Milano, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 9–11 marzo 2011, ed. M.P Alberzoni and P. Montaubin (Turnhout, 2014), 283–326, at 287, at 293 n. 12. 11 Eadem., ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 77 and n. 8 citing Francesco Assiensis, Scripta in Testamentum, ed. C. Paolazzi (Rome, 2009), 402. 12 Potthast, i, 149 nos 1716–22; Chronicon Sublacense, ed. R. Morghen, RISS 24/6 (Bologna, 1927), 34, ll. 23–7; U. Israel, ‘Der Papst und die Urkunde an der Wand: Innozenz III. (1198–1216) in Subiaco’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 84 (2004), 69–102. 13 Paris, BnF, Ms Lat. 11867, fol. 141v–142r at 142r. K. Hampe, ‘Eine Schilderung des Sommeraufenthaltes der römischen Kurie unter Innozenz III. in Subiaco 1202’, Historische Vierteljahrsschrift, 8 (1905), 509–35, text, 528–35 at 534. 14 Raynaldo of Celano, sub-deacon and papal chaplain, administrator of the archbishopric of Capua (1199), the (canonically under-aged) bishop-elect of Capua (1204) and bishop (1208–12). See Norbert Kamp, Kirche und Monarchie im staufischen Königreich Sizilien, 4 vols (Munich, 1973–5), Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 10/I, I.Prosopographische Grundlegung: Bistümer und Bischöfe des Königreiches 1194–1266. 1. Abruzzen und Kampanien, i, 112–16; G.A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2007), 251; Hampe, ‘Eine Schilderung des Sommeraufenthaltes’, 522–4; idem., Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, I, ‘Die Kämpfe bei Capua und Cannä in den Jahren 1200 und 1201’: II, ‘Capuaner Irrungen im Jahre 1202’, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 13 (Heidelberg, 1910), 27–31 no. 1, 41–4 no. 5 (sent from Baia where Raynaldo was visiting the thermal springs).

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fourth year as cardinal deacon and towards the end of the letter his record elicits the following warm approbation from the writer: […] Our Lord Hugo, a man in every way worthy of praise, the radiant mirror of all eloquence and adorned with the proper disposition of moral qualities, cardinal-deacon of the Holy Roman Church, a solid and illustrious pillar of the whole world […] .15

The Subiaco letter is important in two respects. The missive which confirms his proper name was never intended for public consumption but instead was transmitted confidentially between close friends and, at some time in the mid-thirteenth century, was copied into a letter collection of specifically Campanian writers, including Thomas of Capua.16 Its full significance did not, however, come to light until the beginning of the twentieth century.17 The letter’s status as a private, non-official, non-papal source in which we might expect a nickname to appear, adds a particular validity to the use of ‘Hugo’, serving to strengthen Alberzoni’s already persuasive argument that it is now finally time for his moniker, ‘Hugolino’, to be expunged from the record. Secondly, the tone that it takes towards him seems altogether complimentary and unforced when compared to that of the Vita, providing an authentic testimonial, even more valuable for being unsolicited and not previously considered in this context. It is now time to examine whether those personal qualities so clearly identified by the breviator at Subiaco in 1202 – praiseworthiness, eloquence, high moral character, and towering support for a wider Christendom – represented a far-sighted prediction of Hugo’s career down to 1227 or possibly a prediction too far? For Gregory IX, serious modern historiography began with Felten’s biography which addressed the period from Hugo’s youth to 1227 in its first part before concentrating on later struggles between pope and emperor.18 Brem’s short biography, on the other hand, dealt solely with Hugo’s career before the pontificate, in much the same way as did Michele Maccarrone’s 15 Hampe, ‘Eine Schilderung des Sommeraufenthaltes’, 534: ‘[…] dominum Hugonem, virum utique venerabilem, tocius eloquencie speculum renitens [recte, renitentem] et bonorum morum composicione ornatum, Sancte Romane ecclesie diaconum cardinalem et tocius orbis columpnam inmobilem et excelsam […]’. 16 Idem., ‘Über eine Ausgabe der Capuaner Briefsammlung des Cod. lat. 11867 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek’, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 13 (Heidelberg, 1910), 1–17, 1–2. 17 Idem., ‘Eine Schilderung des Sommeraufenthaltes’, 510–11. 18 Felten, Papst Gregor IX., 1–50 at 7 n. 1.

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preliminary article on Lotario di Conti before he became pope in 1198.19 Brem, however, never completed a comprehensive study of his pope as Maccarrone would later do for Innocent III (1198–1216).20 Apart from these two works, Hugo’s early career has received somewhat sporadic attention until relatively recently when several excellent scholars have discussed a variety of themes relevant to the period before his pontificate.

Chaplain, sub-deacon, auditor and advocatus – before December 1198 At some time before 1198, Hugo was not only a member of the Honourable College of Chaplains21 but also found himself raised to the sub-diaconate,22 dual roles which obliged him henceforth to perform the liturgical duties of the papal entourage which the cardinals were by then too busy to undertake but also to maintain high moral standards whilst putting to best use his mastery of law, letters, and religion.23 Although he studied hard in Paris,24 there is little or no evidence that he studied in Bologna:25 instead, extensive legal practice ‘on the ground’ must go far towards explaining his rapid advance through the clerical hierarchy. On 16 May 1198, Innocent III named him as papal auditor, together with a certain Robert, to hear (but not decide) a dispute between the monks of Saint-Nicholas de Ribemont and a certain W., a deacon, over a claim, made falsely, that the remote chapel of Villers-le-Sec (Haute-Saône) could support a priest of its own.26 By November of that year, Hugo had already been acting for some months as advocate for the monks of the Benedictine priory of Christ Church, Canterbury in an on-going dispute with their archbishop.27 A monastic cathedral, Canterbury was one of nine such institutions almost unique to England after the Conquest, 19 Brem, Papst Gregor IX.; M. Maccarrone, ‘Innocenzo III, prima del pontificato’, Archivio della R. Deputazione romana di Storia patria, 66 (1942), 1–78. 20 Idem., Studi su Innocenzo III, Italia Sacra, 17 (Padua, 1972). 21 R. Elze, ‘Die päpstliche Kapelle im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert’, ZSSRG KA, 36 (1950), 145–204. 22 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 379 no. 42. 23 I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: continuity and innovation (Cambridge, 1990), 18. 24 H. Denifle-E. Châtelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, 4 vols (Paris, 1889), i, 147 no. 95: ‘aliquando disciplinis scolasticis insudantes ad summum sumus licet immeriti magisterium evocati’. 25 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 128. 26 Venientibus ad praesentiam, 16 May 1198, PL, ccxvii, cols 31–6, at col. 32. 27 Epistolae Cantuarienses, The Letters of the Prior and Convent of Christchurch, Canterbury from A.D. 1187 to A.D. 1199, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 38, 2 vols (London, 1865), ii, 471–2 no. 504.

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headed by a prior and a chapter staffed by monks instead of secular priests or canons.28 Tensions were rife not only between the chapter monks and their archbishops but also between the Benedictines themselves and their Cistercian rivals whilst, by 1198, how best to venerate the martyred Becket was already causing bitter struggles which were to last for almost thirty years. The multiple exchanges between Canterbury, its archbishop, the Chapter, and the Curia were recorded by Reginald, monk and possibly sub-prior of Christ Church who, between 1201 and 1205, amassed a collection of more than 570 letters, the Epistolae Cantuarienses, three of which add significantly to our knowledge of Hugo’s advocacy.29 Following Becket’s murder on 29 December 1170, Archbishop Richard of Dover (1173–1184) had proposed to build a large collegiate church dedicated to the blessed martyrs Stephen and Thomas at Hackington on the northern boundary of Canterbury.30 The monks of Christ Church, however, feared that this new foundation, staffed by secular clergy and requiring endowments from the priory’s own manors, would imperil their cathedral, the Mother Church of all England, which housed the shrine of St Thomas himself.31 Richard’s scheme foundered, only to be rapidly revived by his successor, Baldwin of Forde (1185–1190). In 1187, the ensuing case reached the Curia then in exile at Verona where a ‘triumvirate’ of Cardinal Hyacinth, later Celestine III (1191–1198), Lotario, later Innocent III, himself a pilgrim to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury in his student days,32 and Pillius, the great Bolognese civil lawyer and glossator,33 acted together as advocates for the Canterbury monks against their archbishop.34 Baldwin was eventually forced to demolish the church at Hackington but nevertheless planned yet another collegiate church, this time at Lambeth on land bought from the bishop of Rochester. In 1196, Baldwin’s successor, Hubert Walter (1193–1198), revived the scheme for Lambeth in full knowledge of the violence that this project 28 In England: Bath, Canterbury, Carlisle, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, Winchester and Worcester; in Europe: Monreale (Sicily) and Downpatrick (Ireland). 29 All now bound together in the Library of Lambeth Palace, London Lambeth Palace, as MS, no. 415; Epistolae Cantuarienses, at x–xiii for a description of the manuscript. 30 Ibid., xxxviii–xli. See also Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 254–60. 31 Monkton, Eastry, Meopham and Eynsford. C.R. Cheney, Hubert Walter (London, 1967), 137–40. 32 Chronica Andrensis, ed. I. Heller, MGH SS 24 (Hanover, 1879), 684–773, at 738, cap. 158: ‘Nam tempore, quo Parisius in scholis residimus, apud beatum Thomam peregrinantes, in ecclesia tua hospitium habuimus […].’ 33 Pillius Medicinensis (d. c.1207), produced the first Bolognese gloss of the Libri feudorum. 34 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 66–9 at 68, no. 80.

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had provoked from the monks in the past. Nevertheless the archbishop persisted, now armed with a licence to proceed from Celestine III and made a variety of promises, one amongst these that he would neither endanger the Church of Canterbury nor allow Becket’s body to be removed from its shrine.35 The chapter, however, remained unconvinced of Hubert’s sincerity and, in December 1197, two monks (S. and N.) departed secretly for Rome, bearing the convent’s complaint and later suffering excommunication at the archbishop’s hand.36 Arriving at the Curia in January 1198, they learned of Celestine’s death and that their former advocate was now his successor; as Innocent III. Geoffrey, prior of Christ Church, could scarcely contain his joy,37 especially as he learned that his congratulatory letter had miraculously arrived in Rome on 17 April, the very day on which the pope and his cardinals were discussing the monks’ case.38 Innocent ordered the immediate demolition of the Lambeth church and the removal of the secular canons, but Hubert refused, instead placing the monks under further pressure during the summer. At another hearing on 21 October, Prior Geoffrey in person presented the convent’s case against the archbishop at the Curia whilst Hubert was represented in absentia by the Cistercian abbots of Boxley and Robertsbridge.39 On 6 November 1198, the Feast of St Leonard, Innocent delivered his judgment in favour of the monks. 40 Following this decision, the three letters now in Lambeth concerning Hugo serve to throw light on his reputation in this case. In the first dated c.20 November 1198, the earliest of his own literary compositions to survive and to display his undoubted eloquence, he addressed the Chapter of Canterbury.41 Styling himself Master Hugo, advocatus et capellanus domini papae, he admits that he had not expected to receive this commission to act on behalf of Christ Church, and praises those monks who had journeyed to Rome to protect the liberty of the church of Canterbury for which St Thomas had given his life. Nor does false modesty (inverecunde) prevent him from telling the Canterbury monks how fully they will appreciate the outcome of his excellent advocacy when, shortly, they can expect to hear the pope’s decision on their case. Whilst assuring them that he should not be thought of 35 Ibid., 371–2 no. 413. 9 June 1197; Cheney, Hubert Walter, 135–57, at 138–45. 36 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 389–90, at 390 no. 432. 37 Ibid., 387–8, at 387 no. 430: ‘Cum enim de promotione vestra gavisa sit.’ 38 Ibid., 390–1 no. 433: ‘Nam illa die et eadem hora, cum dominus papa una cum cardinalibus tractaret diligenter, prudenter […];‘ Cheney, Hubert Walter, 140–1. 39 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 452–3 no. 491; Cheney, Hubert Walter, 140–1. 40 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 459–65, at 459, no. 448. Cheney, Hubert Walter, 145. 41 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 471–2 no. 504.

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as seeking any earthly reward for his endeavours, Hugo nevertheless requests the monks’ prayers and hints heavily at his undoubted delight should he receive some precious relics of the blessed Thomas, Martyr of Christ. Responding a mere two months later, in January 1199, the monks of Canterbury replied to Master Hugo, expressing their gratitude, and praising him for supporting the cause of the humble and poor. Interestingly, they too emphasize how greatly their confidence has risen on account of his advocacy and echo his own words as to the most welcome but nonetheless unexpected nature of his appointment. 42 They promise to send him some relics of their blessed martyr and commend him to their prayers. A second letter addressed by the Canterbury convent to Hugo and dated after 18 November 1199, reveals that although the archbishop had regained ascendancy over the monks, their trust in Hugo’s solicitude was unwavering and their gratitude for his eloquence found expression through a citation from Deuteronomy 32:2, that ‘his words distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass’. 43 Invoking the Lord’s protection together with that of the blessed martyr Thomas, they request him to use his advocacy once more on their behalf. Indeed, echoing the vision of Isaiah 1:8, the monks state that, without his blessing, they would be as desolate ‘as a shady covert in a vineyard or as a watchman’s hut in a field of cucumbers’. 44 Fulsome praise indeed and such that any advocate would be pleased to receive!

Cardinal deacon, auditor, legate, December 1198– c.6 June 1206 On Ember Day, 19 December 1198, almost a year before the Canterbury monks were to make their final request for his advocacy, Hugo was elevated to the cardinalate,45 subscribing for the first time on 4 January 1199. 46 Henceforth, he does not appear again in the letters recording the Canterbury dispute but instead is mentioned frequently in the registers of Innocent III (elected 8 January and consecrated 22 February 1198), during a pontificate which marked a significant watershed in the availability of archival material. 47 42 Ibid., 476–7 no. 509: ‘quia advocatio vestra, quanto nobis exstitit inopinatior’. 43 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 506–7 no. 542; Cheney, Hubert Walter, 145–57, for the aftermath of the dispute. 44 Epistolae Cantuarienses, 507: ‘sicut umbraculum in vinea, et sicut tugurium in cucumerario’. 45 19 December 1198. Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 128 n. 22. 46 Ibid., at 379 no. 42. 47 These registers, the first to survive almost intact, were arranged and bound chronologically by pontifical year. Catalogued in the Archivio Segreto Vaticano as Reg. Vat. 4, 5, 6, 7, 7A, 8 and

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We can also trace one particular aspect of Hugo’s early career through the ‘semi-official’ papal biography, the Gesta Innocentii PP. III, which records the pope’s Deeds from 1198 until 1208 when it ceases abruptly.48 The anonymous curial author stands accused of presenting a pro-papal (some might say biased) view during the dispute over the Regno and throne of Sicily and particularly of embellishing a courageous gesture made by Hugo to which, in 1937, Thomas Van Cleve offered a robust (but equally one-sided) corrective.49 Three letters, one emanating from the retinue of Raynaldo, bishop elect of Capua, another from that of Hugo and a third, from a curial mediator, provide evidence for a legation to the Regno which the latter undertook between late August and late September 1199, travelling across the Terra di Lavoro to Salerno.50 Whilst continuing to audit a succession of high-profile cases, Hugo also attracted the attention of contemporaries such as Gerald of Wales and Thomas of Marlborough, both of whom, having met him during visits to Rome, deserve to have their forthright opinions taken into consideration. Within three weeks of his elevation, Hugo became personally aware of the imperial struggle when he was ordered to replace Gerard, cardinal deacon of S. Adriano,51 in hearing a dispute involving the priory of S. Savino in Spoleto.52 Innocent had urgently dispatched Gerard to the kingdom of Sicily, together with John, cardinal priest of S. Stefano in Celiomonte,53 both charged as legates to protect the pope’s infant ward, Frederick II (1197–1250),54 whose parents, the Emperor Henry VI (1191–1197) and Constance, the Queen 8A, and published in 1855 together with a Supplementum in J.-P. Migne’s four-volume Opera Omnia of Innocent’s works. In 1947, Father Friedrich Kempf produced a model critical edition of Reg. Vat. 6, the Thronstreitregister, containing Innocent’s own selection of letters on the dispute over the Romano-German imperial throne between 1198 and 1209. In 1952, Professor Othmar Hageneder, inspired by Kempf’s work, first joined and subsequently led the team of scholars at the Austrian Historical Institute which, from 1964 to the present, has published critical editions of all but the final (and forthcoming) two registers of Innocent’s pontificate. 48 Gesta Innocentii PP. III, in PL, ccxiv, cols 17–228. The only modern edition so far is D. GressWright, The ‘Gesta Innocentii III’: text, introduction and commentary, unpublished PhD, Bryn Mawr College, PA, 1981 and (Ann Arbor MI, 1994). See also The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author, trans. J. M. Powell (Washington DC, 2004) and Spataro, La Vita, 15–19 with updated bibliography. 49 T.C. Van Cleve, Markward of Anweiler and the Sicilian Regency: a study of Hohenstaufen policy in Sicily during the minority of Frederick II (Princeton NJ, 1937), 86–97, 108–123. 50 Hampe, Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 25–6, 41–4. 51 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 78–9. 52 Cum super prioratu, 23 January 1199, Reg. Inn., i, 769–70 no. 531 (533). 53 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 107–9. 54 Quod in obsequio, c.15 December 1198, Reg. Inn., i, 814–15 no. 558 (563).

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Regnant (1194–1198), had died within fourteen months of each other.55 Before her death, however, Constance had severed all relations with the Empire on learning of the claim made by Markward of Anweiler (d.1202), Henry VI’s former imperial seneschal (1190–1197),56 that her husband’s Testament awarded him custody not only of their child but also of the Sicilian regency.57 Markward, German adventurer and ‘powerful and successful antagonist of Innocent III’,58 whom Henry VI had raised from obscurity,59 subsequently returned to the Marche (Ancona and the Romagna) from where he and his troops represented a real and ever-present danger to the integrity of the Patrimony of St Peter. Following his election, Innocent immediately sent Cinzio, cardinal priest of S. Lorenzo in Lucino60 and John, cardinal priest of S. Prisca61 to the Marche to return Markward to the authority of the Church.62 When he proved obdurate, the two cardinals were forced to excommunicate him.63 Little could Hugo have guessed that so much of his work during the following two decades would be taken up by varying degrees of contact with these figures. Innocent next diverted the legates Gerard of S. Adriano and John of S. Stefano to the Terra di Lavoro64 with instructions to persuade the citizens, counts and nobles of the region to resist ‘the perfidious Markward’.65 Moving into the region, Markward ordered his troops to capture the former imperial stronghold of Cassino before entering the Regno and Sicily, aiming to cede both territories to Philip of Swabia, Henry VI’s younger brother.66 After destroying the town of San Germano below, between 1 January and 20 February 1199, he besieged the fortified monastery itself, whence the cardinals, 55 Quod prima primi, c.8 February 1199, Reg. Inn., i, 815–16 no. 559 (565). 56 Van Cleve, Markward, 82–6, at 84 suggesting that this occurred either at the end of 1197 or the very beginning of 1198. 57 Gesta Innocentii, XXIII, col. xxxviii; Powell, Deeds, 22; Van Cleve, Markward, 82–5. 58 Ibid., 67–76 and 97. 59 Henry invested him as duke of Ravenna and the Romagna, margrave of Ancona and count of Molise at the Assembly of Bari in 1195. 60 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 104–6. 61 Ibid., 114–7. John of S Paulo. 62 Et zizania, March 1198. Reg. Inn., i, 56–7 no. 38. 63 Si multitudinem, 10–15  August  1199. Reg. Inn., ii, 307–11 no.  158, for the form of excommunication. 64 The territory of Ancient Liburia, including the valleys of the Amaseno, Sacco, Gari and Liri rivers, extending approximately from Sora and Isola del Liri to Capua, Gaeta and the Ausoni Mountains. 65 Gesta Innocentii, XXIII, col. xli; Powell, Deeds, 23. 66 Gesta Innocentii, at XXIII, cols xxxix–xlii; Powell, Deeds, 22–3; Van Cleve, Markward, 99–107 for a detailed account of the two sieges and subsequent negotiations.

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Gerard and John, together with some thousand townspeople, soldiers and archers, had fled at his approach. Two months later, Markward abandoned the siege, withdrew his forces and returned to Molise. By July 1199, he was in Puglia where he encountered Conrad of Wittelsbach, archbishop of Mainz and cardinal bishop of Sabina (1166–1200),67 returning from Jerusalem, and where together they discussed peace terms between the papacy and the Germans in the Italian peninsula. The two sides ultimately agreed to meet at Veroli, a small city high on an outcrop of the Ernici Mountains bordering Campania and the Terra di Lavoro.68 Perhaps surprisingly, Hugo was one of the three cardinals charged by Innocent III to ensure that Markward swore a solemn oath of submission to obey the papal mandate.69 Octavian, cardinal bishop of Ostia (1189–1206),70 a distant relative of Innocent on his mother’s side was the most senior, whilst Guido de Papa, cardinal priest of S. Maria in Trastevere,71 previously selected to negotiate Markward’s abortive safe conduct to Rome,72 had already heard a dispute together with Hugo in April 1199 between the cathedral chapter of Sisteron (Drôme) and the Templars.73 Although the most recently promoted of these cardinals, Hugo’s practical experience of advocacy and diplomacy, together with his Campanian origins within the Patrimony of St Peter, were to serve him well when, quite unexpectedly, the task fell to him to deliver the pope’s mandate. The wording of the papal mandate to Markward is not only set out in Innocent’s letters but is also provided by the author of the Gesta.74 By virtue of the oath that he had sworn on the Cross and the Gospels, without any prior agreement or conditions, Markward was to renounce the regency of the kingdom of Sicily and desist henceforth from invading or ravaging the Regno, the kingdom of Sicily and the Patrimony of St Peter in any way whatsoever. He was neither to take hostage nor to besiege any cardinal or legate of the Apostolic See nor to molest or otherwise lay violent hands upon the clergy. He was to give adequate compensation and make restitution 67 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 67; Van Cleve, Markward, 118–23. 68 Gesta Innocentii, XXIII, col. xliii; Deeds, 24. 69 Gesta Innocentii, XXIII, col. xliv; Deeds, 25; Van Cleve, Markward, 119. 70 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 80–3, at 82. 71 Ibid., 99–10. For his distinguished appearance see MS Vat. lat. 10999, fol.152v: ‘canitie admirabilis’. 72 Gesta, IX, col. Xxiii: ‘mittens ad ipsum Guidonem, tituli Sancte Mariae Transtiberim presbyterum cardinalem qui eum ad presentium suam secure conduceret, si vellet praemissa complere’. 73 Causam que, Reg. Inn., ii, 57–8 no. 35. 74 Gesta, XXIII, cols xliv–v; Powell, Deeds, 26–7.

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for the damage caused at Montecassino and other territorial usurpations elsewhere. After swearing the initial oath of submission,75 Markward then invited the cardinals to go down from Veroli to the nearby Cistercian monastery of Casamari in the valley of the Amaseno where a banquet awaited them.76 According to the Gesta, Cardinal Octavian, led astray by Leo de Monumento, his maternal cousin, imperial sympathizer and ‘mediator of this reconciliation’, after some hesitation, had finally succumbed to the unexpected invitation, persuading Guido and Hugo also to attend.77 The papal biographer suggests that Markward conceived this device so that once the cardinals had moved from a fortified position (Veroli) to an unfortified one (Casamari), they would not have the courage to read out such an important mandate in front of so many of his followers.78 At the banquet Markward himself served the guests assiduously but as the meal drew to an end an alarming rumour began to circulate that the cardinals were about to be taken captive. They were confused and possibly intimidated until Hugo, ‘having assumed the spirit of fortitude’79 stepped forward, holding a parchment identified by the papal seal, and declared: ‘Behold the mandate of the Lord Pope, we cannot do otherwise!’.80 A tumult then broke out as Markward and his followers heard the contents of the mandate read aloud for the first time but he apparently permitted no dishonourable actions against the cardinals and personally escorted them back to Veroli.81 The Gesta is our sole source for Hugo’s ‘spirit of fortitude’ or putative act of bravery in enforcing the papal mandate in the face of Markward’s threats. Van Cleve is dismissive of the biographer’s account, arguing that Innocent himself makes no reference to the cardinals’ visit to Casamari and that Hugo is portrayed as hero of the occasion merely by virtue of his close relationship to the pope.82 Two of Innocent’s letters mention the meeting at Veroli, one addressed to Markward himself,83 the other to all the people of Sicily84 but 75 Gesta, XXIII, cols xliv; Powell, Deeds, 25. 76 Formerly a Benedictine abbey, founded c.1035–1038 and colonized by monks from Clairvaux between 1147 and 1150. 77 Lord of Anguillara, Roman consul and supporter of Henry VI who granted him Sutri in 1186. Reg. Inn., i, 471, n. 3; Gesta, XXIII, col. xliv; Powell, Deeds, 26. 78 Gesta, XXIII, col. Xliv: ‘ut, cum a loco munito ad locum descenderet immunitum’. 79 Ibid.: ‘[…] resumpto spiritu fortitudinis’. 80 Ibid.: ‘Ecce mandatum domini papae. Nos aliud facere non valemus’. 81 Gesta, XXIV, col. xlv; Powell, Deeds, 27. 82 Van Cleve, Markward, 119. 83 Ad reconcilionem, 10–15 August 1199. Reg. Inn., ii, 307–11 no. 158 (167); Van Cleve, Markward, 119–20. 84 Et optata regni, 10–15 August 1199. Reg. Inn., ii, 331–3 no. 170 (179); Van Cleve, Markward, 119–20.

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his intention was never to highlight the incident at Casamari.85 Instead, the letters repeat the precise wording of Markward’s excommunication, of his public submission to the Church and that of the papal mandate. Innocent’s admonition to Markward that hostility to the kingdom had to end could not, therefore, have been clearer, but as the pope was soon to find out, he lacked the means to enforce this. Also worthy of consideration is the increasing significance to the papacy of Casamari and its sixth abbot. By this time, Gerald I (1182/83–1209/11) had acquired a reputation in papal circles as a diplomat and negotiator extraordinary.86 In 1192, as mediator, he journeyed to Hagenau to deliver a personal letter from Celestine III to conclude peace between Henry VI and Tancred of Lecce.87 Likewise, as host of the banquet at Casamari in 1199, Gerald had ample incentive to use his proven diplomatic skills in a behind-the-scenes attempt to diffuse the inevitable tensions which surrounded Markward’s submission to the cardinals. On this occasion, however, any putative efforts by Gerald were to no avail as Markward broke his oath, left for Sicily in the summer of 1199 and by November 1201 had gained full control of the kingdom. Innocent, in the meantime, had begun to establish an effective administrative system in the newly recovered territories of Amalfi and Puglia,88 whilst Walter, count of Brienne, and his army concentrated on driving the remnants of Markward’s forces from the Terra di Lavoro as well as from the Regno.89 Salerno, however, remained supportive of Markward and a legation undertaken there by Hugo in late August or early September 1202 may be deduced from three separate letters. In the Subiaco letter, the breviator briefly hinted that Hugo would soon be visiting their mutual friend, Raynaldo of Capua,90 whilst two other letters addressed to Innocent III recorded his intentions in this regard, one from Raynaldo himself,91 the other from a cleric, acting as mediator on behalf of the Curia, who reported directly to 85 Si multitudinem, 10–15 August1199. Reg. Inn., ii, 311–2 no. 159 (168); Van Cleve, Markward, 119–23. 86 Giraldus, O. Cist, later bishop of Reggio Calabria (?1209/11–?1217), Kamp, Kirche und Monarchie, ii, 922–6; H. Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie Joachims von Fiore und Rainers von Ponza’, DA, 16 (1969), 437–546; F. Farina-I. Vona, L’abate Giraldo di Casamari (Casamari,1998), Bibliotheca Casaemariensis, 3; B. Bolton, ‘Gerald of Casamari between Joachim of Fiore and Innocent III’, Florensia. Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, 13/14 (1999–2000), 31–43. 87 11 March 1192. MGH Const., i, 491–2, at 491 no. 344: ‘virum religiosum et providum ac nobis dilectum’. 88 Loud, The Latin Church, 250–3. 89 Si naturam et, 14 September 1202. Reg. Inn., v, 165–7 no. 83 (84); Van Cleve, Markward, 119–20. 90 Hampe., ‘Eine Schilderung des Sommeraufenthaltes’, 524 and 534; idem., Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, no. 4, 41 and n. 47. 91 Idem., Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 32–7, at 36 no. 3; 38–41 no. 4.

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the pope but found himself prevented by illness from returning immediately to Rome.92 In Capua, Hugo’s dedicated mission was to resolve the ongoing dispute between Raynaldo and Leo of Andria, castellan of that city.93 His legation to Salerno was, however, closely associated with Innocent’s serious military endeavour to speed the progress of Walter of Brienne, who appeared definitely less than enthusiastic when ordered to move his troops against those of Markward in Sicily.94 Hampe even suggested that Hugo might have joined Walter for some distance on his march to Salerno in September 1202 against the forces of Dipoldo of Vohberg, count of Acerra.95 As Markward’s most dependable lieutenant, Dipoldo remained in the peninsula long after Markward’s death in mid-September 1202,96 causing chaos throughout the Terra di Lavoro by controlling the impregnable Rocca d’Arce at the head of the Liri valley from where he could not be dislodged.97 Salerno, a strongly imperial coastal port, had already exiled its archbishop, Nicholas (1188–1222) who, unable to reside in his own city, was installed in 1202 as administrator of the vacant suffragan see of Carpaccio by Innocent.98 Further, Hugo was charged with determining the current status of John, prince of Salerno, a Latin but formerly bishop-elect of the Greek diocese of Santa Severina, whose appointment had immediately been quashed by Innocent.99 It remained unclear whether John, installed by Markward as elect of Salerno and subsequently excommunicated with him in 1199, had finally been removed from office or not.100 We do not know how far he succeeded in these difficult assignments but, by 14 November 1202, Hugo was back in Rome.101 At this point we may attempt to match those qualities which had so commended Hugo to the anonymous breviator in the late summer of 1202 – praiseworthiness, eloquence, a proper disposition of moral qualities, and solid and illustrious pillar of the whole world – and examine which of these he particularly merited. For the author of the Gesta, the incident at 92 Idem., Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 26 no. 4, 43. 93 Idem., Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 21–6 no. 4, 42. 94 Reg. Inn., v, 265–7 no. 83 (84). 95 Hampe, Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 41 no.5, n. 107. 96 Benedictus Deus, 24 September 1202, Reg. Inn., v, no. 88 (89), 172–3 for the f irst notice of Markward’s death. 97 Hampe, Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 25–6; Van Cleve, Markward, 197. 98 Quantie prudentie, 12 June 1202, Reg. Inn., v, 117 no. 61. 99 Reg. Inn., i, 27–9 nos. 16–18. 100 Tacti sumus dolore, Reg. Inn., v, 306–11, at 309 no. 158 (159), n.18; Kamp, Kirche und Monarchie. 1. Abruzzen und Kampanien, 883; Loud, The Latin Church, 251. 101 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 381.

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Casamari served to perpetuate the image of a courageous local hero from the Campania, acting on behalf of the Curia. Hugo’s actions there were undoubtedly praiseworthy and reveal the steadfast temperament and high moral character expected of an ecclesiastic. The breviator of Subiaco, however, when referring to Hugo as the solid and illustrious pillar of the whole world must surely have had in mind his forthcoming legation to Salerno, which was undoubtedly discussed at the papal encampment in 1202 just before his departure. Raynaldo’s revealing letters instead told Innocent of the errors made in the defence of Capua and of his fears that guerrilla raids would return with violence across the Terra di Lavoro, rising to a crescendo from 1200 onwards.102 Significantly, Raynaldo identifies Dipoldo as a ‘killing machine’.103 We are fortunate that the Capuan letters have survived precisely from the time when a gap in the papal registers between 1200 and 1202 makes a complete picture impossible. The dangers of this legation to the Regno and Hugo’s unequivocal courage in undertaking it may have gone some way towards justifying his next promotion. As for his eloquence, Hugo’s voice, both written and spoken, will become clearer as we hear more from his own hand. Over the next three years, Hugo undertook no more legations but instead concentrated on a succession of cases in which he served as auditor.104 One encounter which began well in 1199 but ended in rancour some four years later involved Gerald of Wales (c.1146–c.1223), archdeacon of Brecon, indefatigable traveller and amusing raconteur, who had reason to be grateful to Hugo whom at first he called ‘fautor et amicus’ for advancing his claim to the see of St David’s in the presence of Innocent III at the Curia.105 By 1203 or thereabouts, when this putative offer appeared to have been withdrawn, Gerald had clearly changed his opinion of Hugo and expressed considerable annoyance at this so-called ‘treachery’, now deeming him to be ‘maximus ejusdem rei dissuasor’.106 That Gerald was by no means Hugo’s sole critic is probably true but another credible witness who spoke in the cardinal deacon’s favour was Thomas of Marlborough, monk of Evesham Abbey who, in April 1205, had 102 Hampe, Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, i, 13–21 nos 1–3. 103 Idem., Mitteilungen aus der Capuaner Briefsammlung, ii, 32–7, at 36 no. 3; 38–41 at 39–40 no. 4: ‘eos mortales inimicos regis et regi solvisset, qui cum modo Diapuldi specialia sint instrumenta nocendi, non solum Capuam, sed totam Terram Laboris affligunt’. 104 Accedens ad presentiam, 1 December 1204. Reg. Inn. vii, 308–9 no. 172; Ex parte tua, 20 December 1204. ibid., 312 no. 176; Gravem nobis, 24 March 1205. Reg. Inn., viii, 56–7 no. 33; Sepe nobis, 26 March 1205, ibid., 44–6 no. 29; Meminimus vobis, 16 May 1205, ibid., 102–4 no. 61 (60). 105 Gerald of Wales, De Menevensis Ecclesia Dialogus, ed. J. S. Brewer, RS 21, 8 vols (London, 1863), iii, 181–2; The Autobiography of Gerald of Wales, ed. and trans by H.E. Butler (London, 1937), new. ed. (Woodbridge, 2005), 194–5. 106 Gerald of Wales, De Menevensis Ecclesia Dialogus, 265; The Autobiography, 294–5.

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discussed his monastery’s case with the pope, recording that he met ‘also with Cardinal Hugo, later bishop of Ostia whom I had previously chosen because of his experience in the law, to be the guardian and protector of our church and our cause’.107 Thomas certainly appears to reinforce the view that Hugo acquired his legal acumen through practice on the ground – as a Benedictine he had clearly heard of his intervention in the Canterbury case – and would not, therefore, have been in the least surprised that his ability and diplomatic skills led in June 1206 to a fast-track promotion.

Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, indefatigable legate, reformer, 1206–1221 Hugo first subscribed on 8 June 1206 as cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri, elevated by Innocent III as the senior of the seven cardinal bishops whose sees were Rome’s immediate neighbours.108 Amongst the many tasks pertaining to his office were the highest of ceremonial duties, the crowning of a new pope, officiating at imperial coronations and applying his detailed knowledge of the various forms of recognition and reception of lesser rulers, both spiritual and temporal.109 Between 1209 and 1221, he became a seasoned traveller, undertaking diplomatic missions of the most sensitive and challenging nature. His first legation involved him in the dispute over the succession to the German throne and his role in the imperial coronation of Otto IV. Three subsequent legations took him to Tuscany and Lombardy, where he not only preached the Fifth Crusade but also sought to pacify the communes and eliminate the spread of heresy. Nor did he neglect the Patrimony of St Peter and adjacent territories, intervening in disputes to ensure that the possessions of the Church remained intact and providing both spiritual and administrative assistance to communities of religious women in Umbria and the Valle Spoletana. During his early months as cardinal bishop, Hugo continued his usual preliminary investigations as auditor in the Curia.110 Between May 1207 and 107 Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, ed. and trans. J. Sayers and L. Watkins, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2003), 274–5: ‘[…] quem prius elegeram (quia iurisperitus erat) ecclesie nostre et cause nostri tutorem et protectorem’. 108 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 385 no.164. 109 G. Le Bras, Institutions ecclésiastiques de la chrétienté médiévale, 2 vols (Tournai, 1959–1964), ii, 354. 110 Cum accessisent, Reg. Inn., ix, 439–43 nos 258 (260); Cum causa que, Reg. Inn., x, 354–7 no. 203; PL, ccxv, 1909, 1306; Veniens ad praesentium, PL, ccxvi, cols 545–9 at 547 no. 213.

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September 1209, however, Innocent charged him with a political legation of the utmost significance when, together with Leo Brancaleone, cardinal priest of S. Croce,111 they were dispatched to Germany which had been in a state of turmoil for at least the past ten years.112 The young Frederick II, his uncle, Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick, son of Henry the Lion, Welf ruler of Saxony and Bavaria, were all in contention to succeed Henry VI as German king and Roman emperor. In his Deliberatio of c.1200, Innocent had argued for and against each candidate, dismissing the boy Frederick out of hand, deeming Philip unacceptable and thus indirectly promoting Otto.113 When, in March 1201, Innocent confirmed Philip of Swabia’s excommunication for supporting his brother in Italy, he finally named Otto as emperor elect of the Romans.114 In May 1207, the pope’s letter of introduction, addressed to all the German princes, named Hugo and Leo as his legates and urged a much needed cooperation between Staufen and Welf.115 Their arrival in Germany also coincided with a softening of papal attitudes towards Philip of Swabia.116 The heightened diplomatic activity that followed ensured that both legates were present at the Parliament in Augsburg, held at the end of November 1207, at which it was agreed that further papal arbitration should take place at the Curia.117 Hence, they travelled back to Rome by 11 April 1208,118 and together with the Staufen and Welf envoys, worked towards a peaceful settlement of various episcopal rivalries.119 Sometime after 12 May 1208,120 the legates set forth with the intention of returning immediately to Germany but instead were forced to halt their journey when Leo was taken ill in Mantua. However, in a letter despatched from Verona in early July 1208 and written with full dramatic emphasis, Hugo provided Innocent with a vivid account of Philip 111 Leo Brancaleone, papal chaplain, Cp of S. Croce in Gerusalemme (1202–1224). Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 137–9. 112 E. Winkelmann, Philipp von Schwaben und Otto IV. von Braunschweig, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1873), i, 414–34; Brem, Papst Gregor IX, 11–19. 113 RNI, 74–91 no. 29. Sources for the History of Medieval Europe, ed. and trans. B. Pullan (Oxford, 1966), 194–200 for an English translation. 114 Beginning of 1202. RNI, 175–7 no. 63. 115 Ad designandum, May 1207, RNI, 332–5 at 335 no. 141. 116 June 1206–July-August 1206. RNI, 316–26 nos 136–8. 117 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 129. 118 Ibid., 11 April 1208, 386 no. 192. 119 RNI, 335–7 no. 142; ibid. 340–2 nos. 146–7. M. Maccarrone, Studi su Innocenzo III (Padua,1972), Italia sacra, Studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica 17, 153, suggested that Hugo went to Germany on three separate legations but it seems unlikely. 120 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 386 no. 197.

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of Swabia’s assassination on 21 June in Bamberg at the hands of Otto of Wittelsbach, one of his own supporters.121 Having heard the testimony of an eyewitness, Hugo provided what is possibly the earliest circumstantial account of Philip’s death. Otto IV’s seemingly lost cause was suddenly revived and his election as king of the Romans confirmed in a solemn ceremony at Frankfurt on the Feast of St Martin, 11 November 1208, in the presence of Beatrix, Philip of Swabia’s daughter.122 On 16 January 1209, Innocent authorized Hugo and Leo to approve Beatrix’s marriage to Otto ‘if need and evident utility require in order that peace might be restored to the empire’ and this was agreed at a solemn meeting in Würzburg attended by the legates, together with a great crowd of prelates, princes and priests.123 On 22 March of that year, Otto took a solemn oath at Speyer to agree to Innocent’s conditions for free elections and the integrity of the Patrimony of St Peter as the price of the imperial crown,124 while the pope granted a papal dispensation for his betrothal to the eleven-year old Beatrix which took place on 24 May 1209.125 Both Hugo and Leo, returning from Germany to Rome for the last time, subscribed on 14 September 1209.126 Otto travelled to Rome in the autumn of 1209 to receive imperial coronation at St Peter’s.127 The Ordo Cencius II establishes the detail of how the ceremonial was to be performed and sets out the traditional role to be played by the bishop of Ostia.128 Two other cardinal bishops were first to say prayers over the emperor elect: the bishop of Albano before Otto entered the basilica, the bishop of Porto, whilst he stood on the great porphyry roundel in the nave.129 Then Hugo, as bishop of Ostia, together with the 121 Beginning of July 1208. RNI, 347–9 no. 152; Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, ed. J.M. Lappenberg with G.H. Pertz, MGH SRG (Hanover,1868), 281–3 no. 12; The Chronicle of Arnold of Lübeck, ed. G.A. Loud, Crusade Texts in Translation (Abingdon and New York, 2019), 288–9 no. 12, n. 98 for an English translation of Hugo’s letter. 122 Winkelmann, Kaiser Otto IV. von Braunschweig 1208–1218 (Leipzig, 1873), ii, 167–229; Chronica Slavorum, 286–874 no. 14; Chronicle of Arnold, 292–3 no. 14. 123 16 January 1209, RNI, 388–92, at 391 nos 180–2: ‘[…] si urgens necessitas et euidens utilitas pro pace in imperio reformanda huiusmodi matrimonium contrahi postularint’. 124 22 March 1209, RNI, 399–403 no. 189. 125 Chronica Slavorum, 289–90; Chronicle of Arnold, 293–7. The couple married in Nordhausen on 22 July 1212, but Beatrix died three weeks later, aged 14. 126 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 388 no. 225. 127 4–11 October 1209, RNI, 405–8 nos 192–4. 128 M. Andrieu, Le Pontifical romain au moyen âge, 2 vols, Studi e Testi, 87 (Vatican City, 1940), ii; Le Pontifical de la Curie romaine au XIIIe siècle, ii, 290; R. Elze, Die Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin (Hanover, 1960), MGH 9, 35–87. 129 For the significance of the porphyry roundels, see C. Bolgia, ‘Between Rome and the Holy Land: Gregory IX’s facade mosaic at Old St Peter’s reinterpreted’, forthcoming in Gesta, autumn 2021.

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head of the deacons, was to begin the third prayer as Otto approached the Confessio and prostrated himself at the tomb of the Apostle. From there, the emperor was led to the Oratory of St Maurice, to the left of the Confessio, for the moment of unction when the bishop of Ostia anointed him with oil on the right arm and between the shoulders, saying the prayer Domine Deus omnipotens.130 The ceremony must have seemed a highpoint for Hugo but if so, this feeling was not to be long-lived. In November 1210, in violation of his sworn oath, Otto invaded the Regno, invested Dipoldo of Acerra as duke of Spoleto and sent German troops to occupy Tuscia Romana, the northern part of the Patrimony of St Peter.131 He also granted commercial privileges throughout the Regno to the city of Pisa in return for the Pisans’ support of his invasion of Sicily.132 At the beginning of April 1211, Innocent finally wrote to the German princes,133 releasing them from their fealty to Otto and encouraging them to support Frederick’s claim to the Empire.134 Writing from Germany before he completed his legation, Hugo confessed not only to deep despair on hearing of the death of his spiritual advisor, the Cistercian Rainier of Ponza135 but also of the many trials and tribulations that faced him, whilst conscious that he lacked the time to be as effective a legate as he wished.136 Yet, this level of anxiety appears insufficient to account fully for the suggestion that his career suffered a hiatus on his return to Italy. Between November 1209 and May 1216, he was neither an auditor nor absent from Rome for any significant length of time but instead remained close to the pope.137 Passing through Ascoli Piceno, he found priests practising as notaries and it was his information that led to Sicut te accipimus, Innocent’s decretal letter of 26 November 1211, prohibiting consecrated clergy from exercising notarial office.138 In 1213 and 1214, a young relative 130 Elze, Die Ordines, 40–2. 131 P. Partner, The Lands of St Peter, (London, 1972), 240–2. 132 Cum Pisani, Reg. Inn., xiv, 159–60 no. 101; PL, ccxvi, col. 465. 133 Burchardi praepositi Urspergensis Chronicon, ed. O. Holder-Egger and B. von Simson, MGH SRG (2 ed. Hanover and Leipzig, 1916), 98–9: ‘[…] tandem contumax et rebellis existens ab eo fuit excommunicatus et ubique denunciatus’. 134 Beginning of April 1211. J.F. Böhmer, Acta Imperii Selecta, 2 vols (Innsbruck, 1870), ii, 630 no. 921; Potthast, i, 363 no. 4213. 135 M. Rainini, Il profeta del papa. Vita e memoria di Raniero da Ponza, eremita di Curia (Milan, 2016). 136 Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, 367; F. Robb, ‘Joachimist Exegesis in the Theology of Innocent III and Rainier of Ponza’, Florensia, 11 (1997), 137–52, at 139–44 and 139 n. 11; Rainini, Il profeta del papa, 138–42. 137 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 130. 138 Reg. Inn., xiv, 197–8 no. 129. The decretal is in 4 Comp. 3.19.1 (Compilatio Quarta of Johannes Teutonicus, a German canonist in Bologna, immediately after 1216). It was one of the sources

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was granted two benefices in England and an income of forty marks each year from the Exchequer,139 payments possibly made to win over Hugo to the cause of King John’s nephew, Otto.140 The loss of Innocent’s register for the pontifical year 17 (22 February 1214 to 21 February 1215) may deprive us of further evidence concerning preparations for the Fourth Lateran Council (11 to 30 November 1215) but, as bishop of Ostia, Hugo was already at the forefront of all ceremonial arrangements. And from 1209, he became one of Innocent III’s preferred advisors, precisely at the time when Rainier’s actions, ability and discretion would have been so much on his mind.141 In short, whatever matters might at times have occupied this astute negotiator and diplomat, one in particular, a scandal amongst the Cistercians, had the potential to harm the whole Church. Swift and above all discreet action was essential. Hence, far from spending almost six years in relative inactivity, we suggest that Hugo would necessarily have been involved behind the scenes in attempting to negotiate a resolution to the Cistercian crisis to fulfil Rainier’s greatest wish. For Hugo’s career in the Curia often seems to have reflected Rainier’s own.142 Between April and December 1198, Rainier was sent on legation in Iberia with full power to act on behalf of the pope in peace-keeping and other matters.143 He moved to southern France as papal delegate,144 and then was named as apostolicus sedis legatus or legate a latere to deal with heretics there.145 Back in the Curia by 1201, Rainier, together with two cardinals, was charged with examining the proposita of the First and Second Orders of Humiliati of Lombardy before their acceptance into the Church146 whilst used by Raymond of Peňafort in the Liber Extra where the heading is NE CLERICI VEL MONACHI SECULARIBUS NEGOTIIS SE IMMISCEANT. I am grateful to Professor A.J. Duggan for this description. 139 T. Duffus Hardy, Rotuli litterarum clausarum […] 1204–1227, 2 vols, Record Commission (London, 1833–1844), i, 157a: ‘Et nepoti domini Ostiensis episcopi per manum Reynfridi clerici XL marcas de annuo redditu suo’ (9 December 1213); Ibid., 180a: ‘Liberate domino H. episcopo Hostiensis centum marcas de quadringentis marcis quas percipit per anno pro quodam nepoti suo donec ei provideatur in aliquo beneficio’ (28 November 1214). C.R. Cheney, Innocent III and England, Päpste und Papsttum, 9 (Stuttgart, 1976), 94 and n.67. 140 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 130. 141 Ibid., ‘Er war wohl einer der bevorzugten Berater Innocenz’ III’. 142 See the comprehensive article of M.P. Alberzoni, ‘Raniero da Ponza e la curia romana’, Florensia, 11 (1997), 83–113. 143 Ibid., 91–100. 144 Ibid., 100–1. 145 Ibid., 101–8. 146 12 and 16 June 1201. Ibid., 108–9 n.14; F. Andrews, The Early Humiliati (Cambridge, 1999), 67, 95–7.

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he also interpreted for Innocent III a dream of Gilbert of Sempringham whose canonization was confirmed on 11 January 1201.147 Finally, following the death of Walter of Brienne and as part of Innocent III’s rapprochement with Philip of Swabia, Rainier went on legation to the Terra di Lavoro in 1206, to absolve publicly the notorious Dipoldo and his German followers and receive their oaths, after the death of Walter of Brienne.148 Following the Order’s centennial celebrations in 1198, Innocent III’s congratulatory letter, Si navi nostri, was welcomed by the assembly of abbots at the General Chapter of that year,149 whilst a second letter, Qui ambulat simpliciter of 22 November 1202, addressed to the abbots of all five senior houses, made it clear that the pope would not hesitate to abolish the Order should the internal strife continue.150 In a private letter of 1203 to Arnald-Amaury, abbot of Cîteaux,151 as one Cistercian to another, Rainier pointed out that unless drastic steps were taken immediately to remedy the forthcoming disaster, the Cistercians, the first organized and disciplined order in the Church, would be deemed instead by many to be ‘a horror’.152 Rainier had informed Arnald of Cîteaux of Innocent’s requirement, namely a letter promising peace and concord, with the seal of each of the four abbots of the daughter houses attached. In addition, Rainier revealed that the pope was not ‘the forgetful executor of this business’ but had already ordered letters of memory, litterae memorie, to be committed to his register and might be sending ‘a certain man to look at our Jerusalem very carefully under a lamp’.153 Hugo was not that man in 1203 but, between 1209 and early 1217, he certainly had every reason to be so. 147 The Book of St Gilbert, ed. R. Foreville and G. Keir, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1987), 176–7. 148 Gesta Innocentii, cap. XXXVIII, col. lxviii; Powell, Deeds, 48–51; Alberzoni, ‘Raniero da Ponza e la curia romana’, 112–3. Master Philip, captured by Dipoldo’s brother Sifried, was only released after a large ransom was paid. 149 In navi nostri, 29 July 1198. J.M. Canivez, Statuta Capitularum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, 8 vols (Louvain, 1933–1941) [hereafter, Canivez], i, 221–4. 150 Reg. Inn., v, 216–17 no. 108 (109); PL, ccxiv, col. 1107 no. 109. Cîteaux, La Ferté, Pontigny, Clairvaux and Morimond. 151 B. Griesser, ‘Rainer von Fossanova und sein Brief an Abt Arnald von Cîteaux (1203)’, Cistercienser Chronik, 60 (1953), 151–67. 152 Ibid., 165: ‘Iam non ordo sed horror a plurimis estimetur.’ Also B. Bolton, ‘Non ordo sed horror’: Innocent III’s Burgundian dilemma’, in Papauté, Monachisme et Théories politiques. Études d’histoire médiévales offerts à Marcel Pacaut, ed. P. Guichard, M.-T. Lorcin, J.-M. Poisson, M. Rubellin, 2 vols (Lyon, 1994), ii, 645–52; reprinted in eadem., Innocent III: studies on papal authority and pastoral care (Aldershot, 1995), VII, same pagination. 153 Griesser, ‘Rainer von Fossanova’, 167: ‘[…] non est negociorum obliviosus executor […] quidam qui scrutabitur Jherusalem nostram diligenter nimium in lucernis’. [Prophecy of Sophonias, 1. 12].

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For Innocent, the annual Cistercian General Chapter meeting of abbots at Cîteaux each September was the organisational model for reform, renewal and discipline through which other groups of monks and canons, Benedictines and Augustinians alike, were to be brought into a systematic form of existence.154 By February 1203, the pope had already embarked on an elaborate scheme to establish provincial chapters of Benedictines in northern and central Italy, France and England, but with little success as most houses remained autonomous.155 Later, at the Fourth Lateran Council, he would revive his plans to impose chapters on all those groups which lacked them. The Cistercians, meanwhile, were scheming to raise their internal quarrel at the Council but Innocent has been widely credited with charging Hugo to ensure that Canon XII, In singulis regnis,156 was fully and carefully implemented.157 It is difficult to estimate how far Innocent or Hugo were successful in avoiding the scandal within an Order that had once been a shining example. In Sinceritatis affectus dated 26 July 1216, the new pope, Honorius III, wrote urging Cîteaux’s four daughters to retain the simplicity and purity of their first foundations158 whilst, in Cum nuper of 14 March 1217, he commented on his predecessor’s care in curtailing dissention lest this should irreparably damage the Order.159 He also announced that Nicholas de Romanis160 was to mediate a detailed agreement on abbatial elections, perhaps previously prepared by Hugo whose legation to the Pisans had just been announced a week before on 6 March. Both men well understood that the need for the Cistercians to preach and recruit for the crusade could not have been greater. On 1 May 1216, Hugo set out for Pisa and Genoa together with the pope and a group of cardinals to preach the Fifth Crusade until halted in Perugia on 16 July 1216 by Innocent’s unexpected death.161 154 Bolton, ‘Non ordo sed horror’, 651. 155 U. Berlière, ‘Les chapitres généraux de l’Ordre de St Benoît’, Revue Bénédictine, 18 (1901), 156–9; Maccarrone, ‘I capitoli regionali e nazionali del monastery esenti indetti nel 1203’, Studi, 226–46. 156 In singulis regnis, in Ecumenical Councils, 240–1. 157 Manrique, iv, 60 no. 10: ‘Rem ne in publico coram Patris Concilii discuteretur, aut forte ad eum delatam ante Concilium, Cardinali Episcopo Hostiensi Innocentius commisit: non tamen iudicandum (adeo tunc omnes Cistercium venerabantur) sed inter partes amice componendam.’ See also Brem, Papst Gregor IX, 70; W.R. Thomson, ‘The Earliest Cardinal-Protectors of the Franciscan Order: a study in administrative history, 1210–1261’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 9 (1972), 17–80, at 41; Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 130. 158 Horoy, ii, col. 10 no. 8; Manrique, iv, 85. 159 Horoy, ii, cols 328–30 no. 166; Manrique, iv, 100. 160 Cb of Tusculum, 1204–18/19. He was directly elevated from the papal chapel to the cardinalate and dealt mostly with affairs in England; Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 147–50. 161 Maccarrone, Studi, 160–3.

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According to a letter from the new pope, Hugo and Guido Pierleone, bishop of Palestrina,162 the two senior cardinals present in Perugia when Innocent died, had been given the power to perform the election ‘using the method of compromise’.163 As a result, on 18 July 1216, the third day after Innocent’s death, the assembled cardinals elected Cencio, cardinal priest of SS Giovanni e Paolo,164 named him Honorius and invested him with the red mantle.165 As Honorius was not yet in episcopal orders, his consecration by Hugo took place in Perugia on Sunday 24 July, the vigil of St James, and he was invested with the pallium according to the rubric in Ordo Romanus XII which, as Cencio Camerarius, he is credited with having compiled.166 His coronation supposedly took place in Rome on 31 August 1216 but as no contemporary source mentions either his ‘crowning’ or even a crown, it may be that in Honorius’s case, since the papal registers began from the day of his consecration, consecration was considered more significant than coronation.167 Hugo undoubtedly continued to perform all his ceremonial functions but Honorius concluded that his most senior cardinal bishop was an outstanding asset not only to the Church in Rome but far beyond as legate and crusade preacher. Given the relative paucity of records for this period of his career,168 we are fortunate that a modern edition is available of the Register that Hugo compiled when he travelled to Tuscany and Lombardy in 1221 during his final legation. It provides a detailed record of the exchange of official letters, in which he was ably assisted by Lantelmo of Pavia, a highly respected 162 Guido de Pierleone, Cd of S. Nicola in Carcere (1204–1221), Cp of Palestrina (1221–1228; Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 140–1. 163 E. Winkelmann, ‘Zwölf Papstbriefe zur Geschichte Friedrichs II und seiner Nachkommen’, Forschungen zur deutschen Geschiche, 15 (Göttingen, 1875), 373–89 no. 2. J.E. Sayers, Papal Government and England during the Pontificate of Honorius III (1216–27) (Cambridge, 1984), 6: ‘according to an undated letter of the new pope found in the formulary of Buoncompagno da Signa’. 164 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 111–13. 165 25 January 1216. Horoy, i, col. 8, no. 6: ‘Cum autem venerabilis fratribus nostris Ostiensi et Prenestino episcopi eligendi fuisset potestas ab universitate concessa, nostris humeris pallium apostolicum imposuerunt cogendo nos subire onus, quod evitare libentius optabamus;’ Sayers, Papal Government, 6–7. 166 Liber Censuum, i, 311 no. 58. 167 Sayers, Papal Government, 8. 168 As Honorius III’s registers are neither fully nor critically edited, we rely on Regesta, ed. A. Potthast, 2 vols (Berlin, 1874–1875); Honorii Papa III Opera Omnia, ed. C.-A. Horoy, 5 vols, Medii Aevi Bibliotheca Patristica (Paris, 1879–1882); Epistolae saeculi XIII e regesta pontificum Romanorum selecta par G. H. Pertz, ed. C. Rodenberg, 3 vols (Weimar, 1883) and Regesta, ed. P. Pressutti, 2 vols (Weimar, 1888).

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notary.169 Painstakingly reconstructed in 1890 by Guido Levi, Hugo’s ‘legate’s’ register differs considerably from a papal register in which the material was pre-selected, filtered or at the very least reorganized. Instead, Hugo noted everything down in the eventuality that he might need to protect and justify his actions, as well as making lists of dire threats to be used against any communal officials and others found to be persecuting the clergy. Hugo undertook three discrete legations between 1217 and 1221 which involved crossing and recrossing Tuscany, Liguria and Lombardy with unflagging resolve: the f irst, sparsely documented between April and August 1217, the second from May 1218 until at least August 1219,170 and a third from March to October 1221, the details of which were largely provided by Hugo himself.171 As legate a latere, his mandate was to exhort the communes to prepare for the recovery of the Holy Land by levying troops as well as by working vigorously to promote, recruit and collect taxes to finance the Fifth Crusade.172 He was also charged with recovering ecclesiastical rights or property which had over time been lost to the communes and with supporting the religious women of Tuscany and Umbria.173 Preaching too was of vital importance in arousing popular support to set the crusade recruitment process in motion. Hugo’s most urgent task, however, was to persuade both the secular and ecclesiastical leaders of the warring cities and communes of northern and central Italy to set aside their local rivalries which had only increased amidst the discord of the Thronstreit, the dispute over the imperial crown. Other significant rivalries were those between Pisa and Genoa, particularly following the capture by the Genoese in 1195 of the strategic fortress of Bonifacio, on the southern tip of Corsica, thus giving Genoa control over 169 Registri dei cardinali Ugolino d’Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, ed. G. Levi, Istituto Storico Italiano, Fonti per la storia d’Italia (Rome, 1890), vii–xvii, and xxiv n.1 for Lantelmo of Pavia. 170 G. Levi, ‘Documenti ad ilustrazione del Registro del Card. Ugolino d’Ostia, Legato apostolico in Toscana e Lombardia’, Archivio della R. Società romana di storia patria, 12 (1889), 241–326. 171 Idem., Registri. See also C. Thouzellier, ‘La légation en Lombardie du Cardinal Hugolin (1221). Un episode de la Cinquième Croisade’, Revue d’Histoire Écclesiastique, 50 (1950), 508–42; Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 283–326. 172 J.M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1218; The Fifth Crusade in Context: the crusading movement in the early thirteenth century, ed. E.J. Mylod, G. Perry, T.W. Smith, and J. Vandeburie (Abingdon, 2017); T.W. Smith, Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius III and the recovery of the Holy Land 1216–1227 (Turnhout, 2017). 173 C. Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum de Valle Spoliti al’Ordo Sancti Damiani’, in Die Bettelorden im Ausbau. Beiträge zu Institutionalisierungsprozessen im mittelaltlichen Religosentum, ed. G. Melville, J. Oberste, Vita regularis. Abhandlungen 11 (Münster, 1999), 429–92.

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shipping between Porto Torres and Pisa, whilst the Pisans pursued their consistent aim to mobilize a Pisan citizen army in Sardinia.174

The legation of April to August 1217 Having revealed his ability as an indefatigable negotiator between the contenders to the Empire,175 Hugo’s appointment as legate with full powers throughout Tuscany and Lombardy, announced by Honorius III on 23 January 1217 in Tempus acceptabile instat (II Cor. 6.2) was to prove no less challenging.176 The arenga of the pope’s letter warranted the status of a true encyclical, replete with scriptural citations, all indicating that now was the time to reclaim the Holy Land,177 whilst the body of the letter contained another glowing endorsement of Hugo, ‘in every way a man after his own heart, accepted by God and men, powerful in deeds and words’178 and in addition, sought protection for the goods of crusaders and observance of a general truce for four years.179 The record of Hugo’s itinerary of 1217 is incomplete, his order of travel quite unclear and the dating often imprecise depending on whether his journey was outward bound or returning,180 but this legation appears to have focused particularly on the great maritime cities of Tuscany and Liguria.181 In Volentes dilectionem of 6 March 1217, Honorius presented his legate directly to the Pisans, again extolling Hugo’s many exceptional qualities but most particularly his profound knowledge of both the law and the Old and New Testaments.182 Pisa, a perennial ally of emperors against popes, 174 M. Tangheroni, ‘Sardinia and Corsica from the Mid-Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Century’, The New Cambridge Medieval History, 7 vols (Cambridge, 1995–2005), Volume 5 (c.1198–c.1300), ed. D. Abulafia, 447–57, at 449–51, biblography 894–7. 175 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 242: ‘La sua salda tempra […] la sua abilità di negoziatore.’ 176 23 January 1217, Epistolae saeculi XIII, i, 9–10 no. 12; Potthast, i, 478 no. 5430; Pressutti, i, 49 no. 272. 177 ‘Tempus est enim’, Epistolae saeculi XIII, i, 10 no.12; Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 295 n. 36. On arengae, see Smith, Curia and Crusade, 213–42. 178 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i, 10 no. 12: ‘[…] virum utique secundum cor nostrum, Deo et hominibus acceptum, potentem in opera et sermone’. 179 Ibid., 10. 180 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 245. 181 25 July 1216. Pressutti, i, 2 no. 3; Potthast i, 455 no. 5227. 182 6 March 1217, Volentes dilectionem quam, Horoy, ii, 315–16 no. 253; Potthast, i, 483 no. 5488; Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 298–9 and n. 46; Smith, Curia and Crusade, ‘Peace-making and the Crusade’, 275–7.

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had not only invoked the wrath of Celestine III183 but also that of Innocent III for occupying Torres in Sardinia, for threatening the Judge of Cagliari and supporting Otto IV’s plan to invade the kingdom of Sicily in return for commercial privileges throughout the Regno, and these had remained issues ever since.184 Hugo’s tasks, as outlined in Cum potestas of 6 March, were to induce the Pisans to withdraw their troops from Sardinia, to demolish their fortif ications on the island and, most importantly, to settle their differences with Genoa as the ports and ships of both cities were essential for the passagium to the Holy Land.185 By April 1217, Hugo had reached Florence, where Bishop John of Velletri (1205–31) summoned the chapter of Pisa to a council in his presence, presumably to ask for support with the crusade.186 At some time during the month of May, Hugo moved to Lucca only to find that strife had broken out between the feudal nobles and the commune but he eventually succeeded in resolving their issues by diplomacy, negotiation and reasonable peace terms.187 He also managed to reach a significant agreement that a Luchese contingent of crusaders would be supported by a tax of a fortieth levied by the commune.188 Bishop Robert of Lucca (1209–25)189 not only took the Cross himself, probably in 1217, but also generously offered a ship to transport the Lucchese crusaders preparing to go on crusade in the following year.190 Indeed, memories of Hugo’s crusade preaching in Lucca remained fresh down to 1231, when Domina Lombarda was to use his visit as proof of age in a retrospective marriage case heard in the city when she swore that Pelegrina, her daughter, had been no more than fourteen years old in May 1217, and this she knew ‘because in that year the cardinal was here to give the Cross to the people’.191 183 Early March 1198. Reg. Inn., i, 49 no. 35; J.C. Moore, ‘Pope Innocent III, Sardinia and the Papal State’, Speculum, 62 (1987), 81–101, at 85–9. 184 3 September 1211, Reg. Inn., xiv, 159–60 no. 101; Moore, ‘Sardinia and the Papal State’, 94–5. 185 6 March 1217, Cum potestas, Horoy, ii, 316–17 no. 254; Potthast, i, 483 no. 5486. 186 22 April 1217. Pressutti, i, 93 no. 530. 187 Powell, Anatomy, 71–2, 241. 188 Ibid., 71; A. Pellegrini, ‘Le crociate in Terrasanta. La parte che vi ebbero i lucchesi (1095–1278)’, Studi e documenti in storia e diritto, 19 (1898), 379–91. 189 Robert, bishop of Lucca (1209–25), member of the Leccamulini family, canon of S.Martino. Eubel, i, 313; F. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, x vols (Rome, 1717–1722), i, col. 879. 190 G. Müller, Documenti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coll’Oriente Cristiano e coi Turchi fino al anno MDXXXI (Rome, 1879), 91–2; Powell, Anatomy, 71–2, R. Savigni, Episcopato e società cittadina a Lucca da Anselmo II (†1086) a Roberto (†1225) Accademia Lucchese di Scienze, Lettere ed Arte, Studi e Testi 63 (Lucca, 1996), 103, 273–85. 191 26–28 November 1231. Ser Ciabattus, Regesti. Imbreviature Lucchese del duecento, i (1222–1232) ed. A. Meyer (Lucca, 2005), D 279, 522: ‘[…] et hoc bene scit, quia eo anno fuit hic cardinalis pro cruciandis hominibus’.

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On leaving Lucca, Hugo probably set sail from Motrone to Genoa where Jacques de Vitry (c.1160/70–1240), bishop elect of Acre, had spent the whole month of September 1216 preaching the crusade as he waited to embark for the Holy Land. So enthused were the noble Genoese women that many took the Cross themselves, persuading their husbands, who had just departed to join battle with a local enemy, to do likewise on their return192 whilst de Vitry’s preaching seems to have inspired a considerable number of charitable bequests to aid the Holy Land.193 Despite Jacques de Vitry’s intervention, it was through Hugo’s efforts that a Genoese contingent was finally formed following lengthy peace negotiations.194 Achieving agreement in Genoa involved calming the city by overruling some secret negotiations – on which Innocent had previously reserved discussion – made with unnamed papal representatives for the provision of ships on which to transport crusaders.195 According to the continuator of the Genoese chronicler Caffaro under the year 1217: Hugo came in the month of May to the city of Genoa, having a mandate from Honorius III to make peace between the two cities [Genoa and Pisa]. On 2 June, the cardinal, together with the podestà and many nobles and Genoese citizens set out for Porta Venere [on the Gulf of Spezia] to treat and make accord with those citizens. And they gathered at the nearby castle of Lerici, where the Pisans swore to observe the peace, together with our podestà.196 192 Jacques de Vitry, Lettres, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Leiden, 1960), 77; idem., Lettres, new edition, CCCM 71 (Turnhout, 2000), 555–6; B. Bolton, ‘Faithful to Whom?: Jacques de Vitry and the French bishops’, Revue Mabillon, 70 (1998), 53–72, at 71–2. 193 S. Epstein, Wills and Wealth in Medieval Genoa, 1150–1250 (Cambridge MA, 1984), 187–9. 194 Powell, Anatomy, 67–8. 195 A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta slavorum meridionalium historiae, 2 vols (Rome, 1863), i, n. 206: ‘Consulibus Ianuensibus, ut quos eorum concives inducant ad revocandum quemdam tractatum inter eos et nonnullus nuntios apostolicos super conductu navium in subsidium Crucisignatorum,’ 70. December 1217, Pressutti, i, 153 no. 904. See also A. Ferretto, ‘La venuta in Genova del cardinale Ugolino d’Ostia (Maggio – 1217)’, Giornale Ligustico di Archeologia, Storia e Letteratura, 21 (1896), 221–31. 196 Ogerius Panis (c.1150–c.1230), Annales Ianuenses, ed. G.H. Pertz (Hanover, 1863), MGH SS 18, 138: ‘In mense Madii venit in civitate Ianue Hostiensis et Velletrensis episcopus cardinalis legatus domini papae Honorii, qui de pace inter nos et Pisanos monuit; et habito consilio iuravit potestas stare mandatis ipsius cardinalis de discordia que inter Ianuenses et Pisanos vertebatur’. Secundo die Iunii iter arripuit ipse cardinalis et potestas cum multis nobilibus civitatis nostre causa eundi ad Portem Veneris pro tractanda et conplenda, quod feliciter dictum sit, de pace et concordia inter ipsas civitates; et convenerunt se invicem ad Hylicem’. Ibi iuraverunt Pisani, sicut et potestas nostra iuraverat; et cum se invicem separarent […].’

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From Lerici, Hugo may well have visited Pisa but only a much later, local historian mentions this possibility.197 By August, he was certainly back in Tuscany where he supported Bishop Paganus of Volterra (1213–44),198 a staunch defender of episcopal rights, by excommunicating Ildebrandino, the podestà of the city, over a jurisdictional conflict with the commune.199 Powell demonstrates that the Volterrani who took the Cross in 1217 all supported Bishop Paganus and that they used their crusader status to pursue ‘legal claims, largely against the commune, before ecclesiastical courts manned by judges delegate appointed by the legate’.200 Thus, in Volterra, it appears that Hugo was ultimately frustrated in his attempt to bring together ‘episcopal’ and ‘communal’ crusaders whereas in Lucca the process of negotiation had proved far more successful.201 By autumn, Hugo had returned to Rome to report in person to Honorius on his negotiations at Lerici between Pisa and Genoa, his recommendations undoubtedly leading to Miserator, the pope’s exceptional letter of 1 December 1217, addressed directly to the podestà and inhabitants of these two cities.202 Honorius informed the two parties that he was working to bring peace through ‘our brother Hugo’, to resolve the issues between them and for them to agree under oath future conditions on the full understanding that both parties would send their named nuncios or proctors to the Holy See.203 Within one month, the Genoese were to assign the Corsican fortress of Bonifacio to the Roman Church to be held at its pleasure and without prejudice to either side. The Pisans were to agree a true, stable and lasting peace, rendering service on land and on sea to the noble Judge (prince) of Torres, and his son.204 All those matters sworn on oath since the beginning of Honorius’s pontificate were henceforth abrogated or would be removed later if appropriate. In order to foster friendly and more regular relations, detailed provisions were set out to cover the losses incurred by both sides. Within 197 R. Roncione, Delle istoria pisane. Libri XVI (Pisa, 1844), 476, ‘[…] giunse in Pisa l’anno MCCXVI nella qual città fu raccolto con grandissimo honore’. Raffaele Roncioni (1553–1618) completed his history of Pisa in 1605 but this was only published in 1844. 198 Eubel, i, 568. 199 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 243 and 296–8. 200 Powell, Anatomy, 70–1 and no. 13–17, 85. 201 Ibid, 71–3. 202 1 December 1217, Miserator, Horoy, ii, 546–7 no. 69; Potthast, 459 no. 626; Pressutti, i, 151–2 no. 896. 203 Horoy, ii, 547 no. 69. Named as Gisberto Albigo and Leo for the Pisans and as Huberto Spinola, Fulco Castelli, Daniele Doriae and Hugone cancellarius for the Genoese. 204 Moore, ‘Sardinia and the Papal State’, 82. The island was ruled by four princes, called judges, who presided over the four judgeships of Cagliari, Arborea, Torres or Lugudoro and Gallura.

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a month, the Pisans were to choose two Genoese citizens and the Genoese the same number of Pisans, all sensible and far-sighted lovers of peace.205 After a three-day selection procedure, they were to give judgment on any charges within forty days, and on any disagreements within sixty days. The authorities in power at the time were to be constrained by their sworn oaths to execute any decisions within twenty days of their announcement. The right of pledge (ius pignorum) was to be kept intact for the Genoese to ensure that they should seek nothing beyond that which was allotted to them and should be willing to relinquish the pledge free from any obstruction. This carefully negotiated agreement, with its precise checks and careful balances, and an awareness of the need to keep legal cases moving, surely came from the hand of Hugo himself but did not in the end resolve the dispute. Genoa was by this time a growing Mediterranean power, but with more to offer in terms of ships than Pisa, already declining into a Tyrrhenian power.206 Ironically, however, Genoa did not participate in the crusade whilst Pisa sent forty galleys to Damietta.207 In Cum potestas of 31 December, a letter addressing Hugo as Apostolic legate, the pope reminded him that the podestà and citizens of Pisa had sworn oaths to withdraw their forces from Sardinia, having occupied part of the island against the mandate of Innocent III who claimed that it belonged to the Holy See.208 Hugo was to ensure that the Pisans conformed to this ruling.

The legation of May 1218–August 1219 No papal letter survives to announce Hugo’s legation of 1218 to 1219, but his principal aim during these two years, in conformity with the aspirations of Tempus acceptabile instat, was to focus on the pacification of the Lombard communes, whilst Otto IV’s death on 19 May 1218 ultimately facilitated the transfer of allegiances to Frederick II.209 Leaving Rome, Hugo reached Florence by mid-July where he pursued a complex undertaking, close to 205 Horoy, ii, 547 no. 69: ‘[…] et vos Januenses totidem Pisanos pacis amatores discretos et providos eligatis’. 206 Tangheroni, ‘Sardinia and Corsica’, 449. 207 J.H. Pryor, ‘The Maritime Republics’, in New Cambridge Medieval History, v, 419–46, at 424, bibliography 894–7. 208 31 December 1217. Cum potestas, Horoy, ii, 571 no. 92: ‘[…] et, de caetero ipsam Sardiniam, quae ad Apostolicam Sedem noscitur pertinere’; Potthast, 489 no. 5487. 209 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 243.

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his own heart which had begun during his first legation. In August 1217 whilst crossing Tuscany on his way from Pisa and Genoa, he encountered a group of noble women (quam virgines et aliae mulieres) led by Domina Avvegnente who, renouncing all worldly possessions, were living as penitents in a community close to the chapel of S. Sepulcro at Monticelli near Florence. Approaching Honorius III on their behalf in several letters, Hugo requested that they should be placed under papal protection.210 On 19 March 1218, in the presence of Bishop John of Florence, Berlingherio di Girolamo received land donated by Forese di Mergiullese di Bellicozzi to the Roman Church on behalf of Domina Avvegnente and the women serving God there. The act of foundation specified not only the women’s dedication to the eremitical life but also the explicit consent of the Curia,211 and Brother Michael of Florence subscribed too, suggesting a direct intervention by Francis, active in Tuscany and Umbria at the time.212 In Litterae tuae nobis of 27 August 1218, the pope responded to Hugo’s letters by authorizing him to receive the women in ius et proprietatem Ecclesiae Romanae and arrange funds for living space and chapels according to their needs.213 Almost a year later, on 29 July 1219, Hugo granted a partial privilege, Prudentis virginibus, to the female community of S. Maria de S. Sepulcro de Monticelli214 but was not satisfied with simply congregating them under a nominal Benedictine rule to fulfil the provision of Canon XIII, Ne nimia religionum.215 Instead, he linked them to the sisters of San Damiano in Assisi, perhaps on the advice of Brother Michael.216 This operation was subsequently approved by Honorius III in Sacrosancta Romana Ecclesia of 9 December 1219.217 Around this time, Hugo also founded the new 210 Ibid., 245 and 299–303 no. 5. Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 447–56. 211 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 301: ‘hanc donationem facio ut ipse mulieres ibi venire et morari debeant ad vitam heremiticam faciendam ad mandatum et dispositionem Apostolicae Sedis’. 212 Ibid., 301, ‘Signa manuum fratris Michaelis’; E. Pásztor, ‘San Francesco e il Cardinale Uglino nella ‘Questione francescana’, Collectanea franciscana, 46 (1976), 209–17. 213 Potthast, i, 4896, 27 August 1218; J.H. Sbaralea, Bullarium Franciscanum, 4 vols (Rome, 1759–1804), i, 10–11 [hereafter BF] and English translation in The Lady, Clare of Assisi: early documents, revised ed. and trans., R.J. Armstrong (New York, London and Manila. 2006), 71–2.; H. Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter. Neue Beitrâge zur Geschichte der religösen Bewegungen im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 1970), 193–4; and Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 449 n.70. 214 BF, i, 13–15. See Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 448 for a list of other Umbro-Tuscan groups. 215 Ecumenical Councils, 242. 216 BF, i, 3; Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen, 258–9; Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 450–1. 217 BF, i, 3–5; Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 452 n. 82; The Lady, Clare of Assisi, 336–9 for an English translation of this and Litterae tuae nobis, inserted within the letter.

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Order of Penitents, bringing these male religious under the control of the Holy See and granting them the Memoriale propositi, a forma vitae which he himself may have drawn up.218 On 4 October 1218, Hugo took the hospital of S. Maria di S. Gallo in Florence under the immediate protection of the Church.219 He reached Bologna by 9 October where he released a new privilege in favour of the same hospital220 and discovered that the leaders of the two major communal factions in the city had already taken the Cross in the previous year, together with their followers.221 The commune had also promised Archbishop Ubaldo of Ravenna, Bologna’s metropolitan, that it would pay the expenses of every citizen who went on crusade, even though relations with the bishop elect, Enrico de Fratta,222 continued to be troubled. Hugo worked hard to facilitate peace agreements between Bologna and its neighbours and succeeded in bringing together the leading rival factions of the city to recruit for the crusade. He reached Vercelli by 30 November 1218 from where, as Levi points out, documents reveal that the text of the oath received by the legate’s messengers from the podestà of Vercelli accorded with the formula being used by the podestà of Milan, ‘in plena credentia, ad sonum campane collecta’.223 He managed to persuade the Vercellese to agree that the people of nearby Casale should be absolved from all obligations to them and permitted to return to their own lands.224 In exchange, Hugo sought the agreement of Milan to offer assistance to Novara and its associates as a result of any destruction by the Vercellesi.225 He remained in Northern Italy for the whole of the winter of 1218 to 1219 and by the end of January was in Vicenza, from where he issued a privilege for the monks of SS Leonardo and Eutropio in Cremona.226 He then passed on to Venice where on 7 February 1219 he solemnly consecrated the church of St Daniel the Prophet in the presence of Patriarch Angelus of Grado.227 The visit to Venice was undoubtedly concerned 218 Spataro, La Vita, III, i, 79–80; M. Bartoli, ‘Gregorio IX e il movimento penitenziale’, in La ‘Supra montem’ di Niccolò IV (1289): genesi e diffusione di una regola, Analecta Tertii Ordini Regularis Sancti Francisci, 20 (1988), 47–60. 219 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 303–6 no. 6. 220 Ibid., 305–6. 221 Powell, Anatomy, 69; A. Vasina, ‘Le cruciate nel mondo Emiliano-romagnolo’, Deputazione di storia patria per le province di Romagna, Atti e memorie, 23 (1972), 11–44. 222 Enrico de Fratta (1213–1244). Eubel, 144. 223 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 243, 306–9. 224 Ibid., 243 and 306–9 no. 7. 225 Ibid., 307. 226 Ibid., 310 no. 9 227 Ibid., 244. See now Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 131 n.36a.

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with the Fifth Crusade, with a planned departure for August 1219 by Bishops Alberto of Brescia228 and Niccolo Maltraversi of Reggio (Emilia),229 both of whom attended the consecration, and also by Enrico Settala, archbishop of Milan.230 Pietro Ziani, doge of Venice, offered sufficient ships for more than a thousand knights and, on Hugo’s intervention, agreed a lower price.231 By 10 April, Hugo had reached Modena where he recovered from the Commune the census owed to the Roman Church for the Matildine lands of Carpi and Monte Baranzone whilst, from Bologna two days later, he transmitted to the Modenesi a quittance from the papal chamber.232 By the time that he reached Bologna on 18 May233 he had succeeded in bringing the city’s quarrel with Pistoia to a satisfactory conclusion.234 Otherwise, Hugo remained in Bologna throughout June and July 1219 at the canonry of S. Maria di Reno, often his preferred residence and perhaps wisely so, given that some parts of Emilia and Romagna had fallen completely out of papal control. On this legation which included these territories along the Adriatic coast, Hugo and his agents remained alert to the possibility of recovering some independent estates and Matildine lands which, although previously in the possession of the Roman Church, had been alienated by one means or another.235 In the March of Ancona, whilst local communities formed leagues with each other, totally disregarding episcopal and papal interests, Ferrara, in the Romagna, claimed by the pope, was entirely beyond the control of the Church. The preparation and financing of the crusade depended largely on regaining this territory or at least on obtaining recognition of papal sovereignty. Three documents of 1219 indicate the nature of these problems. On 12 June, Hugo, acting through his ‘vice regent’, the sub-deacon, Henry de Paragnano, stepped in to defend a marshy region including the Massa Fiscalia and the Massa Lacus,236 where the Roman Church had an interest in the former and the abbey of Pomposa in the latter. Unbeknownst to the abbey, the podestà of Ferrara, Alberto Alemanni, and the consuls of the city were acting to the detriment of both the abbot and his community and also 228 Alberto (1213–1229). Eubel, i, 151. 229 Niccolo Maltraversi (1211–1243). Eubel, i, 438. 230 Enrico Settala (1213–1230). Eubel, i, 342. 231 G. Tiraboschi, Memorie Storiche modensi (Modena, 1794), Codice diplomatico, iv, 118 no. 718. 232 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 310–12 no. 10. 233 A. Savioli, Annali di Bologna, x vols, ii, Pt 2, 403–4 no. 466. 234 Ibid., 411–13 no. 474. 235 Partner, Lands of St Peter, 237 and 245. 236 19 June 1219. Levi, Registri, 3–4 no. 1 and n.1, ‘[…] dominus Henricus de Parangnano, gerens vice domini Hugonis Ostiensis et Velletrensis episcopi’.

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to the Church. A colony of agricultural workers from Lombardy had been drafted in, ostensibly to carry out drainage works in the Massa Lacus, but had organized themselves into a commune with their own podestà. Hugo, through Henry, his agent, ordered that the abbot and his community should be freely permitted to gather the harvest on the Massa Lacus.237 On 22 June, Bongiovanni Storarini restored the church of S. Barnabas to the Roman Church together with a vineyard and an orchard, received by Paragnano, again acting for Hugo, whilst Bongiovanni’s wife, Maria confirmed the donation ‘cum magno gaudio et letitia’.238 On 12 July, in spite of an injunction from Hugo, Alemani and the commune of Ferrara proved obdurate in retaining their agricultural colony of Lombards in defiance of the abbot’s claim.239 Only after much activity in 1221 were the newly reclaimed and cultivated lands of the Massa Fiscalia and the Massa Lacus returned to the possession of the Holy See. In the autumn of 1219, Hugo returned to Rome by way of Viterbo where, on 16 October in the cathedral of San Lorenzo, he pronounced sentence on the dispute between Bologna and Pistoia before Honorius III and the Curia.240

Frederick II’s coronation and the legation to Lombardy from March to October 1221 On 22 November 1220, Frederick II, newly crowned as emperor in St Peter’s by Hugo as bishop of Ostia, promulgated an edict against heretics which had been dictated by the chancery of Honorius III.241 The emperor then took the Cross from the hands of Hugo himself, solemnly promising that he would leave for the Holy Land in the following August.242 Hugo’s final legation of March to October 1221 is, therefore, extraordinary in that he held the office plena legatio, thus being at one and the same time not only esteemed legate to the Holy See but also representative of Frederick II, thus 237 Ibid.: ‘ut quiete permitteret [dominum abbatem Pomposianum] colligere fructus masse Lacus sancti […]’. Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 528. 238 Ibid., 4–6, at 5 no. 2. 239 Ibid., 6 no. 3. 240 A. Savioli, Annali di Bologna, 413 no. 474. 241 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i, 104 no. 145; A. Fliche and V. Martin, Histoire de l’Église, 21 vols (Paris, 1934–), La chrétienté romain (Paris, 1950), x, 300–1. 242 Burchard of Ursperg, Chronicon, ed. O. Holder-Egger and B. von Simson, MGH SRG, 16 (2 ed. Hanover and Leipzig, 1916), 114 n. 5: ‘[…] Post susceptionem vero imperialis corone per manus reverendi patris domini Gregorii nunc apostoli, tunc episcopi Hostiensis, iterum crucis signaculum reverenter accipimus, vota votis et desideria desideriis aggregantes.’

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assuming the authority of a real imperial vicar in succession to Conrad of Metz.243 On 10 February 1221, the emperor addressed Hugo as his very dear friend, writing, ‘that our choice confirms the confidence which we have in your ministry and in the efficacy of your word, which is so enflamed with charity. Besides this, and considering your past activity, we deduce the best prognostication for the future.’244 Nor was Honorius III to be outdone in offering his own praise. When he wrote to the clergy of northern and central Italy on 14 March to inform them of Hugo’s nomination as legate, the pope told them of the genuine sacrifice he had made by depriving himself of his right-hand man in Rome, but that this was essential in the interests of the crusade,245 whilst, on 7 June, the pope added to his paeon of praise, in the following terms: ‘God, who has already bestowed on him such a rich erudition, will give to his voice that strong and persuasive eloquence with its ability to nourish the souls of all those who hear it.’246 Apart from the three documents from 1219 dealing with the Massa Fiscalia, Hugo’s Register is almost entirely concerned with details of the 1221 legation and provides a unique insight, which not only enables us to follow the progress of his recruitment for the crusade throughout Lombardy but also his important activities concerning peace making and the extirpation of heresy, as well as providing a privileged insight into how seriously he worked to defend the rights of the Roman Church. Meanwhile, our understanding of this legation has been greatly enhanced by two scholars, Christine Thouzellier and Maria Pia Alberzoni, writing more than half a century apart: the following paragraphs owe much to their work.247 Hugo set out at the end of March, fortified by the confidence of both pope and emperor as an expert in diplomacy, skilled in previous negotiations, and with guidelines already established by the provisions of the Fourth Lateran Council. He left Rome in the company of the imperial favourite, Niccolo Maltraversi, bishop of Reggio Emilia,248 together with his chaplains, 243 10 February 1221. Levi, Registri, 150–2 no. 122; idem., ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 248. 244 Constitutiones et Acta Publica Imperatorum et Regum, ed. L. Weiland, MGH (Hanover, 1896), ii,114–15, at 115 no. 91: ‘[…] firmam spem gerimus et indubitatam dante Domino fiduciam obtinemus, quod pre cunctis qui huic essent ministerio deputati, vestrum verbum igne caritatis accensum […] Nam ex retroactis infallibilem de futuris ehlicimus coniecturam.’ Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 509–10, Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 294–5 and no. 33–4. 245 Levi, Registri, 138–9 no. 111; Pressutti, i, 519 no. 3178; Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 510 n. 4; Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 305. 246 Levi, Registri, 133–4 no. 107. 247 Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 508–42 and Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 283–326. 248 Eubel, i, 417. Niccolo Maltraversi (1203–1243); E. Marchetti, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 68 (2007), 282–5.

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Stephen, and his nephew Raynaldo, the future Alexander IV, Master Hugh of Parma, Andrew, a canon of Bologna, Markward, a cleric from Modena, and his notary, a certain Paschal. Progress was made at a relatively smart pace and the territory covered between March and October stretched from Siena to Bologna where they rested for the whole of August, alternating for a week at a time between the episcopal palace and S. Maria di Reno before setting off again to Bergamo and so back to Bologna.249 In undertaking such extensive travels, Hugo displayed great energy and foresight, dispatching messages, blandishments, and dark threats, all set down by his notary in the solemn style of the Curia. His first tasks were to organize the preaching of the Crusade, to levy troops and raise subsidies to pay for them but, before all this, it was essential to bring peace wherever possible. Whilst Hugo’s Register gives no indication of his success in preaching, he did succeed in raising a limited number of troops.250 Before entering Lombardy, he suggested to the pope that the ban of the Empire imposed by Conrad of Metz, the imperial vicar, should first be raised.251 This suggestion brought forth fruit almost immediately! The city of Milan offered to pay for 20 knights for a year, ‘not only out of reverence for the Holy See and the emperor but still more for its devotion and special affection for the legate’.252 Lodi volunteered to support four crusaders,253 Brescia, another ten, Verona gave a sum of money for each man who took the Cross whilst yet more men came from Venice, Murano, Padua, Treviso, Mantua and Reggio. Various attempts were made to extract the twentieth from the clergy of the major cities and Hugo’s legation appears to have suffered from frequent and severe financial problems. Hugo at first took no action in regard to the proliferation of heretical groups. However, by July 1221, he had forced the podestà of Mantua to issue publicly the severe measures promulgated in the Italian peninsula since the imperial coronation.254 All cathars, patarines, circumcisi and leonisti, whether male or female, were to be forced to leave their town or district within eight days, on pain of being placed under the ban. Should they stay longer, then their goods could be freely disposed of without fear of sanctions. Whoever gave them any form of hospitality was to 249 Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 513–15. 250 Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 310–11. 251 Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 513. 252 9 May 1221 (Milan). Levi, Registri, 19 no. 17: ‘[…] devotione etiam et amore spetiale, quem eidem legato exhibit civitas Mediolanensis’. 253 Ibid., 20 no. 18. 254 Levi, Registri, 86–7 no. 63.

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be punished by a f ine of 10 pounds in the money of Mantua. 255 In the case of a second offence, the houses of the heretics were to be destroyed. These instructions were later inserted into the municipal constitutions of several cities, where heresy flourished but the civic off icials did not usually apply them fully. In the exercise of his mandate to defend the Church, Hugo wished to ensure respect for all rights of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and to safeguard the Patrimony of St Peter. However, in this respect, he encountered the hostility of the communes, jealous not only of their juridical liberties but also their territorial goods and possessions. Certain cities were attempting, in their statutes, to introduce measures which ran counter to the idea of libertas ecclesiae, and by which they might even alienate fiefs of the Holy See.256 Padua was one such city where, in July 1221, Hugo gave the podestà and inhabitants fifteen days to restore goods taken from the clergy and those who worked the land for them.257 Forbidding any further exactions on the bishop and clergy of the diocese, Hugo declared that jurisdiction over the clergy belonged neither to the commune nor to the laity.258 Amongst the many issues which the legation was forced to confront was that of privileges, previously granted by pope and emperor alike, which had been contravened everywhere in relation to the persecution of the clergy. Another important function of Hugo’s legation was to promote a permanent peace or a lasting truce between the warring cities of central and northern Italy. Bologna and Faenza contested with Imola, Aquilea with Treviso and many others were engaged in similar struggles.259 The task of the legate was a particularly sensitive one and Hugo in general favoured a truce between the parties, prescribing an exchange of prisoners on both or all sides, and concluding with a meeting between the delegates. As Hugo’s legation of 1221 drew to a close, he encountered a hitherto unforeseen and ultimately immutable obstacle. In a reversal of the spirit of his letter, Iocunde fame of 10 February to Hugo and the recipients of his encyclicals,260 the emperor disregarded all pleas and injunctions and on 21 August of the same year deferred his promised departure for the 255 Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 524–5. 256 Levi, Registri, 52–8 no. 48; Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 525. 257 Idem., ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 278–80. 258 Idem., Registri, 60–4, at 63 nos 50–1 (8–14 July): ‘Ad commune vel laicos non pertinent jurisdictio clericorum.’ 259 Idem., Registri, 83 no. 49; Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 532–3. 260 Constitutiones et Acta Publica Imperatorum et Regum, ed. L. Weiland, MGH (Hanover, 1896), ii, 115–17 nos 91–3.

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Holy Land.261 Hugo, originally mandated to preach the crusade, had made admirable and often successful attempts during all three legations not only to recruit, provision and finance the endeavour but also to negotiate complicated treaties and truces with unwilling cities and intransigent communes. In the end, the crusade did not take place. Yet, over time in those regions through which the legate had passed, particularly in Lombardy and Tuscany, a certain degree of trust gradually developed between the Apostolic See and the ‘centres of power in the communal world’.262 Preaching became more widespread as the secular clergy received better training to match the skills of mendicant preachers263 whilst, as Alberzoni and Andenna have argued so cogently, Hugo introduced to the religious life an unheard of novelty.264 Through his promulgation of Cum omnis vero religio, an original forma vita, based on the Rule of St Benedict, he brought the women together within the Order of San Damiano sometime around 1221, the first exclusively female monastic order under the directive of the Roman Church and one represented by a cardinal.265 And, on becoming pope, he granted a whole series of privileges, exemptions, and immunities before eventually limiting the number of their houses and in this way tightening papal control over them.266

Home affairs and spirituality, 1222 to 1227 Although long periods of absence had kept Hugo away from Rome, he nevertheless displayed concern for the Patrimony and for his own local territory. As bishop of Ostia and Velletri, he made peace agreements with cities in the southern part of the Patrimony of St Peter, in particular, attempting to resolve a bitter dispute which had broken out in 1222 or 1223 between Velletri, Cori and Sermoneta on the one hand and Ninfa, Sezze and Aquapuzza 261 21 August 1221. J.L.A. Huillard-Bréholles, Historia diplomatica Frederici Secundi, 6 vols in 12 parts (Paris, 1852–61), ii, 1, 200; Thouzellier, ‘La légation’, 540–2. 262 Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 324–36, at 324. 263 A. Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy: the Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford, 1992); idem., Cities of God: the religion of the Italian communes, 1125–1325 (Philadelphia PA, 2005), 69–102. 264 Alberzoni, ‘Le legazioni di Ugo d’Ostia’, 324–36, at 324; Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 448–55. 265 BF, i, 1011 [hereafter BF]; The Lady, Clare of Assisi, 71–85; G. Boccali, ‘La ‘Cum omnis vera religio’ del cardinale Ugolino’, in Frate Francesco, 74 (2008), 435–77. 266 BF, I, 84 and English translation in The Lady, Clare of Assisi, 351 and for other documents relating to the Damianites, ibid., 344–70.

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on the other,267 where it appears that leagues and societates, common in Lombardy and Tuscany, were beginning to spread into the southern part of the Patrimony.268 He was also responsible for some modest building projects, such as repairing the damaged church at Castel Giuliano,269 and establishing the monastery of Monte Mirteto near Velletri, which later became a house of the Florensian Order270 whilst, at the city gates of Anagni, he paid for the erection of a hospital for the use of the poor, providing for all the necessities of its inmates.271 In a series of acts between March and May 1222, hedged around with various stipulations, Hugo pledged the city of Ostia to Richard Conti, Innocent III’s brother, to compensate for the sequestration by the emperor of his lands in Sora but it seems that later Honorius may have become displeased with this transfer of power.272 The pope then had Richard’s possessions around Ostia bought up, the pledge returned and handed back into Hugo’s care whilst on 5 April 1226, the Cardinal fulfilled his obligation by purchasing the rights from the port of Ostia to Rome for the profit of Rome.273 He also showed concern for his own diocese by repairing the walls of Ostia and protecting the city from its enemies with fortified towers.274 Hugo’s profound spirituality is clearly evidenced by his eulogy for Rainier, sent to the abbots and monks of the Cistercian houses of Fossanova, Casamari and Salem to commiserate with them at the death of the man whom he regarded as his spiritual father.275 Although he claims to have written hurriedly, briefly, in rustic and unpolished language, he reveals the full range of emotion, demonstrating both sensitivity and skill in composition, truly the ‘river of Ciceronian eloquence’ attributed to him by the author of the Vita Gregorii.276 His use of Biblical allusion is both rich and dramatic and he speaks from personal knowledge of Rainier who, bestowed with divine power, as he says, brought forth the spirit of prophecy, spoke in tongues and emulated the eremitical life of St Jerome. A reference to Rainier’s lost 267 Levi, Registri, 148–50 no. 121, at 148 especially n. 1: ‘[…] ut reddatis veram, puram plenam et perpetuam pacem’. 268 Ibid., 150: ‘conligationes preterea, societates et iuramenta’. 269 Castel Giuliano, near Ceccano. Chronicon Fossae Novae Auctore Anonymo MCCXVII in L.A. Muratori, RISS, 25 vols (Milan, 1723–1751), vii, 853–97, at 887. See Levi, Registri, xvi–xvii. 270 Spataro, La Vita, 66, 80–1, 151. 271 Ibid., 66, 81. 272 Levi, Registri, 142–7 nos. 115–120. 273 Pressutti, 412 no. 5886; Potthast, 651 no. 7557; Partner, Lands of St Peter, 248. 274 Spataro, La Vita, III, i, 80–1. 275 Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, 363–7. 276 Spataro, La Vita, II, i, 78–9, 148, ii, 1: ‘[…] fluvius eloquentie Tulliane’.

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letter collection might well be an indication that Hugo was considering a canonization process for his friend but if this was indeed his intention, the plan came to nothing. Another significant relationship, forged in the second half of Hugo’s cardinalate, was that with Jacques de Vitry, popular preacher in the diocese of Liège.277 As protector of Mary of Oignies (d.1213) and the beguines, who lived by manual labour in independent female communities, Jacques regarded Mary as his ‘spiritual mother’ and was also author of her Vita.278 The two men first met in mid-July 1216 at the Curia, then in Perugia, where Jacques (literally) found Innocent III dead 279 and instead received his episcopal consecration as bishop-elect of Acre from Honorius III.280 He also obtained permission from the pope for groups of religious women to associate freely in their own dioceses and elsewhere in France, Flanders and the Empire. In a letter to his friends at home, he describes the like-minded female groups that he had encountered on his journey – the female branch of the Humiliati in Lombardy; the Poor Clares and Franciscan tertiaries in Umbria.281 He confirmed that the fratres et sorores minores, living by the work of their hands, were held in great reverence by Honorius and the cardinals and so surely, he must have discussed them with Hugo. Perhaps Jacques learned from him too how deeply troubled they were at being honoured by clergy and laity alike more than they wished. In 1227, Jacques de Vitry, by now auxiliary bishop of Liège, was received by Honorius III in Rome and met Hugo for a second time according to the Dominican, Thomas de Cantimpré in his Supplement to the Life of Mary of Oignies.282 After the visit, Jacques de Vitry sent Hugo a precious and beautiful gift, a silver cup containing a nutmeg.283 Hugo returned the cup but kept the nutmeg on the grounds that the cup was the fruit of his own 277 Jacques de Vitry (c.1160/70–1240), regular canon of St Nicholas of Oignies, diocese of Liège (1211–1216), bp of Acre (1216–1227), auxiliary bp of Liège (1227–1229) and Cb of Tusculum (1227–1240). 278 Jacques de Vitry, Lettres, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Leiden, 1960), 71–8 no. 1, at 72; idem., Jacques de Vitry Lettres, new edition, CCCM 171 (Turnhout, 2000), 549–57 no. 1, at 550. 279 Lettres, 73, ll. 62–3 no. 1; Jacques de Vitry Lettres, 551 no. 1, ll. 60–3: ‘Post hoc veni in civitatem quandam que Perusiam nuncupatur, in qua papam Innocentium inveni mortuum.’ 280 Lettres, 73–4 no. 1; Jacques de Vitry Lettres, 551–2 no. 1. 281 Lettres, 73–6 no. 1; idem., Jacques de Vitry Lettres, 551–6 no. 1. 282 Iacobus de Vitriaco, Vita Marie de Oegnies & Thomas Cantimpratensis, Supplementum, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, CCCM, 252 (Turnhout, 2012), 186–9. Vandeburie, ‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciarí’, 87–101. 283 Supplementum, 186–9: ‘Cuppam, scilicet argenteam pondere gravidam, plenam muscatis nucibus transmisisset;’ Supplement, 40–43.15, at 40.

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City of Rome, whereas the nutmeg was the fruit of the East. As he rejected this gift, Hugo revealed to Jacques de Vitry his own lack of faith and the strong temptation that he often experienced to succumb to blasphemy.284 He apparently feared that he would be unable to bear the burden of sin and guilt and that his faith would fail completely. In response, Jacques de Vitry told the Cardinal to take the Life of Mary of Oignies, which he had composed himself and which, were Hugo to read it, would surely free him from this temptation. Hugo received the news joyfully and asked whether Jacques could provide any further relics of Mary so that as his own veneration of her increased, he would feel all the more able to invoke her just as if she were present.285 Nor should we forget that Hugo had previously requested from the Canterbury monks a relic of Thomas Becket! In reply, Jacques de Vitry explained that he had one of Mary of Oignies’ fingers, in a silver case, hanging constantly around his neck.286 It had already kept him safe in various dangers and crises, whilst crossing rivers in flood in Lombardy in 1216 and whilst in a storm at sea, perhaps in 1226 as he returned from Acre. The Cardinal was most welcome to have it. Once Hugo had received this relic, he read Mary’s Life most carefully, deriving great mental confidence, both from what he was reading and from the relic itself. At one stage, whilst at prayer and as his attention began to wander, he grasped the finger relic and found his mental torpor completely dispelled.287 Jan Vandeburie is surely correct in pointing out that Jacques de Vitry’s assistance in helping Hugo to overcome his doubts led to a lifelong friendship between the two men, each assisting the other to confront and understand their fears and anxieties.288 284 Vandeburie, ‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciarí’, 93: ‘Ugolino’s symptoms, a state of lethargy, despair, blasphemy in the form of distrusting God, and an impending dejection in his faith, point towards acedia, a spiritual depression,’ citing J.L. Tyler, ‘The Misery of Monks and the Laziness of the Laity: overcoming the Sin of Acedia’, in Frömmigkeit – Theologie – Frömmigkeitsttheologie: contributions to European Church History. Festschrift für Berndt Hamm zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. G. Litz, H. Munzert and R. Liebenberg (Leiden, 2005), 119–30. 285 Supplementum, 673.16: ‘Sed quaeso, si ullae sunt tibi de hac Reliquiae, mihi eas accomoda;’ Supplement, 41–2.16. 286 Supplementum, 673.16,:‘Est, inquit, digitus ejus argenteo locello reconditus, assidue mihi suspensus ad collum qui me utique in diversis periculis et inter marina discrimina semper tutavit illaesum. Hunc ergo si praecipis, tecum assume;’ Supplement, 41–2.16, at 42. 287 Supplementum, 673.17: ‘Qui […] digitum Ancillae Christi piis in manibus apprehendit;’ Supplement, 42–3.17. 288 Vandeburie, ‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciarí’, 100–1, citing Alberic des Trois-Fontaines who claimed that Jacques travelled cum festinatione to Rome in 1227 to be made cardinal bishop of Tusculum.

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In the end, one of the most complex, hotly debated and probably unanswerable questions of Hugolino’s cardinalate remains the nature of his relationship with Francis and Dominic and the effect that each had on his spiritual life.289 Whether Hugo may have met one or other of them before 1217 is questionable, but in that year he certainly met them both. Dominic spent much of Lent (8 February to 26 March 1217) in Hugo’s domus in Rome before his first legation that April to Tuscany and Liguria. William of Montferrato, Dominic’s friend, records this in the saint’s canonization process, and it seems that it became an important meeting place for the Order of Preachers.290 Dominic obtained a solemn privilege on 30 March 1218, subscribed by Hugo, to normalize the Dominican brothers of Prouille in Southern France and allow them to adopt the Augustinian rule. 291 On 17 December 1219, Honorius ordered the sisters at Prouille to prepare to move to Rome whilst Dominic and his brothers assumed responsibility for the cura monialium of the sisters of the convent of San Sisto, finally united in the regular life in February 1221 after three cardinals, one of whom was Hugo, were drafted in to support and lend credibility to the venture.292 At Pentecost, 2 June 1221, during Hugo’s third legation, Dominic, who had attended the Chapter General in Bologna, made his way to Hugo’s domus in Venice and back again, very tired and in ill health. Hugo then joined him in Bologna on 28 July at S. Maria di Reno and remained there until Dominic’s death on 6 August. Hugo considered the Order of Preachers as the most useful instrument for the reform of the Church and whenever Dominic and his brothers sought new or more spacious accommodation, Hugo found it for them. The paths of Hugo and Francis also crossed in 1217 in Florence: the cardinal on his way to Genoa whilst Francis was supposed to be heading for France.293 During one of Hugo’s legations (date unknown but between 1217 and 1221), Francis refused to accept a new house for the brothers in Bologna because he heard someone say that they owned it, as a result of which Hugo, in a 289 Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 88–91. The following paragraphs owe much to the articles by Maria Pia Alberzoni and Michael Cusato. 290 Ibid., 88 n. 42 and 89. 291 Monumenta diplomatica s. Dominici, ed. V.J. Koudelka (Rome, 1966), MOPH 25, 90–3 no. 90. 292 Eadem., ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 91–2; B.M. Bolton, ‘Daughters of Rome: all one in Christ Jesus’, Studies in Church History, 27 (1990), 101–15, especially 113–15. 293 A. Callebaut, ‘Autour de la rencontre à Florence de Saint François et du cardinal Hugolin (en été 1217)’, Archivum francisanum historicum, 19 (1926), 530–58; E. Pásztor, ‘San Francesco e il cardinale Ugolino nella ‘Questione Francescana’, Collectanea Francescana, 46 (1976), 209–39, at 210–17; Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 90–1.

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diplomatic compromise, announced publicly that the house belonged to him.294 Francis clearly felt uncomfortable while staying in Hugo’s domus in Rome and on one occasion humiliated his host by going out to beg for alms and bringing back crusts of black bread to share at dinner with Hugo’s other guests.295 When visiting the Porziuncula during a General Chapter, Hugo had been moved to tears by the poverty of the dwelling in which the brothers were sleeping in straw laid on the bare earth, asking with genuine remorse ‘What then will become of us?’296 At this point we should step briefly aside to consider that the Vita Gregorii IX, the papal biography probably completed between 1239 and 1240, has been for some time the object of severe criticism by historians of Franciscanism for its overtly ‘hagiographical’ approach.297 Jacques Dalarun has even suggested that the pope himself may have influenced the work, this being especially visible in the contents of paragraphs I–XXVII,298 whilst Alberzoni has argued forcibly and at considerable length that Hugo assisted in constructing the myth of an exclusive friendship between Francis and himself.299 By examining the visits of Dominic and Francis to Hugo’s domus, wherever the cardinal happened to be, she reveals how differently their relationships with him might be interpreted. Whilst Dominic welcomed meetings and made good use of Hugo’s important contacts, for which many documentary sources have survived, Francis was always deeply uncomfortable, remaining as remote as possible, entering and leaving the domus without Hugo’s knowledge and returning empty handed.300 Dominic enjoyed a privileged relationship with Hugo but Francis turned instead towards Leo Brancaleone in whose domus 294 Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 96–7; Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul, in Francis of Assisi: the founder, ed. R.J. Armstrong, J.A.W. Hellmann, W.J. Short (London-New York-Manila, 2000), The Early Documents, ii, cap. 28, 286. 295 Ibid., ii, cap. 43, 296. See also R.B. Brooke, The Coming of the Friars, Historical Problems: Studies and Documents 24 (London, 1975), 28–9. 296 The Early Documents, ii, cap. 33, 288. 297 K.V. Selge, ‘Franz von Assisi und Hugolino von Ostia’, in San Francesco nella ricerca storica degli ultimi ottanta anni (Todi, 1971), Convegni del Centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale, 9, 159–222; M.P. Alberzoni, ‘La memoria contrastata. Ancora su Francesco e Ugolino d’Ostia’, in Ovidio Capitani. Quarant’anni per la Storia medievale, ed. M.C.De Matteis, 2 vols (Bologna, 2003), i, 89–104; eadem., ‘Francesco e il cardinale Ugo d’Ostia: il mito di un’amicizia’, in eadem, Santa povertà e beata semplicità. Francesco d’Assisi e la Chiesa romana (Milan, 2015), Ordines. Studi su istituzioni e società nel medioevo europeo, 1, 145–68. 298 J. Dalarun, La malavventura di Francesco di Assisi. Per un uso storico delle leggende francescane (Milan, 1996), Fonti e richerche 10, 346–50, 375–9. 299 Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 75–9, 115–21. 300 Ibid., 115–16.

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he seems to have been always more at ease.301 Accepting that Francis clearly handed to Hugo the direction of the Order as cardinal protector in both the Rule and the Testament,302 Alberzoni sees here a clear example of Hugo’s self-promotion at the expense of Honorius III, which has lasted until the present day303 and, in evidence, she reminds us that the Vita Gregorii fails even to mention the Regula Bullata, the Order’s most important document, approved by Honorius III on 29 November 1223 in Solet annuere,304 and suggests that the part of the Vita which discusses the relations between Francis and the Roman Church was vigorously edited if not actually rewritten by Hugo himself when he became Gregory IX.305 A possible explanation for the redaction, if indeed there was one, might well have been the disastrous combination of Frederick II’s second excommunication on Palm Sunday 1239 and Elias of Cortona’s forced resignation by his Order at the Pentecost Chapter in May of the same year.306 On the other hand, it is certain that Hugo saw in Francis the saviour of the Church. His rapid canonization a mere two years after his death was enacted through the profoundly expressive words of Mira circa nos of July 1228307 which drew on the Exultet at the Vigil of Easter, and the commissioning of his (first) Life by Thomas of Celano in 1229, is surely an indication of this. For those who followed Francis, their dilemma was whether (and if so how) to observe their founder’s ideal of absolute poverty after his death. In Quo elongati of September 1230, Hugo, by then Gregory, solved this problem by officially exempting the friars from the observance of Francis’s Testament to satisfy the ever-increasing demands for an apostolic mission to be shared with 301 Celano, The Remembrance, 99–101. 302 Thomson, ‘Earliest Cardinal Protectors’, 17–80; M.F. Cusato, ‘Gubernator, Protector et Corrector istius Fraternitatis: the role of Cardinal Hugolino, Lord of Ostia, as Protector of the Order of Friars Minor, 1217–1226’, in Institution und Charisma. Festschrift für Gert Melville zum 65. Geburstag, ed. F.J. Felten, A. Kehnel and S. Weinfurter (Cologne, 2009), 491–502. 303 Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 117–18, ‘In tal modo il ruolo provvidenziale di Ugo-Gregorio IX nei confronti di Francesco è giunto fino da noi’. 304 Francis of Assisi: the saint, ed. R.J. Armstrong, J.A.W. Hellmann, W.J. Short (London-New York-Manila, 2000), The Writings of Francis of Assisi, i, 99–106. 305 Alberzoni, ‘Dalla domus del cardinale d’Ostia’, 119–20; Spataro, La Vita, 62–3. 306 G. Barone, Da frate Elia agli Spirituali (Milan, 1999), Fonte e Richerche, 12; M.P.Alberzoni, ‘Frate Elia tra Chiara d’Assisi, Gregorio IX e Federico II’, in Elia di Cortona tra realtà e mito, Atti dell’incontro di studio, Cortona, 12–13 luglio (Spoleto, 1214), 73–121; M.F. Cusato, ‘“Non propheta sed prophanus apostlata”: the eschatology of Elias of Cortona and his deposition as minister general in 1239’, The Early Franciscan Movement (1205–1239): history, sources and hermeneutics (Spoleto, 2009), Mediofrancescano. Saggi 14, 421–48; Spataro, La Vita, 63–4. 307 Francis of Assisi: the saint, Doc. H, 565–9.

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the Dominicans who, as Augustinian canons, already conformed to the provisions of Lateran IV.308 Michael Cusato questions how Francis was able to accept the description of the three roles of the cardinal protector of the Order – governor, protector and corrector – in the canonical formation of the Rule of 1223 which is repeated almost word for word in his Testament and nevertheless be so opposed to the protections sought by some friars and granted to the Order by the Curia.309 Chapter XII of Solet annuere orders the ministers of the Order through obedience to petition the pope to ensure that such a cardinal will fulfil these obligations. Hugo, who believed strongly in regulation, interpreted his function as protector in institutional terms by means of legal, authoritative and documentary actions to protect the mission and ministry of the Order whilst Francis sought ‘guidance for and protection of the spiritual integrity of their vocation as Friars and Sisters Minor as well as authoritative correction if and when necessary’.310 For Cusato it is significant that Francis never refers to Hugo by his title of Cardinal Protector and credits him for the institutional protection of the Order of Friars Minor. but in order to do this as pope in Quo elongati of 28 September 1230, at the request of certain friars, he nullified the binding force of Francis’s Testament and in the long run, inadvertently contributed to the division between the Spirituals and Conventuals. By 1219, the penitential religious women from Tuscany and Umbria, moved by the spirit and clamouring to join Clare’s community at San Damiano, had been gathered together by Hugo into the Order of the Poor Ladies of the Valle Spoletana311 and were bound to follow a forma vitae which suited their desire to live without possessions, save those dwellings and chapels which were constructed to give them stability of location.312 On 9 December 1219, in Sacrosancta romana Ecclesia, Honorius III issued separate decrees granting protection and exemption to four convents, Domina Avvegnente’s Monticelli near Florence, Monteluce in Perugia, Santa Maria at the Camollian Gate in Siena and Santa Maria in Gattaiola in the diocese of Lucca. He also placed this congregation under a Visitor, but this official’s competence did not 308 H. Grundmann, ‘Die Bulle Quo elongati Papst Gregors IX.’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 54 (1961), 1-23, at 18-23. 309 Cusato, ‘Gubernator, Protector et Corrector’, 493. 310 Cusato, ‘Gubernator, Protector et Corrector’, 493–4. 311 Prudentis virginibus, 27 July 1219. BF, 1, 3–5; Andenna, ‘Dalla Religio pauperum’, 447 n. 60. 312 The Lady, 73–85.

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extend to Clare’s community at San Damiano in accordance with the wishes of both herself and of Francis.313

Conclusion Hugo’s career as a cardinal lasted almost thirty years, a mere trifle in comparison with the forty-seven years of demanding service exacted from Hyacinth Bobone before his election in 1191 as Celestine III in his mid-eighties. Hugo, born c.1170, was probably about thirty when he became cardinal deacon at the very end of 1198 and within a year he revealed his true metal (‘sua salda tempra’) in the face of Markward of Annweiler’s intimidation.314 His first legation to Salerno in 1202 is almost invisible in the sources, and yet it was this venture, combined with an already admirable talent for intricate negotiation and diplomacy, that led Innocent III to promote him in 1208 to the highest office in the cardinalate rather than through any tenuous family connections. Innocent recognized his outstanding ability as a negotiator and sent him to Germany, firstly to attempt to resolve the discordant Thronstreit with no fewer than three contenders to the Empire and then to impose conditions on Otto as the price of imperial coronation. Under Honorius III, from whom he received the highest praise, he travelled more or less continously through northern and central Italy, serving as papal legate and imperial vicar at one and the same time but far exceeding both these mandates in so doing. The desperate need to enlist crusaders and the urgency to provide financial assistance for them brought a realization of the need to establish peace between cities and communities in order to facilitate recruitment and bring about religious unity. Constantly pressed to defend the freedom of the Church, not only against heretics but often against communal intrusion in central and northern Italy, Hugo’s register reveals the practical nature of his activities for 1221, the year of his Register. It is to other sources, however, that we must look to learn more of his religious sentiment, of his skill with words and of his deep relationships. A major influence on him was Rainier of Ponza, his ‘spiritual father’ whose encounter with heresy in the Languedoc and the ‘horror’ within his own Cistercian Order influenced him in a remarkable way. Rainier’s long-standing friendship with Joachim led Hugo to support the Florensians and other new groups seeking to live an apostolic life within the Church. His spirituality 313 BF, 1, 10–15; The Lady, 335–9. 314 Levi, ‘Documenti ad illustrazione’, 242.

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cannot be in doubt and behind it we see a man of great sensitivity and dramatic skill as a rhetorician (after all, Domina Lombarda still remembered his crusade preaching in Lucca fourteen years after the event). Hugo encouraged Clare and sought a rule for her disciples in those communities inspired by her but founded by him in Tuscany and Umbria. Given the strict decree against new orders at the Fourth Lateran Council, Hugo himself provided a rule in 1219 for these ‘Damianite’ houses, based on the Rule of St Benedict, with strict enclosure and the right to communal property. Whilst Clare herself followed Francis’s rule of absolute poverty, in this matter Hugo was fully on the side of institutional support. He appears to have managed well under stress on his long periods of legation when fully occupied but reveals a tendency to seek spiritual support when not under extraordinary pressure. In 1209, following Rainier’s death, he wrote of anxiety, especially of the spirit, which was causing him such concern. In 1220, in a letter to Clare, he asked for her tears and prayers to bring him merciful relief from his many sins and unworthiness315 and, in 1226, fearing that he had lost his faith, he felt overwhelmed by despair and temptation. Confiding his doubts to his friend, Jacques de Vitry, he found comfort in the finger reliquary of Mary of Oignies, the ‘new’ saint of the diocese of Liège. The frontispiece of this volume depicts an image of Hugo in fresco, identified as cardinal bishop of Ostia, dedicating an altar to Gregory the Great in the chapel of San Gregorio at the Sacro Speco at Subiaco, the cave to which Benedict of Nursia retreated for three years. Behind Hugo stands a deacon holding a cross whilst Francis, wearing a hood but not yet a halo, looks over Hugo’s shoulder. The fresco is cautiously dated between 1222 and 1228316 and the Chronicon Sublacense (593–1369) claims that ‘our Lord Hugo, venerable bishop of Ostia and Velletri, on returning from a legation in Lombardy, passed by the monastery’, thus favouring a date after 1221 and before Francis’s canonization.317 Indeed, it is from the papal summer camp at Subiaco in 1202 that we have the earliest list of Hugo’s excellent qualities of character. By 1227, he was not the same person that he had been thirty years previously. From here on, the volume will explore this conundrum down to 1241. 315 K. Esser, ‘Die Brief Gregors IX. an der hl. Klara von Assisi’, Franziskanische Studien, 35 (1953), 274–95, at 274. Cited by Vandeburie, ‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciarí’, 96. 316 G.B. Ladner, Die Papstbildnisse des Altertums und des Mittelalters, 2 vols, Monumenta di Antichità, ii serie, no. 4 (Rome, 1970), no. 3, Gregor IX. Als Kardinal Hugolinus von Ostia (1206–1227), Subiaco, Sacro Speco, Kapelle des Hl. Gregors des Grossen, 105–11. 317 Chronicon Sublacense (593–1369), ed. R. Morghen (Subiaco, 1991), 31.

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About the Author Brenda Bolton taught medieval history at Westfield College, later Queen Mary & Westfield College and finally at Queen Mary University of London. She has published widely on various aspects of ecclesiastical history with a particular concentration on the pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216) and on papal administration in the Patrimony of St Peter during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

2.

Gregory IX and the ‘Lombard Question’ Gianluca Raccagni

Abstract This chapter concerns the role of Gregory IX in the conflict between Frederick II and the Lombard League, tracing the roots of this struggle from the time when Gregory was still a cardinal, then exploring the so-called War of the Keys, the re-emergence of the Negotium Lombardie in the 1230s, and the descent into armed conflict at the end of Gregory’s pontificate. It is argued that in contrast to the previous struggle with Barbarossa, heresy and penitential warfare came to play a central part in the political conflicts between Gregory and Frederick, which ultimately took on all the trappings of a full crusade. Keywords: Frederick II, Lombard League, heresy, crusade, Barbarossa

Among the most striking differences between the two major conflicts that involved the papacy, the Lombard cities and the empire in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were surely the role that papal involvement, heresy and crusades played within them. The first conflict, which embroiled the Lombard League, Frederick Barbarossa and Alexander III from the papal schism of 1159 to the Peace of Constance of 1183, started before the creation of the League, which the papacy fully backed against Barbarossa. Yet the confrontation between pope and emperor finished at the Peace of Venice of 1177 – before that between Barbarossa and the League – and the papacy only played a very light supervisory role in the subsequent truce and negotiations that led to the Peace of Constance.1 Moreover, that first conflict was not tied to Alexander’s appeals for the Holy Land (the conflict took place between 1

G. Raccagni, The Lombard League 1167–1225 (Oxford, 2010), 46, 59–60, 92–103.

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch02

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the second and the third crusade) or his anti-heretical activity.2 Alexander proclaimed that the League was defending the libertas Ecclesie and was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he threatened and punished defectors from the League with interdicts and excommunications. Yet he never equated Barbarossa’s position to that of a heretic, and the conflict did not take on crusading features.3 In contrast, roughly half a century after the Peace of Constance, the papacy provided arbitration in the struggle between Frederick II and the League (which primary sources called the Negotium Lombardie) for more than ten years after it started in 1226. That involved first, and very briefly, the participation of Honorius III, but mostly that of Gregory IX. Within that period the League sided with the papacy during the crisis that led to the so-called War of the Keys in 1227–1230. Yet, despite their persistent closeness, it was only in 1239 that their alliance was fully and openly deployed when the papacy again took the field against Frederick II. The conflict then continued under Innocent IV and was still raging when the emperor died in 1250. Not only were the eradication of heresy and the preparation for crusade inextricably tied to the Negotium Lombardie from its beginning, but, in turn, that conflict itself took on the trappings of a crusade, and mutual accusations of heresy featured prominently within it. This chapter examines the role of Gregory IX in the development of the second conflict, which played such a prominent role in his pontificate, and, in order to gain a sense of the connections between them and of their evolution, a chronological approach has been chosen. The roots and the first stages of that conflict, when Gregory was a cardinal and upon his elevation to the papacy, will be considered first, followed by the War of the Keys, the re-emergence of the Negotium Lombardie in the 1230s, and lastly its descent into an armed conflict, which acquired crusading features towards the end of Gregory’s pontificate.

The legacy of Innocent III and Honorius III The relations between Gregory IX and the Lombard cities did not start in the best way. Roughly a month after his election, on 29 April 1227, in a letter 2 I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Alexander III and the Crusades’, in Pope Alexander III (1159–81): the art of survival, ed. P. Clarke and A.J. Duggan (Farnham, 2012), 341–65; regarding heresy, Alexander III is mainly known for the 1179 Third Lateran Council: R. I. Moore, The War on Heresy (London, 2014), 205–14. 3 N. Housley, ‘Crusades against Christians: their origins and early development, c. 1000–1216’, in Crusade and Settlement, ed. P.W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), 17–36; Raccagni, The Lombard League, 59–60.

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to the podestà and the people of the whole of Lombardy, Gregory described the region as severely tarnished by the spread of and leniency towards heresy, and by an equally widespread disregard for ecclesiastical liberty; he therefore warned the Lombards to attend to the dispositions of the Fourth Lateran Council, recent imperial laws, and the recent papal arbitration of the Negotium Lombardie, which he wished to expand to the whole region. 4 Indeed, Gregory had just finalized his predecessor’s arbitration on what would become the first round of the Negotium Lombardie, which itself sparked tensions. Honorius III had issued his ruling on 5 January 1227, but being an arbitration, it required the parties to ratify it.5 While Frederick did that immediately, the League only did so in mid-April, after Honorius’s death and after repeated reminders.6 Honorius’s ruling provided the template for Gregory’s rulings in later stages of the Negotium Lombardie. In turn, the papal arbitration, and most of the issues it touched on, had roots in the pontificates of Innocent III and Honorius himself, although that arbitration marked the subtle beginning of a crucial change in papal relations with the emperor and the Lombard cities. The future Gregory IX had been chosen as a cardinal by Innocent, of whom he was a relative, and performed key legations in Lombardy for Honorius that gave him a good knowledge of the region.7 The Negotium Lombardie was caused by the coming together of different strains. It mainly had to do with the age-old problem of the applications of the primacy of the emperor in the region, and with the lawfulness of the League.8 The Peace of Constance, which Barbarossa had reached with the League in 1183, had settled those issues, yet they resurfaced during the reign of Frederick II, who came to utterly reject the Peace of Constance and refused even to name the League.9 Some of Frederick’s Lombard supporters 4 MGH Epp. selectae, ed. C. Rodenberg, i (Berlin, 1883), 269–71 no. 355; more generally regarding the Fourth Lateran Council: The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement: the impact of the council of 1215 on Latin Christendom and the East, ed. J.L. Bird and D.J. Smith (Turnhout, 2018). 5 Ibid., 246–51 no. 327–32. 6 Ibid., 258 no. 340; 259–60 no. 342; 263 no. 345; 262 no. 344; 265–9 no. 249–54. 7 O. Capitani, ‘Gregorio IX’, in Enciclopedia dei papi (Rome, 2000), i, 363–80; C. Thouzellier, ‘La légation en Lombardie du cardinal Hugolin (1221). Un épisode de la cinquême croisade’, Revue d’Histoire ecclésiastique, 45 (1950), 508–42. On the papacy and the Lombard cities in the first quarter of the century and the literature on that, see L. Baietto, Il papa e le città. Papato e comuni in Italia centro–settentrionale durante la prima metà del secolo XIII (Spoleto, 2007), xi–xiii. 8 G. Chiodi, ‘Istituzioni e attività della seconda Lega Lombarda (1226–1235)’, in Studi di storia del diritto (Milan, 1996), 215–48. 9 For the latest edition of the Peace of Constance, E. Falconi, ‘La documentazione della Pace di Costanza’, in Studi sulla Pace di Costanza (Milan, 1984), 21–104. On its perception in

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considered the League illegal too.10 Those issues were not re-discussed before 1226 partly because of the struggles for the imperial crown of the first quarter of the thirteenth century, which helped to ignite the Negotium Lombardie. Those struggles created a power vacuum that the Lombard cities exploited to further expand their remits, while most of Lombardy was divided into two conflicting groups that were separated by traditional enmities, regional politics and allegiance to different pretenders to the crown.11 Milan had been the leader of the League since the 1170s, but during the imperial vacuum the League was largely replaced by a smaller and more informal network, which orbited closely around Milan and supported Otto of Brunswick for the crown, although the difference between the League and that Milanese coalition is often hard to distinguish.12 Cremona played a leading role in the other coalition, which was far more multicentric than the Milanese one and backed the candidate of Barbarossa’s line, that is, first Philip of Swabia and then Frederick II.13 Frederick’s final victory had not fully healed those divisions. Indeed, his call for an imperial diet at Cremona for 1226, to which considerable military retinues were called and whose agenda featured a reformation of the state of the empire, provoked the restoration of the League (in which Milan continued to be the leader), whose military blockade compromised the imperial diet and set the Negotium Lombardie in motion.14 The League, however, also started to request limitations to be imposed on the movement of the emperor, especially regarding armed forces in northern Italy, and on his faculty to issue penalties to the cities, all of which was to be supervised by papal legates.15 That did not feature in the Peace of Constance and Frederick found it particularly offensive. Until the second half of the 1230s, however, the Negotium Lombardie was mainly fought through diplomatic means, and, although papal legates engaged with it from the start, Honorius was directly involved at the end of

the following decades, G. Raccagni, ‘Il diritto pubblico, la Pace di Costanza e i libri iurium dei comuni’, in Gli inizi del diritto pubblico europeo, II. Da Federico I a Federico II. Die Anfänge des öffentlichen Rechts, II. Von Friedrich Barbarossa zu Friedrich II, ed. G. Dilcher and D. Quaglioni (Bologna–Berlin, 2008), 309–39; G. Raccagni, ‘When the Emperor Submitted to His Rebellious Subjects: a neglected and innovative legal account of the Peace of Constance’, English Historical Review, 131 (2016), 519–39. 10 Annales cremonenses, ed. P. Jaffé, MGH SS., 18 (Hanover, 1863), 807. 11 Raccagni, The Lombard League, 171–98. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Chiodi, ‘Istituzioni’, 80–100. 15 MGH Constitutiones, ii, ed. L. Weiland (Hanover, 1896), 132–4 no. 105.

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summer 1226, when negotiations between the parties had failed.16 Scholars have reached very different conclusions regarding the pope’s intentions, some attributing to him sympathy for the emperor, others an alliance with the League, while others still have argued that his primary objective was smoothing the way for the impending crusade. There is some truth in all those positions, for Honorius certainly advanced key papal policies regarding heresy and crusade, but otherwise left his options open. In doing so, however, his ruling did mark a notable shift for the better in his relations with the members of the League. Such subtle complexity in Honorius’s intervention would confirm the recent re-evaluation of his diplomatic skills.17 His ruling certainly did not try to solve the Negotium Lombardie, for it was rather a truce that dealt with transient issues such as remission of recent offences, lifting of punitive measures (such as imperial bans), exchange of prisoners, and the end of hostilities between the League and Frederick’s Lombard supporters.18 On the one hand, the pope’s involvement followed Frederick’s request and confirmed their collaboration regarding two of the main platforms on which that collaboration had developed, that is, the fight against heresy and the preparation of the crusade. The members of the League had suffered for that collaboration, and the League took time to accept and then to ratify the ruling.19 On the other hand, Honorius showed a leniency towards the League that was quite remarkable when compared to his previous dealings with those cities. Moreover, he might have also hinted at the core issues of the Negotium Lombardie in that he, in stark contrast to Frederick, named, and therefore recognised the League (whose main raison d’etre was to confront the emperor), which, as we shall see, could be taken as an indirect recognition of the Peace of Constance.20 Indeed, the papal arbitration, and the way Frederick initially embraced it more eagerly than did the League, was the result of a historical evolution that had fostered very warm relations between the papacy and Frederick, but very frosty ones between the papacy and the cities that renewed the 16 For the negotiations before Honorius’ involvement: Chiodi, ‘Istituzioni’, 216–22. 17 T. Smith, ‘Between Two Kings: Pope Honorius III and the seizure of the kingdom of Jerusalem by Frederick II in 1225’, Journal of Medieval History, 41 (2015), 41–49. 18 MGH Epp. selectae, 246–51 no. 327–32. 19 Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, ed. J.L.A. Huillard Bréholles (henceforth HB.), ii (Paris, 1852), 676–8; MGH Epp. selectae, 234 no. 308, 240–1 no. 319. 20 Chiodi, ‘Istituzioni’, 228–9. On the Peace of Constance, G. Raccagni, ‘The Teaching of Rhetoric and the Magna Carta of the Lombard Cities: the Peace of Constance, the Empire and the Papacy in the works of Guido Faba and his leading contemporary colleagues’, Journal of Medieval History, 39 (2013), 61–79.

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League in 1226, although the situation was changing by the beginning of the Negotium Lombardie. The alliance between the League and the papacy had practically ended in 1177, and the relations between the Milanese coalition and the papacy reached an all-time low under Innocent III and Honorius.21 Innocent’s relations with the Italian city communes in general were tense because of his reforms, but beyond that one must also consider the impact of the struggle for the imperial crown, which lasted for the whole of Innocent’s pontificate.22 In 1209 Innocent crowned Emperor Otto of Brunswick, but Otto soon broke their agreement by invading southern Italy, where the young Frederick lived, and his impending success risked encircling the papacy. The result was that in late 1210–early 1211 Innocent switched his backing to Frederick and excommunicated Otto and his supporters, among whom the Milanese coalition stood out.23 That, however, did not end the alliance between Otto and Milan; the Milanese stuck with him until his death in 1218, and the presence of Milanese representatives on his behalf at the Fourth Lateran Council caused a violent quarrel.24 Honorius remained on very good terms with Frederick, as his imperial coronation in 1220 testifies, while relations with Milan remained very tense indeed. Cardinal Hugo’s legations in Lombardy under Honorius were meant to stabilise the region before and after Frederick’s coronation, and during them he clashed with Milan.25 Then again there were signs that the relations between pope and emperor were deteriorating at the end of Honorius’s pontificate. By 1225–1226, Honorius was raising serious issues with Frederick, from disputes over ecclesiastical appointments, to problems regarding the control over the patrimony of St Peter, Frederick’s delays regarding the crusade, and, last but not least, the consolidation of his holdings in the empire and Southern Italy.26 By entrusting the Negotium Lombardie to Honorius, therefore, Frederick relied on the continuation of the co-operation that had taken shape in the second decade of the century. Yet that co-operation was showing visible cracks, and for the papacy the League was a potentially vital ally if friction escalated. That does not mean that an alliance between the League and the papacy was already in place. The features of Honorius’s arbitration could have simply 21 Raccagni, The Lombard League, 92–102. 22 On Innocent and Otto: M. Laufs, Politik und Recht bei Innocenz III. Kaiserprivilegien, Thronstreitregister und Egerer Goldbulle in der Reichs– und Rekuperationspolitick Papst Innocenz’ III (Cologne-Vienna, 1980). 23 Acta Imperii Selecta, ed. J. Ficker and J.F. Böhmer (Innsbruck, 1870), 631–3. 24 Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii Chronica, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SS, liii (Hanover, 1864), 39. 25 Thouzellier, ‘La légation’. 26 See, for example: MGH Epp. selectae, 216–22 no. 296.

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served as a warning to Frederick. In turn, despite the problems that Innocent had heralded, Milan and its allies were more than eager to have the papacy by their side, even though recent quarrels with the papacy were still fresh. While it did not solve the Negotium Lombardie, Honorius’s arbitration did pursue issues that belonged to what was by then the traditional agenda of the papacy, such as heresy and crusade. It was here that the change of attitude towards the members of the League was more striking. The ruling committed the members of the League to include in their statutes the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council as well as the more recent papal and imperial legislation regarding the fight against heresy and the protection of ecclesiastical liberty.27 It also committed the League to provide four hundred knights for the crusade that Frederick was preparing.28 The novelty here was the absence of religious sanctions or accusations of heresy against the League despite the opportunity to bring them. As we have seen, in 1227 Gregory did criticize the Lombard cities regarding heresy very harshly, but it is indicative that he did not single out the League, since he extended his critique to the whole of Lombardy. Papal leniency towards the League played a fundamental role in Frederick’s accusations against Gregory in the 1230s. Innocent’s major role in the persecution of heresy is well known, as well as his equation of heresy with dissent against papal policies and with encroachment on the libertas ecclesiae, which included the rights and patrimonies of the papacy and of local churches.29 Heresy was a particularly thorny issue with the Lombard cities, and especially Milan, which during Innocent’s pontificate acquired a very bad reputation in that regard. The city communes were particularly troublesome for Innocent because of the fluidity of their social and governing structures, their protectiveness of their autonomy, the expansion of their spheres of activity after 1183 (which encroached upon the libertas of local churches), and the struggle for the imperial crown, all of which brought a great surge of ecclesiastical sanctions.30 Indeed, Milan’s reputation as a heretical hotbed fully emerged during the struggle for the crown, but the very close involvement of the Milanese Church in the messy civil strife that characterized the city in the first quarter of the century also played a part.31 Heresy, and support for Cathars in particular, was one of 27 Ibid., 246–51 no. 327–32. 28 Ibid. 29 D. Webb, ‘The Pope and the Cities: anticlericalism and heresy in Innocent’s Italy’, in The Church and the Sovereignty, c. 590–1918: essays in honour of Michael Wilks, ed. D. Wood (Oxford, 1991), 135–52. 30 Baietto, Il papa, 3–174. 31 For a recent assessment and bibliography: F. Taylor, ‘Catharism and Heresy in Milan’, in Heresy and the Making of European Culture, ed. A.P. Roach and J. R. Simpson (Farnham, 2013), 383–403.

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the accusations against the Milanese representing Otto of Brunswick that brought about the above-mentioned quarrel at the Lateran Council, where that topic was hotly debated, given the council’s emphasis on legislation against heresy and its dispossession of Raymond VI of Toulouse on grounds that were similar to the accusations against Milan.32 Indeed, in 1212 Innocent had considered a crusade against Milan on the lines of the Albigensian one.33 Persistent accusations against Milan of harbouring and sheltering heretics continued under Honorius, who imputed the city’s disobedience to ‘the radix infecta veneno heretice pravitatis’, and he issued a series of severe sanctions against it that continued at least until 1224, featured in Hugo’s legations, and comprised interdicts, excommunications, and even the privation of the archiepiscopal status.34 In the struggle against heresy and the defence of the libertas Ecclesie, Frederick had found ground on which he could cooperate with the papacy (as his renowned Constitutio in Basilica Beati Petri of 1220, which particularly related to northern Italy, highlighted), but, as we shall see, in time he also made his own the equation of dissent with heresy.35 In 1224, Honorius and Frederick sent legates to Lombardy whose mission was to press local lay authorities to adopt harsh anti-heretical measures that included the death penalty.36 Frederick himself enforced those when, upon entering the Po Valley from the south on his way to the Diet of Cremona of 1226, the podestà of Rimini surrendered to him a group of heretics to be burned at the stake.37 Heresy does not appear in the surviving evidence of the call for the Diet of Cremona, although during the negotiations that followed its failure it was argued, by both emperor and pope, that its agenda had included the eradication of heresy.38 This time, however, Honorius did not issue sanctions. The Archbishop of Hildesheim issued interdicts and excommunications against the members of the League, but he did that because of 32 Ryccardi de Sancto Germano, 39; Baietto, Il papa, 48–53. 33 Innocent III, Opera Omnia, in PL, ccxvi, 714. The letter was probably never sent: H. Roscher, Papst Innocenz III. und die Kreuzzüge (Göttingen, 1968), 237. 34 A. Piazza, ‘“Heretici […] in presenti exterminati”. Onorio III e “rettori e popoli” di Lombardia contro gli eretici’, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, 102 (1999), 21–42; Thouzellier, ‘La légation en Lombardie’, 530–2. 35 MGH Constitutiones, 106–20, no. 86 n. 86. 36 Ibid., 126–7 no. 100; A. Fischer: ‘Herrscherliches Selbstverständnis und die Verwendung des Häresievorwurfs als politisches Instrument. Friedrich II. und sein Ketzeredikt von 1224’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 87 (2007), 71–108. 37 MGH Epp. selectae, 259 no. 341. 38 HB, ii/1, 548–9; MGH Constitutiones, 136 no. 107. For the pope: MGH Epp.selectae, 246–8 no. 327.

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the mandate that Honorius had previously given him to protect Frederick’s crusading status (see below), and not, it would seem, following a specific papal instruction.39 As mentioned above, the papal ruling committed the members of the League to update their statutes following the latest papal and imperial anti-heretical legislation, but, as we shall see, that took a couple of years to be implemented, which is probably what spurred Gregory’s above mentioned letter from April 1227. Yet there is no trace of sanctions, or of the recent harsh rhetoric against Milan, in Honorius’s exchanges with the League, which, overall, remained quite cordial even when the League delayed its ratification of the papal ruling. 40 The crusade was probably a more pervasive theme at that stage of the Negotium Lombardie than heresy, and once again the significance of Innocent III in the history of the crusades and its impact on political discourse within Western Christendom is well known. 41 The crusade was another area of common ground between Frederick and the papacy, despite the emperor’s delays, and it was another source of tension between the papacy and the Lombard cities. It was during Honorius’s pontificate that serious negotiations regarding Frederick’s crusade started. The recruitment of crusaders was one of the main aims of Hugo’s legations, and the hindrance to the preparation for the crusade was among the main justifications for the series of sanctions against Milan and its allies during Honorius’s pontificate. 42 The organization of the crusade was then the main item on the agenda at the Diet of Cremona alongside the reform of the empire, and it played a primary role in the diplomatic battle that followed the League’s blockade, as Frederick argued that it had obstructed the crusade too, not to mention that he was under papal protection. 43 The Fourth Lateran Council provided once more a noteworthy precedent, because it had repeated excommunications and interdicts against the opponents of King John of England, one of the main grounds being John’s crusader status and the obstruction of the forthcoming crusade by English barons during the crisis that led to Magna Carta.44 Indeed, the archbishop of Hildesheim, backed by the clergymen attending the diet, 39 MGH Constitutiones no. 107. 40 MGH Epp.selectae, 234–60 no. 309, 310, 319, 320, 321, 327, 328, 331, 342. 41 J. Riley-Smith, The Crusades: a history, 4th ed. (London, 2014), 174; B. Weiler, ‘The Negotium Terrae Sanctae in the Political Discourse of Latin Christendom, 1215–1311’, The International History Review, 25 (2003), 1–36. 42 Baietto, Il papa, 134–8. 43 MGH Constitutiones, 644 no. 103a; 132–3 no. 105; 136–40 no. 107. 44 C. Harper-Bill, ‘John and the Church of Rome’, in King John: new interpretations, ed. S. D. Church (Woodbridge, 1999), 312.

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including the Patriarch of Jerusalem, did issue similar sanctions in 1226 against the League. Yet Honorius did not take that up, and the need to move on with the crusade, as well as the valuable contribution that the members of the League could provide for it (which the pope quantified), came to be used as arguments in favour of a swift and peaceful compromise. 45 In the end, the League’s contribution to that crusade proved minimal, but once again it did not face any consequences because of that, although that could have been justified given Frederick’s own delays. 46 The crusade to the Holy Land then continued to be a central theme in the next stages of the Negotium Lombardie, as was apparent in the War of the Keys. 47

The Lombard cities and the ‘War of the Keys’ If papal favour had already started to turn from Frederick to the League at the time of Honorius’s arbitration, the so-called War of the Keys decisively swung it in that direction, from which it never fully turned back. While the League ratif ied the papal arbitration of the Negotium Lombardie in spring 1227, by autumn of that year the new crisis was already unfolding. The crusade was a catalyst in that, but the War of the Keys itself took on quasi-crusade features, and heresy was one of its themes too. The name by which that conflict is known comes from Richard of St Germano (d. c.1243), a southern Italian member of Frederick’s court who called the papal forces ‘clavigeri’, that is, bearers of St Peter’s keys. 48 Scholarship has adopted the name because it embodies the quasi-crusade status of the campaign, which is generally considered a stepping-stone in the evolution of political crusades. 49 Despite being a turning point in the relations between Gregory, Frederick and the Lombard cities, secondary literature ordinarily mentions the participation of the League only in passing. Lombard historical and rhetorical works attest to that participation, with the rhetorical works partially filling the gap left by the lack of documentary 45 MGH Epp.selectae, 234–5 no. 309. 46 Annales cremonenses, 807. 47 B. Weiler, ‘Gregory IX, Frederick II and the Liberation of the Holy Land, 1230–1239’, Studies in Church History, 36 (2000), 192–206. 48 Ryccardi de Sancto Germano, 83. 49 D. Abulafia, ‘The Kingdom of Sicily and the Origins of the Political Crusades’, in Società, istituzioni, spiritualità: studi in onore di Cinzio Violante, ed. G. Arnaldi (Spoleto, 1994), 65–77; G.A. Loud, ‘The Papal “Crusade” Against Frederick II in 1228–1230’, in La papauté et les croisades, ed. M. Balard (Farnham, 2011), 91–104.

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evidence. Frederick’s Lombard supporters largely played an indirect but significant role too. On 10 October 1227, Gregory excommunicated Frederick because of his delay in launching the crusade that had been gathering in Apulia, but by March 1228 he had shifted the emphasis to Frederick’s oppression of the Sicilian Church and of the rights of the Roman Church itself. At the end of June 1228, Frederick set out for the Holy Land nonetheless, and regained Jerusalem by treaty with al-Kamil in March 1229. In January 1229, however, Gregory launched an invasion of Southern Italy that was sustained with tithes and troops from across Europe. Around August 1229, the pope drew a parallel between Frederick and the main heretical groups of that time by renewing their excommunications concurrently.50 The pope eventually promised indulgences too, but upon his return from the Holy Land, in summer 1229, Frederick crushed the invasion and, in 1230, he reached a settlement with the pope.51 The so-called Annales Placentini Guelfi is by far the most informative Lombard source on that crisis, and its author, the notary Giovanni Codagnello (d. c.1235), was an eyewitness of Lombard involvement in it.52 He was a keen supporter of the League (his city harboured different views too), and he plainly backed a close alliance with the papacy: his account visibly endorsed papal actions, reflected papal arguments, suggested intrinsic common interests between the papacy and the League, and attributed to the League a significant role in the unfolding of the crisis itself. Indeed, Codagnello was more royalist than the king when he stated that Gregory declared Frederick a heretic; a comment which went beyond Gregory’s slightly subtler approach, but also shows that Lombards could fully embrace papal methods. Codagnello, however, made no mention either of the offers of indulgences or the outcome of the crisis, which is quite surprising, considering his otherwise detailed account and the fact that his work continued until around 1235, when he probably died. According to Codagnello, when the pope threatened Frederick with excommunication because of the delay to the crusade, the emperor and his representatives invaded ‘possessiones et iura’ of the Roman Church, revealing his intention to destroy the Church and to bring desolation to the whole of Italy. That reference to the whole peninsula obviously hinted at the common 50 MGH Epp.selectae, 318, no. 399. 51 Loud, ‘The Papal “Crusade”’. 52 G. Arnaldi, ‘Codagnello Giovanni’, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani (hereafter DBI), xxvi (Rome, 1982), 562–68.

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interests between League and papacy and, as we shall see, mirrored papal letters. Thus, when Gregory saw that the spiritual sword had no tangible effect against the wickedness of the emperor, he requested the help of the faithful of the Roman Church, which prompted Codagnello’s following comment: ‘it seems righteous and proper to oppose the arrogant in order to stop him from deploying his arrogance’ (‘Iustum enim et idoneum videtur, resistere superbo ne possit superbiam suam exercere’). The result was that at some point before September 1228 the rectors of the League went to the pope to protect the rights and interests of the Church, which means that they were probably among the clergy and laity who, according to Codagnello, advised papal actions in the build-up to the crisis. It is quite possible that the League’s backing played a significant role in Gregory’s decision to take military action. Codagnello stated that during that September the rectors of the League agreed to provide troops and cover their expenses for six months, and the papal invasion unfolded in January. Each member immediately readied a contingent of knights, but they were put on hold until further papal instructions, which, according to Codagnello, eventually came in February 1229 when the papal legate Goffredo of San Marco (the future Celestine IV) summoned them in order to defend the rights of the Roman Church. ‘Eager to observe and fulfil the orders and mandates of the Lord Pope’ (‘iussa et mandata domini pape observare et facere cupientes’), the Lombards complied, and Piacenza sent thirty-six knights in March, who, however, experienced delays. That is where Codagnello’s account of the War of the Keys abruptly ends.53 Codagnello’s work attests that the troops of the League were summoned and deployed months after the campaign began, but it can be compared to a letter sent by the rectors of the League to its members featured in the Dictamina Rhetorica, a collection of model letters that the Bolognese rhetorician Guido Faba produced around 1229. That letter is a reminder of the pledge to send knights ‘ad ecclesie subsidium’ and ‘pro reverentia Dei sancteque Romane ecclesie nec non et pro totius societatis statu’. The rectors acknowledged that those troops – five hundred knights – had been put on hold, but they were to be deployed in January, which means that the letter was from 1228.54 That number of troops was higher (although not by much), than the number that the League was meant to provide for the crusade according to the papal arbitration of 1227. The knights mentioned by the Annales Placentini Guelfi were probably the share that Piacenza was 53 Iohannis Codagnelli Annales placentini, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS, xxiii (Hanover and Leipzig, 1901), 86–90. 54 Guido Faba, Dictamina Rhetorica, ed. A. Gaudenzi, in Il propugnatore, v (1892), 102.

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to provide. Moreover, the period mentioned by the letter for the deployment of the League’s forces coincided with the actual beginning of the campaign. It is important to remember, however, that there is no guarantee that the letters of the Dictamina Rhetorica were real ones, and it is generally safer to assume that they are verisimilar didactic exercises inspired by contemporary events.55 The verisimilar nature of Faba’s letters is especially significant regarding another item from his Dictamina Rhetorica, that is, a privilegium in which Gregory IX confirmed an otherwise unknown agreement reached between the Lombards and a queen called Constance (‘concordia regine Constantie’) and specifically its recognition of the right of the Lombards to form a league in order to safeguard their prerogatives when the emperor came to Italy. No other reference to that agreement or to that papal privilege survives. Editions of sources have included them among the additamenta or deperdita and have suggested placing them in different periods, while secondary literature has ignored them altogether. Indeed, it is most likely that the privilege actually referred to the Peace of Constance (playing with the names of Frederick’s mother and wife), and that it was a verisimilar didactic exercise engaging with the harsh debate regarding the Peace of Constance during the Negotium Lombardie, the yearning of the League for papal support, but also the situation during the War of the Keys, which chronologically best suited its content and the other models of the Dictamina Rhetorica. As mentioned above, in contrast to Frederick, the papacy had no difficulty in naming and dealing with the League, which could be taken as an implicit recognition of its lawfulness and of that of the Peace of Constance. However, a formal recognition of those by Gregory at that stage was quite unlikely and would have left other evidence, given Frederick’s stance and Gregory’s later arbitrations of the Negotium Lombardie.56 To that same period, namely 1228-1229, belongs the first main wave of anti-heretical legislation issued in Lombard cities of which solid evidence survives.57 It should be noted that the cities for which that evidence comes from, such as Treviso, Vicenza, Ferrara, Brescia and Milan, were members 55 M. Camargo, Ars dictaminis, ars dictandi (Turnhout, 1991), 43–4. 56 Raccagni, ‘The Teaching of Rhetoric’. 57 A. Piazza, ‘“Affinché […] costituzioni di tal genere siano ovunque osservate”. Gli statuti di Gregorio IX contro gli eretici d’Italia’, in Scritti in onore di Girolamo Arnaldi offerti dalla Scuola nazionale di studi medioevali, ed. A. Degradi, O. Gori, G. Pesiri, A. Piazza and R. Rinaldi (Rome, 2001), 425–458; T. Scharff, Häretiker verfolgung und Schriftlichkeit: Die Wirkung der Kekzergesetze auf die oberitalienischen Kommunalstatuten im 13 Jahrhunclert (Frankfurt, 1996), 117–24; for the membership of the League at this stage: Chiodi, ‘Istituzioni’, 103–6.

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of the League. That legislation complied with the papal arbitration of the Negotium Lombardie, but Gregory had required that point of the ruling to be expanded to the whole region, and there is no evidence that Frederick’s supporters observed it. At Milan those statutes were revised at the end of January 1229 in the presence of the same Cardinal Goffredo who shortly afterwards summoned the forces of the League for the War of the Keys. Goffredo himself came from a distinguished Milanese family, and Gregory had appointed him cardinal in September 1227, that is, between the League’s ratification of the papal ruling of the Negotium Lombardie and the onset of the War of the Keys.58 During his mission in Lombardy Goffredo lent support to the oath of association of the League according to which disputes among members had to be solved by its rectors.59 Indeed, overall, the wave of anti-heretical statutes could be interpreted as the equivalent of, or indeed the League’s answer to, Frederick’s Constitutio in Basilica Beati Petri, in the way its members offered themselves as partners of the papacy against heresy as Frederick had recently done (or, indeed, in his place). On the other hand, one likely explanation for Codagnello abruptly stopping his narration in March 1229 was that he preferred not to mention the eventual unravelling of the papal invasion and the fact that the League’s contribution to it did not match the idyllic collaboration with the papacy that he had so keenly envisaged. When, around the middle of 1229, the campaign in southern Italy turned sour, Gregory sent a crescendo of irritated letters to the League. On 15 May, he complained that some cities had not provided the pledged troops or were not sufficiently financing them, and he vehemently exhorted them to fulfil their pledge fully (‘facite igitur, facite’), comparing himself to a neighbour hit by flooding and fires that threatened to spread if no help was received.60 At the end of June, Gregory pointed out that Frederick aspired to destroy Lombardy (‘exterminium Lombardie’) and that John of Brienne and Cardinal John Colonna were to move against him in the name of Jesus Christ; Lombard knights, however, wanted to go home, resulting in accusations of betrayal by the pope; Gregory therefore asked, warned and exhorted (‘rogamus, monemus et hortamur’) the rectors of the League to do everything they could to keep those knights in the service of the Church.61 A couple of weeks later he even threatened the League with 58 A. Paravicini Bagliani, ‘Celestino IV, papa’, in DBI 23 (Rome, 1979), 398–402. 59 Baietto, Il papa, 298–304, 314–22. 60 MGH Epp.selectae, 304–5 no. 385. 61 Ibid., 313–4 no. 395.

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ecclesiastical sanctions, while he later asked the archbishop of Milan to convince the League to come to his aid by offering plenary indulgences.62 That had no discernible effect. The acceptance by Gregory of the failure of the campaign marked a sudden improvement of his relations with the League. On 10 November he informed the League that negotiations with Frederick had started, stating that he had no doubt of their support and honoured them as special sons (‘vos intendimus tamquam speciales filios honorare’); he also sought their advice, and they were to rest assured that he would have never deserted them, but was to include them in his negotiations with Frederick.63 At the Peace of San Germano of July 1230, Frederick (whom Gregory now called ‘carissimus in Christo filius noster’) pledged to remit all the offences received and to lift punishments he had inflicted upon those who had adhered to the Church against him, be they Germans, Sicilian, French or Lombards.64 One of the most obvious reasons for the disappointing contribution by the League to the War of the Keys was the flare up of conflicts in Lombardy in breach of the recent papal settlement, and Gregory’s irritation might have something to do with the fact that it was members of the League who seem to have started them (but, once again, they did not incur any penalty for that). Chronicles recorded attacks by Bologna against Modena (the first being a leading member of the League and the second a staunch imperial supporter), which activated the respective networks of alliances and led to vast military campaigns in October 1228 and again in spring-summer 1229. The League deployed forces in those campaigns that were far greater than those pledged to the papacy (but the campaigns were geographically closer), yet it was battered by them.65 Codagnello inserted those campaigns between the pledge of the League to Gregory and the deployment of its troops to southern Italy, and then again in place of the outcome of the War of the Keys. A connection between those Lombard conflicts and the War of the Keys is quite likely. The clashes between Modena and Bologna were partly due to recent charters in which Frederick blatantly favoured the 62 Ibid., 314–5 no. 396; 325 no. 405; 350–1 no. 435. 63 Ibid., 327, no. 409, 339–40 no. 420. 64 MGH Constitutiones, 170–84 no. 126–49. 65 Iohannis Codagnelli, 88–99; Chronicon Faventinum, 157–62; Alberti Milioli Liber de temporibus, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS, xxxi (Hanover, 1903), 506–8; Annales Cremonenses, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH SS, xxxi, 15; Annales parmenses, ed. P. Jaffé, in MGH SS, xviii, 667; Annales veronenses, in MGH SS, xix (Hanover, 1866), 7; Albrici monachi Triumfontium Chronicon, ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst, in MGH SS, xxiii (Hanover, 1874), 925.

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former against the latter.66 In that period Gregory returned the dioceses of Cremona to the jurisdiction of Milan, reversing a measure that Innocent III had taken during his quarrel with Otto of Brunswick.67 Frederick was certainly in touch with his Lombard supporters and asked for their help in 1229-1230.68

The re-emergence of the Negotium Lombardie in the early 1230s While the above-mentioned letter from 1227 epitomizes Gregory’s relations with the Lombard cities at the beginning of his pontificate, a letter from 18 May 1231 typifies the situation in the wake of the War of the Keys. It confirmed that the papal arbitration of the Negotium Lombardie had been a mere truce, because Gregory exhorts the emperor to prefer the ‘ordo iuris’ to the ‘virium potestas’ with the League, and to accept his mediation. Heresy again played a central role in that, as Gregory’s main argument is that Frederick’s use of force risks distracting the collaboration between pope and emperor against heretics, and offering them hope of respite.69 Indeed, heresy, crusades and conflict resolution returned to play a key role in the relations between Gregory, the Lombard cities and Frederick II after 1230. Overall, Gregory’s intervention followed the outline of Honorius’s arbitration, but he was far less neutral, for, despite the shortcomings of the War of the Keys, he acknowledged his new-forged proximity to the League, and, despite occasional collaborations, his relations with the emperor remained tense. That letter reflected the fact that the year 1231 saw a new surge of papal and imperial anti-heretical activity. At the beginning of 1231, Gregory promoted another wave of severe penalties against heretics and those who supported or simply tolerated them. Those rules had been developed at and for Rome, where Gregory needed to re-establish his position against those who had caused his departure during the War of the Keys. Yet on 22 May (only a few days after the above-mentioned letter to Frederick II), he demanded that the bishops of northern Italy ensure the local reception of those rules (which were meant to show how urban governments were to proceed against 66 V. Braidi, ‘Modena: la nemica’, in Bologna re Enzo e il suo mito, ed. A.I. Pini and A.L. Trombetti Budriesi (Bologna, 2001), 157–99. 67 G. Andenna, ‘Episcopato cremonese, capitolo cattedrale, papato e impero nel XIII secolo’, in Cremona città imperiale. Nell’VIII centenario della nascita di Federico II (Cremona, 1999), 164–180. 68 MGH Constitutiones, 168–70 no. 124–5. 69 MGH Epp.selectae, 355 no. 440.

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people whom religious authorities had identified as heretics).70 Only a few months later, at the beginning of September 1231, Frederick promulgated his famous Liber Augustalis, in which heresy played a crucial role: it presented the prosecution of heretics as one of the underlying functions of a ruler, but it also openly equated the crimes of heresy and lèse-majesté. That legislation was promulgated for the Regnum Sicilie but featured a Lombard twist: Frederick presented himself with the imperial title and portrayed Lombardy as the region that was particularly affected by heresy, from where it was trickling south.71 He did not extend the Liber Augustalis to the rest of the peninsula.72 Yet, as we shall see, he later equated the rebelles Lombardi, namely the League, with heretics. Around the same time as Frederick’s promulgation of the Liber Augustalis, on 1 September 1231, Gregory’s antiheretical activity in northern Italy acquired crusading overtones for the first time when he offered a three-year indulgence and a plenary remission of sins in case of death to those who fought Ezzelino da Romano, one of the most powerful lords of what is now Veneto, if Ezzelino failed to make amends publicly. Ezzelino was accused of having embraced heresy and of sheltering heretics, his lands had long been identified as a hotbed of heretics, and Gregory himself had acted against his family before, both at the very beginning of his pontificate and when he was a cardinal legate.73 The pope specifically invited the Paduans, who were Ezzelino’s main local opponents, to take action and called them ‘speciales Christi athletae’ for their efforts against heresy and their protection of the libertas Ecclesie.74 There is little doubt that the accusations of heresy were related to local conflicts involving nearby bishops, communes and lords, in which the da Romano were among the protagonists and did not side with the bishops.75 There is no evidence, however, that the Lombard cities embraced Gregory’s new wave of anti-heretical legislation at that time, or that the quasi-crusade against Ezzelino was implemented. It is important to emphasize that 70 Piazza, ‘“Affinché”’, 425–458. 71 Constitutionum Regni Siciliarum libri III (Naples 1773), 9. 72 Abulafia, Frederick II, 204; M. Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe, 1000–1800 (Washington, 1995), 94; K. Pennington, ‘Gregory IX, Emperor Frederick and the Constitutions of Melfi’, in Popes, Teachers and Canon Law in the Middle Ages, ed. S. Chodorow and J. Ross Sweeney (Ithaca, 1989), 53–61. 73 A. Piazza, ‘Alle origini del coinvolgimento dei Minori contro l’eresia: i frati di Angarano nella Marca di Ezzelino da Romano’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo, 107 (2005), 205–28. 74 G. Verci, Storia degli Ecelini (Bassano, 1779), iii, 234–5. 75 Ezzelini: signori della Marca nel cuore dell’impero di Federico II, ed. C. Berteli and G. Marcadella (Milan, 2001).

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Ezzelino was not yet a supporter of Frederick II, as scholarship has often assumed. In fact, immediately after Gregory’s call for that quasi-crusade against him, Ezzelino successfully applied to become a member of the League, of which Padua, Gregory’s champion, was also a member.76 Indeed, the threatened quasi-crusade probably pushed Ezzelino into the arms of the League, which had a crucial impact on the Negotium Lombardie at that stage and, in turn, probably stopped the quasi-crusade in its tracks. In 1226, the success of the League in mediating disputes in Veneto had assured its blockade against the Diet of Cremona by preventing the arrival of Frederick’s son from Germany. That exploit was successfully repeated in late 1231 and Ezzelino’s influence covered the routes from Germany.77 Indeed, his subsequent switch to Frederick’s camp played a significant role in the military escalation that characterised the Negotium Lombardie later in the decade.78 The year 1231 saw a new flaring up of the Negotium Lombardie, but diplomacy prevailed again, and this time Gregory was involved in it from the beginning. In July, Frederick called a new imperial diet to be held on 1 November 1231, this time at Ravenna, whose agenda was the restoration of peace in the empire and especially in Italy.79 Subsequently, Frederick also insisted, and the papal Curia also assumed, that the diet was also meant to organize assistance to the Holy Land.80 Throughout September (in fact, starting from the same day as the above-mentioned threats against Ezzelino), Gregory asked Lombard bishops to intercede with the League so that it did not obstruct the imperial diet, but he also specified that the members of the League were ‘speciales filii’ of the Roman Church and that offences against them were to be treated as equivalent to those against the Roman Church itself.81 The same bishops were charged to supervise the progress of Ezzelino’s situation.82 The League, however, did not pay attention to Gregory’s requests and its reaction mirrored that of 1226. In October it organized a general assembly of its members at Bologna, close to Ravenna, which, along with Ezzelino’s membership, decided to undertake military preparations against the incoming imperial threat, and decreed to send emissaries to Gregory 76 R. Manselli, ‘Ezzelino da Romano nella politica italiana del sec. XIII’, in Studi Ezzeliniani, ed. G. Fasoli (Rome, 1963), 35–79. 77 Chiodi, ‘Istituzioni’, 232–4. 78 Manselli, ‘Ezzelino da Romano’. 79 MGH Constitutiones, 190–1 no. 15. 80 Ibid., 204 no. 166. 81 MGH Epp.selectae, 365–6 no. 452; 366–9 no. 454–7. 82 Ibid., 366 no. 453.

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demanding further securities that the emperor was not to enter Lombardy with an army.83 Frederick replied by placing a new ban upon the League.84 Once again, the papacy mediated the dispute, initially through papal legates (James of Palestrina and Otto of San Nicola) who organized and supervised meetings between the representatives of the warring parties.85 As the ample surviving records testify that new round of negotiations did address imperial regalia, the Peace of Constance and the lawfulness of the League.86 Yet no compromise could be reached and the parties entrusted the resolution of their quarrel to the papal legates and ultimately to Gregory. On the other hand, there is evidence that the members of the League felt quite close to those papal legates because they were natives of cities that were members of the League, and therefore it was probably not by chance that in the end Frederick refused to meet with them.87 Indeed, the two papal legates excommunicated Ezzelino after he left the League and took control of Verona, which the legates punished with religious sanctions too.88 Gregory once again took the arbitration into his own hands, and once more the results, issued on 5 June 1233, did not touch upon the core issues of the dispute, but rather mirrored Honorius’s previous ruling, including the provision of f ive hundred knights for the Holy Land. Yet, differing from Honorius’s ruling, Gregory’s ruling did not mention statutes against heretics, despite his ignored recent anti-heretical legislation, and this time he expressly excluded from the arbitration the conflicts between the Lombard cities, which, as we shall see, continued. The opposing parties did not like the ruling: the League wished to have strict rules imposed upon the movement of the emperor and of imperial princes in Lombardy, while the emperor wished the League to be punished for those offensive requests, for blockading the imperial diet (and consequently the preparation of the crusade), and for ignoring papal requests not to do that. Yet the League did not incur any papal sanction, and ultimately the parties ratified the papal ruling.89 That ruling was little more than yet another truce, but it brought a period of respite during which northern Italy saw the exceptional wave of religious enthusiasm known as the Alleluja, which, led by charismatic mendicant preachers armed with charisma, miracle working and visions, swept across 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Iohannis Codagnelli Annales placentini, 109–10. Regesta Imperii, ed. J.F. Böhmer, vol. v/1,1 (Innsbruck, 1881–1901) no. 1931. MGH Constitutiones, 194–7 no. 157; Iohannis Codagnelli Annales placentini, 110–11. MGH Constitutiones, 199–209 no. 161–9. Ibid., 203 no. 165; Iohannis Codagnelli Annales placentini, 110–11. HB, iv/1 446–7. MGH Constitutiones, 219–25 no. 176–82; MGH Epp.selectae, 455–7 no. 552.

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the region in 1233. Fuelled by overwhelming popular support, those preachers often gained great local political influence, usually acting as peacemakers, frequently reforming city statutes (including Parma, Bologna, Vicenza, Verona, Milan, Monza and Vercelli) along lines deemed closer to the latest teachings of the Church, and in a few cases even acquiring the reins of local government.90 Heresy played a signif icant role in the Alleluja especially when it came to the revision of city statutes, but at Milan and Verona scores of heretics were burned at the stake in 1233, implementing the harsher side of the recent imperial and papal legislation. The f ight against heresy acquired crusading overtones too in that period in Lombardy, as when Gregory IX offered a one-year indulgence and plenary remission of sins in case of death to those who fought heretics at Milan.91 Parma saw the establishment of the Militia of Jesus Christ, a military order attached to the Dominicans, whose objectives were the defence of the Catholic faith and ecclesiastical liberty. Gregory granted full support to it, including plenary indulgences.92 In reality, these quasi-crusade movements waned very quickly.93 Peace-making was more a core issue of the Alleluja than heresy, and it had, for the most part, an intra-city dimension; but with John of Vicenza, probably the most renowned of the preachers, it had a regional dimension as well. In May 1233, John interposed between the same forces that had fought within Lombardy during the War of the Keys, whose conflicts the pope had recently excluded from his ruling.94 On 28 August, John then organized at Paquara, close to Verona, a peace conference that offered a settlement to the main disputes within Veneto and attracted an unprecedented crowd, including religious and civil authorities from across the Western half of the Po Valley. That also filled a gap, which had been left by the end of the super partes position of the League in the region after Ezzelino’s commitment to Frederick.95 Paquara was the apex of John’s career, but it also led to his downfall: his appeasement of Ezzelino created much discontent and a 90 A. Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy: the Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford, 1992). 91 MGH Epp.selectae, 459 no. 566. 92 N. Housley, ‘Politics and Heresy in Italy: anti-heretical crusades, orders and confraternities, 1200–1500’, JEH, 33 (1982), 193–208. 93 M. Gazzini, ‘«Fratres» e «milites» tra religione e politica. Le milizie di Gesù Cristo e della Vergine nel duecento’, Archivio storico italiano, 162 (2004), 3–78. 94 Thompson, Revival preachers, 60, 68, 71–6, 92–3, 162, 174–7. 95 Antiquitates italicae medii aevi, ed. L. A. Muratori, 6 vols (Milan, 1738–1742), iv, c. 1171.

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week later Paduan forces imprisoned him, after which he never regained his previous influence.96 Scholarship has long argued that, although the Alleluja was largely a spontaneous occurrence, many of its preachers showed sympathy for the positions of the papacy and its allies.97 For example, in his arbitration between the bishop and the commune of Bologna, which was a bastion of the League, John of Vicenza blatantly favoured the commune in open disregard of local ecclesiastical rights. At Paquara, John claimed he had a papal mandate.98 According to Rolandino da Padua, many interpreted Paquara in the light of the forthcoming imperial campaign, and Frederick later complained to Gregory about John’s anti-imperial leanings.99 Gregory generally supported the activity of the preachers, but in a rather detached and perhaps opportunistic way. For example, he offered indulgences to those who attended John’s preaching, did not challenge his ruling at Bologna, and authorized his lifting of Ezzelino’s excommunications, but he had actually asked John to move from Bologna to Tuscany, not to Veneto, John had ignored him, and Gregory did little to secure John’s release after his imprisonment.100 The core of pro-imperial Lombardy, Cremona and Pavia, seems to have been largely ignored by the Alleluja. Among the preachers, Gerard of Modena, who was active at Parma, seems to have been the exception that proved the rule: Parma was a close ally of Frederick and Gerard came to be identified as a strong sympathiser of the emperor.101

The descent into armed conflict and the crusade against Frederick In the middle of the 1230s, Gregory’s mediation of the Negotium Lombardie was gradually superseded by Frederick’s use of force and demonizing of the League. Relations between emperor and pope worsened accordingly, leading to Frederick’s second and final excommunication in March 1239. Once again, heresy and crusading featured very prominently in those developments, but also their targets evolved with them. While the equation of rebellion with heresy acquired a position at the forefront of imperial arguments against 96 L. Canetti, ‘Giovanni da Vicenza’, in DBI, 55 (Rome, 2001), 263–7. 97 Thompson, Revival Preachers, 205–18. 98 Antiquitates, c.1171. 99 Rolandini patavini chronica, ed. P. Jaffé, in MGH SS, xix, 58–9; HB, iii/2, 907. 100 Thompson, Revival Preachers, 205–18. 101 Z. Zafarana, ‘Boccabadati, Gherardo’, in DBI, 10 (Rome, 1968), 822–3.

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the League, the papal anti-heretical drive in northern Italy first markedly declined and then from 1239 started to associate heresy with support for Frederick’s positions. The crusade to the Holy Land continued to be a primary argument in negotiations, but the Negotium Lombardie itself took on the full trappings of a crusade. The Negotium Lombardie reopened for the third time in summer 1235, when it was one of the main items discussed at the imperial diet held at Mainz. The alliance that Henry, Frederick’s eldest son and king of Germany, had struck with the League during his failed rebellion in 1234 contributed to that.102 Gregory petitioned the diet to leave the Negotium Lombardie in his hands again, but this time the decision was taken to launch a military campaign against the League the following spring, although Frederick gave Gregory time until Christmas to provide a diplomatic solution.103 Yet the League renewed its oath of association at Brescia in November 1235, which aggravated tensions, and only sent its representatives to the pope in February 1236, when those of the emperor had already left.104 Negotiations were eventually resumed, which largely followed the lines of those of 1232, including their ineffectiveness, and, from the diet of Mainz until the middle of 1237, the preparation for a new crusade to the Holy Land, which would have been hindered by a conflict in Lombardy, was again the main argument that the pope used to convince Frederick to keep the negotiations open.105 It should also be noted that the cardinal legates, dealing with the Negotium Lombardie on Gregory’s behalf in those years, held legations in Lombardy which were advertised as entailing the supervision of the state of the empire, the defence of ecclesiastical liberty, the elimination of heresy and the organization of the crusade to the Holy Land.106 While those negotiations were taking place, a cold war was fought in Lombardy that centred on Verona and Piacenza, two strategic cities whose allegiance hung in the balance. Thus during the middle of the 1230s the very papal and imperial legates dealing with the Negotium Lombardie, as well as representatives of the League and those of Lombard imperial supporters, battled in all but name by interacting with and offering mediation between 102 MGH Constitutiones, 435–8 no. 325–8; Annales placentini gibellini, 470. 103 MGH Constitutiones, 239–40 no. 194–5; MGH Epp.selectae, 547 no. 648; 556–8 no. 657–8; 559–60 no. 660–2. 104 MGH Epp.selectae, 576–7 no. 678. 105 Ibid, 547 no. 648; 556–8 no. 657–8; 559–60 no. 660–2; 579–80 no. 681–2; 599–605 no. 703; 610–11 no. 708; Annales placentini gibellini, 475–6. 106 MGH Epp.selectae, 589–91 no. 693; 594–6 no. 699; 605–6 no. 704.

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local factions in order to acquire those cities on their side.107 In those same years, Gregory and his representatives also engaged with internal conflicts in other Lombard cities.108 It is not by chance, therefore, that Frederick chose Piacenza and Verona as the locations for the next two diets, respectively called for 1236 and 1238. The call of that at Piacenza coincided with the breaking of local truces in those cities that had opposing results. At Piacenza the pro-League faction prevailed, resulting in the exile of the opposing faction to Cremona and in yet another obstruction to an imperial diet.109 Frederick complained to the pope at the involvement of Cardinal James of Palestrina, a native of Piacenza himself, and Gregory replied that James was simply restoring the peace there, but in the following negotiations he replaced him.110 At Verona, on the contrary, Ezzelino’s party got the upper hand, and its control over the city was strengthened by the arrival of troops from Germany.111 The capture of Verona opened the route that allowed the emperor to pursue the military option, which eventually led to his crushing victory at Cortenuova in November 1237. Frederick celebrated it by sending the captured Milanese carroccio (a wheeled war altar that had a totemic function in Lombard cities) to be displayed on the Capitol Hill in Rome, in a clear gesture of defiance to Gregory, with whom, as we shall see, he had already started to exchange blows openly, and to whom he wrote about his desire to finish the League off.112 In the following months, only a handful of members of the League continued their resistance, but the failure of the lengthy siege of Brescia in 1238 led to a new standstill.113 Those cold wars and the subsequent military campaigns coincided with a significant escalation in the imperial ideological attack against the League and of accusations between Gregory and Frederick. As with the previous diets, the agenda of the diet of Piacenza included the preparation for the crusade to the Holy Land as well as pacification and reformatio of the state of the empire.114 The call for the diet also identified a foremost obstacle in the ‘rebelles circa partes Italiae’, that is, the League, and in the strong presence of ‘heretica pravitas’ in the region, which were to be eradicated in order to 107 Annales placentini gibellini, 473–4; Annales veronenses, in MGH SS, xviii, 9; MGH Epp.selectae, 578 no. 679; 582 no. 685. 108 Baietto, Il papa, 298–304, 314–22. 109 Annales placentini gibellini, 473–4. 110 MGH Epp.selectae, 599–605 no. 703; 605–6 no. 704. 111 Annales veronenses, 9–10. 112 HB, v/1, 142–5. 113 Annales placentini gibellini, 477–8. 114 MGH Constitutiones, 266 no. 200.

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reform the ‘iura ecclesie et imperii’, the imperial court connecting rebels and heretics by playing with the terms fides and fidelitas.115 Indeed, in a letter to Gregory from that period the emperor depicted the members of the League, and the Milanese in particular, as enemies of the cross and heretics whose elimination was paramount to prepare an effective campaign to the Holy Land.116 Those arguments harkened back to those that the papacy itself since the time of Innocent III had used in crusades against heretics.117 The imperial court continued along those lines in the following years, especially against the Milanese, whom in 1238 Frederick, in a letter to the people of Vercelli, described as ‘catholice fidei perversores’.118 On 1 May 1238, when he called for the diet at Verona, the emperor incited his subjects ‘ad delendas infidelium reliquias in partibus Lumbardie’, and two weeks later he renewed his legislation against heretics.119 In February 1239, Frederick issued the Constitutio contra infideles imperii, which he requested to be inserted in the statutes of Lombard cities (examples of which survive at Bergamo and Vercelli) and was clearly influenced by anti-heretical legislation: loyal subjects had to avoid contacts with the rebels, they had licence to wage war against them, and had to denounce suspected treason on threat of incurring accusations of lèse-majesté themselves and even the death penalty.120 Gregory, on the other hand, did not embrace Frederick’s accusations of heresy against the League, and the deepening of the crisis coincided with a palpable crescendo of enmity between pope and emperor. Apart from securing Piacenza for the League, James of Palestrina was the conduit through which a series of complaints from the pope against the emperor were transmitted that touched on a variety of issues that went from the rekindling of the accusations regarding southern Italy, to his good relations with Muslims, Jews and suspected heretics.121 Frederick claimed to be surprised by those accusations, since he was expecting ecclesiastical reprimands against the League instead.122 115 Ibid; M. Vallerani, ‘Le città lombarde nell’età di Federico II’, in Storia d’Italia, ed. G. Galasso, vol. vi, Comuni e signorie nell’Italia settentrionale: la Lombardia (Turin, 1198), 462–66. For the impact on urban legislation: G. Milani, L’esclusione dal commune. Conflitti e bandi politici a Bologna e in altre città italiane tra XII e XIV secolo (Rome, 2003), 123–83. 116 HB, iv/2, 881. 117 R. Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (London, 2009), 56–8. 118 HB, v/1, 157. 119 MGH Constitutiones, 277–9 no. 206–7; 280–5 no. 209–11. 120 Ibid., 286–9 no. 213. 121 MGH Epp.selectae, 596–8 no. 700. 122 Ibid., 598–9 no. 701–2.

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Gregory does not seem to have been directly involved in the failed negotiations between Frederick and Milan that followed Cortenuova, but a thirteenth century biography suggests that a papal legate backed the proposal that the Lombards should give up the Peace of Constance, which ultimately they did not do.123 At the same time, at the end of 1238, towards the end of the siege of Brescia, which showed how what was left of the League was still capable of withstanding the emperor, Gregory forged close links with Genoa and Venice, which until then had only been indirectly involved in the Negotium Lombardie.124 The covenants with Genoa and Venice did not refer to Frederick directly, but those cities acquired a leading role in the subsequent stages of the conflict, and those agreements provided the template for new, more explicit ones, that were struck shortly afterwards with other northern Italian cities. A few months later, in March 1239, just one month after Frederick’s Constitutio contra infidelis imperii, Gregory excommunicated Frederick for the second time. There is ample literature on the resulting ‘war of the chanceries’ between pope and emperor. It is worth noticing here that the Negotium Lombardie was absent from Gregory’s initial sentence (apart from a passing reference to an alleged imperial occupation of ‘terre Ecclesie in Lombardie’ around Ferrara).125 On the contrary, Lombardy featured prominently in Frederick’s very heated encyclical responses, which, as well as much else, underlined how Gregory openly favoured such a wellknown hotbed of heretics as Milan.126 Gregory’s fiery answer to that was the famously apocalyptic encyclical ‘Ascendit de mare bestia blasphemie’, in which he summarised the history of their dealings by mentioning the League several times.127 In northern Italy, Frederick’s excommunication was followed by that of imperial supporters like Ezzelino da Romano and by some significant, but not game-changing, defections from his front, such as those of Ravenna, Treviso, and the Marquis of Este, whom Gregory took under his protection citing their engagement for the defence of the faith and of ecclesiastical liberty.128 Gregory even struck direct agreements with Piacenza and Milan, 123 Vita Gregorii IX, in Le Liber censuum de l’église romaine, ed. P. Fabre and L. Duchesne, 5 vols (Paris, 1905), ii, 34; Tommaso da Pavia, in MGH SS, xxii, 513; Ibid., 633 no. 735; Bartholomei scribae annales, in MGH SS, xviii, 189. 124 MGH Epp.selectae., 633 no. 735; Bartholomei scribae annales, in MGH SS, xviii, 189. 125 MGH Epp.selectae, 640–1 no. 742. 126 MGH Constitutiones., 296–7 no. 215; 311 no. 224; 318 no. 233; 318 no. 234. 127 MGH Epp.selectae, 645 no. 750. 128 Ibid., 655 no. 752.

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and renewed those with Genoa and Venice, pledging to coordinate their actions against Frederick, and, for the maritime republics, to organise an attack against Sicily, where they were to gain significant assets in case of victory.129 Defections, however, affected both camps, as shown by Como, which commanded important Alpine passes, and Alessandria in 1240.130 In February 1240, the conflict against Frederick took on the full trappings of a crusade and northern Italy was among the areas where that had the most profound impact. When Frederick threatened to capture Rome, Gregory not only successfully averted that by inciting the Romans to take the cross against Frederick and offering them plenary indulgences, but he also spurred their fellow Christians to follow their example.131 That had negligible impact, or was criticized, north of the Alps, but it had a significant impact in Lombardy. The crusade against Frederick, for example, was immediately preached at Genoa, where it was equated with those to the Holy Land and where the protection of the Church started to infuse local patriotism, while, on the other side of northern Italy, the victorious siege of Ferrara took the shape of a crusade against heretics.132 Yet at Milan the fight against pro-imperial neighbours had probably integrated some crusading features in 1239, under the leadership of Cardinal Gregorio da Montelongo.133 Scholarship has habitually dismissed the impact of the crusading features of the war against Frederick, but in Lombardy that impact was far from being a negligible or transient one: not only did the anti-imperial front take the offensive there after years of retreats, but also adherence to the Church actually became an explicit and distinguishing feature of specific Lombard factions at the launch of that crusade.134 Those developments, however, did not mean the end of peace negotiations between empire and papacy, especially through the mediation by the princes of the empire, and once again the Negotium Lombardie played an important role in that. For Gregory wished the League to be included in any arrangement, but Frederick utterly refused to accept that, arguing that his conflict with the League did not feature in his sentence of excommunication, and reiterating his emphasis on Gregory’s alliance with notoriously vile heretics like the Milanese (‘Mediolanensium hereticorum nequiciam fovere 129 Ibid., 733–9 no. 833–8; Annales placentini gibellini, 481; Bartholomei scribae annals, 189. 130 HB, v/1, 362, 536. 131 Ibid., v/ii, 776–9; MGH Constitutiones, 312 no. 224. 132 G. Raccagni, ‘The Crusade Against Frederick II: a neglected piece of evidence’, JEH, 67 (2016), 721–40. 133 Raccagni, ‘The Crusade Against Frederick II’. 134 Ibid.

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non desinit’).135 The pro-papal Lombard forces, and expressly the members of the League, were then formally invited to the general council that Gregory called at Rome for Easter 1241, but not the Lombard imperial supporters.136 The capture by Frederick’s forces in May 1241 of ambassadors and prelates who were travelling to the council by sea to Rome from Genoa was one of the last main events in the troubled relations between Frederick and Gregory, who died shortly afterwards in August 1241. The conflict then continued and reached to its heights under Innocent IV, and it was still raging when Frederick died in 1250.

Conclusions The Negotium Lombardie shows how pervasive heresy and penitential warfare could be in Western political discourse by the time of Gregory’s pontificate, both in conflicts and conflict resolution, as well as the complexity of the connections among those issues and the very fine line between principles and political expediency. Yet it also shows the extent to which those developments affected very different actors, from the papacy to the emperor and the Lombard cities. If papal arbitrations and the roles of heresy and crusades were among the main differences between the Negotium Lombardie and the previous conflict with Barbarossa, Gregory’s pontificate proved pivotal. Honorius III provided the first arbitration, but Gregory finalized it and provided the rest of the arbitrations. If the very last acts of Honorius suggest the beginning of a shift away from papal partnership with Frederick, that partnership broke down under Gregory, despite his arbitrations. It was then under Gregory that penitential warfare was introduced against the emperor and the conflict against him eventually took on the trappings of a full crusade, a development that scholarship has rather tended to associate with Innocent IV. The same applies to the rise of Lombard factions that identified with the pars ecclesie, which can already be seen at the very end of Gregory’s pontificate and whose emergence was linked to the crusade against Frederick. The pontificate of Innocent III, and to some extent that of Honorius III, had certainly been turning points in bringing the emphasis on heresy and crusades to unprecedented levels, and at that time Cardinal Hugo was an influential member of the Curia who dealt with Lombardy. Frederick II was 135 MGH Constitutiones, 318 no. 233. 136 MGH Epp.selectae, 679–83 no. 781–2.

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eager and quick to embrace that emphasis, crusading and heresy being two of the main platforms on which his collaboration with the papacy was built, but he also increasingly made his own their political implications as well. In contrast, in the first quarter of the century the attitude of the Lombard cities was rather one of passive resistance: those that came to renew the League in 1226 were on the wrong side of the alliance between the papacy and Frederick, and many were embroiled in harsh conflicts that involved local churches. That brought about an escalation of religious sanctions connected to accusations of heresy and of obstructing the crusade. On the other hand, the Lombard cities were unscathed by Innocent’s extension of crusading to include Christians among its targets (although he did consider using that option against them), which so notably involved nearby lands such as southern France and southern Italy. Innocent’s conflict with Otto IV never took on the trappings of a crusade, for which there was no need anyway since Otto’s position deteriorated quickly. Gregory IX took over that armoury of ideological tools and expanded and entrenched them further in political discourse. The Negotium Lombardie played a major role in that. Most notably, Gregory eventually used that armoury against no less a target than the holy Roman emperor, and conflicts between empire and papacy always had a Christendom-wide dimension. Yet Gregory also switched his alliance to the League, which was a far less prestigious and powerful partner than Frederick, but also less cumbersome. In turn, in many ways, with the War of the Keys, the League replaced Frederick’s role as champion of the Roman Church in Italy, while the papacy became a protector of the League, which partially embraced its ideological tools too, albeit perhaps rather passively and opportunistically, as confirmed by Codagnello’s work, the introduction of anti-heretical legislation, and later the crusade against Frederick himself, which had a very poor impact elsewhere. On the other hand, Frederick never renounced playing the role of crusader and combatant of heresy, which he inextricably associated with his programme for Lombardy. Indeed, while Frederick initially emphasized crusade more than heresy, over the course of the 1230s that trend was inverted, bringing a growing association between heresy and what he considered to be the Lombard rebellion against him. In the midst of his military campaigns those accusations harkened back to crusades against heretics. Moreover, Frederick inherited but gradually largely supplanted the anti-heretical rhetoric against Milan, as well as Lombardy as a whole, that the papacy had been so keen to employ in previous years. The Negotium Lombardie, however, also attests that those developments did not follow a linear trajectory and that their outcomes were mixed.

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Initially, Frederick’s anti-heretical and crusader status notionally fortified his standing and gave him a moral high ground in the early phases of the Negotium. Yet that had little effect: rather than resulting in religious sanctions against the members of League, as had previously been the case, the emphasis on heresy and the crusade served the papacy to secure a truce, divert attention away from the conflict, and implement papal policies. That marked a growing distance between pope and emperor, but attention rather focused on the need to proceed with the overdue crusade. The duplication of that scenario in the 1230s, however, became a growing source of friction, with Frederick increasingly interpreting the papal stance as a stalling stratagem that essentially, and ever more blatantly, served to obstruct him, just as the League was already doing physically. Between those two phases, however, there was the War of the Keys, in which crusade and heresy played significant roles, and which was a turning point regarding the papal switch from Frederick to the League and the introduction of penitential warfare against the emperor. Yet the War of the Keys did not take on the crusading trappings of Innocent III’s dealing in southern Italy with Markward of Anweiler at the turn of the thirteenth century, for example, which suggests that Gregory did not feel ready for such a move against a holy Roman emperor at that time. Indeed, the introduction of penitential warfare was a late and quite desperate attempt to turn the tide, but the campaign was nonetheless an utter failure. A comparison between Codagnello’s stance and the League’s actual participation in the campaign suggests that Codagnello’s eagerness was not universally shared within the League, or, at least, that it did not match the League’s priorities. In comparison to the War of the Keys, the situation in the first half of the 1230s can be described as a ‘cold war’, which, however, brought about the introduction of penitential warfare for the first time (at least since the Investiture Contest) within Lombardy. Those were isolated episodes grouped in the early 1230s, which seemingly did not target the emperor or his supporters, and had little ostensible consequences, but, as Ezzelino’s case suggests, they were probably not accidental developments. In the second half of the decade, it was Frederick who likened his Lombard wars to crusades against heretics when the cold war gradually turned into a hot one. While in that period Frederick placed a growing emphasis on heresy, in northern Italy Gregory’s anti-heretical drive markedly declined. The reasons for the launch of the crusade in 1240 were thus similar to those for the introduction of penitential warfare in the War of the Keys. Yet, at that time, contrary to other parts of Christendom, the adoption of crusading features had a discernible impact within northern Italy, where Lombard anti-imperial forces embraced them and went on the offensive for the first

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noticeable time since their defeat at Cortenuova. Yet that crusade also had a major long-term impact upon the nature of factional strife within and among the Lombard cities, which acquired a religious dimension on a previously unknown scale. That change was then entrenched in the life of the Lombard cities by the continuation and the further escalation of the conflict under Innocent IV, and by the subsequent Italian crusades and the Papal-Angevin alliance of the second half of the century.

About the Author Dr Gianluca Raccagni is senior lecturer in Medieval History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Lombard League 1167–1225 (Oxford, 2010) and articles in many leading journals, including The English Historical Review, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and Historical Research.

3.

Gregory IX and the Search for an Anglo-French Peace, 1227–1241 Nicholas Vincent

Abstract For popes of the High Middle Ages, peace-making was considered an essential function of their office. Peace, a central part of the Christian message, was particularly necessary within Christendom for the success of the Crusades. The papacy was deeply involved over a long period in attempts to bring about peace between France and England. This study, exploring Gregory IX’s attempts to secure peace between Henry III of England (1216–1272) and Louis IX of France (1226–1270), demonstrates the manner in which the process of peace could be manipulated by the parties involved and contributes to the debate concerning whether the papacy was proactive or responsive in its government. Keywords: Peace, Truce, France, England, Papacy

Gone are the days when the biographers of medieval popes, even of such exalted figures as Gregory VII or Innocent III, could write of them as ‘Leaders of Europe’, let alone as men who ‘shook the World’.1 It is increasingly acknowledged that a large part of the business of even the most autocratic of medieval popes was transacted in answer to petitions submitted to the Curia by those seeking favours. Save when specific circumstances persuaded particular popes to reshape policy, papal government was responsive rather than dynamic.2 In the case of Gregory IX, this would allow us to view the 1 As, for example, in the titles of J.E. Sayers, Innocent III: leader of Europe, 1198–1216 (London, 1994), or Eamon Duffy’s, Ten Popes Who Shook the World (New Haven, 2011). 2 Cf. T.W. Smith, ‘Honorius III and the Crusade: responsive papal government versus the memory of his predecessors’, The Church on its Past, ed. P.D. Clarke and C. Methuen, Studies in Church History 49 (Woodbridge, 2013), 99–109.

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch03

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high politics of Church and state, especially the relations between Pope Gregory and the Emperor Frederick II, as subject to direct papal control, but much of the rest of papal policy as responsive routine. Where, between these two extremes, active or passive, are we to place the pope’s commitment to the establishment of peace as a prerequisite for the salvation of souls? Peace-making was one of the functions of the papacy, from at least the time of Leo I, and his supposed defence of Rome against Attila. However, whilst historians have paid lip-service to papal peace-making activities, very little has been written on the effects of papal diplomacy within any particular peace initiative.3 A notable exception is Michele Maccarrone’s study of Innocent III’s dealings with England and France, focused upon the decretal Novit ille and the pope’s claims to jurisdiction over breaches of the peace as a matter of sin rather than of feudal jurisdiction. 4 More recently, and at a theoretical level, Jehangir Yedzi Malegam has revealed the ways in which successive popes from Leo IX onwards sought to establish Christ’s true peace, if necessary through violent upheaval intended to shatter the false peace of emperors and kings.5 Malegam’s is an illuminating approach, not least in revealing the ways in which Jerusalem (literally ‘vision of peace’) came to acquire significance in papal peace-making efforts, from the time of the First Crusade onwards.6 His is nonetheless an approach largely divorced from the more practical questions of how popes negotiated treaties or intervened in the peace-making activities of Western kings. In what follows, I intend to deal briefly with the attempts made by Gregory IX to establish peace between the kings of England and France. In the process, as I hope to show, we may once again 3 For peace-making in general, see, for example, E.-D. Hehl, Kirche und Krieg im 12. Jahrhundert: Studien zu kanonischem Recht und politischer Wirklichkeit (Stuttgart, 1980); U. Heyn, Peacemaking in Medieval Europe: a historical and bibliographical guide (Claremont, 1997); K. Petkov, The Kiss of Peace: ritual, self, and society in the High and Late Middle Ages (Leiden, 2003); E.-D. Hehl, ‘War, Peace and the Christian Order’, The New Cambridge Medieval History IV: c.1024–c.1198 Part 1, ed. D. Luscombe and J. Riley-Smith (Cambridge, 2004), 185–228; J. Benham, Peacemaking in the Middle Ages: principles and practice (Manchester, 2011). For Late Medieval attempts at papal peace-making, also see B. Bombi, Anglo-Papal Relations in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 2019). 4 M. Maccarrone, ‘Innocenzo III e la feudalità: “Non ratione feudi, sed occasione peccati”’, Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l’Occident méditerranéen (Xe–XIIIe siécles) (Paris, 1980), 457–514, esp. pp. 465–8, 475–8, reprinted in idem, Nuovi studi su Innocenzo III, ed. R. Lambertini (Rome, 1995), 209–70. 5 J.Y. Malegam, The Sleep of Behemoth: disputing peace and violence in Medieval Europe, 1000–1200 (Ithaca, 2013). 6 Malegam, The Sleep of Behemoth, esp. 62.

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have to reconsider our view of the pope, even as peacemaker, as a dynamic, let alone as a leading force in European politics. Between the accession of Henry II of England in 1154 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1259, Anglo-French relations were fraught.7 Yet open warfare was relatively infrequent. Across the century from 1154 to 1259, England and France engaged in open hostilities for only limited periods, in 1173–1174, in 1187–1189, in the 1190s, from 1202 to 1204, in 1214, 1224–1227, 1230, 1242, and finally in 1253–1254. All told, warfare accounted for less than twenty of these one hundred years. For the rest, and despite the agreement of full-scale peace treaties in 1160, 1177, 1180, 1189, 1191, 1196 and 1200, AngloFrench relations were governed by truces renewed on regular annual, two, three or five-year terms. As I have noted in another context, the texts of such truces, being essentially ephemeral and renegotiable, lying outside the routine concerns of the English chancery rolls, survive only sporadically.8 By contrast, the texts of seven of the eight Anglo-French peace treaties agreed between 1160 and 1259 have been preserved to us, either as originals or copies. The eighth survives only as an abstract preserved by the chroniclers.9 For present purposes, what is most important here is that between 1202, when King John was first summoned to account for the disappearance of Arthur of Brittany, and 1259, when the Treaty of Paris was ratified, there was no full-scale Anglo-French peace settlement, merely a series of truces, punctuated by brief but regular periods of open warfare. Although truce 7 For the fullest published overview, see K. van Eickels, Vom inszenierten Konsens zum systematisierten Konflikt. Die englisch-französischen Beziehungen und ihre Wahrnehmung an der Wende vom Hoch- zum Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2002), superseded for the period after 1240 by the as yet unpublished work of Amicie Pélissié du Rausas, ‘De Guerre, de trève, de paix: les relations franco-anglaises de la bataille de Taillebourg au traité de Paris (années 1240–années 1260)’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, Université de Poitiers, 2020). For the twelfth century, J. Gillingham, ‘Doing Homage to the King of France’, Henry II: new interpretations, ed. C. Harper-Bill and N. Vincent (Woodbridge, 2007), 63–84; Gillingham, ‘The Meetings of the Kings of France and England, 1066–1204’, Normandy and its Neighbours, 900–1250: essays for David Bates, ed. D. Crouch and K. Thompson (Turnhout, 2011), 17–42. For English diplomacy, the key (although never completed) secondary study is P. Chaplais, English Diplomatic Practice in the Middle Ages (London, 2003). 8 N. Vincent, ‘A Forgotten War: England and Navarre, 1243–4’, Thirteenth Century England XI, ed. B. Weiler, J. Burton, P. Schofield and K. Stöber (Woodbridge, 2007), 109–46, esp.119–20, 130–1, 138–44. 9 For texts of the treaties, see The Letters and Charters of Henry II King of England (1154–1189), ed. N. Vincent and others, 8 vols (Oxford, 2020–), iii nos. 1666, 1669, iv nos 2049–50 (treaties of 1160, 1177, 1180, and chronicler’s abstract of that of 1189), and Diplomatic Documents: Volume I (1101–1272), ed. P. Chaplais (London, 1964) (henceforth DD), nos. 5, 6, 9 (treaties of 1191, 1196 and 1200, also in T. Rymer, Foedera, conventiones, litterae et cujuscunque generis acta publica, vol.1 part i, ed. A. Clarke and F. Holbrooke (London, 1816) (henceforth Foedera), 54, 66, 79).

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was the predominant reality of Anglo-French relations, this period of fiftyseven years, from 1202 to 1259, is the subject of only a small fraction of the writing on Anglo-French diplomacy. In Klaus van Eickels’ most recent and comprehensive survey, for example, it occupies less than forty pages of a 400-page book.10 In the negotiation both of peace and of truces, the pope and his local representatives had an important role to play. This was apparent long before the accession of Gregory IX. Legates or other envoys of Pope Alexander III took a significant part in negotiations between Henry II and Louis VII in the 1170s and 80s.11 Thereafter, the pacification of Christendom, and in particular the settlement of Capetian-Plantagenet rivalry, remained key to papal diplomacy, not least to the papal planning of the Third and Fourth crusades.12 With crusades firmly in mind, Innocent III attempted, with limited success, to put an end to Anglo-French warfare in 1198–1199, in 1203–1204, and again in 1213–1214.13 His legate to France, Robert Courcon, was closely involved in the truce negotiated between King John and Philip Augustus in October 1214.14 Another papal legate, Guala Bicchieri, was instrumental, with the support of Pope Honorius III, in the peace negotiated in England to end the civil war between Henry III and Louis of France, in the autumn of 1217.15 Honorius III intervened again in 1219–1220, for the renewal of an Anglo-French truce, again in 1224, in a vain attempt to 10 Van Eickels, Vom inszenierten Konsens, 110–39. 11 For interventions by Peter of Pavia, Cp of S. Grisogno, 1175–1178, see H. Delehaye, ‘Pierre de Pavie légat du pape Alexandre III’, Revue des Questions Historiques, 49 (1891), 6–61, 51 (1892), 244–52; S. Weiss, Die Urkunden der päpstlichen Legaten von Leo IX. bis Coelestin III. (1049–1198) (Cologne, 1995), 254–9. For the peace-making activities of the Savoyard abp Peter of Tarentaise, 1173–1174, see Peter’s ‘Vita’, in Acta Sanctorum, May ii (1866), 330b–331, 340b, and my forthcoming essay, ‘An Alpine Saint at the Court of Henry II: Peter Archbishop of Tarentaise and the Civil War of 1173–4’. 12 I.S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198 (Cambridge 1990), 169. 13 For the initiative of 1213–1214, see Foedera, 120; Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III Concerning England (1198–1216), ed. C.R. Cheney and W.H. Semple (London, 1953), 152 n.1, 184–5 no. 68, 192 no. 72. For the initiatives of 1198–1199 and 1203–1204, see below, 110–112. 14 Foedera, 124. 15 The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England 1216–1218, ed. N. Vincent, Canterbury and York Society, 83 (1996), pp.xlix–lii, nos 56–9; Layettes du Trésor des Chartes, ed. A. Teulet and others, 5 vols (Paris, 1863–1909) (henceforth Layettes), i, 456 nos 1273–4, also in Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. M. Bouquet and others, 24 vols (Paris, 1738–1904) (henceforth RHF), xix, 647–8; Regesta Honorii Papae III, ed. P. Pressutti, 2 vols (Rome, 1888–1895) (henceforth Pressutti), nos.1000–1, whence Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland 1198–1304, ed. W. H. Bliss (London, 1893) (henceforth Bliss), 51; J. Beverley Smith, ‘The Treaty of Lambeth, 1217’, EHR, 114 (1979), 575–9, esp. 578–9 cc.13, 15.

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prevent Louis VIII’s invasion of Poitou, and again thereafter to seek either permanent peace or temporary truce.16 This tradition was maintained by Gregory IX, under whom we find a regular stream of instructions issuing from the papal chancery, commanding negotiations, either for peace or for truce, between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France. At least eleven such letters (or groups of letters) are preserved in the papal registers, of which at least two (below nos 3 and 7) survive as originals in the English or French royal archives. These letters are best listed in chronological order: 1. 25 May 1227 (Pro prerogativa devotionis): To Louis IX cautioning against further attacks upon Henry III or his remaining lands in France, reminding him of breaches of the peace by his father and grandfather (Auvray, i, no. 86, whence Potthast, 7913) 2. 27 May 1227 (Discretioni tue presentium): To the Legate Romanus, not to publish a sentence of excommunication or interdict commanded by Honorius III against Henry III or his brother R(ichard) count of Poitou without special mandate from the pope (Auvray no. 94; Shirley, i, 548 no. 25; Bliss 118, and for Honorius III’s threats of excommunication since April 1226, cf. Pressutti nos 5938–9, whence RHF, xix, 773; Bliss, 110–11; Potthast, 26176) 3. 27 May 1227 (Licet karissimum in Cristo): To Henry III, despite protection extended by the pope to Louis IX and his mother, the queen of France, subject to their continuing the war against heresy, the pope has forbidden Louis to lay hands on Henry or anyone else’s possessions (surviving as an original, Sayers 59 no. 120, whence Foedera, 192; Potthast, 7920, and as a copy in the papal register, Auvray, i, 49 no. 95, whence Bliss, 118) 4. 15 April 1230 (Illius regis licet): To the abbot of Cîteaux to assist with making peace, or at least with confirming the truce, between the kings of France and England, with letters in similar form to Louis IX and Henry III 16 Pressutti, i, p.lii no. 15 (RHF, xix, 684; Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste roi de France, ed. E. Berger, M, Nortier and others, 6 vols (Paris, 1916–2005), iv, 215–16 no. 1574; Bliss, 66; Pressutti, p.lvi no. 69 (Bliss, 99); Pressutti, nos 1989 (RHF, xix, 680; Bliss, 64), 2056 (RHF, xix, 684; Bliss, 66), 5102–5 (RHF, xix, 757–9; Royal and other Historical Letters illustrative of the Reign of Henry III, ed. W.W. Shirley, 2 vols (London, 1862–1866) (henceforth Shirley), i, 541–3 no. 18; Bliss, 98–9, 5350 (RHF, xix, 761; Bliss, 100), 5904 (RHF, xix, 772; Shirley, i, 545–7 no. 22; Bliss, 109), 5938–9 (RHF, xix, 773; Bliss, 110–11).

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(Auvray, no. 439, whence Bliss, 123, and, after earlier printings, Potthast, 8528, and by mistake (with date 16 April 1229) Potthast, 8376) 5. 25 April 1231 (Inter reliquos reges): To Henry III, in view of the threats to the Holy Land especially from the king of Persia, to make peace or truce with the king of France to whom the pope has written in similar terms. The pope has appointed the bishop of Winchester for Henry III, and the archbishop of Sens for Louis IX, to arrange a treaty, with letters in similar terms to Louis IX (Auvray, no. 621, whence (without the opening of the arenga) Epistolae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum Romanorum selectae, ed. C. Rodenberg, 3 vols (Berlin 1883–1894), i, 353 no. 438; Bliss, 127; Potthast, 8724) 6. 14 May 1233 (Novit ille qui): To Louis IX and Henry III to make peace as the pope has commanded the archbishop of Sens and the bishops of Paris, Winchester and Salisbury to promote, with letters in similar terms (15 May 1233) to the archbishop and bishops to persuade the kings to peace, or in case of failure to report the circumstances to the pope (Auvray, nos 1311–13, whence Shirley, i, 551–2 no. 31; Bliss, 134; Potthast, 26229) 7. 12 February 1234 (Cogitantes affectione paterna): To Louis IX and Henry III requesting safe conducts for the envoys negotiating peace, naming the archbishop of Sens and the bishops of Paris, Winchester and Exeter, with letters in similar terms to the negotiators (surviving as an original, Layettes, ii, 259–60 no. 2269; Potthast, 9401, and as copies in the papal register, Auvray, nos. 1801–3, whence Bliss, 139) 8. 6 November 1234 (Zelus Domini exercituum): To Louis IX, whose father died in defence of the faith, exhorting him to set out on crusade having made peace or truce with the king of England, with supporting letters to Henry III, the archbishop of Sens, the bishops of Paris, Chartres, Senlis, Rochester, the chancellor of London, and the Dominicans of Paris (Auvray, 2180–89, whence Shirley, i, 557–8 no. 37; Bliss, 141; Potthast, 9761) 9. 22 March 1235 (Ad nostram noueritis): To (Simon Langton) archdeacon of Canterbury, Master P(eter) de Colonna canon of Chartres and Hugh canon of Pisa, asking them to compel assent to the Anglo-French truce from (Hugh de Lusignan) count of La Marche who has refused such assent until his claims to the Ile-d’Oléron are satisfied by the king of England (Auvray, 2471, 2484, whence Shirley, i, 559–60 no. 40; Bliss, 145; Potthast, 26246)

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10. 21 April 1237 (Cum karissimos in): To the legate Otto to prolong the truce between France and England notwithstanding any oaths taken to the contrary, using ecclesiastical censure to compel all persons, save the kings themselves, to desist from hindering the truce (Auvray, no. 3606, whence Bliss, 160) 11. 7 October 1238 (Terre Sancte ac): To Henry III and Louis IX to prolong the truce for a further five years in the interests of the Holy Land, with letters in similar terms to Queen Isabella and Hugh de Lusignan, count and countess of La Marche (Auvray, nos. 4552–5, whence Bliss, 176–7)

As for the truces that these papal letters were intended to secure, here too we can attempt a brief list. Following the expiration of the truce agreed for four years from Easter 1220 (Layettes, i, 496–7 no. 1387; Foedera, 158–9), the following renewals were negotiated: 22 March 1227 to 8 July 1227, agreed between Richard, count of Poitou, Henry III’s brother, and Louis IX and Blanche of Castile. Sealed original granted by Richard, dated 1227 (Layettes, ii, 122–3 no. 1926) c.July 1227 to 24 June 1228, agreed between Henry III and Louis IX. Enrolled copy in the name of Henry III, deputing oath-taking to Walter Mauclerk, bishop of Carlisle, and Philip de Aubigny, issued at Westminster, 19 July 1227 (Foedera, 186; Patent Rolls 1225–32, 134–5) 22 July 1228 to 21 July 1229 (1 year), agreed between Henry III and Louis IX, allowing that Hugh de Lusignan should remain for the period of truce ‘in the same state in which he was on the day of the other truce taken at Étampes’. Sealed original issued on behalf of Henry III by Philip de Aubigny and Ralph fitz Nicholas, at Nogent-le-Roi (Eure-et-Loir), June 1228 (Layettes, ii, 141–2 no. 1970; Foedera, 192). Further enrolled copy in the name of Henry III, deputing oath-taking to Philip de Aubigny and Ralph fitz Nicholas, issued at Canterbury, 6 July 1228 (Patent Rolls 1225–32, 193–4; Foedera, 192) c.August to September 1230, originally to last to 1 September 1230, negotiated on behalf of Henry III by William Marshal earl of Pembroke, J(ohn) de Lacy constable of Chester, and Ralph fitz Nicholas, and for Louis IX by Hugh de Lusignan count of La Marche. Known only from the enrolled letters of Henry III, prolonging this truce to 8 September 1230, themselves

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issued at Luçon (Vendée), 26 August 1230 (Foedera, 198; Patent Rolls 1225–32, 394) 24 June 1231 to 23 June 1234 (3 years), agreed between Henry III and Louis IX. Sealed original issued on behalf of Henry III by Peter duke of Brittany and Ranulf earl of Chester, noting that Henry III’s oath-taking had been deputed to Richard of Cornwall and Hubert de Burgh, issued ‘in the camp (in castris) near Saint-Aubin’ (Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, Ille-et-Vilaine), 4 July 1231 (Layettes, ii, 210 no. 2141) 15 August 1235 to 14 August 1240 (5 years), agreed between Henry III and Louis IX. Contemporary copy of the truce as agreed by the king’s proctors, Simon Langton and Walter de Cantilupe, dated at Melun (Seine-et-Marne), 31 July 1235 (DD, no. 239), ratified by the king in letters patent issued at Winchester, 3 February 1236 (Foedera, 221–2; CPR 1232–47, 135; Treaty Rolls 1234–1325, ed. P. Chaplais (London, 1955), 14 no. 27, and for the date of the truce, in practice observed from at least 30 July, see Close Rolls 1234–7, 192) A renewal of the truce for a further two years, to c.August 1242 can be inferred, despite the loss of the Patent Rolls from October 1238 to October 1240. See below. 21 March 1243 to 29 September 1248 (5 years), agreed between Henry III and Louis IX, incorporating Richard of Cornwall within the truce. Sealed original issued by Henry III, deputing oath-taking to Ralph fitz Nicholas, Peter Chaceporc and Aimery de Sacy, dated at Bordeaux, 7 April 1243 (Layettes, ii, 505–6 no. 3075). Also, in an enrolled copy of Henry III’s letters, 7 April 1243, itself noting the delivery of Louis IX’s letters on the same to Peter Chaceporc, keeper of the wardrobe, in the archbishop of Bordeaux’s chapel at Bordeaux, 8 April 1243 (Foedera, 251; CPR 1232–47, 401–2, where the calendar misdates the delivery of Louis IX’s part of the treaty)

Were we to rely on this evidence alone, we might assume that there was war between England and France for more than four years of Gregory IX’s fourteen year pontificate (from 21 July 1229 to c.August 1230, between 8 September 1230 and 24 June 1231, between 24 June 1234 and 15 August 1235, and between 14 August 1240 and 21 March 1243). In reality, although there was certainly war in 1229–1230, provoked by Peter de Dreux, duke of Brittany, and despite the lack of any certain truce thereafter, open hostilities seem to have been avoided from 1230 until after Pope Gregory’s death. In March 1235,

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for example, despite the expiration of the truce in June 1234, we find the pope writing to Master Simon Langton, archdeacon of Canterbury, and to his equivalent representatives from France, acknowledging that although a permanent peace between England and France had proved elusive, a truce of five years should nonetheless be sought, commanding them to compel Hugh de Lusignan, count of La Marche, to cease from demands that might endanger such a truce.17 As early as July 1234, we find commands from Henry III intended to prevent attacks upon French merchants that might lead to any escalation in hostilities.18 In November 1234, nearly a year before the formal renewal of truce, the English chancery was paving the way to agreement, with the nomination of envoys and dictatores, and the preparation of letters of truce, in the event not formally ratified until August 1235, the delay here being blamed by the English upon the intransigence of Hugh de Lusignan.19 17 Above no. 9, referring specif ically to the threats otherwise posed to the business of the crusade, and for Hugh de Lusignan’s role in impeding negotiations, see also Auvray, no. 2434 (Potthast, 26245; Bliss, 144), papal letters of 2 March 1235, themselves provoked by a petition from Henry III (Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, no. 10), commanding the abp of Bordeaux and the bp of Bazas to make restitution for his breach of the truce proclaimed for the crusade, following his seizure of the castle of Blaye and his imprisonment of Geoffrey Ridel and his son, liege vassals of the king of England. Following the conclusion of truce negotiations, in August 1235, Henry III wrote to these same papal commissioners, asking them to suspend their commission over Blaye which otherwise threatened to breach the truce: CPR 1232–47, 120, and cf. Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, no. 67. On 18 May 1235 (Auvray, no. 2580, Bliss, 146), the abp of Tours, the bp of Chartres and Master Peter de Colonna were charged with an enquiry into the marriage of Hugh de Lusignan to Isabella of Angoulême, clearly with a view to pressuring Hugh into compliance with earlier papal demands. In August 1234, Hugh de Lusignan had signalled his assent to whatever truces might be made between France and England, but only in so far as these might be negotiated to 8 November 1234: Layettes, ii, 270 no. 2307. 18 CPR 1232–47, 60, 62, and for safe conducts issued to the French representatives approved by the pope (above nos. 6–8), the abp of Sens and the bp of Paris, see CPR 1232–47, 22, 45; Close Rolls 1231–4, 559–60, 562. For the invasion scare of April–June 1234, accompanied by the garrisoning of castles on the Sussex coast and an arrest of French shipping, see Close Rolls 1231–4, 455, 462, 476, 514, 556, 568. 19 CPR 1232–47, 82, 84–5, 90, 94; Close Rolls 1234–7, 158, 160–1, negotiations continued from November into February 1235 and perhaps associated with the dispatch to Rome of Alexander of Stainsby, bp of Coventry and Lichfield, and Master William of Kilkenny in October 1234, with Bishop Alexander appointed in May 1235 as proctor in Anglo-French negotiations: CPR 1232–47, 74, 102, 111; Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, nos 60, 66–7. Hugh de Lusignan’s letters of August 1234 (Layettes, ii, 270 no. 2307) imply that there may have been a brief renewal of truce to 1 November 1234, perhaps as a result of negotiations with Louis IX led by Peter of Brittany, referred to in English letters to Peter on 2 September: CPR 1232–47, 67. There was a brief upsurge of Anglo-French tensions between December 1234 and March 1235, following the French arrest of Henry III’s tailor, William Scissor, prompting reprisals against French merchants in England: Close Rolls 1234–7, 24–5, 30, 37–41, 45–8, 50, 52–4, 63, 66, 161; Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, no. 68; N. Vincent,

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From August 1240 onwards, when this five-year truce in theory expired, there were certainly rumours of impending war.20 The truce itself, however, was assumed still to operate as late as the time of the king’s sailing for Gascony in May 1242, when proctors were appointed by Henry III to satisfy French complaints over injuries sustained.21 A state of open warfare was not declared until June 1242, on the grounds alleged by Henry III that Louis had failed to maintain the truce, followed shortly afterwards by the mutual seizure of enemy shipping in French or English ports.22 The loss of the Patent Rolls for the years 23 and 24 Henry III (October 1238–October 1240) has almost certainly obscured the fact that there was a renewal of the truce for two years beyond the date at which the truce agreed in 1235 was due to expire, from August 1240 to at least August 1242.23 As should also be apparent, a comparison between the dates of the letters on peace sent by Gregory IX and the timing of truces, suggests that papal intervention was significant to the truces agreed in 1227, 1230, 1231 and 1235, to the failed attempt to negotiate a truce in 1234, and thereafter, in 1237 and 1238 to efforts to prolong the truce agreed since 1235 to a date possibly as late as August 1245. So far so good. Peace, as has long been accepted in general, and as the initiatives of the 1230s and 40s demonstrate in practice, remained a constant concern of the papacy. The clearest statement of papal intentions here is set out in a series of letters that Pope Innocent III issued in 1203, attempting to secure peace between England and France. In the first of these, in May 1203 (Cum regia serenitate), notifying King John and King Philip of his appointment of delegates to work for a peace or truce, the pope wrote of his obligation to walk in Christ’s footsteps, rehearsing a series of Biblical tropes long familiar from the medieval debate on peace. Thus, just as the angel at Christ’s nativity ‘An Inventory of Gifts to King Henry III, 1234–5’, The Growth of Royal Government under Henry III, ed. D. Crook and L.J. Wilkinson (Woodbridge, 2015), 143–4 nos 160, 170. 20 CPR 1232–47, 259. 21 CPR 1232–47, 306, and for the continued operation of the truce, cf. Close Rolls 1237–42, 402; CPR 1232–47, 261; Foedera, 244–5. 22 For the first certain evidence that Henry III considered himself at war with France, in letters of 8 June, blaming Louis for the non-observance of truce which had been sought through a meeting supposed to have taken place on 25 May (5 weeks after Easter) 1242 at Pons, thereafter prorogued by Louis to a meeting at Surgères, Henry informing Louis by letter that he no longer considered himself bound to observe the truce, and ordering mariners of the Cinque Ports to launch attacks upon the coasts of Brittany, Normandy and Boulogne, see Close Rolls 1237–42, 495–9; Foedera, 245–7, and cf. CPR 1232–47, 300, 303; Close Rolls 1237–42, 453–4, 462, 471–2. 23 For envoys appointed in May 1240 to attend Louis IX in France, the chancellor (Henry of Cornhill) and treasurer (Alexander of Swerford) of St Paul’s London, see Calendar of Liberate Rolls 1226–40, 467.

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proclaimed peace to all men of good will (Luke 2:14), so Christ himself, taking leave of his disciples, declared ‘My peace I give you, peace I leave to you’ (John 14:27). Following his resurrection, Christ’s first words were ‘Peace be with you’ (John 20:19, 21). As a result, the pope considered himself bound ‘to preach peace to the sons of peace (cf. Luke 10:5) […] so that our peace may rest upon them in accordance with the words of the evangelist, just as in accordance with the prophet we are obliged to seek peace and pursue it’ (Ps. (Gr.) 33:15, and cf. 1 Peter 3:11). Peace, the pope proclaimed, was all the more necessary not only because dissension amongst Christians strengthened the resolve of the Saracens, but because French princes (‘principes Gallicani’) had themselves taken up arms against their fellow believers (a reference to the recent attack upon Zara, by the army of the Fourth Crusade).24 Precisely these same Biblical tropes (Ps. (Gr.) 33:15; Luke 2:14, 10:5; John 14:27, 20:19, 21) were repeated in papal letters of 31 October 1203 (Ex diuina lectione), addressed to Philip Augustus, and widely advertised to the provinces of Sens, Reims and Bourges. Here the pope announced his appointment of the abbot of Casamari as peacemaker between England and France and reminded King Philip of the success of an earlier such envoy, Peter of Capua, cardinal deacon of S. Maria in Via Lata, in brokering peace with Richard I in 1198–1199. Thereafter, the pope justified his interventions with a dense barrage of scriptural quotations. He in effect claimed jurisdiction over Anglo-French disputes not as a matter of feudal right to be judged by King Philip as overlord (‘non ratione feudi cuius ad te spectat iudicium’) but as a question of sin, committed by Philip against King John, his brother monarch (‘occasione peccati […] qui peccas in fratrem’).25 In this reading, derived from the twelfth-century canonists, themselves taking their lead from Gratian and the Lateran decrees of 1139 and 1179, peace and peace-making were defined as being peculiarly entrusted to the pope, with any breach of peace seen not merely as a legal but as a moral wrong, subject to ecclesiastical censure.26 24 Reg. Inn., vi, 94–6 nos 68–9 (Potthast, 1921), also in PL, ccxv, col.64; Bliss, 14, with English translation as Selected Letters of Innocent III, ed. Cheney and Semple, 56–9 no.19, esp. 57–8, whence (calendar) The Letters of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) Concerning England and Wales, ed. C.R. and M.G. Cheney (Oxford, 1967), no. 484. 25 Reg. Inn., vi, 265–71 no. 162 (Potthast, 2009), also in PL, ccxv, cols.176–81; Bliss, 15; Letters of Innocent III, ed. Cheney and Cheney, nos 506–9. For the mission of Peter of Capua in 1198–1199, see C.R. Cheney, Pope Innocent III and England (Stuttgart, 1976), 279–80. 26 See here Maccarrone, ‘Innocenzo III e la feudalità’, 457–514, esp. 465–8, 475–8, reprinted in Maccarrone, Nuovi studi, 209–70. More generally, for the assumption by the papacy of peace-making functions previously invested in the local bishops, see Malegam, Sleep of Behemoth, 40–2.

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Kings might resist such an interpretation, as Philip Augustus is said to have resisted legatine interventions in his dealings with Henry II in 1189, or as Richard I of England is said to have resisted in 1198, informing the legate Peter that he was not obliged ‘by right (‘de iure’) to do anything for the pope’.27 In the longer term, popes were never to exercise in practice the rights that Innocent claimed in principle. Theorists, including Dante and Marsilius of Padua, were to declare that it was princes rather than popes who possessed the ultimate authority to make or break peace.28 In the age of Innocent III and Gregory IX, however, peace-making remained an essential function of the papal office. The pope’s right of intervention in cases of sin, ‘ratio peccati’, as formulated in October 1203, was restated in definitive form in the decretal Novit ille of April 1204. Directed to the bishops of France, and thereafter incorporated into the decretal collections, including Gregory IX’s Liber Extra (1234), Novit ille constitutes one of the fundamental statements of papal right.29 We have nothing from Gregory IX on peace as original or far reaching as Novit ille or Innocent III’s other pronouncements of 1203–1204. Indeed, we have little in Gregory’s correspondence with Henry III of England to compare to the sermonizing and high-flown rhetoric either of Innocent III or of Gregory’s successor, Innocent IV, author in the 1240s, of a vast letter (Cogimur fili karissime) provoked by Henry’s alleged support for regnum against sacerdotium.30 There are nonetheless hints that peace was just 27 Roger of Howden, in Gesta regis Henrici secundi Benedicti abbatis, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols (London, 1867), ii, 66–7, and Roger of Wendover, in Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols (London, 1872–1883), ii, 450, cited by Maccarrone, ‘Innocenzo III e la feudalità’, 469, 474. 28 Malegam, Sleep of Behemoth, 264–304. 29 Reg. Inn., vii, 72–6 no. 43 (Potthast, 2181), also in PL, ccxv, cols. 325–8; Selected Letters of Innocent III, ed. Cheney and Semple, 63–8 no. 21, from the papal register, also in the collections of Alanus (I.16,1), Compilatio III (II.1,3) and X 2.1,13 (Friedberg, ii, 242–4). For commentary, see J.A. Watt, The Theory of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: the contribution of the canonists (London, 1965), esp. 17, 40–1, 120–3, 132–3; M. Maccarrone, ‘La Papauté et Philippe Auguste: La décrétale Novit ille’, La France de Philippe Auguste: le temps des mutations, ed. R.H. Bautier (Paris 1982), 385–409; reprinted in idem, Nuovi studi, 111–36; idem, ‘Innocenzo III e la feudalità’, 474–514; K. Pennington, ‘Parnomitanus’ Additiones to Novit ille [X.2.1.13] in his Commentary on the Decretales’, Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Comune, 13 (2002), 39–51. See also B. Bolton, ‘Philip Augustus and John: two sons in Innocent III’s vineyard?’, The Church and Sovereignty c.590–1918: essays in honour of Michael Wilks, ed. D. Wood (Oxford, 1991), 113–34, reprinted in Bolton, Innocent III: studies on papal authority and pastoral care (Aldershot, 1995). 30 Preserved in what may be a unique copy in Longleat House, Marquess of Bath ms. Muniments 10590 (Glastonbury cartulary) fos. 6r–8r (3r–5r), one of a collection of letters that I have long intended to publish. For about the closest that Gregory IX’s letters to Henry III come to this sort

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as cherished by Gregory as it had been by his predecessors. Peace making between (and within) the north Italian communes had occupied a significant proportion of the future pope’s time in 1221, when, as Cardinal Hugo of Ostia, he served as papal legate to Lombardy, charged with the suppression of violence and heresy, and with establishing peace in Italy so that the business of the crusade might prosper in the Holy Land.31 Here, as in previous papal initiatives, the promotion of peace at home served as an essential prerequisite for holy warfare in the east. As Andrea Piazza has recently reminded us, into the 1230s, the peace of the Italian communes remained central to Gregory IX’s initiative to root out heresy there and, in 1233, to put an end to the disturbances occasioned by the upsurge of popular religious enthusiasm known collectively as the ‘Alleluia’.32 Following in the footsteps of Innocent III, who at the Lateran Council of 1215 had decreed a four-year peace to be generally observed by Christian princes and peoples for the duration of the crusade, as pope, in September 1234, Gregory renewed this peace word for word, for a further four years.33 Even in issuing his great decretal collection, Liber Extra (1234), the pope prefaced the work with a letter, Rex pacificus, in which the cause of peace was itself proclaimed as justification for papal law-making.34 It was under the title Rex pacificus that Liber Extra was noticed, for example, by the English chronicler, Matthew Paris, reporting its reception into England in 1235.35 It is no coinciof thing, see Foedera, 203–4, also in Auvray no. 806 (Si labores et, whence Bliss, 129; Potthast, 8945), in 1232 demanding redress for attacks in England upon Roman clergy. 31 For Cardinal Hugo’s peace-making efforts, see Registri dei cardinali Ugolino d’Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, ed. G. Levi (Rome, 1890), esp. 15–17 nos 13–14, 65–74 nos 52–3, 81–3 no. 58, 88–90 nos 65–6, 113–14 no. 88, 148–50 no. 121. 32 A. Piazza, ‘Paix et hérétiques dans l’Italie communale: les stratégies du langage dans les registres du pape Grégoire IX’, Prêcher la Paix et discipliner la société: Italie, France, Angleterre (XIIIe–Xve siècle), ed. R.M. Dessì, Collections d’Études Médiévales de Nice 5 (Turnhout, 2005), 103–22, and for echoes of the ‘Alleluia’ in due course heard as far away as England, see N. Vincent, ‘“Corruent Nobiles!”: prophecy and parody in Burton Abbey’s flying circus’, Crusading Europe: essays in honour of Christopher Tyerman, ed. G. Lippiatt and J. Bird (Turnhout 2019), 249–90. 33 Lat.IV c.71 (‘Ad liberandam’), whence Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, ed. A. García y García, Monumenta Iuris Canonici series A, Corpus Glossatorum ii (Vatican, 1981), 110–18, esp. 116–17. The renewal of 1234 was broadcast to England, Wales and France, initially as part of Gregory’s bull summoning a new crusade (Rachel suum videns, 4 September 1234): Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, iii, 280–7, esp. 286–7 (Potthast, 9525), and cf. Auvray, nos 2434, 3134, 3195. For the bull of 1234 more generally, see M. Lower, The Barons’ Crusade: a call to arms and its consequences (Philadelphia, 2005), 24–31; C.T. Maier, Preaching the Crusade: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the thirteenth century (Cambridge, 1994), 35–6. 34 Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1881), ii, 2–3. 35 Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, iii, 328. And see Professor Reno’s chapter in this volume.

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dence that these letters (Rex pacificus), dated 5 September 1234 and addressed to the masters and scholars of Paris and Bologna, were issued only a day after Gregory’s crusading bull of 4 September (Rachel suum videns), demanding peace between Christian princes as a condition for warfare in the East.36 An admittedly cursory search of the papal registers reveals peace-making activities by Gregory and his agents across Christendom and throughout his time as pope. Thus, we find him intervening to ensure peace in negotiations between Henry III and the Welsh;37 between Louis IX, Toulouse and the other princes of France;38 in Spain between Castile, Leon and Navarre;39 in Florence and Tuscany;40 between Greeks and Latins in the Peloponnese;41 between Hugh de Lusignan and the King of England42 and, albeit in politically troubled circumstances, between the Sultan of Cairo and Frederick II. 43 Also remarkable is the way in which the vocabulary of ‘peace’ was employed to justify interventions against the heretics of southern France, an affair that was generally described in Gregory’s correspondence as the ‘business of peace and faith’ (‘negotium pacis et fidei’): a phrase that occurs repeatedly, throughout Gregory’s pontificate, in dealings with Toulouse and the Albigensian Crusade. 44 Even so, it is apparent that the pope’s interventions in Anglo-French peace-making were on a scale, or at least recorded in the papal registers in a detail not to be found in other such initiatives. So ubiquitous were the pope’s Anglo-French peace-making efforts that they found their way into a formulary of letters, associated with the monastery of Burton-on-Trent, 36 For the date 5 September, see the entry in the papal registers, Auvray, nos 2083–4 (Potthast, 9693), and for the version addressed to Bologna, Frieberg, ii, 2–3 (Potthast, 9694). 37 Auvray, no. 3134. 38 Auvray, nos 376, 3138, 3195, 4783. 39 Auvray, no. 3476. 40 Auvray, no. 506, and cf. Piazza, ‘Paix et hérétiques’, 103–22. 41 Auvray, no. 1638. 42 Auvray, no. 238, and cf. above no.9. 43 Auvray, nos 304, 321, 544, 2200, 2664. 44 Auvray, nos 1130, 1457, 1471–2, 1478, 1483, 1686, 1771, 1913–14, 3138, 3786, 4631, with a detailed investigation of the origins of this phrase under Innocent III, by Monique Zerner, ‘Le “Negotium pacis et fidei” ou l’affaire de paix et de foi: Une désign de la Croisade Albigeoise à revoir’, Prêcher la paix, ed. Dessì, 63–102, refuting the earlier claims of Marie-Humbert Vicaire that the phrase derived from attempts to elide the distinction between ‘routiers’ and heretics, apparent since the Lateran Council of 1179, but instead (85–6, 101–2) suggesting that it emerged from Innocent’s attempts to identify with the purposes of the peace-making mission in which his murdered legate, Peter de Castelnau, had met his death in 1208. Honorius III seems to have referred to the same business merely as the ‘negotio fidei et seruitio Iesu Christi’: Pressutti, ii, no. 5904 (RHF, xix, 772; Shirley, i, 545–7 no. 22; Bliss, 109; Potthast, 7561).

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intended to illustrate the correct rules of dictamen and polite communication. Here, in three alternative versions of the same formulary, we find the cause of peace between France and England championed in a contemporary (but surely fictitious) exchange of letters between Gregory IX and an English bishop.45 In the more abbreviated (and less accurate) version of this formulary, preserved from Burton Abbey, the pope’s English correspondent is identified as R. bishop of Lincoln, presumably meaning Robert Grossteste (bishop 1235–1253). In the fuller and more accurate version preserved in copies in both Oxford and Tarragona, although with no clear institutional provenance, the correspondent is identified as the bishop of Winchester, Peter des Roches (bishop 1205–1238), a figure who was indeed born in France (as the Pope’s letter suggests) and intimately involved in Anglo-French diplomacy, not least in 1231–1234 when he headed the English delegation for a renewal of truce. 46 The formulary letters f it into the context of 1231–1234, but only as a mimetic fiction. The pope’s quotation from Horace, for example, although critical of the ‘madness of kings’ and sympathetic to the sufferings of their people, would be unusual, though not impossible, to find in an authentic papal letter. 47 The bishop’s flowery response (hopelessly garbled by the Burton copyist) appears to look towards King Henry III’s forthcoming marriage, either to Joan of Ponthieu or to Eleanor of Provence, in either case to negotiations not put in train until several months after Des Roches had been disgraced at court and had lost any authority in the king’s affairs. 48 Nonetheless, these letters correctly convey the centrality of peace-making to Anglo-papal affairs. So far, our impression is of a pope fully committed to peace, actively engaged in its promotion in relations between France and England, not least 45 Below Appendix. The first of these manuscripts, Oxford, Bodleian Library ms. Fairfax 27 is a formulary written in the mid-thirteenth-century, widely used by Martha Carlin and David Crouch in their edition of Lost Letters of Medieval Life: English society, 1200–1250 (Philadelphia, 2013), esp. 7–8. The second ms., now in the Staffordshire Record Office, seems not previously to have been noticed. The third copy forms part of a distinct section, written in an English hand, inserted amongst other formulaic material in a manuscript now in Tarragona, briefly described by C.H. Haskins, ‘Orleanese Formularies in a Manuscript at Tarragona’, Speculum, 5 (1930), 411–12. 46 Above nos 5–7, and cf. N. Vincent, Peter des Roches: an alien in English politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge, 1996), 254, 274, 365, 371, 413, 433, 436–8, 444. 47 Cf. the quotation from Persius, Satires 5.52–3, in the authentic letter of Honorius III to Henry III (Gaudemus in Domino), 14 March 1224: Shirley, i, 540–1 no. 16, also in Foedera, 177 (Pressutti, no. 4866; Potthast, 7193a). 48 For the king’s marriage plans, looking f irst to Ponthieu, then to Provence, see Vincent, Peter des Roches, 472–3; M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence: queenship in thirteenth-century England (Oxford, 1998), 10–14, and, more recently, Vincent, ‘Inventory of Gifts’, 135, 145–6 no. 185.

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to further the cause of the crusade, itself in jeopardy from Anglo-French hostilities. But what of the detail? Here, when we turn to the English end of affairs, bringing into play the rich records of the English royal chancery, a rather different story emerges. Far from finding the pope serving here as a neutral arbiter, treating both Henry of England and Louis of France as equally favoured sons, what we discover, in practice, is that papal peace-making was almost entirely responsive rather than proactive. Moreover, it was responsive to the English rather than the French side of the dispute. Nor was it always welcome, even in England. Henry III might flatter the pope, declaring, as he wrote to Gregory IX in February 1228, that ‘upon your health and the peaceful state of the Church depends the peace of realms and those who rule them’.49 In practice, however, the English king solicited, and responded to, papal peace initiatives only in so far as such initiatives were perceived to further his particular cause. In Pope Gregory’s very first intervention, in May 1227, it was to Louis IX that the pope wrote, cautioning against any further attacks upon Henry III’s lands in France and reminding him of the role played in past breaches of the peace, both by Louis’ grandfather, Philip Augustus, and his father, Louis VIII.50 A year later, in May 1228, we find Henry III himself writing to Louis with news of the appointment of papal agents to secure a truce, ‘with God’s help’ pending the negotiation of a permanent peace. Henry’s letters refer specifically to the ‘negotium Terre Sancte ac pacis et fidei’, apparently echoing the terms of the pope’s (now lost) admonition, stressing the needs of both the Holy Land and the crusade against the Albigensians (the ‘negotium pacis et fidei’). At the same time, Henry stressed his own magnanimity, pointing out that it was he rather than Louis who was petitioning as the innocent party: ‘Especially since we have been deprived of our patrimony, of convenience and honour, by you and your ancestors (of whom we may speak, saving their own peace), as God Almighty sees.’51 In all of this, it 49 Close Rolls 1227–31, 93: ‘cum in salute vestra et ecclesie statu pacifico regnantium pax consistit et regnorum’, responding to papal letters complaining of the neglect of his obligations to the Holy Land by the emperor, Frederick II. 50 Above no. 1. 51 Patent Rolls 1225–32, 213–14: ‘Licet igitur nobis graue videatur quod taliter agitur nobiscum, maxime cum patrimonii, sicut videt altissimus, tam per vos quam per progenitores vestros, ut salua pace ipsorum et vestra loquamur, commodo et honore careamus’, sent both to Louis and to the papal commissioners, the abp of Sens, the bp of Salisbury, Master Peter Collomedio and Master Stephen. For subsequent dealings with these men on the English side, see Ibid., 215; Layettes, ii, 140 no. 1967, where Henry dispatches representatives to accept the truces ‘sicut a domino papa Gregorio nono nobis est iniunctum’.

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was the king of England who, with papal support, solicited peace from the king of France. A year later, in April 1229, with Anglo-French relations now tending towards war, the king addressed the papal legate in France, Romanus cardinal deacon of S. Angelo, responding to his dispatch of papal letters over peace.52 Romanus had long been accustomed to such advances. In 1226, for example, when the French themselves had denied the peace, it was to the legate Romanus that Henry III had written nominating negotiators so that peace, in future, might be restored.53 Henry’s intention in 1229, however, was not so much to secure peace as to supply proof that any future hostilities had been provoked by the refusal of the French either to repair breaches in the truce or to offer firm conditions for a more permanent settlement.54 In other words, and in outright contradiction of the adage of Vegetius (‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’), the king of England masked his preparations for war by pretending a desire for peace. Thanks to his new alliance with the duke of Brittany, Henry III intended to exploit the troubled state of France to take back his lost lands in Normandy and Anjou. War was averted in 1229 only by the failure of the king’s ministers to prepare an adequate expeditionary force.55 Abandoned in 1229, these plans for war were resumed in 1230, regardless of a failed attempt by the pope to broker peace.56 Here, as elsewhere, whenever it suited him, the king of England simply ignored papal admonition. We find elements of such high-handedness, for example, in August 1235. Having in March that year obtained a papal commission to the archbishop of Bordeaux and the bishop of Bazas to impose sanctions upon Hugh de Lusignan for attacks upon the castle of Blaye as a breach of the pope’s general proclamation of peace, the king now wrote to the bishops asking them to suspend their papal commission for fear of the effects it might have upon the truce now concluded between England and 52 Patent Rolls 1225–32, 243–4, following an earlier exchange in which the king had sought, in February 1229, to obtain information from the French, via the legate, as to what might constitute the basis for a permanent peace settlement in the eyes of the French: Close Rolls 1227–31, 230–1. 53 Patent Rolls 1225–32, 74–5. 54 See here the letters from Henry III both to the legate and to Louis IX, Close Rolls 1227–31, 230–1, 234, 236–7. By 17 July 1229, he was writing to the ports of England to take pre-emptive measures against the expiry of the Anglo-French truce, due to end on 22 July: Close Rolls 1227–31, 245, and cf. 246–7. 55 For the failed campaign of 1229, see Vincent, Peter des Roches, 267–8; S. Painter, The Scourge of the Clergy: Peter of Dreux, duke of Brittany (Baltimore, 1937), 58–72; L. Grant, ‘Blanche of Castile and Normandy’, Normandy and its Neighbours, ed. Crouch and Thompson, 122–4; Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, iii, 164–5, 190–1, 195–9. 56 For the failed papal initiative here, attempted via the abbot of Cîteaux, see above no. 4.

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France.57 The papal sanctions against Hugh de Lusignan were themselves the outcome of diplomatic efforts by Henry III, brokered via Master Simon Langton. Here too the king had sought to improve his bargaining position by altering the original terms of the papal commission, whose monitors had been empowered only to seek terms from Louis IX and his mother, without power to compel third parties such as Count Hugh.58 In March 1235, we find Henry III writing to the pope with an entirely selfserving account of recent dealings between England and Peter of Brittany. Here, the Anglo-French war of 1230 was portrayed as a courageous attempt by Henry III to recover his rights in France. The subsequent rapprochement between Peter of Brittany and Louis IX, far from being presented as the outcome of English incompetence or a striving after peace, was instead described as a breach of Peter’s obligations towards England. The pope, indeed, was asked to apply ecclesiastical censures to ensure not only that Peter return to his English allegiance but that he pay compensation for English money received and the castles that he had recently surrendered to the French.59 Anything less likely than this to promote the cause of Anglo-French peace it is difficult to imagine. Throughout this period, Henry III remained in regular correspondence with the pope. Quite how regular is best indicated not from the surviving Patent or Close Rolls (in which letters to or from the pope are only irregularly reported), but from the surviving Treaty Roll, covering the period from February 1235 to November 1236. Amidst a total of 102 entries, we find no less than 32 letters directed either to the pope or his cardinals: a proportion that far outweighs that concerned with France, the Empire or the king’s marriage negotiations with Ponthieu and Savoy.60 All manner of business was referred to Rome: not just the negotiation of Anglo-French truces, but the marriage of the king’s sister to the Emperor Frederick II, the king’s dealings with Ireland, and reports on the state of the realm of England, including the poor grain harvest of 1234.61 Here, as elsewhere, we find Henry III claiming 57 Above n. 17, citing Auvray, no. 2434; CPR 1232–47, 120; Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, no. 10. 58 Close Rolls 1234–7, 160–1, letters of 27 January 1235, complaining to Master Simon about the terms of the pope’s letters ‘quod mentionem non fecerunt nisi solum de rege et regina Francie et sic non potuerunt monitores dati a domino papa comitem Marchie vel alium earum auctoritate monere vel inducere ad consentiendum treugis predictis’. Master Simon was urged to work with the monitors to persuade the pope to take action against Hugh. For the papal letters that inspired this complaint, and for the subsequent granting of the king’s wishes, see above nos 8–9. 59 Close Rolls 1234–7, 169–70, also in Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, no. 11; Foedera, 215. 60 Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, nos 5–8, 10–14, 17, 18, 22, 30, 32–5, 39, 43–52, 76–8, 101–2. 61 For example, Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, nos 5 (realm and harvest), 8, 12–14, 17, 18 (marriage between Frederick and Isabella), 101 (Ireland).

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a role for himself as the pope’s especially favoured son.62 No doubt, if we possessed equivalent records from France, we would find a similarly rich stream of communications and claims to papal favour passing between Rome and the court of Louis IX. Even so, and although we are accustomed to viewing relations between Louis and the papacy as peculiarly harmonious, it is by no means clear that the French king enjoyed anything approaching the favour that was extended by Gregory IX to Henry III of England, at least until Louis’ taking of the Cross in 1244.63 In May 1227, for example, we find the pope specifically forbidding Louis from seeking marriages between his brothers and the daughters of the counts of Brittany and La Marche, contracted within the prohibited degrees.64 Throughout the early 1230s, the pope assiduously supported Henry III in his efforts, first to rid himself of the tutelage of Hubert de Burgh and thereafter to break with the regime of Peter des Roches who had stepped into Hubert’s place.65 It was through papal favour that a marriage was arranged between Henry III’s sister and the Emperor Frederick II, and that in due course Henry III was freed from his betrothal to a daughter of the count of Ponthieu in order that he might marry Eleanor of Provence.66 It was the pope who in 1235 commanded the king of Scots to make peace with Henry III in accordance with earlier treaties favourable to England, forwarded to him by the English king, including the settlement of 1209 by which King Alexander’s father had recognized King John of England as his feudal overlord.67 In matters of conscience, and despite the pope’s determined stance against heresy, in 1236, Henry III obtained papal commands that he be absolved from any sentence of excommunication he might have incurred for his previous support of the excommunicate Count Raymond VII of Toulouse.68 As part 62 Treaty Rolls, ed. Chaplais, no. 5, ‘filii sumus specialiores’, and for other instances, see Roberti Grosseteste episcopi quondam Lincolniensis epistolae, ed. H.R. Luard (London, 1861), 338–9 no. 117; N. Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge, 2001), 21–2. 63 For the emergence of a closer alliance between Louis and Gregory IX only towards the end of Gregory’s pontificate, see the brief account by E. Berger, Saint Louis et Innocent IV (Paris, 1893), 3–11. For Louis’ taking of the cross, see W.C. Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: a study in rulership (Princeton, 1979), 3–15. 64 Auvray, nos 87–8. 65 For example, Auvray, nos 1026–7, 1804, 1827, 1848, 1863, 1868. 66 Above n. 61, and for the annulment of the Ponthieu marriage, Auvray, no. 3135 (Bliss, 153; Potthast, 10149). 67 Auvray, no. 2337 (Bliss, 142; Potthast, 9815), printed in full by A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum historiam illustrantia (Rome, 1864), 29 no. 73 (‘Si tua ut credimus’). For the treaty of 1209, newly rediscovered by David Carpenter, see London, The National Archives E 164/27 (Cartulary of St Augustine’s Canterbury) fol.137r. 68 Auvray, no. 3331 (Bliss, 158). For the context of 1236, including a brief move to introduce the Dominican inquisition to England and royal petitions to the pope on behalf of Simon de

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of this same diplomatic exchange, and despite initial signs of reluctance on behalf of the pope, the king succeeded in his petition to be granted a papal legation to England, headed by cardinal Otto of S. Nicolao, himself in 1237 charged with making peace between England and Scotland and with extending the Anglo-French truce.69 In the meantime, it was surely by no mere coincidence that the words chosen to open the papal letters of May 1233, urging peace upon the kings both of England and France, should have been Novit ille: the incipit to one of the most famous of recent statements of papal right, specifically directed to the discomfort of the king of France and the protection of the king of England.70 It has long been recognized that, in practice, Innocent III’s Novit ille (1204) was never pushed to its limits, threatening the abolition of secular jurisdiction.71 Nonetheless, the language of Novit ille with its arrogation to the pope of the right to judge secular affairs not by feudal right but as matters of sin (‘ratio peccati’) was itself echoed in the pope’s letters to the legate Otto of April 1237, requiring extension of the Anglo-French truce for a variety of reasons, ‘not to mention the sins thus committed’.72 Meanwhile, in November 1234, urging the king of France to further the business of the forthcoming crusade, the pope once again insisted that the business

Montfort the younger, son of the great hero of the Albigensian Crusade, see N. Vincent, ‘England and the Albigensian Crusade’, England and Europe in the Reign of Henry III (1216–1272), ed. B.K.U. Weiler and I.W. Rowlands (Aldershot, 2002), 67–97, esp. 80–1. By letters of 27 April 1226 (Cum sit semper: Shirley, i, 545–6 no. 22, as Pressutti, no. 5904; RHF, xix, 772; Bliss, 109; Potthast, 7561), Pope Honorius III had specifically forbidden either Henry III or his brother, Richard of Cornwall, from supporting Raymond of Toulouse against Louis VIII of France, a crusader. It is this injunction that perhaps explains the sentence of excommunication and interdict threatened against Henry and Richard, that in May 1227 the papal legate Romanus was asked to set aside: Auvray, no. 94, whence Shirley, i, 548 no. 25; Bliss, 118; Potthast, 26176. 69 Auvray, nos 3298, 3509, 3606 (Bliss, 158–60). 70 Auvray, nos 1311–13, and for the decretal Novit ille, above footnotes nos 4, 29. Ever since 1200, the incipit ‘Novit ille’ had been regularly employed in papal letters critical of the kings of France, as in Potthast, 1074, 2560, 7577. For alternative uses of this same incipit, see Potthast, 2550, 2714, 3475, 4656–7, 15466, 20802. 71 Watt, Theory of Papal Monarchy, 120–3. 72 Auvray, no. 3606 (Bliss 160), for the most part merely calendared by Auvray. For the full text, see Vatican, Archivio Apostolico Vaticano Reg. Vat. 18 (Register of Gregory IX yr.11) fos. 277v–8r no. 27: ‘Quanto eorum discordiam non solum ipsis set toti fere mundo grauem esse perspicimus, tanto ipsorum quietem et pacem ad honorem Dei et statum tranquillum ecclesie propensius affectamus. Hinc est igitur quod cum discordia inter ipsos diutius suscitata, nondum peccatis exigentibus, sit sopita, m(onemus) q(uod) ad prorogandas treugas inter eos iuramento quod foueri discordia et pax impediri valeat non obstante partes tuas iuxta prudentiam a domino tibi datam quam diligentius poteris interponas ipsosque reges ad id prudenter moneas et inducas.’

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of the Holy Land was itself predicated upon the successful negotiation of Anglo-French peace.73 Half a century before this, in one of the earliest treatises devoted to peace as an abstract entity, Rufinus of Sorrento had rehearsed a series of scriptural tropes, later used by Innocent III in the development of Novit ille.74 In the process, Rufinus had sought to distinguish three basic forms of peace. The ‘peace of Egypt’, Rufinus suggested, was the Devil’s creation: a pact or conspiracy between wrongdoers leading to the confusion of God’s people.75 At the opposite extreme, the ‘peace of Jerusalem’ represented the peace of the Church founded upon love (‘caritas’), bringing true concord to Christian society in the pursuit of good works.76 Between these two extremes stood the ‘peace of Babylon’, a mixture of bad and good, but essentially a human contract, compounded from necessity and natural justice (‘naturalis iustitia’), intended to enable men to live in harmony with one another.77 Such was the peace by which realms were governed by successful kings, preserving their people against rebellion and civil strife. Such was the eighty-year reign of Solomon, governing his subjects by wise counsel. Such was the reign of Plato’s philosopher king, as of the Roman Emperor Augustus.78 Such was the peace that although only insipid when compared to the peace of Jerusalem, and at risk of shading into complacency and voluptuousness, was not to be entered into with evil-doers or the rebellious: a peace that reached its highest expression not in international treaties but in civil harmony, and above all in the peaceful operation of household and family.79 Solomonic wisdom was something after which King Henry III of England undoubtedly (albeit unsuccessfully) strove. Indeed, as Paul Binski and Paul Hyams have taught us, it was almost certainly amongst those subjects of which the king thought most often when in bed.80 In 1232, the peace of 73 Auvray, no. 141, above no. 8. 74 Rufinus of Sorrento, De Bono pacis, ed. R. Deutinger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Studien und Texte, xvii (Hanover, 1997), 60 (Ps. (Gr.) 33:15), 64 (Luke 2:14), 66 (John 20:21), 100 (John 14:27), and cf. above nos 4, 29, 69. I owe my knowledge of Rufinus and his treatise to Jehangir Malegem. 75 Ibid., 102–14. 76 Ibid., 146–72, 184–6. 77 Ibid., 114–46, esp. 118 (‘naturalis iusticia’), 120 (‘Humanitas […] quedam humanarum necessitatum collatiua subuentio est’), and cf. 158, where it is defined in essentially negative terms as an abstention from doing harm rather than as a positive good in its own right. 78 Ibid., 124–6. 79 Ibid., 128–30, 134–40, and cf. 160, quoting Juvenal, Satires 6, 287–93, on the risk of ‘luxuria’ arising from peace too long preserved. 80 P. Binski, The Painted Chamber at Westminster, Society of Antiquaries Occasional Papers, 9 (London 1986), esp. 30–45; P. Hyams, ‘What Did Henry III of England Think in Bed and in French

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Solomon had been recommended to Henry III’s chief minister, Hubert de Burgh, in papal letters offering a miniature sermon on the virtues, here personified as ‘Solomon’s daughters’, intended to counsel Hubert against his previous anti-Roman inclinations.81 Meanwhile, there seems little doubt that it was this Solomonic peace – Rufinus’ ‘Peace of Babylon’ – that Gregory IX, like other popes, sought to foster in relations between the kings of England and France. By smoothing the path towards Henry’s marriage to Eleanor of Provence, Louis IX’s sister-in-law, this was an enterprise in which the peace of the family was intended to silence the clash of arms. As a practical (albeit imperfect) response to Anglo-French rivalry, this was perhaps the best solution that either the pope or the kings of England and France could have devised.

Appendix A fictitious exchange of letters between Pope Gregory (IX) and the bishop of Winchester (or Lincoln) concerning peace between the kings of France and England. O = Oxford, Bodleian Library ms. Fairfax 27 (Formulary) fo.1r–v, s.xiii med. S = Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office D603/A/Add/1927 (Burton formulary roll), following an introduction describing correct forms of address, s.xiii med. T = Tarragona, Biblioteca Pública del Estado ms.6 fo.71r–v, s.xiii med.

Gregorius episcopus seruus seruorum Dei dilecto in Cristo a f ilio suo Wintoniensia episcopo salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Ex officio about Kingship and Anger’, in Anger’s Past: the social uses of an emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. B. Rosenwein (Ithaca 1998), 92–124; P. Binski, ‘The Painted Chamber at Westminster, the Fall of Tyrants and the English Literary Model of Governance’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 74 (2011), 121–5. 81 Briefly calendared as Auvray, no. 807 (Bliss, 130). For the full text, see Vatican, Archivio Apostolico Vaticano Reg.Vat. 16 (Register of Gregory IX yr.6) fo.13v no.24, naming ‘the four daughters of peaceful Solomon’ as mercy, truth, justice and peace: ‘[…] In ecclesia siquidem Roman(a) quodlicet alios vocet in paternitatem sollicitudinis, apud ipsam tamen ex verbo domini plenitudo remanet potestatis residentes quatuor filie pacifici Salomonis, misericordia et veritas sibi obuiam venientes, et iustitia et pax se inuicem complectentes, sic iura sua et gratias unicuique distribuunt quod in veritate misericordia et in misericordia iustitia non negatur, set quanta filia pace videlicet procurante concordiam ita suo modo et ordine alterum compensatur ex altero, quod rigorem iustitie iustificata misericordia temperat, et prodigalitatem misericordie veritas declarata refrenat.’

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pastorali tenemur inter discordantes pacis federa firmare bet discordantesb quantum nostra possibilitas est ad concordiamc reuocare. Siquid(em) inter cetera mundi discrimina plus turbamur de regum discordia quorum deliramenta subditorum nostrorumd multitudinem trahunt ad periculae. Quiaf quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achiui.1 Vestram verog credimus presentiam inh transmarinis partibus ad h(oc) vocauit Omnipotens ut inter reges Francorum et Anglorum jmedi(a)tores essetis et u(t)j vestra prudencia k illorum discordiam tam diutinam interrumperet k . Utique l regno sane teneminil, regno Francorum tanquam min eo nati nec minus Anglorumm velud in eon beneficiati. Vices nostras qsolicitudini vestre commisimusq in hac parte, et quia valde remoti sumus necr ad h(oc) tam optabile negotium propriam personams nostram texhibere valemust, fraternitatem vestram quanta possumusv affectione wobsecramus et monemusw in Domino quatinus xomnibus modis et x si non poteritisy perpetuam zpacem stabilitatis inter reges predictos, t(ame)n per aliquos annos pacem proponere studiatisz. Quod autemaa a vestra sedulitate minus agi poterit, nos bbDeo dantebb processu temporis de ccpredicta pacecc perpetuanda vicescc supplebimusdd. 1 Horace Epistulae, 1, 2, 14 (Achiui OS, Achini T) a–a fratri R. Dei gratia Linccoln’ S, filio R. Dei gratia Wintonienc’ T b–b discordantes

etiam in S, discordiam in T c S inserts tenemur d nostrorum not in ST e periculam S f T inserts d(ici)t Or(ati)us g vero O, ut ST h in O, a ST j–j mediatores essetis ut et S, essetis mediatores ut T k–k tam diutinam illorum discordiam interrumpperet ST l–l sane regno tenemini S, sane regne tenemini s(cilicet) T m–m ex eo nati non tenemini non minus Anglorum S, ex eo conati nec minus Anglorum T n eo OT, illo S p–p vestre solicitudini S q–q solicitudini vestre committimus S, vestre solicitudini commissus T r nec C, et ut S, et T s personam OT, partem S t–t exibere non valeamus S, exybere non valeamus vices nostras vestre solucitudini ideo T with words underdotted for cancellation v possimus T w–w moneamus et obsecramus S, monemus et obsecramus T x–x modis omnibus S, modis omnibus et T y corrected from potestas O, poteris T z–z saltem per aliquos annos inter reges Franccorum et Anglorum pacem ponere studeamus S, saltem per aliquos annos inter predictos reges pacem ponere studeatis T aa autem OT, etiam S bb–bb … Deo dando T cc–cc pace predicta S cc vices not in ST dd T inserts Valete

Sanctissimo patri in Cristo G(regorio)a Dei gratia summo pontif ici R. eadem gratiab licet indignus cWintoniensis episcopusc salutem et debitam d reuerentiam in omnibus vestre sanctitatis mandatis obtemperandod . Corpus meume non solum fab pericula sed discrimina pro vobis suponeremf,

124 Nichol as Vincent gobedienciam

non omnibus victimis noui postulaturamg. Regum discordiam et insolentiam h et eorum in quantum potui duriciam jmonitis et communicacionibus studui emollerej, k sed valde doleo quod paru(u)m feci. Triennium t inter se reges firmaueruntk, consiliariis utriusque regni in hoc consencientibus, vos autem interim utriusque regni consulentes ltranquillitatem predicte paci poteritis prouidere, ne duorum indiscreta voluntas multitudini subditorum nocerel possit in posterum. mSi aliqua matrimonial(is) a vestra prouidencia prouideri possit dispensatiom, perutil(is) esset et nneccessaria. Nonn t(ame)n h(oc) dico quasi consilium exhibendop, qcum res tam ardua maiori dispensatione debeat ordinar(i). Val(e)t(e)q. hvero

a

Gregorio S, Greg(orio) T  b S inserts salutem  c–c episcopus Lincoln’ S, Wintonienc(is) episcopus T d–d in omnibus reuerentiam vestre sanctitatis (equitatis T) obtemperando mandatis ST e meum not in T f–f ad ad pericula sed in(de) ad ultima mortis discrimina ut mandastis pro vobis supponerem S, ad periculam sed etiam ad ultima mortis discrimina pro nobis supponere T g–g obedienciam non omnibus victimis noui postlaturara O, obedienciam non noui omnibus victimis preferendam S, obedienciam non in omnibus victimis prelaturam T h–h autem insolentiam S, autem insolernam (sic) T j–j emolir(e) studui monitis et comminacionibus S, duritiam monicis et cominacionibus studui emornre (sic) T k–k s(ed) paru(u)m profeci un(de) doleo. Per triennum t(ame)n reges inter se treugas firmauerunt S, sed unde doleo parrum perfecti. Triennium treugas inter se reges f irmauerunt T l–l transquillitati ne duorum indiscreta voluntas multitudini subditorum vocem S, tranquillitati ne duorum voluntas indiscreta multitudine subditorum nocere T m–m Si qua matrimonial(is) a vestra prudencia prouider(i) posset dispensacio S, Si qua matrimonial(is) dispensacio a vestra prudencia propuideri possit T n–n valde neccessaria nec T p exibendo S, exe’ndo T q–q cum t(ame)n ardua res saniori dispensacione valeat ordinar(i) S, cum tam ardua res saniori dispensacione debeat ordinari. Valeat excellencia vestra per temporis tempora longa T

About the Author Nicholas Vincent is Professor of Medieval History in the School of History at the University of East Anglia. His research interests are English and European History in the twelth and thirteenth centuries, including relics and religion and charters and diplomatic. He is the author of many studies, including Peter des Roches: an alien in English politics, 1205–1238

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(Cambridge, 1996), The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster blood relic (Cambridge, 2001) and The Letters and Charters of Henry II, 8 vols (Oxford, 2020–).

4. Gregory IX and the Crusades Michael Lower Abstract The pontificate of Gregory IX saw an astonishing expansion of the range of crusading activities, with multiple campaigns on many fronts annually against every perceived threat. Although not aiming to fulfil a programme, in some areas Gregory took the initiative, while in others he reacted to requests and opportunities. His policy of vow redemption, use of the friars in preaching a universal crusading propaganda, and attempts at enforcement of sermon attendance, met with mixed results, posed a host of problems, and had unintended consequences for the Late Medieval Church. But his influence on the history of the crusading movement cannot be questioned. Keywords: Crusades, Vows, Teutonic Knights, Indulgences, Preaching

Gregory IX was at the centre of two great changes in crusading that took place in the thirteenth century. One had to do with the targets and reasons for crusades, the other with how they were recruited and financed. In the twelfth century, most crusading activity was focused on the Holy Land or the Iberian Peninsula. The Baltic was a fledgling theatre of operations. There were major campaigns, such as the Second and Third Crusades, but in general crusading remained an infrequent phenomenon. The beginning of the thirteenth century witnessed a massive expansion of crusading, with expeditions departing with greater frequency than ever before to new theatres of conflict against newly identified enemies of Latin Christianity. The two key figures in this expansion were Innocent III and Gregory IX. Innocent opened up new fronts in southern Italy, where he preached a crusade against Markward of Anweiler in 1199; in the Languedoc, where he launched the Albigensian Crusades (1209–1229) against secular lords he accused of failing to eradicate heresy from the lands they ruled; and in

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch04

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the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the regime founded in the wake of the Fourth Crusade, which Innocent had originally recruited to aid the crusader states of Syria.1 Gregory intensified papal commitments in these arenas while adding several new ones of his own, preaching campaigns against the Drenther peasants in Utrecht; against Stedinger peasants in the lower Weser valley; against heretics in Germany; against the heterodox ecclesiastical establishment in Bosnia; against the pagan Cumans in Hungary; and against the Mongols in eastern Europe. All the while, he maintained traditional levels of papal support for crusading in the Holy Land and Iberia. Under the influence of Innocent and Gregory, crusading lost its explicit connection to these two regions and came to be defined as a generalized holy war that could be directed against all perceived threats to Christendom, whatever and wherever they might be. The sheer volume of crusading activity during Gregory’s pontificate is astonishing. Every year witnessed campaigns on multiple fronts, often thousands of miles apart. In 1229, for example, the Albigensian crusades were in their final stages, John of Brienne was invading southern Italy at the head of a papal army, Willibrand of Oldenburg was preaching the Cross against the Drenther, the Stedinger were defeating the archbishop of Bremen in a pitched battle, the head of the Hungarian Church was recruiting crusaders to promote the conversion of the pagan Cumans, and James I of Aragon was invading the Balearic Islands. 1229 also saw the campaign of Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen in the Holy Land, but Gregory did not consider it a genuine crusade because he had excommunicated Frederick prior to his departure. 1239 was equally intense, with the Barons’ Crusade reaching the Holy Land, the Latin emperor of Constantinople leading an expedition against Tzurulum, and Gregory excommunicating Frederick again on Palm Sunday and calling for a full-fledged crusade against him. It is little wonder that when the first appeals for help against the Mongols began to reach the Curia toward the end of that year and the beginning of 1240, Gregory responded cautiously. In an unusual move for him, he declined a request from Queen Rusudan of Georgia and her son David to preach a crusade against the Mongols, pleading that: We are suffering many persecutions from the enemies of the faith at this time, not only from the Saracens, who combat the Catholic faith in Spain and Syria, but also from others as well who, apostatizing from 1 For Innocent III’s crusade policy in general, see H. Roscher, Papst Innocenz III. und die Kreuzzüge (Göttingen, 1968).

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the faith of Christ and rising up against the Church of God, attempt to introduce a new sect of perdition and exterminate from the earth the faith of salvation and human redemption.2

Special pleading or not, this statement reflects the breadth of the pope’s crusading commitments at the time. With major political entities – the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the medieval papacy – it is always tempting to discern a grand strategy that structured their relations with the wider world and gave order to their drive to seize, maintain, and expand power.3 Gregory’s historians have long sought to identify such a strategy at work amid the many crusades of his pontificate. In theory at least, the expanded def inition of crusading articulated by the thirteenth-century papacy gave it flexibility about where and when to expend crusading resources. When we look at the crusading policies of other thirteenth century popes, we see them exploiting this flexibility by favouring some campaigns over others. Innocent III cancelled crusades that were underway in Iberia and the Languedoc when he preached the Cross for the Holy Land in 1213. 4 Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254) emphasized the struggle against Frederick II and his Hohenstaufen heirs, directing recruits to it from other campaigns, such as King Louis IX of France’s Holy Land crusade.5 With Gregory IX, it is harder to identify a clear policy preference. Many scholars have argued that the conflict with Frederick II was a central focus of his pontificate.6 Others have instead pointed to the Holy Land crusade as the major goal.7 Both views are at least partially correct. At different times, each campaign receiving massive papal backing. 2 Tăutu, no. 261. 3 For example, E. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: from the first century A.D. to the third (Baltimore, 1976). For a thoughtful historian’s response to applying models of grand strategy to the pre-modern period, see E.S. Gruen, ‘Review of Luttwak, Grand Strategy’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 8 (1978), 563–6. A recent attempt to revive the idea of Roman grand strategy is K. Kagan, ‘Redefining Roman Grand Strategy’, The Journal of Military History, 70 (2006), 333–62. 4 G. Tangl, Studien zum Register Innocenz’ III (Weimar, 1929), 93–4. 5 Les registres d’Innocent IV d’apres les manuscrits originaux du Vatican et de la bibliothèque Nationale, ed. E. Berger, 4 vols (Paris, 1884–1921), nos 4060, 4065. 6 J. Felton, Papst Gregor IX (Freiburg, 1886), 1; S. Sibilia, Gregorio IX (1227–1241) (Milan, 1961), 11–13; J. R. Strayer, ‘The Political Crusades of the Thirteenth Century’, in A History of the Crusades, 2nd ed., ed. K.M. Setton et al., 6 vols (Madison, 1969–89), ii, 343–75; Van Cleve, Frederick II, 231–3; R.T. Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade’, Ph.D. dissertation (Syracuse University, 1978), 279, 286. 7 B. Weiler, ‘Gregory IX, Frederick II, and the Liberation of the Holy Land, 1230–9’, in The Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History: papers read at the 1998 summer meeting and the 1999

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But so too did other ventures on other occasions, such as his crusade in defence of Latin Constantinople or his many campaigns against alleged heretics. Gregory did not allow any single crusading theatre or cause to predominate over the rest. Rather than pursuing a grand strategy, he took a responsive, reactive approach to crusading that was alive to the crises and opportunities present along all of Latin Christendom’s internal fault-lines and external frontiers. Several factors combined to give Gregory’s crusading policy this wideranging character. In the first place, his broad approach and responsiveness to local concerns was consistent with the prevailing papal ideology of his day, which presented the pope as responsible for the defence of all Latin Christian lands and peoples. To refuse a request for assistance was to abrogate that responsibility and run the risk of calling into question papal claims to authority in that arena. That is why the response Gregory gave to Queen Rusudan of Georgia was so rare. More typical was the answer a group of Holy Land crusaders received in 1239 when they questioned why their expedition was not receiving the total support of the Curia, to the exclusion of all other campaigns, including the one Gregory was organizing on behalf of the Latin Empire. However much he wanted to aid the Holy Land, Gregory explained, he could not neglect other Christian regions for its sake: For if Mother Church abandoned the Latin Empire as if lost, leaving it neglected, whose protection could be expected? And if its dire circumstances were not to arouse compassion, then who shall console it in its adversities?8

The lack of a singular policy focus had a practical as well as an ideological dimension. The papal office sat at the head of a classic pre-modern rescript bureaucracy whose main function – in legal and governmental terms – was to receive petitions and then decide whether and how to act on them.9 Local conflicts could become crusades when Gregory answered appeals for support with letters authorizing the preaching of the Cross. This is how many, though not all, of Gregory’s crusades originated: the crusades in Bosnia and on the Hungarian frontiers; the Constantinople crusade; the Mongol winter meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, ed. R.N. Swanson, Studies in Church History, 36 (Woodbridge, 2000), 196–206. 8 Auvray, no. 4741. 9 For a detailed description of this process, see R. Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (London, 2009), 16–19.

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crusade; many campaigns in Iberia; and a number of smaller campaigns against heretics and peasants in Germany and the Low Countries. While the hierocratic claims of the papacy sometimes ran counter to the day-to-day demands of politics and government, in the case of the crusades theory and practice pushed Gregory and his Curia in the same direction – toward a reactive, expansive policy. Further encouraging this tendency was the atmosphere of crisis that enveloped the Curia from Gregory’s first days in office. The conflict with Frederick II consumed the beginning and end of his pontificate. Even during the period when they enjoyed relatively stable relations – from the Peace of San Germano of 1230 to late 1236 – the relationship influenced Gregory’s approach to other crusading theatres, especially the Baltic, the Latin Empire of Constantinople, and the kingdom of Jerusalem. Another source of instability was the Curia’s standing in the city of Rome. Aggressive city governments sought to expand their influence into the surrounding countryside and dominate Latium and the Campagna, a plan that encountered resistance from the Papal State and led to rebellions that drove Gregory from the city in 1228, 1231, and 1234.10 In fact, Gregory lived outside of Rome for eight of the first twelve years of his pontificate.11 At the head of a Curia that was often on the run, Gregory was acutely sensitive to the many crises that he believed threatened the integrity of the Church and Latin Christian society as a whole. When confronted by such a crisis, he often chose to respond with armed force, by preaching a crusade.

Smaller campaigns (rescript crusades) We can begin to get a sense of how Gregory’s crusading style worked in practice by looking at some of the smaller campaigns he endorsed in the early years of his pontificate. They show how hard he found it to say no to requests for crusading support, even when these involved conflicts that were quite restricted in scope. 10 For the Roman revolt and its background, see F. Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, trans. A. Hamilton, 8 vols (London, 1897), v, 147–79; W. Gross, Die Revolution in der Stadt Rom 1219–1254 (Berlin, 1934; reprinted Vaduz, 1965), 28–39; D. Waley, The Papal State in the Thirteenth Century (London, 1961), 134–45; P. Partner, The Lands of St Peter: the papal state in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance (London, 1972), 246–53; and J. Strothmann, Kaiser und Senat: der Herrschaftsanspruch der Stadt Rom zur Zeit der Staufer (Cologne, 1998), 335–42. 11 Waley, Papal State, 141.

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The f irst of these was the crusade against the Drenther peasants of Utrecht.12 Based to the south and west of Grönigen, and led by a certain Rudolph, the Drenther had been waging an armed insurrection against the civic authorities of Grönigen and the bishop of Utrecht since 1225. In 1227 the Drenther besieged Grönigen and defeated a relief force led by Bishop Otto II, who was killed in the course of the battle.13 His successor was Willibrand of Oldenburg, bishop of Paderborn, whom Gregory agreed to translate to Utrecht in 1228. Willibrand transformed the war against the Drenther into a crusade, preaching the Cross against them in neighbouring Frisia in 1228, 1230, and 1231.14 No papal bull authorizing Willibrand’s preaching survives. This does not mean that none was ever issued, since only a small percentage of papal correspondence from Gregory’s chancery survives. It does, however, leave us wondering about the off icial rationale for the crusade and whether Willibrand obtained papal permission before he offered crusade indulgences to the Frisians. It is possible that the bishop considered the Drenther to be heretics. Canon Three of the Fourth Lateran Council called for those who were suspected of heresy to be excommunicated. If the suspected heretics persisted in the excommunication for a year without seeking absolution, they were then to be condemned as heretics outright and as such could be subject to various corrective measures, including the crusade.15 It was for the pope to decide whether such a sanction was warranted in any particular case. Willibrand may have taken matters into his own hands, but it seems more likely that he received papal authorization at some stage, perhaps during his visit to the papal Curia just before taking up his appointment.16 Gregory was certainly authorizing crusades of similar character around the same time in response to the appeals of local ecclesiastics, as the case of the Stedinger crusade shows. The driving force behind the Stedinger crusade was Gerhard II, archbishop of Bremen.17 From the 1220s onward, he faced resistance to his efforts to 12 For the crusade against the Drenther, see C. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant friars and the cross in the thirteenth century (Cambridge, 1994), 167–9; E. T. Kennan, ‘Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Political Crusades: a study in the disintegration of papal power’, in Reform and Authority in the Medieval and Reformation Church, ed. G.F. Lytle (Washington, 1981), 27–9. 13 Gesta Episcoporum Traiectensium, ed. L. Weiland, MGH SS, 23 (1874), 414. 14 Gesta Episcoporum Traiectensium, 417–23. 15 Ecumenical Councils, i, 233–5. 16 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 168. 17 For the crusade against the Stedinger, see H.A. Schumacher, Die Stedinger: Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wesermarschen (Bremen, 1865); R. Köhn, ‘Die Verketzerung der Stedinger durch

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collect taxes and customary dues from the Stedinger peasants of the Lower Weser. Matters came to a head in late 1229 when the Stedinger defeated an army Gerhard had sent to pacify them under the leadership of his brother Count Herman II of Lippe, who died in the battle. The archbishop excommunicated the victors and in March 1231 convened a diocesan synod in Bremen that declared them heretics, presumably for their defiance of ecclesiastical authority. He then sought papal permission to preach the Cross against them. Gregory responded by appointing a panel of three churchmen to investigate the charges of heresy. After he received their report affirming Archbishop Gerhard’s accusations, the pope authorized a crusade in October 1232, offering partial indulgences to those who took the Cross.18 These proved insufficient to attract the large numbers of crusaders apparently required to suppress the Stedinger, who won several victories over the winter of 1232–1233. In June 1233, Gregory granted the request of the three German bishops in charge of the propaganda campaign to offer the full Holy Land crusade indulgence to those who would brave the ‘unconquerable’ country the Stedinger called home.19 By 1234, after not one but two counts of Oldenburg-Wildeshausen had died in the fighting, the crusade had attracted the support of several prominent noble families, who joined together to crush the Stedinger revolt at Altenesch on 27 May.20 Another successful petitioner for crusading resources was Conrad of Marburg, the crusade preacher, spiritual advisor to Elizabeth of Thuringia, and controversial inquisitor.21 Though active as an investigator into heresy since 1227, his appointment on 11 October 1231 as a papal judge delegate with powers to bring independent charges against suspected heretics, to invoke the secular arm for punishment, and to impose excommunication and interdict upon protectors of heretics marked the beginning of the papal inquisition in Germany.22 Though other churchmen received similar commissions from the pope at that time, none managed to attract as much die Bremer Fastensynode’, Bremisches Jahrbuch, 57 (1979), 15–85; Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 52–6; Kennan, ‘Political Crusades’, 25–6. 18 Epistolae selectae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum Romanorum, ed. K. Rodenberg, Monumenta Germaniae historica, 3 vols (Berlin, 1883–1894), i no. 489. 19 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 539. 20 C. Woebcken, ‘Die Schlacht bei Altenesch am 27. Mai 1234 und ihre Vorgeschichte’, Oldenburger Jahrbuch, 37 (1933), 23–33. 21 For the crusade in support of Conrad of Marburg, see L. Förg, Die Ketzerverfolgung in Deutschland unter Gregor IX: Ihre Herkunft, ihre Bedeutung und ihre rechtlichen Grundlagen (Berlin, 1932; repr. Vaduz, 1965), 71–90; Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 56–8; and above all A. Patschovsky, ‘Zur Ketzerverfolgung Konrads von Marburg’, DA, 37 (1981), 641–93. 22 Patschovsky, ‘Ketzerverfolgung Konrads von Marburg’, 643–4 n. 4.

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attention to himself as Conrad, whom a contemporary described as the ‘prince and head of this persecution’.23 With the help of the Dominican brother Tor and a one-eyed and one-handed layman named John, Conrad launched a wide-ranging investigation into heretical beliefs and practices that condemned many men and women to the stake. Despite his rapid progress, Conrad felt the need for stronger measures. Sometime in late 1232 or early 1233 he sent a lurid report to Gregory about the continuing spread of heresy in Germany, co-signed by the archbishop of Mainz and the bishop of Hildesheim. It was meant to alarm, and it certainly hit its mark. In his response of 10 and 13 June 1233 (Vox in Rama), Gregory said that when he read it ‘our soul was disturbed […] our eyes failed before the tears […] all our innards were shaken, and we could not hold back the tears or stifle the moans’. Conrad described the inexorable spread of a Devil-worshipping sect prone to initiation ceremonies featuring pale-fleshed men with dark eyes, black cats, lots of kissing, candles, and plenty of illicit and even ‘unnatural’ sex. In the first instance, Gregory called for Conrad and his helpers to employ the spiritual sword against those who persisted in such error. As angels of peace, they should preach the healing balm of the word of God. If that failed, then ‘in such a great and grave disease recourse must be had to a stronger remedy, where light medicines are insufficient’: the putrid flesh must be cut away so that it would not infect the rest of the body. Gregory authorized Conrad to preach the Cross against the heretics who refused to return to the bosom of Mother Church and offered the full Holy Land crusade indulgence to those who manfully girded themselves against them.24 Armed with these new powers, Conrad took his campaign against heresy into the upper reaches of German society. He accused the counts of Sayn and Arnsberg and the countess of Loos of heresy and when they refused to cooperate with his proceedings, he preached a crusade against them. They appealed for justice from their peers and a diet of German nobles and high ecclesiastics was convened at Mainz in late July 1233 to consider their case. It found Conrad’s charges against them to be baseless and referred the matter to the pope for final settlement. Conrad disregarded the verdict and went ahead with preaching the Cross in Mainz. Before he could attract many recruits, he was murdered as he tried to leave the city on 30 July.25 Upon hearing the news, Gregory addressed an anguished letter to the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Germany, in which he praised Conrad as a ‘bridesmaid of 23 Gesta Treverorum continuata, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, 24 (1879), 400. 24 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i nos 533, 537. 25 Patschovsky, ‘Ketzerverfolgung Konrads von Marburg’, 648–51.

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the church, a minister of light cruelly cut short’ and as a ‘man of consummate virtue and exceptional Christian faith’ and blamed the churchmen for failing to protect him from ‘the sons of darkness’.26 Though scarcely able to conceive of a punishment severe enough to avenge his murder, Gregory called upon the churchmen to excommunicate the perpetrators and place their lands under interdict until they made satisfaction for their excesses. At the same time, he ordered the bishop of Hildesheim and the archbishop of Mainz to renew the crusade against heretics in Germany with increased zeal, with the Holy Land crusade indulgence still on offer to those who took the Cross.27 The landgrave of Thuringia received a personal appeal to avenge the death of his wife’s confessor.28 Once again, though, German authorities intervened before an expedition could get underway. A diet at Frankfurt in February 1234 settled the outstanding issues raised by Conrad’s tumultuous proceedings. Gregory had probably not intended to launch a crusade against several powerful members of the German nobility when he licensed Conrad to preach the Cross. But that was the unexpected consequence of bolstering the inquisitor’s investigations with crusading privileges. The crusades against the Drenther, the Stedinger, and alleged German heretics were what we might call rescript crusades. A local churchman appealed to the pope for crusading support, and he responded by granting indulgences for the campaign. Although Gregory gave the final authorization, the driving forces behind these crusades were Bishop Willibrand of Utrecht, Archbishop Gerhardt of Bremen, and Conrad of Marburg. While campaigns of this type were a common feature of his pontificate, the pope also launched crusades on his own initiative. Even though he was never willing to abandon his commitment to crusading on multiple fronts, some of these campaigns show that he did try to formulate long-range plans for specific theatres of activity. The two most notable examples are the Baltic and Holy Land crusades. Even in these cases, though, unforeseen circumstances often made it difficult for Gregory to see his plans through to completion.

Major campaigns (and their complications) Crusading along the Baltic coast changed dramatically during Gregory’s pontificate. The crucial development was the entry of the Teutonic Order 26 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 560. 27 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 561. 28 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 572.

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into the region in the early 1230s.29 By the end of the decade, the order had concentrated crusade resources into its own hands and established a state free of oversight from local Christian authorities. It would rule that state as an independent ecclesiastical lordship into the sixteenth century. Gregory’s role in this transformation is not easy to pin down. Some scholars have seen him as primarily responsible for the concentration of power into the knights’ hands, while others have portrayed him as little more than a passive, even manipulated enabler of their rise.30 In truth, Gregory was one of several key players – among them Duke Casimir of Masovia, Herman of Salza, grand-master of the Teutonic Order, the papal legate William of Modena, and Emperor Frederick II – whose actions would remake the political and religious life of Livonia (now Latvia), Estonia, Finland, and Prussia for centuries to come. Prior to Gregory’s pontificate, missionary bishops dominated crusading along the Baltic shore. Starting in 1199, Albert of Riga embarked on a thirty-year campaign of conquest and conversion in Livonia. He received permission from Innocent III to recruit crusaders for summer expeditions. When these proved insufficient to meet his military needs, he founded a military order, the Sword-Brothers.31 Just to the west, meanwhile, in Prussia, Bishop Christian was starting on a missionary project of his own. Here too crusaders were joined by a military order, the knights of Dobrzyn, in operations against the local non-Christian populations.32 The progress of these crusades in Livonia and Prussia was fitful under the leadership of the missionary bishops. The local peoples defended themselves aggressively, crusading support was intermittent, and the military orders were understaffed. Both Albert and Christian, moreover, faced competition from rival Christian powers with interests in the region. They struggled hard but not always successfully against the Danes, who had territorial claims in Livonia, the prelates of the ancient sees of Northern Germany, who sought 29 I.M. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007), 187. 30 R.T. Spence stresses Gregory’s active role in directing Baltic policy: R.T. Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade on the Baltic’, The Catholic Historical Review, 69 (1983), 5, 16. E.T. Kennan argues that papal legates and local actors drove papal policy in the region: Kennan, ‘Political Crusades’, 32. 31 For Bp Albert and the Sword-Brothers, see F. Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder: Fratres Milicie Christi de Livonia (Cologne, 1965), 39–54; E. Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 2nd ed. (London, 1997), 93–104; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 80–1. 32 For Bp Christian and the knights of Dobrzyn, see Z. Nowak, ‘Milites Christi de Prussia. Der Orden von Dobrin und seine Stellung in der preußischen Mission’, in Die geistlichen Ritterorden Europas, ed. J. Fleckenstein and M. Hellmann (Sigmaringen, 1980), 339–52; Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 104–9; Fonnesberg–Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 81–3.

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to bring the newly-founded Baltic dioceses under their jurisdictions, the merchants and traders of the towns, who aspired to greater autonomy, and their own military orders, who, fledgling as they were, had ambitions for conquest of their own.33 By 1229, Bishop Albert was dead and Bishop Christian seemed further than ever from his aim of converting the Prussians. It was at this time that Gregory began to take a more active interest in the Baltic crusades. The death of Bishop Albert created an opportunity for the pope to bring order to the divided Latin Christian communities of Livonia.34 In Prussia, powerful outside interests had already begun to seek out alternatives to Bishop Christian. Duke Casimir of Masovia, an early secular proponent of the Christian conquest of Prussia, had sounded out the Teutonic Knights in the mid 1220s.35 Founded in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, the Teutonic Order’s original mission had been to care for the Christian sick and to defend the crusader states of the Holy Land.36 For some time already, though, the order had been casting about for a new f ield of operations and with its largely German membership the Baltic was a perfect fit. The grand-master Herman of Salza was a close confidant of Frederick II, who quickly warmed to the idea of transferring the order to the north.37 In 1226, the emperor granted the knights the right to possess whatever territories they conquered in Culmerland and Prussia.38 Given their status as professed religious, though, and their need for the crusading resources that only the pope could provide, it was essential that they receive papal approval before venturing on a northern campaign. Frederick’s expedition to the Holy Land in 1228–1229 made this impossible to obtain at f irst. The knights’ service with the excommunicated ‘pseudo-crusader’ in Syria complicated their negotiations with the Curia. But prospects brightened when the crusade ended, and Frederick and Gregory entered into peace negotiations in late 1229 and early 1230. As Frederick’s 33 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 44; Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 104–5, 128; Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade on the Baltic’, 1–2; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 82–3. 34 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 45. 35 H. Kluger, Hochmeister Hermann von Salza und Kaiser Friedrich II. Ein Beitrag zur Frühgeschichte des Deutschen Ordens (Marburg, 1987), 45; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 189. 36 K. Militzer, Von Akkon zur Marienburg: Verfassung, Verwaltung und Sozialstruktur des Deutschen Ordens 1190–1309 (Marburg, 1999), 1–23. 37 Kluger, Hochmeister Hermann von Salza und Kaiser Friedrich II, 54–65. 38 Preussisches Urkundenbuch, Politische Abteilung, ed. R. Philippi et al., 6 vols (Königsberg, 1882‒2000), 1/i no. 56.

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representative at the talks, Herman of Salza was able to discuss the order’s proposed move to the Baltic directly with the pope. At the same time, Herman could count on support for his plan from William of Modena, the papal legate who had just returned from his second mission to the region. William was becoming an influential voice on Baltic affairs at the Curia.39 Gregory had strong reasons to take the legate’s advice seriously. Allowing the knights to move into Prussia would be a gesture of goodwill toward Frederick and would thus foster papal-imperial reconciliation. It would also provide a way to consolidate the Latin Christian campaign to conquer and convert the region, which had become divided under the leadership of Bishop Christian. Two weeks after making peace with Frederick at San Germano, Gregory granted the Teutonic Order clear title to their conquests in Prussia, which they would hold not from the bishop of Prussia or any other Christian power in the region, but rather directly from the pope. 40 Shortly after that, Gregory began preaching the Cross on behalf of the knights. He tried to ensure that only the order had access to crusaders and crusade funds in Prussia, funnelling these resources into their hands through the Dominicans, upon whom he conferred the exclusive right to recruit for the Prussian crusade. 41 Gregory adhered consistently to his aim of reinforcing the control of the Teutonic Order over the crusade in Prussia through the mid-1230s, as a series of instructions from 1234 show. The legate William of Modena was to provide aid and favour to them; the Dominicans were to make sure that legacies and subsidies donated by the faithful toward the expenses of the ‘Prussian business’ were channelled to them; the dukes of Poland and Austria were to respect the rights granted to them by the papacy in the region; Christian armies were to follow their advice when fighting against the Prussians.42 Buttressed by these privileges, and aided by the fortuitous absence of their main potential rival, Bishop Christian, whom the Prussians took prisoner in 1233 and did not release until 1239, the knights mounted a two-pronged campaign against their Christian competition and the pagan Prussians. By the mid-1230s they were well on their way toward carving out a church-state for themselves in the region. 39 G.A. Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina. Bischof von Modena 1222–1234. Päpstlicher Legat in den Nordischen Ländern (d. 1251), Commentationes humanarum litterarum, Societas scientiarum Fennica (Helsinki, 1929), 55–6, 143–58; Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 46; Fonnesberg–Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 189. 40 Auvray, no. 494. 41 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 46–52; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 196–200. 42 Auvray, nos 2097–2101.

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For all the encouragement he gave them in Prussia, the pope had not initially introduced the knights into Livonia. Gregory’s reform plan for that region was similar to his plan for Prussia, in that he hoped to bring order to the situation by consolidating control over crusading resources into the hands of one ecclesiastical authority. But in Livonia, perhaps in an attempt to provide a check on the power he was granting the knights in Prussia, he invested control over these resources with a papal legate. In 1232 he appointed the Cistercian Baldwin of Alna legate for all Livonia and granted him sweeping powers. These included the exclusive right to preach the crusade, to consecrate bishops in his legatine area, and to establish ecclesiastical structures in newly conquered lands. At the same time Gregory inserted Baldwin into the local ecclesiastical hierarchy by having him installed as bishop of Semgallia. Along with these powers came a broad mandate to bring the activities of the new bishop of Riga and the Sword-Brothers into line with papal policies. They resisted Baldwin from the start, however, and he was soon contemplating physical force against them. In 1233, he demanded that the Sword-Brothers surrender their fortress of Rival to him. When they refused, he dispatched an army against them. In the late summer of 1233, the Sword-Brothers comprehensively defeated Baldwin’s forces at the Battle of Domberg. 43 After Baldwin’s defeat, Gregory replaced him with William of Modena, whose efforts to curb the bishop of Riga, the burghers, and the SwordBrothers met with greater success. Partly this was the result of chance. The Sword-Brothers launched an ill-advised invasion of Lithuania in 1236, which nearly wiped out the entire order. 44 Mainly, though, it was the result of a shift in policy that William advocated, which entailed bringing the Teutonic knights into Livonia. Gregory agreed; and by the late 1230s the surviving Sword-Brothers had disbanded their order and taken up with the knights, who were now the masters of the entire Baltic crusade. 45 They would retain that position for the remainder of Gregory’s pontificate, and indeed for centuries to come. In the midst of these major initiatives along the Baltic shore, Gregory launched an ambitious recruitment campaign for a crusade to the Holy Land in the autumn of 1234. There was no particular crisis in the kingdom 43 Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder, 287–301; Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade on the Baltic’, 8–11. 44 Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder, 327–47; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 188. 45 Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade on the Baltic’, 17–19; Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 136–7.

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of Jerusalem that prompted the call: the kingdom was at peace with the Ayyubids thanks to a ten-year truce Frederick II had agreed with Sultan al-Kamil in 1229.46 With no need for an immediate departure, Gregory had the time to introduce a host of technical innovations in crusade recruitment and finance that will be described in detail below. The truce also enabled Gregory to ponder the long-term security of the crusader states. In June 1235, he announced a novel fundraising plan that called for every Christian adult to contribute one penny per week in aid of the Holy Land for ten years. In the letter introducing the measure, he argued that crusades did not provide consistent enough military support for the Frankish states of the Levant. Whatever gains crusaders might make while they were in the field would often be undone as soon as they went home, when troop deployments dropped back to regular levels. The ten-year subsidy would fund permanent contingents of soldiers and refortified strongholds in which to garrison them.47 Gregory found himself unable to sustain these far-reaching plans for long. In December 1235, five months after attempting to set the security of the crusader states on a more permanent footing, he shifted course when he learned from his ally John of Brienne, the Latin emperor of Constantinople, that his regime was on the brink of collapse. 48 Abandoning the ten-year subsidy as well as the preaching campaign for the Holy Land, Gregory launched a bold effort to save the Latin Empire.49 Because large expeditions of Holy Land crusaders were already in the works in England and France, the best chance of rescuing the empire lay not in recruiting a fresh army but in sending them to Constantinople as quickly as possible. As it turned out, the technical challenges associated with the diversion attempt, coupled with resistance from the Holy Land crusaders themselves, proved difficult for the Curia to surmount. The Constantinople crusade was delayed from 1237 to 1238 and then to 1239.50 By then, a new and still greater crisis had emerged, which would consume Gregory’s attention for the rest of his life. In the spring of 1239, the conflict between Gregory and Frederick II entered its final and gravest period. Gregory excommunicated the emperor 46 Historia diplomatica Frederici secundi, ed. J. L. A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6 vols (Paris, 1852–61), iii, 86–90. 47 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 646. 48 Auvray, nos 2872–9. For John of Brienne, see G. Perry, John of Brienne: king of Jerusalem, emperor of Constantinople, c. 1175–1237 (Cambridge, 2013). 49 M. Lower, The Barons’ Crusade: a call to arms and its consequences (Philadelphia, 2005), 58–73. 50 Auvray, nos 3938, 3937, 3944; Philip Mouskes, Chronique rimée de Philippe Mouskes, ed. [F.] de Reiffenberg, 2 vols (Brussels, 1836–38), ii, 661.

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on 20 March and began preaching a crusade against him.51 Legates fanned out across Christendom in search of armies and allies. Geoffrey of Montelongo organized an expedition in Milan, the capital of Lombard resistance to imperial claims over the region.52 Sinibaldo Fieschi, the future Pope Innocent IV, led a diplomatic embassy that sought to shift Ravenna from the imperial to the papal side of the conflict.53 James of Palestrina arrived in France with orders to persuade King Louis IX to come to the Church’s aid.54 James also invited the king’s brother, Robert of Artois, to take Frederick’s place on the imperial throne and convinced Raymond Bérenger, count of Provence, to take the Cross.55 Raymond’s campaign was to be funded out of revenues raised from the redemption of crusade vows in the dioceses and provinces of Chartres, Arles, Embrun, Besançon, Lyons, Vienne, and Tarentaise.56 In some of these areas, vow redemption funds had already been promised to crusaders to the Holy Land and the Latin Empire.57 Albert of Beham took charge of the pope’s efforts in Germany, holding a diet at Eger to rally the ecclesiastical hierarchy to the papal cause.58 Otto of St Nicholas focused on fundraising in England, imposing a twenty percent income tax on the clergy that elicited protests from the chronicler Matthew Paris, coming as it did on the heels of a demand for a three-year thirtieth for the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1238.59 Gregory himself reached out to the Venetians and the Genoese. In an impressive feat of diplomacy, he secured from the traditional rivals an agreement to launch a joint assault on the kingdom of Sicily.60 Frederick did not wait for the pope’s measures to bear fruit. While Gregory’s legates were making their appeals, imperial troops went on the offensive. They quickly occupied the march of Ancona and the duchy of 51 For a detailed account of the 1239–1241 papal campaign against Frederick, written from Gregory’s perspective, see Spence, ‘Gregory IX and the Crusade’, 115–35. 52 Annales Placentini Gibellini, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS, 18 (1863), 481. 53 Auvray, no. 4903. 54 Layettes du trésor des chartes, ed. A. Teulet et al., 5 vols (Paris, 1863–1909), no. 2855. 55 For the invitation to Robert of Artois, see Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols, RS 57 (London, 1872–1883), iii, 624–7. On Raymond Bérenger, see Thierry Pécout, L’invention de la Provence: Raymond Bérenger V (Paris, 2004). 56 E. Winkelmann, Acta imperii inedita: saeculi XIII et XIV, 2 vols (Innsbruck, 1880; repr. Aalen, 1964), i no. 662. 57 Lower, Barons’ Crusade, 152–3. 58 Annales Erphordenses, ed. G. Pertz, MGH SS, 16 (1859), 33. 59 Matthew Paris, iv, 4–5; Auvray, nos 4605–21. 60 T. C. Van Cleve, The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen: immutator mundi (Oxford, 1972), 419.

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Spoleto and by early 1240 had penetrated the Tiber valley.61 They soon took possession of the Roman hinterland and surrounded the city. This drove Gregory to the most desperate and brilliant act of his papacy. Marching in public procession from the Lateran to Saint Peter’s, he bore aloft the skulls of the apostles Peter and Paul and, as the wavering Romans stood by, shouted ‘defend Rome, you saints, if the men of Rome do not want to defend it’.62 By this coup de théâtre, Gregory rallied the city against the invaders and secured Frederick’s withdrawal to Sicily in March. Despite this important victory, the pope struggled to secure tangible support for the anti-imperial crusade. One after another, the legates brought back bad news: the count of Provence would not join the crusade, after all; Robert of Artois declined to don the purple; the German bishops dispatched a peace delegation to Italy, rather than sending money and fighters; the English clergy were refusing to pay the tax, just as they always did. The failure of these initial measures prompted a second, more desperate round. Gregory called for a church council to consider Frederick’s behaviour and withdrew still further from his commitments to the Holy Land and Constantinople crusades. He ordered Holy Land crusaders in England not to depart until further notice, perhaps in an effort to keep them off the mainland, since many of them harboured pro-imperial sympathies.63 Having previously diverted all crusaders and crusade revenues in Hungary originally raised in aid of the Holy Land toward the Latin Empire, he now commanded these resources to be channelled into the struggle against Frederick.64 This was in February 1241, by which time the Hungarians had worries closer to home. Gregory was slow to react to the Mongol invasion of Poland, Hungary, and Moravia that began in February 1241. As Peter Jackson has pointed out, it is hard to say whether his slow response should be ascribed to his distraction by the papal-imperial conflict or to the very late notice he received of the invasion.65 It was only in mid-June 1241 that King Bela IV of Hungary’s emissaries reached the Curia with an appeal for help. They could not have arrived at a worse time. Four other major crusades were underway (Holy Land, Latin Empire, Northern Russia, Frederick II) and Gregory himself was effectively a prisoner of Rome, the city that had so often spurned him in the past, because imperial forces had occupied his Viterban strongholds. Under 61 D. Abulafia, Frederick II: a medieval emperor (New York, 1992), 342–3. 62 Annales Placentini Gibellini, 483. 63 Auvray, no. 5050. 64 Auvray, nos 2874–6 (commutation from Holy Land to Latin Empire), 5362 (commutation from Holy Land to crusade against Frederick II). 65 P. Jackson, ‘The Crusade Against the Mongols (1241)’, JEH, 42 (1991), 3–6.

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the circumstances, some of those who stood in the Mongols’ path decided to take matters into their own hands. On 25 April 1241, the archbishop of Mainz convened an ecclesiastical council at Erfurt that issued crusade legislation and authorized Dominican and Franciscan friars to preach against the Mongols.66 On 19 May, Frederick’s heir Conrad of Germany took the Cross.67 This was an unprecedented usurpation of the papacy’s exclusive right to launch crusades and issue crusade indulgences. But the swiftness of the Mongol advance left little time for such formalities, as even Gregory seems to have acknowledged. He retroactively affirmed the crusade call from Erfurt in June without a murmur of complaint.68 Seven years had passed since the announcement of the Holy Land crusade. His far-reaching plans for that expedition had been swept away in a series of crises in Constantinople, Eastern Europe, and the Papal States themselves.

Reforms in recruitment and finance Hand in hand with the expansion of crusading in the thirteenth century went a series of technical innovations that transformed the way expeditions were recruited and financed. These innovations aimed both to support the increased volume and intensity of thirteenth century crusading and to address problems in crusade promotion that had emerged over the twelfth century. At the core of these reforms lay two seemingly disparate goals: (1) to increase the scope of monetary, spiritual, and social support for crusading throughout Latin Christendom; and (2) to limit participation in the actual military campaigns to well-trained fighting men. It was Pope Innocent III who formulated and took the first steps toward realizing these aims.69 Gregory’s role was equally important: he systematized Innocent’s measures, added new ones of his own, and brought together for the first time all the elements of what contemporaries would come to call the ‘business of the Cross’.70 The use of the term business (negotium) was apt, because the 66 Jackson, ‘Crusade againt the Mongols’, 6. 67 Historia diplomatica Frederici secundi, v, 1214–15. 68 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i nos 821–2. 69 On Innocent’s role in reforming crusade organization and finance, see C. Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’, 351; C. Tyerman, The Invention of the Crusades (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 35–6; Riley-Smith, The Crusades: a short history, 120; Roscher, Papst Innocenz III. und die Kreuzzüge, 260–91. 70 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 32–62; Lower, The Barons’ Crusade, 13–36; FonnesbergSchmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 196–202.

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overall effect of Gregory’s reforms was to promote the monetization of popular enthusiasm for crusading. In the early days of crusading, the papacy had preached the Cross to the skilled fighters it wanted to go on crusade while encouraging all others to stay home.71 Those who did go on crusade generally had to pay their own way. But this straightforward approach to recruitment and fundraising was not as successful as the popes would have liked. After the success of the First Crusade, there followed a string of failures, the most dramatic of which, perhaps, was the Fourth Crusade, which never reached the Holy Land. For Innocent III, the pope who had launched that expedition, the common problems these failures shared were underfunding and too much non-combatant participation. He therefore introduced a change in the way crusades were recruited when he launched the Fifth Crusade in 1213. He announced that from now on everyone, regardless of aptitude for warfare, was to be permitted to take the Cross. Those subsequently deemed unsuitable to fulfil their vows in person would be made to redeem, or buy back, their vow for a cash payment, in return for the same indulgence of sins earned by those who went on crusade in person.72 With this vow redemption policy in place, Innocent could keep those he considered ill-suited for combat at home while channelling the money they paid to redeem their vows toward the experienced fighters he wanted for his campaigns. In theory, Innocent’s policy of vow redemption made everyone in Christendom a legitimate target of crusade preaching. In practice, however, Innocent never made it a priority to appeal to any non-combatant group, focusing instead on other fundraising measures.73 The first papal attempt to exploit Innocent’s vow redemption policy fully came instead from Gregory IX, who in his time as a cardinal had worked for Innocent promoting the Fifth Crusade.74 Preaching his own Holy Land expedition in 1234, Gregory placed a greater 71 Robert of Reims has Pope Urban II declare at Clermont that the old, the feeble, those unfit to bear arms, and women should be forbidden from joining the crusade: Robert of Reims, Historia Hierosolymitana, in Recueil des historiens des croisades: historiens occidentaux, 5 vols (Paris, 1841–1906), iii, 729–30. Writing to his supporters in Bologna in September 1096, Urban forbade clerics and monks from setting out on the crusade without permission from their superiors: H. Hagenmeyer, Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100 (Innsbruck, 1901), 137–8. On crusade recruitment in the twelfth century, see J.A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, 1969), 69; Roscher, Papst Innocenz III. und die Kreuzzüge, 278; and S. D. Lloyd, English Society and the Crusade, 1216–1307 (Oxford, 1988), 18, 72–81. 72 Tangl, Studien […] Innocenz’ III, 88–97. 73 J. M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221 (Philadelphia, 1986), 67–87. 74 Registri dei Cardinali Ugolino d’Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, ed. G. Levi, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 8 (Rome, 1890).

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emphasis on vow redemption than his mentor had, making it the centrepiece of his fundraising plan. What Gregory had in mind was a mass mobilization of Christian society behind the crusade effort. In order to gather the widest possible audience, he introduced another new measure that complemented his stress on vow redemption. He authorized his preachers to compel attendance at crusade sermons with the threat of ecclesiastical censure.75 As a result, according to an astonished Matthew Paris, papal preachers were able to preach the Cross to ‘people of every age, sex, condition, and strength’.76 Gregory’s turn to systematic vow redemption, buttressed by compulsory sermon attendance, created a new mass audience for papal crusade propaganda. The new approach to vow redemption also had serious implications for papal crusade policy, providing the Curia with greater flexibility than it had ever enjoyed before. It was easier and faster to shift crusading resources from one theatre of activity to another if those resources were already liquidized, in the form of redemption fees. Vow redemption was crucial to the rapid shifts in crusading priorities that were a hallmark of Gregory’s pontificate, especially in the Latin Empire of Constantinople and the Baltic. It also allowed him to pursue his own policy aims even if these did not completely align with the sentiments of Cross-takers. The Holy Land crusade in particular served as a feeder to less popular campaigns, with the redemption fees of those who had taken the Cross in its aid being diverted throughout the latter half of his pontificate toward other venues. In Hungary, Gregory directed the vow redemptions of Holy Land crucesignati first toward the Constantinople crusade and then toward the campaign against Frederick II.77 In Northern Germany, he used Holy Land vow redemptions to support crusading in the Baltic.78 With its emphasis on fundraising, flexibility, and appealing to nontraditional constituencies, Gregory’s new style of crusade recruitment demanded a new style of preacher, one who was loyal to the papacy, alive to its Christendom-wide concerns, and in touch with contemporary currents of popular piety. The newly founded mendicant orders – the Franciscans and the Dominicans – were perfect for the role. Gregory was the first pope to employ them to preach and raise money for crusades.79 They would play an indispensable part in the expansion of thirteenth-century crusading. Their wide geographical dispersion and vocational expertise enabled the papacy to broadcast more crusade propaganda to more people than ever before. Their 75 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 664 (Quantum nos urgeat, 28 September 1235). 76 Matthew Paris, iv, 73. 77 Auvray, nos 2874–6, 5362. 78 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 671. 79 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 4.

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obedience to the apostolic see also allowed Gregory to centralize crusade administration to an unprecedented degree. While Innocent III had relied on local officials, for whom parochial concerns were often paramount, Gregory could turn to religious orders bound directly to the Curia by the constitutions of their orders.80 In addition, there was a personal bond between Gregory and the Franciscans dating back to the 1220s, when he had served as their patron and cardinal-protector.81 Both Franciscans and Dominicans would prove willing to take on the most delicate tasks for Gregory throughout his pontificate, from organizing the war against Frederick II in the late 1220s, to the diversion attempt to Constantinople in the mid 1230s, to the renewed campaigns against the emperor in the early 1240s. Gregory’s Curia furnished the mendicants with propaganda materials that reflected both its multi-front crusade policy and its drive for vow redemption fees. In bull after bull, papal officials stressed that crusading was a means by which the pope could defend Latin Christian lands and peoples, not just in the Near East, but wherever they might be threatened. They depicted internal and external enemies as attacking not only specific people or places but Latin Christianity in general.82 To drive the point home, they turned to the rich array of images and biblical allusions surrounding the notion of ‘Mother Church’. The most powerful of these featured the biblical matriarch Rachel, who appears as a metaphor for the Church in two major crusade propaganda campaigns of the mid-1230s. Gregory’s bull of June 1233 to Conrad of Marburg, the bishop of Hildesheim, and the archbishop of Mainz, which authorized crusade preaching against heretics in Germany, is entitled Vox in Rama. It begins with Rachel crying for her sons: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning, Rachel, clearly pious mother church, cried for her sons, whom the devil pursues and damns; and she receives no consolation because the sons, like vipers tearing apart their mother’s flesh, strive to destroy her.83 80 For Innocent’s recruitment staff for the Fifth Crusade, see Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 22–6, 92–3. 81 Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 26–31. 82 See, for example, Auvray, nos 229 (the ‘business undertaken against the Albigensian heretics’ in Languedoc is the ‘business of the orthodox faith’: 21 March 1228); 255 (Castilian offensive against ‘perverse nations’ benefits the ‘Church in general’: 8 December 1228); Epistolae saeculi XIII, i nos 539 (Stedinger peasants in Bremen attack ‘the church of God and the Catholic faith’: 17 June 1233); 557 (by crusading in support of Conrad of Marburg’s heresy investigations in Germany, Conrad, landgrave of Thuringia, shows his devotion to the Apostolic See and ‘the defence of the Catholic faith’: 20 October 1233). 83 Epistolae saeculi XIII, i no. 537.

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The biblical allusion is to Matthew 2:18, where Rachel weeps for her sons, and by extension, the people of Israel. In Vox in Rama, she stands as mother to the New Chosen people in the New Covenant and mourns their descent into heretical depravity under the devil’s influence. The maternal imagery continues as the letter goes on to liken the Church to a ‘labouring mother’ surrounded by ‘urgent troubles’ whose ‘sacred womb’ is disturbed by the wounds of the faithful. In Vox in Rama, Rachel graphically represents the dangers that heresy in Germany posed to the Church in general. In Rachel suum videns, which the Curia issued in the fall of 1234 as the centrepiece of its propaganda campaign for the Holy Land crusade, she symbolizes the Church’s concern for the plight of the faithful in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem: Like Rachel formerly seeing her beginning in the knowledge of the true faith increase in salvation, so also the pious mother of her sons…The Holy Roman Church, whose sorrow is as great over the mutual destruction of her children, has sent forth and still sends forth sighs and groans.84

The allusion here is not only to Jeremiah 31:15 but also to the etymologies of Jerome, who proposes that Rachel’s name means ‘seeing the beginning’ (videns principium) in contrast to her sister Leah, whose name should be rendered ‘labourious’ (laboriosa). Augustine would take from these etymologies the idea that Rachel was a positive example of the contemplative life over and against her ‘labouring’ sister Leah.85 At first blush, it might seem strange that a crusade bull should hold up for emulation a maternal figure associated with passivity and contemplation. But the use of this imagery highlights another major innovation of Gregory’s crusade propaganda. Besides stressing the universal nature of the Church’s crusading obligations, his bulls laid a new emphasis on nonviolent means of participating in crusades. As vow redemption opened up crusading as a devotional practice to those who were unable or unwilling to fight, Rachel could emerge as a new kind of crusading hero. Gregory did not abandon traditional martial imagery in his crusade propaganda. He still spoke of crusading as a way to ‘revenge the injuries to the Crucified One’. But he balanced these calls for armed combat against non-believers with appeals to endure suffering and pain on Christ’s behalf, 84 Vatican City, Archivio segreto Vaticano, Registra Vaticano 17, fol. 230r–v. 85 P.-M. Guillaume, ‘Rachel et Lia’, Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ed. M. Viller et al. (Paris, 1932–1995), fasc. 86, cols 27–30.

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to offer good will in divine service, to express compassion and love, and to cry tears of contrition. At the end of Rachel suum videns, Gregory describes the crusade indulgence as a kind of short-cut to salvation: ‘For many, desiring to behold the lands where our Lord stood, have reached the goal without the labour of a race, the crown without the ordeal of the sword, through him who rewards his faithful soldier, and looks only for good will in his service.’ Thanks to the new vow redemption policy, Christians everywhere, no matter their lack of military qualifications, could now serve as faithful soldiers of Christ and win forgiveness of sins. As contemporary admirers and critics alike recognized, Gregory had brought together vow redemption, mendicant preachers, universal propaganda, and enforced sermon attendance to create a radically new kind of crusade recruitment campaign, which was geared as much toward raising funds as it was toward recruiting crusaders. It was a potent combination that would revolutionize papal crusade promotion and even papal finance more generally, as vow redemption slowly morphed over the later Middle Ages into the ‘sale of indulgences’.86 If Innocent III loosened the bond between physical participation in a crusade and receipt of the indulgence, Gregory IX broke it once and for all. Gregory’s reforms would have fateful consequences for the late medieval and early modern papacy. The image of the friar travelling from town to town selling the keys to paradise, which thirteenth-century papal critics such as Matthew Paris were all too fond of invoking, would serve as a potent rallying cry against the papacy in the age of reformation.87 This, of course, was an unintended consequence of Gregory’s remaking of crusade recruitment and finance. His own aims were focused on the crusades: how to make them bigger, better financed, and more responsive to papal policy goals. Judged on Gregory’s own terms, we can say that the results were mixed. If we measure by the range of causes and theatres of action, the number of those who actually volunteered to fight in crusade armies, the broader involvement of the ‘home front’, and the overall volume of activity, it becomes clear that Gregory’s pontificate was one of the most intense periods in the whole history of the crusades. It is hard to imagine how this level of activity could have been supported without the innovations he introduced. Crusading did indeed become a more universal activity under his watch. It became accessible to all who could redeem a vow, pray for a crusader victory, 86 For a discussion of how this process unfolded in late medieval England, see R.N. Swanson, Indulgences in late medieval England: passports to paradise? (Cambridge, 2007). 87 Matthew Paris, iii, 287–8.

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or earn a partial indulgence by attending a sermon. The price to be paid for this newfound access to the spiritual benefits of crusading was exclusion from the hardships and adventures of the campaigns themselves. Even so, many of the faithful seemed willing to accept that trade-off. Given the wide variety of campaigns and the broad dispersion of propaganda, there must have been few indeed in Latin Christendom who did not encounter crusading in one form or another in the age of Gregory IX. On the other hand, the reforms did not live up to papal expectations in the realms of organization, administration, and control. One major challenge the Curia struggled to overcome was how to divide the resources of Latin Christendom – money, materials, and fighters – among the many crusades it preached, often simultaneously. For smaller, regional enterprises, propaganda and fundraising could be concentrated on the particular area in question. Problems arose with crusades that the Curia believed should claim the support of all Latin Christendom – the crusades to the Holy Land and in defence of the Papal States – or with those that lacked a natural geographical focus of support, such as the crusade to the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Since much of the Curia’s efforts were concentrated precisely on these three preaching campaigns in the late 1230s, it was here that organizational and administrative problems arose. The situation in France was especially challenging, because the Curia expected it to provide the soldiers and the money for both the Holy Land and the Latin Empire campaigns. As a result, the model of strict regional demarcation of propaganda and fundraising broke down and large swathes of northern France saw heavy recruitment for both campaigns. This made it hard to allocate resources between them: some money earmarked for the Latin Empire went toward the Holy Land; some crusaders received mixed messages about where they should campaign; and some grew frustrated at the confusion and acted against papal wishes at times.88 Some crusaders from northern France, for example, refused a papal order to redeem their vows and set off for the Holy Land before papal agents could catch up to them.89 Given the complexity of the operations the papacy was attempting to execute, organizational problems of this type were difficult to avoid. The papal bureaucracy was incredibly sophisticated – by the standards of the thirteenth century, not the twenty-first. Vow redemption raised another set of problems. One issue was that vow redemption proceeds were locally collected and stored. Because the receipts did not pass through the papal camera, the Curia never knew how 88 Lower, Barons’ Crusade, 121–4. 89 Auvray, no. 3945.

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much revenue a given redemption campaign was generating.90 Without exact receipts, it was impossible to keep track of who was getting what and to know whether an expedition would be adequately funded. Another problem was that the collection process was slow. It often took years for papal agents to receive the redemptions they had been promised in the course of a preaching campaign.91 The lack of immediate funds made it hard for even prominent magnates to meet the heavy upfront costs of crusading. Count Peter of Brittany, for example, abandoned the Constantinople crusade when it became clear that the vow redemption campaign launched for him in Western France was not generating cash quickly enough for him to mount his own expedition. He scaled back his plans and joined the Holy Land crusade with a smaller retinue instead.92 Crusade funding was a waiting game, which meant that Gregory’s plans were often overtaken by the course of events. This was certainly true in the case of the crusades in aid of the Latin Empire and against Frederick II. Mainly because of the slow trickle of funds, the rapid relief force Gregory had first envisioned sending to Constantinople in December 1235 did not arrive there until late 1239. By then, Gregory was already several months into the preaching campaign against the emperor. As of the summer of 1241, though, the pope was still waiting for recruits and funds to come in. He died in Rome that August, besieged by an imperial army. His last protectors were not crusaders, but the relics of St Peter and St Paul.

About the Author Michael Lower is Morse Alumni Distinguished University Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is a historian of the Crusades and the Medieval Mediterranean and the author of The Barons’ Crusade of 1239: a call to arms and its consequences (Philadelphia, 2005) and The Tunis Crusade of 1270: a Mediterranean history (Oxford, 2018).

90 W.E. Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages, 2 vols (New York, 1934), i, 119. 91 Vow redemption fees were still trickling in for Richard of Cornwall fifteen years after the Barons’ Crusade had ended: W.E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 432–4. 92 Lower, Barons’ Crusade, 123–4.

5.

Gregory IX and the Greek East*1 Nikolaos G. Chrissis Abstract This chapter examines Pope Gregory IX’s involvement in the Greek East, which revolved around three interconnected issues: crusade, Church Union, and heresy. Gregory used both force and negotiations in pursuit of the dual objectives of protecting Latin possessions in the area and effecting papal control over the Eastern Churches. He actively deployed the crusade to buttress the Latin conquest of Byzantium, while he was also involved in Greek-Latin ecclesiastical contacts in Greece, Cyprus, Syria, and southern Italy. In a striking – if short-lived – departure from precedent, Gregory explicitly accused the Greek Church of heresy. At the same time, his envoys’ (eventually unsuccessful) negotiations with the authorities of Nicaea were an implicit recognition of the government and hierarchy established there as continuators of Byzantium. Keywords: Byzantium; Greek-Latin relations; Church Union; heresy; crusade

Crusade, Church Union, and heresy: these three interconnected issues delineate Pope Gregory IX’s involvement in the Greek East. Gregory’s activities ranged from the use of crusading force to ecclesiastical negotiations, in pursuit of the dual objectives of protecting Latin possessions in the area and achieving papal control over the Eastern Churches. The early thirteenth century was an important period for Greco-Latin interaction. Orthodox populations lived under Catholic rule not only in the recently conquered Byzantine territories in Greece, but also in Cyprus, Syria and Palestine, as well as in southern Italy; each of these theatres of interaction * I would like to express my gratitude to the late Prof. Bernard Hamilton for his crucial feedback on an earlier draft of this chapter, and for his advice and support in general.

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch05

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had its own distinctive characteristics and historical peculiarities.1 Over the fourteen years of his pontificate, Gregory devoted a considerable part of his activity to buttressing the Latin conquest of Byzantium by calling for reinforcements from the West. But he also dealt directly with the Byzantine ecclesiastical and secular authorities. As far as relations with the Orthodox were concerned, Gregory’s pontificate was punctuated by two contrasting events. In 1232–1234, there were extensive negotiations with the Byzantine Church at Nicaea on the issue of ecclesiastical union. This was the first considerable unionist effort since 1204, as both Innocent III and Honorius III had adopted the view that the conquest had already resolved the schism by bringing the Greek Church back to obedience. In conducting these negotiations, Gregory not only distanced himself from that view, but his action also constituted a more or less direct acknowledgement of the government and patriarchate at Nicaea as the continuators of Byzantine institutions. On the other hand, in May 1231, a group of Orthodox monks were executed on the island of Cyprus because they persisted in denouncing the Latin practice of using unleavened bread for the Eucharist. This execution on purely religious grounds is unique in the period of Latin rule over Byzantine lands.

1 See in general: (for Outremer) B. Hamilton, The Latin Church in the Crusader States (London, 1980); G. Fedalto, La chiesa latina in Oriente, 3 vols (Verona, 1973–78), i, 84–134; S. Runciman, The Eastern Schism: a study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Oxford, 1955), 85–101; J. Pahlitzsch, Graeci und Suriani im Palästina der Kreuzfahrerzeit: Beiträge und Quellen zur Geschichte des griechisch-orthodoxen Patriarchats von Jerusalem (Berlin, 2001); C. MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: rough tolerance (Philadelphia, 2008), esp. 100–135; (for Cyprus) N. Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 1195–1312 (Aldershot, 1997), esp. 251–317; Cyprus: society and culture 1191–1374, ed. A. Nicolaou-Konnari and C. Schabel (Leiden, 2005), esp. Nicolaou-Konnari, ‘Greeks’, 13–62, and Schabel, ‘Religion’, 184–218; C. Kyriacou, Orthodox Cyprus under the Latins, 1191-1571: society, spirituality and identities (Lanham, 2018); (for Romania) J. Richard, ‘The Establishment of the Latin Church in the Empire of Constantinople: 1204–1227’, in Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204, ed. B. Arbel, B. Hamilton, and D. Jacoby (London, 1989) [= Mediterranean Historical Review, 4 (1989)], 45–62; M. Angold, ‘Greeks and Latins after 1204: the perspective of exile’, ibid., 63–86; R.L. Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1204–1261’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 8 (1954), 228–303; Fedalto, La chiesa latina in Oriente, i, 141–371; E. Kaffa, The Greek Church of Cyprus, the Morea and Constantinople during the Frankish Era (1196-1303) (Newcastle, 2014); N. Coureas, ‘The Latin and Greek Churches in former Byzantine Lands under Latin Rule’, in A Companion to Latin Greece, ed. N.I. Tsougarakis and P. Lock (Leiden, 2015), 145–84; (for southern Italy) G. A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2007), esp. 3–5, 10–59, 494–520; P. Herde, ‘The Papacy and the Greek Church in Southern Italy between the Eleventh and the Thirteenth Century’, in The Society of Norman Italy, ed. G.A. Loud and A. Metcalfe (Leiden, 2004), 213–51.

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The contrast between these events might appear perplexing. In order to fully understand them, besides the local context, we also need to turn to papal policies and priorities in the West. Gregory’s own background, experiences and environment provide an important key in understanding the particular choices of his policy vis-à-vis the Greeks. The pope’s preoccupation with the problem of heresy and his close connection with the mendicant orders, no less than his intense crusade activity and his frayed relations with Emperor Frederick II, shaped the attitude and reactions of the pope and his agents when dealing with developments in Romania.

I. The crusade for the Latin Empire When Cardinal Hugo of Ostia ascended the papal throne, he inherited a complicated situation with regard to the Byzantine world. The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 had been followed by the establishment of Latin states in a large part of the Byzantine territory; alongside Latin political control, a Catholic hierarchy was imposed upon the vast majority of Orthodox subjects. For all the misgivings of Innocent III about the diversion of the Fourth Crusade in the first place, this transfer ‘from the proud to the humble, from the schismatics to Catholics’ had been hailed by the papacy as the return of the ‘disobedient’ Greeks to the mother Church of Rome.2 It looked as if this change in political circumstances had brought the Eastern Schism to an end.3 This proved to be an overoptimistic assessment of the situation. Soon after their early conquests, the Latins were faced with more determined resistance led by two successor Greek states set up on both flanks of the Latin Empire of Constantinople: at Epiros in the west and at Nicaea in the east. Both states scored major victories over the Latins, who found themselves on the defensive, particularly after the death of the Latin Emperor Henry in 1216. The ‘Greek Schism’ was also far from resolved. The submission of the Orthodox clergy to the Latin hierarchy was grudging at best, while many prelates fled to the areas still under Byzantine control. After the death of Patriarch John X Kamateros of Constantinople, in 1206, a 2 Reg. Inn., vii no. 154; viii, 128 no. 70 (69). For the Fourth Crusade, see e.g., D.E. Queller and T.F. Madden, The Fourth Crusade: the conquest of Constantinople, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, 1997); M. Angold, The Fourth Crusade: event and context (Harlow, 2003). 3 See e.g., W. De Vries, ‘Innozenz III. (1198–1216) und der christliche Osten’, Archivum historiae Pontificiae, 3 (1965), 87–126; J. Gill, ‘Innocent III and the Greeks: aggressor or apostle?’, in Relations between East and West in the Middle Ages, ed. D. Baker (Edinburgh, 1971), 95–108, esp. 100–104.

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new patriarch was elected at Nicaea, which became a focal point to which Greek clergy under Latin rule often turned. 4 Faced with these challenges the pope had two options, which were not mutually exclusive: to defend the Latin positions through force of arms or to reach some understanding with the Greek Church and clergy. Crusading constituted Gregory’s priority in dealing with the Byzantine territories under Latin rule (or Romania) and he proved indefatigable and unwavering in his efforts to get a crusade for the Latin Empire off the ground. He dedicated far more energy in organising the preaching, recruitment and funding of such an expedition between 1235 and 1240, than in dealing with the organization of the Latin Church in the conquered lands or in negotiating with the Greek emperor and Church at Nicaea. Throughout his pontificate, Gregory deployed the crusade on numerous occasions. Besides a major crusade call for the Holy Land in 1234 (which resulted in the Barons’ Crusade of 1239–1241), he proclaimed a series of expeditions against heretics in Germany, the Netherlands, Bosnia and Italy, while he also renewed the crusading operations against the Cathars in southern France. Furthermore, he was involved in making the crusade against the pagans in the Baltic more effective by using more widely the services of the mendicants and the Teutonic Order. Famous among his crusading activities was the expedition called against Emperor Frederick II in 1239.5 Although all these campaigns stretched the crusading resources of Latin Christendom and, occasionally, tested papal prestige and authority, the pope did not shrink from advocating a similar course of action in Romania too. This was not an innovation on the part of Gregory. From the beginning of the thirteenth century, Frankish Greece had already joined the ever-growing array of crusade fronts. Innocent III had extended the crusade indulgence to those who would help consolidate the newly-established Latin Empire already in 1205, while Honorius III proclaimed a crusade against the Greeks of Epiros twice (1217 and 1223–1225), when he unsuccessfully tried to prevent 4 For the situation in Romania after 1204, see e.g., Tsougarakis and Lock (eds), A Companion to Latin Greece, esp. chapters 1 and 2, with references to earlier literature; M. Balard, Les Latins en Orient (Xe-XVe siècle) (Paris, 2006); P. Lock, The Franks in the Aegean, 1204–1500 (London, 1995); M. Angold, A Byzantine Government in Exile: government and society under the Laskarids of Nicaea, 1204–1261 (Oxford, 1975). For the patriarchate at Nicaea, see below at notes 37–38. 5 For Gregory’s crusade activities, see: R.T. Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, 1978); M. Lower, The Barons’ Crusade: a call to arms and its consequences (Philadelphia, 2005); R. Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (London, 2009), 119–70, 181–7; I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007), 187–215. See also the chapter of Michael Lower on the crusades in this volume.

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the fall of the Latin kingdom of Thessalonica. Gregory IX, however, was to go much further by organizing the most ambitious and far-reaching crusade for the defence of the Latin Empire in the short-lived state’s history.6 Gregory’s active involvement in Romania started when the nobles of Constantinople offered the imperial throne to John of Brienne, former king of Jerusalem, following the premature death of Emperor Robert of Courtenay (1221–1228). John would be emperor-regent for life, while the heir to the empire, the eleven-year-old Baldwin II (Robert’s younger brother), was to marry John’s daughter, Maria. In April 1229, the pope ratified the agreement in a meeting at Perugia.7 Gregory is said to have encouraged John to take up the offer and promised him assistance in men and money.8 John of Brienne was an experienced warrior and a faithful ally of the pope, with whom he shared a common enemy in Emperor Frederick II. After marrying John’s daughter, Isabella, in 1225, Frederick had immediately laid claim to the title of king of Jerusalem, which his father-in-law expected to retain for life.9 When the papal-Hohenstaufen conflict erupted, on account of Frederick’s excommunication for delaying setting out on his promised crusade to the Holy Land (1227), John was chosen by Gregory to lead the papal armies in the invasion of Frederick’s Sicilian regno in 1228/29. This expedition was defeated by the autumn of 1229.10 It was only then that John was free to take up his new post at Constantinople. It might have also seemed like a good idea to Gregory to remove from the Western stage an inveterate enemy 6 Gregory’s crusade activities for the Latin Empire have been examined more extensively in: Lower, Barons’ Crusade, esp. 58–73, 149–57; R.T. Spence, ‘Gregory IX’s Attempted Expeditions to the Latin Empire of Constantinople: the crusade for the union of the Latin and Greek Churches’, Journal of Medieval History, 5 (1979), 163–76; N.G. Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece: a study of Byzantine-Western relations and attitudes, 1204–1282 (Turnhout, 2012), 83–133; see also Chrissis, ‘A Diversion that Never Was: Thibaut IV of Champagne, Richard of Cornwall and Pope Gregory IX’s crusading plans for Constantinople, 1235–1239’, Crusades, 9 (2010), 123–45. For the Balkans in general, see also F. Dall’Aglio, ‘Crusading in a Nearer East: the Balkan politics of Honorius III and Gregory IX (1221–1241)’, in The Papacy and the Crusades, ed. M. Balard (Farnham, 2011), 173–83. 7 Auvray, nos 290–91. 8 Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier, ed. L. de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1871), 470–71; see also the fragment from the compiled chronicle of Baldwin of Avesnes in Geoffroi de Ville-Hardouin, Conquête de Constantinople, avec la continuation de Henri de Valenciennes, ed. N. de Wailly (Paris, 1882), 423–7, at 426–7. 9 See in general: G. Perry, John of Brienne: king of Jerusalem, emperor of Constantinople, c.1175-1237 (Cambridge, 2013). 10 D. Abulafia, Frederick II: a medieval emperor, 3rd edn (London, 2002), 164–201; Perry, John of Brienne, 135–49; B.E. Whalen, The Two Powers: the papacy, the empire, and the struggle for sovereignty in the thirteenth century (Philadelphia, 2019), 34–44.

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of Frederick who could be a stumbling block in the difficult negotiations between the pope and the emperor that culminated in the peace of San Germano (May 1230).11 The reconciliation with Frederick also freed up papal resources, so Gregory could assist the new Latin emperor in recruiting men by means of a crusade indulgence. In December 1229, the pope offered those who would go to Constantinople with John of Brienne and serve there for at least a year, the same indulgence and privileges granted to crusaders for the Holy Land.12 When John of Brienne eventually set out on Venetian ships for his new capital, along with 5000 men-at-arms and 500 knights, in August 1231, Gregory tried to provide him with additional manpower and funds by calling Hungarian crusaders to commute their vows from the Holy Land to Constantinople or, if unable to go, to redeem them and forward the money to the Latin Empire.13 Gregory’s greatest effort to defend the Latin Empire was yet to come. By 1235 the Latins of Constantinople faced mounting pressure from the Greeks of Nicaea who, led by Emperor John Vatatzes, had seized the important cities of Lampsakos and Gallipoli on both sides of the Dardanelles. Furthermore, Vatatzes entered into an alliance with the Bulgarian tsar, John Asen, and their combined forces ravaged the area around Constantinople. In response to this grave threat, the pope engaged in a far-reaching effort to provide crusading support for the Latin Empire from late 1235 and for the next five years. In this effort, the pope turned mostly to the resources of Hungary, the nearest Catholic power, and France, the traditional recruitment ground for crusades as well as the homeland of the majority of Frankish settlers in Romania. The efforts to secure reinforcements for the Latin Empire were complicated by the fact that Gregory had already called for another crusade, for Outremer, to be preached in late 1234. This meant that the two expeditions had to compete for resources. Gregory tried to address the issue, by calling for the Hungarian and four hundred French crusaders to 11 Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade’, 52–9; and N. Morton, The Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land, 1190–1291 (Woodbridge, 2009), 43–84, esp. 66–72, for Hermann von Salza’s mediation between Gregory and Frederick. 12 J. Van de Gheyn, ‘Lettre de Grégoire IX concernant l’empire latin de Constantinople’, Revue de l’Orient latin, 9 (1902; repr. 1964), 230–34. 13 Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staats-Geschichte der Republik Venedig, ed. G.L.F. Tafel and G.M. Thomas, 3 vols (Vienna, 1856–57), ii, 277–97 nos 277–79; Auvray, nos 656–7, 774; Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, ed. A. Theiner, 2 vols (Rome, 1859–60), i nos 171, 177. The call to Hungarian crusaders was repeated in 1234: Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i no. 212.

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commute their vows from the Holy Land to Constantinople. These actions have often been misconstrued as an attempt by the pope to divert the entire Holy Land campaign. However, this was not the case: Gregory merely reallocated some of the available manpower in order to meet the needs of both fronts in parallel. In both Hungary and France there were orders for new recruits, besides those who would commute their vows.14 The crusade call for the Latin Empire was first issued in December 1235, with orders for the Cross to be preached throughout the kingdoms of France and Hungary. In order to boost recruitment, the participants in the crusade were given the same full remission of sins which was granted to those who fought in the Holy Land, while free transport to Constantinople was offered by the doge of Venice. The Hungarian king, Béla IV, and his brother, Duke Coloman of Slavonia, were asked to participate, while in October 1236, Peter of Dreux, count of Brittany, agreed to take the Cross and lead the expedition to Constantinople.15 Gregory’s crusade involvement in Romania climaxed in late 1236. The call was extended to England as well, and the mendicant orders were used extensively in the preaching, recruitment and fund collection for the campaign. The pope attempted to enlist a number of important French nobles, such as the counts Henry of Bar-le-Duc, John of Mâcon, and John of Soissons, as well as Humbert V, lord of Beaujeu, a veteran of the Albigensian Crusade. Gregory also took steps to raise money for the campaign through ecclesiastical taxation, voluntary contributions, and the redemption of vows of crusaders who were unable to set out in person. Indulgences were granted not only to the participants, but also to those who made monetary contributions and even to the audiences of crusade sermons.16 In 1238, a parallel crusade was proclaimed against John Asen, who had resumed his alliance with Vatatzes after a brief rapprochement with the papacy. Gregory called on the Hungarian king to undertake this campaign against the Bulgarian tsar who was accused of being a schismatic who had allowed heresy to thrive in his lands.17 14 The issue is discussed extensively in: Chrissis, ‘A Diversion that Never Was’. 15 Auvray, nos 2872–9, 2909–11, 3363–6; Bullarium franciscanum, ed. J.H. Sbaralea, 7 vols (Rome, 1759–68), i, 179–80 no. 185; Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i no. 249; Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, 99–102. 16 Auvray, nos 3395–6, 3633, 3638, 3717, 3737, 3899, 3903, 3907, 3936–7, 3944–5, 4025–6, 4028–9, 4105–6, 4204–17, 4219, 4265–6, 4316, 4631, 4662, 4667; Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i no. 278; Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade’, Appendix, 308–9 no. 13; Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, 102–20; W.E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327 (Cambridge, MA, 1939), 194–5, 430, 434–5. 17 Auvray, nos 4056–64, 4482–90; Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i, 159–61, 164–7, 170–72 nos 283–6, 293–9, 308; Lower, Barons’ Crusade, 85–90; Rist, Papacy and Crusading

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The response to all this papal activity on behalf of Frankish Greece proved less than enthusiastic. Many would-be recruits delayed their departure or actively refused to set out, while some even left for the Holy Land before the arranged time so as to avoid papal orders to alter their destination towards Constantinople.18 The pope had to repeat his calls for the commutation and fulf ilment of crusade vows several times, to offer additional incentives, and to threaten disobedient crusaders with censure.19 For all the pope’s efforts, many of the nobles he approached eventually opted to go to Outremer instead, including the projected leader of the expedition, Peter of Brittany. The pope, furthermore, found himself having to respond to criticism by the leaders of the Holy Land crusade that he was diverting crucial resources away from Jerusalem. Most explicit was the reaction of Richard of Cornwall, who had resisted the pope’s request to postpone his departure for the Holy Land and to redeem his crusade vow, sending the corresponding money to Constantinople. Richard and his fellow English crusaders took an oath in Northampton to sail to Outremer and not to allow their expedition to be diverted ‘by the objections of the Roman Church to the shedding of Christian blood in Greece or Italy’. 20 The cause of Romania clearly failed to excite the hearts and minds of crusaders to the same degree as the affair of the Holy Land. 21 Gregory tried to make up the shortfall in recruits by imposing military service at Constantinople as penance for ‘reformed’ heretics in southern France.22 Unsurprisingly, Gregory’s crusading activity for the Latin Empire was even more negatively received on the Byzantine side. In 1237 Gregory had in Europe, 132–3, 139–40, 143–5, 148; Dall’Aglio, ‘Crusading in a Nearer East’, 182–3; F. Dall’Aglio, ‘“Contra perf idum Assanum”: Gregorio IX e il progetto di crociata contro Bosnia e Bulgaria, 1235-1241’, Rivista storica italiana, 121 (2009), 991–1027. 18 Auvray, no. 3945. 19 For example, already in 1232, Gregory had to repeat the call he had made the previous year for the commutation of the vows of Hungarian crusaders, commenting that ‘the vow might be voluntary in taking, but once taken it is compulsory to fulfil’: Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i, 102–3 no. 177. See also the repeated instructions to French crusaders: Auvray, nos 2877–9 (December 1235), 3395–6 (December 1236). 20 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H.R. Luard, RS 57, 7 vols (London, 1872–83), vii, 360; N. Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford, 1947), 38–44; E. Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 1095–1274 (Oxford, 1985), 174–5. 21 M. Barber, ‘Western Attitudes to Frankish Greece in the Thirteenth Century’, in Arbel, Hamilton, and Jacoby (eds), Latins and Greeks, 111–28. 22 P. Segl, ‘“Stabit Constantinopoli”: Inquisition und päpstliche Orientpolitik unter Gregor IX’, DA , 32 (1976), 209–20. Out of six hundred cases of heretics included in the register of the inquisitor Peter Seila in 1241–1242, approximately a hundred were ordered to serve in Constantinople.

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written to Emperor John Vatatzes of Nicaea, attempting to intimidate him with the prospect of the impending crusade in order to break off his siege of Constantinople. Vatatzes’s reply was indignant, proud and sarcastic in equal measure.23 His letter gives us an insight into the Byzantines’ reaction to the crusade proclaimed against them. The emperor started by feigning disbelief that the letter he had received was indeed sent by the pope, as it seemed to justify the ‘predatory plans and actions, and the thieving and murderous occupation of Constantinople by the Latins, who attacked us with such cruelty that not even the Ishmaelites had shown’. In response to the pope’s warning that a crusade had been preached and a crusade army had been mustered, Vatatzes commented ironically that ‘upon hearing this we were filled with joy and good hopes, thinking, as was natural, that the avengers of the Holy Land would start their revenge from our homeland, inflicting just punishment on the conquerors [of Constantinople], as desecrators of churches, defilers of holy vessels, and perpetrators of all kinds of impious crimes against Christians’. Having vehemently asserted the Byzantine rights over the imperial city, Vatatzes stated: ‘we would like to make it certain and clear to Your Holiness and all the Christians, that we will never cease fighting and making war on those who occupy Constantinople’. God was on the side of those who have been wronged, the emperor went on, and the pope, ‘as the successor of the first among the apostles, and well acquainted with divine and human laws’, would surely praise them for risking their lives in defence of their motherland. The Emperor of Nicaea dismissed Gregory’s crusade both in terms of its possible efficacy and it terms of its legitimacy, as he said that, without even commenting on ‘what useful thing [the pope] hopes to achieve with such plans and proclamations’, he laughed at this ‘affront to the Holy Land and these games at the expense of the Cross’. The emperor closed his letter stating: Our Highness fervently desires to maintain the respect that befits the Holy Church of Rome which you lead, and to honour it as the See of Peter, the first among the apostles, and to be towards Your Holiness like a son in both the relationship and the rank, doing everything that is in its honour

23 I. Sakellion, ‘Ἀνέκδοτος ἐπιστολὴ τοῦ Ἀυτοκράτορος Ἰωάννου Δούκα Βατάτση πρὸς τὸν Πάπαν Γρηγόριον, ἀνευρεθεῖσα ἐν Πάτμῳ’ [Unpublished letter of the Emperor John Doukas Vatatzes to Pope Gregory, discovered in Patmos], Athinaion, 1 (1872), 369–78. The letter’s tone and biting irony actually led some scholars to consider it an early modern forgery, until its authenticity was proven beyond doubt by V. Grumel, ‘L’authenticité de la lettre de Jean Vatatzès, empereur de Nicée, au pape Grégoire IX’, Échos d’Orient, 29 (1930), 450–58.

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and service, if only Your Holiness, too, were to no longer ignore the rights belonging to Our Highness [that is, the control over Constantinople].24

Gregory’s calls did result in some tangible help raised for the Latin Empire. An advance contingent under John of Bethune was bound for Constantinople in 1238, but Frederick II blocked its passage despite the pope’s requests for cooperation.25 Nevertheless, the main crusade army, led by Baldwin II, set out from the West in the summer of 1239 and made its way to the Latin Empire uneventfully. Although few notable lords (besides Humbert of Beaujeu) participated in it, the army seems to have been sizeable. The crusade’s main achievement was to take from the hands of the Greeks the important city of Tzurulum, in Thrace, which allowed some breathing space to the Latin Empire from Nicaean pressure. Baldwin wrote a letter to Henry III of England celebrating this success, but little else was accomplished.26 Gregory’s efforts to mobilize a crusade in Romania surpassed those of his predecessors. This also proved the last time so much crusading capital was expended for the defence of Latin Constantinople until its fall to the Byzantines in 1261. Innocent IV (1243–1254) tried to make its defence a matter of concern for all Latin Christendom through a universal call at the First Council of Lyons in 1245. But even though this call was theoretically wider than Gregory’s, Innocent lacked the persistence of his predecessor, while the bitter war with Frederick II was a far greater priority. After some initial attempts to secure crusaders and funds for the Latin Empire, he dropped the effort and turned to extensive negotiations for Church Union with Nicaea in 1249–1254.27 In this, as in Innocent’s crusade policy, the precedent had been set by Gregory IX. 24 Sakellion, ‘Ἀνέκδοτος ἐπιστολὴ’, 377 (cf. 374). 25 Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, ed. J.-L.A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6 vols (Paris, 1852–61), v/1, 180–83. Relations had soured at this point between pope and emperor, on account of the latter’s renewed conflict with the Lombard League, and direct confrontation was soon to break out once more. Furthermore, Frederick had maintained good relations with Greek rulers in Romania; his alliance with Vatatzes was soon to be cemented with the Greek Emperor’s marriage to Frederick’s daughter: S. Borsari, ‘Federico II e l’Oriente bizantino’, Rivista storica italiana, 63 (1951), 279–91; E. Merendino, ‘Federico II e Giovanni III Vatatzes’, in Byzantino-Sicula II: miscellanea di scritti in memoria di Giuseppe Rossi Taibbi (Palermo, 1975), 371–83. 26 Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, 120–26; P. Mouskes, Chronique rimée, ed. F. de Reiffenberg, 2 vols (Brussels, 1836–38), ii, 661–4, 666–9; Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, iii, 469–70, iv, 54–5; Lower, Barons’ Crusade, 150–57. 27 Ecumenical Councils, i, 295–6; Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, 135–72; A. Franchi, La svolta politico-ecclesiastica tra Roma e Bisanzio (1249–1254): la legazione di Giovanni de Parma; il ruolo di Federico II (Rome, 1981); J. Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 1198–1400 (New Brunswick, 1979), 88–96.

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II. Church Union and Greek populations under Latin rule Gregory IX not only attempted to bring the Greeks to submission through force by buttressing the Latin conquest. He also carried out negotiations for ecclesiastical union with the Greek hierarchy outside Latin control. In the wider context of the papacy’s policy in the Levant, Gregory’s pontificate witnessed an intensive push for the recognition of papal primacy on the part of the Eastern Churches. Although the mutual excommunications of 1054 did not really amount to a definitive rift between Rome and Constantinople, there can be little doubt that by Gregory’s time the schism was a tangible reality felt by both sides.28 The issues separating the Greek and the Latin Churches fell into three categories: a) dogmatic, which essentially was limited to the Filioque controversy about the procession of the Holy Spirit; b) ecclesiological, about the structure of authority within the Church Universal; and c) the divergent rites and practices between the two Churches. The last category was the most visible in everyday Greek-Latin interaction and could provide polemicists on both sides with additional ammunition, while questions of dogma were never taken lightly.29 But as far as the leadership of both Churches was concerned ecclesiology was often the major sticking point. The Western perception of the pope as the head and undisputed authority in the Church was rejected by the Eastern ecclesiastics in favour of a more collegiate notion which emphasized the pre-eminence of Church Councils and the equal powers of the five ancient patriarchal sees (the Pentarchy).30 Resolving issues of dogma, ecclesiology and diverging practices was all the more crucial for the Roman Church, because, by the early thirteenth century, large Greek populations lived under Latin rule. That had already been the case for some time in southern Italy, where Greek clergy and 28 T.M. Kolbaba, ‘The Legacy of Humbert and Cerularius: the tradition of the “Schism of 1054” in Byzantine texts and manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Porphyrogenita: essays on Byzantine history and culture and the Latin East presented to Julian Chrysostomides, ed. Charalambos Dendrinos et al. (Aldershot, 2003), 47–61; A. Bayer, Spaltung der Christenheit. Das sogenannte Morgenländische Schisma von 1054 (Cologne, 2002); Runciman, The Eastern Schism, 159–70 29 A. E. Siecienski, The Filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy (Oxford, 2010). The issue of the azymes (the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist) was the most important liturgical difference: M.H. Smith III, And Taking Bread: Cerularius and the azyme controversy of 1054 (Paris, 1978). 30 F. Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy (New York, 1966); J. Spiteris, La critica bizantina del Primato Romano nel secolo XII (Rome, 1979); F. Gahbauer, Die Pentarchietheorie: ein Modell der Kirchenleitung von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Frankfurt, 1993).

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monastic communities were fully subject to the pope, particularly after the Norman conquest and the expulsion of Byzantine authority from the area, although the question of their rite could still prove a contentious issue – as, indeed, it did under Gregory IX. More problematic was the situation that had arisen in the East as a result of the crusades and the establishment of Latin states in Outremer in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. In Syria and Palestine, and especially in the city of Antioch, there was a sizable number of Christians following the Greek Orthodox rite alongside other Oriental Christians, i.e., the Monophysite Armenians, Jacobites and Copts, as well as relatively small numbers of Chaldeans (‘Nestorians’). The bone of contention here was hierarchical: the creation of Latin patriarchs in Antioch and Jerusalem brought about a schism in the fullest sense of the word, with two parallel and rival hierarchies. The existence of other Oriental Christians, and the special terms granted to them (particularly the sine medio submission to the papacy) further complicated the matter of the subjection of Greek clergy to the Roman Church. The situation in Cyprus was rather different, as there the Latins found themselves in charge of a population that was almost entirely Greek Orthodox and had retained close connections to the Byzantine empire, even if the usurper Isaac Komnenos had broken away from imperial control a few years before the Latin conquest of 1191. And, of course, even more recently, 23 years before Gregory came to the papal throne, there was the Latin conquest of the Byzantine capital itself and of a great part of the empire’s territory with solid Greek-speaking Orthodox populations.31 Gregory became involved in Greco-Latin relations on all these fronts and there are significant common elements in the pope’s actions, although on the surface they differed widely, ranging from conciliatory gestures to violent repression. a. Romania The negotiations with Nicaea, in 1232–1234, were the most important aspect of the pope’s contacts with the Greek Church in Romania.32 In the summer 31 See the works cited at note 1, above. 32 The letters between Germanos and Gregory in: Tăutu, nos 179, 179a, 179b, 193; the friars’ report is published by H. Golubovich, ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum seu Relatio apocrisariorum Gregorii IX de gestis Nicaeae in Bithynia et Nymphaeae in Lydia 1234’, Archivum franciscanum historicum, 12 (1919), 418–70. Greek sources: Nicephori Blemmydae Opera: Autobiographia, ed. J.A. Munitiz (Turnhout, 1984), 57–64, par. II.25-40 [= Nikephoros Blemmydes: a partial account, trans. J.A. Munitiz (Leuven, 1988), 106–14, par. II.25-40]; M. Stavrou, ‘Le mémoire adressé aux Latins en 1234’, in idem (ed. and trans.), Nicéphore Blemmydès: Œuvres théologiques (Paris, 2007), 175–205.

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of 1232, Patriarch Germanos, at the instigation of Emperor John Vatatzes, wrote to the pope and to the cardinals, expressing his wish for unity to reign between the two Churches and bemoaning the separation between Greeks and Latins, which was brought about ‘not by military but by ecclesiastical hands’. Gregory, for his part, welcomed the prospect of the return of the ‘acephali’ Greeks to the obedience of the Roman Church. The different views on ecclesiastical authority were made evident in the correspondence. Although the patriarch expressed his respect for the honour that was due the pope, he nevertheless stressed the role of Christ as the one and only true leader of the Church. Responding to this indirect but clear challenge, Gregory extensively reiterated the primacy of the Apostolic See. Nevertheless, the communication between the two sides went on. A papal embassy, consisting of two French Dominicans and two English Franciscans, was sent to Nicaea and was honourably received by the patriarch and the emperor, in January 1234. Theological discussions followed, first on the issue of the Filioque and then on the Eucharist, which the Orthodox Church celebrated with leavened bread as opposed to the unleavened bread of the Roman Church. Faced with the friars’ persistent questions on the latter issue, the patriarch stated that he needed to call a synod to consult with the other three patriarchs. When the discussions resumed at Nymphaion, in early April, the Greeks wanted to re-open the question of the Filioque, but the friars insisted upon an answer to their question whether unleavened bread could be legitimately used for the Eucharist. At that point negotiations broke down. Annoyed at what they perceived as their hosts’ dilatory tactics, the friars denounced the Greeks for heresy because they did not accept the Latin usage: We see that you are wasting time and are trying to avoid our question and do not dare openly profess your beliefs. So we will now disclose our mind without reserve and will tell you what we think of you. We conclude Descriptions and discussion of the negotiations in Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 64–72; J. Doran, ‘Rites and Wrongs: the Latin mission to Nicaea, 1234’, in Unity and Diversity in the Church, ed. R.N. Swanson, Studies in Church History, 32 (Oxford, 1996), 131–44; G. Avvakumov, ‘Die Mendikanten und der Unionsversuch von 1234: Eine wichtige Episode in den Verständigungsbemühungen zwischen Rom und der griechischen Kirche’, in Kirchenbild und Spiritualität: Dominikanische Beiträge zur Ekklesiologie und zum kirchlichen Leben im Mittelalter, ed. T. Prügl and M. Schlosser (Paderborn, 2007), 129–42; J. Brubaker, ‘“You are the Heretics!”: dialogue and disputation between the Greek East and the Latin West after 1204’, Medieval Encounters, 24 (2018), 613–30; idem, ‘The Diplomacy of Theological Debate: the friars’ report of the Disputatio of 1234’, in Contra Latinos et Adversus Graecos: the separation between Rome and Constantinople from the ninth to the fifteenth century, ed. A. Bucossi and A. Calia (Leuven, 2020), 311–41.

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that you condemn our Sacrament in unleavened bread: 1) because of your writings which are full of this heresy, 2) because you dare not reply to the question put to you for fear that your heresy would be obvious, 3) because your deeds prove it – for you wash your altars after a Latin has celebrated at them, 4) because you force Latins who approach your sacraments to apostatise and to abjure the sacraments of the Latin Church, 5) because you removed the Lord Pope from your diptychs and we know that you remove none but the excommunicated and heretics, 6) because once a year, as certain people who have heard have told us, you excommunicate him.33

The Greek side denied that they excommunicated the pope and went on to state: ‘About other things that we do, you should not be surprised. For, when your people, the Latins, captured Constantinople, they pillaged churches and destroyed altars, stripping them of their gold and silver, they threw the relics of the saints into the sea, they trampled upon the holy icons, and they turned churches into stables for mules.’ The friars protested that those things were not done with the consent of the Roman Church but were perpetrated by ‘laymen, sinners and excommunicates’, so that the Roman Church could not be held responsible for their actions. The abominations that the Latins mentioned, however, were carried out by the Greek prelates themselves. At the next meeting, the Greek clergy gave an unequivocal reply to the Latins, stating that the Eucharist cannot be celebrated in unleavened bread, at which point the friars requested for this statement to be put down in writing. The papal envoys then proceeded to declaim as heretics those who believed the things professed in the Greek document with regard to the Eucharist: You have given us a text of yours which contains heresy, and you should know that the Roman Church considers a heretic him who believes what is written in your text. However, because it is the defence of heresy that makes a heretic, we want to know why you have spoken thus. For there can be two reasons why you say these things: out of ignorance or out of malice. Therefore, we are prepared to show the truth to you, so that you may see that you are the fabricators of lies, and so that, having seen the truth, you may desist from the heresy of which you speak and you may recant. If not, we will then know that you say this out of malice, and that you are heretics.34 33 Golubovich, ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum’, 451; translation in Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 68–9. 34 Golubovich, ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum’, 458.

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Despite the emperor’s vain efforts to propose a compromise, the friars insisted on their decision to depart, stating that peace could only be effected if the Greek Church followed the formula they had proposed both on the Eucharist and on the procession of the Holy Spirit, and that the Roman Church would not change an iota of its faith. The last session ended in mutual recriminations, with the Latins proclaiming the Byzantine churchmen anathematized as heretics and excommunicates on account of their position on those two issues and the Byzantines responding ‘it is you who are the heretics’.35 Regardless of their failure, the union negotiations of 1232–1234 were significant in several respects. Most importantly, they were an official acknowledgement on the part of the papacy that the conquest had not brought about the submission of the Greek Church and that Nicaea represented a continuation of the Byzantine state. The negotiations at Nicaea/Nymphaion, in fact, constituted an innovative approach to the situation in Frankish Greece. After 1204, the schism had been resolved as far as the Curia was concerned; dealings with the Greek clergy in Romania only focused on the issue of obedience, making sure that the new order of things was accepted by the conquered. Negotiations regarding dogma and ecclesiological issues did not take place, either under Innocent III or under Honorius III.36 In this, Gregory broke with his predecessors. It was during his pontificate that the issue of Church Union, as one between two sovereign (though hardly equal) parts, was discussed again for the first time since the conquest of Constantinople. Gregory’s contact with the ‘exiled’ patriarchate at Nicaea was a recognition of its status among the Orthodox. In the eyes of Orthodox populations under Latin rule it often appeared as the natural head of their Church. The clergy of Cyprus turned to it in 1223, to complain about the expulsion of the Greek archbishop from the island and to seek guidance on whether they should submit to the pope as required by the new Latin-imposed constitution of the Cypriot Church. Before that, in 1217/8, the Orthodox patriarch of Antioch, Symeon II, had come to Nicaea to do penance for having submitted to the Roman Church, even though the Byzantine government had played no part in his election in the first place.37 The patriarch at Nicaea enjoyed some recognition as far as Serbia, Bulgaria, and even Russia. He was also the authority to which the monks of Athos turned, in the early 1230s, to 35 Golubovich, ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum’, 462–4. 36 See Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, 45–51, 95–6; De Vries, ‘Innozenz III. (1198–1216) und der christliche Osten’, 98–100, 104–5, 108–9, 121. 37 Hamilton, Latin Church, 315, 318–9, 320–21.

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complain about Bulgarian interference in the ecclesiastical affairs of the Holy Mountain and of the metropolitan see of Thessalonica.38 It is important to establish both sides’ motives for the contacts of 1232–1234. Vatatzes and his patriarch pursued negotiations with the papacy in order to forestall any Western crusading activity against Nicaea and to deprive the Latin Empire of crucial support. The recognition of papal primacy would be the price the Byzantine side would pay in return for the approval or acquiescence of the Apostolic See to the restoration of Greek rule over Constantinople.39 This was evident by Vatatzes’s question to the papal envoys, whether the pope would be ready to restore the patriarch to his rights (that is, over Constantinople), if the latter professed his obedience to the Roman Church. 40 On the part of Gregory, this looked like a good opportunity to expand papal influence in the area. There was reason to be optimistic about this prospect. In April 1232, Gregory had accepted the submission to the Roman Church of Manuel Doukas, the Greek ruler of Thessalonica and nominally the suzerain of all the western Greek lands of Thessalonica-Epiros. 41 Of course, John Asen was the de facto overlord of the area stretching from Constantinople to the Adriatic; nevertheless, the Bulgarian tsar was also theoretically subject to the Holy See, since Kalojan had submitted to it back in 1203/4. 42 Taking into consideration that a great part of Romania was in Latin hands, the possibility to add Nicaea to the Roman fold was too great a temptation to resist. If that came to be, the papacy could claim that its spiritual authority extended over the entirety of the formerly Byzantine territories. The standing of the patriarch at Nicaea among the Orthodox only reinforced this notion. The significance of the contact between the pope and the Greek patriarch was not lost on contemporaries: 38 J.V.A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans: a critical survey from the late twelfth century to the Ottoman conquest (Ann Arbor, 1994), 127; M. Angold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081-1261 (Cambridge, 1995), 515–38, esp. 518–22, 533–6. 39 This was explicitly stated in Pachymeres’ history: the Greek historian recorded that Emperor Michael VIII, in order to justify his unionist policy in the 1270s, invoked the precedent of the negotiations under Vatatzes, when ‘our prelates were ready […] to commemorate the pope, as long as he promised that no help would be sent to those who held Constantinople, and that he would have no alliance with them’: George Pachymeres, Relations historiques, ed. and trans. A. Failler and V. Laurent, 5 vols (Paris, 1984–2000), ii, 471. This referred to the 1249–54 negotiations with Innocent IV, but it can be safely assumed that the same motive applied for the earlier negotiations with Gregory IX. 40 Golubovich, ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum’, 445. 41 Auvray, no. 786. 42 R.L. Wolff, ‘The “Second Bulgarian Empire”: its origin and history to 1204’, Speculum, 24 (1949), 167–206, at 190–98; F. Dall’Aglio, ‘Innocent III and South-Eastern Europe: orthodox, heterodox, or heretics?’, Studia Ceranea, 9 (2019), 11–25, at 18–22.

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it was evidently important enough for Matthew Paris to include in his chronicle, in their entirety, the lengthy letters exchanged between Gregory and Germanos. 43 Though the negotiations of 1232–1234 failed, they set the stage for further contacts between Nicaea and the papacy which came much closer to fruition, in 1249-1254, under Gregory’s successor, Innocent IV. 44 b. Antioch and the crusader states Gregory’s involvement with the Greek Church in Romania fitted into a wider range of efforts towards the Eastern Churches. Of course, the notion of papal primacy and the claim to the leadership of the Church Universal went back a long time and constituted one of the main tenets of the reformed papacy. But, outside the West, this claim could only be made tangible after the establishment of Latin presence in Outremer during the crusades and the missionary activity that was undertaken by the Roman Church in the twelfth and especially the thirteenth century.45 Although this effort was to peak under Innocent IV, whose missions are better known in this respect,46 Gregory IX’s pontif icate witnessed considerable contact with Oriental Christian Churches resulting in some striking results. A number of highranking Eastern prelates offered their submission to the Roman See: most prominently the Jacobite patriarch Ignatius II (1222–1252), through the mediation of the Dominicans, in 1236, but also the ‘Jacobite archbishop of Egypt’ (i.e. the Copt-appointed archbishop of Jerusalem), and a Nestorian archbishop with jurisdiction over Syria and Palestine; the Dominican prior of Jerusalem reported that a similar desire was expressed by the Nestorian catholicos at Baghdad, Sabrisho V (1226–1256), and by the Coptic patriarch of 43 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iii, 446–70. 44 See Franchi, La svolta politico-ecclesiastica, 12–14. According to Avvakumov, ‘Die Mendikanten und der Unionsversuch von 1234’, esp. 131, 142, the discussions of 1234 were the most important exchange, in theological terms, between Greeks and Latins in the period, surpassing both the discussions of 1249–1254 and the Union of 1274. 45 J. Richard, La Papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Âge (XIIIe-XVe siecles), 2nd edn (Rome, 1998), 3–12, passim; Hamilton, Latin Church, 310–60; B. Hamilton, ‘The Power of Tradition: the Papacy and the Churches of the East, c.1100–1300’, in Authority and Power in the Medieval Church, c.1000–c.1500, ed. T.W. Smith (Turnhout, 2020), 183–192. 46 For example the legatine missions of Andrew of Longjumeau, Lawrence of Portugal, and Dominic of Aragon; see: W. De Vries, ‘Innozenz IV (1243–1254) und der christliche Osten’, Ostkirchliche Studien, 12 (1963), 113–31; E. Tisserant, ‘La légation en Orient du Franciscain Dominique d’Aragon’, Revue de l’Orient chrétien, 24 (1924), 336–55; M. Roncaglia, ‘Frère Laurent de Portugal, O.F.M. et sa légation en Orient’, Bollettino della badia greca di Grottaferrata, n.s., 7 (1953), 33–44.

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Alexandria, Cyril III (1235–1243).47 Even if the latter report was exaggerated, the Roman Curia could be excused for thinking that the recognition of papal primacy throughout the Christian world was within its grasp. The union of the Maronite Church with Rome had been made formal in 1203, and the Maronite patriarch had actually attended the Fourth Lateran Council. 48 The Armenian Church had already united with Rome in 1198, on which occasion Innocent III had exempted the catholicos from the jurisdiction of the Latin patriarch of Antioch and had made him directly answerable to Rome. Gregory confirmed this in 1239, after initially ordering the catholicos to render obedience to the patriarch of Antioch a year earlier.49 Meanwhile, similar contacts were taking place with the Georgian Church. The Byzantinerite Georgians were on very good terms with the Latins and frequently allied with the crusader states against the Muslims during the twelfth century. But it was again under Gregory IX, in 1240, that Dominicans were sent to work for the union of the Georgian Church with the Roman one, while the pope urged the Georgian queen and her son, David IV, to back this effort and acknowledge the primacy of the Apostolic See.50 Things were less bright with regard to the Orthodox, however. In his letter on the contacts with Jacobite Syrians, Copts, Nestorians and Maronites, the Dominican prior of Jerusalem noted: ‘while all these nations acquiesce in the doctrine of truth and to our preaching, only the Greeks [i.e., of the Holy Land] persevere in their malice. They contradict the Roman Church secretly and openly, they blaspheme all our sacraments, and they call any other sect which is alien to their own a sect of depraved heretics.’51 The situation was more difficult with the Orthodox, because, unlike the Oriental Christians, they were expected to be subject to the local Latin hierarchy since they were considered as members of the same Church. The Greeks could not be allowed their own bishops in the same areas where Latin bishops were installed; in the eyes of the Roman Church this was ‘monstrous, as a body with several heads’.52 In Antioch, where the Orthodox population was 47 Tăutu, 303–7 nos 227, 227a; Auvray, nos 3789–91; Richard, La Papauté, 57; Hamilton, Latin Church, 349–52, 356–7. 48 Hamilton, Latin Church, 332–4 49 Tăutu, nos 241–2, 254; Richard, La Papauté, 51; Hamilton, Latin Church, 341–2. 50 Tăutu, no. 261; Richard, La Papauté, 53–6. 51 Tăutu, 306–7 no. 227a; Richard, La Papauté, 56 nos 161–2. 52 Canon 9 of the Fourth Lateran Council: Ecumenical Councils, i, 239. See, e.g., B. Z. Kedar, ‘The Eastern Christians in the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem: an overview’, in Eastern Christianity, Judaism and Islam between the Death of Muhammad and Tamerlane (632-1405), ed. M. Gálik and M. Slobodník (Bratislava, 2011), 137–47, esp. 141–2 [= B.Z. Kedar, Crusaders and Franks: studies in the history of the crusades and the Frankish Levant (London, 2016), study no. XX,

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considerable, Gregory generally upheld the rights of the Latin patriarchate, decreeing that all Greek, Armenian and Georgian clergy would have to obey the Latin patriarch, whose authority extended over the entire region that was once under the Greek patriarchs.53 The patriarchate of Antioch had been in Latin hands ever since 1100 and, with the brief exception of Athanasios III (1165–1170), imposed by Byzantium, there had not been a Greek patriarch resident in the city in the twelfth century.54 In 1206, however, a new Orthodox patriarch was elected in Antioch, the Syrian Symeon II, with the permission of Prince Bohemond IV. In the turmoil of the Byzantine world at that moment, there could be no question of Byzantine involvement in his election. Symeon briefly submitted to the Roman Church, but then he fled to the court of Nicaea, around 1217/8, and renounced his submission.55 Consequently, in 1225, Honorius III decreed that Orthodox priests in Antioch who obeyed Symeon rather than the Latin patriarch should be deprived of their benefices.56 Gregory IX went one step further in 1238, ordering that all members of the Orthodox clergy, in order to retain their position, had to take an oath of obedience to the Roman Church, and ‘to abjure all heresy, particularly that of calling the Latins heretics on account of their use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist’, an instruction that was dispatched to all the Latin hierarchy of the crusader states, in Syria, Palestine and Cyprus.57 Thus the Orthodox of Antioch were deprived of their leadership once again, as Gregory held on to the view that the Greek clergy should be subsumed into the Latin hierarchy.58 143–53, esp. 147–8]; J. Pahlitzsch and D. Baraz, ‘Christian Communities in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1187 CE)’, in Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land: from the origins to the Latin kingdoms, ed. O. Limor and G.G. Stroumsa (Turnhout, 2006), 205–38. A different view is expressed in MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East, 110–12. 53 Tăutu, nos 241–3. 54 For the titular Byzantine patriarchs of Antioch and the efforts to reinstate them at their See: Hamilton, Latin Church, 172–179; S. Runciman, ‘The Greeks in Antioch at the Time of the Crusades’, in Πρακτικά του Θ’ Διεθνούς Βυζαντινολογικού Συνεδρίου (Θεσσαλονίκη, 12–19 Απριλίου 1953) [Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Thessalonica, 12–19 April 1953)], 3 vols (Athens, 1956), ii, 583–91. 55 Hamilton, Latin Church, 312–5. 56 Tăutu, 186–7 no. 141. 57 Tăutu, 310–11 no. 230; Hamilton, Latin Church, 319–22. 58 This policy was reversed by Innocent IV’s envoy to the East, the Franciscan Lawrence of Portugal, who acknowledged Symeon’s successor, David, as the ‘Greek patriarch of Antioch’ when the latter offered his submission to the Apostolic See. Lawrence made sure that the Orthodox patriarch, like the other heads of Eastern-rite Churches, was directly answerable to the papacy rather than to the Latin patriarch of Antioch, effectively establishing a uniate Orthodox Church. However, this approach caused the resentment of the local Latin hierarchy and was eventually

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c. Cyprus Cyprus in this period was firmly in the orbit of the crusader states. However, if movements for Church Union characterized for the most part the relations with Oriental Christians in Outremer, Gregory’s pontificate is associated with a notorious event regarding Greco-Latin relations in Cyprus: the execution of the Orthodox monks of the monastery of Kantara in 1231. After the conquest of Cyprus, a Latin hierarchy had been set up on the island by the Lusignan monarchy and confirmed by Pope Celestine III in 1196.59 Though Celestine’s bull stated that the new Church would heal the schism and return the island to unity, the supplanting of the Greek hierarchy and the confiscation of a large part of the Greek Church’s property by the Frankish authorities was hardly bound to win the hearts of the conquered population, which remained attached to its own clergy. Tensions grew in the 1220s: the agreement between the Latin lay and ecclesiastical authorities regarding the Cypriot Church, in 1222/3, decreed the full subjection of Greek clergy to the Latin hierarchy and the reduction of Orthodox sees from thirteen to four; the Greek bishops would be coadjutors to the Latin ones, responsible for the Orthodox flock.60 This subjection was bitterly felt, even more so as the Church of Cyprus had been autocephalous since the fifth century. There were intense reactions on the part of the Orthodox hierarchy in implementing these provisions. Archbishop Neophytos fled the island and a delegation of Cypriot priests turned to Nicaea for guidance as to whether they should submit to the Latin hierarchy.61 Patriarch Germanos II and his synod, under popular pressure, decreed that the Cypriot clergy should not give in, allowing, however, for smaller concessions such as for Orthodox bishops and abbots to notify the Latin prelates of their election and to accept the Latin archbishopric as a court of appeal.62 Nevertheless, revoked: Hamilton, Latin Church, 322–4; Richard, La Papauté, 59–61; Roncaglia, ‘Frère Laurent de Portugal’. 59 Bullarium Cyprium, ed. C. Schabel, 2 vols (Nicosia, 2010), ii nos a–1, a–2; Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 3–5. 60 Tăutu, no. 108 (cf. nos 86–7); Bullarium Cyprium, ed. Schabel, i no. c–47 (cf. nos c–35, c–37); Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 259–74; Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 57–9. The provisions regulating the relations between Greeks and Latins were expressly modelled upon the situation in the kingdom of Jerusalem. 61 Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 274–87; Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 59–61; K. Chatzipsaltis, ‘Σχέσεις τῆς Κύπρου πρὸς τὸ ἐν Νικαίᾳ βυζαντινὸν κράτος’ [Relations of Cyprus with the Byzantine state of Nicaea], Kypriakai Spoudai, 15 (1951), 63–82. 62 Bibliotheca graeca medii aevi, ed. K.N. Sathas, 6 vols (Paris, 1872–77), ii, 5–14 (1 st letter, probably 1222).

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Neophytos apparently returned and offered his submission to the Roman Church, as was done by at least a part of the Greek hierarchy of Cyprus. In 1229, Germanos intervened again, with a stricter letter, to proclaim defrocked the Orthodox prelates and clergy who had offered their submission to the Latins (the ‘usurping and foreigner bishops’), and to advise the Cypriot faithful to shun them.63 This was a step too far. Archbishop Neophytos wrote to Emperor Vatatzes to complain about Germanos’s interventions, reiterating that the Cypriot Church was autocephalous and not within the remit of the patriarchate but only under the emperor himself.64 The Cypriot archbishop was trying to walk a f ine line between the pressures from Nicaea and from the Roman Church. Such manoeuvring became more difficult, however, as the stance of the papacy and of the Latin hierarchy of Cyprus became more uncompromising. In March 1238, as already noted, Gregory issued instructions to the prelates of the Holy Land and Cyprus to strip of their office any members of the Orthodox clergy who did not offer their obedience to the Roman Church. As the Latin archbishop, Eustorgius, tried to implement these measures, the Greek hierarchy initially resisted and then fled the island to the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, while Neophytos excommunicated anyone who would choose to follow the papal decree. In 1240, therefore, responding to Eustorgius’s request for instructions, Gregory ordered him to expel any remaining Greek clergy who did not follow the papal commands, and to hand over their confiscated property and churches to Latin clergy, so that the ‘malice and obstinacy of the Greeks’ might not prevail. The archbishop was told to excommunicate obstinate Greeks and their accomplices and employ the help of the secular arm if necessary.65 It was in this climate of growing tension between Greeks and Latins that the execution of the Orthodox monks took place. In late 1227 or early 1228, the Dominican friar Andrew visited the monastery of Kantariotissa, in the north of Cyprus, where he was involved in theological discussions with the Orthodox monks. In the discussion on the Eucharist, however, the monks upheld the Byzantine custom of using leavened bread and rejected the validity of the Latin practice of unleavened bread. Finding their stance inappropriate and offensive, Andrew summoned them to appear before the Latin archbishop of Nicosia, Eustorgius. In the examination that followed, the 63 Bibliotheca graeca, ed. Sathas, ii, 14–19, at 18 (2nd letter, 1229); see Chatzipsaltis, ‘Σχέσεις’, p. 70. 64 Chatzipsaltis, ‘Σχέσεις’, 75–7. 65 Bullarium Cyprium, ed. Schabel, nos d–30 and d–37 (cf. nos d–35, d–36, and d–38).

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monks persisted in their claims that the Latin practice of using unleavened bread went against the scriptures and the Holy Synods, and that those who practiced it were led to perdition. The archbishop, angered by their answer, threw them into prison where the thirteen monks remained for three years; during their incarceration they were subjected to torture while one of their number died. After they repeatedly refused to recant, the final decision for the monks was reserved for the pope. Gregory ordered that they should be dealt with as heretics. The monks were executed on 19 May 1231.66 It is clear that what took place in the case of the monks of Kantara was an inquisition for heresy and, as Chris Schabel has noted, there are several identifiable characteristics of such a procedure in the story: for example, the visitation of Friar Andrew and his companion to the monastery, the line of questioning there, as well as the summoning, within a set time, to answer before the archbishop and his clergy.67 It is also significant that the main Greek source, the Martyrion Kyprion (which generally proves dependable when checked against other sources of the period), notes that the prison guards in their abuse of the monks called them ‘Patarenes’ (πατερίνους), a term that by the mid-thirteenth century signified heretics in general.68 Furthermore, the imprisoned monks were given three opportunities to recant, as was the standard treatment of heretics. Similarly, with regard to the punishment imposed on them, Friar Andrew presented the case before the king, nobles and knights, and asked for the secular authorities to carry out the sentence. As it had happened earlier with the body of the monk who had died in prison, his companions were dragged through the streets and thrown into fire; burning, it should be remembered, was by the thirteenth century the usual punishment for unrepentant heretics in the secular law of most Western European states. A Dominican treatise contra errores Graecorum, written in Constantinople in 1252, when referring to 66 T. Papadopoullos, ‘Μαρτύριον Κυπρίων’ [Martyrdom of Cypriots], in Τόμος ἀναμνηστικὸς ἐπὶ τῇ 50ετηρίδι τοῦ περιοδικοῦ ‘Ἀπόστολος Βαρνάβας’ (1918–1968) [Festschrift for the 50 years of the periodical ‘Apostolos Varnavas’ (1918-1968)] (Nicosia, 1975), 307–38, text on 320–37; an older edition also in: Bibliotheca graeca, ed. Sathas, ii, 20–39; Gregory’s letter (5 March 1231) in: Bullarium Cyprium, ed. Schabel, i no. d–6; extensive discussion in C. Schabel, ‘Martyrs and Heretics, Intolerance of Intolerance: the execution of thirteen monks in Cyprus in 1231’, in idem, Greeks, Latins, and the Church in Early Frankish Cyprus (Farnham, 2010), III, 1–33. 67 Papadopoullos, ‘Μαρτύριον Κυπρίων’, 324–7; Schabel, ‘Martyrs and Heretics’, 8–12; see also E.M. Peters, Inquisition (Berkeley, 1989), esp. 58–67. 68 Papadopoullos, ‘Μαρτύριον Κυπρίων’, 329; Schabel, ‘Martyrs and Heretics’, 11 and note 30; B. Hamilton, ‘Introduction’, in Hugh Eteriano, Contra Patarenos, ed. J. Hamilton (Leiden, 2004), 1–24, esp. 2–4, 8–9; C. Thouzellier, Hérésie et hérétiques: vaudois, cathares, patarins, albigeois (Rome, 1969), 204–21, esp. 209–10, 220–21.

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this affair spoke about the twelve ‘martyrs of the Devil’ in Cyprus who were given over to fire.69 d. Southern Italy The issue of divergent practices in Latin and Byzantine rites reared its head during the pontif icate of Gregory also in southern Italy, another area where Greek clergy were subject to Latin political control. On this occasion, however, the issue at stake was not the Eucharist. In the early 1230s doubts were raised in the Curia about the validity of the Greek baptismal formula. On 12 November 1231, Gregory, responding to a relevant enquiry by the archbishop of Bari, argued that baptisms in the Greek rite were invalid as they did not follow the apostolic formula, and therefore the safer option would be for those to be ordained in minor and major orders to be baptised in the ‘correct’ way first.70 The pope soon reconsidered his position and ordered re-baptisms to cease temporarily, while he asked for specialists to be sent from southern Italy to discuss the matter before the Curia.71 The delegation included Nikolaos-Nektarios, abbot of the Byzantine-rite monastery of San Nicolas of Casole. Although the Greek metropolitan of Corfu, George Bardanes, praised Nektarios’s defence of the Byzantine baptism, the pope was not convinced and asked for more specialists to come from Romania. By June 1232, Gregory reached the decision that no more re-baptisms should take place; however, he reserved the right of the papacy to judge the matter more fully in the future and he decreed that future baptisms and confirmations would have to follow the Latin rite.72 69 Schabel, ‘Martyrs and Heretics’, 13 and 24. 70 Auvray, no. 740; Tăutu, no. 170. At the same time the pope also rejected other Byzantine liturgical practices with regard to baptism, such as the confirmation by a priest rather than by a bishop. 71 Tăutu, no. 173 (20 February 1232). 72 Auvray, nos 797–8; Tăutu, nos 178, 178a; the writings of George Bardanes are important evidence for this affair, including his letters to correspondents in southern Italy (surviving in Latin translation), his eulogy of Nikolaos-Nektarios, and Bardanes’ own defence of the Byzantine baptismal formula versus the Latin one, all published in: J.M. Hoeck and R-J. Loenertz, NikolaosNektarios von Otranto, Abt von Casole: Beiträge zur Geschichte der ost-westlichen Beziehungen unter Innozenz III und Friedrich II (Ettal, 1965), 187–90 (nos 8–9), 200–203 (no. 14), and 230–33 (no. 27). Discussion in: Y. P. Avvakumov, ‘The Controversy over the Baptismal Formula under Pope Gregory IX’, in Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History 1204–1500, ed. M. Hinterberger and C. Schabel (Leuven, 2011), 69–84; Gill, Byzantium and the Papacy, 74–5; Angold, ‘Greeks and Latins after 1204’, 70–72.

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What makes Gregory’s direct challenge of the Greek baptismal formula particularly important is its rarity. It is usually assumed that the Roman Church always accepted Greek baptism as valid,73 contrary to the various rather high-profile cases when the Orthodox Church insisted on the rebaptism of those baptized under the Latin rite. In actual fact, the Greek formula was discussed in thirteenth-century scholastic treatises on the sacraments as one of the deviations from standard usage, with some authors supporting its validity and others arguing against it. The main dispute was on the use of the first person active (ego te baptizo) in the Latin formula versus the third person passive of the Greek (βαπτίζεται, baptizetur). The issue was whether denoting the act of the baptism was adequate or whether the exact words had to be used in order for the sacrament to be valid. Scholastic theologians were in two minds about this. For example, William of Meliton, writing in the mid-1240s, considered the verb essential and the pronouns non-essential for the ‘substance’ of the sacrament; however, he still thought that the Byzantine rite was irregular (on the grounds that it was not recognised by the Roman Church) and that the recipients had to be re-baptized. In Thomas Aquinas’s view, on the other hand, both the Latin and the Greek rite were valid, despite the variation of the wording.74 Theological discussions aside, however, Gregory’s orders in 1231 constitute the only confirmed case when re-baptism of the Orthodox was ordered by the papacy in the period.75 Gregory had not initiated this affair; he responded to a question posed by the archbishop of Bari, and apparently this was already an issue, as evinced also by a Calabrian treatise in Greek which attacks the Latin baptismal formula, dating from the early thirteenth century.76 Nevertheless, it is significant that the most explicit rejection of the Greek baptismal rite by a pope took place under Gregory IX, especially when seen in the context of the pope’s wider relations and attitude towards the Greek East at the time. 73 For Latin views towards the Greek rite in southern Italy, see: J.A. Brundage, ‘The Decretalists and the Greek Church of South Italy’, in La Chiesa Greca in Italia dall’VIII al XVI secolo. Atti del Convegno Storico Interecclesiale, Bari, 30 aprile- 4 maggio 1969, 3 vols (Padua, 1973), iii, 1075–81; Herde, ‘The Papacy and the Greek Church’, 224–6, 229–30, 233–48, 250–51. 74 Avvakumov, ‘The Controversy over the Baptismal Formula’, 79–83. In later years, the balance of opinion leaned towards an interpretation similar to that of Thomas Aquinas, and in 1439 the Council of Florence confirmed unequivocally the validity of Greek baptism. 75 See Avvakumov, ‘The Controversy over the Baptismal Formula’, 69–70, 83–4. 76 C. Giannelli, ‘Un documento sconosciuto della polemica tra Greci e Latini intorno alla formula battesmale’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 10 (1944), 150–65; Avvakumov, ‘The Controversy over the Baptismal Formula’, 74–5.

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III. Heresy and Gregory’s relations with the Greek East Gregory’s relations with the Greeks, then, ranged from efforts to restore ecclesiastical communion to repressive measures against recalcitrant Orthodox clergy and monks who refused to profess their obedience to the Roman Church and who impugned the validity of Latin sacraments. A common element, however, was that the accusation of heresy surfaced on both ends of this spectrum of dealings with the Greek Church. Thus, a pattern emerges, as heresy was invoked in the unionist negotiations with Nicaea, in the execution of the Orthodox monks in Cyprus, as well as in the instructions regarding the Greek clergy of Antioch. On the other hand, the issue of the Greek baptismal formula in southern Italy was not framed in these terms; however, on this occasion Gregory showed a clear inclination to question the validity of a sacrament of the Orthodox Church, which no other pope had done. The same theme can also be seen in Gregory’s crusade efforts in Romania. Gregory consciously followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, by deploying in his justificatory and motivational rhetoric the same two main arguments that Innocent III and Honorius III had used: firstly, supporting the Latin Empire was beneficial to the Holy Land, as it kept the route to Outremer open and the imperial city in friendly hands; secondly, it healed the schism, as Latin control over Byzantine territories guaranteed that the Greek Church was kept in obedience to Rome. Gregory invoked these themes, for example, in his crusade bull of December 1236 (Ad subveniendum imperio), where he stated: ‘in case of the destruction of the empire of Constantinople, the body of the Eastern Church would be torn to pieces by grievous schisms, and the help of the Holy Land would be very much impeded’. Gregory, however, took the argument further than his predecessors had, and referred to the danger of heresy spreading in the East. In the same bull he went on to state: ‘in case of [the empire’s] destruction, the Lord’s field would be taken over by the thorns and thistles of various heresies, and a great peril would be feared for all the Latins residing in the East’. Gregory also used the argument of heresy extensively when he called on Béla of Hungary to undertake his crusade against Asen in 1238.77 77 Auvray, nos 3395–6; for the use of the two standard arguments by Gregory see e.g., Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i nos 171, 177, 249; for the addition of the argument of heresy see also: Auvray, nos 4605–8; Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i no. 288; Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, ed. Huillard-Bréholles, v/i, 180–83. For the argument of heresy invoked in the crusade against Asen see: Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i, 159–61 nos 283–4. The first one to note the addition of the argument of heresy was Spence, ‘Gregory IX’s Attempted Expeditions’, 168–9, 173.

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As regards this latter call, Gregory probably had a more solid case as there had been growing concerns about the presence of Bogomils in Bulgaria at least since the early thirteenth century. The Bulgarian Church itself had held an anti-Bogomil synod at Tarnovo in 1211. As far as the Roman Church was concerned, the establishment of the Latin Empire and the presence of Latin ecclesiastics (and particularly mendicant friars) brought a realization that the Bogomil heresy was still active in the area; as Bernard Hamilton noted, papal knowledge of Bulgarian Bogomils is attested for the first time precisely under Gregory IX.78 Overall, however, and unlike the situation in Bosnia, there seems to have been little concern about dualist heretics in Bulgaria or in Constantinople at this juncture. In Gregory’s correspondence regarding the affair of the Latin Empire no explicit mention was made of possible connections between the local heretics and the Cathars.79 Although the presence of Bogomils in Bulgaria might have further confirmed Gregory’s fears, his references to heresy in the area were not targeted specifically against them but instead actually involved the Orthodox Church. Gregory’s own perceptions about heresy in the East with regard to the Greeks and their Church are further revealed in his writings. In his eyes, the fragmentation of the Churches of the East and the ‘admixture’ of their rites constituted a potential hotbed for heresy. In a letter of 12 February 1237, the pope warned that he had learned that several of the ‘reformed’ heretics of the West who were sent to carry out their penance in Outremer actually started spreading their depraved beliefs there. The pope, therefore, ordered that no more of these ‘converts’ should be sent without special licence from the Apostolic See to these lands, where ‘in the fermented mixture of peoples and the corrupt diversity of numerous rites, a great detriment is known to be begotten for the faith’.80 But it was not only a question of Christians of different rites being corrupted by heretics from the West. Their own beliefs, and mostly their rejection of the authority of the Apostolic See, could also turn them into heretics. In his letter of 17 March 1238 to Frederick II, Gregory 78 B. Hamilton, ‘The Albigensian Crusade and the Latin Empire of Constantinople’, in Urbs Capta: the Fourth Crusade and its consequences, ed. A. Laiou (Paris, 2005), 335–43 (esp. 338–40); B. Hamilton, ‘Dualist Heresy in the Latin Empire of Constantinople’, in Religious Quest and National Identity in the Balkans, ed. C. Hawkesworth, M. Heppell and H. Norris (New York, 2001), 69–77; J. Hamilton and B. Hamilton, Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, c.650–c.1450 (Manchester, 1998), 47–51, 260–67. 79 Unlike some other authors, particularly in a later period, such as the Dominican inquisitors Rainier Sacconi and Anselm of Alexandria (c.1250 and c.1270 respectively), who spoke about clear links between the heretical Churches of the Balkans and Romania and those of the West: Hamilton, ‘The Albigensian Crusade and the Latin Empire’, 340–42. 80 Tăutu, no. 220 (cf. no. 234).

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was even more explicit on the link between schism and heresy. Talking about ‘the Church of the Greeks which has been separated from the obedience of its mother, the Apostolic See’ Gregory stated that those members that are cut off from the body of the one and indivisible Church (which has Rome as its head) would naturally die; he then noted: Since the Church, the spouse of Christ, is one, and it was undoubtedly founded upon Saint Peter, the prince of the Apostles, whichever other Church is constituted (or thinks that it can be constituted) outside it, is certain to be separated from the life of true faith into the death of heresy. Having carefully deliberated upon this, we are afraid that the aforementioned Greeks, who were carried by the river of schism from the Church of God to the Synagogue of Satan, [now] crushed by the violent impetus of the torrent have fallen into the abyss of heretical depravity.

Gregory went on to say that since the Greeks had persisted in their errors, even though the papacy attempted to bring them back to the truth through Franciscan and Dominican envoys (a reference to the mission to Nicaea in 1234), he decided to make use of his power ‘to root up and to plant’ and called for a crusade against Vatatzes.81 Not unlike heretics elsewhere in Europe, then, the Greeks’ schism and, consequently, heresy constituted an adequate reason for crusading force to be used against them. Gregory was not drawing firm distinctions between schismatics and heretics, at least not in the way in which they were to be treated, and the two categories were mentioned alongside each other in his instructions dispatched to the East. For example, in a letter of April 1238, Gregory gave instructions to Franciscans travelling ‘in the lands of Muslims and pagans’ to baptise any converts but also to absolve and allow back into unity ‘those who had withdrawn from the name of the Christian confession through apostasy or schism or heresy’, as long as they were ready to obey the Roman Church.82 When unrepentant, such heretics and schismatics could also be lumped together with, and compared to, other enemies of Christendom. Gregory made this argument most explicitly when he urged the Hungarian king to undertake a crusade against the schismatic Asen who had allowed 81 Tăutu, no. 236. Cf. the earlier letter to Frederick (12 March 1238), where Gregory stated that the Greek Church had degenerated from schism into heresy and referred to those who took the Cross ‘against the aforementioned schismatics and heretics’: Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, ed. Huillard-Bréholles, v/i, 180–81. 82 Tăutu, no. 237.

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heresy to thrive in his lands. ‘Heretics and schismatics’, the pope asserted, ‘are more treacherous than the Jews and crueller than the pagans [i.e. Saracens in this context]. For while the Jews affixed the Lord to the yoke of the cross one time, heretics crucify him over and over again, wounding him with their sin […] pagans punished and injured the bodies of Christians. [The heretics] steal the souls of faithful Christians away from Christ […] schismatics, furthermore, try to tear asunder the seamless tunic of Jesus Christ […], namely the Church’.83 Rebecca Rist has argued that on this occasion Gregory was trying to draw a distinction between heretics and schismatics.84 However, it appears that the distinction is mostly for the purposes of rhetorical variation. While the pope acknowledged that the two technically differed from each other, the emphasis was on their intimate connection and their similarities: firstly, the common threat they posed to the peace and wellbeing of Christendom; secondly, their disobedience to the Roman Church (‘For of such a kind are heretics and schismatics, who refuse to be nourished by such a shepherd [Christ] and do not pay attention to his vicar’);85 and ultimately – which was Gregory’s main point for this communication – the common way to deal with them, namely to use force against them for Christendom’s protection. In Gregory’s eyes, especially in the later years of his pontificate, schismatics and heretics were among the various enemies that beset the Church on all sides. In 1240, writing to the Georgian queen, Gregory explained that he could not send any help to the Georgians against the Mongols, although he sympathised with their plight: [A]t present we suffer many persecutions from enemies of the faith, for except the Saracens, who assail the Catholic faith in the lands of Spain and Syria, several others, who have apostatised from the faith of Christ and who attack the Church of God with all the forces they can, strive to introduce a new sect of perdition and to exterminate the faith of salvation and of human redemption from the face of the earth.86

This was not a view limited to Gregory or his pontificate. The perception of ‘Christendom under siege’, waging war on many fronts and against manifold 83 Tăutu, no. 229 (27 January 1238); translation in Lower, Barons’ Crusade, 85–6, and Rist, Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 143–4. 84 Rist, Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 144. 85 Tăutu, 309 no. 229; translation in Rist, Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 143. 86 Tăutu, no. 261.

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(but comparable) enemies, was something that Jacques de Vitry had also expressed in the introduction of his Historia Occidentalis, where he stated that the Lord of Vengeance punished the (Latin) Christians for their sins by unleashing various enemies upon the faithful: Moors in Spain, heretics in Provence and Lombardy, schismatics in Greece, and generally ‘false brothers’ against the faithful.87 A similar view, although more triumphalist in tone, had already been expressed by Arnald Amaury, abbot of Cîteaux, who saw the great victory against the Moors at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) as part of a three-pronged crusade against three types of enemies: ‘schismatics from the east, heretics from the west and Saracens from the south’, all three groups described as ‘enemies of Christ’s holy Church’.88 So, why did the issue of heresy loom large in Gregory’s relations with the Greeks, in contrast to both Innocent III and Honorius III, who had consistently only referred to ‘schismatics’ and ‘schism’? This can be explained on two levels: firstly, Gregory and his entourage were influenced by their background, training and experiences in the West; those, in turn, were connected to some wider trends that peaked at that same time. Gregory had been actively involved in the fight against heresy throughout Europe both before and during his pontificate;89 this included legatine missions in northern Italy, as well as cooperation with Frederick II, particularly in issuing anti-heretical legislation.90 In the affair of the Albigensian heretics, Gregory is usually credited with launching a centrally-controlled inquisition.91 Although the inquisition quickly superseded the crusade in Languedoc, Gregory also made extensive use of the latter. He proclaimed 87 Jacques de Vitry, Historia Occidentalis, ed. J.F. Hinnebusch (Fribourg, 1972), 73–4, par. 1. Cf. his similar comment, in his sermon no. 37 of the Sermones vulgares, that the mission of the military orders was to defend the Church against the Saracens in Syria, the Moors in Spain, the pagans in the Baltic and also against the schismatics in Greece and the heretics wherever they might be: Analecta novissima: Spicilegii Solesmensis altera continuatio, ed. J.-B. Pitra, 2 vols (Paris, 1885–88), ii, 405. 88 RHF, xix, 250–54, at 253. 89 See in general the chapter by Andrea Sommerlechner in this volume. 90 Auvray, nos 535, 539–41; C. T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1994), 167–8; Abulaf ia, Frederick II, 155, 211–3, 292–3; B. Weiler, ‘Gregory IX, Frederick II, and the Liberation of the Holy Land, 1230–1239’, in The Holy Land, Holy Lands and Christian History, ed. R.N. Swanson, Studies in Church History, 36 (Woodbridge, 2000), 192–206, at 195–6, 203; W. Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III (Vienna, 1984), 128–31. 91 C. Morris, The Papal Monarchy: the Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1991), 472–4; Peters, Inquisition, 40–74; B. Hamilton, The Medieval Inquisition (London, 1981), esp. 31–9; S. Sibilia, Gregorio IX, 1227–1241 (Milan, 1961), 337–43; J. A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, 1969), 92–3.

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a series of crusades against heretics, not only in southern France but also on numerous new fronts throughout Europe in the late 1220s and early 1230s.92 Gregory was also closely involved in the rise of the mendicant orders to prominence: he was a supporter and the first Cardinal-Protector of the Franciscans, while he also sponsored the Dominicans.93 Both orders became a central part of the Roman Church’s fight against heresy, as their organization and obedience to the Apostolic See made them ideal for this task.94 The prominent role of the mendicant orders in fighting heresy should be kept in mind, particularly because the relations with the Greeks in this period were handled to a large extent by them: the Dominican Andrew who was responsible for the inquisition against the monks of Kantara was apparently a Master of Theology who joined the Dominican Order,95 while the delegation to Nicaea consisted exclusively of mendicants. The importance of the issue of heresy was also obvious in Gregory’s environment. A number of Gregory’s agents carried their experience in fighting heresy from one front to another. For example, the Dominican John of Wildeshausen (future Master General of the order) was employed by Gregory as an envoy to Béla and Asen and was thus involved in the crusade efforts for the Latin Empire. But before that, he had been engaged in the early stages of the Stendiger crusade, and then he had been appointed bishop of Bosnia where his main brief was to counter the local heretics.96 The College of Cardinals also included several figures associated with anti-heretical activity. Three of the participants in the conclave that elected Gregory had served as legates to the Albigensian crusade in the 1220s: Guala Bicchieri, Conrad of Urach (the former head of the Cistercians), and the jurist Romano Bonaventura, the latter playing a particularly crucial role in it.97 92 There were campaigns against the Drenther in Frisia, against the Stedinger in Bremen, against ‘devil-worshipers’ throughout Germany, against Italian heretics (including Ezzelino da Romano), and also against Bosnian heretics. See: Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 52–9, 167–9; Rist, Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 125–36; J.V.A. Fine, The Bosnian Church: a new interpretation (Boulder, 1975), 137–45. 93 Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg, 132–3; Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 20–31; J. Felten, Papst Gregor IX (Freiburg, 1886), 41–50. 94 See e.g., Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 53–9, 76–7; Hamilton, The Medieval Inquisition, 36–9; Peters, Inquisition, 54–5. 95 Schabel, ‘Martyrs and Heretics’, 7–8. 96 Tăutu, no. 207; Theiner, Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam, i, 155–6 no. 277; Maier, Preaching the Crusades, 33; A. Rother, ‘Johannes Teutonicus (von Wildeshausen): Vierter General des Dominikanerordens’, Römische Quartalschrift für Christliche Altertumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte, 9 (1895), 139–70, esp. 152–4. 97 For the College of Cardinals in this period, see: A. Paravicini Bagliani, Cardinali di curia e ‘familiae’ cardinalizie: dal 1227 al 1254, 2 vols (Padua, 1972). For the role of Cardinal Romano

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But the most important f igure in the Curia in that connection was probably Jacques de Vitry. Having been educated at the University of Paris, Jacques preached the Albigensian Crusade under Innocent III, in 1211–1213, while the following year he was elected bishop of Acre, an appointment which occasioned his famous historical works, the Historia Orientalis and the Historia Occidentalis. The combination of his experience with heresy in the West and his acquaintance with Eastern Christians is of particular importance for our examination. Jacques played an important role under Gregory IX; he was created cardinal in 1229 and his presence in Gregory’s Curia spanned practically the entire pontificate, as he died in 1240.98 While in the East, Jacques seems to have been inclined to view (or at least to describe) the Eastern-rite Christians as heretics, probably influenced by his theological training in Paris.99 Among his other complaints against the Greeks, in particular, Jacques accused the latter of not respecting the sacraments of the Latins, an accusation repeated by the prior of the Dominicans in the Holy Land, Philip, in his letter to Gregory IX in 1237.100 It should be stressed, however, that Jacques took pains to familiarize himself with the doctrine and rites of Eastern Christians and he was not quick to condemn their deviations in faith and practice. His characterization of Eastern Christians as heretics notwithstanding, Jacques could have a nuanced view of the Christians of other rites. He might well have shared the viewpoint of the later thirteenth-century Dominican Burchard of Mount Sion, who had a wide knowledge of the East and who distinguished between the Eastern ‘heresies’, which were mostly the result of ignorance, and the Western ones, which were explicitly and purposefully opposed to the Roman Church.101 It is questionable whether Gregory could make Bonaventura (1216–1243) see also Rist, Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 92–3, 109, 125: Romano called the Council of Bourges (1225) which resulted in the condemnation of Raymond VII of Toulouse; a few years later Gregory authorised him to arrange the treaty of Paris (1229), which officially brought the Albigensian Crusade to a close. 98 P. Funk, Jakob von Vitry: Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1909); I. Schöndorfer, Orient und Okzident nach dem Hauptwerken des Jakob von Vitry (Frankfurt, 1997); Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis, ed. and trans. Jean Donnadieu (Turnhout, 2008); Jacques de Vitry, Historia Occidentalis, ed. Hinnebusch. 99 For example, he wrote in one of his letters about Eastern Christians: ‘I believe that many of the heretics dwelling in the East, and many of the Saracens as well, might easily be converted to the Lord if they hear sound doctrine preached’: Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Leiden, 1960), 96–7 no. 2; Hamilton, Latin Church, 332. 100 Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis, ed. Donnadieu, 298–9, 302–3; Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, iii, 398; S. Neocleous, Heretics, Schismatics, or Catholics? Latin attitudes to the Greeks in the long twelfth century (Toronto, 2019), 228; see also note 51 above. 101 Hamilton, Latin Church, 316, 333, 339, 348–9, 355, 358–9.

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the same distinction. His lack of first-hand knowledge of the East and his canonistic background made him more likely to focus on the disobedience of the Greeks and their ‘obstinacy’ towards the Roman Church. What remained important was the link that could be drawn between East and West: materials found in Jacques de Vitry’s work about Christological or Eucharistic ‘errors’ of the Eastern Christians could also be useful in discussing, understanding and combating Western heresies. 102 After all, Jacques shared Gregory’s view that the schismatics were among the enemies attacking Latin Christendom from all sides, and had himself penned a f iery and violent denunciation of heresy while in Gregory’s Curia.103 Of course, not everything was down to the predilections and preoccupations of the pope and his environment. Some wider developments need to be taken into consideration. The late twelfth and early thirteenth century had witnessed a stricter approach towards the identification of heresy as a peril to social stability and to the salvation of souls, followed by more determined efforts to suppress it on the part of both secular and ecclesiastical authorities.104 As Brenda Bolton has noted, ‘the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 represented a watershed in the official attitude towards heresy. It marked the end of a period of considerable flexibility and real experiment in dealing with dissident movements.’105 In a parallel development that was important for papal relations with the Greeks, there was a growing tendency among Latin churchmen to expect greater conformity to Roman standards from the Eastern Churches, as a result of the growth of the Holy 102 Cf. J.L. Bird, ‘The Historia Orientalis of Jacques de Vitry: visual and written commentaries as evidence of a text’s audience, reception, and utilization’, Essays in Medieval Studies, 20 (2003), 56–74, at 62. 103 See above at note 87; Jacques’ sermon attacking the heretics is discussed below. 104 Particularly important in this process were the anti-heretical provisions of the Third Lateran Council (1179), Lucius III’s bull Ad abolendam (1184), Innocent III’s decretal Vergentis in senium (1199) and, of course, the 3rd canon of the Fourth Lateran Council. See in general: M. Lambert, Medieval Heresy: popular movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 3 rd edn (Oxford, 2002), esp. 74–7, 99–114; I. S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: continuity and change (Cambridge, 1990), 317–21; Morris, Papal Monarchy, 348–50, 443–50, 470–77; Peters, Inquisition, 44–52; W. Ullmann, ‘The Signif icance of Innocent III’s Decretal “Vergentis”’, in Études d’histoire du droit canonique dédiées à Gabriel Le Bras (Paris, 1965), 729–41 [= W. Ullmann, The Papacy and Political Ideas in the Middle Ages (London, 1976), study no. 5]; P. D. Diehl, ‘Overcoming Reluctance to Prosecute Heresy in Thirteenth-Century Italy’, in Christendom and its Discontents: exclusion, persecution and rebellion, 1000–1500, ed. S.L. Waugh and P.D. Diehl (Cambridge, 1996), 47-66. 105 B. Bolton, ‘Tradition and Temerity: papal attitudes to deviants, 1159–1216’ in Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, ed. D. Baker, Studies in Church History, 9 (Cambridge, 1972), 79–91, at 79.

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See’s near-monarchical power within the Latin Church which reached new heights under Innocent III.106 These general trends were augmented at the time of Gregory IX, under the normalising influence of canon law and the diffusion of collections of decretals. With regard to canon law, Gregory’s pontificate represented a turning point. In 1230, Gregory commissioned the hugely influential collection of decretals by Raymond of Peñafort, known as the Liber extra decretalium, which the pope officially recommended to the masters and students of Bologna, in 1234, where it became the basis of legal teaching and commentaries. The Liber built on and superseded the five collections of late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century papal decretals (known collectively as the Quinque compilationes antiquae) and supplemented Gratian’s Decretum, by far the most important canon law collection of the Middle Ages. All these collections, and particularly the Liber, included materials that were pertinent to dealing with heresy and heretics. What was particularly important with Raymond of Peñafort’s collection was its dissemination and influence on the exposition of law in the thirteenth century. Among the various thirteenth-century commentaries on the Liber were the important works of Bernard of Parma (Glossa ordinaria) and of Geoffrey of Trani (Summa in titulis decretalium), both of which attempted to give a definition of who was a heretic. Bernard’s list enumerated seven meanings of the term: a) those who pervert the sacraments of the Church (as do Simoniacs); b) those who separate themselves from the unity of the Church; c) every excommunicated person; d) those who err in the exposition of Sacred Scripture; e) those who invent or follow a new sect; f) those who understand the articles of faith differently from the Roman Church; and g) those who think ill of the sacraments of the Church.107 It is obvious that the definition of heresy was becoming particularly broad and inclusive. Such definitions could equally explain the actions taken against the Cypriot monks or the friars’ dismissal of the Greeks as heretics at the ill-tempered negotiations at Nicaea: even if the monks could not be considered as perverting the sacraments of the Church (the Latin Church for the most part accepted the use of leavened bread as valid, although 106 Hamilton, Latin Church, 315, passim. 107 See: Rist, Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 121–5; Peters, Inquisition, 62–3; Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 54–8; O. Hageneder, ‘Der Häresiebegriff bei den Juristen des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts’, in The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th–13th c.): proceedings of the international conference, Louvain, May 13–16, 1973, ed. W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (Louvain, 1976), 42–103, esp. 45–7 and 53–6. For the importance of Gregory’s pontificate for canon law and his authorisation of the Liber extra, see also: Felten, Papst Gregor IX, 199–205; Sibilia, Gregorio IX, 358–66.

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unleavened was considered a superior practice)108 they could certainly be perceived as heretics under the seventh definition of a heretic as ‘one who thinks ill of the sacraments of the Church’. Meanwhile, Bernard’s second definition effectively equated schism with heresy, and laid the way open for the Greek Church to be considered as heretical solely on the basis of its separation from, and perceived ‘insubordination’ to, the Roman Church.109 Of course the Liber and the Glossa postdate the affairs in Cyprus and Nicaea, so they did not directly influence them, but these works are still indicative of the mental climate and direction of canon law at the time of Gregory’s pontificate.110 Indeed, in Gregory IX’s time, the Greek condemnation of the Latin azymes as heretical was deemed a heresy in itself, as was evident by the pope’s aforementioned instructions to the Orthodox clergy of Outremer in 1238, and by his envoys’ reactions at Nymphaion in 1234. Guerric of Saint-Quentin, who taught at Paris during this period, summarizes it best: ‘the Greeks are not to be condemned because they prepare [the Eucharist] with leavened bread, but because they exclude the possibility that it can be prepared with unleavened bread. For that is the heresy: to say that what is allowed is not allowed.’111 The papacy’s growing desire for uniformity and for seeking out and eradicating any ‘deviance’ or challenge to its authority and teaching, therefore, affected relations with the Orthodox Church as well. There was a certain inclination on the part of the Roman Church to deploy the accusation of heresy in dealings with the latter. It has been rightly argued that on the issue of the Eucharist, the actions taken against the Cypriot monks, as well as the relevant orders dispatched to Antioch, were not against the Greek practice itself but rather against the Greeks’ rejection of the Latin practice.112 Following this interpretation further, the monks of Kantara rather 108 C. Schabel, ‘The Quarrel over Unleavened Bread in Western Theology, 1234–1439’, in Hinterberger and Schabel (eds), Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History (see note 72), 85–127. 109 Cf. Geoffrey of Trani’s sixth definition of a heretic, in his Summa, as one who refuses the Roman Church’s primacy among the Churches: see Hageneder, ‘Der Häresiebegriff’, 47, 65–71, 52–6. 110 The Glossa ordinaria was completed as early as 1241, but Bernard kept revising it until his death in 1266; his work shows the immediate impact of Gregory’s Liber extra: Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 57. 111 See Schabel, ‘The Quarrel over Unleavened Bread’, esp. 102–105; cf. note 57 above for Gregory’s instructions in 1238, and section IIa for the friars at Nymphaion. 112 See Schabel, ‘The Quarrel over Unleavened Bread’; Schabel, ‘Martyrs and Heretics’. Cf. the statement of Guerric of Saint-Quentin above. It should be noted, however, that not everyone on the Latin side maintained such fine distinctions: Rigord of Saint-Denis (d. c.1209) referred to the Byzantines as ‘heretics who use fermented bread and rebaptise our small children’ (see

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went asking for their execution, so to say, by attacking the Roman beliefs. Although there is merit to this argument (the Greek archbishop of Cyprus himself, in his letter to Vatatzes, commented negatively on the provocative stance of the monks),113 it rather misses an important point. Those who challenged Roman authority and practice were actively sought out. Both the Greek ecclesiastics at Nicaea and the monks on Cyprus were unwilling to discuss the matter of the azymes and only stated their views after their Latin collocutors insisted on it.114 After the Greeks expressed their opinion on the matter, by denouncing Roman practice as invalid and pernicious, the Latins lost no time in laying a ‘formal’ charge of heresy against them; the friars at Nicaea even requested a written statement of Greek beliefs on the matter. The charge of heresy was a clear indication that this was a serious matter that the Roman Church was not willing to overlook, and one which brought with it the most serious penalties. These penalties were, of course, unenforceable in Nicaea, but were fully imposed on Latin-held Cyprus. This should be appreciated in the context of Gregory’s pontificate when force was repeatedly employed against heretics, in the shape of a series of crusades, the inquisition, and the intervention of secular authorities in the West, with results such as the mass burning of heretics at Mont-Aimé by Thibaut of Champagne.115 It is hardly a coincidence that in 1231, the same year that the Cypriot monks were executed, Gregory had confirmed in his bull Excommunicamus, issued in the context of the Albigensian Crusade, that the punishment for unrepentant heretics was death.116 Characteristic of the climate at the Curia in the 1230s is an anti-Cathar sermon by Jacques de Vitry advocating a violent repression of heresy since persuasion seemed to have failed. This text drew from his experiences as a preacher in the early stages of the Neocleous, Heretics, Schismatics, or Catholics?, 217), evidently garbling both the content of the controversy over the Eucharist and the issue of rebaptism, which, when it happened, applied only to converts. Such a statement hints at how the fine-tuned positions of theologians on the differences and disputes with the Greeks could be perceived by a wider ‘non-specialist’ audience. 113 Chatzipsaltis, ‘Σχέσεις’, 76, 81–2. 114 When questioned for the fourth (and final) time in prison, the Cypriot monks stated: ‘we did not come to you to talk about the azymes, but we were only concerned with the salvation of our souls; but since you violently force us to speak, we will speak truly, saying that nowhere in the scriptures it is said that Christ or the Apostles talked about azymes’: Papadopoullos, ‘Μαρτύριον Κυπρίων’, 334. For the repeated calls of the Latin delegation at Nicaea to discuss the Eucharist, see Golubovich, ‘Disputatio latinorum et graecorum’, 430, 444, 448–51, 453–4, 458–9. 115 M. Lower, ‘The Burning at Mont-Aimé: Thibaut of Champagne’s preparations for the Barons’ Crusade of 1239’, Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), 95–108. 116 Auvray, no. 539.

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Albigensian Crusade, over twenty years earlier, but according to Carolyn Muessig, who has examined this work, the sermon is ‘indicative of the sentiments of the pope in the early period of the Inquisition’.117 It is not without significance that Jacques makes a particular target of his violent attack the rejection of the sacraments of the Catholic Church; this rejection is seen as an act of aggression on the part of the Cathars.118 In fact, Jacques and other Paris theologians took particular pains to counter heretical attacks on the Eucharist.119 It only required a small leap to make a connection between these heretics and the Orthodox who rejected the Latin Eucharist. The sensitivity – one could say overreaction – of the Latin clergy to accusations against Latin practice in the case of the Cypriot monks can be compared to the experience of the Albigensian affair and the Cathars’ accusations that the Roman Church was corrupt and an instrument of perdition. In the eyes of Latin clergymen such attacks sounded not all that different, and they were all the more prepared to see any challenge to the rectitude of Roman faith as a statement of heresy – and, importantly, to deal with it in a similar way. The role of the Dominicans, an order heavily involved in the fight against heresy, seems to have been crucial in that connection. It might be said that the Dominicans were predisposed to locate heresy and could be rather too eager to identify it; this seems to have coloured their involvement in the Greek East in this period. It has been noted that the Dominican were much stricter towards the Greeks and the Greek Church’s beliefs and practices than their Franciscan counterparts.120 In a series of polemical texts from the mid-thirteenth to the fifteenth century, Dominicans authors repeatedly brandished the accusation of past and present heresy against the Greek Church.121 117 C. Muessig, ‘Les sermons de Jacques de Vitry sur les cathares’, in La prédication en Pays d’Oc (XIIe-début XVe siècle), Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 32 (Toulouse, 1997), 69–83, at 79. 118 Muessig, ‘Les sermons de Jacques de Vitry’, 76–8. 119 J. L. Bird, ‘The Construction of Orthodoxy and the (De)construction of Heretical Attacks on the Eucharist in Pastoralia from Peter the Chanter’s Circle in Paris’, in Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy, ed. C. Bruschi and P. Biller (Woodbridge, 2003), 45–61. 120 See e.g., C. Schabel, ‘Attitudes Towards the Greeks and the History of the Filioque Dispute in Early Fourteenth-Century Oxford’, in The Fourth Crusade Revisited, ed. P. Piatti (Vatican, 2008), 320–35, esp. 329–35; also, Schabel, ‘The Quarrel over Unleavened Bread’, 90, 104–9, 124–5. Cf. also Angold, ‘Greeks and Latins after 1204’, 70, 76–80, for the importance of the friars as a new element in Greco-Latin relations; and more widely for the following period: C. Delacroix-Besnier, Les Dominicains et la chrétienté grecque aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Rome, 1997), esp. 35–60, 143–179, who nevertheless notes that the Dominicans hardly ever took up their inquisitorial functions against the Greeks, at least prior to the Union of Florence in 1439. 121 Delacroix-Besnier, Les Dominicains et la chrétienté grecque, 201–71, passim.

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Conclusions In his policies towards the Greek East, Gregory stressed the continuity with his predecessors, as popes were wont to do. The Apostolic See’s div­ ine mission, after all, was supposed to be impervious to the vagaries and personal predilections of the incumbents. Yet, Gregory took important steps which clearly differentiated his approach. Crusading for the defence of the Latin states in Byzantine lands had been initiated in 1205 and was maintained by most thirteenth-century popes.122 However, it was under Gregory, in the 1230s, that such activity reached its climax. He proved the most ardent champion of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. With regard to ecclesiastical relations with the Greek Church, Gregory saw past the fiction which had prevailed after 1204, that the conquest had resolved the schism. Though he was assertive of the prerogatives of the Roman Church and uncompromising on the issue of papal primacy, he did explore all possible avenues for pursuing the Apostolic See’s objectives in the East. The important, if unsuccessful, unionist negotiations with Nicaea in 1232–1234 constituted, at the same time, an implicit recognition of the government and hierarchy established there as continuators of Byzantium. Finally, Gregory was alone among thirteenth-century popes to broach the issue of heresy with reference to the Greek East, at least with such intensity. In this he was influenced by his own experiences with heresy in the West, as well as by the parallel growth of the mendicant orders and of the codification of canon law, both conducive to a more rigid perception of orthodoxy and an active drive for conformity with the Roman Church’s standards. Under Gregory, the Roman Church came perilously close to identifying the Orthodox as heretics. There were many parallels in the actions of Pope Gregory and his agents in the Greek East with the measures against heretics in the West: the inquisition was used in Cyprus; the crusade was deployed against the ‘enemies of God and Church’ who attacked the Latin Empire; and John Asen was proclaimed divested of his title and lands as a patron of heretics, similarly to Raymond VI of Toulouse in the course of the Albigensian Crusade.123 Alongside the trends in the West which encouraged the suppression of divergence and favoured religious uniformity, the identification of the Byzantines as ‘enemies of the faith’ had already been facilitated by the 122 See Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece, xxvii–xxviii, 252–6, 262–3, passim. 123 This was an implementation of the 3rd canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, which decreed that a sovereign who fostered or tolerated heretics in his lands could be deposed and replaced by a more suitable Christian ruler: Ecumenical Councils, i, 233–5.

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use of Holy War against them since the early thirteenth century. So, Gregory did not bring about a change of attitudes single-handedly. However, he went further than his predecessors had or, more importantly, than his successors were ready to go. Although other popes, such as Innocent IV and Urban IV, also proclaimed crusades against the Byzantines, none of them invoked heresy as a justification.124 The explanation should probably be sought in the fact that the struggle against heresy, growing in intensity for several decades, reached its peak during the pontificate of Gregory IX: repressive measures and anti-heretical legislation were implemented with greater consistency and determination throughout Europe. It was not the end for heretical movements, but it was a tipping point, and the issue of heresy was in the forefront of papal concerns as it was at few other times. However, in the years after Gregory’s death the papal-imperial struggle overshadowed all other preoccupations for the papacy, and by the time this struggle was eventually over, the threat of heresy appeared to have been curbed, at least in its most pressing and obvious dimensions; by the late thirteenth century, the most ‘dangerous’ heretical groups, the Cathars and the Waldensians, seemed to be on the retreat and on the road to extinction.125 In this context, it is easier to understand why Gregory’s pontificate represented the climax of anti-heretical actions and rhetoric transplanted from the West to the East by the Roman Church.

About the Author Nikolaos G. Chrissis is Assistant Professor of Medieval European History at the Democritus University of Thrace (Greece) and Associate Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University. His research interests and publications revolve around the crusades, Latin presence in Greek lands, ByzantineWestern relations, papal policy in the Levant, and generally intercultural contacts in the medieval Mediterranean. He is the author of Crusading 124 Pope Martin IV did state, in the excommunication of Michael Palaiologos in 1282, that he was a ‘patron of the Greeks who are inveterate schismatics and fixed in their ancient schism, and therefore also heretics’: Acta Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI (1276–1304), ed. F.M. Delorme and A.L. Tăutu (Vatican, 1954), no. 53. However, Martin did not make much more of this statement and, although he supported Charles of Anjou’s plans against Byzantium, he did not give Charles’ campaign the status of a crusade (let alone one against heresy). 125 See e.g., Diehl, ‘Overcoming Reluctance to Prosecute Heresy’, 61–2; J. B. Russell, Dissent and Order in the Middle Ages: the search for legitimate authority (New York, 1992), 56–79.

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in Frankish Greece: a study of Byzantine-Western relations and attitudes, 1204–1282 (Brepols, 2012), and co-editor of Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453 (Ashgate, 2014), and Byzantium and the West: perception and reality, 11th–15th c. (Routledge, 2019).

6. Gregory IX and Denmark Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen Abstract Although the Danish king, Valdemar II, suffered a major defeat at the battle of Bornhöved in 1227, which weakened his authority and the economic well-being of the local church, the traditional good relations between the papacy and Denmark were generally maintained throughout Gregory’s pontif icate because of the pope’s desire to establish control over the Baltic crusade and the need for northern support in his struggle with Frederick II. The traditional problems of the Danish Church regarding clerical incontinence and violence against clerics still posed problems for the papacy, alongside more unusual questions concerning liturgical practice and cheating on exams. Keywords: Denmark, Baltic Crusades, Frederick II, Teutonic Knights, Lateran IV

On 22 July 1227, approximately four months after Hugo dei Conti’s elevation to the papacy as Gregory IX, the Danish king Valdemar II (c.1170–1241; r. 1202–1241) lost the battle of Bornhöved to a conglomerate army of north German petty princes.1 The defeat at Bornhöved severely diminished Danish dominance, which had been established from c.1201, over a number of North German duchies and counties, the princes of which would now renounce their vassal status to the Danish king.2 1 Fifteen kilometres east of Neumünster in Holstein in what is today northern Germany. The army was headed by Duke Albrecht I of Saxony-Lauenburg (1212–1260), Counts Henry of Schwerin (c.1155–1228) and Adolf IV of Holstein (c.1205–1261), the Prince-Abp of Bremen, Gerhard II zur Lippe (c.1190–1258), and military contingents from the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg. 2 For the long-term consequences of the battle, see E. Hoffmann, ‘Die Bedeutung der Schlacht von Bornhöved für die deutsche und dänische Geschichte’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 57 (1977), 9–37.

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch06

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The defeat at Bornhöved posed both strategic and practical difficulties for the papacy in its relationship with its northernmost ally. Since the establishment of the Danish archiepiscopal See in Lund in 1103, and the carving out of the Nordic church province from the province of Hamburg-Bremen, the Danish Church and king had more or less acted as loyal allies to the papacy,3 often playing a significant role in papal politics, because of the important geo-political position of the Danish realm immediately to the north of the mighty German Empire. 4 Historians have almost unanimously argued that, following the defeat at Bornhöved, King Valdemar radically changed his political focus. In fact, in Danish historiography, the battle, lost to German adversaries in the German-Danish borderland, has been interpreted as the beginning of the end of the Danish rule over the Baltic Sea.5 Following his defeat, Valdemar II would shy away from his hitherto expansionist foreign policy. The Danish king would turn his focus and his efforts inwards with the aim of securing control over the remains of his realm, while striving to reconcile himself with his German adversaries. The instalment of the law book of Jylland in March 1241 came to be interpreted as a prominent sign of exactly this inward-turning royal policy as did the making of Valdemar II’s cadastral lists from 1231.6 3 The only serious exception to this rule was the exile of the Danish Archbishop Eskil during the papal schism between Alexander III (1159–1181) and Victor IV (1159–1164). 4 For discussions of the relationship between the papacy and Denmark before the pontificate of Gregory IX see T.K. Nielsen, ‘Struggling for Ecclesiastical Independence in the North’, in Pope Innocent II (1130–43): the world vs the city, ed. J. Doran and D.J. Smith (London, 2016), 205–25; idem, ‘Celestine III and Denmark’, in Celestine III: diplomat and pastor (1191–1198), ed. J. Doran & D.J. Smith (Aldershot, 2008), 159–78; T.K. Nielsen & K.V. Jensen, ‘Pope Innocent III and Denmark’, in Innocenzo III. Urbs et Orbis. Atti del Congresso Internazionale (Roma, 9–15 settembre 1998), ed. A. Sommerlechner, 2 vols (Rome, 2003), ii, 1133–68. 5 O. Fenger, ’Kirker rejses alle vegne’ 1050–1250, Gyldendals og Politikens Danmarkshistorie, ed. O. Olsen, 10 vols (Copenhagen, 1989), iv, 323; I. Skovgaard-Petersen: ‘The Danish Kingdom: consolidation and disintegration’, in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume I: prehistory to 1520, ed. K. Helle (Cambridge, 2003), i, 353–68 states that the imprisonment of the Danish king and his son in 1223 was ‘a crushing blow to the Danish expansionist policy which finally ended when Valdemar lost the battle at Bornhøved in Holstein against a north German coalition in 1227’. And she adds: ‘The rest of his reign he spent consolidating his kingdom’ (i, 353). 6 For discussions of the Lawbook of Jylland, see P. Andersen, Rex imperator in regno suo. Dansk kongemagt og rigslovgivning i 1200–tallets Europa (Odense, 2005). Parts of the law code from 1241 were replaced by royal decrees only from 1643 onwards, with the remaining elements to be supplanted by Christian V’s Danske Lov (The Danish Law) in 1683. The cadastral work is in Kong Valdemars Jordebog, ed. S. Aakjær, 3 vols (Copenhagen, 1926–1945). Note also the contributions in Broderliste, Broderskab, Korstog. Bidrag til opklaringen af en gåde fra dansk højmiddelalder, ed. J.M. Jensen (Odense, 2006).

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All accounts of Danish medieval history emphasize not only 1227 but also 1241. Some consider the death of Valdemar II in late March 1241 the end of an era. In the ominous, yet almost poetic words of the otherwise rather dull and repetitive Ryd annals: ‘With his death the crown truly fell from the head of the Danes.’7 Not only was Valdemar’s death the end to a relatively peaceful period of cooperation between regnum and sacerdotium in Denmark but it also meant an end to the internal peace which had prospered since the close of the civil wars in 1157. After Valdemar’s death, bitter feuds between kings and archbishops and dynastic struggles in the royal family would threaten to dissolve the kingdom.8 The period from 1332 to 1341 where there was no king ruling Denmark is often seen as the culmination of a slide which had already begun in 1227/1241.9 7 On 30 March and 22 August respectively. The Annales Ryenses laments the death of Valdemar II: ‘In cuius morte uere cecidit corona capitis Danorum, nam ab illo [die] bellis intestinis et destructioni mutue uacantes omnibus in circuitu nationibus facti sunt in derisum, sed et terre, quas patres eorum gladio suo gloriose acquisierant, non solum ab eorum dominio recesserunt, uerum et plagas maximas regno intulerunt et illud miserabiliter confuderunt principibus regni resistentibus, se[t]/ […] /se inuicem lacerantibus et uastantibus’ (Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, ed. E. Kromann (Copenhagen, 1980), 173). The Ryd annals are found in a fourteenth century manuscript kept in the Hamburg Stadtbibliothek (98 b in scrinio, 40 f. 15 r.). The text shows a deep knowledge of the situation in the border region between Germany and Denmark. The annals probably stem from the Cistercian monastery of Ryd (in Schleswig) around 1288 and they are heavily dependent on earlier annals: around 1174, before shipping an annalistic manuscript off to the Cistercian monastery of Colbaz in Pomerania, the scribes to the archiepiscopal cathedral of Lund made a copy. This early copy came to be known as the Colbaz-annals and is the source for all subsequent Danish annals, including the Ryd annals. However, from 1241 onwards, the Ryd annals display a more independent chronicle-like style while maintaining a marked anti-German stance. See the editor’s remarks in Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, 149. 8 A largely harmonious relationship between regnum and sacerdotium during the reign of Valdemar II was replaced by a number of controversies: from the sudden exile of Bp Niels Stigsen of Roskilde (1224–1249) in 1245, over the prolonged legal struggles of abps of Lund, Jakob Erlandsen (1254–1274) and Jens Grand (1289–1302), against what were perceived to be royal encroachments on ecclesiastical properties and jurisdictions, to the struggle about dominion over the island of Bornholm between Abp Esger Juul (1310–1327) and Kings Erik Menved (c.1274–1319, r. 1286–1319) and Christoffer II (1276–1332, r. 1319–1326/29–1332). 9 Shortly after Valdemar II’s death, his three sons would struggle fiercely for power. The crown passed to Erik IV Ploughpenny (c.1216–1250), Valdemar II’s oldest son with his second wife, Berengaria (d. 1221, daughter of Sancho I of Portugal, 1154–1211). Erik had been crowned co-regent in 1232 after the death of his older half-brother, Valdemar the Young (c.1209–1231). Valdemar the Young, the only child of Valdemar II’s first wife Dagmar (c.1186–1213, daughter of the Přmeslyd Ottokar I of Bohemia, 1155–1230), married Eleanor (c.1211–1231, daughter of Afonso II of Portugal, 1185–1223) in 1229, but their short marriage did not produce an heir. The other remaining sons of Valdemar II by Berengaria, Abel (1218–1252, r. 1250–1252) and Christoffer (1219–1259, r. 1252–1259) gained fiefs from the hands of their older brother. When King Erik was murdered in 1250, probably

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While the landmark status of the dates of 1227 and 1241 remain unchallenged as markers of decline and future chaos, what actually happened between 1227 and 1241 is often largely ignored, leaving in fact the entire period of Gregory’s pontificate neglected in Danish medieval history. In this article, I wish to look closer into the relationship between the papacy and Denmark during the regency of Valdemar II and the pontificate of Gregory IX.

The fall of the Danish empire, c.1223–7 Due to the efforts of his father, King Valdemar I ‘the Great’ (r. 1157–1182) and older brother, King Knud VI (r. 1182–1202), by the beginning of the thirteenth century Valdemar II was in effect in charge of a young but still expanding ‘Danish empire’. In the early years of his reign Valdemar would continue his father’s and brother’s crusading endeavours, in the process earning himself the grandiose epithet ‘the Victorious’. Valdemar conquered pagan Estonia in 1219, establishing a strong Danish presence in Tallinn. Only a few years before, Valdemar – in his then capacity as Duke of Schleswig – took the important city of Lübeck in 1201. In 1203 the county of Holstein was finally added to the Danish realm. With his Golden Bull of 1214, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II (1194–1250) ceded all of the lands north of the River Elbe to Valdemar II.10 From here on, Valdemar II would use the formal title of Danorum Sclauorumque rex, dux Jucie, dominus Nordalbingie. Two decades into Valdemar’s reign, this was about to change radically. In May 1223, while hunting on the small island of Lyø, the Danish king and his son, Valdemar the Young, were captured by one of the king’s vassals, Count Henry of Schwerin (c.1155–1228).11 The wounded royal captives were hastily at the instigation of his brother Abel, he died childless. Abel took power but fell in 1252 during a campaign. Christoffer I then took the crown, neglecting the principle of primogeniture, which had been established during the reign of Valdemar I. With Christoffer’s death by poison in 1259 power went to his widow, Margrethe Sambiria (d. 1282), who acted as regent during the infancy of Christoffer I’s eldest son, Erik V Klipping (1249–1286, r. 1259–1286), who was murdered by a rebellious party in November 1286. The root cause of the many muddled royal conflicts lay in the troublesome dynastic situation following Valdemar’s death. This presented ample opportunities for groups of nobles in Denmark and Germany to offer their support to the highest bidder amongst the differing contenders. During the regency of Erik Menved this resulted in massive pawning of the royal domain, fiefs and castles without improving the royal finances. 10 Diplomatarium Danicum (hereafter: DD), ed. A.E. Christensen et al. (Copenhagen 1958–), 1/v no. 48, from late 1214. 11 Count Henry shared the county of Schwerin with his brother, Gunzelin II (c.1170–1221). The reason for Henry’s treason is traditionally said to have been a grievance over the dowry

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brought to a castle south of the Elbe – in German territory – from where Count Henry would negotiate the handing over of his valuable prisoners to Frederick II.12 The deal struck with the emperor’s representatives in September 1223 shows clearly that the German emperor had an obvious interest in taking over the Danish prisoners, since the German emperor could thereby reclaim the north German lands for himself by annulling the Golden Bull of 1214 on the grounds that Valdemar II had violated the agreement.13 In October and November 1223, Pope Honorius III unequivocally intervened on the Danish side by ordering Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne to excommunicate the count and his supporters, if Henry did not release the Danish kings within a month.14 Honorius stated that Henry of Schwerin had broken the bonds of fidelity not only to his king and lord but also to God and His Church. Further, as Honorius disclosed here, Valdemar II had secretly vowed to take the Cross for the recovery of the Holy Land, an act of loyalty that placed the Danish king under special papal protection. Should Valdemar himself be prevented from fulfilling his crusade vow, he would send his son in his stead.15 Honorius’s intervention did not help, however. The Danish kings remained in prison and the nobility of Denmark was apparently struck by indecision of Ida (c.1195–1218), the daughter of Count Gunzelin I of Schwerin-Hagen (1170–1221) and thus a niece to Count Henry of Schwerin. Ida married Niels of Halland (d. 1218), an illegitimate son of Valdemar II, in 1217. See DD 1/v no. 193. K. Hundahl, ‘The Capture of Valdemar II in 1223 by Henry of Schwerin in the Light of an Entry in the Dunstable Annals’, in Det våras för medeltiden. Vänbok till Thomas Lindkvist, ed. A. Magnúsdóttir, H. Bagerius and L. Hermanson (Gothenburg, 2014), 209–28 argues that King Valdemar brought this upon himself when he – following the deaths of Ida and Niels – encroached upon the domain of Count Henry, while Henry was away on the Fifth Crusade in 1221, from where nobody expected him to return. When in fact Henry did return, he found half his lands taken from him and the castle of Schwerin under the control of Albrecht II of Orlamünde (1182–1245), the nephew and closest ally of Valdemar II. See also See H.-O. Gaethke, ‘Knud VI. und Waldemar II. von Dänemark und Nordalbingien 1182–1227’ (parts i–iii), Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte, 119 (1994), 120 (1995) & 121 (1996), here part i, 7–8. 12 Frederick II acted through his Gubernator, Abp Engelbert of Cologne (c.1185–1225), who negotiated with the counts of Schwerin for the extradition of the two Danish kings. Chronica Regia Coloniensis (Annales Colonienses maximi), ed. G. Waitz (Hanover, 1880) (MGH SRG 18), 253. 13 DD, 1/v no. 217 from 24 September. See Gaethke, ‘Knud VI und Waldemar’ (part 3), 10–12. 14 DD, 1/v nos 221–2 to Count Henry and Abp Engelbert respectively. Honorius wrote directly to the emperor (DD, 1/v no. 228 on 2 November), to the burghers and the bp of Lübeck (DD, 1/v nos. 224–5 on 2 November) and to the bp of Verden (DD, 1/v no. 226 from 4 November). 15 DD, 1/v no. 222. This alleged crusading vow from Valdemar II seems a bit vague. Honorius states that if neither the king himself nor his son would be able to participate, the Danish king should offer the assistance of 100 or at least 50 knights.

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and bewilderment.16 A first agreement for the release of the Danish kings was reached in July 1224 between Albrecht II of Orlamünde and the Schwerin counts. This agreement stipulated among other things that Count Henry of Schwerin was to regain his lands and Valdemar II was to do homage to Fredrick II and receive his realm as an imperial fief before taking off on crusade in a coordinated effort with the emperor.17 The Danish nobility – principes Daniae – soon presented a counter proposal the elements of which reveal their evaluation of the situation on the ground. By insisting on negotiating on the bank of the river Elbe, the Danish nobles signalled that they still considered this river the southern border of Denmark, as it had been since 1214. Apparently, they considered that Danish overlordship in the contested regions could still be secured militarily.18 Negotiations failed and ensuing military attempts for the release of the kings misfired gravely, when in the battle of Möln in January 1225, Valdemar II’s nephew and closest ally, Count Albrecht II of Orlamünde, newly selected ‘protector of the realm’, was taken prisoner.19 Count Albrecht’s defeat was a game-changer: it spurred further defections, when the city of Lübeck swore allegiance to the emperor in 1226; it allowed Count Henry to repossess his county; and it forced the Danish nobles to re-evaluate their military strength.20 Renewed negotiations between the Danish nobles and Count Henry finally resulted in a new agreement, which saw the release of Valdemar II on 25 December 1225 under very harsh terms.21 With his son, 16 An anonymous poem, ‘Planctus de captivitate Waldemari II et Waldemari III regum Daniae’, laments the capture and blames the Danish nobility for their passivity against Count Henry, who is denounced as ‘a pseudo-count’. See Scriptores Minores, ed. M. Cl. Gertz, 2 vols (Copenhagen, 1917–1918), i, 476–79. 17 Herman von Salza (1162–1239), the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, was the main negotiator on the German side and he must have been in direct contact with the kings. The deal was to have effect only if ratified by Frederick II and his principes imperii. DD, 1/vi no. 16. 18 Accordingly, they offered a higher ransom in money, while excluding Valdemar II from doing homage to the emperor. See DD, 1/vi no. 17 from July–September 1224. For a presentation of the different proposals and a summary of the military activities in the region during these intense months, see Gaethke, ‘Knud VI. und Valdemar II’ (part 3), 7–23. 19 Following his loss at the battle of Mölln south of the Elbe. For his title as ‘tutela regni’ see DD, 1/vi no. 23 from 31 July 1224. Albrecht II of Orlamünde was the result of the marriage between Valdemar II’s sister Sofia (1159–1208) and Count Siegfried of Orlamünde (1155–1206). 20 Sächsische Weltchronik, ed. L. Weiland (Hanover, 1877), c. 367, 245. (MGH Deutsche. Chroniken, 2) 21 The count was to receive 45.000 marks of silver and release the king by New Year. The agreement further stipulated that the lands of Nordalbingia south of the river Eider would go back to the empire, Count Adolf IV would be secured a free and unrestrained usage of Holstein, and the city of Lübeck would enjoy freedom of trade in all of Denmark. Hostages were to be held

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Valdemar the Young, safe out of prison in 19 April 1226, Valdemar II had no intention of keeping promises he felt were extorted from him, and in the summer of 1226, Honorius III freed the king from his oaths.22 Thus, in the autumn of 1226 the Danish king crossed the river Eider to regain his lost territory, entering Holstein and capturing Ditmarschen in 1227.23 However, fortunes of war drastically changed. On 22 July 1227, the royal Danish army, aided by forces from another of the king’s nephews, Otto (of Lüneburg) (1204–1252), was pitilessly defeated by a coalition of German forces in the battle at Bornhöved. The king escaped, while Otto was taken prisoner.24 Thousands of corpses covering the battleground marked the end of the Danish ‘empire’.25

Pope and king after Bornhöved It is quite difficult to establish Gregory’s reactions to this drastic reduction of the Danish king’s control over northern Germany in that only one of some 60 letters involving Denmark and the Curia relate directly to this affair, while two further papal letters only rather indirectly relate to Valdemar II’s reconciliation policy after Bornhöved. Obviously, the pope would have concentrated more on the manoeuvres of Frederick II, whom he excommunicated in September 1227 because of Frederick’s postponement of his crusading vow,26 than with what might have looked like nitty-gritty details and petty feuding in a far northern corner of Christendom. On the other hand, the quarrels with the emperor may have sharpened Gregory IX’s attentiveness to the challenges faced by the papacy’s traditional ally in the north. for a period of 10 years; among these were the king’s sons Erik, Abel and Christopher. Valdemar the Young, imprisoned with his father, was only released around Easter 1226. A more curious element in the treaty, perhaps, involved the ransom of ‘all the gold of the Queen’s dresses’ and clothing for 100 knights. See DD, 1/vi no. 42. 22 DD, 1/v no. 59 from June 26. On 9 June Honorius III sent letters to Frederick II and Count Henry. Frederick was to force Count Henry to give back the Danish hostages and the ransom money. By his actions, Count Henry had severely damaged the recovery of the Holy Land. See DD, 1/vi nos. 55–6. 23 ‘Annales Ryenses’, in Annales Danici, 107; Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, 170. 24 Otto was the son of Duke William of Lüneburg (1184–1213), himself the youngest son of the powerful Duke Henry the Lion (1129/31–1195), and Valdemar II’s sister Helena (d. 1233). Otto was released in 1229 and 1235 (re-)installed as duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. More on Otto below. 25 As Niels Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde og Slave. Danmarkshistorie uden retouche (Copenhagen, 1971), 291 relates this. 26 Gregory excommunicated Frederick II on 29 September 1227. The emperor remained sine gratia until the treaty of San Germano in August 1230.

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In a letter from 3 December 1228, Gregory commanded that Valdemar II’s three sons still held in captivity be released together with Otto I of Lüneburg. The letter, addressed to Audacia (c.1227–1287), the widow of the recently deceased Count Henry of Schwerin, urges her to consider carefully her conscience and release the prisoners – or face repercussions. Gregory’s chancery constructed an arenga that at the same time offered a comment on Audacia’s sex and gave open support to the claims of the Danish king: ‘Since women are equipped by nature, or, rather, by a gift from God, with an urge for mercy and an aspiration for piety, a woman shows herself as a horrible monster when she forgets these things, takes delight in the opposite and notably resists God’s and nature’s law.’27 After the death of Count Henry in 1228, Audacia ruled the county of Schwerin during the infancy of Gunzelin III (d. c.1274). Duke Otto received his freedom in early 1229, and it is difficult to say if the papal mandate was decisive in bringing this about. It may have been of greater importance that Otto’s mother, Helena (c.1174–1233), a sister of Valdemar II, in May 1228 stepped in to relieve Otto of indemnities owed to Bishop Iso of Verden.28 Otto’s own promise to Gunzelin III that he would not offer any sort of assistance to the Danish king also surely helped in bringing about his release.29 A treaty from midsummer 1229 between Valdemar II and one of his former chief opponents, one of the military victors from Mölln and Bornhöved, Count Adolf IV of Holstein,30 probably put further pressure on Gunzelin III, who finally struck a deal with Valdemar II in April 1230 for the release of the remaining royal hostages.31 The later marriage of Mechtilde (1225–1288), the twelve year old daughter of Adolf IV, to Valdemar’s son Abel (1218–1252) in 1237 obviously worked to strengthen this recently forged alliance.32 27 DD, 1/vi no. 85: ‘Cum sit mulieribus inditum a natura, uel potius munere diuino donatum sectari misericordiam, et diligere pietatem; quasi monstrum monstratur horribile cum mulier illarum oblita contrariis delectatur, diuine ac naturali legi notabiliter reluctando.’ 28 DD, 1/vi no. 78 (10 May 1228). 29 DD, 1/vi no. 88 from January/February 1229. 30 DD, 1/vi no. 97. With this agreement Valdemar II recognized Count Adolf IV’s possessions in Holstein and Stormarn and the two formed an alliance: whenever necessary king and count would assist the other with 300 and 200 horses respectively. 31 DD, 1/vi no. 109. This involved the final payment of 7.000 marks silver for the release of the royal sons and the other hostages. Chief negotiator for the Danish side would have been Count Herman of Orlamünde (1184–1247), the younger brother of Albrecht II, who by this time was stripped of most of his power: he had bought himself out of prison by paying the ransom and renouncing his dukedom of Lauenburg, settling only for the lordship of the small Danish island of Als. Duke Albrecht of Saxony led the negotiations for the German side. 32 Annales Danici, 109; Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, 171.

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This royal policy of reconciliation and recovery through new alliances also included some other fairly high-profile marriages. In 1236, Valdemar II had his daughter Sofia (1217–1247) marry Margrave Johan of Brandenburg (1213–1266).33 The Ascanian house in Brandenburg was already connected to the Valdemarian line through the marriage in 1228 of Valdemar II’s nephew, Duke Otto of Lüneburg (still in prison at the time) to another Mechtilde (Matilda) (1210–1261), a daughter of Margrave Albrecht II of Brandenburg (c.1177–1220). Such marriage strategies were the products of careful consideration. Thus, when Valdemar II in 1238 asked Gregory IX for a dispensation from the prohibited incest degrees so that his relative Marianne (d. 1252) could marry Duke Barnim of Pomerania (c.1210–1278, r. from 1226), he argued that the marriage was intended to ‘bring beneficial concordance’ between the Danish kings and the Slavs by settling the ‘grave discords’, both old and new, that endangered the bodies and souls of many.34 Gregory responded by ordering the archbishop of Lund, Uffe Thrugotsen (r. 1228–1252) and the bishop of Roskilde and royal chancellor, Niels Stigsen (r. 1226–1249) to investigate the problematic genealogies of Marianne and Barnim before he granted his dispensation.35 Gregory followed Valdemar’s arguments and granted the dispensation in order to bring an end to the ‘mortal enmity between Danes and Slavs’ and re-install an ‘alliance of peace’ between them. Thus, the papal dispensation was offered for ‘urgent necessity and evident utility’, in the oft-used legal phrase.36 It is an open question whether this was in fact ‘necessary’ and ‘useful’. Duke Barnim’s Pomerania was part of the lands ceded to Valdemar II by Frederick II’s Golden Bull in 1214. Valdemar II had enfeoffed the lands to Barnim’s father, Bugislav II (c.1177–1220). After Bornhöved however, Pomerania returned to the Empire, which meant that Barnim had to fight for his lands against claims from the Margraves Johan and Otto of Brandenburg.37 Thus, while the marriage between Marianne and Barnim may have 33 N. Skyum-Nielsen, Kvinde og Slave, 314 (note 15). 34 ‘[Q]uod cum inter clare memorie reges Danorum ex parte una et Sclauos ex altera grauis discordia sit et fuerit ab antiquo; ex qua multa corporum et animarum pericula acciderunt de consilio peritorum habuit quod pro reformanda inter ipsos et Sclauos eosdem concordia salutari’ (DD, 1/vii no. 3 from 29 January). Marianne was the daughter of Albrecht II of Orlamünde, see above. Allegedly the couple were related within the fourth degree. 35 DD, 1/vii nos. 3 (29 January 1238) and 12 (4 September 1238). 36 ‘[A]d sedandas inimicitias capitales inter Danos et Zlauos […] et reformanda inter eos pacis federa operetur […] Attendentes igitur quod urgens necessitas et euidens utilitas dispensationem exposcit’ (DD, 1/vii no. 12). 37 The margraves of Brandenburg, Johan and his brother Otto III (1215–1267) succeeded in winning a part of Barnim’s territory (Uckermark) in 1230.

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worked to settle grievances between the Pomeranian dukes and Denmark, the marriage would hardly have been viewed as necessary and useful by the Brandenburg margraves. With the marriages of Sofia and Marianne, Valdemar II may have sought to serve both sides in the somewhat unruly Pomeranian duchy, while at the same time trying to remain in control of at least parts of the northern German principalities. Most likely Gregory IX, when considering whether or not to give the marriage dispensation, would have had an eye to strategic considerations. We do not know, of course, if Gregory IX possessed the necessary intimate knowledge of very specific liege relationships in this corner of Christendom to seriously question the tactics of the Danish king. The year after, in 1239, Gregory issued another papal dispensation. This one was slightly more straightforward in that it concerned Valdemar’s oldest son, Erik, who was to marry Jutta (1223–1266), a daughter of Duke Albrecht I of Saxony, another of Valdemar’s opponents from Bornhöved.38 The Danish king had again put forward a request for dispensation on account of the relationship within the prohibited marital degrees. His argument ran along the same lines as that of the year before: grave discord between him and the duke had caused a great slaughter of men, much desolation of property and grave danger to souls.39 Such dangers could only be avoided by the proposed marriage. Gregory once again obliged the Danish king, whom Gregory ‘embraced with a special prerogative of love over the other princes of this world.’40 Even though it is probably coincidence, it is still noticeable that Gregory’s favourable disposition towards Valdemar II came about at a time when Frederick II found himself once again under papal anathema. 41 The disaster of Bornhöved prompted other correspondence. In a letter to Gregory IX from 1231, the Danish archbishop Uffe alludes directly to the royal hostage affair in his explanation as to why money for the papacy offered from Denmark amounted to so little: because of the ransom offered for both the king and three bishops, imprisoned in the same incident, the Church was very, very poor. 42 To raise the sum of 1000 marks silver to pay 38 DD, 1/vii no. 31 from 31 August 1239. When King Erik Ploughpenny was murdered in 1250, Jutta married Otto I of Brandenburg, the first wife of whom, Sofia, had died in 1247. 39 ‘[Q]uod cum inter ipsum et nobilem uirum ducem Saxonie grauis fuisset exorta discordia et ex ea multe strages hominum multarum terrrarum desolatio et grauia pericula emergerent animarum’ (DD, 1/vii no. 31). 40 ‘Ipsius igitur regis quem inter ceteros orbis principes specialis prerogatiua dilectionis amplectimur precibus inclinati’ (DD, 1/vii no. 31). 41 Gregory IX excommunicated Frederick II for the second time on 20 March 1239. 42 DD, 1/vi no. 122 from 9 August 1231.

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the reduced Peter’s Pence and a reduced ‘Staufen-tithe’, 43 the archbishop in fact had been required to contribute considerably himself, more than he otherwise should – and would – have. The letter relates that the archbishop had gone to some lengths in trying to meet the financial demands from Rome: he had even smelted out copper coins to extract what was only a small amount of silver, ‘since the enemies are holding all of the silver and gold available’.44 Surely neither the cattle that died from a contagious disease the year before, nor the widespread famine of 1231, nor the ‘unsteady nature of the weather’ worked to alleviate this situation. 45

Gregory IX, Valdemar II and the Baltic Crusade Valdemar II’s policy of reconciliation and recovery following Bornhöved soon turned on new alliances. In early 1234, Valdemar II followed up on the treaty from 1229 and teamed up with former opponent Count Adolf IV of Holstein in an attack on the city of Lübeck. The attack involved the Danish king blocking the city’s harbour at Travemünde by sinking ships, thereby rendering the seaward approach to the city impossible. 46 In a letter from late August 1234 to three local clerics of Halberstadt, Gregory IX commanded the recipients to approach Valdemar II – ‘our very dear son in Christ’ – and diligently advise him to lift his blockade. 47 The papal threat, should the king not comply, involved an interdict on the king’s court and the excommunication of the king’s followers. Interestingly, the censures were not directed at the king himself. Earlier letters from Gregory testify to the fact that the pope was informed of the Danish king’s intentions towards Lübeck even before they were carried out. In a letter from c.1233–1234, Gregory had urged pilgrims heading for 43 Gregory had sent his ‘scriptor’, Master Simon, to Denmark with this purpose (DD, 1/vi no. 89 from 12 January 1229. 44 ’Nam cum argentum quam aurum nostrum hostes nostri possideant in detrimentum animarum suarum’ (DD, 1/vi no. 122). 45 ‘[T]um etiam quia pestilantiali morbo regni nostri pecoribus proximo anno preter[it]o interemptis; in instanti anno plaga grauior nos afflixit, fames siquidem ualida que maximam populi multitudinem uita priuauit, preter eos quos temporis inequalis dispositio interfecit’ (DD, 1/vi no. 122). See also DD, 1/vi no. 126 from 21 December 1231. The Ryd Annals mention a solar eclipse and a ‘pestilentia’ among men and work animals in 1230. See Annales Danici, 109; Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, 171. 46 DD, 1/vi no. 183 from 30 August 1234. 47 DD. 1/vi no. 183: ‘carissimus in Christo filius noster’. The clerics should ‘monere diligenter ac efficaciter inducere procuretis’.

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Livonia (in order to join the perpetual crusade against the pagans there) to take the overland route because of the uncertainty of the sea route, according to reports known to the pope.48 In February 1234, Gregory offered his protection to the city of Lübeck and the crusaders embarking from there, and he ordered Bishop Gottschalck of Ratzeburg (r. 1229–1235) to go against those who wished to destroy the harbour at Travemünde with ecclesiastical censures. 49 Both these letters share the same arenga, and are almost identical. In his letters, Gregory remarked that ‘some are plotting to entirely destroy the harbour of Lübeck in order to hinder the travel of those pilgrims travelling to Livonia’. The crusader pilgrims, we learn, have no other harbour so well suited for this endeavour. The strategic idea behind the destruction of the harbour, Gregory claimed, was that these same persons wished to place Livonia under their dominion.50 Considering the papal acknowledgement of the importance of the Baltic Crusade and mission,51 and bearing in mind Gregory’s vociferous accusations against Frederick II for damaging the crusader cause in 1229, Gregory’s criticism in August 1234 of the Danish king for blocking the harbour of Lübeck in an action that surely must also have been regarded as doing harm to the crusade, seem light by comparison.52 When Valdemar II in late 1234 or early 1235 actually lifted his blockade, Gregory IX shortly thereafter, in March 1235, ordered Archbishop Gerhard 48 DD, 1/vi no. 170 from c.1233–1234. 49 DD, 1/vi nos. 173–4 from 15 February 1234. 50 ‘Cum itaque sicut fuit propositum coram nobis, peregrini euntes in Liuoniam sicut Lubicensem portum nullum habeant adeo sibi aptum quidam qui ad terram ipsam aspirant ut eam sue facilius subiciant ditioni et peregrinos eosdem liberius impedire ualeant transeuntes portum ipsum omnino destruere moliuntur’ (DD, 1/vi no. 173). 51 See I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007), 187–225. In September 1230, Gregory IX issued two almost identical letters (both entitled Cum misericors). The first letter exhorted all the faithful to support the Teutonic Order in its Prussian Crusade. The second comprised the first letter and told the Dominicans to preach the crusades. During the 1230s, clusters of papal letters were issued on this issue, especially in October 1233 and in August–September 1234. The Cum misericors letters gave a full indulgence to crusaders serving in Prussia for a year; a further letter, the Cum lux illa from 18 July 1231 authorizing the Dominicans to preach the crusade in Pomerania and in Gotland, also offered a plenary indulgence, which would have brought the Baltic Crusades on a par with crusades to the Holy Land. See Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 192–4. 52 DD, 1/vi no. 183: ‘Quod sit rex parendum non duxerit nec a cordis sui duritia recedendum curiam eius totiam et omnem locum ad quem ipse peruenerit subicientes ecclesiastico interdicto consiliarios ipsius excommunicationis sententia feriatis neutram relaxaturi sententiam donec super excessu memorato rex ita se corrigat quod preterite uel occasionem uel causam iniurie non relinquat.’

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II of Bremen (r. 1219–1252) immediately to halt any legal action being taken against the Danish king.53 In these matters Gregory seems to have been quite well – and quickly – informed on the political manoeuvres of the different parties in the north. From Gregory’s letter to Archbishop Gerhard, it is obvious that Valdemar II must have presented the papacy with his side of the story following the papal order to Bishop Gottschalck of Ratzeburg in February 1234 to start legal procedures against those who strove to destroy the harbour in Travemünde. And it is equally obvious that Gregory had now by and large accepted the Danish king’s claims that this decision from February 1234 was used to ‘disquiet’ the king in an ‘unsuitable manner’.54 The reasoning behind the pope’s relatively lenient attitude towards the Danish king must have something to do with political circumstances, as they had developed in Riga. Following a short-lived pagan rebellion in 1223 and partially as a result of Valdemar’s capture and the ensuing power vacuum that same year, Danish dominions in the northern provinces of Estonia had fallen to the competing Christian powers in the region, the Brothers of the Sword and the bishop of Riga, Albert of Buxhövden. In 1224 a papal legate, Bishop William of Modena (1184–1251), was sent to Livonia where he arrived in 1225.55 In what appears a slightly desperate move facing the tricky and fiercely competitive political landscape in Livonia at the time, William forced Danes and Germans to surrender their lands into his hands. Some of these lands were later returned to the Danes, but upon his return to Rome, William completely disregarded Danish interests and gave the remaining Estonian regions to the Sword Brothers, the city of Riga and the bishops of Riga and Leal (Est. Lihula).56 The death of Bishop Albert of Riga in 1229 presented new challenges for Gregory IX. A dispute over the election of a successor to Albert caused the opposing parties to appeal to the curia.57 The dispute was in reality a continuation of a regional power struggle involving the Sword Brothers and the Rigan Church, as well as the Danish royal servants, now 53 DD, 1/vi no. 207. Gerhard II zur Lippe was one of Valdemar’s former opponents at the battle of Bornhöved in 1227. 54 ‘[P]er quas eum inquietare indebite moliuntur’ (DD, 1/vi no. 207). 55 Pope Innocent IV made William Cardinal of Santa Sabina in 1244. For his legation to the Baltic in the 1220s, see Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 170–6. See also G. Donner, Kardinal Wilhelm von Sabina. Bischof von Modena 1222–1254. Päpstlicher Legat in den Nordischen Ländern (t. 1251) (Helsinki, 1929). 56 Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 135. 57 The chapter of Riga chose Nicholas, a Premonstratensian from Magdeburg, while Abp Gerhard II of Bremen named one of his chapter deacons, Albert Suerbeer (d. c.1272) bp-elect of Riga. See F. Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder. Fratres milicie Christi de Livonia (Cologne, 1965), 269. Also, Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 187.

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struggling to regain influence following Valdemar’s release. Sometime in 1229 Gregory must have commissioned his legate in Germany, Cardinal Otto of San Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, to settle the conflict.58 Perhaps because Otto’s main assignment was imperial affairs in Germany, in April 1230 the cardinal chose to dispatch one of his assistants, Baldwin of Alna (d. 1243), to the Baltic region.59 Baldwin seems to have quickly alienated himself from the other Christian powers in the region. Apparently siding with the chapter of Riga, Baldwin settled for Nicholas as the new bishop of Riga but ended up claiming the contested lands for himself.60 By February 1234, Gregory revoked the papal decisions obtained from him by Baldwin of Alna and replaced Baldwin with William of Modena, who would then embark on his second legation to the region.61 On 20 November 1234, Gregory summoned the Sword Brothers, the bishop and the citizens of Riga to answer a number of serious complaints which Baldwin had raised. Amongst other felonies, the Sword Brothers were held accountable for the murder of more than 100 vassals at the hands of the pagans.62 Baldwin’s complaints seem to have been largely dismissed by the papal court at a conference in Viterbo in the spring of 1236. Here it was decided, among other things, that the northern Estonian provinces, held by the Danish king in the 1220s and now in the hands of the Sword Brothers, should be transferred to the papal legate, while the Danish king should receive back his castle in Reval.63 At the same time, Gregory commanded his legate, William of Modena, to preach a new crusade to the Baltic targeting exactly the lands under discussion.64 58 The itinerary of Otto is hard to establish. Between early June and late July 1230, Otto must have been in Denmark. According to a note in the annalistic compilation known as ‘Collectanea ad historicam Danicam pertinentia’ by the Franciscan Petrus Olau (c.1490–1570), Cardinal Otto held a provincial synod in Schleswig. See Annales Danici, p. 206 and the notes in DD, 1/vi no. 110. See also Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder, 270. 59 Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 187, note 1. 60 For the details see Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder, 272–77 and R. Spence, ‘Pope Gregory IX and the Crusade in the Baltic’, The Catholic Historical Review, 69 (1983), 1–19. 61 DD, 1/vi no. 172 from 9 February 1234. 62 DD, 1/vi nos. 199–200 from 20 November 1234. ‘Item quod centum uel eo amplius Uironie uassallos ad ecclesiam Romanam pertinentes per neophitos ut terram Uironie possiderent occidi fecerunt’ (DD, 1/vi no. 199). The papal letter, Citamus personaliter Nicholaum, lists forty-three complaints. See Spence, ‘Gregory IX and the Crusade’, 12–4, for a detailed exposition of the content of this letter. 63 DD, 1/vi nos. 215 from 23 February 1236 and 217 from 10 April 1236. For the conference in Viterbo, see Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder, 321–7. 64 DD, 1/vi no. 214 from 15 February 1236. The crusade was to be directed against the regions of Livonia, Semgallia, Kurland and Estonia. Prussia is excluded from this list, since crusades to

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William of Modena in June 1238 reluctantly completed a treaty in Stensby in Denmark, which was favourable to Danish interests.65 Decisive for the papal support of the Danish king would have been that nearly all of the Brothers of the Sword had been almost obliterated by a Lithuanian army in the battle of Saule on 23 September 1236. The few remaining Sword Brothers were absorbed into the Teutonic Order and came to form its Livonian branch.66 With his decisions for the Treaty of Stensby, Gregory IX seems to have wanted to take a firm hold over developments in the Baltic. For Gregory this meant reinstating Valdemar II to his former position and establishing a working relationship between the Danish king and the Teutonic Order. Consequently, the Teutonic Order and Danish forces participated jointly in a campaign targeting the Russian city of Pskov in 1240. Gregory IX, however, did not live to see the fatal end of this east-bound endeavour. Seven months after Gregory’s death, on 5 April 1242, the Latin Christian crusaders were thoroughly defeated in the so-called ‘Battle on the Ice’ (of Lake Peipus), immortalized in the 1938 film Alexander Nevski by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein.67

A papal agent’s plan: a Danish king on the German throne? Gregory IX’s letter of 18 July 1229 recounting Frederick II’s infamous treaty with the Egyptian sultan al-Kamil for a ten-year-truce and the return of Jerusalem to the Christians also reached Denmark and Valdemar II.68 this area were already under way, organized by the Teutonic Order. For the Prussian Crusades during Gregory IX’s pontificate, see Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 192–206. 65 DD, 1/vii no. 9. William was reluctant because the treaty favoured Danish interests over his own and those of the Teutonic Order. See DD, 1/vii no. 5 from 13 March 1238, in which Gregory blames William for his protraction of the decision from 1236 regarding the Danish castle in Reval. The Stensby treaty transferred the territories of Harria, Reval and Vironia to the Danes. On that same day Valdemar earned a papal privilege to use force against those of his subjects, ‘who, under the pretext of having taken the sign of the cross, remove their services to you and scorn your rights’ (DD, 1/vii no. 6). See however Gregory’s letter to William of Modena from 13 May 1237, in which the pope seems to acknowledge the Teutonic Order’s possession of the castle in Reval (DD, 1/vi no. 238). 66 On the battle of Saule see Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder, 327–47. 67 The Novgorod Chronicle 1016–1471 (sub anno 1240), ed./trsl. R. Michell & N. Forbes (London, 1914), p. 85; Livländische Rheimchronik, ed. L. Meyer (Paderborn, 1876), 48–9. 68 DD, 1/vii no. 99. The Danish king is listed alongside recipients such as the kings of Portugal, León, Castile, Navarre, France, England, Scotland and Hungary. See Regesta Vaticana, 14 no. 38, f. 131v.

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Obviously, this specific letter points to Gregory IX’s immediate faith that the Danish king (with the rest of the letter’s noble recipients) would offer the pope support against Frederick II. As it turned out, the prolonged struggle between papacy and empire in the 1230s came to include a somewhat peculiar Danish element. Because of massive unrest in Rome and Gregory’s need for security in the papal city, as well as Henry VII’s (1211–1242) Lombard backed rebellion in 1234–1235 against his father, pope and emperor were momentarily forced to work together.69 During their short-lived co-operation, Gregory IX had Henry both excommunicated and re-admitted to the Church. Concerning this, Gregory wrote to the imperial chancellor, Bishop Siegfried of Regensburg (r. 1227–1246,), on 1 August 1235. Gregory’s letter stated that Henry would be released from excommunication on the condition that he offered appropriate satisfaction to those Danish knights, whom Henry had robbed on their way back from ‘doing service to the Roman Church’.70 We know neither the names nor the nature of these knights’ services to the papal court, but the content of the letter may hint at a close (and covert?) cooperation between the papacy and the Danish kingdom in the 1230s. Following the second excommunication of Frederick II on 20 March 1239 and the outbreak of the ‘pamphlet wars’ between emperor and pope,71 the future Archdeacon Albert Behaim of Passau (c.1190–1260) seems to have enjoyed a quasi-legatine authority from the pope as papal agent in Bavaria working to win over the Bavarian princes for the papal cause.72 Albert apparently kept a running account of his diplomatic endeavours, of which only excerpts in a manuscript by Bavarian historian Johannes Aventinus 69 Henry was the only son from Frederick II’s marriage to Constance of Aragon (1179–1222). Born 1211, Henry was crowned king of Sicily in 1212, duke of Swabia in 1216 and king of Germany in 1222. In 1225, Henry married Margaret (d. 1266), a daughter of Leopold VI of Austria (1176–1230). 70 ‘[Q]uatenus eidem cum sit ad ipsius imperatoris gratiam iam reuersus iuxta formam ecclesie beneficium absolutionis impendas sufficienti ab eo prius cautione recepta quod militibus Danis ab obsequio Romane ecclesie redeuntibus necnon clericis accedentibus ad illam et redeuntibus ab eadem quos fecit bonis suis non absque diuina et apostolice sedis iniuria spoliari satisfaciat competenter’ (DD, 1/vi no. 209). 71 See C. Morris, The Papal Monarchy: the Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1989), 564–6. 72 Albert of Behaim is well known in German history as a staunch supporter of the papal cause in the struggle against the emperor. Most of his activity occurred during the pontificate of Innocent IV (1143–1154) and not much is known of his early actions. See Albertus Bohemus, http://www.geschichtsquellen.de/repPers_118647601.html for a short vita and a repertory of his works. See also Das Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. T. Frenz and P. Herde (München, 2000 – MGH Briefe des späteren Mittelalters 1) and especially the introduction by Frenz, ‘Albert Behaim – Leben und Werke’ (1–31).

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(1477–1534) are still extant.73 If we are to trust these excerpts, then Albert Behaim, towards the end of June 1239, wrote a letter to Gregory IX in which he reported political news from the Bavarian region – and expressed his hope that the ‘young Danish king’ would be elected ‘king of the Romans’ on the feast of St Peter (29 June).74 This is obviously an intriguing note, but what are we to make of it? On 1 June 1239, Frederick II dispatched his son Conrad IV (r. 1237–1254) and Archbishop Siegfried III of Mainz (1194–1249)75 to the Imperial diet (Reichstag) in Eger, while he himself fought the Lombard cities. According to Albert Behaim’s notes, the Bohemian king, Wenceslaus I (r. 1230–1253) in a newly formed alliance with Duke Frederick II of Austria (r. 1230–1246) and Duke Otto III of Bavaria (r. 1231–1259) showed up at the diet in Eger with 4000 men. When Conrad IV apparently succeeded in arranging for the margraves of Brandenburg, Johan I and Otto III (see above), the margrave of Meissen, Henry III (d. 1288) and the landgrave of Thuringia, Heinrich Raspe (d. 1247), to support the imperial cause, the Bohemian king and the Bavarian duke angrily left the meeting, probably intent on choosing another German king as was stipulated in Gregory’s ban on Frederick II. Apparently, these parties had already agreed on proposing the ‘regem Dacie iuniorem’ for the German throne.76 Who even was this young Danish king? If we are confident that Albert Behaim used the title ‘king’ correctly, and if Aventinus’s excerpt of Behaim’s note is correct, then the only king in question would be Erik IV Ploughpenny, since he was the only one of the king’s remaining three sons who bore the title (since his crowning as co-regent in May 1232).77 Some German sources, however, claim otherwise. The near contemporary Cistercian chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (d. c.1252) relates that it was Valdemar II’s other 73 Aventinus excerpted Albert Behaim’s notes on his political activities. Aventinus’ manuscript is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich: Clm 1204. 74 ‘Sperat in festo beati Petri eligi circa Poloniam in loco Lubus in regem Romanorum regem Daciae iuniorem’ (DD, 1/vii no. 25). 75 Conrad IV was the only surviving son of Frederick and Yolande of Brienne (d. 1228), the queen regnant of Jerusalem. He was duke of Swabia 1235–1246, king of Jerusalem 1228–1254 and king of Germany 1237–1254. Abp Siegfried was also imperial head chancellor, imperial gubernator and guardian of the young king Conrad. Gregory IX excommunicated Siegfried on 26 April 1240. Siegfried III later appeared as papal legate during the pontificate of Innocent IV. 76 According to Albert Behaim, Otto III of Bavaria promised to aid Duke Frederick II of Austria with 4000 men to recapture Vienna from the emperor (completed around December 1239) while King Wenceslaus should hurry to the meeting in Lubus (Pol. Lubusz) carrying an official authorization from Duke Otto III to proceed with the election of a new king (DD, 1/vii no. 25). 77 See the editor’s comments for the dating of DD, 1/vi no. 137.

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son, Abel, who was offered the lofty – and dangerous – position as German king in opposition to the emperor and Conrad IV.78 This is also, but probably independently from Alberic’s chronicle, claimed in a vita of Abbot Ethelger, produced in his Premonstratensian monastery of Mariengaard in Friesland. Here we read that Gregory IX sent one William, a former abbot of Prémontré, to Denmark. On his way back he stayed in Mariengaard where he disclosed that the reason for his travel as a papal legate had been to offer the position as German king to ‘filio Waldemari regis’.79 Whichever of Valdemar’s sons was asked to fulfil this task, none of them actually did. Nothing came of Albert Behaim’s plan. Had either Erik IV or his brother Abel accepted the proposal, this would surely have required Valdemar II’s acceptance. The refusal to accept was very likely their father’s decision as well. With the defeat at Bornhöved still very much alive in the king’s memory, Valdemar II surely did not want to risk a breakdown in his politics of reconciliation and thereby spur renewed hostilities against his realm, should he back Albert Behaim’s foolhardy plan. And noting that the margraves of Brandenburg – one of whom, Johan I, was Valdemar’s son-in-law – were among the imperial backers, Valdemar II must surely have restrained himself and turned down the offer.

Internal affairs: scrupulous clergy – and how to clear debts Heated issues of high politics regarding the Empire or relating to the Baltic Crusades did not make more ordinary ‘internal affairs’ go away. In fact, the bulk of Gregorian letters to Denmark deal with either age-old ecclesiastical matters or secular matters involving strange and abhorrent customs. The issue of clerical incontinence still raised heat in the North in the early decades of the thirteenth century. In 1230, the papal legate to Germany, Otto of Saint Nicholas, presiding over a provincial synod in Schleswig, ordered that the Danish priests immediately upon ordination should sign a written 78 ‘Istum Abel voluit aliquando papa regem Alemannie contra imperatorem constituere. Quo recusante, cum non haberet tot et tanta’ (Albrici monachi Triumfontium Chronicon, ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst (MGH SS 23, Hanover, 1874), 631–950, at 949. 79 ‘Eodem quoque tempore Wilhelmus quondam Premonstratensis abbas / […] / ab Urbe missus est ab eodem pontifice legationis officio fungi per Daciam. / […] / Idem requisitus de statu curie et de causa legacionis, dicebat que supra capitulo proximo; se quoque missum filio Waldemari regis coronam regale exhibere regis regale dignitati privati’ (Gesta abbatum Horti sanctae Mariae ed. L. Weiland (Hanover, 1874 – MGH SS 23), 573–608, at 594–5. Weiland identifies Valdemar’s son as Abel (in his note 74).

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promise to stay continent. Concubines must be dismissed within a month, and the priests were to get rid of them in such a way that no suspicion as to any continued acquaintance would later arise. If not, the women were to be excommunicated, while the priests would lose their office and benefice. Should the clerics later resume ‘criminal relations with these criminals’ they too would be considered excommunicated.80 Gregory tackled the issue of the violation of the celibacy vow in a letter from December 1232. In it we learn how Danish clerics apparently had conspired – through ‘illegal oaths and monetary f ines’81 – to help each other out in order to avoid punishment for incontinence. Archbishop Uffe Thrugotsen was allowed to use the ‘secular arm’ to stop the conspirators, since some of them seem to have completely disregarded any ecclesiastical censure.82 At the same time, Gregory, in another letter, allowed Archbishop Uffe to lift the ban of excommunication from a whole range of criminal offenders. Provided that those ‘religious and secular clergy’ who, because of violent attacks on other religious were in a state of excommunication (through latae sententiae, i.e., by reason of the crime itself), would offer sufficient compensation to the victims, Uffe could relieve these from the pains of excommunication. On the same conditions, Uffe could also relieve clerics and laypeople guilty of arson, robbery or sacrilege. Gregory gave Uffe the right to dispense them from the normal mandatory journey to Rome to ask forgiveness from the pope himself, because, as Gregory stated, it was a very difficult to journey from such remote parts along such dangerous roads.83 Gregory’s dispensation further reveals that the decree from Cardinal Otto two years earlier had not solved the issue of incontinent priests. Archbishop Uffe was told to make sure that the incontinent clergy offer sufficient guarantees that they had dismissed their concubines and that they shall never again resume relationships with these or other women. Uffe was also told that he may offer dispensation to those who had administered the holy offices, or who had been ordained into one while in the state of excommunication on account 80 ‘[…] et nichilominus si postea eis in crimine participent criminosis, in eandem cum eis excommunicacionis sentenciam incidant ipso iure’. We know this decree from its re-issue at a provincial council held in Helsingborg as late as 1345. See the notes in DD, 1/vi no. 110 at 152–3. 81 ‘[…] tam iuramentis illicitis quam penis pecunariis adinuicem se astringunt’. DD, 1/vi no. 141 from 3 December 1232. 82 ‘[…] ut conspiratores huiusmodi auctoritate nostra tibi liceat a suis presumptionibus cohibere, inuocando super hoc auxilium brachii secularis, cum adeo sint aliqui obstinati; quod censuram ecclesiasticam uilipendant. […] auctoritate tibi presentium concedimus postulata’ DD, 1/vi no. 141. 83 DD, 1/vi no. 142 from 3 December 1232. Religious who were excommunicated for assaulting other religious incurred this sanction under canon 15 of the Second Lateran Council (1139) known from its incipit ‘Si quis suadente’ and included in Gratian’s Decretum at C. 17 q. 4 c. 29.

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of these crimes. The dispensation was offered provided that the offenders did proper penance.84 Archbishop Uffe was not himself without blame, however. We cannot know whether it was disgust with his unscrupulous clergy or simple negligence that had made Archbishop Uffe pass over the crucial part in a clerical ordination where the bishop lays his hand on the person to be ordained. But it was a serious omission by a bishop performing a liturgical practice as old as the Apostles themselves; in fact, the laying on of hands by the bishop may be termed the high point of the ordination liturgy, and Gregory, in a letter from 9 December 1232, mildly reproached the archbishop and duly told Uffe how to remedy his faux pas.85 A further letter of Gregory, dated 4 July 1233, related the dramatic story of a priest, Magnus, who when on a horse ride lost his way. Upon asking for directions, he was instead led off the road, robbed of all his possessions and violently attacked, a spike breaking three of his ribs. Another spear thrown at the wretched Magnus pierced his clothes injuring him slightly. At some point during this whole mêlée, Magnus struck back, stone in hand, instantly killing his attacker. Gregory in his letter is moved, but because of ‘the horror of the blood’ he cannot dispense from the irregularity incurred by Magnus’s homicide. Archbishop Uffe is urged to find Magnus an office without the cure of souls but with a sufficient sustenance so that he is not forced to beg – ‘to the disgrace of the clerical order’.86 In August 1239, Gregory again faced questions from Denmark concerning incontinent clerics, simony in local clergy, and uncertainties pertaining to liturgical matters.87 The liturgical issue was a ‘technical’ one, concerned with 84 If the clergy who administered or were ordained while in a state of excommunication did so knowingly, they should suffer a two-year suspension before dispensation. The letter also referred Uffe to the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (c. 40 X De simonia) in his dealings with ‘religious, who are admitted into their monasteries through simony’: ‘[…] processurus circa religiosos qui symoniace in suis monasteriis sunt recepti; prout in constitutione generalis concilii continetur’ (DD, 1/vi no. 142) 85 DD, 1/vi no. 143. It is possible that in fact Uffe’s grave liturgical omission was the main reason for the Danish delegation to Rome, which prompted these December letters from Gregory. Pope Gregory’s answer to Uffe on this liturgical matter ended up in the Liber Extra as c. 3 X De sacramentis non iterandis I 16. 86 ‘Nos igitur licet propter horrorem sanguinis in nullo suorum ordinum cum eo duxerimus dispensandum; tamen casum ipsius miserabilem miserantes; mandamus quatinus eidem ne mendicare cogatur in opprobrium ordinis clericalis in aliquo stipendio unde sustentari ualeat in tua diocese studeas liberaliter prouidere quod curam non habeat animarum’ DD, 1/vi no. 165. See another case of a clerical murderer in DD 1/vi no. 204 from c.1234–1243. 87 DD, 1/vii no. 28 from 24 August 1239. A bundle of papal letters to Danish recipients from August 1239 (DD, 1/vii nos. 27–31 and possibly no. 33 from 3 December) includes the papal marriage

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how to re-consecrate burnt-down churches – perhaps the works of the arsonists mentioned in the papal letter of 1232? In the midst of these commonplace problems, however, a great scam is revealed – a case of medieval exam cheating: while seeking promotion to ecclesiastical orders, but apparently having serious worries about their own levels of skill and knowledge, some clerics had offered presents to their more erudite colleagues in order that they would secretly whisper in their ears how to answer questions from examiners.88 Gregory states the un-read promotees must be stripped of the grades which they had fraudulently received while their better-read helpers should be suspended until they had earned forgiveness.89 Some of these bribe-offering clerics must have had partners in crime. In Gregory’s letter we further learn that examiners, who teach their unworthy pupils how to answer with quibbles or sophisms – ‘sophistice respondendi’ – should themselves be dismissed.90 In a letter from August 1239, we learn that the prince and people of the island of Rügen indulged in a rather peculiar practice for clearing debts. Since the Danish conquest and Christianization in 1168, the island, situated just off the north-east German coast, adhered to the church province in Roskilde. The peculiar debt clearing practice was named ‘poddas’, meaning ‘submission’ in the Wendish language. Apparently, the lender could claim some heavy interest rates to his loan: an annual amount of grain, flax or other stuff worth more than twice the money originally lent out. Further, a debtor was to pay the lender a fee, should he wish to offer his daughter for marriage or sell any one of his animals. If the debtor died before the completion of his debts, all obligations would pass on to his heir. If this new debtor failed to honour payments, dispensation to King Erik Ploughpenny (DD, 1/vii no. 31, see above) and suggests a major Danish delegation of both royal and clerical representatives visiting Rome in the summer of 1239. It is probable that Gregory refers to his earlier letters on the same matters (incontinent clergy et al.) even if his reference does not wholly comply with the content. Perhaps Archbishop Uffe felt a need for further papal clarification. 88 ‘Clerici quoque uolentes ad ordines promoueri qui de sua scientia diff identes clericis litteratis munera paciscuntur ut auribus suis latenter in examinatione usurrent quid examinantis interrogationes debeant respondere […]’ (DD, 1/vii no. 28). 89 ‘[…] remoueri debent ab ordinibus sic susceptis et recipientes huiusmodi munera sunt adeo suspendendi donec super hoc mereantur gratiam impetrare’ (DD, 1/vii no. 28). 90 ‘Cum uero examinator ordinandorum scolares suos ob litterature defectum ad ordinum susceptionem indignos nullo dato promisso uel retento modum docet sophistice respondendi ut sic digni ad ordines reputentur idem examinator est ob hoc donec super hiis mereatur gratiam grauiter puniendus, et clerici sic promoti sunt a susceptis taliter ordinibus repellendi’ (DD, 1/ vii no. 28).

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he was to be placed on a bundle of straw from which he would then be violently knocked down in a ritual symbolising his subjection to eternal servitude.91 With a reference to both the Old and the New Testament, Gregory urged the Danish archbishop and other clerics to make sure that this abhorrent custom, which resulted in excessive interest rates as well as debt bondage, was abandoned.92 Valuables and abhorrent customs were also to the fore, when one Esbern Snerlyng, a former knight, in 1237 bequeathed his property to the Cistercian monastery at Sorø. His mother, Margaret, soon challenged Esbern’s last will, ‘even if it was solidly testif ied to in letters’, as the monks claimed. By claiming to prove her case by invoking a specific legal procedure that involved twelve jurors swearing on her behalf, Margaret hindered the bishop of Roskilde, Niels Stigsen, from executing Esbern’s will. Obviously, the jurors were expected to confirm by oath that Esbern had not bequeathed anything to anybody.93 Gregory in his letter told Archbishop Uffe simply to execute Esbern’s will notwithstanding this legal practice. If necessary Uffe must invoke strong ecclesiastical censures to this end. Apparently, Margaret was in effect forced into honouring her son’s wishes: a later note emerging from the Cistercian monastery in Sorø, the main benef iciary in Esbern’s will, suggests that Esbern’s mother was in fact excommunicated before f inally agreeing to hand over the property to the Cistercians.94 A few years later, Gregory urged King Valdemar II himself to work to abolish the practice of lay people swearing on behalf of plaintiffs, especially since this was used audaciously ‘not just by the descendants of the deceased but also by persons who are strangers to weaken the testaments and the power of the executors.’95 Large testamentary beneficiaries such as the Cistercian monasteries were very interested in steering free of complicated legal cases that would cast doubt on their property rights. Gregory IX obviously had no quibbles in lending a hand in this. 91 DD, 1/vii no. 30. 92 ‘[…] quandam prauam consuetudinem obseruantes que corruptela potius est censenda […] Verum cum usurarum lucra utriusque testamenti pagina detestetur; eosdem rogandos duximus attentius et monendos, nostris eis dantes litteris in mandatis, ut prefatam seruitutis abusionem decetero non seruantes ab huiusmodi omnino lucris usurarum desistant’ (DD, 1/vii no. 30). 93 With almost the same wording as in the letter treated above: ‘[…] iuxta quandam prauam illius terre consuetudinem que abusus potius dici potest […]’ (DD, 1/vi no. 241 from 11 August 1237). 94 See DD, 1/vi no. 245, dated to c.1237–1241. This information comes from the so-called ‘Liber donationum monasterii sorensis’ from c.1440. See Scriptores rerum Danicarum medii aevii, ed. J. Langebek and P. F. Suhm, 9 vols (Copenhagen, 1772–1878), iv, 481. 95 DD, 1/vii no. 27. The Cistercians in Denmark were very active in securing property rights and privileges in these years. See DD, 1/vi nos. 189–98 from October 1234.

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Conclusions It seems fair to say that Gregory IX during his pontificate supported, whenever needed, the sometimes-faltering powers of a traditional papal ally occupying the geo-strategically important territories immediately to the north of the Holy Roman Empire. If this could keep the mighty emperor occupied on his northern ‘front’ as well, much good could be gained. Probably such strategic papal considerations lay behind Gregory’s decisions to grant marriage dispensations that strengthened Valdemar II’s reconciliation and power-rebuilding policies after the king’s defeat in the battle of Bornhöved in 1227. Papal support for the Danish king was also felt in the Baltic Crusades, where Gregory would have to balance his own wishes for a stronger papal presence in Livonia and Estonia against the interests of the Christian powers already established in the region. Of these powers the Danish king in the 1230s emerged as the most solid. The papal legations to the region in the 1230s did not fare well, but Gregory seems to have been capable of making something out of even faltering missions as is demonstrated in the treaty of Stensby from 1238. With the compromises between the Danish king and the Teutonic Order agreed on this occasion, Gregory made former adversaries work together for a greater cause. Whether the bold idea of having one of Valdemar II’s sons running for the position as German king was Gregory’s or his Bohemian propagandist Albert’s idea, we cannot know. The idea itself, even if probably quickly quashed by Valdemar, points to the renewed importance of the Danish king during these years. Valdemar obviously acted in his own interests in his fight to regain authority when he blocked the harbour to Lübeck, thereby countering Gregory’s crusading policies. This did not, however, seriously damage the good relationship with the papacy. That the Danish king was ruling a territory where strange, ungodly customs were still in use and where numerous clerics were still succumbing to the desires of the flesh did not diminish the Danish king in Gregory’s eyes. Valdemar II was constantly throughout Gregory’s entire pontificate a ‘very dear son in Christ’.

About the Author Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Aalborg University, Denmark. He has written many studies concerning the relationship between the papacy and Denmark, as well as the Northern Crusades, and most recently he has co-edited Crusading on the Edge (Turnhout, 2016) and Legacies of the Crusades and The Crusades: history and memory (both Turnhout, 2021).

7.

Gregory IX and Spain Damian J Smith Abstract While papal participation in Peninsula affairs was de-emphasized by the influential Iberian chroniclers of the mid-thirteenth century, in reality there was close co-operation between the papacy and the Iberian ecclesiastical and secular rulers to an unprecedented degree in the crusades, with the development of inquisitions, and in resolving the disputes of local churches. Nevertheless, the papacy found it difficult to implement the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council, despite the support of the friars, and found that Iberian prelates and kings often pursued their own interests, which would place them at odds with the pope on a number of issues. Keywords: Iberia, Friars, Crusades, Inquisition, Jews

Although the famous battle of Las Navas de Tolosa of 16 July 1212 had thoroughly exposed the military limitations of the Almohads, the Christians were unable to gain much immediate advantage because the two major Christian powers in the Iberian Peninsula, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, soon encountered major political troubles.1 After the death of Alfonso VIII (1158–1214), Castile faced the minority of Alfonso’s son, Henry (1214–17), who was killed when struck on the head during a children’s game, followed by the turbulent early years of Ferdinand III (1217–1252), who was opposed by some of the nobles and by his father, Alfonso IX of León (1188–1230).2 1 On the battle, see M. Alvira Cabrer, Las Navas de Tolosa: idea, liturgía y memoria de la batalla (Madrid, 2012); F. García Fitz, Las Navas de Tolosa (Barcelona, 2005). For the close of the reigns of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Peter II of Aragon, see J. González, El reino de Castilla en la época de Alfonso VIII, 3 vols (Madrid, 1960); J. Ventura, Pere el Católic i Simó de Montfort (Barcelona, 1960). 2 Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Historia de Rebus Hispanie sive Historia Gothica, ed. J. Fernández Valverde, CCCM 72 (Turnhout, 1987), VIIII, 284–92, c. 4–11; Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, ed. E. Falque, CCCM 74 (Turnhout, 2003), IV, 332–4, c. 92–4; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’,

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch07

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After the death of Peter II, killed in September 1213 when fighting against the army of the Albigensian Crusade, the Crown of Aragon suffered the precarious minority of Peter’s five-year-old son James I (1213–1276), who survived an attempt on his life while still in the cradle.3 Only in the final years of the pontificate of Honorius III (1216–1227) would the two young kings, Ferdinand and James, begin to contemplate major action against the disintegrating Almohad power. 4 Portugal too, after the death of the sickly Afonso II (1211–1224), had been challenged by the minority of Afonso’s son, Sancho II (1223–1248).5 The kingdom of Navarre endured the maladies not of youth but of old age since Sancho VII of Navarre (1194–1234), though he remained an enthusiastic crusader in the years following Las Navas, was becoming too fat in his declining years even to descend the steps from his castle at Tudela.6 All this was to mean that, in spite of Almohad failings, many of the consequences of Las Navas would only become visible during the pontificate of Gregory IX, which coincided with a period of major transformation in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. Little of this transformation was the direct result of papal initiative but it was in large measure supported by Rome. ed. L. Charlo Brea in Chronica Hispana Saeculi XIII, ed. L. Charlo Brea, J.A. Estévez Sola, R. Carande Herrero, CCCM 73 (Turnhout 1997), 73–84, c. 31–41; Primera Crónica General, ed. R. Menéndez Pidal, 2 vols (Madrid, 1955), ii, 708–19, c. 1025–35; Llibre dels Fets del Rei En Jaume, ed. J. Bruguera, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1991), ii, 21, c. 17; J. González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, 3 vols (Córdoba, 1980), i, 69–72, 232–47; A. Rodríguez López, La consolidación territorial de la monarquía feudal castellana: Expansión y fronteras durante el reinado de Fernando III (Madrid, 1994), 98–100, 139–44; M. González Jiménez, Fernando III el santo (Seville, 2011), 38–79. 3 Llibre dels Fets, ii, 11, c. 5; Bernat Desclot, Llibre del Rei En Pere, ed. S.M. Cingolani (Barcelona 2010), 68, c. 4; M. Alvira Cabrer, El jueves de Muret. 12 de septiembre de 1213; idem, Muret 1213: la batalla decisiva de la cruzada contra los cátaros (Barcelona, 2008); F. Soldevila, Els primers temps de Jaume I (Barcelona, 1968). 4 Rodrigo, Historia de Rebus Hispanie, VIIII, 292–4, c. 12; Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, IV, c. 97; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’, 85–95, c. 43–50; Primera Crónica General, ii, 719–21, c. 1036; Llibre dels Fets, ii, 30, c. 25; Bernat Desclot, Llibre del Rei En Pere, 92, c. 13; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 287–308; Rodríguez López, La consolidación territorial, 112–17; González Jiménez, Fernando III, 81–105; J. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia, 2003), 83–90. On Ferdinand’s imperial ambitions, see now C. Ayala Martínez, ‘Empire and Crusade under Fernando III’, in The Sword and the Cross: Castile-León in the era of Fernando III, ed. E.L. Holt and T. Witcombe (Leiden, 2020), 15–43. 5 See M.A. Marques and J. Soalheiro, A Corte dos primeiros reis de Portugal (Gijón, 2009), 324–48; J. Varandas, “Bonus rex” ou “rex inutilis”: as periferias e o centro: redes de poder no reinado de D. Sancho II (1223–1248), PhD thesis (Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de letras, Departamento de História, 2003). 6 On Sancho VII, see L. Fortun Pérez, Sancho VII el Fuerte (Iruña, 1987), 309–53; Llibre dels Fets, ii, 136, c. 138 (fatness); O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, 80–2.

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Three major political changes during Gregory’s pontificate stand out. The most important occurred with the death of the aforementioned Alfonso IX of León in September 1230. Although the capture of Mérida and Badajoz in his final year may well have redeemed Alfonso IX in the eyes of the papacy, which had once upon a time thought to launch a crusade against him, Alfonso IX’s desire to see the daughters of his first marriage, Sancha and Dulce, succeed him, was thwarted by the swift action of the eldest son of his second marriage, Ferdinand III, who gained the support of a sufficient number of bishops, nobles, and townsmen in the kingdom of León to have himself recognized as king there and to make the position of his half-sisters untenable.7 Aided by the noted negotiating skills of his mother, the redoubtable Berenguela, an agreement was reached at Benavente on 11 December 1230 whereby Sancha and Dulce renounced their rights on the Leonese kingdom for an annual payment of 30000 morabetins and various properties.8 It is of some note here that, although the kings of Castile were neither vassals of the pope nor under papal protection, Ferdinand III decided that it would be to his significant advantage to have Gregory IX strengthen the pact of Benavente with papal confirmation and sent envoys with a copy of the agreement to the pope who was then at Rieti.9 In late 1231, Gregory IX’s approval, given for the sake of peace (in the finest tradition of Rome’s dealing with the Peninsula), ratified the reunification of León and Castile, seventy-three years after the realms had split on the death of Alfonso VII (1126–1157). The reunion of León and Castile would be the most important cause of the spectacular Christian advance against the Muslims during the 1230s and 1240s. The second major change was in Aragon. When Gregory was elected as pope in March 1227, the lands of the Crown of Aragon (that is, at this stage, 7 Gonzalez, Rodrigo, Historia de Rebus Hispanie, VIIII, 295–7, c. 14–15; Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, IV, 336–8, c. 98; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’, 100–1, c. 56–7; Primera Crónica General, ii, 722–5, c. 1038–9; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 255–63; González Jiménez, Fernando III, 110–36. (crusade versus Alfonso) Papsturkunden in Portugal, ed. C. Erdmann (Göttingen, 1927), 376–7 no. 154; F. Fita, ‘Bulas históricas del reino de Navarra en los postreros años del siglo XII’, BRAH, 26 (1895), 423–4 no. 3. 8 Rodrigo, Historia de Rebus Hispanie, VIIII, 296–7, c. 15; Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, IV, 338–9, c. 99; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’, 103–5, c. 60–1; Primera Crónica General, ii, 724, c. 1039; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, ii, 311–14 no. 270; Rodríguez López, La consolidación territorial, 171–80; González Jiménez, Fernando III, 120–3; H. Salvador Martínez, Berenguela la Grande y su época (1180–1246) (Madrid, 2012), 687–93; J. Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand: power and authority in the reign of Berenguela of Castile (Philadelphia, 2012), 203–7; M. Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (New York, 2009), 113–14. 9 DG, 204–7 no. 205.

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the union of the kingdom of Aragon and a confederation of many but not all of the Catalan counties) were suffering a major revolt of nobles, townsmen, and some churchmen, following the death of the noble Pedro de Ahonés, who had been one of the papal advisors to James I of Aragon appointed by Innocent III but had subsequently fallen out with the king as frustrations grew concerning the king’s favourites and the failure to make headway against the Muslims.10 It is worth emphasizing that the continued union of Aragon and what was becoming Catalonia was by no means guaranteed early in James I’s reign and his uncle, the infante Ferdinand, although he was minister of the powerful Augustinian abbey of Montearagón near Huesca, certainly nurtured ambitions to be king himself and enjoyed considerable support from the major Aragonese cities of Zaragoza, Huesca, and Jaca.11 With the Aragonese revolt at its height in winter 1226–1227, James had petitioned the pope for his help against the infante Ferdinand and the cities.12 James’s situation, of course, was quite different from Ferdinand III of Castile’s since James was a papal ward (although 19 years old, Gregory IX still considered him a minor) and his kingdom was under the protection of the Apostolic See, a status confirmed by the remarkable coronation of his father, Peter II, by Innocent III in Rome in November 1204.13 By the time Gregory IX could respond, the Aragonese revolt, orchestrated by Sancho de Ahonés, bishop 10 (Revolt) Llibre dels Fets, ii, 30–43, c. 25–33; J. González Anton, ‘La revuelta de la nobleza aragonesa contra Jaime I en 1224–1227’, in Homenaje José María Lacarra en su jubilación del profesorado. Estudios Medievales, 2 vols (Zaragoza, 1977), ii, 143–63; Colección diplomática del Concejo de Zaragoza I, 1119–1276; II, 1276–85, ed. A. Canellas López (Zaragoza, 1972–1975) [hereafter CDCZ], 154–6 no. 57; Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, ed. A. Huici Miranda, M. Cabanes Pecourt, 7 vols (Zaragoza, 1976–2019), i, 180–2 no. 91; Documentos de Jaime I relacionados con Aragón, ed. M. Cabanes Pecourt (Zaragoza, 2009), 46–8 no. 20; Documentos Municipales de Huesca, 1100–1350, ed. C. Laliena Corbera (Huesca, 1988), no. 14. (Papal advisors) La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III, ed D. Mansilla (Rome, 1956), no. 537; Butllari de Catalunya, no. 55. 11 Colección documental de Sancho VII el Fuerte (1194–1234), ed. J.M. Jimeno Jurío (Pamplona, 2008), 340–1 no. 238 (1213/14 but misdated to 1231); Les Gesta Comitum Barchinonensium (versió primitiva), la Brevis Historia i altres textos de Ripoll, ed. S.M. Cingolani (Universitat de València, 2012), 156–7, c. 15; Llibre dels Fets, ii, 15, c. 11. 12 (Ferdinand) DG, 60 no. 20; Butllari de Catalunya, 166–7 no. 108. (Cities) BNE, MS 13042, fol. 7; Palacios Martín, Coronación de los reyes, 302–3 nos 5–6. The letter to the cities is mistakenly attributed to Innocent III. 13 Register, VII, 406–9 no. 229; DG, 58 no. 17. For the longer-term relationship between the papacy and Aragon and Catalonia see J. Fried, Der päpstliche Schutz für Laienfürsten: Die politische Geschichte des päpstlichen Schutzprivilegs für Laien (11.–13. Jh) (Heidelberg, 1980); P. F. Kehr, ‘Cómo y cuándo se hizo Aragon feudatorio de la Santa Sede’, EEMCA, 1 (1945), 285–326; idem, ‘El papado y los reinos de Navarra y Aragón hasta mediados del siglo XII’, EEMCA, 2 (1946), 74–186; idem, Das Papsttum und der katalanische Prinzipat bis zur Vereingung mit Aragon (Berlin, 1926); B. Wiedemann, Papal Overlordship and Protection of the King, c.1000–1300, PhD thesis, University College London, 2017.

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of Zaragoza and brother of Pedro, had subsided from its heights and a treaty had been signed at Alcalá (1 May 1227). Yet the pope’s severe reprimands both to the infante Ferdinand and the Aragonese cities, castigating them for their disloyalty, may have played their part in tipping the political balance in James’s favour during the coming year.14 At a general court at Daroca, in March 1228, the infante Ferdinand and representatives of all the Aragonese cities and towns swore fidelity to James and his infant son, Alfonso.15 This was of great long-term importance in the consolidation of the Crown of Aragon. The third major change concerned the kingdom of Navarre. Since Sancho VII of Navarre had no legitimate heir, when he died in 1234, Navarre passed to his nephew, Thibaut IV, the count of Champagne, who was son of Blanche of Navarre, Sancho VII’s sister.16 The kingdom of Navarre did not have a border with the Muslims, but Sancho VII and his predecessors had nevertheless been heavily involved in the battles of the Peninsula. The transfer of Navarre into the orbit of a French dynasty intent on crusading in the Holy Land significantly altered the politics of the Peninsula. Both Castile and Aragon had long-term ambitions to carve up the Navarrese kingdom and the papacy had protected Navarre, with Sancho VII being granted the royal title by Celestine III soon after the Castilian defeat at Alarcos in July 1195 in order to encourage him in the crusades.17 This papal support would continue for Thibaut. At the beginning of Thibaut’s reign, James I of Aragon intended to annex the Navarrese kingdom, but Gregory IX pursued the path of peace and treaty against this through the good offices of the bishop of Calahorra and the abbots of Veruela and La Oliva.18 Two years later, the pope was even more vigorous in his attempts to dissuade Louis IX from attacking Thibaut 14 For a narrative of these events, see Llibre dels Fets, ii, 30–43, c. 25–33. On the peace at Alcalá, see Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, C, Jaume I, perg. 322; Colección de documentos ineditos del archivo de la Corona de Aragón, ed. P. Bofarull y Mascaro, 41 vols (Barcelona 1847–1910), vi, 91; CDCZ, i, 154–6 no. 57; Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, i, 180–4 no. 91–2; Documentos de Jaime I relacionados con Aragón, 46–9 nos 20–1; Documentos Municipales de Huesca, no. 14–15; Libro de la Cadena de Jaca, ed. D. Sangorrín (Zaragoza, 1920), 321–4 no. 52. (Reprimands) DG, 60 no. 20; Butllari de Catalunya, 166–7 no. 108. (Cities) BNE, MS 13042, fol. 7; Palacios Martín, Coronación de los reyes, 302–3 nos 5–6. 15 Arxiu Municipal de Lleida, sec. 1, privilegis i cartes reials, no. 308; T. N. Bisson, ‘A General Court of Aragon (Daroca, February, 1228)’, EHR, 92 (1997), 107–25 (repr. Bisson, Medieval France and Her Pyrenean Neighbours: Studies in Early Institutional History (London, 1989), 31–48. 16 M. R. García Arancón, La dinastía de Champana en Navarra: Teobaldo I, Teobaldo II, Enrique I (1234–1274) (Gijón, 2010), 21–102. 17 Fortun Pérez, Sancho VII, 130–40. (Royal title) F. Fita, ‘Bulas inéditas’, BRAH, 27 (1895), 229–30 (dated 22 April 1196); Papsturkunden in Spanien, ii, 592–3 no. 230 (dated 20 February 1197). 18 DG, 341 no. 397; On James and the Navarrese succession, see J. Carrasco Pérez, ‘El reino de Navarra y la Corona de Aragón en tiempos de Jaime I el Conquistador (1208–1276): relaciones

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because Thibaut was planning to crusade.19 In 1237, this same argument was repeatedly made to Ferdinand III in order to dissuade him from attacking the kingdom of Navarre.20 These great political changes – the reunification of León-Castile; the consolidation of the Crown of Aragon; the movement of Navarre into the French orbit – marked the beginning of what is sometimes referred to as ‘the great reconquest’ and during Gregory IX’s pontificate, as well as the aforementioned conquests of Alfonso IX of León, we have the thrilling capture of Majorca in December 1229, the somewhat sudden, surprising fall of Córdoba in June 1236, the taking of the city of Valencia in September 1238, and the conquests of Sancho II of Portugal and the military orders in the Algarve.21 In the works of the major chroniclers of this period – Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Lucas of Túy, Juan of Osma (almost certainly the author of the Chronica Latina regum Castellae), and James I of Aragon himself – the participation of the papacy in these adventures is markedly deemphasized.22 For the chronicles, these were victories owed to the Christian Spanish diplomáticas’, in Jaume I: commemoraciò de viii centenari del naixement de Jaume I, ed. M.T. Ferrer i Mallol, 2 vols (Barcelona, 2011–13), i, 456–62. 19 DG, 457–60 nos 565–7; J. Richard, Saint Louis (Paris, 1983), 88–96; J. Le Goff, Saint Louis (Paris, 1996), 111–12; J. Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de la cruzada en España (Vitoria, 1958), 173; M. Lower, The Barons’ Crusade: a call to arms and its consequences (Philadelphia, 2005), 92–115. 20 DG, 498–500 nos 619–21; 511 no. 638; 517 no. 647; 518–20 nos 650–1; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 267–9; Rodríguez López, La consolidación territorial, 219–32; Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula, 173. 21 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, 88–105; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 323–33; Varandas, “Bonus rex” ou “rex inutilis”, 561–86. 22 On these chronicles generally, see P. Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford, 1993), 313–412; idem, ‘Juan de Soria: the chancellor as chronicler’, E-Spania, 2 (2006); idem, ‘Fechas y sospechas sobre Lucas de Tuy’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 32 (2002), 19–38; idem, ‘On Further Thought: Lucas of Tuy, Rodrigo of Toledo and the Alfonsine histories’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 27 (1997), 415–36; E. Falque Rey, ‘Lucas de Túy y Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada: el uso de las fuentes’, Cahiers de linguistique et de civilisation hispaniques médiévales, 26 (2003), 151–62; eadem, ‘Lucas de Tuy, falsificador’, Antiguedad y cristianismo, 29 (2012), 189–98; B. Reilly, ‘The De Rebus Hispanie and the Mature Latin Chronicle in the Iberian Middle Ages’, Viator, 42 (2012), 131–45; idem, ‘Bishop Lucas of Túy and the Latin Chronicle Tradition in the Middle Ages’, Catholic Historical Review, 93 (2007), 767–88; idem, ‘The Chronica Latina Regum Castellae: historical composition at the court of Fernando III of Castile, 1217–1252’, Viator, 41 (2010), 41–54; D. Lomax, ‘The Authorship of the Chronique latine des rois de Castille’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 40 (1963), 205–211; idem, ‘Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada como historiador’, Actas del quinto Congreso Internacional de hispanistas, 2 vols (Bordeaux, 1977), ii, 587–92; J.P. Rubiés, J. Salrach, ‘Entorn de la mentalitat i la ideologia del bloc de poder feudal a través de la historiografia medieval fins a les quatre grans cròniques’, La formació i expansió del feudalism català. Actes del col⸳loqui organitzat pel Col⸳legi Universitari de Girona (8–11 de gener de 1985), ed. J. Portella (Girona, 1985–1986), 467–506; L. Badia, ‘Llegir el Llibre del Rei Jaume’, Serra d’Or, 385 (1992), 53–6.

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kingdoms and their kings, to the Church in Spain, and, usually, to the saints of Spain. Happily, few historians ever read these chronicles without noticing that what is absent from them is as important as what is present and as well as the chronicles we have a great number of papal letters concerning these crusades – concerning their preaching, the indulgences to be gained, on how they were to be financed, on the excommunication of those who stood in their way, consoling James I when his plans were frustrated, and assuring Sancho II that he would be absolved if he accidentally struck a cleric when on campaign (which Sancho II was accidentally wont to do).23 And it is worth pointing out that these letters came in response to requests from the kings themselves. The papacy did not initiate the campaigns, but its co-operation was considered to be necessary for their success. So, the silences of the chroniclers must not discourage us. It escapes the mind of James I that, at Lleida in spring 1229, after he had taken some cord and fashioned it into a cross, he had requested that the papal legate, John of Abbeville, sow it onto his clothes, bless him and pardon all those who followed him.24 Nor does James mention that when the subsequent Majorca campaign had not gone to plan, because of the loss of nobles in battle and illness further depleting his ranks during the siege of Medina Mayurqa, he had sent envoys to the pope to tell him that more help was needed, and that Gregory IX, in turn, had appealed to the ecclesiastical provinces of Arles and Narbonne for help, entrusting the preaching there to the prior of the Dominicans of Barcelona and the great canonist, Ramon de Penyafort.25 It can be ascertained from the Castilian chronicles and 23 Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula, 153–70; O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, 88–105. Domínguez Sánchez (DG, 212 no. 210) and the Butllari de Catalunya (i, 195 no. 139) suggest that when Gregory is consoling James I in March 1232 for not yet having fulf illed his desires it is a reference to the conquest of Valencia. That may well be the case, although equally it could concern his earlier request for a Roman coronation which Gregory had turned down in 1229 because he was just too busy (DG, 124–5 no. 101; Butllari de Catalunya, i, 186–7 no. 128). On the relations between Sancho II and the Church, see Varandas, “Bonus rex” ou “rex inutilis”, 479–547. 24 Desclot, Llibre del Rei En Pere, 107, c. 30. On the value of Desclot, see S. Cingolani, Historiografia, propaganda i comunicació al segle XIII: Bernat Desclot i les dues redaccions de la seva crònica (Barcelona, 2005); Cingolani, La memòria dels reis: les quatre grans cròniques i la historiografía catalana des del segle X fins al XIV (Barcelona, 2007); J. Aurell Cardona, Authoring the Past: history, autobiography, and politics in medieval Catalonia (Chicago, 2012); M. Alvira Cabrer, ‘Guerra i ideología en la España del siglo XIII: La conquista de Mallorca según la Crónica de Bernat Desclot’, En la España medieval, 19 (1996), 37–50. That the king received the Cross from the cardinal is made clear in a letter from Gregory later in the year (J. Villanueva, Viage literario a las Iglesias de España, 22 vols (Madrid, 1803–52), xxi, 252). 25 Villanueva, Viaje literario, xxi, 252; Llibre dels Fets, ii, 73–94 c. 61–81; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’, 99–100, c. 55; Gesta Comitum Barchinonensium, 158, c. 15; Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula, 165–9.

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from the chancery of Ferdinand III, that the effort to protect, populate, maintain and provision Córdoba placed a huge burden upon the king.26 From Exposito nobis, of 3 September 1236, we know that Ferdinand III must have sent word to Gregory IX almost immediately after Córdoba’s capture to say that he needed help from the Church if he was going to conserve the land then acquired and Gregory IX responded by ordering the churches of both León and Castile to provide the king with 20,000 gold morabetins annually for the following three years.27 James also tells us of his great fears that the opportunity for the conquest of Valencia would be lost for lack of support or because of conspiracies against him but forgets to say that he wrote to the pope concerning all this and that Gregory IX in response encouraged the crusade, took care to have it preached in many provinces, asked Louis IX to bring Count Raymond VII of Toulouse to heel (since his attacks on Raymond Berenguer V of Provence stopped the latter from aiding his cousin James in the conquest), and instructed the bishop of Huesca (the talented Vidal de Canellas) to dissolve all pacts made by the Aragonese knights against the king.28 This co-operation between pope and kings, equally visible in the huge support given by Gregory IX to the crusading ventures of Sancho II of Portugal and, of course, to Thibaut of Champagne throughout the Barons’ Crusade, was, in reality, constant and unsurprising since there was so much common ground between pope and kings.29 Gregory IX viewed the Saracens as the enemies of the name of Christ and as an occupying force, and what they had 26 Rodrigo, Historia de Rebus Hispanie, VIIII, 297–300, c. 16–17; Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, IV, 340–2, c. 101; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’, 110–17, c. 69–74; Primera Crónica General, ii, 729–35, c. 1046–7; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 323–32; González Jiménez, Fernando III, 137–70; O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, 92–8. 27 DG, 473–5 nos 586–7; D. Mansilla, Iglesia castellano-leonesa y curia romana en los tiempos del rey San Fernando (Madrid, 1945), 57. At the same time, the pope ordered the archbishops of Toledo and Compostela and the bishops of the kingdoms of Castile and León that they should concede to the repobladores of Córdoba the same indulgence conceded in the General Council to those who collaborated in the crusade to the Holy Land (DG, 476–8 nos 590–1). 28 Llibre dels Fets, ii, 199–208, c. 231–41; DG, 501–2 nos 623–4; 503–5 nos 626–9; 506 no. 631; 512 no. 639; 513 no. 641; 533–5 no. 699 (Louis); 575 no. 727 (Vidal); 639–40 no. 814; Butllari de Catalunya, i, 211, no. 158; i, 213–15, no. 162; Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula, 163–70. On Vidal, see now B. Vicens Saiz, Negotiating Power and Privilege: written law, monarchy, and the nobility in Medieval Aragon (PhD thesis, University of Notre Dame, 2016). 29 (Sancho II of Portugal) DG, 228 no. 233; 273 no. 302; 347–8 no. 405; 753 no. 977; Portugalia Pontificia, 229, no. 273; 243, no. 304. (Thibaut) 417–19 nos 503–6; 421 no. 509; 422 no. 511; 426–7 nos 517–18; 429–30 no. 521; 432–3 no. 527; 434–6 no. 530; 457–60 nos 565–7; 464–6 nos 572–4; 471 no. 582; 498–500 nos 619–21; 511 no. 638; 515–16 no. 647; 518–20 nos 650–1; 600 no. 764; 615–17 nos 782–5; 620 no. 789; 636 no. 809; 637 no. 811; 647 no. 826; 673 no. 851.

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invaded, from his point of view, were lands where there had been Christian churches and Christian worship before they had arrived. For the pope, it was about restitution – the restitution of Christian worship and the expansion of the Church.30 And though men might fight for glory, desire for land, or an eagerness for shedding their opponents’ blood (those three motives that their foundation bull had told the knights of Santiago they must not have), the restitution of the Church was high up among the motives of the Christian kings and, of course, even higher up among the motives of their prelates.31 Conscious of the bigger picture, when he first saw his standard upon a tower in Valencia, James I turned towards the East and kissed the ground.32 At Córdoba, the standards of the cross and King Ferdinand III were placed on the highest tower of the mosque, which was then prepared for Christian worship, and then mass was celebrated by the bishop of Osma for the king, the barons and all the people.33 The establishment of the institutions of the Christian religion in the newly conquered lands was central to the strategy of the Christian Iberian monarchs and that was impossible without papal collaboration. It is particularly worth mentioning here the support that Gregory IX gave to the major military orders in the Iberian Peninsula – the orders of Alcántara, Calatrava, the Hospitallers, Santiago, the Templars – because they played such a tremendous role in the safeguarding and expansion of the Christian frontier.34 Placing them under protection, confirming their 30 DG, 169–70 nos 154–5; 492 no. 606; Villanueva, Viage literario, xxi, 252. 31 (Santiago foundation bull) PL, cc. 1027–8. On the episcopate’s role in holy war, see Hombres de religión y guerra: cruzada y guerra santa en la Edad Media peninsular, ed. C. de Ayala Martínez, J.S. Palacios Ontalva (Madrid, 2017). On the use of the idea of restitution by the chancery of Ferdinand III of Castile, see H. Sirantoine, ‘La cancillería regia en época de Fernando III: ideología, discurso y práctica’, in Fernando III. Tiempo de cruzada, ed. C. de Ayala Martínez, M. Rios Saloma (México, 2012), 175–203. 32 Llibre dels Fets, ii, 231, c. 282. 33 Rodrigo, Historia de Rebus Hispanie, VIIII, 299, c. 17; ‘Chronica Latina Regum Castellae’, 117, c. 74; Lucas de Tuy, Chronicon Mundi, IV, 341–2, c. 101; Primera Crónica General, ii, 733, c. 1046. 34 Generally, see (Alcántara) DG, 61–2 no. 22; 223 no. 226; 227 no. 232; 231 no. 239; 260–1 no. 287; 375 no. 449; 399–400 no. 485; 493 no. 609; 571 no. 723; 581–4 nos 739–42; 586–7 nos 746–7; 590–1 no. 753; 643–4 no. 820; 702–3 nos 897–8; 708–9 no. 907; 710 no. 910; 711–12 no. 912; 713–14 nos 916–17; 717–18 no. 923; 726–7 no. 934. (Calatrava) DG, 63 no. 25; 118 no. 98; 192 no. 186; 197–8 no. 195; 251 no. 271; 298 no. 337; 309–11 no. 354–5; 350–1 no. 410; 386–7 no. 469; 428 no. 519; 432 no. 525; 478 no. 592; 484–6 nos 599–601; 514 no. 642; 590–1 no. 753; 643 no. 820; 703 no. 898; 708–9 no. 907; 710 no. 910; 711–12 no. 912; 713–14 nos 916–17; 717–18 no. 923; 726–7 no. 934. (Hospitallers) DG, 64–5 nos 26–7; 80–1 no. 52; 83–4 no. 56; 88 no. 59; 94–5 no. 70; 101–2 no.78; 104–5 no. 81; 135 no. 112; 158 no. 137; 159 no. 139; 178–81 nos 169–72; 190 no. 184; 196–7 no. 193; 219 no. 219; 237–8 no. 251; 298–9 no. 338; 300–1 no. 341; 307 no. 351; 321–2 no. 373; 327 no. 380; 373–4 no. 447; 376–7 no. 452; 646

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possessions, punishing those who usurped their goods, exempting them from some tithe-paying, settling disputes in which they were involved, conceding plenary indulgences to those of their members who died fighting against the Muslims, prohibiting bishops from excommunicating those on whose support the military orders relied, the pope’s support was continuously petitioned.35 This did not mean that the ecclesiastical knights were all always guaranteed immediate papal backing. They were sometimes in dispute with other powerful forces – the Alcantarans with Bishop Sancho of Coria; the Calatravans with Cistercian Morimond; both the Calatravans and the Santiagans with Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo himself.36 They were also quite often in contests with each other.37 Moreover, the Santiagans on one occasion even fell afoul of the pope himself and incurred excommunication when, under pressure from the king, the master, with the support of some of the brothers, entrusted the castle of Castrotorafe (pertaining to the Apostolic See) to Sancha and Dulce, who had taken refuge there after Alfonso IX of León’s death.38 That, however, was a rare occurrence. The fortunes of the military orders in the Peninsula had been too much bound to the papacy from the outset for too serious a falling out and the Santiagans, encouraged by Gregory, even participated in the battle against the heretics in Gascony.39 no. 824; 655 no. 839. (Santiago) DG, 78 no. 47; 100–1 no. 77; 148–9 no. 125; 163–5 no. 145; 183–4 no.175; 188–9 nos 181–2; 195–6 no. 192; 211–12 no. 209; 229 no. 235; 232–7 nos 240–9; 237–8 no. 251; 238–9 no. 253; 240–1 nos 255–6; 247–8 no. 268; 288–9 nos 324–5; 291–3 nos 331–2; 315–16 no. 363; 319–22 nos 369–74; 332 no. 387; 348 no. 406; 350 no. 409; 359 no. 425; 368–9 no. 440; 371–2 no. 444; 374–5 no. 448; 488–91 nos 603–4; 573–4 no. 726; 609–12 no. 776; 642 no. 819; 645–6 no. 823; 686 no. 871. (Temple) DG, 57 no. 15; 67–8 no. 32; 75–6 no. 42; 83–4 no. 56; 138–47 nos 116–122; 167–8 no. 150; 171 no. 156; 178 no. 169; 238–9 no. 253; 283–4 no. 318; 294 no. 334; 307 no. 351; 348–9 no. 407; 375 no. 449; 449 no. 552; 495–6 nos 613–15; 528 no. 660; 637–8 nos.812–13; 655 no. 839; 703 no. 898. 35 For the sake of example, DG, 94 no. 70, 397–400 no. 485 (protection); 227 no. 232, 484 no. 599 (confirming possessions); 582–4 nos 740–2 (usurping goods); 88 no. 59, 196–7 no. 193 (tithes); 100–1 no. 77, 148–9 no. 125 (settling disputes); 593 no. 757, 726–7 no. 934 (indulgences); 712 no. 913, 714 no. 917 (prohibiting excommunication). 36 (Alcántara-Coria) DG, 750–1 nos 972–3; 758–9 no. 984. (Calatrava-Morimond) 428 no. 519; 432 no. 525; 514 no. 642. (Versus Rodrigo) DG, 78 no. 47; 195–6 no. 192; 251 no. 271; 320 no. 370; 350–1 no. 410; 368–9 no. 440; 371–2 no. 444; 484–6 nos 600–1; 609–12 no. 776; 643 no. 820; 686 no. 871; 711–12 no. 912; 714 no. 917; 717–18 no. 923. 37 DG, 100–1 no. 77; 237–8 no. 251; 238–9 no. 253; 309–10 no. 354; 321–2 no. 373; 375 no. 449; 703 no. 898. 38 DG, 247–8 no. 268; 291–3 nos 331–2; 315–16 no. 363; 322 no. 374; Portugalia Pontificia, 217–8 no. 248; Le Liber Censuum de l’église romaine, ed. P. Fabre and L. Duchesne, 2 vols (Paris, 1889–1905), i, 222; Rodríguez López, La consolidación territorial, 180–3. 39 DG, 211–12 no. 209; 374 no. 448. On the papacy and the military orders, see L. García Guijarro Ramos, Papado, cruzadas y órdenes militares, siglos XI–XIII (Madrid, 1995); C. Ayala Martínez, Las órdenes militares hispánicas en la Edad media (siglos XII–XV) (Madrid, 2007).

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Indeed, this same spirit of co-operation which we see in the campaigns against the Almohads was also seen in the fight against the enemy within Christendom. The Iberian peninsula was an important early ground for operations for the institution which we call the Inquisition. Gregory IX’s famous bull of February 1231, Excommunicamus, in which he outlined the various harsh punishments for, among others, the Cathars and the Poor of Lyons, found its way to the cathedral of Zaragoza, while the equally important Declinante iam mundi of May 1232 was addressed to Archbishop Espareg of Tarragona and his suffragans, who were ordered to work together with the Friars Preacher in investigating the heretics who were reported to have entered the province.40 On 16 May 1235, Bishop Bernat Calvó of Vic and two Dominicans were ordered by the pope to carry out investigations into the monasteries of the Tarragona province since heresy was suspected there as well. 41 In February 1238, at the request of James I, Gregory instructed Vidal de Canellas, now bishop of Huesca, to make inquisition against heretics in the frontier region. 42 Two months later, having heard that the little foxes had worked their way into the kingdom of Navarre, Gregory ordered the Franciscans and Dominicans there to proceed against them with the help of the secular arm. 43 In January 1240, Gregory extended operations to Majorca, giving Bishop Ramon de Torrelles of Majorca faculty to absolve heretics once they had solemnly abjured their errors in front of the clergy and the people. 44 It appears that Catalonia was the region where heresy was most virulent and particularly in the Pyrenean diocese of Urgell, close to the major centres of heresy in the Midi, with royal power absent, and with the intimidating influence of the house of Foix and the viscounts of Castellbò, both rivals to the Urgellian bishop and hence sympathetic to the heretics. 45 Crossing 40 DG, 178 no. 169 (Excommunicamus); 213–14 no. 212 (Declinante iam mundi). 41 DG, 383 no. 462. A little before, on 30 April 1235, Gregory had urged James I of Aragon not to hold back in his campaign against the heretics (DG, 381, no. 459; Butllari de Catalunya, i, 201, no. 147) and he had also then written to the nobles of the province of Tarragona to extirpate heresy in the kingdom and guard against heretics fleeing from the region of Toulouse (Archivo diocesano de Zaragoza, Mensa episcopalis, cajón 2 no. 19). 42 DG, 578 no. 733. 43 DG, 601 no. 765. 44 DG, 705–6 no. 902. The presence of heretics is evident from inquisitorial records (L’Inquisition en Quercy: le registre des pénitences de Pierre Cellan 1241–1242, ed. J. Duvernoy [Castelnaud de la Chapelle, 2001],180, 206). 45 C. Baraut, ‘Presència i repressió del catarisme al bisbat d’Urgell (segles XII–XIII)’, Urgellia, 12 (1994–5), 487–524; S. Grau Torras, Cátaros e Inquisición en los reinos hispánicos, siglos XII–XIV (Madrid, 2012), 261–342.

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through the county of Urgell, heretical perfects travelled to Lleida and then into the mountains of Siurana.46 Waldensians were operative as well, though more so in Barcelona and Elne in Roussillon and also to a limited extent in Huesca in Aragon. They would be superseded by the Catholic Poor who were in turn superseded by the friars. 47 Outside of the province of Tarragona, we mainly know about instances of heresy because of the papal letters. There was the citizen of Burgos, Vidal de Arvial, who, persuaded by the devil, had spoken with heretics, eaten with them, bowed his head to them, knelt before them as a sign of reverence, and given them money, while never, or so he insisted, deviating from the Catholic Faith, or agreeing with their errors. Vidal went to Rome and Gregory IX instructed the learned Bishop Maurice of Burgos to reconcile him if he considered him to be sincere. 48 Then there were the heretics of Palencia, who were too hot for the local bishop to handle by himself, thus forcing him to call on Ferdinand III. They are known through two letters of Gregory IX in 1236, one insisting that the king restore to the bishop possessions confiscated from the heretics, the other ordering Bishop Tello to absolve those who had abjured their errors. 49 Ferdinand III’s co-operation, like most royal co-operation against heretics, had been, to say the least, enthusiastic and, under instructions from the king, when his bailiff caught up with them, he had the heretics branded on their faces and then expelled from the kingdom.50 In Aragon, anti-heretical legislation was traditionally draconian. The Church and Crown there equated heresy with treason even before Innocent III had issued Vergentis in senium (a copy of which had been sent to Sancha of Castile, wife of Alfonso II of Aragon) and already in the 1190s Peter II legislated that the bodies of heretics were to be burnt with fire.51 So it is no surprise that James I, at the Cort of Tarragona 46 Bibliothèque Nationale Paris, Doat, XXIII, fols. 270v–71v; XXIV, fols. 184r–6v; L’herètica pravitat a la Corona d’Aragó: documents sobre càtars, valdesos i altres heretges (1155–1324), ed. S. Grau Torras, E. Berga and S. Cingolani, 2 vols (Barcelona, 2015), i, 309 no. 152. 47 J. Ventura, ‘La Valdesía de Cataluña’, Boletín de la real academia de buenas letras de Barcelona 29 (1961–2), 275–317; Grau Torras, Cátaros e Inquisición, 187–229; D. J. Smith, ‘The Early Waldenses and the Catholic Poor in the Crown of Aragon (12th–13th Centuries)’, in The Waldensians, ed. E. Cameron and M. Benedetti (Leiden, 2022), 78–97; R. Vose, Dominicans, Muslims, and Jews in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (ca. 1220–1320) (Cambridge, 2009); J. Webster, Els menorets: the Franciscans in the realms of Aragon from Saint Francis to the Black Death (Toronto, 1993). 48 DG, 621–2 no. 791. 49 DG, 441–2 no. 539; 470 no. 580. 50 DG, 470 no. 580. 51 C. Baraut, ‘Els inicis de la inquisició a Catalunya i les seves actuacions al bisbat d’Urgell (segles XII–XIII’, Urgellia, 13 (1996–7), 419–22, no. 1–2; M. Alvira Cabrer and D.J. Smith, ‘Política antiherética en la Corona de Aragón: una carta inédita de Inocencio III a la Reina Sancha (1203)’, Acta historica et archaeologica Mediaevalia, 27/8 (2006–2007), 86–8 no. 2.

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in 1235, enthusiastically approved Gregory IX’s establishment of inquisitions and in 1237 the practical effect of this co-operation was felt at Castellbò, when the archbishop of Tarragona and the bishop of Huesca conducted an inquisition in the town. Backed by a military force under Ramon Folc, the powerful viscount of Cardona, 45 people were condemned as heretics or credentes and arrested, fifteen who had fled were also condemned, the bones of 18 dead people were exhumed, and two houses, presumably where heresy was preached, were pulled down.52 It should be said, however, that in the Iberian peninsula, we do not see the excesses and abuses which appear to have been committed in some other parts, largely due to the early influence and advice on procedure and categorization of heretics from Ramon de Penyafort, who placed the emphasis on justice, equity and mercy, the compassionate Dominican firmly believing that almost all could be reconciled to the Church. It was surely not only because he possessed a great legal mind but because he was also pastorally aware that Gregory chose Ramon for the compilation of the Liber Extra. Ramon had made his reputation in Bologna, and he must have greatly impressed John of Abbeville in their various encounters during the cardinal’s Iberian legation.53 If in this co-operation against the external and internal enemies of the Church, the papacy could claim to be part of a success story, then in the internal affairs of the Church, success is certainly more difficult to gauge. One thing here is, of course, remarkable. If we think back to one hundred and fifty years before, to the time of Gregory VII (1073–1085), few cases came from the Iberian Peninsula to Rome and then usually only the most important, while only a small number of privileges were sent to 52 (Tarragona) Baraut, ‘Els inicis de la inquisició’, 423–5 no. 4; Documentos de Jaime, i, 349–52 no. 212; (Castellbò) Histoire générale de Languedoc, ed. C. Devic and J. Vaissète, 16 vols (Toulouse, 1872–1893), viii, 1010–11 no. 319. 53 (Ramon and heresy) C. Douais, ‘Saint Raymond de Peñafort et les hérétiques. Directoire à l’usage des inquisiteurs aragonais (1242)’, Le Moyen Âge, 12 (1899), 305–25 at 315–25; A. Errera, ‘Il Directorium Inquisitoriale di San Raimundo’ in Magister Raimundus, Atti del Convegno per il IV centenario della canonizzazione di San Raimondo de Penyafort (1601–2001), ed. C. Longo (Rome, 2002), 165–91; S. Grau i Torras, ‘Ramon de Penyafort i el procediment inquisitorial contra els heretges’, Revista de dret històric català, 13 (2014), 143–76. (John of Abbeville’s legation and compilation) Anonymi Vita S. Raymundi, in Raymundiana seu documenta quae pertinent ad. S. Raymundi de Pennaforti, ed. F. Balme and C. Paban, MOPH, IV.1–2 (Rome, 1898), i, 22–3; E. Reno, The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s editing of the decretals of Gregory IX (PhD thesis, Columbia University, 2011), 375–82; M. Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors. IX; Kompilation oder Kodification’, in Magister Raimundus, 61–86; S. Kuttner, ‘Raymond of Penyafort as editor: the Decretales and Constitutions of Gregory IX’, BMCL, 12 (1982), 65–80; A. García García, ‘Valor y proyección histórica de la obra jurídica de San Raimundo de Peñafort’, Revista Española de derecho canónico, 18 (1963), 233–51. See also Reno, in this current volume, chapter 11.

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religious foundations. That already begins to change perceptibly during the pontif icate of Innocent II (1130–1143), a direct result of the schism, and by Gregory IX’s pontif icate there are just thousands of letters, and pretty much all of the leading Spanish churchmen – archbishops, bishops, abbots, masters – were involved in some measure in papal government, particularly acting as judges delegate in disputes over rights and possessions and boundaries – and there are rulings on any number of disputes, and a huge number of privileges to an increasing number of monasteries, to the aforementioned military orders and, of course, to the new religious groups which Gregory favoured so particularly and helped so much – the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the nuns of the order of St Damian (Poor Clares).54 Judges delegate did not always do their job enthusiastically or competently, and they were sometimes partial, so one wonders whether it was a good idea having little disputes travelling to Rome when they could have been settled at home.55 Moreover, disputes over rights and possessions and boundaries rarely went away, however many times they were settled, because human beings are territorial and the rights of corporations are eternal. Nevertheless, one cannot but be impressed by the scale of papal influence on the religious life of the Peninsula, when we remember for centuries, there had been virtually no contact at all, outside of Catalonia.56 True, much of that papal government can be considered reactive – a response to an overwhelming number of complaints and petitions. The off icials of the chancery were surely painfully aware of this. But why did so many complaints and petitions now come to Rome? One must think back to the period when the papacy had so vigorously made its claim to authority over the Church and influence in the world. That initiative, from the Gregorian Reform through to the Fourth Lateran Council, is the larger story. While it can reasonably be argued that papal influence in the Iberian Peninsula reached its height during the pontificate of Gregory IX (rather 54 See the introduction by Domínguez Sánchez to DG (9–33). On the pontificate of Innocent II and the Iberian Peninsula, see D.J. Smith, ‘The Men Who Would be Kings: Innocent II and Spain’, in Pope Innocent II (1130–1143): the world vs the city, ed. J. Doran and D.J. Smith (New York, 2016), 181–204. 55 There is no study of the system of delegated judges in the Iberian Peninsula in this period but see more generally, J. Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate in the Province of Canterbury 1198–1254 (Oxford, 1971); C. Duggan, ‘Papal Judges Delegate and the Making of the ‘New Law’ in the Twelfth Century’, in Cultures of Power: lordship, status, and process in twelfth–century Europe, ed. T.N. Bisson (Philadelphia, 1995), 172–99. 56 See T. Deswarte, Une chrétienté romaine sans pape: l’Espagne et Rome (586–1085) (Paris, 2010).

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than that of his somewhat distant relative, Innocent III), nevertheless it would have to be admitted that the heights fell somewhat beneath the aspirations. For when we look at the spiritual health of the Church then the picture is certainly alarming. Although the attendance of the Iberian prelates at the Fourth Lateran Council had been substantial, there appears to have been little attempt in many places to implement its legislation; and the famous legation of John of Abbeville in 1228–1229, so memorably described by Linehan, reveals a rather desperate picture of bishops who were as incompetent administratively as they were hopeless pastorally, greedy and grasping canons, monastic houses (particularly the Cluniac ones) in a state of terminal decline, disregard of the sacraments, non-payment of tithes, a dreadfully low standard of education, and the widespread immorality of the parish clergy.57 It was actually not in the archdiocese but in the diocese of Braga alone that investigations set in train by the legate revealed that there were 1746 clerics of illegitimate birth, and there were certainly 500 more tarnished so in the diocese of Lugo, which begs the question just how many may have been of legitimate birth.58 Of course, just as if you tie all the heretics together by their tails you can make a herd of them, if you put all the instances of clerical shortcomings together you can make an entertaining soap-opera. It is always easy to exaggerate the extent of scandal. Nevertheless, despite the best efforts of Gregory IX’s legate, the reforms of the Lateran Council in large measure did not take effect with the traditional church. That, of course, reminds us that the friars were now beginning to change the world into which they had entered, soberly dressed witnesses to Lateran IV’s constitutions.59 The relationship between the papacy and the Spanish Church in the thirteenth century cannot properly be understood without them. With Gregory’s enthusiastic support, they were preaching the message of the Gospels, hearing confessions, and tending to the spiritual well-being of the laity, both in Spain and North Africa, as well as to female religious, to an extent that impostors were wandering around impersonating them in 57 On the Iberian attendance at the council, see J.F. Rivera Recio, ‘Personajes hispanos asistentes en 1215 al IV Concilio de Letrán’, Hispania Sacra, 4 (1951), 335–55. On the failure to implement the conciliar legislation as well as John of Abbeville’s legation, see P. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), 1–34; idem, ‘A Papal Legation and its Aftermath: Cardinal John of Abbeville in Spain and Portugal, 1228–1229’, in A Ennio Cortese, eds. I. Birocchi, M. Caravale, E. Conte and U. Petronio, 3 vols (Rome, 2001), ii, 236–56. 58 (Braga) DG, 219–20 no. 220; (Lugo) DG, 338 no. 392; Portugalia Pontificia, 235 no. 285. Cf. Linehan, Spanish Church, 50. 59 Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis glossatorum, ed. A. García y García (Vatican City, 1981), 64–5, c. 16.

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order to pick up tithe payments.60 Friars were already moving into positions of power in the episcopate by the end of Gregory’s pontificate.61 But one must insist that the major interests of many leading Spanish churchmen did not necessarily coincide in all matters with papal reform initiatives in the way that the friars’ interests did. Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada certainly shared the crusading zeal of the Roman Curia but his other primary interest was surely the authority of his primatial See and as well as continuing Toledo’s age-old struggles against Santiago de Compostela with his customary energy, he now embarked upon a new struggle against Tarragona made necessary by the capture of Valencia.62 Given the papacy’s long-term acquiescence in Toledo’s claims to authority, Rodrigo’s petitions could not easily be denied.63 But they were hardly central to the papacy’s objectives. Just as the Toledan primate pursued his own interests, so too did the Christian kings when they wished to assert their dominance over the local church, and this frequently brought about clashes with the pope. There was far less co-operation here. In the seventeenth century, Ferdinand III of Castile would be canonized but in the thirteenth he regularly found himself subject to papal criticism and correction for his treatment of the Church and episcopate.64 Soon after his election, Gregory had written to the prelates of Castile ordering them not to allow Ferdinand to take the tercias reserved for the building of churches.65 Ferdinand found himself in trouble again when he usurped the goods of the church of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, after having disapproved of the papal decision to transfer the see of Calahorra there.66 In 1238, Gregory would advise Ferdinand to return to 60 DG, 56 no. 13; 58 no. 16; 65–6 no. 29; 81–2 no. 54 (impostors); 167 no. 149; 207–10 no. 207; 213–14 no. 212; 277 no. 309; 359 no. 426; 383–4 no. 463; 431 no. 523; 442–3 no. 541; 591–2 no. 755–6; 598 no. 761; 685–6 no. 869–70. 61 Linehan, Spanish Church, 78–9. 62 DG, 201 no. 201; 306–7 no. 350; 433–4 no. 528; 453 no. 557; 654 no. 837; 662–5 no. 843; 667–70 no. 846; 676–7 no. 856; 762–3 no. 989. See also L. Pick, Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of medieval Spain (Ann Arbor, 2004); R.I. Burns, The Crusader-Kingdom of Valencia: reconstruction of a thirteenth-century frontier, 2 vols (Harvard, 1967), i, 253–73. 63 JL, 5366; J. Rivera Recio, ‘La primacía eclesiástica de Toledo en el siglo XII’, Anthologica Annua, 10 (1962), 11–88; Linehan, History and the Historians, passim. 64 Linehan, History and the Historians, 517, 563; C. de Ayala Martínez, ‘Fernando III. Figura, signif icado, y contexto en tiempo de cruzada’ in Fernando III. Tiempo de cruzada, 17–91; A. Rodríguez López, ‘La politica eclesiástica de la monarquía castellano-leonesa durante el reinado de Fernando III (1217–1252)’, Hispania, 48 (1988), 7–48; González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 51–3; González Jiménez, Fernando III, 282–94. 65 DG, 79–80 no. 50. 66 DG, 182 no. 173; 242–3 no. 258; 284–5 no. 319; 343 no. 400; 561, no. 706; 562, no. 708.

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the new bishop of León, Martín Rodríguez, the episcopal rents which he had retained when the see was vacant.67 James I (whose own later cause for canonization unsurprisingly failed to get off the ground) was excommunicated in 1237 when he blocked the path of the bishop-elect of Zaragoza, Bernardo de Monteagudo, on his way to consecration at Tarragona and this sentence was only lifted by Gregory IX on the condition that the king of Aragon would subsequently accompany Bernardo personally to the church for consecration.68 The attacks of Sancho II upon the goods and prelates of the churches of Oporto, Lisbon, Braga, and Coimbra were such that, as Gregory saw it, not a vestige of ecclesiastical liberty remained in the kingdom of Portugal.69 Sancho’s vicious pursuit of his one-time friend, the papal chaplain and bishop of Lisbon, Johannes Hispanus, ultimately led Gregory to threaten the use of the secular power against the excommunicated monarch.70 It was the shape of things to come for the rex inutilis whom Innocent IV would deprive of the administration of his kingdom in 1245.71 There was also clearly discord between crown and pope concerning the question of the Jews. Early in his pontificate, Gregory IX had already sent instructions to John of Abbeville, which indicated that a hard-line should be taken against the Jews of Palencia, in order that they pay tithes on the possessions which they had acquired from Christians, abstain from excessive usury and attacks upon the clergy, respond for their excesses in an ecclesiastical court, and avoid establishing their cemeteries near those of Christians (so that the shouts of the Jews did not drown out the funerary rites of the Christians).72 Similar complaints were subsequently 67 DG, 634 no. 806. 68 DG, 507–8 no. 632–3. (Canonization) Ch. de Tourtoulon, Don Jaime I el Conquistador, 2 vols (Valencia, 1873–4), ii, 414–15. 69 DG, 52–56 nos 10–12; 201–204 nos 202–4; 231 no. 239; 262–5 nos 289–91; 270–1 nos 297–8; 286–8 nos 322–3; 328–9 no. 383; 413–15 no. 499; 450–3 nos 554–6; 570–1 no. 722; 587–90 nos 748–51; 590 no. 752; 593–7 nos 758–9; 599 no. 763; 602–5 nos 767–9; 607–8 no. 774. Portugalia Pontificia, 215, no. 243; 220, no. 253ª; 225, no. 264; 231, no. 276; 235, no. 284; 236–7, nos 287–9; 239, no. 293ª. 70 DG, 282–3 no. 316; 285–6 no. 320; 286–8 nos 322–3; 328–9 no. 383; 365–6 nos 433–5; 544–7 nos 684–5; 602–3 no. 767; 648 no. 827; 694–8 nos 884–88; 698–700 nos 890–3; 749 no. 971. (Secular power: 4/6/1238) 607–8 no. 774: ‘[A]lioquin, tibi habes quod imputes si presens monitio te non sine paterna comminatione premunit, cum dissimulare ulterius non possimus quin secundum Deum et iustitiam procedentes, et medicinalem in te Petri gladium exeramus, et contra te potentiam secularis auxilii nichilominus inuocemus.’ 71 Portugalia Pontificia, i, 256 no. 325; A.D. de Sousa Costa, Mestre Silvestre e Mestre Vicente, juristas da contenda entre D. Afonso II e suas irmãs (Braga, 1983), 436–9 n. 547; Varandas, “Bonus rex” ou “rex inutilis”, pp. 289–412; E. Peters, ‘Rex inutilis: Sancho II of Portugal and thirteenthcentury deposition theory’, Studia Gratiana, 14 (1967), 253–305. 72 DG, 117 no. 97.

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made to Maurice of Burgos concerning the Jews of his diocese, as well as which there were more specific complaints at Tudela and Baeza concerning non-payment of tithes on land and properties which the Jews had bought from Christians.73 There were likewise papal protests to the prelates of Compostela and Ferdinand III himself concerning these ‘excesses’ and also the failure to fulfil the constitutions of Lateran IV regarding the need for Jews to wear distinctive clothing and the prohibition on them holding public office.74 These concerns were also taken up with Sancho VII of Navarre and with Sancho II of Portugal, who was, needless to say, one of the chief offenders when it came to preferring Jews over Christians.75 By the later part of his pontificate, Gregory IX was ordering for the Jews to surrender all copies of the Talmud to the Dominicans and Franciscans.76 Yet at this stage, although attitudes were changing, and the vicar’s accounts of 1240–1241 in Barcelona indicate that Jews were increasingly subject to random attacks, the Christian Iberian rulers remained generally reluctant to follow the papal lead in these matters, given the value of the Jewish community to them in their conquests and in the government of their kingdoms.77 Finally, it should also be said that in the affair which mattered most to the pope, the Christian Iberian rulers were distinctly unhelpful towards Gregory. In 1228, when the first shots of the great propaganda war were fired, the pope had written thrice to James I of Aragon, explaining to him firstly, Frederick II’s excommunication after the emperor’s failure to arrive at an agreement with the papal legates and go on crusade; secondly, the meeting at Perugia with the absolution of Frederick’s vassals from their oath of fidelity; and, thirdly, the scandalous behaviour of Frederick’s lieutenant, Rainald of Spoleto.78 In July 1229, Gregory certainly appealed for urgent help to all of the Christian kings of the Peninsula, as well as to the archbishops of Compostela 73 DG, 149 no. 126; 650–1 no. 832; 683 no. 866. On the episcopate of Maurice of Burgos, see T. Witcombe, Between Paris and Al-Andalus: Bishop Maurice of Burgos and his World, c.1208–1338 (PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 2019). 74 DG, 273–4 nos 303–4; Butllari de Catalunya, 179 no. 122; Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis, 107–9, c. 68–9. 75 DG, 202–4 no. 203; 267 no. 294. 76 DG, 671 no. 847; 672–3 nos 849–50; 674 no. 853. 77 S.M. Cingolani and D.J. Smith, ‘The 1240–1 Accounts of the Vicar Pere Ferrer and a Heretic Hunt Around Barcelona’, MIÖG, 124 (2016), 26–52 at 48; M. Soifer Irish, Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile: tradition, coexistence, and change (Washington, 2016), 19–52; T. Barton, Contested Treasure: Jews and authority in the Crown of Aragon (University Park, Philadelphia, 2016). 78 DG, 83–4 no. 56; 96 no. 73; 102–3 no. 79; Butllari de Catalunya, i, 176–8, no. 120, 180–4, nos 124–5; E. Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second 1194–1250 (London, 1931), 167–211; D. Abulaf ia, Frederick II. A Medieval Emperor (London, 1992), 164–201.

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and Toledo and their suffragans, following Frederick’s infamous treaty with al-Kamil.79 In happier times, in November 1234, in order to aid Frederick in his new projected Holy Land crusade, Gregory IX not only appealed to all the Iberian kings, but also to the infante Ferdinand in Aragon, Count Nuño Sanç of Roussillon, and both Ferdinand III’s wife and mother (Beatrice of Swabia, Berenguela).80 In spring 1239, when relations had definitively broken down, an enormously long and wordy letter arrived to James I from Rome outlining all of the excommunicated Frederick’s crimes and misdemeanours from the beginning, while a brief letter was sent to Thibaut telling him to avoid giving Frederick help and favour.81 Finally, in October 1240, Gregory sent letters to Ferdinand III and Sancho II of Portugal to call their envoys to the pope’s intended general council and to counter the effect of Frederick’s efforts to obstruct it.82 The lack of support Gregory received in his great struggle should not be attributed to the fact that Ferdinand III of Castile’s first wife, Beatrice, was the daughter of Philip of Swabia, and hence Frederick II’s cousin.83 Nor did it matter that Frederick II’s first wife, whom he so admired, had been Constance, James I of Aragon’s aunt.84 After all, Ferdinand and James did not help Frederick either. Rather, at that moment, all the focus was on the restoration of Spain which the pope also supported. When, eventually, it appeared evident that it was in their interests to intervene, Ferdinand III’s son, Alfonso X, would pursue his claim to the empire through his mother, Beatrice, while James I’s eldest son of his second marriage, Peter III, would, with far greater success, exploit the claim of his wife, Constance, Frederick’s grand-daughter, to the kingdom of Sicily and thus set the pope, Martin IV, against him.85 There is a sense that while the pontificate of Gregory IX saw the influence of the papacy in the Iberian Peninsula reach towards its maximum extent 79 DG, 138–47 nos 116–22; Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 183–92; Abulafia, Frederick II, 180–5. 80 DG, 352–7 nos 413–22. 81 DG, 648–9 no. 828; 656–61 no. 841; Butllari de Catalunya, i, 217–28, no. 165; Abulafia, Frederick II, 340–50. 82 DG, 746–8 nos 967–8; Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 544–58. In February 1240, Gregory had complained to the archbishop of Braga and his suffragans concerning the enormity of Frederick’s crimes (Portugalia Pontificia, 242 no. 299). 83 González, Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III, i, 96–113. 84 Abulafia, Frederick II, 106; N. Kamp, ‘Costanza d’Aragona, imperatrice, regina d’Ungheria e di Sicilia’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 30 (1984), 356–9. 85 C. Estepa Díez, ‘Alfonso X y el fecho del Imperio’, Revista de Occidente, 43 (1984), 43–54; O. Cartellieri, Peter von Aragon und die sizilianische Vesper (Heidelberg, 1904); J. Strayer, ‘The Crusade against Aragon’, Speculum, 28 (1953), 101–13.

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and close co-operation in many fields, there were also clear indications of the limits to the pope’s authority both in resolving the internal problems of the Church, many of which, concerning morality and territoriality, would continue, perhaps inevitably, throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, and in shaping the secular ruler to the papal view of his function at a time when monarchic power was developing on its own terms.

About the Author Damian J. Smith is Professor of Medieval History in the Department of History at Saint Louis University, USA. He is the author/editor/translator of numerous books and articles concerning the Medieval Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Church. He is currently writing a history of the reign of James I of Aragon (1213–1276).

8. Gregory IX and Mission Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt Abstract This chapter explores Gregory IX’s involvement in external mission, that is, conversion efforts among non-Christians, and internal mission, that is, mission among Christians weak in faith or Christians who did not belong to the Latin Christian Church. Analysing some of his central letters about mission, including the highly influential letter Cum hora undecima of February 1235, it discusses Gregory’s perception of such ventures, the role of the mendicants, with whom the pope had a long association, and the impact of previous papal missionary involvement, particularly under his predecessor, Honorius III. Keywords: Mission, Martyrdom, Friars, Apocalypse, Gregory IX

In February 1235, Pope Gregory IX issued the letter Cum hora undecima to a group of Dominicans who wished to take up mission in the East. Gregory gave the friars a number of tasks and licenses, stating that: Since the eleventh hour has come [Matt. 20:9] in the day given to mankind […] it is necessary that spiritual men [who have] purity of life and the gift of understanding should go forth with John [the Baptist] and prophesy again unto many peoples and nations and languages and kings [Rev. 10:11], because, according to the prophet Isaiah, the salvation of the remnant of Israel will not occur until, as Paul the Apostle says, the fullness of the Gentiles enters first [into the kingdom of heaven] [Rom. 11:25].1 1 ‘Cum hora undecima sit diei hominibus, ut exeant ad opus usque ad mundi vesperam deputati et illud Apocalypsis eulogium cito credatur cum matris Ecclesiae consolatione complendum, videlicet oportere viros spiritualis vitae munditiam et intelligentiae gratiam cum Iohanne sortitos populis et gentibus, linguis regibusque multis denuo prophetare, quod non sequitur reliquiarum Israel per Isaiam prophetata salvatio, nisi iuxta Paulum Apostolum prius introeat

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch08

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Cum hora undecima was to become the most influential missionary letter from Gregory’s pontificate. It was repeatedly reissued by his successors, throughout the rest of the thirteenth century, starting with Innocent IV who in 1245 used it when he sent his first envoys directly to the Mongols. Gregory’s successors made some specifications and minor alterations to the letter,2 but the arenga and the main message of Gregory’s letter remained untouched, testifying to the importance ascribed to it by subsequent popes. This essay explores Gregory IX’s involvement in both external mission, that is, conversion efforts among non-Christians, and internal mission, that is, mission among Christians weak in faith or Christians who did not belong to the Latin Christian Church. Analysing some of his central letters about mission, it discusses his perception of such ventures, the role of the mendicants, and the influence of previous papal missionary involvement.

Honorius III Let us first turn to the pontificate of Honorius III (1216–1227), Gregory’s immediate predecessor, for a brief survey of the missionary ideas which were prevalent in the papal curia during Gregory’s – or rather Hugo’s – cardinalate. Honorius III had instigated an active papal involvement in mission among non-Christians. In 1221 he asked more than forty archbishops from across Latin Europe to send between two and four suitable men to Rome. The curia would then take charge and send them out to work for the conversion of non-Christians. This ambitious missionary programme, with potentially more than one hundred missionaries, was introduced in gentium plenitudo […]’ Cum hora undecima, Tăutu, 286–7 no. 210, at 286; also in Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Prædicatorum, ed. T. Ripoll and A. Bremond, 8 vols (Rome, 1729–1740), i, 73–4 no. 123; amended from transl. in J. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels: the Church and the non-Christian World 1250–1550 (Philadelphia, 1979), 36–7. 2 Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels, 37–8. For the inclusion of the Mongols among the missionary targets, see F. Schmieder, ‘Cum hora undecima: the incorporation of Asia into the orbis Christianus’, in Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, ed. G. Armstrong and I.N. Wood, International Medieval Research 7 (Turnhout, 2000), 259–65, at 260 with note 4. Subsequent reissues include: March 1245: Acta Innocentii P.P. IV (1243–1254, ed. T.T. Haluscynskyj and M.M. Wojnar (Rome, 1962), 36–42 no. 19; April 1258: Acta Alexandri P.P. IV (1254–1261), ed. T.T. Haluscynkyj and M.M. Wojnar (Rome, 1966), 73–4 no. 38; July 1263: Acta Urbani IV, Clementis IV, Gregorii X (1261–1276), ed. A.L. Tăutu (Rome, 1953), 26–8 no. 7; September 1288: Acta Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio V ad Benedictum XI (1276–1304), ed. F.M. Delorme and A.L. Tăutu (Rome, 1954), 142–4 no. 79; August 1291: op.cit., 184–5 no. 110; March 1304: op.cit., 252–5 no. 153.

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the letter Ne si secus.3 By initiating this missionary push, Honorius differed from most of his predecessors who, with a few exceptions, do not appear to have led the way in terms of mission among non-Christians. 4 They had supported a number of missionary plans originating with local bishops and monks, but they do not appear to have planned major missionary ventures themselves.5 It is worth noting that Honorius’s 1221-initiative was not directly related to the activities of the new mendicant orders: at this point the pope was hoping to base his venture on help from the well-established Cistercian order.6 His interest may well, however, have been inspired by the mendicants who had come to influence the papal curia – partly thanks to Cardinal Hugo – and who had also found great favour with Honorius.7 From the mid-1220s Honorius’s missionary ambitions became closely linked to the Dominicans and Franciscans. Thus, in two bulls issued in 1225, both entitled Vineae Domini custodes, Honorius supported the ongoing Dominican work among Muslims and Christians in Spain and Morocco, 3 Pressutti, i no. 3209, full text in DD, 1/5, 242–4 no. 192. For a fuller analysis of this letter, see I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Pope Honorius III and Mission and Crusades in the Baltic Region’, in The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier, ed. A.V. Murray (Farnham, 2009), 103–22. This missionary plan was apparently not realized; no further mention of this venture has been found in the surviving sources. 4 Among the most prominent exceptions are Pope Gregory I (590–604), who promoted the conversion of the English; Pope Gregory II (715–731) who took a leading role in Boniface’s mission among the Germans; and Pope Nicholas I (858–867) who worked to convert the Bulgars: R.E. Sullivan, ‘The Papacy and Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages’, Mediaeval Studies, 17 (1955), 46–106; I. Wood, ‘The Mission of Augustine of Canterbury to the English’, Speculum, 69 (1994), 1–17. 5 This famously frustrated Bernard of Clairvaux who in his De consideratione criticized Pope Eugenius III for his lack of missionary involvement. He wrote of the lack of conversion effort: ‘To whom has belief come by chance? How shall they believe without preaching? Peter was sent to the Eunuch; and if we ask for a more recent example, Augustine, commissioned by blessed Gregory, brought the teachings of the faith to the English. And you should follow their examples’ Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘De consideratione’, in Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot and H. Rochais, 9 vols in 10 (Rome, 1957–98), iii, 433 (Book III:1:4), translated in Bernard of Clairvaux, Five Books on Consideration. Advice to a Pope, trans. J.D. Anderson and E.T. Kennan, Cistercian Fathers Series, 13 (Kalamazoo, 1976), 83. 6 He asked for ‘quatuor uiros opinionis sincere ac litterature probate uel tres seu saltem duos cuiuscumque religionis uel ordinis et Cisterciensis presertim’ DD, 1/5, 242–4 no. 192, at 244 l. 2–3. 7 For the shared ideas of Honorius III and Dominic and for Honorius’ support of the Dominicans, see M.-H. Vicaire, Saint Dominic and His Times, transl. K. Pond (London, 1964), 286–9; J.M. Powell, ’Pastor Bonus: some evidence of Honorius III’s use of the sermons of Pope Innocent III’, Speculum, 52 (1977), 529–33. For Honorius’s support of the Franciscans, see for instance K.-V-Selge, ’Franz von Assisi und die römische Kurie’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 67:2 (1970), 129–61.

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encouraging both Dominicans and Franciscans to work in both external and internal mission there.8 Three themes stand out in these letters from Honorius. The first theme is that of apostolic imitation. It was common to refer to missionaries as the new apostles, and this usage can be found in both earlier papal letters and chronicles.9 However, the motif seems to have been important to Honorius who peppered his missionary letters with references to and quotations from the Acts of the Apostles and other parts of the New Testament in order to make parallels between the Apostles and the new missionaries. While this parallel would have appealed to the Dominicans and Franciscans who wished to emulate the Apostolic life, it is noteworthy that Honorius employed this image prior to his missionary ventures with the mendicants in the 1220s. In the letter Ne si secus which instigated his missionary push in 1221 he thus explicitly encouraged the missionaries to act ‘just as the fellow citizens of the apostles and of the household of God’, thus paraphrasing Ephesians 2:19.10 The second theme is that of martyrdom. In Ne si secus Honorius not only warned new missionaries that they might suffer death by taking up this task, he actively encouraged them to seek it.11 Martyrdom was also mentioned in Vineae Domini custodes where Honorius wrote that the friars wished ‘to deny [themselves]’ and ‘to lay down their lives for Christ’.12 The first is a reference to Matthew 16:24 in which Christ said: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’ The second is a reference to John 13:37 where Peter said to Christ, ‘Why cannot I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Honorius III may here echo early Franciscan ideas. As often pointed out, a desire for martyrdom was among the key motivations for Francis and most of his early missionaries.13 8 Vineae Domini (10 June 1225 and 7 October 1225): La documentación pontificia de Honorio III (1216–1227), ed. D. Mansilla, Monumenta Hispaniae Vaticana. Seccion: Registros II (Rome, 1965), 416–17 no. 562 and 435 no. 579. 9 For a wonderfully explicit example, see Innocent III’s letter Is qui ecclesiam of April 1201: M. Maccarrone, Studi su Innocenzo III (Padova, 1972), 334–7, at 334. 10 Ne si secus (February–March 1221): DD, 1/5, 242–4 no. 192. For a letter using this image in relation to the mendicants, see for instance Urgente officii of 20 February 1226: La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, no. 595. 11 Ne si secus: DD, 1/5, 242–4 no. 192, at 244. See also I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007), 164–5. 12 Vineae Domini (10 June 1225 and 7 October 1225): La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, 416–17 no. 562, at 417, and 435 no. 579. 13 E. Randolph Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages (New York, 1992), xiv–xv and 37–54. See also B.Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European approaches towards

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The third theme relates to ideas about the end of time and the conversion of the fullness of the Gentiles (plenitudo gentium). Both Ne si secus of 1221 and Vineae Domini custodes of 1225 drew on the imagery of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard from Matthew 20:1–16.14 In Ne si secus Honorius stated that it was now the eleventh hour (hora undecima, Matt. 20:9) which would be followed, once all peoples had been converted, by a new state of affairs, a righteous kingdom, salvation. Quoting Isaiah 32:15–16 at length, he described that new and blessed state in some detail, how fairness and wisdom then will prevail, how ‘new life is poured out on us from heaven […] the desert will become an orchard […] [and] justice will settle down in the desert’.15 He briefly referred to Romans 11:25–6 which tells of how ‘a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in […] and all Israel will be saved’. This theme was however not found in Vineae Domini custodes.

Gregory IX After Gregory’s election as pope, he maintained Honorius’ practice of collaborating with both the Dominicans and Franciscans on internal and external mission – as well as on many other issues. Gregory had strong ties to both orders and had been Cardinal Protector for the Franciscans during his cardinalate.16 Both orders had a strong involvement in evangelizing and mission but there were some differences with regard to missionary targets and methods. Francis wished his followers to work among both Christian and the Muslims (Princeton, 1984), 124–6, 135–6; J.V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the medieval European imagination (New York, 2002), 214–21, who recounts the stories of the many Franciscan martyrs of the 1220s and early 1230s. Thomas of Celano wrote of Francis’ strong desire for martyrdom (Thomas of Celano, ‘Vita prima’, in Analecta Franciscana 10 (Florence, 1926), 42 ch. 55. 14 Ne si secus (1221): DD, 1/5, no. 192; Vineae domini (1225): La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, nos 562, 579. 15 Ne si secus: DD, 1/5, 242–4 no. 192. 16 The close relationship between Cardinal Hugo and the mendicants is well known, as is the strengthening of the ties between them once Hugo had become pope and used the mendicants as trusted helpers in a variety of tasks, including crusade-preaching and negotiations. See J.M. Powell, ‘The Papacy and the Early Franciscans’, Franciscan Studies, 36 (1976), 248–62; K.-V. Selge, ‘Franz von Assisi und Hugolino von Ostia’, in San Francesco nella Ricerca Storica degli Ottanta Anni, Convegni del Centro di Studia sulla Spiritualità Medievala, 9 (Todi, 1971), 159–222; R.B. Brooke, Early Franciscan Government: Elias to Bonaventure (Cambridge, 1959), 56–122 and passim; J. Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order: from its origins to the year 1517 (Oxford, 1968), 55–7 and passim; Vicaire, Saint Dominic and His Times, passim; C.T. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: mendicant friars and the cross in the thirteenth century (Cambridge, 1994).

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non-Christians everywhere, but the early Franciscan missionaries focused many of their conversion efforts on the Muslims in Spain, North Africa and the Middle East; Francis himself famously attempted to convert Sultan al-Kamil of Egypt (1218–1238) during the Fifth Crusade.17 The Dominicans had begun their activities in Toulouse, working among the Albigensians, and maintained a strong interest in internal mission and evangelizing; there are however several examples of Dominican interest in working for external mission among Muslims, among pagans in north-eastern Europe, and elsewhere.18 While Francis imagined his brethren should work through personal example and penitential preaching, the Dominicans wanted to work through doctrinal preaching and debates with non-Christians and hence placed great emphasis on linguistic, philosophical and theological studies.19 Gregory’s and the mendicants’ shared dedication to mission among Muslims is clear from a group of letters which he issued in 1233 in which the pope exhorted Muslim leaders to convert and bring their people to the Christian faith. In February of that year, Gregory sent a letter, Celestis altitudo consilii, to the Aiyubid sultans al-Ashraf of Damascus (d. 1237), al–Aziz of Aleppo (1216–1236) and al-Kamil of Egypt as well as the Selchuck Sultan Kai-Qobad I of Konya (1220–1237).20 17 See Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission, 37–54, especially 38–9; Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order, 226–9; C. Esser, Origins of the Franciscan Order (Chicago, 1970), 219–28. 18 In his book on the Dominicans in Aragon in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Robin Vose challenges the traditional view of Dominican missionary activity, stating that he has found ‘little if any evidence to suggest that medieval Dominicans encouraged […] conversions by engaging in widespread or sustained campaigns of proselytism’ (R. Vose, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews in the Medieval Crown of Aragon [Cambridge, 2009], 7). This may well be the case, but the early Dominicans certainly appear to have intended to work actively for the conversion of non-Christians as well as to provide pastoral care for Christians in North Africa; the letter Vineae Domini custodes of 10 June 1225 (La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, no. 562) explicitly states that the Dominicans had requested to be sent to Morocco to take up these tasks. For an overview of Dominican involvement in external and internal mission, see B. Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen des 13. Jahrhunderts (Habelschwerdt, 1924). For Dominican activity in north-eastern Europe, where they appear to have intended to work both in internal mission (including attempts to convert the Russians to the Catholic faith) and external mission, see J. Gallén, La province de Dacie de l’ordre des Frères Prêcheurs. I. Histoire générale jusqu’au Grand Schisme, Institutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum Romae ad S. Sabinae, Dissertationes Historicae, 12 (Helsinki, 1946), 43–57 and elsewhere; Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen, 160–92 and 196–225. See also Vicaire, Saint Dominic and His Times, 298–9. 19 Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission, xiv–xv and 6–12; Esser, Origins of the Franciscan Order, 219–28. 20 For Gregory’s relations with the rulers of the East, see K.-E. Lupprian, Die Beziehungen der Päpste zu islamischen und mongolischen Herrschern im 13. Jahrhundert anhand ihres Briefwechsels,

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Gregory opened Celestis altitudo consilii by stating that God had sent three groups of men to pronounce the faith on Earth, namely the patriarchs, the prophets and the apostles. Drawing on quotes from Genesis, he first described the role of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who with their descendants founded the faith on Earth. Next, he wrote a lengthy passage on the prophets – which included numerous quotes from Baruch, Micah, Hosea and especially Isaiah – to describe how they had foretold the coming of Christ and the end of time. He then broke off from the description of the three groups to describe the birth of Christ and the miracles He had worked – an interlude which also served to prove the validity of the prophecies. Gregory finally turned to the role of the apostles. Using quotes from the New Testament, he wrote of the miracles performed by the apostles and their relics, promising his audience that ‘the Catholic mother Church is illuminated by miracles as the blind can see, the lame can walk, those with leprosy have been cleansed, those who are possessed by the devil are being freed, the dead are awakened, which does not happen […] in other religions’.21 The letter finished with Gregory urging the sultan to listen to the message of the papal messengers – two Franciscan friars – and to come to the Christian faith along with his people. In May 1233, a few months after Celestis altitudo consilii had been issued to the four sultans, the same letter was sent to the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustansir of Baghdad (1226–1242) and the Almohad Caliph ar-Rashid (1232–1242).22 Studi e Testi 291 (Vatican City, 1981), 35–8, and B.E. Whalen, ‘Corresponding with Inf idels: Rome, the Almohads and the Christians of Thirteenth-Century Morocco’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 41:3 (2011), 487–513, especially 496–501. The letter Celestis altitudo of 15 February 1233 to Sultan al-Ashraf is printed in Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 120–5; also in Bullarium Franciscanum, ed. G.G. Sbaraglia et al., 7 vols (Rome, 1758–1904), i, 93–6 no. 87. For the letters to al-Aziz, al-Kamil and Kai-Qobad I, see Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 126. 21 Celestis altitudo consilii of 15 February 1233: Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 120–5, quote at 123. The letter touched upon a number of theological issues, including the nature of the Trinity which was important in this letter to the sultans as the idea of the Trinity was one of the major differences between Christianity and Islam; Gregory used the Trinitarian attributes of power, potentia, wisdom, sapientia, and goodness, benignitas (as he did elsewhere, including in a letter of 1229: Auvray, no. 381). For the use of this triad by Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard, see D. Poirel, Livre de la nature et débat trinitaire au XIIe siècle. Le De tribus diebus de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Bibliotheca Victorina 14 (Turnhout, 2002); M. Perkams, ‘The Origins of the Trinitarian Attributes potentia, sapientia, benignitas’, Archa Verbi, 1 (2004), 25–41; and C.J. Mews, ‘The World as Text: the Bible and the book of nature in twelfth-century theology’, in Scripture and Pluralism: reading the Bible in the religiously plural worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, eds T.J. Heffernan and T.E. Burman (Leiden, 2005), 95–122, especially 115–17. 22 For Gregory’s relations with the Almohads, see Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 21–2. For the version of Celestis altitudo sent to al-Mustansir and ar-Rashid on 26 May 1233, see Lupprian,

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None of this resulted in missionary breakthroughs,23 even though there was a follow up in the case of al-Kamil who, in August 1233, received a new call – sent with Dominican friars – to convert.24 The initiative for this new effort to bring about the conversion of the Muslims most likely came from the Franciscans. Gregory however appears to have been keen to support it: not only did he lend it his authority by issuing a letter; he also took an active part by writing a long and carefully constructed letter introducing the faith to the sultans. It may also have been down to the efforts of the papal curia that the Dominicans became involved in this venture in August 1233. The mendicants also played a pivotal role in Gregory’s relations with the Greeks and the attempts at ecclesiastical union. After an opening from the Greek patriarch, Germanus II (1223–1240), Gregory sent two Dominicans and two Franciscans as envoys to the Greeks in 1233. They held several talks – or debates – with the patriarchs and others, but to no avail, partly due to the uncompromising stand of the friars.25 In February 1235 Gregory supported a new mendicant push in internal and external mission. He issued Cum hora undecima which was to become the model for several subsequent papal letters on external and internal mission. Its recipient was a Dominican, William of Monferrato, who along with a Die Beziehungen, 127. Caliph ar-Rashid received another letter (dated 27 May 1233, printed in Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 128–9) which identifies one of the messengers sent to him as Bishop Agnellus of Fez. For Agnellus’ work in northern Africa, see Vose, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews, 205–8 and 225, and Tolan, Saracens, 218. 23 Sultan Kai-Qobad I of Konya did send a messenger, Johannes Gabras, to Gregory in early 1234; this however seems unrelated to Gregory’s missionary letter of 1233, as the sultan stated that he had attempted to send several messengers between 1230 and 1234 (see the sultan’s letter in Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 132–4). Furthermore, while the sultan’s letter did not disclose the subject which the sultan wished to discuss, a later letter by Johannes Gabras (Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 135–6) suggests that the sultan envisioned an alliance with the Christians (including Emperor Frederick II) which would help the Christians reconquer Jerusalem. This led to further communication mediated through Johannes Gabras (two letters of 29 March 1235: Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 137 and 138). In 1235 contact was established with another North-African ruler, namely Abu Zakariya Yahya (d. 1249) who founded the Hafsid dynasty in Ifriqiya; he sent two Genoese merchants to Gregory to negotiate a treaty with the papacy. Gregory sent two friars to him (Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels, 39–40; Gregory’s reply in Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 139–40). 24 The letter was issued on 12 August 1233; it is printed in Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 130–1. 25 B. E. Whalen, Dominion of God. Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 160–4; C.H. Lawrence, The Friars: the impact of the mendicant orders on medieval society (London, 1994), 195–7; J. Doran, ‘Rites and Wrongs: the Latin mission to Nicaea, 1234’, in Unity and Diversity in the Church, ed. R.N. Swanson, Studies in Church History 32 (Oxford, 1996), 131–44; Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen, 15–18.

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few brethren was about to embark on a mission in the East.26 Friar William had long wished to take up mission. In his testimony for the canonization process relating to Dominic, he credited that interest to Dominic himself whom he had met at the house of Gregory – then Cardinal Hugo – in Rome at Lent 1217.27 Back then Dominic and William had talked about taking up missionary work among the pagans in northern Europe.28 Now, almost 20 years later, William was to work among Muslims.29 Gregory issued two letters for William’s mission that day in February 1235, both entitled Cum hora undecima. The main letter was addressed to William and his companions and gave them a number of tasks and licenses; the other was addressed to the prelates, merchants and other Christian faithful in the lands of the Saracens and exhorted them to support the friars in their work.30 In the arenga, Gregory wrote of the eleventh hour (hora undecima, Matt. 20:9) and the Apocalypse (Apocalypsis), and of how it was necessary that spiritual men now should go out and ‘prophesy again unto many peoples and nations and languages and kings’31 (Rev. 10:11) because ‘the salvation of the remnant of Israel will not occur until, as Paul the Apostle says, the fullness of the Gentiles (plenitudo gentium) enters first’ into the kingdom 26 Cum hora undecima I of 15 February 1235: Tăutu, 286–7 no. 210. 27 Vicaire, Saint Dominic and his Times, 226–7. 28 See Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 161. 29 William appears to have gotten well under way: in 1237 Friar Philip, the Dominican provincial of the Holy Land, stated in a letter to Gregory IX that William was working in the East (the letter was included in Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H.R. Luard, Rolls Series 57, 7 vols (London, 1872–1883), iii, 396–9). William had apparently reported that he had spent some time with the Nestorian catholicus, Sabarjesus V (1226–1257), and had found him willing to return to the Catholic Church. See The History of the Crusades, ed. K.M. Setton et al., 6 vols (Madison, 1955–89), v, 468; Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen, 45–7. For other reports on Islam sent by the Dominicans to Gregory IX, see J.M. Powell, ‘Matthew Paris, the Lives of Muhammad and the Dominicans’, in Dei Gesta per Francos: Etudes sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard, ed. M. Balard, B. Z. Kedar and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2001), 65–9, repr. in The Crusades, the Kingdom of Sicily, and the Mediterranean (Aldershot, 2007), Chapter VIII. For William, see also Early Dominicans: selected writings, ed. S. Tugwell (London, 1982), 109 note 58. 30 Cum hora undecima II of 15 February 1235: Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Prædicatorum, i, 74 no. 124. 31 While the verb ‘prophesy’ was a quote from Rev. 10:11, it was probably not used here in the sense of ‘making predictions about the future’. M.-D. Chenu has pointed out that around this time the term was taking on a different meaning among the apostolic movements and the papacy: it referred to ‘an understanding of faith which gave to the teacher an aptitude for presenting in all its urgency the present working out of God’s plan’, M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century (Toronto, 1997), 269. Quoting from Matt. 10:40–2, Honorius used such terms in several of his recommendation bulls for the Dominicans (Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Pope Honorius III and Mission’, 114–15).

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of heaven (Rom. 11:25). In the dispositio, Gregory referred to the friars as burning with desire to profess the faith; he also referred to them as dragging ‘the fourth chariot’ (Zach. 6:3) and eager to lift up the King’s banner. He stated that he now sent them to ‘the peoples who do not recognize Our Lord, Jesus Christ, and to the sons of destruction who do not obey the Holy Roman Church’.32 Gregory went on to specify the friars’ tasks. They were essentially the same as those given the friars by Honorius in Vineae Domini custodes back in 1225: they were to convert infidels, instruct heretics in the right faith, and strengthen the faith of wavering Christians. To do so, they were given license to preach, baptize infidels, and absolve excommunicates. Gregory added a few to Honorius’s list, including the license to dispense the newly converted from irregularities (presumably regarding marriage and so forth); he was also accommodating with regard to the needs of missionaries on the move, allowing, for instance, the friars in the absence of a proper Catholic bishop to bless the sacerdotal clothing and altar cloths themselves.33 The letter thus gave the friars the licences that they needed for both external and internal mission. A key to understanding some of the imagery of Cum hora undecima can be found in Gregory’s letter canonizing Dominic, Fons sapientie verbum, issued on 13 July 1234, that is, some seven months before the issue of Cum hora indecima. This letter throws light on the nebulous reference to ‘the fourth chariot’ which is not explained in Cum hora undecima. In Fons sapientie verbum, Gregory had used Zacharias’s eighth vision (Zach. 6:1–8 which is related to Rev. 6:4–5) which tells of how God sent out four chariots to bring His message to the four corners of the world and make the world the kingdom of God’s Messiah. Gregory used Zacharias’s eighth vision to describe those who had strengthened the Christian faith. According to his reinterpretation, the first group, or ‘the first chariot’, was the early Christians who had ‘brought together the Church’ from all nations on Earth. The second group was the early monks, led by Benedict, who had restored the ‘good of common life’ and also advanced ‘through works of piety […] into the lands of the north from where all evil spreads out’ (Jer. 1:14). The 32 Cum hora undecima I: Tăutu, 286–7 no. 210, at 286. 33 Cum hora undecima I: Tăutu, 286–7 no. 210. For a discussion of the powers granted to missionaries in Cum hora undecima of 1235 and subsequent reissues, see J. Muldoon, ‘The Avignon Papacy and the Frontiers of Christendom’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 17 (1979), 125–95, at 143–50, repr. with original pagination in his Canon Law, the Expansion of Europe, and World Order (Aldershot 1998). For a translation of the duties listed in the letter, see Vose, Dominicans, Muslims and Jews, 41.

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third group was the wave of reformed monks, led by Bernard of Clairvaux and his Cistercians, and including the Order of Fiore. As for the last group, or ‘the fourth chariot’, Gregory wrote: [B]ut at the eleventh hour [Matt. 20:9], when the day was turning to evening and the love of many was turning cold because of the abundance of wickedness [Matt. 24:12] and the light of justice was setting in the West, as the vineyard had been invaded not only by the thorns and spikes of vice […] but also by little foxes who were destroying it [Cant. 2:15] and tried to turn it into the sourness of a strange vine, He wanted to bring together a ready campaign against this most dangerous multitude. So, as we now see, after the first three chariots represented by different signs, [He] has sent the fourth chariot, drawn by dappled and strong horses [Zach. 6:3], the army of the Friars Preachers and Friars Minor, with the leaders He had chosen to lead them in battle […]34

In the canonization letter of 1234 Gregory thus reinterpreted Zacharias’s vision as a chronologically ordered list of the helpers which God had sent forth to strengthen the faithful and his Church, and he listed the Dominicans and Franciscans jointly as the last group or ‘the fourth chariot’. Incomprehensible to those who had not followed Dominican or curial affairs closely, the reference to ‘the fourth chariot’ in Cum hora undecima of 1235 was an esoteric reminder to William and other friars of their role in the Church which Gregory had laid out in Dominic’s canonization letter. The fact that Gregory in Cum hora undecima used only a short-hand reference to ‘the fourth chariot’ suggests that by 1235 this image was or had become part of the shared frame of reference of the pope and the friars, needing no further explanation. 34 ‘Novo igitur Israele hiis tribus agminibus turmis totidem, quas Philistiim fecerant, occurente hora undecima, cum dies iam declinasset ad vesperum et propter iniquitatis habundantiam, caritate plurimum frigescente, vergeret iustitie radius ad occasum, quia vineam, ad quam paterfamilias operarios diversis temporibus denarii conductos conventione premiserat et quam sua dextra plantaret non solum vitiorum vepres et spine pervaserant, sed iam propemodum vulpecule demolientes convertere in aliene vitis amaritudinem intendebant, adversus infestissimam multitudinem, militiam adunare voluit promptiorem. Et, sicut impresentiarum cernimus post trium signis differentium tirocinia quadrigarum, in quadriga quarta equos varios et robustos, Predicatorum et Minorum fratrum agmina, cum electis ducibus simul in prelium directurus […]’ Fons sapientie verbum of July 1234: ‘Acta Canonizationis Sancti Dominici’, ed. A. Walz, in Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica XVI (Rome, 1935), 91–194, at 192. The image of the vines turning sour draws on Jer. 2:21 and Isa. 5:4 as well as Augustine’s Tractatus 80 (on John 15); Gregory also uses it elsewhere in his letters, including Auvray, no. 2548.

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Zacharias’s notion of the ‘fourth chariot’ is not the only image that can be found in both Dominic’s canonization letter and Cum hora undecima of 1235. Another image is that of ‘the eleventh hour’ from the parable of the workers in the Lord’s vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16). In Dominic’s canonization letter, Gregory wrote how it is now ‘the eleventh hour’ and that the Lord’s vineyard is under threat from heretics (‘the little foxes’) and Christian sinfulness (‘the thorns and spikes of vice’). God had, however, sent the friars – the Dominicans as well as the Franciscans – to help in the fight against heresy and lapsed faith. This theme is also significant in Gregory’s canonization letter for Francis, Mira circa nos of 16 July 1228. Here Gregory had written of how ‘Now, at the eleventh hour […] the Lord has called forth his servant, Blessed Francis, a man after His own heart [I Sam 13: 14] […] The Lord sent him into his vineyard [Matt. 20:2] to uproot the thorns and spikes […].’35 All this suggests that the use of the image of Lord’s vineyard in Cum hora undecima of 1235 should not merely be seen as a reproduction of a classic missionary motif. When in 1235 Gregory composed this letter to the Dominicans wishing to take up mission, he brought to it three essential ideas which he had already displayed in the canonization letters for Dominic and Francis and which most likely informed his perception of mission. These were the ideas that the Christian community, the Lord’s vineyard, was under threat from heresy and Christian slackness36 (hence necessitating internal mission by men who through preaching and example could inspire Christians to live a better life); that it was now the eleventh hour (and that urgent action to strengthen the Christian faith both internally and externally was necessary); and that the friars were to be his (God-sent) helpers in the fight against pagan beliefs, heresy, unorthodoxy and Christian sinfulness. The importance which Gregory ascribed to mission is clear from the fact that in Cum hora undecima he decided to grant the missionaries a plenary indulgence for their labour. Honorius had certainly also regarded missionary work as meritorious but in Ne si secus and Vineae Domini custodes he had shied away from granting missionaries any indulgences. In Cum hora undecima of 1235, Gregory decided that the missionaries would receive plenam remissionem peccatorum omnium. His reasons were made clear in a short letter issued a few years later, in 1238, to the Dominican and Franciscan missionaries working in the East. Here he explained that working to convert 35 Bullarium Franciscanum, i, 42–44 no. 25, at 42. 36 This idea can also be found in the writings of Innocent III and Honorius III: see FonnesbergSchmidt, ‘Pope Honorius III and Mission’, 109–10.

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the infidels through preaching was no less pleasing to Christ than fighting the perfidy of the Saracens by force, and that the missionaries therefore deserved the same plenary indulgence as that given to crusaders at the Fourth Lateran Council.37 This ties in with the new papal generosity – or some may say laxness – regarding plenary and partial indulgences which we see from the early thirteenth century onwards as non-combatant crusaders also began to receive indulgences, as did crusade preachers and their audiences – and also academics: in 1229 the papal legate, Cardinal Romanus, granted a plenary indulgence to students and professors at the new university at Toulouse, which was founded as part of the Treaty of Meaux-Paris which ended the crusade against the Albigensians.38

Influences and inspirations As one of the leading cardinals during Honorius’s pontificate, Gregory would have been well acquainted with Honorius’s missionary involvement. In fact, when, in February 1235, Gregory and his advisors issued the two letters regarding Friar William’s mission, they must have had at hand a copy of one of Honorius’s letters to the Dominicans working in Spain and Morocco, namely Vineae Domini custodes of 1225. It could have been supplied by the Dominican petitioners or by the papal chancery itself: the letter was copied into the papal registers.39 That Gregory did indeed consult Honorius’s letter is evidenced by the fact that his letter exhorting local prelates and other Christians to support William quoted directly from Honorius’s letter. He copied, practically verbatim, Honorius’s phrase concerning the Dominicans’ zeal, a good dozen words which draw on three New Testament texts. 40 Cum hora undecima also had similarities with that other important missionary letter from Honorius, Ne si secus of 1221: they used the same three central Biblical texts, namely Matthew 20, Romans 11:25–6, and 37 Letter of 4 March 1238 is printed in Kedar, Crusade and Mission, 213 (see also 142 and 148); also printed in Bullarium Franciscana, i, 233 no. 249. 38 Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle et al., 4 vols (Paris, 1889–97), i, 129–31 no. 72, at 130; R. W. Shaffern, The Penitents’ Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christendom, 1175–1375 (Scranton, 2007), 54. 39 Reg. Vat. 13, fol. 71v no. 387. 40 Vineae domini custodes of 10 June 1225 (La documentación pontificia de Honorio III, 417 no. 562) has ‘[…] abnegantes vos ipsos animas vestras pro Christo ponere cupitis, ut lucrifaciatis sibi animas aliorum […]’; Cum hora undecima II of 15 February 1235 (Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Prædicatorum, 74 no. 124) has ‘[…] abnegantes se ipsos, animas suas pro Christo ponere cupiunt, ut lucrifaciant animas aliorum […]’. Both thus draw on Matt. 16:24, John 13:37 and 1 Cor. 9:19.

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Isaiah 32. These textual similarities suggest that Gregory was well aware of Honorius’s thinking about mission or even that he consulted Ne si secus when composing Cum hora undecima letter (Ne si secus was also copied into the papal registers). 41 Since Gregory appears to have been familiar with the contents of both Ne si secus and Vineae Domini custodes, it seems reasonable to compare both of these to Gregory’s Cum hora undecima, even if Ne si secus of 1221 differed from Cum hora undecima in terms of recipients and purpose, as it was issued to a number of archbishops and was a recruiting letter in which Honorius wished to mobilize potential missionaries. Honorius’s Vineae Domini custodes (1225) and Gregory’s Cum hora undecima (1235), in contrast, are very similar, as they were both issued to mendicants (who had already decided to take up mission) and listed their missionary tasks and licences. A comparison shows that when Gregory and his advisors composed Cum hora undecima they chose not to make much use of two of the first themes in Honorius’s missionary letters mentioned above, namely apostolic imitation and martyrdom. There was no explicit parallel between the missionaries and the apostles or references to the mendicants’ desire to follow the vita apostolica in Cum hora undecima. Nor is martyrdom an important theme; it was not mentioned in the version of Cum hora undecima which was sent to Friar William and his companions. 42 Given his knowledge of Honorius’s missionary letters, the downplay of these two themes is likely to have been deliberate and may indicate that Gregory did not concur with the emphasis put on these two elements by his predecessor. In contrast, the third theme in Honorius’s writings, namely ideas about the end of time and the conversion of the fullness of the Gentiles (plenitudo gentium), played a prominent role in Gregory’s missionary letter. Such ideas had been important in Ne si secus of 1221, but in Vineae Domini custodes of 1225 Honorius had omitted them. When in 1235 Gregory and his advisors composed Cum hora undecima, they made them the theme of the arenga. As the central framework for the arenga they chose the parable about the workers in the vineyard from Matthew (20:1–9), just as Honorius had done in his letter Vineae Domini custodes of 1225. However, in Vineae Domini custodes Honorius had used the parable to write of how he, as the guardian 41 Regesta vaticana 11, f. 100v no. 501. 42 It was however mentioned in Cum hora undecima II (of 15 February 1235: Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Prædicatorum, i, 74 no. 124), which was sent to the Christians living among the Saracens, as Gregory here copied Honorius’ sentence about the friars’ wish to sacrifice their souls for Christ (John 13:37); it was copied practically verbatim from Vineae Domini custodes of 10 June 1225: see footnote 40 above.

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of the vineyard, had to protect it by sending out workers and he had thus used it to emphasize the papal responsibility for mission and pastoral care. Gregory, in contrast, used the parable to stress that it was now the eleventh hour and hence time to bring more people to the faith; he thus underlined that he saw a pressing need for action. To explain this urgency and necessity, Gregory quoted from Paul’s letter to the Romans: action was necessary, he wrote, because ‘according to the prophet Isaiah, the salvation of the remnant of Israel will not occur until, as Paul the Apostle says, the plenitudo gentium enters first’ into the kingdom of heaven (Rom. 11:25–6). The different use of this text from Matthew (20:1–9) is another example of how Gregory wanted to put forward his own understanding of the missionary venture. It was not only the parable about the workers in the vineyard which Gregory employed differently. In Ne si secus of 1221, Honorius had used Romans 11:25–6 and Isaiah 32. In Cum hora undecima, Gregory used the same Biblical references but with a different emphasis. Honorius had used Romans 11:25–6 as part of a description of what would happen when the conversion of all peoples had been achieved; Gregory used the same text to explain why it was necessary to act. Furthermore, unlike Honorius, Gregory did not dwell on the wonders of the ‘Kingdom of Righteousness’ which Isaiah prophesied in Chapter 32. Indeed, he emphasized that the salvation of Israel and the ‘Kingdom of Righteousness’ may not happen yet unless something is done to speed along the conversion of all peoples. But the arrival of the ‘Kingdom of Righteousness’ and salvation is possible, he implied – using Isa. 32: 20 – if the Christian faithful work for the conversion of the non-Christians, if they will, as Isaiah states, now ‘sow beside all waters’. 43 Gregory’s letter thus conveyed a greater urgency, a stronger necessity to act, than is seen in Honorius’s letters. Something had to be done, and soon, to ensure the salvation of Israel. Gregory thus wrote himself into the tradition of apocalyptic conversion – evident in Matthew (24:14) and Mark (13:10) and carried on by Paul in his letter to the Romans – and the idea that history would culminate with the conversion of all non-Christians. 44 The apocalyptic content of Cum hora undecima has been stressed by, among others, James Muldoon,45 but it should 43 Cum hora undecima I: Tăutu, 286–7 no. 210, at 286. A similar notion of the conversion of Israel is briefly hinted at in Celestis altitudo consilii: Lupprian, Die Beziehungen, 120–5, at 124. 44 Daniel argues that there were three different approaches to mission in the Middle Ages (Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission, 6); for a description of the apocalyptic approach, see op.cit., 12–22. 45 Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and Infidels, 36. He is followed by, among others, Whalen, Dominion of God, 164–5.

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be noted again that related ideas were already evident in Honorius III’s Ne si secus, albeit stated with less urgency than in Gregory’s letter. A possible influence on Gregory’s thinking is the prominent prophetic thinker Joachim of Fiore (1130 x 1135–1202). Joachim famously operated with a Trinitarian division of history divided into three status or eras. In the transition between the second and the third status two new orders of ‘spiritual men’ (viri spirituales) would emerge, spurred on by a wish to fight the pseudoprophets, Saracens and Antichrist, and lead the Church into the third status. Here the perfect Christian community would be realized, and all peoples would live together in peace and justice; the Greeks would have been reunited with the Latin Christian Church, non-Christians would have been converted and faith would have been renewed among Latin Christians. One of the orders of spiritual men would live as hermits and work through prayer, the other would live an active life, working through preaching. 46 May we detect some Joachite influence in the letter Cum hora undecima of February 1235 where Pope Gregory wrote of his hopes for bringing the Christian faith to all peoples so that they all might become part of the Church and all of Israel might be saved?47 An association would not be entirely surprising given the occasion that prompted Cum hora undecima; also, Joachim’s writings were well known at the Curia, and he and his Order of Fiore had received some papal support. 48 However, Gregory’s text does 46 M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: a study in Joachimism (Oxford, 1969), 135–44, especially 141–2; M. Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future: a medieval study in historical thinking, 2nd ed. (Stroud, 1999), 29–30; Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission, xii–xiv and 19–20; B. McGinn, ‘Apocalypticism and Church Reform: 1100–1500’, in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. John J. Collins, B. McGinn, and S.J. Stein, 3 vols (New York, 1999), ii, 74–109, at 79–80 and 88–9; Whalen, Dominion of God, 174–3. Unsurprisingly, many members of both mendicant orders came to perceive their Orders as foretold by Joachim’s prophecy; Joachite thinking was particularly prominent in Franciscan ideology (Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future, 30–2; Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission, 78–86 and elsewhere; Whalen, Dominion of God, 171–4). 47 Cum hora undecima I: Tăutu, 286–7 no. 210. 48 Joachim’s views of the Trinity were condemned at the Fourth Lateran Council; however, Fiona Robb has shown how Innocent III made use of some of Joachim’s ideas, and she has argued that Innocent had worked to secure a less severe condemnation (F. Robb, ‘Did Innocent III Personally Condemn Joachim of Fiore?’, Florensia, 7 (1993), 77–91). In 1220 Honorius III publicly declared Joachim to be ‘virum catholicum’ and not a heretic (Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, 32). Both Honorius III and Gregory supported the Order of Fiore, and in Dominic’s canonization letter Gregory listed the Order alongside the Cistercians as important supporters of the Church (Fons sapientie verbum: ‘Acta Canonizationis Sancti Dominici’, 191; Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, 146, 36 with footnote 1, 37). However, none of this necessarily implies papal acceptance of Joachim’s prophetic or apocalyptic ideas. These do appear to have influenced at least one prominent member of Gregory’s Curia, namely Cardinal Rainer of Viterbo (d. 1250). He is believed to be

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not give us much to work with here, and the pertinent passages are open to different interpretations and translations; furthermore, we should be aware that some scholars state that Joachim’s vision of the third status only became widely known after 1240 (possibly then due to Franciscan interest in the idea). 49 To conclude, a new and more active involvement in mission had been instigated by Pope Honorius III who in 1221 had even envisioned missionary projects run by the papacy, in a break with previous papal practice. Gregory IX does not appear to have harboured quite such ambitious plans, but he maintained the deep papal involvement in internal and external mission and expanded the close cooperation with both the Dominicans and the Franciscans on this matter. Together the mendicants and the pope worked for the conversion of the Muslims, an ecclesiastical union with the Greeks, the extirpation of heresy and evangelization among Christians. Gregory shared some of Honorius III’s missionary ideas, although he often gave them a different emphasis and urgency. But he did not make use of all of Honorius’s ideas – a point worth noting when we try to assess Cardinal Hugo’s influence during Honorius’s pontif icate or, indeed, Honorius’s influence on Gregory. Gregory appears to have been keen to put forward his own perception of mission and so, when in early 1235 Gregory and his advisors were asked to issue a letter for a new Dominican mission, they chose to compose a new letter, Cum hora undecima, rather than to reissue Honorius’s letters with the necessary adjustments concerning recipients and destinations. Gregory thus consolidated the new papal collaboration with the mendicants on mission and added a few new, important elements including a plenary indulgence granted to missionaries. The new papal missionary involvement of the 1220s and 1230s was neatly summarized in Cum hora undecima which was to become the standard papal letter on internal and external mission for the remainder of the thirteenth century. the author of the excommunication letter which Gregory in 1239 sent to the German emperor and which was rich in apocalyptic allusions, as was the imperial reply (H.M. Schaller, ’EndzeitErwartung und Antichrist-Vorstellungen in der Politik des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel (Göttingen, 1972), 924–47; R.E. Lerner, ‘Frederick II, Alive, Aloft, and Allayed, in Franciscan-Joachite Eschatology’, in The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. W. Verbeke et al. (Leuven, 1988), 359–84, at 360 with footnote 2 which summarizes the debate between McGinn and Schaller on the Joachite content of the papal letters to the emperor; McGinn, ‘Apocalypticism and Church Reform’, 88–9. See also C. Jostmann, Sibilla Erithea babilonica: Papsttum und Prophetie im 13. Jahrhundert (Hanover, 2006)). 49 Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future, 30–2; Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission, 21.

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About the Author Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt is Professor (WSR) of Medieval History at Aalborg University. Her research focuses on the papacy, papal communication, papal authority and crusade and mission in the central Middle Ages. She is the author of The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007) and co-editor of Crusading on the Edge (Turnhout, 2016) and Pope Eugenius III (1145–1153) (Amsterdam, 2018).

9. Penitet eum satis?: Gregory IX, Inquisitors, and Heresy as Seen in Contemporary Historiography Andrea Sommerlechner

Abstract This chapter examines various thirteenth-century chronicles to assess their reactions to Pope Gregory IX’s efforts in the field of the persecution of clandestine heretics. The central focus is Gregory’s creation of the new role model of the plenipotentiary inquisitor, an innovation tested in the persecution campaigns of the Dominican Friar Robert le Bougre in northern France and Champagne and of the priest Conrad of Marburg in Germany. Among those analyzed which concern Conrad are the chronicle of Alberic of Troisfontaines, that of the Dominicans of Erfurt, the Annals of Worms, and the Deeds of the archbishops of Trier, while the works of Philippe Mousket, Matthew Paris and Richer of Sénones concern Robert. They are examined not just as sources of information but with regard to their contexts and discussed in terms of their treatment of the inquisition. Keywords: Heresy, inquisition, chronicles, Conrad of Marburg, Robert le Bougre

This chapter deals with the innovation and intensification which Gregory IX brought to the persecution of clandestine heretics – especially when he tested a new model, the plenipotentiary inquisitor, provided with a newly adapted set of rules for legal procedures – and with the impact these developments made on contemporary chroniclers. More precisely, it will contrast the slight impression which the pope’s measures against heretics in Rome and Northern Italy left in the historiography with the deep imprint left by the actions of his

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch09

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most famous inquisitors: the Dominican friar, Robert le Bougre, who acted as malleus haereticorum in Northern France and Champagne in 1232/1233 and again in 1236 to 1239, and then disappeared, perhaps into monastic confinement; the notorious priest, Conrad of Marburg, who unleashed a wide-ranging persecution of heretics in Germany from October 1231 until his assassination by some of his would-be victims in June 1233.1 During Gregory’s pontif icate signif icant changes in the procedures against heretics took place. Canon law substituted the trial based on accusatio and defensio with the processus inquisitionis, the investigation ex officio. In consequence, specif ic forms of heresy trial were developed, in which the accused gradually lost rights which had been taken for granted in traditional law-suits. 2 While the principle of punishment gained the better of efforts to convert, Roman law, already taught and studied in the law schools and promoted by Emperor Frederick II, helped to legitimate the handing-over of convicted heretics from the ecclesiastical courts to the secular powers with the subsequent imposition of the death penalty and execution by burning at the stake.3 The pope appointed special inquisitors, mostly from the Dominican order, whose full powers to investigate, try and condemn interfered with the traditional role of

1 For a study focussing mainly on Conrad and Robert cf. A. Sommerlechner, ‘Procellosa illa persecutio. Die Ketzerverfolgung Konrads von Marburg und Roberts le Bougre und die Geschichtsschreibung ihrer Zeit’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 119 (2011), 14–43. 2 Cf. W. Trusen, ‘Der Inquisitionsprozeß. Seine historischen Grundlagen und frühen Formen’, ZSSRG. KA, 74 (1988), 168–230; idem, ‘Von den Anfängen des Inquisitionsprozesses zum Verfahren bei der inquisitio haereticae pravitatis’, in Die Anfänge der Inquisition im Mittelalter. Mit einem Ausblick auf das 20. Jahrhundert und einem Beitrag über religiöse Intoleranz im nichtchristlichen Bereich, ed. P. Segl (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 1993), 39–76; J. Bird, ‘The Wheat and the Tares: Peter the Chanter’s circle and the Fama-based inquest against heresy and criminal sins, c.1198–c.1235’, in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Washington, D.C. August 2004, ed. U.-R. Blumenthal, K. Pennington and A.A. Larson, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia, 13 (Vatican City, 2008), 763–856; furthermore L. Kolmer, Ad capiendas vulpes. Die Ketzerbekämpfung in Südfrankreich in der ersten Hälfte des 13. Jahrhunderts und die Ausbildung des Inquisitionsverfahrens, Pariser Historische Studien, 19 (Bonn, 1982). 3 Cf. K.-V. Selge, ‘Die Ketzerpolitik Friedrichs II.’, in Probleme um Friedrich II., ed. J. Fleckenstein, Vorträge und Forschungen, 16 (Sigmaringen, 1974), 309–43; P. Segl, Ketzer in Österreich. Untersuchungen über Häresie und Inquisition im Herzogtum Österreich im 13. und beginnenden 14. Jahrhundert, Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiet der Geschichte, N. F. 5 (Paderborn et al., 1984), esp. 41–3; J. Ficker, ‘Die gesetzliche Einführung der Todesstrafe für Ketzerei’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 1 (1880), 177–226; S. Ragg, Ketzer und Recht. Die weltliche Ketzergesetzgebung des Hochmittelalters unter dem Einfluß des römischen und kanonischen Rechts, MGH Studien und Texte, 37 (Hanover, 2006).

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local ecclesiastic and secular authorities. 4 Furthermore, searching for members of the sects of the Cathars5 and Waldensians (which really existed) aroused the imagination of the persecutors: the imaginary sect of the Luciferians, precursor to the sect of witches, was created during interrogations by Conrad of Marburg and his collaborators and publicized by Gregory’s famous bull Vox in Rama issued to a variety of recipients from June to October 1233.6 These changes were perceived by chroniclers who had become sensitive to the subject of heresy. From the early thirteenth century onwards heresy, which previously had been noted only sporadically in historiographical works, was discussed systematically by contemporary chroniclers.7 From the time of the Albigensian crusades, which were described and tracked by a number of historians with quite different outlooks,8 the leading role of Pope Innocent III as defender of Christendom became more and more apparent.9 Whereas in earlier sources saints (Norbert of Xanten), princes (King Henry II of England), bishops or preachers (Bernard of Clairvaux, Foulques de Neuilly) were cast as heroes combating heresy, the focus now shifted to the pope himself. The universal chronicles and the chronicles of popes and emperors especially celebrated Innocent as a fighter against a wide range of deviants: ‘Innocent crushed the heretics of those lands, and 4 Cf. L. Paolini, ‘Papato, inquisizione, frati’, in Il papato duecentesco e gli ordini mendicanti, Atti dei Convegni della Società internazionale di studi francescani e del Centro interuniversitario di studi francescani, n. s. 8 (Spoleto, 1998), 177–204; P. Segl, ‘Dominikaner und Inquisition im Heiligen Römischen Reich’, in Praedicatores, Inquisitores 1. The Dominicans and the Mediaeval Inquisition. Acts of the 1st International Seminar on the Dominicans and the Inquisition, Rome 2002, Dissertationes Historicae, 29 (Rome, 2004), 211–248. 5 For the discussion of the existence or non-existence of the Cathars see the volume Cathars in Question, ed. A. Sennis, Heresy and Inquisition in the Middle Ages, 4 (York, 2016); cf. Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 125 (2017), 452–455. 6 Vox in Rama, June 1233, MGH Epistolae Saeculi. XIII, i, 432 no. 537; cf. B.-U. Hergemöller, Krötenkuß und schwarzer Kater. Ketzerei, Götzendienst und Unzucht in der inquisitorischen Phantasie des 13. Jahrhunderts (Warendorf, 1996); A. Patschovsky, ‘Der Ketzer als Teufelsdiener’, in Papsttum, Kirche und Recht im Mittelalter, ed. H. Mordek (Tübingen, 1991), 317–34; K. Utz Tremp, Von der Häresie zur Hexerei. “Wirkliche” und imaginäre Sekten im Spätmittelalter, MGH Schriften, 59 (Hanover, 2008), 314–34. 7 U. Brunn, Des contestataires aux “cathares”. Discours de réforme et propagande antihérétique dans le pays du Rhin et de la Meuse avant l’Inquisition, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, série Moyen Âge et Temps Modernes, 41 (Paris, 2006), 415. 8 For a useful survey cf. K. Wagner, Debellare Albigenses. Darstellung und Deutung des Albigenserkreuzzugs in der europäischen Geschichtsschreibung von 1209 bis 1328, Politik im Mittelalter, 4 (Neuried, 1998). 9 Cf. Brunn, Contestataires, 458–60.

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especially in parts of the province of Toulouse.’10 Or, as seen from a global perspective by Oliver of Paderborn: Innocent converted the heathens in Northern Europe, subdued the schismatic Greeks, and annihilated (ad nichilum deduxit) the heretics in France, thus preparing for the universal Crusade.11 Or, as the Portuguese canonist Iohannes de Deo concluded his portrait: ‘So powerful was Innocent in his deeds and speech, that, if he had lived ten years longer, then he would have subjugated the whole world, and brought all to one faith’ (Iste potens fuit in opere et sermone, in tantum quod, si vixisset magis per decennium, totum mundum subiugasset, et tota fieret una fides).12 In the eyes of contemporary historians, Gregory IX filled the role of Christendom’s champion against heretics in a less global perspective. First of all, he was concerned with heretical infiltration in his own area. The Vita Gregorii IX, composed by a cleric of the Roman curia,13 describes the deeds of Pope Gregory up to 1239/40 and in chapter 14 mentions the pope’s dealings with a group of heretics who were discovered in the Urbs of Rome in 1231: During the reign of Annibaldus as senator, because of the absence of the shepherd, the contagious disease of heretical depravity crept into Rome and, proceeding on clandestine paths, already signalled public harm; therefore, after a diligent investigation, [the pope] convicted, by witnesses or by their own confession, before the gate of S. Maria Maggiore, in the presence of the Roman senate and people, many priests and clerics and 10 Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum ex codice Veneto, ed. L. Bethmann, MGH SS, xxiv (Hanover, 1879), 97–115, at 115, ll. 29–30: ‘Innocentius […] hereticos quoque terrarum exterminavit, et maxime in partibus provintie Tolosane.’ 11 Historia regum Terre Sancte, in Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters und späteren Bischofs von Paderborn und Kardinalbischofs von S. Sabina Oliverus, ed. H. Hoogeweg, Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins Stuttgart, 202 (Tübingen, 1894), 83–158, at 156–7. Cf. Brunn, Contestataires, 442–5. 12 Iohannes de Deo, Cronica 1–1227, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS, xxxi (Hanover, 1903), 301–24, at 324, ll. 5, 12–4. 13 Vita Gregorii IX, in Le Liber Censuum de l’Église Romaine 2: Le Liber Censuum remanié sous Grégoire IX et Innocent IV avec ses suppléments jusqu’ au XVe siècle d’après le manuscrit Riccardianus 228, ed. P. Fabre and L. Duchesne (Paris, 1910), 18–36; A. Spataro, Velud fulgor meridianus. La ‘vita’ di papa Gregorio IX. Edizione, traduzione e commento, Ordines. Studi su istituzioni e società nel medioevo europeo, 8 (Milan, 2018); cf. J. Marx, Die Vita Gregors IX. quellenkritisch untersucht (Berlin, 1889); H. Zimmermann, Das Papsttum im Mittelalter. Eine Papstgeschichte im Spiegel der Historiographie (Stuttgart, 1981), 159–62; A. Paravicini Bagliani, ‘Le biografie papali duecentesche e il senso della storia’, in Il Senso della Storia nella cultura medievale italiana (1100–1350), Centro italiano di Studi di Storia e d’Arte Pistoia, 14. convegno, 14–17 maggio 1993 (Pistoia, 1995), 155–73, esp. 156–7.

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laymen and laywomen, who were befouled by this leprosy; the priests and clerics were enrobed with the liturgical vestments and then stripped before the eyes of the crowd, and sentenced to perpetual deposition.14

The Vita, making use of the traditional metaphor of heresy as a contagious disease,15 opens with the customary detection of an occult sect endangering society and then proceeds with an unusual interest in ceremony, while leaving out any mention of bloodshed, in contrast to the account in the chronicle of the imperial notary Richard of S. Germano;16 the text emphasizes the participation of Roman dignitaries and people and focuses on the spectacle of the degradation of the culpable clerics. Only by taking chapters 13 and 14 of the Vita Gregorii17 together can the reader appreciate this episode as an account concerning the pope and the inhabitants of Rome: the Romans persecute the Church and cause the pope and his Curia to leave the city; punished by the flooding of the Tiber and famine, the Romans implore his return; the pope forgives them, is received with joy and lavishes gifts on his people. He embellishes churches, reconstructs a bridge, eliminates the 14 Vita Gregorii, 23ª (Fabre); 94 (Spataro): ‘Tunc enim Anibaldo regente senatum, quia in Urbe propter pastoris absentiam ille contagiosus morbus heretice pravitatis irrepserat, ut occulto meatu proficiens jam publica nocumenta monstraret, inquisitione prehabita diligenti ante hostium majoris basilice Virginis gloriose senatore ac populo Romano presentibus multos presbyteros, clericos multos et utriusque sexus laicos hujus [modi] lepra conspersos tum testibus tum propria confessione dampnavit; presbyteros ipsos et clericos sacris indutos et demum spectante populo universis vestibus spoliatos sententie perpetue depositionis addicens.’ See also, Auvray, i, 351 no. 539; Texte zur Inquisition, ed. K.-V. Selge, Texte zur Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte, 4 (Gütersloh, 1967), 41–2 (the famous Capitula contra Patarenos, inc. Excommunicamus); 352 no. 540, and 353 no. 541 (edictum resp. iuramentum of the Roman Senator against heretics); Auvray, i, 360 no. 562 (letter to the abbot of Cava); furthermore, see the pope’s letters to the bps of Lombardia and Tuscany (22 May 1231), to the abp of Salzburg (20 June 1231) and to the abp of Trier (25 June 1231; Potthast 8754; ed. J.F. Böhmer, Acta imperii selecta. Urkunden deutscher Könige und Kaiser mit einem Anhange von Reichssachen (Innsbruck, 1870), 665 no. 959. 15 Cf. R.I. Moore, ‘Heresy as Disease’, in The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th– 13th C.), Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, ser. 1, studia 4 (Leuven–The Hague, 1976), 1–11. 16 A more detailed and matter-of-fact account: Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii Chronica, ed. C.A. Garufi, RISS, 2nd edition, vol. vii/2 (Bologna, 1938), 173, l. 32–174, l. 2: ‘1231, February, several of the Patarenes were discovered in Rome; some of them were burned because they refused to convert, others were sent to the abbeys of Montecassino and Cava to do penance. The emperor sent the abp of Reggio and his marshal Richard Filangeri to Naples to capture the Patereni there, and they detected and enchained some’ (‘Eodem mense nonnulli Paterenorum in Urbe inventi sunt, quorum alii sunt igne cremati, cum inconuertibiles essent, alii, donec peniteant, sunt ad Casinensem ecclesiam et aput Cauas directi. Imperator pro capiendis Paterenis aput Neapolym mittit Reginum archiepiscopum, et Ryccardum de Principatu marescalcum suum, de quibus aliqui sunt inuenti et uinculis mancipati’). 17 Vita Gregorii, 22b–23a (Fabre), 92, 94 (Spataro).

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heretics and provides a sewage system, thus reconstructing and purging both literally and spiritually the desolated Urbs. In the years after the peace of S. Germano of 1229, the pause in the persistent and violent conflicts between Gregory IX and Frederick II allowed for a period of peaceful cooperation: pope and emperor joined forces to suppress heresy in the communes of Northern Italy,18 before the situation deteriorated again and chroniclers witnessed an intensifying propaganda war, which culminated in reciprocal accusations of Frederick being a heretic and of Gregory supporting the heretics of the communes of the Lombard League.19 Gregory, firstly in his legation in Lombardy in 1221, and then as pope, demanded the introduction of anti-heretic legislation in the communal statutes,20 made use of the mendicant preachers who emerged in the course of the religious movement of the Alleluia in 1233, and later installed Dominican or Franciscan inquisitors.21 The impact of this activity on historiography, however, was meagre. The Memoriae Mediolanenses (1061–1251) attributed to the Milanese the burning of heretics in 1233 during the archiepiscopate of Guglielmo da Rizolio,22 while the chronicler Galvano Fiamma credited the Podestà Oldrado Grosso.23 The pope’s involvement 18 For the acceptance of the emperor’s and the pope’s anti-heretical legislation in the communes cf. A. Vauchez, ‘Una campagna di pacificazione intorno al 1233. L’azione politica degli Ordini Mendicanti secondo la riforma degli statuti comunali e gli acordi di pace’, in: idem, Ordini mendicanti e società italiana XIII–XV secolo (Milan, 1990), 119–61, at 133–7. 19 See Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, RS 57/i–vii (1872–84), iii, 590 (citing the encyclical Ascendit de mari, 1 July 1239); ibid., iii, 375–6 (citing Frederick’s description of Milan as refuge of all heretical sects). Cf. also A. Sommerlechner, Stupor mundi? Kaiser Friedrich II. und die mittelalterliche Geschichtsschreibung, Publikationen des Historischen Instituts beim Österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom, I/11 (Vienna, 1999), 140–3. 20 T. Scharff, Häretikerverfolgung und Schriftlichkeit. Die Wirkung der Ketzergesetze auf die oberitalienischen Kommunalstatuten im 13. Jahrhundert, Gesellschaft, Kultur und Schrift. Mediävistische Beiträge, 4. (Frankfurt/Main et al., 1996); A. Piazza, ‘“Affinché […] costituzioni di tal genere siano ovunque osservate”. Gli statuti di Gregorio IX contro gli eretici d’Italia’, in Scritti in onore di Girolamo Arnaldi, ed. A. Degrandi et al., Nuovi Studi Storici, 54 (Rome, 2001), 425–58, esp. 444–8. 21 H.G. Walther, ‘Ziele und Mittel päpstlicher Ketzerpolitik in der Lombardei und im Kirchen­ staat 1184–1252’, in Die Anfänge der Inquisition im Mittelalter. Mit einem Ausblick auf das 20. Jahrhundert und einem Beitrag über religiöse Intoleranz im nichtchristlichen Bereich, ed. P. Segl (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 1993), 102–130; Paolini, ‘Papato’. 22 Memoriae Mediolanenses, ed. P. Jaffé, MGH SS, xviii (Hanover, 1863), 399–402, at 402, ll. 7–8 (‘Mediolanenses incipierunt comburere ereticos, in anno tercio archiepiscopatus domini Gullielmi de Ruzolo’). 23 Galvano Fiamma, Manipulus Florum, RISS, xi (Milan, 1727), 537–740, at 672B: ‘1233 […] Oldradus Grossus Laudunensis fuit LVI. Potestas Mediolanensis. […] Hic primó Haereticos capere coepit.’

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is omitted.24 The execution of 60 heretics from noble families in Verona, mentioned in two local chronicles, was a single and outstanding event within the range of the activities of the famous preacher, tribune, peacemaker and pseudo-thaumaturge Giovanni da Vicenza;25 his actions, just as those of the other Dominicans and Franciscans, protagonists of the Alleluia, were observed eagerly by contemporary chroniclers, but nowhere were they linked to Gregory, whose authorisation of the leading characters of the movement was never mentioned explicitly.26 The pope appears only once, after the violent revolt of the people of Piacenza – heretics and others – against the Dominican preacher Rolando da Cremona, when the culprits were sent to Rome for judgement.27 Contemporary chroniclers perceived Gregory’s combat against heresy chiefly in connection with his launching of the inquisitions of Conrad of Marburg and Robert le Bougre, who provided new role models in a new narrative, but tended to neglect Gregory’s prominent role in these proceedings and rather focussed their attention on the controversial inquisitors, as historians still do today. The chroniclers, challenged by the novelty of the events which they narrated, explained and classified, reflected the impact of these new phenomena. Seconded by a few papal letters, they also constitute the most important sources for the persecutions in France and Germany.28 Therefore modern historiography often has exploited them for 24 Pope Gregory had requested the Milanese to implement the instructions of the Capitula contra patarenos: 22 May 1231 (Auvray, i, 419, no. 659); 1 December 1233 (Potthast 9334); cf. A. Thompson, Predicatori e politica nell’Italia del XIII secolo. La “grande devozione” del 1233 (Milan, 1996), esp. 44; Walther, ‘Ziele und Mittel’, 125–6. 25 Parisius de Cereta, Annales Veronenses, ed. H. Pertz, MGH SS, xix (Hanover, 1866), 1–18, at 8, ll. 53–5; Gerardus Maurisius, Cronica dominorum Ecelini et Alberici fratrum de Romano, ed. G. Soranzo, RISS, 2nd edition, vol. viii/4 (Città di Castello, 1914), 33, ll. 1–3. Cf. G. Zanella, ‘Itinerari ereticali: Patari e Catari tra Rimini e Verona’, Studi storici, 153 (Rome, 1986), 1–45; also in idem, Hereticalia. Temi e discussioni (Spoleto, 1995), 67–118, at 109; Thompson, Predicatori, 74–4 and note 35, 188–9 and note 49. 26 Cf. Vauchez, ‘Una campagna di pacificazione’, 129–31. 27 Johannes de Mussis, Chronicon Placentinum, RISS, vol. xvi (Milan, 1730), 441–634, at 461CD; cf. Thompson, Predicatori, 43–4. 28 For a survey of the sources cf. A. Patschovsky, ‘Zur Ketzerverfolgung Konrads von Marburg’, DA, 37 (1981), 641–93; D. Kurze, ‘Anfänge der Inquisition in Deutschland’, in Die Anfänge der Inquisition im Mittelalter. Mit einem Ausblick auf das 20. Jahrhundert und einem Beitrag über religiöse Intoleranz im nichtchristlichen Bereich, ed. P. Segl (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 1993), 131–193, also in idem, Klerus, Ketzer, Kriege und Prophetien. Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. J. Sarnowsky, M.-L. Heckmann and St. Jenks (Warendorf, 1996) 278–343; resp. Ch. H. Haskins, ‘Robert le Bougre and the beginnings of the inquisition in Northern France’, American Historical Review, VII/1 (1901), 631–52; 2nd edition in idem, Studies in Medieval Culture (New York, 1958), 193–244.

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dates, places and facts (while dropping inconsistent details)29 and adopted their – mainly damning – judgement of the inquisitors’ characters;30 or, in a more recent development, passed from condemning them to vindicating them. Georges Despy, for example, depicts Robert le Bougre as ‘double victime historiographique’, that is, victim not only of the medieval clerical chroniclers’ antipathy towards the Dominicans but also of the attitude of the bien-pensants among modern medievalists who additionally wish to exculpate the pious King Louis.31 An equally unhelpful approach towards medieval chronicles consists in dividing them into suspicious sources and those which do not include contradictory statements as to chronology and itinerary, or in ranking them as trustworthy, slightly less credible, dubious, etc., as does Alexander Patschovsky when writing about the historiographical sources on Conrad of Marburg.32 The most important chronicles must rather be characterized firstly with their preferred subjects and their techniques of classifying the events which they witnessed before analysing the various subjects and motives of their accounts relating to heresy and inquisition. The Cistercian Alberic of Troisfontaines (in the diocese of Châlons-surMarne), who reported the persecutions in France and Germany in great detail, compiled and composed a universal chronicle from the beginning to 1241, in an approximately chronological order.33 He included a variety of interesting news and heretics were a privileged and ever-present topic. Alberic places greatest emphasis on the fantastic and miraculous aspects of these events: the persecution by Conrad of Marburg therefore is registered together with two stories of the miraculous host, one about a heretic woman saved in extremis from the stake by some demons, and the story of a 29 Cf., for example, W. Stürner, Friedrich II. Teil 2: Der Kaiser 1220–1250, Gestalten des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Darmstadt, 2000), 297–9 and notes 65, 67–8. K. Sullivan, The Inner Lives of the Medieval Inquisitors (Chicago, London, 2011), especially 90–1, constructs a psychological profile of Conrad using mainly the Annales Wormatienses and the invented letter in the chronicle of Alberic (see below); cf. also R.I. Moore, The War on Heresy: Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (London, 2012), 279–81. 30 Cf., for example, Segl, Ketzer in Österreich, 48–9, 64–5; R. Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia, 1979), 14–5. 31 G. Despy, ‘Les débuts de l’Inquisition dans les anciens Pays-Bas au XIIIe siècle’, in Problèmes d’histoire du christianisme, Hommages à Jean Hadot, ed. G. Cambier (Brussels, 1980) 71–104, esp. 94. M. Fischer, ‘Konrad von Marburg und die Anfänge der Inquisition in Deutschland’, Jahrbuch der Hessischen Kirchengeschichtlichen Vereinigung, 55 (2004), 161–95, esp. 189–92, is also mostly apologetic. 32 Patschovsky, ‘Ketzerverfolgung’, 646–7. 33 Chronica Albrici Monachi Trium Fontium a Monacho Novi Monasterii Hoiensis interpolata, ed. P. Scheffer-Boichorst, MGH SS, xxiii (Hanover, 1874), 674–950.

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necromancer from Toledo who seduced some clerics into adoring Lucifer.34 The burnings overseen by Robert le Bougre, culminating in the massacre of heretics in Mont-Aimé in 1239, are recounted in four episodes and offer to Alberic the occasion to dwell on the hypocrisy and tricks of some convicted vetulae and to allude to the foul-smelling and dreadful ( fetida et horribilia) beliefs and customs of the followers of the Manichaean anti-church.35 Alberic is normally regarded as a highly untrustworthy author – however, he is the only one to register a letter, in which the archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried, and a former papal penitentiary, Friar Bernard’,36 complain to Pope Gregory about Conrad of Marburg and report on his death. This letter, clearly Alberic’s own invention, has been accepted as authentic by almost all modern historians without question,37 although the authenticity and probability as well as the dramaturgic function of the documents reported in the chronicle of Alberic should always be carefully scrutinised. A very different kind of source are the annals of the Dominican convent of Erfurt, which cover the time from its foundation in 1228 to 1253.38 Corresponding with the rise and importance of the Dominican order, their main topic is the defence of Christendom against its enemies from outside (pagans and schismatics) and within (Jews and heretics). The Crusade is one of the leitmotifs, including crucesignati slaying Jews, the crusade against heretics proclaimed by Conrad of Marburg and Bishop Conrad of Hildesheim, and the crusade against Emperor Frederick II. The tribunal of Mont-Aimé fits into this pattern.39 The annals proceed strictly chronologically, and the accounts are often structured by important assemblies. The deeds and the demise of Conrad of Marburg, who appears in Germany 34 Ibid., 931–2. 35 Ibid., 936, ll. 12–21 (1234); 937, ll. 12–21 (1235); 940, ll. 5–10; 944, l. 32–945, l. 27. 36 ‘Frater Bernardus de ordine Predicatorum quondam penitentiarius’ (ibid., 931, l. 24): possibly Bernard, Dominican prior of the province of Teutonia († 1236), or Bernard, penitentiary of Pope Innocent IV. Cf. T. Kaeppeli O. P., Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, vol. 1 (Rome, 1970), 233; H.C. Scheeben, Beiträge zur Geschichte Jordans von Sachsen, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland, 35 (Leipzig, 1938), 154–5. 37 See Patschovsky, ‘Ketzerverfolgung’, 647, 698 n. 148, 666–9. Kurze, ‘Anfänge’, 167 n. 125, declares that the letter seems ‘inhaltlich korrekt’; he also believes that Alberic depicts the pope’s reaction when receiving it correctly; J.B. Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca–London 1972), 159–60, doubts that the incidents described by the writer really occurred; but he has no doubt whatsoever about the letter’s authenticity. The only one to raise doubts was the editor of Alberic’s chronicle, Scheffer-Boichorst (932 n. 9). 38 Annales Erphordenses fratrum praedicatorum, in Monumenta Erphesfurtensia saec. XII. XIII. XIV., ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG, [42] (Hanover–Leipzig, 1899), 80–116. Cf. Patschovsky, ‘Ketzerverfolgung’, 646–7: the second-best account of Conrad’s deeds. 39 Annales Erphordenses, 96, ll. 24–9.

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in 1232 authorized by the pope, auctoritate apostolica, are registered from the point of view of the persons present at the royal assemblies in Mainz and Frankfurt in 1233 and 1234, focussing on the defence of Count Henry of Sayn, the most prominent nobleman accused by Conrad, and on the opposition of King Henry VII against the inquisitor’s campaign, with an account in retrospect of an embassy to the papal curia and of Gregory’s reaction to it. 40 This intricate narrative of the events overtaxed the continuators of the Erfurt annals who simply concluded their story with Conrad’s death. 41 The Gesta Treverorum, again quite different from the above-mentioned texts, focus on the lives of the archbishops of Trier, the fourth continuatio covering the episcopate of Dietrich of Wied (1212–1242), who dealt efficiently with the heretics who infected his diocese, and corresponded with the pope. 42 The author of the Gesta was acquainted with Gregory’s Capitula contra Patarenos, with the pope’s letter to Archbishop Dietrich which admitted the existence of heretics in Rome and published the new papal anti-heretic laws, and with the contents of Vox in Rama. 43 Besides this, he also witnessed the persecution triggered by Conrad, his ‘lack of scruple over evidence’44 and its consequences, and Conrad’s murder; the turning point of the account is Conrad’s charging of the Count of Sayn as a heretic. The chronicler’s attitude towards the count, however, remains ambivalent: the count is powerful enough to ensure a formal lawsuit, cruel enough to frighten off everybody from giving testimony against him, and then becomes the bulwark (murus pro domo Domini) who puts an end to the persecution. He is gloriously justified in the final ceremony of his expurgatio. The Annales Wormatienses, extending from 1226 to 1278, represent the genus of the civic chronicle. There is no trace of ambivalence to be found in the author’s treatment of the persecution of heretics by Conrad and his companions; he provided later historiographers with a fully detailed horror story, filled up with clerical rabble rousers (Conrad’s accomplices Conradus Dorso and Johannes), perverted judges, a ferocious mob, bribed princes and 40 Ibid., 82, ll. 19–26; 84, l. 10–85, l. 2; 85, l. 17–87, l. 5. 41 Chronica S. Petri Erfordensis Moderna, in Monumenta Erphesfurtensia, 150–398, at 229, ll. 15–21; 230, ll. 7–16. 42 Gesta Treverorum, Continuatio IV, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, xxiv (Hanover, 1879) 390–404, at 400–2; according to Patschovsky, ‘Ketzerverfolgung’, 646, the very best source. 43 See above notes 13 and 5. 44 M. Lambert, Medieval Heresy: popular movements from the Gregorian reform to the Reformation (Oxford–Cambridge/Mass., 2nd edition, 1992) 148–9.

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a multitude of innocent victims;45 the motto of the persecutors, to burn 100 innocents among whom one might be guilty (vellemus comburere centum innocentes inter quos esset unus reus), calls to mind other cynical dicta of the crusaders against the Albigensians. 46 Two major German chronicles, which combine the history of their region and the history of the imperium, classify the events, showing thereby differing conceptions and preferences: The Annales Marbacenses (to 1238) are continuously interested in the topic of heresy. They report in a very orthodox way, that, operante providentia dei, the heretics inhabiting the country were annihilated, and that the inquisitor was, very unfortunately, slain. 47 The Annals of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Pantaleon in Cologne, on the other hand, dwell on the parallel of Emperor Frederick II burning rebels in Sicily, whereas in Germany it is heretics who are executed by fire. Apart from this remarkable coincidence (miranda res et stupenda), the annals contrast the irregular actions of ‘a certain brother Conrad’ (quidam frater Conradus) and the regular proceedings of the Diets summoned by King Henry. 48 The deeds of Robert le Bougre were registered by the annalists and chroniclers of the places that were the sites of his activities; they generally mention (erroneously or not) the place, date and the number of heretics concerned.49 The more sophisticated among them stress the cooperation of the authorities, of the king, archbishops, bishops, princes and nobles, with 45 Annales Wormatienses, ed. H. Pertz, MGH SS, xvii (Hanover, 1861) 37–73, at 38–40; cited edition Chronicon Wormatiense saeculi XIII, in Monumenta Wormatiensia. Annalen und Chroniken, ed. H. Boos, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Worms, 3 (Berlin, 1893), 167–70. 46 Annales Wormatienses, 168, ll. 18–9. This dictum brings to mind the much-quoted sentence preceding the massacre of the inhabitants of Béziers (1209) during the Albigensian Crusade, Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius, which is attributed by Caesarius von Heisterbach to the papal legate Abbot Arnald Amaury: Caesarii Heisterbacensis Monachi Ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. J. Strange, 2 vols (Cologne, Bonn, Brussels, 1851), dist. 5, cap. 21, vol. i, 302; cf. J. Berlioz, “Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens”. Le massacre de Béziers (22 juillet 1209) et la croisade contre les albigeois vue par Césaire de Heisterbach (Portet-sur-Garonne, 1994); E. Graham-Leigh, ‘Justifying Deaths: the chronicler Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay and the massacre of Béziers’, Mediaeval Studies, 63 (2001), 283–303, esp. 301–2. 47 ‘Annales Marbacenses qui dicuntur’, ed. H. Bloch, MGH SRG, [9] (Hanover, Leipzig, 1907), 93, l. 30–94, l. 7 resp. 95, ll. 19–21; also in Die Chronik Ottos von St. Blasien und die Marbacher Annalen, ed. and translated F.-J. Schmale, Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters. Freiherr vom Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe, 8a (Darmstadt, 1998). 48 Annales S. Pantaleonis, edited as Recensio B, C and Continuatio IV, V of the Chronica regia Coloniensis, ed. G. Waitz, in MGH SRG, [18] (Hanover, Leipzig, 1880) 251–99, at 264–5. 49 See for example, Annales Laubienses, cont. a. 1056–1505, ed. H. Pertz, MGH SS, 4 (Hanover, 1841) 20–8, at 26, l. 56 (Cambrai and Douai 1235); R. Graham, ‘The Annals of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Vendôme’, EHR, 13 (1898), 695–700, at 698 (Blois 1237).

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the Dominican inquisitor. An example is the annalistic records from a manuscript from Saint-Amé in Douai: ‘Ten heretics were burned in Douai […] in the presence of the venerable Archbishop of Reims, Bishop Asso of Arras, Bishop Godfroi of Cambrai, Bishop Walter of Tournai and Friar Robert O.P., who at the time was empowered by the pope to capture heretics, with the consent of the above-mentioned bishops, and in the presence of Countess Joan of Flanders and Hainaut.’50 Or they arrange the events in proper order: ‘1225: On the orders of Pope Gregory IX, Friar Robert O.P. came to France and Flanders, he interrogated many men and women about their beliefs, had many of them burned and many others incarcerated for life.’51 Standing out from these reports are three historiographical works, which composed a story out of Robert’s deeds. Philippe Mousket, a patrician from Tournai and author of a French ‘chronique rimée’ composed for the edification of lay people, not only lists places and names and the fate of single heretics, but also confers a background on Friar Robert: according to Philippe, the future inquisitor lived 10 years among the heretics in Lombardy in order to study their ways.52 Matthew Paris, the well-known Benedictine monk of Saint Albans, worked on the story of Robert le Bougre in all his chronicles starting with 50 ‘Notae S. Amati Duacenses’, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, xxiv (Hanover, 1879), 28–31, at 30, ll. 18–24: ‘Hac die combusti fuerunt apud Duacum decem heretici […] presentibus ven. Dei gratia archiepiscopo Remensi, Assone episcopo Attrebatensi, Godefrido episcopo Cameracensi, Waltero episcopo Tornacensi et fratre Roberto ordinis fratrum Predicatorum, tunc temporis habente potestatem a domino papa capiendi hereticos de consensu episcoporum predictorum, et presente Iohanna cometissa Flandrie ac Hanonie […].’ Cf. Despy, ‘Débuts’, 75–6: ‘le témoignage […] le plus précieux’. See also Chronicon S. Medardi Suessionensis, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS, xxvi (Hanover, 1882), 518–22 (excerpts), at 522, ll. 12–21; for an edition of the complete chronicle see L. d’Achéry, Spicilegium sive collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum qui in Galliae bibliothecis delituerant, ed. L.-F.-J. de la Barre, vol. ii (Paris, 1723), 486–95, at 491a. 51 Andreae Marchianensis Historia regum Francorum Continuatio, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, xxvi (Hanover, 1882), 212–5, at 215, ll. 2–5: ‘1225. De mandato summi pontificis Gregorii IX venit frater Robertus de ordine Predicatorum in regnum Francie et comitatum Flandrensem et multos utriusque sexus examinavit de fide, multos infideles consumpsit flammis ultricibus et multos perpetuo carceri mancipavit’; identical Sigeberti Continuatio Bergensis, ed. L.C. Bethmann, MGH SS, vi (Hanover, 1844), 438–41, at 438, ll. 37–40. See also Chronicon Hanoniense quod dicitur Balduini Avennensis, ed. J. Heller, MGH SS, xxv (Hanover, 1880), 414–67, at 455, ll. 31–3; Geoffroy de Courlon, Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens rédigée vers la fin du XIIIe siècle, ed. G. Julliot (Sens, 1870), 518. 52 Ex Philippi Mousket Historia regum Francorum, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS, xxvi (Hanover, 1883), 718–821, at 804–906, vv. 28870–29025; vv. 30525–30536 (the burning of heretics at MontAimé) only in Chronique rimée de Philippe Mouskes, ed. [F.] Baron de Reiffenberg, 2 vols (Brussels, 1836–1838), ii, 665–6. Criticizing the value of the source: Haskins, ‘Robert’, 219–221; Despy, ‘Débuts’, 74–5.

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an ‘ordinary’ episode of infestation by heretics (De haeretica pravitate Paterinorum et Bugarorum, 1236) and their extermination by a very efficient inquisitor (malleus haereticorum, accusator et deprehensor) and ending up with the story of the rise, abuse of power, and fall of an impostor. The portrait of Friar Robert turns darker with each version of the story: he ends up as a cruel slayer of thousands of human beings; a former heretic, son of heretics, who at first seduces innumerable people and has them killed afterwards. The pope, who has installed him, recalls him; or his brothers put him in prison because of his crimes, and the corruption of the papal Curia sets him free.53 The chronicler presents us with a selection of motifs to choose from (the former heretic; rise, triumph, superbia and ruin; a fraud unmasked) linking them to some of the persistent motifs in his works: King Louis of France acts as Robert’s accessory; Flanders is inhabited mostly by usurers, which partly legitimates their annihilation; friars are justly disliked and mistrusted;54 the Roman Curia is corrupt. Matthew’s story consists of different layers; he reacts, certainly, to new information, but he also seems to enjoy playing the variations on the theme. Another Benedictine, Richer, whose chronicle of his abbey, Sénones, and of the Universe, consists mostly of mirabilia, anecdotes and moralistic materials, uses the story of Robert le Bougre in his own way. His exemplum of a famous preacher Robert, who tries to seduce a woman, threatening to condemn her as a heretic by the use of a magic piece of paper, a cartula, which induces people to confess everything, and who is exposed, nearly killed by the people and incarcerated for life, is remotely modelled on Robert le Bougre.55 Stripped of individual features and historical context, friar Robert appears in the exempla in the Vitae fratrum of the Dominican Gerard de Frachet, in the chapter dedicated to the malus eventus apostatarum.56 53 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, RS 57/i–vi (London, 1872–82), iii, 361 (‘De haeretica pravitate Paterinorum und Bugarorum’) and 520 (‘De quodam Praedicatore qui Robertus Bugre dicebatur’); idem, Historia Anglorum, ed. F. Madden, RS 44/i–iii (London, 1866–9), ii, 388 (‘De Paterinis et Bulgaris’) and 415 (‘De Roberto Bugre, de Ordine Praedicatorum fratre’); idem, Abbreviatio Chronicorum Angliae, ed. F. Madden, RS 44/iii (London, 1869), 152–348, at 278. 54 The judgement of Despy, ‘Débuts’, 75 (‘Mathieu Paris […] une source […] déroutante […] vomissait littéralment les Dominicains […] et ne ménagea pas Robert le Bougre’) most certainly puts too much stress on Matthew’s animosity towards Dominican friars in the development of the story. 55 Richeri Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, xxv (Hanover, 1889), 249–345, at 307, l. 45–308, l. 21. 56 Fratris Gerardi de Fracheto O. P. Vitae Fratrum Ordinis Praedicatorum […], ed. B.M. Rei­ chert, MOPH (Leuven, 1896), 292; resp. S. Tugwell OP, ‘The Downfall of Robert le Bougre, OP’,

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The above-mentioned chronicles originate from very different historiographical traditions; according to their genre and to their individual outlook, they offer a variety of images and explanations and systems of classifying the events. The introductions to their accounts reflect the changes in the perception of the anti-heretical measures. Some chronicles remain conventional: heretical groups are detected and dealt with (‘several Patarenes were detected in Rome’;57 ‘in Troyes, a group of Publicans (Popelicani) has been found, and eight of them were burned’);58 or heresy sprouts and increases (hereses pullulaverunt;59 invaluit heretica perversitas),60 calling for action. In other chronicles there are modifications according to the new situation: the beginning is now marked by the arrival of the inquisitor (Puis revint par France uns Robiers;61 erat princeps et caput huius persecutionis magister Conradus);62 and the plague that threatens the faithful is not heresy, but the campaign against heresy: ‘The persecution of the heretics broke out in Germany’, and a general and unjust persecution afflicted all alike, until the ‘tempestuous persecution passed’: the incipit (orta est persecutio hereticorum per totam Alemanniam) and explicit (procellosa illa persecutio cessavit) of the narration in the Gesta Treverorum might refer to natural disasters.63 Less elegant and very outspoken are the introduction and the conclusion of the Conrad-episode in the Annales Wormatienses: ‘With God’s leave, wretched misfortune and harsh sentence had fallen upon Germany, and with divine help, finally, it is liberated from a heinous and unheard of judgment’ (Supervenit plaga miserabilis et sententia durissima divina permissione – Et sic divino auxilio liberata est Theutonia ab isto iudicio enormi et inaudito).64 in Praedicatores, Inquisitores, 1. The Dominicans and the Mediaeval Inquisition. Acts of the 1st International Seminar on the Dominicans and the Inquisition, Rome 2002, Dissertationes Historicae, 29 (Rome, 2004), 753–6, with the parallel edition of the cited and a shorter version (at 753–4). 57 Rychardi de Sancto Germano Chronica, 173, l. 32 (1231). 58 Chronica Albrici, 878, ll. 7–8 (1200): ‘apud civitatem Trecas Popelicani, hoc anno inventi, traditi sunt igni et concremati usque ad 8 […]’. For examples from twelth-century-chronicles cf. Sommerlechner, ‘Procellosa illa persecutio’, 25 n. 59. 59 Chronicle of the Benedictine abbey of Ebersheimmünster in the diocese of Straßburg: Chronicon Ebersheimense, ed. L. Weiland, MGH SS, xxiii (Hanover, 1874), 427–53, at 453, l. 9. 60 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iii, 361. 61 Philippe Mousket, Historia, 804, l. 11, v. 28871; see also Andreae Marchianensis Continuatio, 215, ll. 2–3; Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iii, 520; Chronica Albrici, 940, l. 5; 936, l. 32. 62 Gesta Treverorum, 400, ll. 36–7; similar, though with another protagonist Annales Wormatienses, 167, ll. 28–9: ‘Venit namque quidam frater dictus Conradus Dorso […]’. 63 Gesta Treverorum, 400, l. 35; 402, l. 31. 64 Annales Wormatienses, 167, ll. 27–8; 170, ll. 9–10; see also the entry about the invasion of the Tartars in Hungary: 170, ll. 12–3 (‘supervenerunt magna et horribilia mala’).

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All chroniclers agree on the danger posed by heretics. They repeat the phrasing of the papal letters (and their sources) in which heresy is depicted as a contagious disease and heretics as foxes in the Lord’s vineyard.65 Some authors (like the Erfurt annalist) keep invoking the idea of combat in defence of Christendom, structuring their texts as a sequence of crusades against the enemies from within and without; others (Alberic, for example) take delight in stories of the single heretics’ vices and perversions, or show their erudition by constructing the history of the Manichaeans from the time of St Augustine onwards (Alberic, again). Most authors signal a new awareness of the omnipresence of heretics hidden among Christians (Eo namque tempore tot hereses pullularunt, ut in villis et civitatibus infiniti huius labe infecti invenirentur, ‘In this time there sprouted so many heresies, that innumerable human beings in villages and towns were found infected by this foulness’).66 Many of them absorb the notions, provided by Conrad’s interrogations and Gregory’s bull Vox in Rama, of anti-churches, worship of Lucifer, perverse rituals of initiation, and orgies.67 The purely imaginary sect of Luciferian heretics enters medieval historiography on a broad scale.68 There exist, however, doubts and differing views about whether the inquisition of Conrad and Robert is concerned with authentic heretics: the author of the entry in the Annales S. Pantaleonis marvels at the enormous number of persons burned propter veras hereses et propter fictas, ‘because of real heresies and because of fictitious ones’;69 and the Annales Wormatienses treat the proceedings of the inquisitors as a system devised to trap people with false accusations.70 Authentic heretics, ‘worse than dogs’ (peiores canibus),71 are to be annihilated, something on which all the historians agree. Matthew Paris, at first, praises the suppression of heretics achieved by Robert le Bougre (Confusa est eorum superstitio);72 Alberic of Troisfontaines calls the burning of the Bulgri in Mont-Aimé ‘the greatest holocaust, a sacrifice agreeable to God, and a triumph of the holy Church’ (maximum holocaustum et placabile Domino, 65 Cf. A. Oliver, Táctica de propaganda y motivos literarios en las cartas antiheréticas de Innocencio III. (Rome, 1957); Moore, ‘Heresy as Disease’. 66 Chronicon Ebersheimense, 453, ll. 9–10. 67 Cf. with many details to the contents and impact of Vox in Rama: Hergemöller, Krötenkuß und schwarzer Kater; Brunn, Contestataires, 507–40. 68 Chronica Albrici, 931, l. 23 (‘pestifera secta Luciferianiorum’); Gesta Treverorum, 401, ll. 15–7. 69 Annales S. Pantaleonis, 264. 70 Annales Wormatienses, 168, l. 36. 71 Chronica Albrici, 945, ll. 4–7. 72 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iii, 361.

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ad triumphum sancte ecclesie);73 the author of the Annales Marbacenses has at his disposal a variety of biblical metaphors to celebrate the eradication of the deviants; 74 and even Philippe Mousket rejoices in the purif ied atmosphere after the extinction of the heretics: Moult i eut grans duel a l’ardoir. | Mais çou fu grans joie pour voir; | Quar il ëuissent enpuisnié | Tout le päis et engignié.75 The new manner of persecuting heretics in Germany and France with which chroniclers had to cope can be summarized as the undisputed burning of innumerable heretics in Germany by Conrad of Marburg76 or as a record of Robert le Bougre’s efficiency in tracking down, examining, reconciling or condemning suspects,77 and the statistics of his successes.78 On the other hand chroniclers also transmit the image of the inquisitors’ abuse of authority and of a massacre of innocents (the annals of Worms about Conrad),79 or of fraud by a magic piece of paper instead of investigation (Richer about Robert).80 Apart from those simplifying and dramatic versions, contemporary authors perceive and describe in a differentiated and critical way the changes and acceleration within the legal procedure and the problems which arose. Magistri Cunradi visitandi hereticos seu examinandi forma displicuerat:81 the inquisitors accept the testimony 73 Chronica Albrici, 944, ll. 32–3; 945, ll. 6–7. 74 Annales Marbacenses, 93, ll. 30–1 (‘Deus, qui ventilat et emundat aream suam’; Matth. 3:12); 86, ll. 23–4 (‘palmites infructuosi precisi sunt’; Matth. 7:19; Luke. 3:19; John 15:2); ibid., ll. 24–6 (‘subdole vulpes […] extracti sunt de foveis suis’; Cant. 2:15, for example the letter of Gregory IX, 26 February 1233, MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 413 no. 514: Ad capiendas vulpes parvulas). 75 Philippe Mousket, Historia, 806, ll. 2–5, vv. 29010–3. 76 Annales breves Wormatienses, ed. H. Pertz, MGH SS, xvii (Hanover, 1861), 74–9, at 75, ll. 19–20 (‘1214. frater Conradus de Marburg predicare incepit, et hereticos quoscumque volebat per totam Teutoniam nullo contradicente combussit’); Annales Thuringici breves, ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS, xxiv (Hanover, 1879), 41, ll. 12–3 (‘1216 […] Eodem anno frater Chunradus cremavit hereticos’). 77 For example, the lists in the chronicle of Philippe Mousket; Chronica Albrici, 937, ll. 20–1: 21 heretics burned and 21 imprisoned in Châlons-sur-Marne, 30 burned in Douai. For the more than 180 victims of the tribunal of Mont-Aimé see ibid., 944, l. 33; Annales Erphordenses, 96, ll. 25–6. 78 Chronica Albrici, 936, ll. 33–4: ‘hereticos per Franciam investigat et […] vel ad reversionem absolvendos vel ad iudicium comburendos attrahebat’; Andreae Marchianensis Continuatio, 215, ll. 3–5: ‘multos utriusque sexus examinavit de fide, multos infideles consumpsit flammis ultricibus et multos perpetuo carceri mancipavit’. 79 Annales Wormatienses, 168, ll. 18–9; see above, note 45. 80 Richeri Gesta, 307, ll. 49–50; cf. H. Grundmann, ‘Ketzerverhöre des Spätmittelalters als quellenkritisches Problem’, DA, 21 (1965), 519–75, also in idem, Ausgewählte Aufsätze. Teil 1: Religiöse Bewegungen, MGH Schriften, 25/1 (Stuttgart, 1976), 364–416, esp. 364–6. 81 Annales Erphordenses, 85, ll. 25–7.

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of dubious persons who accuse themselves and others;82 they sentence to death people who deny the accusations;83 they force confessed heretics, if they want to survive, to denounce others.84 The inquisitors act at the very least too hastily;85 but the main accusation against Conrad is that he produced legal uncertainty, encouraged denunciations,86 corrupted social relations,87 randomly persecuted low- and high-ranking people (nobiles et ignobiles, clerici, monachi, incluse, burgenses, rustici), 88 and created unheard of chaos (confusio a saeculis inaudita),89 a ‘madness like rabies, which swallowed criminals and innocents alike’ (rabies inportuna et lippa, noxios eque et innoxios absortura),90 which led to a period (pericolosissima tempora) as dangerous as that of the persecution of the Christians by the heathen Roman Emperors91 – to the profit of the authentic heretics who remain hidden among the persecuted orthodox.92 The mission of special papal inquisitors raised the question of competence and responsibility for the defence of the Christian people and the persecution of heretics. Historiography had to fit the newcomers into its hierarchical conceptions. Combating heretics was one of the tasks of a bishop and figured as an epithet of the ideal ruler; besides, the need to fight heresy ought to 82 Chronica Albrici, 931, ll. 30–6: the episode of the homeless Aleydis from Bingen who accuses herself, her next of kin and her enemies is part of the list of Conrad’s errors in the pseudo-letter directed to the pope (see above 261). 83 Annales Erphordenses, 85, ll. 27–30: ‘aliquis infamatus […] confessus errorem ac reverti volens tonderetur, suam vero innocentiam f ide iuratoria defendens, postea convictus pro heretico cremaretur’; Gesta Treverorum, 400, l. 45–401, l. 2: ‘oportebat eum (scil. the accused) vel reum se confiteri et in penitentiam recalvari vel crimen negare et cremari’. 84 Gesta Treverorum, 401, ll. 2–3: ‘Insuper qui sic tonsoratus esset, oportebat eum complices suos prodere, alioquin item debebat cremari.’ 85 Annales S. Pantaleonis, 264–5: ‘si fas est dici, nimis precipiti sententia sunt addicti resp’, yet starker: ‘Nam eodem die quo quis accusatus est, seu iuste seu iniuste, nullius appellationis, nullius defensionis sibi refugio proficiente, est dampnatus et flammis crudelibus iniectus.’ 86 Gesta Treverorum, 401, ll. 4–5; Chronica Albrici, 931, ll. 46–8. 87 Chronica Albrici, 931, l. 50: ‘frater fratrem, uxor virum, domnus servum et servus domnum accusavit’. See ibid. ll. 46–8. 88 Annales S. Pantaleonis, 264. See also Chronica Albrici, 931, ll. 39–41: ‘cepit ascendere a rusticis ad burgenses honorabiles et eorum uxores, et tandem ad milites et eorum uxores, inde ad castellanos et nobiles et in fine ad comites prope et longe positos’; Gesta Treverorum, 402, ll. 12–5. The change from the poor to the rich as the target group of the inquisitorial persecution is a dominating topic in the Annales Wormatienses. 89 Chronica Albrici, 932, ll. 1–2. 90 Gesta Treverorum, 402, ll. 34–5. 91 Ibid., ll. 31–3: ‘Exhinc procellosa illa persecutio cessavit, et pericolosissima tempora, quibus a diebus Constantii imperatoris heretici et Iuliani apostate nulla alia fuere similia.’ 92 Chronica Albrici, 931, l. 30; Gesta Treverorum, 401, ll. 6–8.

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unite every single authority. Chroniclers depict the achievements of Robert le Bougre mainly in terms of teamwork: the inquisitor is sent and authorized by Pope Gregory, generously supported by King Louis,93 he acts consensu et presentia of the prelates, clergy and nobles94 (most of the chroniclers were unaware and therefore omitted the fact that Robert was suspended from his office for two years because the archbishops had protested against the Dominicans’ interference in their jurisdiction as ordinaries);95 reports of the climax of his activities, the mass burning at Mont-Aimé in 1239, include a list of prominent ecclesiastical dignitaries who participated in the event.96 As to his impact on the representatives of the establishment, Conrad of Marburg is depicted in a distinctive way: a plenipotentiary of the pope, he is surrounded by dubious collaborators (particularly in the Annales Wormatienses); at first he investigates among the poor, later he aims at the higher levels of society; when he accuses the Count of Sayn, he is opposed by a countermovement of the local authorities, of King Henry, the German princes, archbishops etc.; the weapons at their disposal are the traditional ones: the summoning of assemblies, the established legal procedures and the appeal directly to Pope Gregory to complain about his delegate, and thus the established order gets the better of the recently imported disorder.97 In Conrad’s case, chroniclers list the very important people who appeal to the pope or undertake the journey to Rome (Annales Wormatienses), or they list the participants in the final ceremony of the count’s purgatio and the vindication of other victims of the assassinated inquisitor, a solemn purgatio 93 Mousket, Historia, 804, ll. 21–2, vv. 28881–2; ibid., l. 53, v. 28913; Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, v, 247; see also iii, 520 (‘a domino rege Francorum impendente subsidium’); idem, Historia Anglorum, ii, 415 (‘auxilio regis fultus’); idem, Abbreviatio Chronicorum, 278 (‘auxilio fretus regali’). 94 See for example Notae S. Amati Duacenses, 30, ll. 19–21; Chronicon S. Medardi, 522, ll. 14–6. 95 Letters of Gregory IX from February 1234 (revocatio of the Dominicans’ and Robert’s inquisition following objections from the local bps; Potthast 9388, 9386; Auvray, i, 969 no. 1763; 971 no. 1764; cf. Haskins, Robert, 216–7 n. 2), from 8 November 1235 (about a conflict of competence between Robert and the bp of Clermont; Potthast 10044; Auvray, ii, 193 no. 2825) and from 21 to 23 August 1235 (authorization for Dominicans and Robert as inquisitors, valid for the whole kingdom of France; Potthast 9993–5; Auvray, ii, 144–6 no. 2735–7). The only hint that Robert’s activities were not wholeheartedly embraced by the local clerics is found in Philippe Mousket, Historia, 806, ll. 3–4, vv. 28915–6 respectively 804, ll. 25–6, vv. 28885–6, dealing with the earliest investigations in Charité-sur-Loire: L’arcevesques et li clergiés / Les ont enquis et enpesciés. 96 Chronica Albrici, 944–5. 97 Annales Erphordenses and Gesta Treverorum start from a report on the royal assemblies to describe the opposition against Conrad’s activities; Alberic chooses a fictitious letter which he ascribes to the leading German prelate, the abp of Mainz, to specify the complains against the inquisitor.

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which also symbolizes the vindication of the traditional legal proceedings (Gesta of Trier, Erfurt annals). Chroniclers, obviously, focus on interesting characters, and the pope’s delegates attracted the attention of contemporaries. They depict the inquisitors by employing the stylistic devices of hagiography or exemplum, making use of a wide range of literary motifs. Conrad, multi-functional as reformer, co-protagonist in the Vita of St Elisabeth and inquisitor, remains a controversial figure even in recent historiography. Caesarius of Heisterbach comes close to awarding him a halo, because he is murdered while purifying the Church, by ‘collecting bundles of heretics to burn them’;98 diametrically opposite, the Erfurt annals quote an anonymous prelate who proposes to exhume and burn the corpse of the troublemaker,99 and Alberic is acquainted with a visionary who recognized Conrad among the damned.100 Chroniclers agree as to his education, his zeal and the independence and power which he gained at the peak of his career, when he sent to the stake whomsoever he chose in the whole of Germany, and nobody dared to hinder him (hereticos quoscumque volebat per totam Teutoniam nullo contradicente combussit);101 and also to his failure when confronting the mighty, logically leading to his assassination. Otherwise, he does not fit into a conventional scheme; the role-model of the inquisitor-martyr, as in the case of Petrus Martyr, is applied to him only as an exception;102 eventually, the story of his life follows the pattern of rise and fall, but not as markedly as in the case of his fellow inquisitor Robert. Robert le Bougre, who appeared from nobody knew where and eventually faded into obscurity, was not a character who could be described simply in terms of pro and contra, arousing admiration and loathing, like Conrad, but rather one who became from an early stage the subject of historiographical sculpturing. First, he appears as a protagonist in reports about inquisitorial 98 Die Schriften des Caesarius von Heisterbach über die heilige Elisabeth von Thüringen: Das Leben der heiligen Elisabeth. Die Predigt über ihre Translation, ed. A. Huyskens, in Die Wundergeschichten des Caesarius von Heisterbach, ed. A. Hilka (Bonn, 1937), 329–90, at 351, ll. 11–4; 352, l. 3–353, l. 2 (‘cum […] agrum ecclesie a zizaniis succrescentibus non solum per doctrinam hereses exstirpando, immo etiam ipsos hereticos in fasciculos ad comburendum colligando mundaret’). 99 Annales Erphordenses, 86, ll. 23–5. 100 Chronica Albrici, 932, ll. 14–5. 101 Annales breves Wormatienses, ed. H. Pertz, MGH SS, 17 (Hanover, 1861), 74–9, at 75, ll. 19–20. 102 See G. Odetto O.P., ‘La Cronaca maggiore dell’Ordine domenicano di Galvano Fiamma’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 10 (1940), 297–373, at 352–3. Cf. also A. Vauchez, La sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 241 (Rome, 1981), 480–2; Brunn, Contestataires, 529–32.

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efficiency, and later as a character in a classical exemplum. Robert, in the different chronicles of Matthew Paris,103 is initially called ‘le bougre’ because he was a heretic before advancing to the position of malleus haereticorum; then, in a later version, he becomes a spy among the Cathars of Northern Italy, which enables him to track them down in France most efficiently; finally, Matthew calls him a former heretic, exinfidelis et exscismaticus, and a falsus frater, thus not even properly converted. Robert, according to Matthew’s later versions, abuses his power, betrays justice, brings innocents to death and is therefore condemned to imprisonment for life; on the one hand, his was the classical sequence of success, superbia and humiliation; on the other hand, he figures as seducer, whose story is retold when Matthew deals with the movement of the misguided Pasteauroux in 1251 and their leaders.104 Richer of Sénones fits Robert into a one-dimensional moralistic tale, like many within his chronicle, of ascent, vanagloria et luxuria, fall and rightful punishment, described in detail and with gusto. Gerard de Frachet, in his exemplary lives of the Dominicans, reduces the story to its essence: a Dominican friar has gained power, so that the whole of France trembled at the sight of his face (ut fere tota Francia tremebat a facie eius), committed the sin of arrogance, and was finally punished by detention at different monastic institutions, ending his days in misery.105 Gregory IX remained backstage for most of the time, yet the fates of his two emissaries were linked back to the pope. Both the inquisitors, Robert and Conrad, were collaborators and representatives of Gregory, both of long-standing service and entrusted with different tasks; they were chosen by the pope for his experiment of Curia-controlled inquisition in accordance with the new regulations issued for the procedures against heretics after the discovery and dismantling of a group of Cathars in Rome in February 1231. The chroniclers obviously perceived Gregory’s role in the events as filtered through the deeds of the inquisitors and eventually transmitted by participants of delegations to the papal Curia or by the addressees of papal letters; but, gaps and incongruencies remain. The role ascribed to Gregory in the story of Robert le Bougre is unspectacular but appropriate: the pope authorizes the persecution of heretics by Robert and sanctions his achievements (De mandato summi pontificis Gregorii IX venit frater Robertus;106 he starts his task habens potestatem a 103 See above, note 52. 104 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, v, 247. 105 See above notes 54, 55. 106 Chronica Albrici, 936, l. 33.

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domino papa,107 par le comant de l’apostole108). And the pope (as assumed by the authors of the exempla featuring Robert) puts an end to Robert’s criminal activities and orders or confirms his imprisonment (auctoritate papali jussus est praecise, ne amplius in illo officio fulminando desaeviret).109 Only the Abbreviatio chronicarum mentions a variant, playing on a motive which was dear to Matthew Paris: when Robert is incarcerated by his fellow brethren for the first time, his friends provide for him a papal dispensation by offering bribes, and procure for him a provision to a prebend as canon of Saint-Victor in Paris.110 The treatment of the pope’s character in the accounts on Conrad is more interesting. According to Gregory’s letters, the pope appointed Conrad and generally trusted him, eventually expressed some doubts, but after his assassination sanctified his deeds and irrevocably condemned his enemies;111 whereas most of the chroniclers rejoiced in Conrad’s demise and the unfolding of his campaign – and had to depict the role of the pope within that context. Because there existed no historiographical pattern to deal with the theme of how a pope was to react to an experiment that went wrong, each chronicler created his own version. The author of the Gesta Treverorum claims special knowledge of papal anti-heretical policy, draws comparisons between the threats to orthodoxy in the dioceses of Rome and Trier, and remains noncommittal as to Gregory’s involvement in Conrad’s activities. Eventually he suggests there was an abuse of his position, when Conrad starts his campaign auctoritate apostolica fretus, or hints at the pope’s assent, when the bishop of Hildesheim acts in the final vindication of Conrad’s victims ex parte domini pape.112 The other chroniclers depict Pope Gregory as reacting to the messages which report on 107 Notae S. Amati Duacenses, 30, ll. 21–2. 108 Mousket, Historia, 804, l. 19, v. 28879. 109 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, v, 520. See also Segl, Ketzer in Österreich, 64–5; C. Caldwell Ames, Righteous Persecution. Inquisition, Dominicans, and Christianity in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia/PV., 2009), 158. 110 Matthew Paris, Abbreviatio Chronicorum, 278. 111 Letters from 12 June 1227 (commission to trace heretics; Potthast 7931, MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 277 no. 362); 11 October 1231 (authorisation as inquisitor; Kurze, ‘Anfänge’, 190–3); 10 June 1233 (authorization to persecute heretics; Potthast 9226; MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 429 no. 533); Vox in Rama (see above note 6); reacting to criticism of Conrad’s inquisition, 21 Oktober 1233 (Potthast 9314, MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 451 no. 558); to his murder, 23 October 1233 (Potthast 9316, MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 453 no. 560) and 31 October 1233 (Potthast 9322, MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 455 no. 561); and to the hesitant investigation of this crime, 26, 31 July 1235 (Potthast 9978, MGH Epistolae Saeculi XIII, i, 544 no. 647). 112 Gesta Treverorum, 401, ll. 11–2; 400, l. 42; 402, ll. 42–3.

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the disorder caused by Conrad. The Annales Wormatienses tell a consistent, if slightly over-emotional tale: Conrad and his co-inquisitors act without papal authorization,113 and when the prominent delegation which comes to Rome in defence of the Count of Sayn informs Gregory of the nefandum negotium, the pope starts to wail and lament and promises his aid; when he learns from a second messenger that meanwhile the inquisitors have been slain, he comments with a cynical dictum: Ecce Alemanni semper erant furiosi, et ideo nunc habebant iudices furiosos; but he quashes the verdicts of the unjust judges and happily (iocunde) restores order and peace.114 The Erfurt Annals’ narrative shows a more probable judgement of character and certainly more knowledge of proceedings at the Roman Curia. King Henry and the German archbishops sent an emissary to Rome to consult the pope on their problems with Conrad’s actions; Gregory is worried (valde turbatus) and on the cardinals’ advice is inclined to revoke Conrad’s authorization; the message, brought to him by a Dominican friar, that in the meantime the papal inquisitor has been murdered, leaves him very much dismayed (nimis conturbatus), and he tears up the already-written-letters and considers punishing the German princes’ delegate instead, from which course of action he is dissuaded by the cardinals and the Dominican friars. All in all, here the depiction of Gregory is purely a reactive and weak performance. This probably circulated among the participants of the assembly of Frankfurt in 1234.115 Alberic of Troisfontaines inserts his famous letter of Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz and Friar Bernard to the pope as a medium to describe with rich detail Conrad’s activities leading to the enormous chaos which the prelates were unable to prevent, and to sum up Conrad’s demise and its aftermath (up to the synod at Mainz in April 1234); besides, the letter introduces the pope in a leading role, for its authors commit to him the whole affair, including the punishment of Conrad’s murderers, the pending trials and the need to revoke unjust verdicts.116 Alberic did not read the pope’s answer, but he claims to know of Gregory’s regret that he had entrusted Conrad with the power which had enabled him to make such a mess of his assignment (Quid ad hoc dominus papa rescripserit, nondum scimus, nisi quod penitet eum satis, quod tantam dicto magistro Conrado potestatem permiserit, unde talis confusio emerserit).117 113 Annales Wormatienses, 168, ll. 33–4. 114 Ibid., 169–70. 115 Annales Erphordenses, 85–6. 116 Chronica Albrici, 931, l. 25–932, l. 12; see above note 36. 117 Chronica Albrici, 932, ll. 12–4; at this point the editor of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scheffer-Boichorst, was unable to restrain from putting a footnote (note 10): ‘eum minime poenituit’.

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These diverging interpretations of how the pope might or ought to have reacted to the disastrous outcome of his efforts to suppress heresy remain just an episode. The themes were not taken up by later chroniclers who grew accustomed to the processus inquisitionis and the presence of inquisitors, while grouping the players into papal delegates, the righteous majority, and the heretics who needed to be eradicated.

About the Author Andrea Sommerlechner was scientific assistant for medieval history at the Istituto Storico Austriaco in Rome from 1988 to 2000, and subsequently senior researcher at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung in Vienna, where she is currently editor of the Registers of Pope Innocent III. She is the author of Stupor Mundi? Kaiser Friedrich II. und die mittelalterliche Geschichtsschreibung (Vienna, 1999).

10. The Third Quadriga: Gregory IX, Joachim of Fiore and the Florensian Order Julia Eva Wannenmacher†

Abstract This chapter explores the relationship between Cardinal Hugo/Gregory IX and Joachim of Fiore and the Florensian Order. It first explores the influence of Joachite thought, particularly concerning the Apocalypse, on the Curia and the wider world of the early thirteenth century. It then examines the part played by Joachim’s great confidant, Rainier of Ponza, and Joseph of Fiore, who was closely tied to the Curia, in developing the thought of Hugo/Gregory concerning the part of new religious movements in a new eschatological stage of history. It closes with a thorough examination of the symbolism of the canonization letter of Dominic where the Cistercians and the Florensians together, as the white Quadriga, signify the coming of the Last Age. Keywords: Joachim of Fiore, Dominicans, Franciscans, Apocalypse, Antichrist

The Pope and … who? Pope Gregory IX, formerly Cardinal Hugo of Ostia, was known to hold in great esteem the Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) and the Florensian order, which Joachim founded.1 Gregory’s first modern biographer, Joseph 1 The most accurate account of the life of Joachim of Fiore remains H. Grundmann, Studien über Joachim von Fiore. Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance 32 (Leipzig, Berlin, 1927, reprint Darmstadt, 1975); idem, ‘Zur Biographie Joachims von Fiore und Rainers von Ponza’, in idem, Ausgewählte Aufsätze 2: Joachim von Fiore, MGH, Schriften 25

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch10

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Felten, writes of his role in the history of the mendicant orders and his multidimensional contest with his antagonist Frederick II of Hohenstaufen as the two main characteristics of Gregory’s pontificate.2 In both thematic strands, Joachim of Fiore and his legacy were crucial, and without him, his thought and its reception, the history of the rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans and the antagonism between imperial court and Curia in the first half of the thirteenth century would have concluded differently. Throughout his career as cardinal and later as pope, Hugo or Gregory favoured the Florensian order. In a famous letter of the year 1234, he even placed the Florensians on a par with Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans. At first sight this might come as a surprise, given the widespread and long lasting influence that both the Cistercians and the mendicant orders were to enjoy across the centuries, while Joachim’s order appears to have faded within his own lifetime, even though his thought and work was to have a lasting impact on the history of medieval, early modern and modern thought.3 Apart from its founder, almost no members of the medieval Florensian order are known by name and none were in any way particularly prominent either spiritually or intellectually. The Florensian order faded so quickly and so irrevocably that one is surprised to find any traces of the order at all in later centuries. Joachim’s main ideas such as the Third Age or status,4 his magisterial exegesis of the Apocalypse,5 or his political thought, influential and inspiring to (Stuttgart, 1977), 255–360. My thanks go to Matthias Kaup for his critical reading and helpful suggestions which greatly improved this article. All mistakes are entirely mine. 2 Joseph Felten, Papst Gregor IX. (Freiburg i. Br., 1886), 1. 3 On Joachim’s life, thought and influence, see M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: a study in Joachimism (Oxford, 1969, reprint London, 1993); eadem, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (London, 1976, Stroud/Gloucestershire, 1999); M. Riedl, Joachim von Fiore. Denker der vollendeten Menschheit (Würzburg, 2004); and more recently Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration: essays in memory of Marjorie E. Reeves (1905–2003), ed. J.E. Wannenmacher, Church, Faith and Culture in Medieval West (Farnham, 2013). 4 On the third age and the millennium in, before and after Joachim’s thought and work, see J.E. Wannenmacher, ‘Apocalypse, Antichrists and the Third Age: Joachim of Fiore’s peaceful revolution’, in Ancient Christian Interpretations of ‘Violent Texts’ in the Apocalypse, ed. J. Verheyden et al. (Göttingen, 2011), 267–286; eadem, ‘Auf der Suche nach dem Millennium: Von Joachim von Fiore bis zum Dritten Reich’, in Gott in der Geschichte. Zum Ringen um das Verständnis von Heil und Unheil in der Geschichte des Christentums, ed. M. Delgado and V. Leppin (Stuttgart, 2013), 159–182. 5 On Joachim of Fiore and the Apocalypse, see J.E. Wannenmacher, ‘Dragon, Antichrist, Millennium: Joachim of Fiore and the opening of the seals’, in L’Apocalisse nel Medioevo. Atti del Convegno Internazionale dell’Università degli Studi di Milano e della Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino (S.I.S.M.E.L.), Gargnano sul Garda, 18–20 maggio 2009, ed. R.E. Guglielmetti (Florence, 2011), 445–469; eadem, ‘Ein Wandel in der Auslegung durch Joachim von

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many as they were for medieval and modern readers,6 seem to have left no visible traces in the ranks of the order Joachim had founded. What did Joachim, as founder, and the Florensian order mean to Hugo/ Gregory? For those interested in Gregory, as well as in Joachim, it is worth attempting to shed some light on Gregory’s attitude towards Joachim and the Florensians, the expectations he might have had for the future role of the order, and the role that he played both as cardinal and pope in the development and growth of the order in the thirteenth century. With Marjorie Reeves’s description of Joachim of Fiore as ‘the prophet of the Antichrist, the interpreter of the seven-headed dragon, the oracle on the fate of Jerusalem, the recipient of a miraculous gift of spiritual understanding, the prophet of the two great Mendicant orders, and the proclaimer of 1260 as the year of crisis’, expectations must have been high.7

Eschatology and/as politics, or the antichrist after Joachim of Fiore How was it that Joachim’s thought and work was able to provide church and imperial court alike with such powerful and potentially fatal ammunition for their verbal attacks in the long-running conflict and debates between pope and emperor? Given his own attitude towards its protagonists, the late abbot seems a particularly unsuitable referee for such bitter altercations. During his lifetime, Joachim was a devout son of the Church, whom at least two popes had favoured and encouraged to write and who, on his deathbed, had entrusted his writings to the judgment and correction of another pope.8 Fiore?’, in Tot sacramenta quot verba. Die Kommentierung der Apokalypse von den Anfängen bis ins 12. Jahrhundert, ed. R. Klotz et al. (Münster, 2014), 289–310. 6 See M. Riedl, ‘Joachim of Fiore as Political Thinker’, in Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration, ed. Wannenmacher, 53–73; on the idea of the millennium in Joachim’s thought and its reception, see M. Reeves and W. Gould, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Oxford, 2001); Wannenmacher, ‘Auf der Suche nach dem Millennium’. 7 M. Reeves, ‘The Originality and Influence of Joachim of Fiore’, Traditio, 35 (1980), 269–316, again in eadem, The Prophetic Sense of History in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Aldershot, 1999) IV, at 298. 8 In May 1184, Lucius III (d. 1185) invited Joachim to the papal curia in Veroli and later encouraged the abbot to continue writing; on this meeting, see M. Kaup, De prophetia ignota. Eine frühe Schrift Joachims von Fiore, MGH Studien und Texte 19 (Hanover, 1998), 2–13. Lucius’s successor Urban III (d. 1187), though disagreeing with Lucius III on many matters, met Joachim in 1186 in Verona and continued the papal protection, cf. C. Egger, ‘A Pope Without Successor: Ralph of Coggeshall, Ralph Niger, Robert of Auxerre and the early reception of Joachim of Fiore’s ideas in

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Nevertheless he had also been on good terms with several of the rulers of his day – William II of Sicily (d. 1198), his illegitimate cousin Tancred of Lecce (d. 1194), Tancred’s antagonist Henry VI of Hohenstaufen (1165–1197) and his wife Constance, the heiress of Sicily (1154–1198), together with their son, the Emperor Frederick II. Between 1178 and 1200, meetings with all of these are recorded, and although Joachim never hesitated to criticize even those crowned heads, all the chroniclers appear to convey an atmosphere of mutual respect, however tense the general political situation might have been.9 The reasons, then, for Joachim’s role in the papal-imperial conflict are best sought less in his biography than in his writings and their reception. What everybody seemed to know about Joachim was that he was an expert on the Antichrist.10 His fame as such had reached not only his monastic readers, but also high-ranking worldly rulers, most notably among them Richard I of England (1189–1199), who during his stay in Messina in 1190/91 had requested the Calabrian abbot appear before him. The king then asked Joachim when and where Antichrist would be born (although we do not know how seriously he regarded the abbot’s answer).11 The same interest in the beginning of the reign of Antichrist is visible in the conversation between the Cistercian abbot Adam of Perseigne and Joachim, as recorded England’, in Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration, ed. Wannenmacher, 145–179, at 161–3. In 1188, Clement III (d. 1191) requested Joachim continue and finish his writing, cf. Grundmann, Studien,13, and f inally Celestine III (d. 1198) approved Joachim’s order on 25 August 1196, cf. Egger, ‘A Pope Without Successor’, 146 n. 5; Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie’, 308–15. On Joachim’s relation with the popes, cf. Bernard McGinn, ‘Joachim of Fiore and the Twelfth-century Papacy’, in Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration, ed. Wannenmacher, 15–34. 9 On these, see especially Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie’, 303, 314, 316–21 and the Vita b. Joachimi abbatis, ed. ibidem, 342–52; P. Csendes, Heinrich VI., Gestalten des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Darmstadt, 1993), 102, 150–1, 188, 219. 10 On Antichrist in Joachim of Fiore, see R. Manselli, ‘Il problema del doppio Anticristo in Gioacchino da Fiore’, in Geschichtsschreibung und geistliches Leben im Mittelalter. Festschrift für Heinz Löwe, ed. K. Hauck and H. Mordek (Cologne-Vienna, 1978), 427–49; R.E. Lerner, ‘Antichrists and Antichrist in Joachim of Fiore’, Speculum, 60 (1985), 553–70; J.E. Wannenmacher, ‘Die Macht des Bösen. Zur Rolle und Bedeutung des Antichristen in der Eschatologie Joachims von Fiore’, Florensia, Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, 13/14 (1999/2000), 365–78; eadem, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte, 198–206, 215–40. 11 The meeting is reported in the chronicles of Roger of Howden, in two versions, namely The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. A.D. 1169–1192 known commonly under the name of Benedict of Peterborough, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS 49/1–2 (London, 1867), ii, 151–5, and Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols, RS 51/1–4 (London, 1868–71), iii, 75–9, and Robert of Auxerre, Chronicon, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SS, 26 (Hanover, 1882), 226–76, at 255. On the meeting of Joachim and King Richard I see Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 6–10. On the sources and the relationship between the chroniclers’ historiographic writing and Joachim’s exegetic works, see Egger, ‘A Pope Without Successor’.

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by Ralph of Coggeshall. Both conversations centred on Joachim’s surprising assertion that Antichrist was already living, and, moreover, had been born in Rome, on this point varying from the traditional belief that Antichrist’s birthplace would be Babylon. The difficulties and opportunities which Joachim’s Antichrist-conception offered can be appreciated: if Antichrist were born in Rome, King Richard concluded triumphantly, he had to be none other than the present pope, his arch-enemy Clement III (1188–1191)! The oscillating description of Rome as typological subtext for Babylon, the seat of evil, must have been equally fascinating for polemical eschatologists from both sides. With Joachim’s response during these conversations, the stage for the apocalyptic use of Joachim’s Antichrist was set. Naturally, Joachim was neither the first nor the most prominent medieval author who thought and wrote about Antichrist. Nor indeed was he the first to write about the idea of the Third Age or Age of the Holy Spirit, a time of earthly bliss well within history. What set Joachim’s conceptions apart from those of his predecessors, in Marjorie Reeves’s words, is that ‘the spearhead of Joachim’s original thought lies in the great imaginative step which he took when he threw the full manifestation of the Third Person of the Trinity forward into the period ahead’.12 Joachim drew the eschatological drama closer to the present, and alongside the unearthly, but now imminent bliss of the Third Age, as the apocalyptic threat also drew closer and became magnified. The biblical texts distinguish two different kinds of Antichrist, namely a singular future opponent of Christ, who will appear in the last days before the end of the world and seduce the faithful, according to 2 Thess. 2: 3–4 and 2 John 1: 7; and, on the other hand, numerous antichrists in 1 John 2: 18 and 2: 22, whose characteristic feature is their denial of Christ’s deity. Seemingly belonging to another but human species, the red dragon of Apoc. 12: 3 prefigures past, present, and future persecutors of the Church, ostensibly depicted in the beast’s heads and tail. Joachim unites both ideas and thereby places the eschatological enemy within the near, wholly earthly future. If the Third Age, as Joachim claimed, had already begun, the eschatological antichrist might well already be present. In order to survive the imminent last tribulation, and resist the threatening seduction and renunciation of faith, God’s people needed to know its enemy. As a result of this, as Antichrist and his entourage were located chronologically much nearer, so their features became more distinguishable – and totally human. Not surprisingly, Antichrist could be identified with a wide range of people – one’s personal enemy could well end up as an eschatological antagonist. While Joachim 12 Reeves, ‘Originality and Influence’, Traditio, 36 (1980), 288.

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refrained from naming individuals in these roles, his enthusiastic readers felt no such inhibitions and liberally labelled both their antagonists as antichrists, and their favourites as Joachim’s prophesied viri spirituales, who were to guide the faithful through the last tribulations. This practice, which was made possible by Joachim of Fiore’s new division of time and in his placing of eschatology in the present or near future, was often exercised in the thirteenth century, most prominently by Gregory IX and Frederick II, although it lived on until well into the twentieth century, when in the First World War the enemy’s armies were described as the host of Antichrist.13 An example from early modern times was Martin Luther’s liberal use of Antichrist-labels for the pope.14 In his typological exegesis of the Bible, Joachim identified a concordia or parallel structure or sequence of events and figures in the biblical texts and in the history of the Church. For each and every character in the Bible, he found an equivalent, thereby not only explaining the past by means of the present and vice versa, but also prophesying future events, and identifying contemporary representatives of Church and State with their biblical counterparts. Exegesis could come as critical comment on present political situations or events, or even, if the biblical archetype’s medieval prefiguration was still to come, might become prophecy. Although in his writings Joachim had carefully avoided identifying contemporary European princes with Antichrist, he was convinced that, according to his exegesis of the seven seals of Apoc. 5 and their openings,15 together with his interpretation of the red dragon, its seven heads and his tail, combined with other biblical texts, the final tribulations were imminent, as well as a time of earthly bliss, enlightened by the intelligentia spiritualis, which he expected between the sixth and the seventh head of the dragon. The best-known structure of time in Joachim’s thought is the model of the three subsequent status of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These are not strictly divided, but overlapping, with the last status foreshadowed by St Benedict and the beginnings of Western monasticism, but fully appearing in Joachim’s vision of the near future, heralded by viri spirituales, spiritual leaders, prefigured in the two apocalyptic witnesses of Apoc. 12 whom Antichrist will kill, before Christ 13 See H. Preuss, Der Antichrist (Berlin, 1909). 14 See V. Leppin, ‘Luthers Antichristverständnis vor dem Hintergrund der mittelalterlichen Konzeptionen’, in idem, Transformationen: Studien zu den Wandlungsprozessen in Theologie und Frömmigkeit zwischen Spätmittelalter und Reformation (Tübingen, 2015), 471–86 (previously in Kerygma und Dogma, 45 (1999), 48–63). 15 On this motive and the eschatological persecutions and bliss, see Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte; on Joachim’s position towards the emperor’s house, see ibidem, 138–55.

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makes an end of him. This will happen, according to Joachim in the Liber introductorius of his Expositio in Apocalypsin, at the end of the second and the beginning of the third status.16 It comes as no surprise that Joachim’s readers were electrified and thrilled by the thought that the apocalyptic enemy was so near, that each and every one of their contemporaries could turn out to be him, and equally there was – and never would be – any lack of those who were identifying certain individuals or groups as viri spirituales.17 The latter idea was to play a crucial role in the history of western monasticism ever after, and especially in the history of the friars preacher and friars minor, who from the years around 1230 used Joachim’s expectation of viri spirituales to justify and describe the existence and tasks of their orders, while the Antichrist-motif never ceased to fascinate those concerned with politics. Most importantly, the identification of the worldly enemy as apocalyptic antichrist was employed in the famous controversy between Gregory IX and Frederick II. Much has been written about this controversy,18 from the time of Salimbene of Parma (1221–c.1290), Franciscan, Joachite, and a more than partial observer of the controversy, to modern biographies of the emperor. The accusation – most famously made by Salimbene – that Frederick was a heretic was merely one of many subjects of the controversy. Salimbene, incidentally, wrote of Frederick that ‘had he been a good Catholic and had loved God, the Church, and his own soul, he would scarcely have had an equal as an emperor in the world’.19 The greatest bone of contention was the emperor’s promise to go on crusade, which he had first made to Innocent III in 1215 and often repeated, but never kept, until in 1227 when Gregory 16 Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte, 234–40. 17 Cf. M. Reeves, ‘Joachimist Expectations in the Order of Augustinian Hermits’, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale, 25 (1958), 111–41; eadem, ‘The Abbot Joachim and the Society of Jesus’, in Joachim of Fiore in Christian Thought: essays on the influence of the Calabrian Prophet 1 (New York, 1975), 209–27 (previously in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 5 (1961) 162–181); eadem, The Influence¸ and Wannenmacher, ‘Auf der Suche nach dem Millennium’. 18 On the controversy, see B. McGinn, Visions of the End: apocalyptic traditions in the Middle Ages (Columbia, 1979, reprint 1998), 168–79, H. Möhring, Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit (Stuttgart, 2000), 209–16; H.M. Schaller, ‘Endzeit-Erwartung und Antichrist-Vorstellungen in der Politik des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag am 19. September 1971, Zweiter Band (Göttingen, 1972), 924–47, reprint in idem, Stauferzeit. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, MGH, Schriften 38 (Hanover, 1993), 25–52; M. Kaup, ‘Friedrich II. und die Joachiten. Zur frühen joachitischen Antichristtheologie’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trent, 25 (1999), 401–16; idem, ‘Antichrist und Endkaiser: Friedrich II. in der eschatologischen Propaganda des 13. Jahrhunderts’, in Apokalypse oder Goldenes Zeitalter? Zeitenwenden aus historischer Sicht, ed. W. Koller (Zürich, 1999), 105–23. 19 Salimbene of Parma, Chronica, ed. J.L. Baird et al., Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Binghamton, 1986), 351.

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IX answered this reluctance by excommunicating him. A further excommunication followed in 1239, brought about by the struggle for hegemony in Italy, when the Papal State was threatened from all sides by Frederick’s imperial forces. The controversy lasted longer than Gregory’s life; after his death in 1241 the struggle was continued with undiminished vigour by his second successor, Innocent IV, who outlived the emperor by four years. In their various writings, both antagonists characterized their struggle as no less than the epic battle between good and evil, shaped after the Joachite model of the last days. When, in March 1229, the hesitant crusader Frederick finally entered Jerusalem and reported his success to the English king, as reported by the chronicler Roger of Wendover, the description of this event is deliberately intended to remind the reader of Christ’s own entry into Jerusalem. Marjorie Reeves summarizes: There is no doubt about the heightened language used by Frederick and his servants to describe his role in history. For us, the most significant point is the use of Biblical symbolism to express this. Frederick hailed his own birthplace, Jesi, as a second Bethlehem and dared to adapt the words of the prophet Micah: ‘Unde tu, Bethleem, civitas Marchie non minima, es in generis nostri principibus. Ex te enim dux exiit, Romani princeps imperii qui populum tuum reget […]’. In a letter to the city of Worms (1241) he claimed that God had raised up against him the spirit of Elijah – and, since one of the key texts for Joachites was ‘Helias cum veniet restituet omnia’ the eschatological overtones here would not be lost.20

The climax of the apocalyptic dimension between the two antagonists was reached when in 1239 Pope Gregory issued the letter entitled ‘Ascendit de mari bestia’, thereby openly describing the emperor as the apocalyptic beast of Apoc. 13: Cease to be surprised that he who now arises to destroy the name of the Lord from the earth directs an injurious sword against us. Rather, so that you may be able to resist his lies with open truth and to confute his fallacies with pure argument, carefully consider the beginning, middle, and end of this beast Frederick called emperor […].21 20 Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 309. 21 Gregory IX: ‘Ascendit de mari bestia’, Historia diplomatica Frederici Secundi, ed. J.L.A. Huillard-Breholles, 6 vols (Paris, reprinted Turin, 1963), v/1 (1237–41), 327, translation McGinn, Visions, 174.

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To which Frederick replied: ‘We maintain that he is the monster of whom we read’, describing the pope as ‘father not of mercy, but of discord’. Frederick was convinced that ‘he is that great dragon who led the world astray (Apoc. 12), Antichrist, whose forerunner he says we are […]’.22 Supposedly the papal letter was the first of several similar documents issued between 1239 and 1245 and influenced by Cardinal-Deacon Rainier Capocci of Viterbo (d. 1250), all of which identified Frederick II as a precursor of the Antichrist or Antichrist himself. The role and significance of Rainier Capocci in this controversy is still a matter of dispute. His career had progressed quickly; first recorded as papal notary before or in 1215, he was made Cardinal-Deacon by Innocent III in 1216 and served his successors from Honorius III to Innocent IV, during whose pontificate he died.23 It has been suggested that he was a Cistercian and abbot of Tre Fontane, but recent research rejects that idea. Certainly, he favoured the Cistercians and Cistercian houses, had known Dominic personally and supported and favoured both mendicant orders. He was less fond of Frederick II, and considering what we know about his biography and his position at the Curia it is indeed plausible that it was the cardinaldeacon who, by composing the papal letter to Frederick II in 1239, decisively shaped the course of disputes between pope and Emperor.24 For some time, scholars mistakenly believed Rainier to be identical with Rainier of Ponza, Joachim’s close friend, but since Herbert Grundmann demonstrated their distinct biographies, it is clear that they were two different people.25 We do not know how far the political or literary influence of Rainier reached, nor do we know how much the Cistercian and cardinal-deacon personally might have known, or been influenced by, Joachim of Fiore and his thought. He was well-read, well informed, and made good use of the opportunities provided by Joachite imagery, including his prophecies (well-known at least in monastic circles) of the beginning of the Third Age and the imminent coming of the Antichrist, sure in the knowledge that his faithful and wellread audience would recognize them. Referring to the text or texts of the Sibilla Erithea, Christian Jostmann has raised the question of whether the authors at the Curia (whom he suspects to be Rainier Capocci or John of 22 Frederick II, ibid., 348, translation McGinn, Visions, 175. 23 On Rainier’s biography, see E. von Westenholz, Kardinal Rainer von Viterbo (Heidelberg, 1912); on his activities at the Curia, see C. Jostmann, Sibilla Erithea Babilonica. Papsttum und Prophetie im 13. Jahrhundert, MGH Schriften, 54 (Hanover, 2006), 360–2. 24 N. Kamp, Art. ‘Capocci, Rainier’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 18 (Rome, 1975), 606–18. 25 H. Grundmann, ‘Kleine Beiträge über Joachim von Fiore’, in idem, Ausgewählte Aufsätze 2: Joachim von Fiore, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften, 25 (Stuttgart, 1977) 70–100, at 95, first Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 48 (1929), 137–65, at 160, idem, ‘Zur Biographie’, 260.

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Toledo), themselves believed the prophecies they propagated or whether this might not have been a mere intellectual game. The question may be obsolete. Regarding the political function of the apocalyptic imagery, their meaning was deadly serious: one did not negotiate with Antichrist. When the question arises of a possible Joachite influence on this controversy, it seems that the identification of contemporary enemies with eschatological fiends was definitely a consequence of the literary reception of Joachite ideas, making it possible to identify antichrist(s) all around. While on the one hand Joachim had good reason to refrain from identifying certain personages with Antichrist or the viri spirituales, it was exactly this restraint which enabled Rainier – if indeed it was he – and the Curia, or Frederick II and his court, to fill in the names as it suited them, each with Joachim as their point of reference. The use of Joachim’s thought in their political propaganda provided the antagonists with wonderful opportunities, but there can be little doubt that Joachim would not have consented to their interpretation. After Gregory’s death, the tone of the controversy reached even more aggressive heights, perhaps on account of the continuing influence of Rainier, who died in the same year as Frederick II.26

Heavenly creatures: Joachim’ s heritage and promise While a general and superficial knowledge of Joachim of Fiore’s thought might lead one to think that Joachim’s thoughts on Antichrist were all that mattered at the Curia, other indications of his wider influence do exist. It is known that the Cardinal Hugo’s older relative, Innocent III, had been at least indirectly familiar with Joachim’s writings, that he favoured his order, and most likely took a personal interest in saving Joachim’s name from that posthumous condemnation which he might have incurred at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.27 He even made use of Joachim’s writings by either quoting them or using their literary allusions. Gregory as Cardinal Hugo had served at the papal court himself since 1198,28 the moment when Innocent was elected pope. It seems that Hugo, too, knew and valued the Calabrian’s 26 See for example F. Graefe, Die Publizistik in der letzten Epoche Kaiser Friedrichs II. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jahre 1239–1250, Heidelberger Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte, 24 (Heidelberg, 1909). 27 See F. Robb, ‘Did Innocent III Personally Condemn Joachim of Fiore?’, Florensia, Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, 7 (1993), 77–91. 28 For Hugo’s early biography see W. Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskollegium von 1191 bis 1216 (Vienna, 1984), 126–33.

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writings just as his great relative had done, and we can be certain that he must have been familiar with his thought and writing. In fact, Hugo expressed his esteem for Joachim and his order both as cardinal and pope in more than one way. He founded several Florensian houses and endowed them, some with English benefices, thus enabling the order to survive, and to flourish. The first Florensian house outside Calabria was Santa Maria della Gloria, located within the grounds of his family lands in Anagni.29 In October 1216, he founded San Angelo e Santa Maria del Monte Mirteto, another house at Ninfa in his diocese of Velletri.30 Earlier the same year, while papal legate in Tuscany, he assigned a female monastic house to the Tuscan Florensian house of Moriglione. Much later, in 1239, he united Moriglione with the monastery of San Pietro di Camaiore. In the previous year, Robert, abbot of St Augustine in Canterbury, had provided Santa Maria del Monte Mirteto with an income from the church of Lichburn, while as early as 1231 the said Canterbury house had provided Santa Maria della Gloria with a yearly income. As the previous Cardinal Hugo founded both monasteries, it is more than likely that in some way or other the future Pope Gregory IX assigned their later provisions to them. Still one of the most important and perhaps most interesting links between Hugo and Joachim is to be found neither in Hugo’s writings nor in his deeds. Like Innocent before him, Hugo numbered among his closest collaborators and confidants a quite unusual person, even by the experimental standards of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a man without high rank, though probably of noble ancestry. Some contemporary sources called him Innocent’s confessor,31 though there is no certainty about this point. Hugo, however, called him his spiritual father, an angel descended from heaven.32 29 Felten, Gregor IX., 19, and Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskollegium, 127–8 describe the founding of this house in Anagni in 1211 and its extraordinarily generous endowment. On Santa Maria della Gloria, see F. Caraffa, Il monastero florense di S. Maria della Gloria presso Anagni (Roma, 1940). On the Florensian houses in Central Italy, see F. Caraffa, ‘I monasteri florensi del Lazio meridionale’, in Storia e messaggio in Gioacchino da Fiore, Atti del I Convegno Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti (San Giovanni in Fiore, 1980), 449–71. There is conflicting information about the exact date of the foundation, and to which order (Cistercians or Florensians) the new monastery was affiliated at that time. 30 On Ninfa, see Felten, Gregor IX., 18, who explains the founding and funding of this monastery as part of Cardinal Hugo’s campaign as new Cb of Ostia and Velletri. 31 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum VII, 6, ed. J. Strange (Cologne, Bonn, Brussels, 1851), ii, 8; Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson, RS, 66 (London, 1875), 130. 32 In a letter informing fellow-Cistercians about Rainier’s death, ed. E. Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, Archivio della Società romana di storia patria, 2 (1879), 363–7. Cf. Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie’, 269.

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This was Rainier of Ponza, and he was considered the first companion or among the first companions of Joachim.33 A Cistercian monk, he had spent some time, permitted by the order’s authorities, as a hermit on the island of Ponza in the Tyrrhenian Sea. We do not know when and where Rainier and Joachim first met. The anonymous Vita of Joachim, which must have been written during the first decade after Joachim’s death and certainly before that of Rainier,34 recalls that Rainier had heard of Joachim’s fame and that he had left his island to hear the wisdom of Joachim, the new Solomon.35 It has been suggested that they met at Casamari, where Joachim spent one and a half years in 1183/84. Together with Joachim, Rainier left the Cistercian monastery of Corazzo in 1188, and both went to lead eremitical lives at a remote site in the Sila Mountains. Four years later, in 1192, the General Chapter threatened to regard both Joachim and Rainier as fugitives from the Cistercian order,36 but in their later careers neither was addressed as such, their relationship with members of the order being mostly friendly and showing mutual respect. But life still had more to offer Rainier. There is no certainty about when and how he first came to the Curia, but it is probable that he accompanied Joachim on one of his visits to the papal court during these years. And so, in 1198, the very year when Innocent III was elected pope, the year Hugo was drawn to the Curia, Rainier, too, was made papal legate, sent to preach against heresy in Spain and Southern France. Fiona Robb states that ‘the fugitivus was now disciplinarian’.37 33 On Rainier of Ponza, see Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie’; C. Egger, ‘Joachim von Fiore, Rainer von Ponza und die römische Kurie’, in Gioacchino da Fiore tra Bernardo di Clairvaux e Innocenzo III. Atti del 5° Congresso internazionale di studi gioachimiti, San Giovanni in Fiore, 16 21 Settembre 1999, ed. R. Rusconi, Opere di Gioacchino da Fiore: testi e strumenti 13 (Rome, 2001), 129–62. (Unfortunately, I have had no opportunity to consult the most recent study on Rainier by M. Rainini, Il profeta del Papa. Vita e memoria di Rainier da Ponza eremita di curia [Milan, 2016]). On the relations between Rainier and Innocent III with reference to Joachim see F. Robb, ‘Joachimist Exegesis in the Theology of Innocent III and Rainer of Ponza’, Florensia, Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, 11 (1997), 137–52. 34 Cf. Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie’, 293. 35 Vita b. Joachimi abbatis: ‘qui venit a finibus regni de Insula Pontiana audire novi sapientiam Salomonis’, ed. H. Grundmann, ‘Zur Biographie’, 342–52, at 348. 36 ‘Pro evocando Joachim dudum Abbate, et Rainerio Monacho, a Generali Capitulo Litterae dirigantur. Si vero usque ad festum Beati Johannis Baptistae Cistercium venire contempserint, omnes Abbates et fratres Ordinis nostri eos ut fugitivos devitent. Hoc autem illis denuntiet aliquis ad D. Papae curiam dirigendus,’ Twelfth-Century Statutes from the Cistercian General Chapter, ed. C. Waddell, Commentarii Cistercienses. Studia et documenta 12 (Cîteaux, 2002), 250–1 n. 38. 37 Robb, ‘Joachimist Exegesis’, 141.

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During subsequent years, Rainier of Ponza played an important role at the Roman Curia. We have no knowledge of where he lived or whether he had left Calabria for good before or rather after 1198. He may even have lived in one of the Florensian houses, given that he had previously chosen the life of a hermit. But wherever he did live, he would certainly have preferred to remain in his chosen solitude than to accept the tasks which he was entrusted with by the Curia. The biblical reference, often used by Innocent III, was the contrast between the sisters Mary and Martha, and while desiring to be the contemplative Mary, only duty and obedience to the pope summoned Rainier to fulfil the tasks of the active Martha too.38 For Innocent did not merely dispatch him on faraway errands. He also sought his advice as a most familiar and intimate counsellor at the Curia. In 1201, Innocent III asked him to read and revise the constitutions of the Humiliati, which he did successfully.39 Rainier survived Joachim by some f ive to seven years. According to Ralph of Coggeshall, he retreated as before to the island of Ponza, where he had, after the years spent with Joachim, gathered a small group of hermits around him. The knowledge of his approximate date of death we owe to none other than Cardinal Hugo again, since, on the occasion of Rainier’s death, he wrote a consoling letter to the abbots of the Cistercian houses Fossanova, Casamari and Salem.40 In the final paragraph of this very warm and affectionate letter, he mentions that he wrote it while on an official mission in Germaniae partibus, oppressed by many obligations and (mostly spiritual) troubles, which suggests either 1207/1208 or 1208/1209. Although the esteem in which Innocent and Hugo held the simple frater Rainerius is at first glance at least as astonishing as his rapid career in the Curia, they both clearly saw in him not only a magisterial preacher, scholarly exegete and faithful son of the Church, but also a man of clear judgement and spiritual gifts. Though he himself claimed to have failed in his task as a preacher against heresy, his Roman employers did not seem to share their modest brother’s opinion of himself. As Herbert Grundmann and others have explained, in a period when the popes witnessed a transition and change in the theory and practice of the faith and resulting new religious movements, 41 not only in religious 38 Ed. Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, 364–5. 39 F. Andrews, The Early Humiliati (Cambridge, 2000), 92–6. 40 Ed. Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, 363–7. 41 See, for example, H. Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen des Mittelalters. Untersuchungen über die geschichtlichen Zusammenhänge zwischen der Ketzerei, dem Bettelorden und der religiösen Frauenbewegung im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert und über die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der Deutschen

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houses of various orders, but also among the laity and clergy all over Europe, criticism of the Roman Curia and Church was rife. There emerged an earnest need to discern the spirit, 42 to watch these new and potentially dangerous movements carefully, and to use papal authority powerfully and yet wisely in order to enable the Church to incorporate these new forms of religious life wherever possible, and to restrain people from heresy, by preaching or even on occasion by more violent means. Later writers, from the thirteenth century onwards, illustrate Rainier’s companionship with Joachim by composing long and fictive dialogues on the future of the Church, popes and emperors, between the spiritually gifted Calabrian prophet and his more worldly-wise friend. 43 Given the proximity of the first depictions of Rainier to his own lifetime, it is reasonable to suggest that the character portrayed would not have been wholly dissimilar to the real Rainier. He was a familiar figure to those interested in the future of the Church and the new religious orders, as to those interested in the future relations between Church and Empire. The image of Rainier of Ponza which we are left with is of a scholarly and spiritual man, modest and understanding, not harsh in his judgment, though he undoubtedly possessed huge ability since he was called upon by the pope to undertake vital missions. Bearing in mind that there was a close relationship between Rainier of Ponza and both Segni popes, and that Rainier had once been a close companion of Joachim, we can conclude that there was at least an indirect relation between Joachim and Hugo as well. We do not know for certain that Hugo and Joachim ever met. But Rainier, who had known Joachim so well, shared with him what was perhaps the most important stage in Mystik (Berlin, 1 1935, Darmstadt 4 1977), and the reconsideration of Grundmann’s theory in recent years by K. Utz Tremp, Von der Häresie zur Hexerei. Wirkliche und imaginäre Sekten im Spätmittelalter, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften 59 (Hanover, 2008), or more recently by J. Kolpacoff Deane, L. Böhringer and others, see e. g. http://www.medievalhistories.com/ historiography-and-grundmanns-legacy-at-leeds-2015/ (viewed at 2 May 2016). 42 1 Cor. 12: 10. 43 O. Holder-Egger remarked that in all pseudo-Joachite texts that he had studied, a brother Raynerius was in conversation with Pseudo-Joachim, see idem, ‘Italienische Prophetieen des 13. Jahrhunderts III’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichte, 33 (1908), 95–187, at 173 n. 7. H. Grundmann commented: ‘Diese wirre Literatur ist noch immer so wenig gesichtet, daß ein abschließendes Urteil einstweilen nicht möglich ist, ob dieser Bruder Rainer nur ’glatte Erfindung’ der Joachiten ist oder ob etwas von echter Erinnerung an den wirklichen Rainer von Ponza und seine Briefe dabei eingewirkt haben könnte’ (idem, ‘Zur Biographie’, 280). Grundmann’s verdict on the Joachite literature has only just begun to lose its influence, which might have helped to keep these texts largely unstudied for a long time.

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both their lives, the decision to leave the Cistercian order and create a new community in the remote Sila mountains – can we really believe that he did not tell Hugo, and before him Innocent, of the man who was once his spiritual counsellor? The only surviving written document by Rainier’s hand states clearly how familiar he was with Joachim’s ideas. In 1203, he wrote a letter to ArnaldAmaury, abbot of Cîteaux and head of the Cistercian order, prompted by his concern and that of the pope over the threatened unanimity of the Cistercian mother house and its four daughters.44 The letter is an urgent reminder, not only of Joachim’s description of the three status in history and the respective tasks of laity, clergy and monks but also of his early conception of the numbers five and seven to be found in his early writings, most prominently in his De vita sancti Benedicti, 45 which was Joachim’s theological account for leaving the Cistercians and founding his new order. In his early writings, Joachim attributes a group of five and seven to each of the three ages in history. In the first age, there are five tribes of Israel who receive their heritage first, and seven afterwards. In the second stage, there are five patriarchal churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome, which tradition held to be founded by St Peter, and the seven Churches mentioned in the Apocalypse which Joachim attributes to its author St John. In the third age, Joachim names two groups of five and seven monasteries. In each stage the group of five is to be superseded by the group of seven, which is unfailingly of a higher, more spiritual quality. Rainier adopts this Joachite imagery, but he goes even further. Not only does he prophesy a final and more perfect group of monasteries which will follow the Cistercian ones, but he even prophesies their imminent decline. Fiona Robb has shown how in this letter Joachim’s attentive disciple Rainier applied Joachim’s exegetical methods and motifs even more extensively than had Joachim himself. 46 To my knowledge, neither before or afterwards would there be a literary work which witnessed Joachim’s methods and imagery more truthfully, showing such a profound understanding and application of his thought. In the long history of Joachim’s after life it is outstanding, magisterial, and unique. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the text to which Rainier refers is the very one written while he was Joachim’s closest companion, as he shared 44 B. Griesser, ‘Rainer von Fossanova und sein Brief an Abt Arnald von Cîteaux (1203)’, Cisterciener Chronik, 60 (1953), 151–67. 45 Joachim of Fiore, Tractatus in expositionem vite et regule beati Benedicti Ioachim abbas Florensis, ed. A. Patschovsky (Rome, 2008). 46 Robb, ‘Joachimist Exegesis’, 141–4.

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his thoughts and his decision to leave the Cistercian order. But only Rainier, and not Joachim himself, preserved Joachim’s conception of five and seven tribes, churches and monasteries in the same form as presented in his De vita sancti Benedicti, since it does not recur in this way in Joachim’s later writings. It has hardly ever been observed that in the decades after 1188 Joachim still described groups of five and seven but with gradually less difference in the value. 47 In its later form the image of five and seven shows both groups as equal in quality. At the same time, the seven monasteries lose their precise contour and even their number. There were probably two reasons for this development: firstly, after founding his own order and having obtained the pope’s blessing for its houses, the need to distinguish and to criticize was diminished, and – tentatively – having his own real order, its houses and monks might, in reality, have led Joachim to refrain from proclaiming them as the perfect monasteries of the age of the Spirit. How then can we explain that Rainier, who knew Joachim and his thought so well, refers to his ideas in a preliminary and transient period of their development rather than in their most mature stage? One reason might be that the lives of the two men had changed in different ways, leading them down different paths away from their joint escapade into the wilderness and the solitude of their desired vita contemplativa. While Joachim had returned to the Sila mountains and founded the first houses of his own order, ever continuing to write as much as his obligations allowed, Rainer was forced to lead a comparably worldly life of continuous activity in the service of pope and church. Joachim’s thought had developed and matured since the parting of their respective ways, and the experience of seeing his own order coming to life had perhaps made him realise that, after all, there might be no such quality leap from Cistercians to Florensians to justify the comparison between the five preliminary and the seven unflawed monastic houses. But Rainier, far away from the real Florensian houses, did not witness these developments of thought, instead preserving Joachim’s ideas as he had first come to know them. And thereby, he allows us to catch a glimpse of Joachim’s thought in the making, a film-still of a process that he witnessed, though not fully and to its end. For while Rainier’s lifelong esteem for Joachim need not have ended, his intimate companionship and familiarity with the further development of his thought did. But this is only one possible solution to this question. Another reason why Rainier used a preliminary stage of Joachim’s work might be that he 47 On the motive of the five and seven tribes, churches and monasteries and its development in Joachim of Fiore see Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte, 65–86.

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did so, not lacking more up-to-date information about Joachim’s work, but deliberately. His use of Joachim’s thoughts on the Cistercians and their future role is not merely of academic interest. His letter was written at a crucial phase of the relations between pope and order, and we cannot overestimate the diplomatic skills necessary for such a situation. Perhaps we might rashly underestimate Rainier if we do not take into account his careful choice of this transient passage of Joachim’s thought to serve exactly the purpose he had in mind. As to Cardinal Hugo, we do not know exactly what he saw in the Florensian order or what he expected from it. We do not even know how much he knew or had read of Joachim’s thought, or whether he was mainly impressed by the reports that Rainier had given him of his lifelong friendship with Joachim. One can certainly imagine the value of these reports at a time when all over Europe new religious movements were springing up and needed to be judged and treated accordingly. In order to enrich rather than divide Christianity, or to diminish the power of the Curia, how relieved the curialists would have been to receive a first-hand report from a trusted authority on at least one of these new foundations, clarifying their orthodoxy in full agreement with the doctrines of the Church and, therefore, willing to protect and endow it, and happy to see it grow, in full accordance with and obedience to the Curia and spiritual authority. To achieve this aim, Cardinal Hugo believed the Cistercian and the Florensian orders to be of crucial importance. While at the turn of the century there were some f ive hundred Cistercian monasteries all over Europe, well organized and more influential than any other order of their time, Florensian houses were few, and nowhere to be found save in Southern and Central Italy, even if Hugo/Gregory had done his best to make the order grow and flourish. 48 No doubt his motive as cardinal and later pope in protecting and promoting the Florensian order was not only spiritual but also practical. We can imagine the difficulty of his situation, the enormous dimensions of the tasks he had to face, considering the complicated situation of the Curia regarding the problem of the multitude of new religious movements, as well as new worldly challenges. The energies of new religious movements needed to be channelled: both heretics inside and heathens around the edge of the Latin Christian world had to be dealt with either through conversion or confrontation. Joachim’s new order, together with Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans, the other new orders of the twelfth and thirteenth century, 48 On Hugo’s/Gregory’s founding and provisioning Florensian houses, see notes 29–30 above.

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promised to fulfil an important task in institutionalizing, controlling and safeguarding the new spiritual ways of life discovered in recent decades, and maintaining and carrying the Christian faith to the ends of the earth.49 Valeria de Fraja has revealed another, perhaps even more concrete link between Joachim of Fiore and the Florensian order, and Hugo or Pope Gregory IX and the Curia.50 De Fraja has drawn our attention to Joseph of Fiore, a member of the Florensian order, who, perhaps not unlike Rainier of Ponza, though in different ways, served the two Segni popes, perhaps even enjoyed their trust, and certainly acted in the interests of the Florensian order and its monastic houses. We first meet him in the years 1211, 1213 and 1216, when he acts as a spokesperson of his order in contact with the pope. De Fraja reminds us that these were the very years when Cardinal Hugo first showed interest in the Florensian order by founding new monasteries at his own expense.51 Most probably, it was also Hugo’s influence which resulted in more beneficial acts for Florensian houses by Honorius III in 1218 and encouraged this pope to select Joseph of Fiore to go on a preaching mission to Northern Italy in 1220, which was led by Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers. De Fraja suggests that these occasions, which brought the Florensians (supposing Joseph was not alone) in touch not only with Hugo himself, but also with Franciscans and Dominicans whom the Curia had sent on the same missions, were the moment when members of the mendicant orders realized that Joachim had truly foreseen the founders of their two orders, the two spiritual leaders he had prophesied for the last days of the Church, and their own eschatological significance.52 Joseph would have been the right man for such instructions; both the title lector by which he is addressed in 1216 and the fact that Pope Honorius chose him as a companion for Dominic’s mission, suggest that he must have been a lettered, well-educated person; that he was on good terms not only with the Curia but also, as he proved on several occasions, with Frederick II, shows that he was an astute man with perhaps no small diplomatic skill.53 The following decade sees him in Southern and Central Italy, alternately representing monastic houses of his order or serving the Curia.54 Perhaps 49 On the new religious orders and their roles as missionaries in the sight of Gregory IX and the Roman Curia, see, in this volume, I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Gregory and Mission’. 50 V. de Fraja, ‘Usi politici della profezia gioachimita’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento, 25 (1999), 375–400. 51 de Fraja, ‘Usi politici’, 391. 52 Ibid., 392. 53 Ibid., 393–4. 54 Ibid., 394.

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the culminating point of Joseph’s career – and for us the last time we hear from him – is his position as papal notary, which he held (at least) from October 1233 until May 1235. And in fact, these were crucial years for the papacy, with 1233 the year of the so-called Hallelujah movement in Northern Italy, a formative experience not only for the Franciscans but also for the Joachites of that region.55 It was the time when the Franciscans and Dominicans felt the need to theorize the existence of the mendicant orders in the Church, and they did so alongside what was known of or held to be the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore. And in one document, issued the following July in Rieti, all four orders – the influential Cistercians, from whom the Florensian order derived, the Florensians, the mendicant orders, both Franciscans and Dominicans – met together. This document from the chancery of Gregory IX, which is often erroneously referred to as bulla, but is in fact a papal littera, dating from the eighth year of Gregory’s pontificate, proclaims the canonization of Dominic, beginning with the words Fons sapientiae verbum patris (a nearly verbal quotation from Eccles 1:5). Gregory had known Dominic personally and his canonization more than a decade after his death, not long after the canonizations of Francis of Assisi (1228), Anthony of Padua (1232), Virgil of Salzburg (1233) and just before that of Elizabeth of Thuringia (1235), all five of them examples of monastic discipline, are hallmarks of Gregory’s campaign to reform and strengthen the Latin church internally and externally, with the help of traditional monastic virtues and new, but carefully guarded and guided, religious movements. To Cistercians, Franciscans and Dominicans, Gregory had ascribed different but equally important positions in this campaign. The document in question, by formally placing Dominic among the saints, describes the papal perspective and expectations of these orders, and expresses them in biblical and apocalyptical terms.56 The biblical text describes a group of four chariots, the horses of each in a different colour. The image is taken from the book of Zachariah, chapter 6, where in the first eight verses the prophet recalls seeing in his nightly vision four chariots coming out from between two bronze mountains. According to the papal littera, the first chariot and its red horses signify the martyrs. 55 On the Hallelujah movement and its spiritual and political surroundings, see A. Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth Century Italy: the great devotion of 1233 (Oxford, 1992). On Joachim’s reception in these movements, see S.E. Wessley, Joachim of Fiore and Monastic Reform, American University Studies Series VII: Theology and Religion 72 (New York, 1990). 56 Ep. 142, Registrum Vaticanum 17, fol. 191r–192r, ed. A. Walz, in MOPH XVI (Roma, 1935), 91–194, at 192.

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The black horses of the second chariot signify St Benedict and the Sons of the Prophets mentioned with Elisha. The white horses of the third chariot, resulting in a renovation and restoration of the penitent and purified church, signify the twinned orders of the Cistercians and Florensians. But facing the imminent Last Judgment, the eleventh hour,57 faith and love among Christians are in decline. Therefore, the last chariot is sent out, with its strong and multicoloured dappled horses, signifying Dominicans and Franciscans respectively, aptly suited to win the battle against heresy and injustice. The images thus speak for themselves and need little explanation beyond what is well-known and can be found in the literature on the mendicant orders and the papacy in the thirteenth century.58 Other than Zachariah, who describes seeing the four chariots altogether, the papal littera show them successively appearing one after another in the history of Christianity, according to the historical appearance of those historical groups and events, which are signified by the chariots. The first element of the interpretation, the chariot with red horses as martyrs, is traditional, and its model in Apocalypse 6 and 19 is omnipresent in the history of exegesis. And although a Joachite background might help to interpret the second chariot with the black horses as St Benedict and the beginning of monasticism, it is not essential, because this interpretation is rather obvious. The white quadriga of Cistercians and Florensians is reminiscent not only of the colour of their habit but even more telling is the comparison of the two orders as white quadriga with reference to the white horse of Apoc. 6 and 19. Though the complexity of medieval symbolism of colours has been grossly neglected until quite recently,59 a white horse and/or its rider inevitably evokes the reminiscence of Christ, of the parousia and the dramatic events that would precede it. For medieval readers, the colour white symbolized faith, truth, purity, and happiness. As the natural counterpart to black, white also stands for heaven, for preciousness, nobility, and majesty. Bernard of Clairvaux, the noble, self-willed Cistercian abbot and one of the most influential figures of his time, might well have considered this apposite. Compared to the red colour of the mendicant orders’ quadriga, the white quadriga speaks less 57 On the use of this apocalyptic motive, quoting Matt. 20: 1–16, and his role in Gregory’s thought and conception, see in this volume the chapter of I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt. 58 Besides the afore mentioned contribution of I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, see e. g. O. Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung: die päpstlichen Kanonisationen vom Mittelalter bis zur Reformation (Cologne et. al., 2005), 367–84. 59 Unfortunately, I was not able to consult C. Meier-Staubach and R. Suntrup, Handbuch der Farbenbedeutung im Mittelalter, 1. Teil: Historische und systematische Grundzüge der Farbendeutung; 2. Teil: Lexikon der allegorischen Farbendeutung (Cologne et al., 2012).

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of battle, but more of majesty, less of blood, but more of transcendence. Could the white quadriga possibly be superseded, or was that completely out of question? The mendicant orders’ position reaches a crescendo through their dramatic colouring and their apocalyptic significance as the last chariot, fit to fight the epic battle between the ultimate enemy. But equally high qualities were ascribed to the Cistercian order, which proved to be a dynamic force for Church and papacy from the twelfth century onward. Considering what scholars have discovered about Gregory’s high esteem for the Florensian order and its founder, and the lifelong relationship the later pope enjoyed with the order through his older relative, Innocent III, the presence of the Florensian order in this high-ranking company comes as no surprise. Moreover, Valeria de Fraja has revealed numerous examples that could witness the activity of Joseph of Fiore, the friend of the later St Dominic and Florensian monk at the papal chancery, referring to texts of Joachim of Fiore. The traces of Joachite thought and reading, which a learned member of his order might have introduced there, set the stage for the eschatological drama, with the white quadriga opening up a new stage of development in the history of salvation, prophesying the new viri spirituales and their orders, and preparing their ground for the last battle.60 What remains is the prima facie unmistakable inadequacy in pairing Cistercians and Florensians: while the theoretical conception of the two orders, the result of their close relationship as parent and child, makes them similar, the obvious difference between the two could hardly be greater. Cistercian houses were to be found in all and even the remotest places of the Western Church; even after the time of Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercians were among the most influential churchmen everywhere. The Florensian order was and remained small – at the time it could boast of about ten houses, all in one part of one country, and after their founder’s death the Florensians never wrote church history again. All in all, they appear an unsuitable companion for the mighty Cistercians. Is this mere 60 De Fraja, ‘Usi politici’, and more recently Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, 377. Krafft adds that one of the manuscripts, which is now in Paris, contains the littera which gives the title of the text beginning with ‘Epistola fratris Iosephi domini papae notarii’, and suggests that a) the papal notary Joseph might well have been the author of the littera or at least the part on the Florensians, and b) that the role of Brother Joseph was well known among his contemporaries, or at least remembered by the copyists of the Parisian manuscript. (Unfortunately, I was not able to consult P.M. Baumgarten, ‘Ueber einige päpstliche Kanzleibeamte des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts’, in Kirchengeschichtliche Festgabe, Anton de Waal, zum goldenen Priester-Jubiläum dargebracht [Rome, 1912], 37–102).

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wishful thinking, inspired by the dreams of a theoretician at the Curia, to put his order alongside the Cistercians? But that is not how we may imagine Joseph of Fiore to be. Moreover, at first reading one might feel prompted to wonder that if a Florensian or Joachite had been a kind of mastermind behind the littera, or at least took an active part in its writing, why should it be that the mendicant orders, and not the Florensians, were attributed to the last, the eschatological role? This, too, does not fit in with the image of an ambitious but unrealistic dreamer, who attributed a crucial role and an eminent place to his order, if not in history, then at least in a document. It might help to have another look at the text. The fourth quadriga’s task, as the papal letter describes it, is much more practical and comparably less spiritual than the description of the white horses. Additionally, the description of the chariots and horses cannot but recall the reader’s memory of Apocalypse 6 and its four similarly coloured horses, among which only the first, the white one, signifies Christ, while the others mean war, judgement, and death. Again, in Apocalypse 19 a white horse is being described, its rider called The Word of God. Naturally, Pope Gregory and his chancery knew these images would be linked with the description of the third chariot and its horses. The description of Cistercians and Florensians as the white quadriga makes quite clear that their task was not to embody the spiritual leaders of the Last Age themselves, but rather to signify the coming of the Last Age, the time of the Holy Spirit as the last person of the Trinity, with Cistercians and Florensians, and with them their great thinkers Bernard and Joachim, as signposts. Theirs, therefore, is a spiritual, not a practical task, and – referring back to the alleged weakness in numbers of the Florensians, compared to the strength of the Cistercians – this requires no great significance in terms of numbers, but rather what Joachim of Fiore would have called the intelligentia spiritualis. To adopt the same biblical example Innocent III had used for the two tasks of Rainier of Ponza,61 if the Franciscans and Dominicans in this image are Martha, then the Cistercians and Florensians are Mary. And we know whom Jesus favoured more.62 Joseph of Fiore, if indeed he took part in the composition of this powerful image, had learned his lessons well. It was not only Rainier whom Hugo, the later Pope Gregory IX, had regarded as a man with special spiritual insight, an angel from heaven, but even more so Joachim of Fiore himself, his thought, and his order, which was his natural and spiritual heir. 61 Ed. Winkelmann, ‘Analecta Heidelbergensia’, at 364–5. 62 Luke 10:42.

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It matters not if Gregory realised that the Florensian order would scarcely live up to the great expectations he had put into it, nor that the relations between Cistercians and the Curia would hardly ever again arrive at the concord born of the time of St Bernard and Eugenius III; nor did it matter if it were neither Florensians nor Cistercians, but rather Franciscans and Dominicans who would be engaged in the final battle with the enemy. The white monks, depicted in the white horses of the third quadriga speak of faith and truth. With the reference to the Second Coming of Christ they resemble the angels, who will be coming with the Son of Man in the glory of his Father, as Matt 16: 27 describes it. This follows an inner logic that was common knowledge for almost every member of the mendicant orders and certainly the papal Curia. Joachim had prepared the ground for the future viri spirituales and had prophesied the Franciscan and Dominican orders and their founders, and with his own presence and that of his order had started a process of renewal and a new, eschatological stage in history for his church. No wonder then that in the eyes of the author or authors of the littera, the third quadriga of white horses, guided by St Bernard, by Joachim of Fiore and by their successors, could boast of the greatest similarity with heavenly creatures.

About the Author Julia Eva Wannenmacher †, who received her doctorate from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2002, taught medieval history, church history and systematic theology at the Humboldt-University of Berlin and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. An exceptional scholar and gifted linguist, her major interests were in exegeses, apocalypticism and political prophecy, on which she published extensively. Among her works she authored Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte. De septem sigillis und die sieben Siegel im Werk Joachims von Fiore (Leiden, 2005) and edited Joachim of Fiore and the Influence of Inspiration (Farnham, 2013) in memory of her heroine, Marjorie Reeves.

11. Gregory IX and the Liber Extra Edward A. Reno III Abstract The Liber Extra, the most widely circulated collection of medieval canon law, was commissioned by Gregory IX and assembled by the Dominican Raymond of Penyafort. Gregory IX’s bull of promulgation, Rex pacificus (1234), ordered that it would be the only collection used in the schools and in the courts and that no other collection was to be made without the special approval of the Apostolic See. It would be Gregory IX’s major contribution to the development of medieval canon law. This chapter focuses on the genesis and intentions behind the Liber Extra, the pre-Gregorian sources for the compilation, and Gregory IX’s own contribution, before offering suggestions for the path of future scholarship concerning the Liber Extra and Gregory’s own legal accomplishments. Keywords: Canon Law, Liber Extra, Raymond of Penyafort, Decretals, Jurists

The legate’s patience was wearing thin. Amidst the protestations of the assembled English prelates, he gestured from his position near the high altar of St. Paul’s Cathedral to his assistant. Master Attho rose from his seat and took up an imposing codex set out among documents prominently bearing the papal seal of Gregory IX. Opening the volume and turning the leaves, Attho ran his finger down the column of tightly packed capitula until he arrived at the end of the section on the legatine office. The room now quieted down as Attho read out the last entry in the title, an item written by Gregory himself: ‘we wish no one to doubt but that the statutes of legates of the Apostolic See, promulgated in the province in which they are conducting their mission, shall endure as perpetual even after they

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch11

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depart from that province’.1 The English prelates had already demanded a delay for a closed meeting to review the legate’s proposed statutes, among which they had found, much to their consternation, one reaffirming the Fourth Lateran Council’s ban on holding plural benefices. They now realized they could no longer pre-emptively undercut the legate’s authority. Otto Candidus, cardinal deacon of S. Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, and a veteran of legatine missions in Lombardy, Livonia, France and Germany, could finally get down to the business of reform in London.2 Matthew of Paris, who left us this account of Otto’s November 1237 council in London, identifies the book from which Magister Attho read the decree on legatine statutes only as Pope Gregory IX’s liber autenticum, scilicet register. There is little doubt, however, that the volume in question was the Decretals of Gregory IX (hereafter Liber extra), issued three years prior as the first canon law collection invested with universal and exclusive authority, and what would be Gregory’s most enduring contribution to the evolution of medieval canon law.3 Matthew’s account vividly captures the impact the 1 X 1.30.10: ‘Nemini dubium esse volumus, quin legatorum sedis apostolicae statuta edita in provincia sibi commissa durent tanquam perpetua, licet eandem postmodum sint egressi; secus autem, si causas duxerint aliquibus delegandas, cum iurisdictio istorum exspiret, si ante illorum discessum horum citatio non praecessit’, Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii, 186. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from the Decretals of Gregory IX are taken from the Friedberg edition. 2 ‘Et sciendum, quod quia aliqui opinabantur, sicut datum fuit intelligi domino legato, quod statuta sua robur nisi tantum in tempore suae legationis non optinerent, iussu eiusdem surrexit in medio quidam clericus suus, magister scilicet Attho, et aperto libro autentico, scilicet registro domini Papae, ad maiorem auctoritatem, ut validus talium opinionem improbaret, quandam decretalem legit distincte et aperte, quam dominus legatus distinguens approbavit; per illam asserens manifeste, quod etiam post recessum eius sua statuta perpetuae firmitatis robur debeant optinere’, Matthew of Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 5 vols RS, 57 (London, 1876), iii, 419. The council was held in Old St. Paul’s over three days in November 1237. Matthew of Paris gives a lengthy account of the council, providing the details for the narrative given above. For a study of Otto’s mission, see D. Williamson, ‘Some Aspects of the Legation of Cardinal Otto in England, 1237–41’, EHR, 64 (1949), 145–73. 3 When used by Matthew substantively, autenticum designates a papal or royal letter (e.g., in autentico domini Papae); when employed adjectivally, it bore the usual meaning of ‘official’ or ‘authentic’ (e.g., sigillum autenticum). The only other context where he speaks of a librum autenticum is in referring to the Qur’an: ‘docebat namque saepedictus Machomet et scripsit in libro suo scilicet Alcorano, quo utuntur Sarraceni et autenticum habent, sicut Christiani Evangelium’, Chronica Majora, iii, 356. The publication of the Liber extra is briefly discussed in Matthew’s narrative for the year 1234, but the Council of London episode makes no connection with this prior mention. The fact, however, that Matthew’s promulgation reference singles out the Liber extra’s regulation of ecclesiastical off ice and benef ice holding strongly suggests a linkage with the goals of Otto’s legatine mission: ‘his quoque temporibus, Gregorius Papa nonus videns decretalium taediosam prolixitatem, sub quodam compendio eas eleganter abbreviatas

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Liber extra made on contemporaries, whose promulgation was mentioned by dozens of contemporary annalists. 4 Over and above the content of the Gregorian statute, what commanded the attention of Matthew’s witnesses to this event was the authority of the liber autenticum itself, which Otto had made sure to impress upon his audience with Attho’s performative reading. The 1971 individual texts of the Liber extra gathered together the received canon law of the Church after a century of dramatic institutional and spiritual development.5 Its promulgation signalled the moment when the papacy took full cognizance not just of issuing the raw legal data – the judicial decisions of papal decretals and the legislative pronouncements of statutes and conciliar canons – but also of the subsequent culling of this material for legal precedents within the quasi-common law system of the pre-Tridentine Church, a task previously left largely to canon-law jurists. With the authorization of legal compendia now understood as part of papal iurisdictio, successors like Boniface VIII and John XXII would take the Liber extra as a model for their own decretal collections (the Liber sextus [1298] and the Constitutiones Clementinae [1314], respectively), or would issue conciliar legislation so that it could be easily fitted into the Liber extra’s framework, as Innocent IV and Gregory X did with the canons of Lyons I (1245) and II (1274).6 et collectas sollenniter et autentice per totius mundi latitudinem legi praecepit et divulgari. Illas autem ab auctore ipsarum Gregorianas appellamus, sic incipientes: Rex pacificus, etc. In quibus quaedam innovavit, ne scilicet illegitimi praelatias vel ecclesiastica beneficia, nisi adepta a sede Romana legitimationis dispensatione, optineant’, Matthew of Paris, Chronica majora, iii, 328. Note the autentice to describe the Liber extra’s promulgation. 4 The compilation of all the contemporary references to the promulgation of the Liber extra has never been done. 5 The vulgate edition of the Liber extra, the so-called Editio Romana, was authorized in 1582 under Gregory XIII as part of his overall renovation of the Corpus iuris canonici: Decretales D. Gregorii Papae IX suae integritati una cum glossis restitutae (Rome, 1582). This edition (hereafter = Editio Romana), which also includes the Glossa Ordinaria of Bernard of Parma, is available online: https://digital.library.ucla.edu/canonlaw/. See below, n. 26, for the editorial history of the collection. The best general summary of the Liber extra and its canonical background, to the author of which the present study is deeply indebted, is: M. Bertram, ‘Die Dekretalen Gregors IX: Kompilation oder Kodification?’, in Magister Raimundus: atti del convegno per il IV centenario della canonizzazione di San Raimondo de Penyafort (1601–2001), ed. C. Longo, Institutum historicum fratrum praedicatorum: Dissertationes historicae, 28 (Rome, 2002), 61–86. 6 Unlike the canons of Lateran IV (1215), which were first circulated in list form, the canons of the Councils of Lyons I and II were given rubrics designating the titles of the Liber extra under which they were to be placed. On the Lateran IV canons, see: A. García y García (ed.), Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis Glossatorum, MIC, Ser. A: Corpus Glossatorum, 2 (Vatican City, 1981). On the canons of Lyons I, see: P.J. Kessler, ‘Untersuchungen über die Novellen-Gesetzgebung Papst Innocenz IV (I–III)’, ZSSRG.KA, 31–33 (1942–1944),

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The Liber extra was the most widely circulated collection of medieval canon law, surviving in almost 700 manuscripts.7 Despite its centrality to the development of the Church’s legal system, it has resisted an overall assessment of its role, largely due to the absence of source criticism on Gregory’s own contributions to the collection.8 Add to this the still imperfectly understood evolution of the thirteenth-century commentary tradition, which presents the early reactions to Gregory’s legal innovations, and a rich vein of information lies waiting to be mined.9 The following study examines the genesis and intentions behind the Liber extra, focusing especially on Gregory IX’s additions to the compilation. After reviewing the Liber extra’s transmission of the legal tradition of Gregory’s predecessors, including a previously unrecognized source for some of this material,10 this study pinpoints the sources for Gregory’s own contributions, which are to be found in the papal registers of his correspondence.11 The identification of sources is merely the first step, however, to grasping the dynamic legal context in which the Liber extra took shape, and the push and pull of forces among the different constituencies within the Church competing for influence and the privileges dispensed by Rome. Thus, following a general assessment 142–320, 300–83, 56–128; S. Kuttner, ‘Die Konstitutionen des ersten allgemeinen Konzils von Lyon’, Studia et documenta historiae et iuris, 6 (1940), 70–131; repr. in: idem, Medieval Councils, Decretals, and Collections of Canon Law, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 126 (London, 1980), XI. On the canons of Lyons II, see: Kuttner, ‘Conciliar Law in the Making: the Lyonese constitutions of Gregory X in a manuscript at Washington’. Miscellanea Pio Paschini, 2 vols, Lateranum, NS, 14–15 (Rome, 1948–1949), ii, 39–81; repr. in: idem, Medieval Councils, XII. 7 A list of manuscripts has been compiled by Martin Bertram and is available online through the Deutsches Historisches Institut: dhi–roma.it/bertram_extrahss.html. 8 Stephen Kuttner established the research agenda on this issue some forty years ago and conducted an initial survey of the sources for the Gregorian texts in the first of the five books of the Liber extra: ‘Raymond of Penyafort as editor: the ‘decretales’ and ‘constitutiones’ of Gregory IX’, BMCL, 12 (1982), 65–80; repr. in: idem, Studies in the History of Medieval Canon Law, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 325 (Aldershot, 1990), XII. 9 A good starting point for investigating the commentary tradition that grew out of the Liber extra, for which there are few modern editions and many examples still only in manuscript, are the recently anthologized textual studies of Martin Bertram: Kanonisten und ihre Texte, 1234 bis Mitte 14. Jahrhundert, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 43 (Leiden, 2013). 10 This includes the sources for the Alexander III text X 5.33.9 (2 Comp. 3.22.2) along with five Innocent III decretals (Collectio Bambergensis II). See below. 11 A complete run of registers survives for Gregory’s pontificate: Vatican City, ASV, Reg. Vat. 14–20. The first seven years are contained in Reg. Vat. 14–17. The printed edition of the registers features a mix of full texts and calendared entries: Les registres de Grégoire IX, 4 vols, ed. L. Auvray, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, Ser. 2, 9 (Paris, 1896–1955). Letters from the register will be cited according to their respective Auvray number.

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of Gregory’s contribution to the law, some avenues for further exploration will be suggested.

The commissioning of the Liber extra To assemble the Liber extra, Gregory IX chose a relative newcomer to the Roman Curia, the Dominican Raymond of Penyafort (1175–1275).12 Although he had embarked on a legal career relatively late in life – he did not commence his legal studies at Bologna until 1210 – by the time Raymond arrived in Rome in the early 1230s he had already compiled an impressive list of achievements both as a jurist and in ecclesiastical administration.13 Considering the stable of extraordinary legal talent at the Curia in the opening years of Gregory’s reign, including the future Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254), Sinebaldus Fieschi, Raymond must have made a strong and immediate impression on the pope.14 Raymond’s selection can also be seen as part of Gregory’s broader utilization of the Dominican Order as instruments of papal policy. Less than a year into his pontificate, Gregory was tasking Dominicans to implement clerical reform at the diocesan level,15 and within 12 For a recent overview of Raymond’s life along with the relevant source base, see: L. Galmes Mas, ‘Biobibliografía de San Ramón de Penyafort’, in Magister Raimundus, 11–34. For Raymond’s juristic career in particular, see: J.M. Viejo-Ximénez, ‘Raymond of Penyafort’, in Great Christian Jurists in Spanish History, ed. R. Domingo and J. Martínez-Torrón (Cambridge 2018), 50–67. 13 In the 1220s Raymond wrote a Summa iuris, which survives only in an incomplete version, as well as a Summa de paenitentia, which would become the Dominican Order’s standard confessor’s manual for the rest of the century. He would also produce a revised edition of Tancred of Bologna’s Summa de matrimonio after finishing the Liber extra. These Summae have been edited as three separate eponymous tomes by: X. Ochoa Sanz and A. Diez, Universa Bibliotheca Iuris, 1/A–C (Rome, 1975–1978). On the administrative side, Raymond served as penitentiary during the 1229 legation of Cardinal John of Abbeville to the Iberian Church, which is what brought him to the attention of the Curia, and later that year he was directly commissioned by Gregory to preach a crusade in Southern France in support of Jaime I of Aragon’s expedition against Muslim-controlled Mallorca. 14 Sinebaldus served as both Auditor litterarum contradictarum and vice-chancellor in Gregory’s administration before being elevated to the cardinalate. His Apparatus in quinque libros decretalium (Frankfurt on Main, 1570; repr. 1968) was also one of the earliest and most influential commentaries on the Liber extra. 15 Auvray 129 Ecce venit Deus (14 July 1227) dispatched members of the Dominican Order to the abps and bps of Lombardy to assist in the reform of secular and regular clergy in their dioceses and commanded them to make a full report of their efforts back to Rome. As Auvray did not print the full text of the letter, subsequent scholarship has thought his summary mistaken in identifying the papal agents as Dominicans, since copies of the letter that survive in formularies make no mention of them (e.g., A. Fliche, et al., La Chrétienté romaine, 1198–1274, Histoire de

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a few years members of the Order would be acting as papal inquisitors to bolster his vigorous campaign against heresy.16 Raymond’s commission thus added legal reform to this slate of initiatives. Two objectives drove the decision to issue a new compilation. The first was to provide for jurists and those charged with administering justice in church courts not so much a closed codification of laws, but rather a discrete and internally coherent set of legal sources to guide the ongoing interpretation and application of the law. In this regard it is important to keep in mind that for medieval jurists, written law (leges, ius positivum) was just a particular instantiation of a larger body of law (ius), which included unwritten custom as well as transcendent principles of iustitia and aequitas, not to mention the ongoing refinements provided by future popes and jurists. The second objective was to introduce Gregory’s own legislation, or better publicize enactments that had been made earlier in his pontificate. It is in pursuit of this latter objective that Gregory really broke new ground, distinguishing the Liber extra from previous collections that had merely compiled existing decisions and decrees. The bull of promulgation, Rex pacificus, offers a good if somewhat understated summary of Gregory’s intentions.17 After an opening meditation on the divine function of law to bridle human passions and promote peace, Gregory laments its disordered state due to the proliferation of decretals – papal letters rendering a judicial sentence or responding to an inquiry that were then appropriated as legal precedents – and the collections in which these were compiled.18 In order to eliminate the repetition, contradiction, and prolixity that had crept into L’Église depuis les origines jusqu’à nos jours, 10, ed. A. Fliche and V. Martin (Paris, 1950), 305 n. 2). A check of the register manuscripts vindicates Auvray, however (Reg. Vat. 14, fol. 22r). 16 For the Dominican role in early inquisitorial procedure, see: Praedicatores, Inquisitores: Acts of the Ist international seminar on the Dominicans and the inquisition, February 23–25, 2002, Istituto Storico Domenicano, Dissertationes Historicae, 29 (Rome, 2004). 17 Auvray 2083 (Potthast 9694), 5 September 1234. The bull precedes all printed editions of the Liber extra, and an English translation is available in: R. Somerville and B. Brasington, Prefaces to Canon Law Books in Latin Christianity: selected translations, 500–1317, 2nd edn, Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law, 18 (Washington, D.C., 2020), 203–4. For a discussion of the transmission of Rex pacificus in Liber extra manuscripts, see: Bertram, ‘Kompilation’, 65–6. 18 According to a tradition reported by the canonist Johannes de Deo, Gregory had actually experienced this uncertainty first hand when one day in Consistory someone alleged a decretal that could not be found in the collection available at the Curia, causing an enraged pope to order the collection destroyed and preparation made for a new one. For the text of Johannes’s Principium decretalium, a thumbnail sketch of canon law from the Garden of Eden to the Council of Lyons (1245), see: S. Kuttner, ‘Johannes Teutonicus, das vierte Laterankonzil und die Compilatio quarta’, Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, 5 vols, Studi e Testi 121–26 (Vatican City, 1946), v. 633–4; repr. in: Medieval Councils, X. Kuttner’s edition is slightly more substantial than

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the law (similitudo, contraritas, prolixitas), Gregory had ordered Raymond to collect the legal texts of his predecessors into a single volume, excising all that was superfluous (resecatis superfluis). Raymond was also charged with integrating Gregory’s own decretals and constitutions to clear up certain unspecified matters that had previously stood in doubt. Rex pacificus then closes with the extraordinary assertion that was to be the Liber extra’s most enduring legacy: that henceforth only this collection should be used in the schools and employed in the courts, and that no other compilation should be made without special license from the Apostolic See.19

The pre-Gregorian sources of the Liber extra Even though the authority claims for the Liber extra were unprecedented, its form was quite conservative. All of the material pre-dating Gregory’s pontificate can be traced to earlier canon law collections. The vast majority of pre-Gregorian texts (1768 out of 1776) were drawn from the so-called Quinque compilationes antiquae [5C].20 Produced between 1191 and 1226, the version first uncovered and published by H. Kantorowicz in: ‘Das Principium Decretalium des Johannes de Deo’, ZSSRG.KA, 12 (1922), 418–44. 19 ‘Sane diversas constitutiones et decretales epistolas praedecessorum nostrorum, in diversa dispersas volumina, quarum aliquae propter nimiam similitudinem, et quaedam propter contrarietatem, nonnullae etiam propter sui prolixitatem, confusionem inducere videbantur, aliquae vero vagabantur extra volumina supradicta, quae tanquam incertae frequenter in iudiciis vacillabant, ad communem et maxime studentium utilitatem per dilectum filium fratrem Raymundum, capellanum et poenitentiarum nostrum, illas in unum volumen resecatis superfluis providimus redigendas, adiicientes constitutiones nostras et decretales epistolas, per quas nonnulla quae in prioribus erant dubia declarantur. Volentes igitur, ut hac tantum compilatione universi utantur in iudiciis et in scholis, districtius prohibemus, ne quis praesumat aliam facere absque auctoritate sedis apostolicae speciali.’ The echoing of Justinian’s Tanta circa, the 533 imperial constitution confirming the Digest, was probably deliberate: ‘in unam reducere consonantiam, ut nihil neque contrarium neque idem neque simile in ea inveniatur et ne geminae leges pro rebus singulis positae usquam appareant […] Nostra quoque maiestas semper investigando et perscrutando ea quae ab his componebantur, quidquid dubium et incertum inveniebatur, hoc numine caelesti erecta emendabat et in competentem formam redigebat’ Corpus iuris civilis, i, 13. 20 See below for the 1768 figure, as opposed to the 1767 used in previous scholarship. Friedberg produced the last edition of the 5C, which must, however, be used in conjunction with his edition of the Liber extra, since it only prints the full text of those letters left out of Gregory’s collection: Quinque compilationes antiquae (Leipzig, 1882; repr.: Graz, 1956). On the 5C, see (with attendant bibliography): K. Pennington, ‘Decretal Collections, 1190–1234’ in: The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234, ed. W. Hartmann and K. Pennington (Washington, D.C., 2008), 293–317.

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Compilatio prima, secunda, tertia, quarta and quinta [1 Comp., 2 Comp., etc.] contained the most significant papal decretals and conciliar canons of the previous hundred years and collectively served as the standard textbook for the study of decretal law. Of these, 1 Comp. and 2 Comp. contained the widest chronological span of material – including a fair number of pre-Gratian texts – which explains the smattering of Patristic, Carolingian, PseudoIsidorian, and even Biblical extracts that make calling the Liber extra purely a decretal collection a slight misnomer.21 Raymond preserved the five-book and title structure pioneered by 1 Comp. and extended by the subsequent 5C, adding only five additional titles, four of which were themselves taken from the Corpus iuris civilis.22 Perhaps in further emulation of Justinian’s Codex, Raymond also rearranged the texts in each title in chronologically ascending order according to pontificate, an organizational method that was novel among post-Gratian decretal collections.23 Raymond filtered out roughly one-fifth of the capitula inherited from the 5C and subjected the remaining ones to a further process of editing, often removing large portions of material from the text.24 As most decretals compiled by canonists were the product of complicated cases, they usually contained an extensive narration of the facts and the judicial record up to the point where the pope had become involved. Raymond applied his scalpel first and foremost to these narrative elements, as well as to the diplomatic formulae marking the decretal as a product of the papal chancery. The elimination of certain formulae is particularly fascinating for what it reveals about the rhetorical construction of the law emerging around this time. Raymond consistently jettisoned language that referred to the deliberative processes that produced legal judgments, doing away, for example, with the 21 Friedberg’s edition includes an exhaustive list of the material sources of the Liber extra: Corpus iuris canonici, ii, pp. xi–xviii. 22 X 1.32 De officio iudicis (Inst., 4.17); X 2.5 De litis contestatione (Cod., 3.9); X 5.2 De calumniatoribus (Dig., 3.6, Cod., 9.46); X 5.11 De infantibus et languidis expositis (Cod., 8.51). The one wholly new title is X 3.44 De custodia eucharistiae chrismatis et aliorum sacramentorum. 23 The only place where the sequence breaks down is with pre-eleventh century capitula, where sometimes one can find, for example, a Gregory the Great letter coming after a conciliar canon from the Carolingian era. 24 The percentage of the total capitula from each collection received in the Liber extra is as follows: Compilatio prima (1 Comp.): 81%; Compilatio secunda (2 Comp.): 73%; Compilatio tertia (3 Comp.): 96%; Compilatio quarta (4 Comp.): 92%; Compilatio quinta (5 Comp.): 59%. Following the nomenclature of medieval canonists, the excised portions of the decretals that were retained are called the partes decisae. The low reception of 5 Comp. remains to be explained, though it may simply have been a combination of the limited circulation of the collection and Raymond’s having matured as a canonist prior to its issuance.

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traditional clause that showed a papal decision had been made with the advice of his cardinals (de consilio fratrum nostrorum). Similarly excised were appeals to corroborative authority, that something was based in the tradition of the Holy Fathers (auctoritate sanctorum Patrum) or ran counter to canonical enactments (contra canonicas sanctiones). What was left was often just a bare statement of the papal command, freed from any need to appeal outside itself for legitimacy. In addition to targeting the narrative and formulaic elements, Raymond’s editing also produced substantive changes in the law of Gregory’s predecessors. Once a cause of strident criticism from early modern and even some medieval jurists, Raymond’s handling of the pre-Gregorian material has become a fruitful area of investigation for modern canon law scholarship, providing a rare opportunity to study the legal thinking behind the editorial process in a self-contained and programmatic fashion.25 Modern scholars can take advantage of a centuries-long tradition of source criticism, whose patient reconstruction of the full text of the pre-Gregorian sources enables an easy comparison of the Liber extra version with its predecessors.26 25 See, for example, the ground-breaking studies of Steven Horwitz, who demonstrated how Raymond’s editing engaged with the contemporary debates of jurists: ‘Magistri and magisterium: Saint Raymond of Peñafort and the Gregoriana’, Escritos del Vedat, 7 (1977), 209–38; ‘Reshaping a Decretal Chapter: Tua nobis and the canonists’, in Law, Church and Society: essays in honour of Stephan Kuttner, ed. K. Pennington and R. Somerville (Philadelphia, 1977), 207–21. More recently, see, T. Wetzstein, ‘Resecatis superfluis? Raymund von Peñafort und der Liber Extra’, ZSSRG. KA, 92 (2006), 355–91. 26 The first editor of the Liber extra to include some of the partes decisae with the received text was Antoine le Conte (Contius), who gave them as endnotes to each decretal: Epistolae decretales summorum pontificum a Gregoriano nono pontifice maximo collectae (Paris, 1560). The next step forward was taken by the Spanish canonist Antonio Agustín through his edition of the first four of the 5C, which included an extensive and still valuable collation of manuscript variants for 1 Comp.: Antiquae collectiones decretalium (Lérida, 1576); repr. in: Opera Omnia, 8 vols (Lucca, 1765–1774), iv. Contius’ method of reinsertion was passed over by the editors of the 1582 Editio Romana, but it was preserved and supplemented with manuscript variants by Pierre Pithou (†1596) in an edition done in collaboration with his brother François, which was only published, however, a century after his death: Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols (Paris, 1687), ii. The only other advancement in the seventeenth century came not in a new edition of the Liber extra, but in a commentary by the Salamancan canonist Manuel Gonzalez Tellez, who made frequent use of Raymond’s sources to illuminate the historical background of the decretals: Commentaria perpetua in singulos textus quinque librorum Decretalium Gregorii IX, 5 vols in 4 (Lyons, 1673). The next leap forward did not come until 1747, when Justus Henninger Böhmer published a new edition that included many more of the partes decisae than had Contius, which he placed, moreover, in the main body of the text, allowing the reader to see the underlying structure of Raymond’s sources: Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols (Halle, Magdeburg, 1747), ii. Emil Richter’s 1839 edition took Böhmer’s work one step further by adding the text that compilers of the 5C had themselves left out, such that one could now see Raymond’s work in the context of the

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While the major problems concerning the pre-Gregorian sources of the Liber extra have been solved, there are a few lingering questions that have not received a satisfactory answer. The main one concerns the origin of nine pre-Gregorian texts that are not known from extant manuscripts of the 5C and are thus presumed to have been added by Raymond directly.27 At issue is more than just a question of sources – it is whether Gregory, operating though Raymond, respected the consensus forged by previous canonists as to the recognized sources of precedent prior to his pontificate. The first example, the Alexander III decretal X 5.33.9 Sane, is a simple case of oversight. None of the previous editors of the Liber extra or the 5C could locate the source for Sane, a text which forbade taking a discretely granted privilege as precedent to extend to others the same benefit or exemption. On closer inspection Sane was, in fact, derived from the last part of Alexander’s letter to the Cistercian Order found at 2 Comp. 3.22.2, the first and larger portion of which ended up in the title on monastic status as X 3.35.3 Recolentes.28 The treatment of Sane as a separate unit was presaged by the paragraph divisions of 2 Comp. 3.22.2 found in some 2 Comp. manuscripts, where the last part Sane […] indulgere beneficiis, was marked off as a distinct, final section of the capitulum.29 Raymond eliminated the language that tied the text to the Cistercian Order to create original, full decretal: Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1839), ii. Finally, Emil Friedberg put the finishing touches on the work of his predecessors with the text of the Liber extra presented in the second volume of his edition of the Corpus iuris canonici (Leipzig, 1881), making a clear distinction (which Richter had not) between which of the partes decisae were due to Raymond and which to his sources, and supplemented the text with a robust critical apparatus. 27 X 1.18.7 Miramur (Inn. 3); X 1.21.7 A nobis (Inn. 3); X 3.34.10 Per tuas (Inn. 3); X 4.14.6 Quia circa (Inn. 3); X 5.6.14 Postulasti (Inn. 3); X 5.6.17 Ad liberandam (Lat. 4, c.71); X 5.33.9 Sane (Alex. 3); X 5.34.16 Accepimus (Inn. 3); X 5.39.45 Contigit interdum (Inn. 3). As a Lateran IV (1215) canon – which Raymond, moreover, transmitted in a severely attenuated form – X 5.6.17 Ad liberandam constitutes a special case rather than an extravagans in the true sense of the term, and so will not be discussed in depth. On the complicated transmission history of c.71, see: García y García, Constitutiones, 15–17. X 5.6.17 would subsequently provide jurists an opportunity to criticize and supplement Raymond’s editing: U.-R. Blumenthal, ‘A Gloss of Hostiensis to X 5.6.17 (Ad liberandum)’, BMCL, 30 (2013), 89–122. 28 The Jaffé listing for Recolentes (JL 13847) is based on its canonical transmission rather than the original letter from which Recolentes was derived. For the complicated transmission of this letter and its relation to the development of the Cistercian Order, see: C. Berman, The Cistercian Evolution (Philadelphia, 2010), 67–68. 29 Around half of the dozen 2 Comp. manuscripts consulted by the author had a section mark before the Sane portion of the text: Admont, Stiftsbibliothek, 22, fol. 112ra; Lisboa, Biblioteca Nacional, Alcob 28, fol. 104ra; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 3932 (fol. 90va) and lat. 14321 (fol. 95ra); Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 385, fol. 127rb; Vatican City, BAV, Vat. lat. 1377, fol. 128va.

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a provision with universal application, making Sane a good example of how even minor edits could transform a decretal of limited scope into a general principle of law.30 Despite this change, the first generation of commentators certainly recognized the original source of Sane, as Bernard of Parma simply transferred part of Tancred of Bologna’s commentary on 2 Comp. 3.22.2 over to his ordinary gloss of X 5.33.9.31 Among the eight remaining, unaccounted for extravagantes are also five Innocent III decretals from the waning years of his pontificate, which can also be shown to have circulated as canonical extracts prior to their inclusion in the Liber extra. The vehicle for their circulation was the so-called Bambergensis II [Bamb. II], part of a class of collections derived directly from Innocent III’s registers that were produced in close cooperation with the Curia – if not by curial officials themselves – and were likely used by Johannes Teutonicus to compile 4 Comp.32 Bamb. II contains not just the decretal letters in question, but the exact extracts that made it into the Liber extra.33 Whether Raymond used Bamb. II directly, or some unknown collection based upon it, the essential point is that the Liber extra remained 30 The italicized portions represent the language in 2 Comp. 3.22.2 that Raymond left out of X 5.33.9: ‘Sane si super possessionibus ipsis in aliquo de monasteriis vestris Apostolicae sedis auctoritas dispensarit a nullo vestrum sumendum est inde exemplum quia temerarium est et indignum aliquem sibi sua auctoritate praesumere quod Romana ecclesia alicui monasterio, certa ratione inspecta, singularibus voluit beneficiis indulgere.’ 31 Tancred’s gloss on 2 Comp. 3.22.2 s.v. in exemplum runs as follows, with legal citations given in brackets: ‘que priuilegium conceduntur in exemplum trahi non debent, xxvii. q. ii. non exemplo [immo Decretum, C.26 q.2 c.4]; xvi. q. i. hinc est [Decretum, C.16 q.1 c.39]; ff. de mandatis princi. l. i [Dig., 1.4.1]; C. de legi. et con. leges [Cod., 1.14.3]; de conces. pre. non ua. constitutus l. iii. in fine [3 Comp. 3.8.8 = X 3.8.11]. T.’, Admont 22 fol. 112ra. Bernard of Parma reprises both Tancred’s comments and his legal allegations in the f irst part of his gloss on X 5.33.9 s.v. temerarium: ‘Hoc ideo dicit, quia quae per privilegium conceduntur non debent trahi ab aliis auctoritate propria in exemplum, ut hic, et 16. q. 1 hinc etiam [Decretum, C.16 q.1 c.39]. Quia privilegium communem legem non faciunt, 16. q. 2 non exemplo [immo Decretum, C.26 q.2 c.4]; supra, de concess. praeben., constitutus, in fine [X 3.8.11]; ff. de const. princip. l. 1 [Dig., 1.4.1]; C. de legibus l. leges, in fine [Cod., 1.14.3]; et 7. q. 1 petisti [Decretum, C.7 q.1 c.17]’, Editio Romana, 1809. 32 The collection is preserved in a single manuscript, Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, MS Patr. 132, and was first thoroughly analysed by Kuttner: ‘A Collection of Decretal Letters of Innocent III in Bamberg’, Medievalia et Humanistica, NS, 1 (1970), 41–56; repr. in: Medieval Councils, VIII. Bamb. II adds to the group of curial collections produced between 3 Comp. (1209/10) and 4 Comp. (1216) that was first identified by C. R. Cheney: ‘Three Decretal Collections before Compilatio IV: Pragensis, Palatina I, and Abrincensis II’, Traditio, 15 (1959), 364–83. 33 X 3.34.10 = Bamb. II, no. 20; X 4.14.6 = Bamb. II, no. 13f; X 5.6.14 = Bamb. II, no. 5a; X 5.34.16 = Bamb. II, no. 14; X 5.39.45 = Bamb. II no. 9. Kuttner apparently did not realize that this collection accounted for all five of the Liber extra’s extravagantes from the end of Innocent’s pontificate, as he points out in his article that the Bamb. II contained only three of these, despite the fact that he provided a full cross-referencing to all five in the concordance: ‘Collection’, 42.

312 Edward A. Reno III

within the consensus of accepted legal sources even when drawing from outside the 5C. The remaining questions concerning the Liber extra’s pre-Gregorian sources are minor and will perhaps never find a resolution. They include: 1) the source for the last two Innocent III extravagantes (X 1.18.7 and X 1.21.7); 2) the particular form of 3 Comp. utilized by Raymond; and 3) whether or not he consulted Honorius III’s papal registers. The best guess on the two extravagantes, which were added to provide more specificity about the office of subdeacon, remains that they were derived from the expanded version of Alanus Anglicus’s collection.34 The 3 Comp. issue is somewhat more complicated, involving on the one hand, inscriptions in the Liber extra that match Innocent III’s registers rather than the form we find in most versions of 3 Comp., and on the other, an expanded text of the tithing-related decretal X 3.30.25 Tua.35 It was thought by an earlier generation that Raymond may have consulted Innocent’s registers directly, but this no longer seems likely, pointing us back in the direction of some modified version of 3 Comp. Any resolution of the issue would depend on finding additional manuscript 34 X 1.21.7 A nobis fuit is found at Alan. auct., no. 43, while X 1.18.7 Miramur appears both in the original version of Alanus’ collection (Alan. 1.10.1) and again in the expanded version at Alan. auct., no. 73, though under a different title (De officio iudicis delegati). Along with the similar pre-2 Comp. collection of Gilbertus, Alanus’s work seems to have influenced Raymond’s organizational choices for four of Innocent III’s decretals (X 1.29.34, X 2.24.27, X 3.19.8, X 5.3.36) that appear in the Liber extra under their respective Gilbertus/Alanus titles rather than those of 3 Comp., a point first made by Rudolf von Heckel in his summary edition of the collections: ‘Die Dekretalensammlungen des Gilbertus und Alanus nach der Weingartner Handschriften’, ZSSRG.KA, 29 (1940), 116–357, esp. 175–6. 35 X 1.3.18, X 1.22.3, X 1.38.4, X 3.39.22, X 4.13.8 and X 5.33.16. There are two additional texts where the Liber extra inscription matches neither the 3 Comp. source nor the register (X 4.13.10 and X 5.12.15), and one where the register match occurs in a 4 Comp.-derived text (X 2.25.6). The fuller version of X 3.30.25 Tua was first pointed out by Steven Horwitz (‘Reshaping a Decretal Chapter’), who argued that Raymond produced a hybrid text from two sources at 3 Comp. 2.1.1 and 4 Comp. 3.9.4. The connection between X 3.30.25 Tua and the register inscriptions is that certain 3 Comp. manuscripts of the so-called French recension of 3 Comp. (e.g., Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. lat. 2127) transmit both the fuller version of Tua at 3 Comp. 2.1.1 and some (though not all) of the correct inscriptions. Another reason to think that Raymond was transmitting the modifications of his sources rather than operating on his own is the curious form of the second part of Tua at X 3.30.26, which reverses the order of two paragraphs. This would constitute an unprecedented internal reordering of a capitulum in the Liber extra, as everywhere else Raymond simply transmitted the basic form encountered in his sources. The fact that not all French recension manuscripts have the fuller version of Tua or the correct register inscriptions points to an as yet unknown strain of 3 Comp. that certain copyists of this recension used to make these changes. On the French recension generally, see: K. Pennington, ‘The French Recension of Compilatio Tertia’, BMCL, 5 (1975), 53–71; repr. in: idem, Popes, Canonists and Texts, 1150–1550, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 412 (Aldershot, 1993), IX.

GREGORY IX AND THE LIBER EX TRA

313

evidence for versions of 3 Comp. with these modifications that circulated in Italy, which so far have not turned up. Finally, resort to the papal registers has also been suggested for several Honorius III texts in the Liber extra, though for somewhat inscrutable reasons on Raymond’s part. In X 1.9.15 Dilecti filii, concerning the renunciation of abbots of exempt monasteries, and X 3.50.10 Super specula, which banned the study of civil law by the clergy, the Liber extra reinserted text left out of the 5 Comp. version compiled by Tancred of Bologna.36 A third instance involves a post-5 Comp. letter appearing on the last folio of Honorius’s register that Raymond attributed to Gregory IX when he placed the text at X 3.5.38.37 Raymond would certainly have had access to Honorius’s registers, but his alleged use of them in these instances defies obvious explanation.

The contribution of Gregory IX to the Liber extra If the Liber extra stayed within the lines of canonistic consensus for the preGregorian material, then Gregory had the opportunity to put his definitive stamp on the law through the addition of his own texts. The 195 Gregorian capitula can be divided into three categories according to their respective sources. Eighty-eight capitula were derived from the first seven years of 36 The reinserted text for X 1.9.15 is so brief and inconsequential that Raymond’s motivations for doing so are completely mysterious. The fact that all Liber extra manuscripts mistakenly attribute the text to Gregory IX and reverse the order of capitula from their 5 Comp. title (as 5 Comp. 1.7.2 one would normally expect it to come before X 1.9.14 = 5 Comp. 1.7.3), suggests that there was an original but now unrecoverable error in the compiling process of the Liber extra. The reinsertion in X 3.50.10 Super specula at least has a plausible legal rationale behind it, though the Liber extra’s reversion to Honorius’ complete 1219 ban on clerical study of civil law, as opposed to 5 Comp.’s limit of the ban to regular clergy, would seem to run counter to the zeitgeist. On X 1.9.15, see: Kuttner, ‘Zur Enstehungsgeschichte der Summa de casibus poenitentiae des hl. Raymond von Penyafort’, ZSSRG.KA, 39 (1953), 429–30; repr. in: Studies, XI. On X 3.50.10, see: Kuttner, ‘Papst Honorius III und das Studium des Zivilrechts’, Festschrift für Martin Wolff, ed. E. von Caemmerer, et al. (Tübingen, 1952), 79–101; repr. in Kuttner, Gratian and the Schools of Law, 1140–1234, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 185 (London, 1983), X. 37 Reg. Vat. 13, fol. 178r, no. 578, dated 17 February 1227. The letter concerns the limits of papal provisions of benef ices in local churches. Jane Sayers was the f irst to point out the source discrepancy: Papal Government and England During the Pontificate of Honorius III, 1216–27, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd Ser., 21 (Cambridge, 1984), 148. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Gregory actually did reissue this text in some form under his own name. Given that the letter lifted a ban of excommunication on the canons of a church in Lucca, and that it was issued a month before Honorius’ death, the beneficiaries would have had an incentive to have the new pontiff conf irm his predecessor’s decision. The available evidence still points to Honorius’ register as the source, however.

314 Edward A. Reno III

Gregory’s registers (see Table 3 at the end for a list).38 An additional thirtytwo were taken from decretal letters that had previously circulated in some fashion, though which have otherwise left no trace in the record outside of the Liber extra (excepting the possible Honorius III text at X 3.5.38). The remaining seventy-five are the constitutiones mentioned in Rex pacificus written specifically for the collection.39 The Liber extra’s employment of the registers helps us arrive at a more precise date for when Raymond began compiling the collection, if not for the idea for the collection itself. Assuming Gregory’s registers were kept on an ongoing basis, then mid- to late-Summer of 1232 stands as the terminus post quem for the start of the compilation process. 40 This date is surmised 38 Reg. Vat. 14–17. Unlike those of Innocent III and Honorius III, Gregory’s registers lack the marginal notations left by canonists to designate whole or partial extracts of those texts to be compiled. Given that the registers were the preferred source for compilers working under Gregory’s predecessors, however, it is a safe assumption that Raymond employed the register version when available, though see the caveat for the final six letters indicated in n. 41. On the marginal notations in Innocent III’s registers, see any of the introductions for the ongoing modern edition of the text: Die Register Innocenz III, 14 vols, ed. O. Hageneder, et al., Publikationen des Österreichischen Kulturinstituts in Rom, 2 Abt., Quellen, 1 (Graz-Cologne-Vienna, 1964–2018). For Tancred of Bologna’s notations in Honorius’ registers, see: L. Boyle, ‘The Compilatio quinta and the Registers of Honorius III’, BMCL, 8 (1978), 9–19; repr. in: idem, Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–1400, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 135 (London, 1981), XI. 39 Unregistered decretals: X 1.3.37–40, 43; X 1.11.17; X 1.29.40; X 1.37.3; X 1.38.12, 15; X 2.2.18–9; X 2.7.7; X 2.9.5; X 2.13.19; X 2.20.53; X 2.22.15; X 2.24.36; X 2.25.14; X 2.28.71; X 3.5.37–8; X 3.26.19; X 3.28.14; X 3.39.26–7; X 4.7.8; X 5.3.46; X 5.12.25; X 5.19.19; X 5.33.32–3. Constitutions: X 1.3.41–2; X 1.4.11; X 1.6.58–60; X 1.13.2; X 1.29.39, 41–3; X 1.30.9–10; X 1.31.20; X 1.32.2; X 1.35.8; X 1.38.13–4; X 1.40.7; X 1.41.9–10; X 1.43.14; X 2.2.20; X 2.10.4; X 2.11.1; X 2.15.4; X 2.17.3; X 2.20.54–6; X 2.22.13–4, 16; X 2.24.35; X 2.25.12–3; X 2.27.25–6; X 2.28.70, 72–3; X 3.2.10; X 3.4.17; X 3.14.3; X 3.15.1; X 3.16.2; X 3.17.7; X 3.18.3–4; X 3.22.5; X 3.23.4; X 3.24.10; X 3.26.20; X 3.30.35; X 3.32.21; X 4.1.31–2; X 4.5.7; X 4.14.9; X 4.20.8; X 5.3.45; X 5.6.19; X 5.7.16; X 5.11.1; X 5.26.2; X 5 27.10; X 5.32.4; X 5.36.9; X 5.38.16; X 5.39.54, 56–60. The choice to label a text as a decretal – as opposed to a constitution – is based upon the presence of indicators that it had existed in some form prior to its inclusion in the Liber extra. Such indicators include an inscription with a definite addressee or the mention of personal names; an et infra marking excised language; and formulae typical of a decretal, such as ‘Consulti sumus’, ‘Taliter responemus’, etc. The 32:75 ratio should be seen as approximate, however, since it is possible that some of the constitutions were shorn of all their decretal attributes. 40 Friedrich Bock executed the only serious study of Gregory’s registers as part of his larger investigation of registration practice in the thirteenth century, and he concluded that the registers were compiled on a one-time annual schedule sometime after the end of the pontifical year, as opposed to being assembled on an ongoing basis throughout the year: ‘Päpstliche Sekretregister und Kammerregister’, Archivalische Zeitschrift, 59 (1963), 30–58; idem, ‘Kodif izierung und Registrierung in der spätmittelalterlichen kurialen Verwaltung’, Archivalische Zeitschrift, 56 (1960), 11–75. Bock’s parallel conclusions for registration under Innocent III, which employed the same methodology (‘Studien zu den Originalregistern Innocenz’ III (Reg. Vat. 4–7A)’,

315

GREGORY IX AND THE LIBER EX TRA

by looking at the number and distribution of the register-derived letters. We see what amounts to a bell curve for the number of letters taken from the first six years of Gregory’s correspondence, with a bulge in years 3–5, though the curve becomes less dramatic when the extracts are considered as a percentage of the total number of registered letters for those years. Table 1  Distribution of Gregorian capitula taken from the Registers Auvray #

Total Number in Registered Liber extra

Percentage of Registered

Yr. 1: 1227–1228

1–182

182

8

4.4%

Yr. 2: 1228–1229

183–285

103

8

7.8%

Yr. 3: 1229–1230

286–409

124

13

10.5%

Yr. 4: 1230–1231

432–581

150

17

11.3%

Yr. 5: 1231–1232

582–783

202

27

13.4%

Yr. 6: 1232–1233

784–1194

411

9

2.2%

Yr. 7: 1233–1234

1195–1838

644

5

0.8%

Yr. 8: 1234 (to Rex pacificus)

1839–2082

245

1

0.4%

2082

88

4.2%

Up until June 1232 the largest chronological gap between letters selected for the Liber extra was around two months. After Auvray 810 (23 June 1232) there is a five-month hiatus before the next extract (Auvray 988, dated 9 December 1232), one of only six post-1232 letters chosen for the collection, with the latest dated only two months prior to Rex pacificus. This pattern of usage suggests that Raymond sat down to harvest the material from the registers in one go in the late summer of 1232, and thereafter added only Archivalische Zeitschrift, 50–51 (1955), 329–64), have since been summarily rejected: F. Kempf, ‘Zu den Originalregistern Innocenz’ III: eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Friedrich Bock’, QF, 36 (1956), 86–135; O. Hageneder, ‘Die äusseren Merkmale der Originalregister Innocenz’ III’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österrichische Geschichtsforschung, 65 (1957), 296–339. A full analysis is outside the scope of the present study, but since the author’s investigation of the registers has revealed many of the elements cited by Kempf and Hageneder as evidence for ongoing registration, including regular changeover of scribal hands, variations in the page formatting, gaps left for the later insertion of additional addressees or other letters, and marginal corrections reflecting subsequent changes to the letters, ongoing registration is assumed for the present study (see chapter 5 of the author’s dissertation for the analysis of Reg. Vat. 14: The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s editing of the Decretals of Gregory IX, Columbia University, 2011). A new diplomatic analysis of Gregory’s registers is clearly needed, however.

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a few more texts once the editing of the whole collection was well under way. 41 While it is impossible to know whether he had begun selecting and editing the material from the 5C prior to this, internal evidence shows that some edits to the 5C were made with full knowledge of the Gregorian texts. 42 Fixing mid-1232 as the start date may in the future help clarify the relationship between the Liber extra and the legal collection for the Kingdom of Sicily issued in 1231 by Gregory’s bitter rival Frederick II, The Constitutions of Melfi. 43 The arrangement of the Gregorian capitula offers another window onto the method of the Liber extra’s composition. With just one exception, the register extracts appear first whenever a group of Gregory’s texts close out a title and are almost always grouped in chronologically ascending order.44 The extracts are then followed by an unordered mix of unregistered decretals and constitutions. This suggests at least a two-step process for the assembly of the Gregorian material. First came the culling of the papal registers. Then, as the collection was being edited, additional texts were grabbed from originals lying around the Chancery or were formulated on the spot as newly promulgated constitutions. The documentary record of Raymond’s Curial service supports the source criticism in assigning a start date for the compilation process to the second 41 Auvray 988 (Potthast 9056, 9 December 1232 to the Abp of Lund) = X 1.16.3; Auvray 1009 and 1010 (both 20 December 1232 to the Bp of Le Mans) = X 4.1.30–1; Auvray 1324 (Potthast 9203, 21 May 1233 to the Bp of Astorga) = X 3.40.9–10, X 3.49.9 and X 5.39.55; Auvray 1667 (23 December 1233 to officials in the Province of Rheims) = X 3.31.24; Auvray 1987 (26 June 1234 to the Abps of Toledo and Compostella) = X 3.49.10. It is noteworthy that two of the final three texts are to Spanish prelates, suggesting that Raymond was prompted to add these based upon personal familiarity with the business being transacted by the recipients at the Curia, and may not have even needed to consult the registers. 42 For example, Lucius III’s decree on heresy from the Council of Verona (1184), X 5.7.9 Ad Abolendam, has the enumeration of types of heresies excised, as these were repeated almost verbatim in Gregory IX’s X 5.7.15 Excommunicamus. 43 For some of the issues, see: K. Pennington, ‘Gregory IX, Emperor Frederick II, and the Constitutions of Melfi’, in Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Sweeney and S. Chodorow (Ithaca, 1989), 53–61. 44 This is found in the title on excommunication (X 5.39), where the only registered decretal, X 5.39.55 (Auvray 1324) appears second in the group of Gregorian capitula (X 5.39.54–60), following a constitution at c. 54. It is significant that this sole exception concerns one of the last additions from the register in the collection, and one which provided four different extracts, as indicated in n. 41. The exceptions to the chronological ordering include X 1.6 (De electione), where the order is broken only for the last of the 9 extracts (X 1.6.57); and then for the pairs of register extracts in X 2.2 (De foro competenti), X 3.26 (De testamentis) and X 5.1 (De accusationibus). It should be noted, however, that the ordering of X 2.2.16 (Auvray 534) and X 2.2.17 (Auvray 538) actually follows their sequencing in the register.

GREGORY IX AND THE LIBER EX TRA

317

half of 1232. Although chroniclers placed Raymond’s arrival at the Curia sometime in 1230, the f irst written trace of his work as papal chaplain and penitentiary is not until February 1234. 45 Raymond’s penitentiary activities are mentioned again in May and June of that year, suggesting that he had resumed his regular duties. 46 Raymond thus spent 1233 overseeing the massive work of compilation that was begun the previous year. He returned to work as penitentiary when the Liber extra was well on its way to completion, though the collection underwent modifications until the very end, as evidenced by the inclusion of a June 1234 decretal. The nature of the Liber extra as a law book and the diverse character of the Gregorian capitula make it difficult to reduce Gregory’s substantive contribution to a neat and tidy formula. One way to gain some greater precision is to highlight those areas of the law in which his contributions were more weighted. A breakdown by book is an imperfect measure given the organic way in which the five book and title structure developed. The loose categorization by canonists of the five books into Ius, Iudicium, Clerus, Connubia, and Crimen masks an interpenetration of different subjects within each book, as well as the existence of smaller, heterogeneous sub-categories. Offered below is a classification of the Gregorian capitula according to a more granular taxonomy of legal subjects in ten different groups. 47 These categories hopefully offer greater precision, while still respecting the divisions medieval canonists would themselves recognize. 48 45 The 1230 date is inferred from a comment in an anonymous Vita written in 1279 that said Raymond left the Curia in 1235 after a five-year residence: Raymundiana seu documenta quae pertinent ad S. Raymundi de Pennaforti vitam et scripta, 2 vols, ed. F. Balme, et al., MOPH, 6 (Rome, 1898–1901), i, 24. That there is no pre-1234 documentation for his Curial service may be due to Raymond’s having initially served, according to some chroniclers, as penitentiary for the poor, a clientele not likely to command a lot of attention in Curial record keeping. The 8 February 1234 letter (Auvray 1775; printed in: Raymundiana, ii, 17–18) f inds Raymond absolving a Flemish canon from a sentence of excommunication. 46 Auvray 1899 (10 May 1234) and Auvray 1944 (8 June 1234); printed in: Raymundiana, ii., 19–20 and 21. 47 Sources and Interpretation of Law: X 1.2–4, X 2.22, X 5.33, X 5.40–1; Dogmatic/Ritual: X 1.1, X 1.15–6, X 3.34, X 3.40–6, X 3.40.9, X 5.38; Ecclesiastical Offices: X 1.5–9, X 1.11–4, X 1.18–28, X 1.30, X 1.33; Ecclesiastical Administration & Property: X 1.10, X 1.35–6, X 3.04–5, X 3.7–25, X 3.28–30, X 3.38–9, X 3.48, X 5.4–5, X 5.32; Clerical Conduct: X 1.17, X 3.1–3, X 3.6, X 3.50. X 4.06, X 5.14, X 5.24–5, X 5.27–31; Judicial Process: Courts and Personnel: X 1.29, X 1.31–2, X 1.37–9, X 1.43, X 2.1–2; Judicial Process: Ordo iuris: X 1.40–2, X 2.3–21, X 2.23–30; Monastic: X 3.31, X 3.35–7; Ecclesiastical and Criminal Sanctions: X 1.34, X 5.1–3, X 5.6–13, X 5.15, X 5.17–23, X 5.26, X 5.34–7, X 5.39; Marital/ Sexual/Familial: X 3.26–7, X 3.32–3, X 3.47, X 4.1–5, X 4.7–21, X 5.16. 48 See, for example, the thematic subdivisions given by Bernard of Pavia in the preface to his Summa on his own 1 Comp., which was the first collection to employ the five-book structure:

318 Edward A. Reno III

Total capitula

Total number as % of X

Total Gregorian capitula (Registered Decretals + Unregistered Decretals + Constitutions)

Gregorian capitula as % of category

Gregorian capitula per category as % of total Gregorian capitula

Table 2  Categorization of Gregorian capitula

Sources and Interpretation of Law

160

8.1%

23 (9+8+6)

14.4%

11.8%

Dogmatic/Ritual

83

4.2%

6 (5+0+1)

7.2%

3.1%

Ecclesiastical Offices

205

10.4%

24 (17+1+6)

11.7%

12.3%

Ecclesiastical Admin. & Property

323

16.4%

27 (9+6+12)

8.4%

13.8%

Clerical Behaviour

119

6.0%

7 (5+0+2)

5.9%

3.6%

Judicial Process: Courts and Personnel

139

7.1%

24 (8+6+10)

17.3%

12.3%

Judicial Process: Ordo iuris

380

19.3%

40 (15+7+18)

10.5%

20.5%

Monastic Regulations

45

2.3%

2 (2+0+0)

4.4%

1.0%

Ecclesiastical and criminal sanctions 304

15.4%

24 (9+4+11)

7.9%

12.3%

Marital/Sexual/Familial

10.8%

18 (9+1+8)

8.5%

9.2%

195 (88+33+74)

9.8%

100.0%

213

1971 100%

The topography of Gregory’s contributions to each category comes into view if we take the overall 10% of his contributions to the collection as the starting point (195 of 1971). Not surprisingly, Gregory’s greatest input was in the areas of judicial process and in legal sources and their interpretation. With regard to the former, his contributions to such titles as X 2.25 on exceptions, X 2.28 on appeals, and X 2.20 on witnesses and testimony, reflect the growing sophistication of the romano-canonical ordo iuris operative in ecclesiastical Summa decretalium, ed. E.A.T. Laspeyres (Regensburg, 1860: repr. Graz, 1956), p. 2. In devising these categories there are some judgment calls, of course. A title like X 3.32 De conversione coniugatorum (On the entry of spouses into religious life), which has been classed here with the Marital/Sexual/Familial titles, could arguably be placed under Monastic Regulations as well. Since, however, it deals primarily with when the marriage vow yields to religious profession, and not the specific details of monastic life, it has been grouped with other titles on marriage.

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courts.49 It was especially in the area of courts and their personnel, however, that Gregory targeted his additions. The pope’s regulations on the determination of the proper forum for hearing a case (X 2.2), judges delegate (X 1.29), and arbitration (X 1.43) tried to clarify the thorny problems of jurisdiction and to curb the perennial desire to continue litigation even after judgment was rendered.50 Among the six texts added to the title on legal representation (X 1.38), which make up 40% of the total, Gregory affirmed the right to freely appoint one’s legal representative, a right that even extended to the woman for whom the decretal was issued (X 1.38.10). Although the Liber extra set forth procedures operative throughout the judicial machinery of the Church, Gregory’s interest in this area can also be gauged by the appearance during his pontificate of manuals, formularies and customs specifically addressing the practices of Curial courts.51 Regarding legal sources and their interpretation, Gregory’s additions to the titles on rescripts (X 1.3) and the probative evaluation of documents (X 2.22 De fide instrumentorum), which make up around a third of each title, show a pope grappling with the increasing complexity of a legal system now firmly anchored in the written bureaucracy centralized at the Curia.52 Decretals instituting judicial proceedings for alleged harm were usually 49 For an account of the development of the jurisprudence around court procedure in this era, see: K. Pennington, ‘The Jurisprudence of Procedure’, in The History of Courts and Procedure in Medieval Canon Law, ed. W. Hartmann and K. Pennington (Washington, D.C., 2016), 125–59; as well as the still valuable: L. Fowler-Magerl, Ordo Iudiciorum vel Ordo Iudicarius: Begriff und Literaturgattung, Ius Commune, Sonderheft, 19 (Frankfurt, 1984). 50 For an overview of the system of judges delegate, see C. Duggan, ‘Judges Delegate’, in History of Courts and Procedure, 229–43. An excellent case study of this system in action remains: J. Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate in the Province of Canterbury, 1198–1254 (Oxford, 1971). On the issue of legal representation, see J. Brundage, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession (Chicago, 2008). 51 For example, the Liber petitionum for poor litigants seeking justice in Rome by Cardinal Guala (ed. R. von Heckel, ‘Das päpstliche und sicilische Registerwesen’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung, 1 (1908), 502–10). Although it post-dates Gregory’s pontificate by a couple of years, Bonaguida Aretino’s Consuetudines curiae Romanae provides an excellent window onto the court as it had evolved over the past two decades and includes specific citations of the Liber extra that show which of Gregory’s procedural contributions were deemed most significant (ed. L. Wahrmund, Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, 79 (1899), 3–19). Finally, there are the earliest iterations of what would become the formulary for the Audientia litterarum contradictarum, as described and cited in n. 57. On the development of the curial courts in the thirteenth century, see Brigide Schwarz, ‘The Roman Curia (until about 1300)’, in History of Courts and Procedure, 160–228; along with the first volume of P. Herde, Audientia litterarum contradictarum, 2 vols, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 31–32 (Tübingen, 1970). 52 On the juristic debates about rescripts as legal sources, see H. Dondorp, ‘Review of Papal Rescripts in the Canonist’s Teaching’, ZSSRG. KA, 76–77 (1990–1991), 172–253 and 32–110.

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granted upon request, and so the Curia often found itself initiating investigations on the basis of incomplete or even false information, complicating the lives and potentially diminishing the fortunes of those roped into the proceedings. Many of the Gregorian capitula in this area aimed at limiting the problems that arose from the mismatch between the Curia’s knowledge of the facts and the effects of its actions, and prescribed harsher penalties for those abusing the system. Gregory also engaged with more abstract, constitutional questions about the derivation of law. This comes through in his sole contribution to the title on custom, the constitution X 1.4.11 Cum tanto sint. The language and content of Cum tanto sint, which defined the relationship between custom and positive law, was little more than an expanded version of the Roman law extract found in the Decretum at D.11 c.4.53 Despite the redundancy, Cum tanto sint would be embraced by decretists as a lapidary text on the authority of custom.54 In this sense, we can see how the Liber extra was intended not just as a survey of the Ius novum, but also as a repository of constitutional proof-texts. The tremendous effort expended in the ongoing enforcement of Lateran IV meant that Gregory probably felt it unnecessary to add many additional regulations in the area of clerical behaviour, or to promote substantial revisions to the dogmatic and sacramental teachings of the Church. More surprising is the lower level of attention paid to the regulation of monastic life, given Gregory’s previous service as Cardinal-protector of the Franciscans and the many efforts during his pontificate to reform the older orders.55 The 53 X 1.4.11: ‘Cum tanto sint graviora peccata, quanto diutius infelicem animam detinent alligatam, nemo sanae mentis intelligit, naturali iuri, cuius transgressio periculum salutis inducit, quacunque consuetudine, quae dicenda est verius in hac parte corruptela, posse aliquatenus derogari. Licet etiam longaevae consuetudinis non sit vilis auctoritas, non tamen est usque adeo valitura, ut vel iuri positivo debeat praeiudicium generare, nisi fuerit rationabilis et legitime sit praescripta.’ Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii, 41. Compare this to Gratian (Decretum, D.11 c.4): ‘Consuetudinis ususque longaeve non vilis auctoritas est, verum non usque adeo sui valitura momento, ut aut rationem vincat, aut legem,’ ibid., i, 23–4. 54 Bartholomew of Brescia, who revised Johannes Teutonicus’s Ordinary Gloss to the Decretum to reflect the new law of the Liber extra, cited X 1.4.11 four times in the first twenty distinctions (aka The Treatise on Laws): Decretum, D.4, d.a. c. 4 s.v. abrogatae; Decretum, D.8 c.3 s.v. mala autem consuetudo; Decretum, D.8 c.4 s.v. dubitet; Decretum, D.8 c.8 s.v. consuetudo. Most of these citations come after extensive and contentious analysis by Johannes Teutonicus on the relative authority of custom. 55 For the regulation of monastic life in the Liber extra, see L.-A. Dannenberg, Recht der Religiosen in der Kanonistik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, Vita regularis: Ordnungen und Deutungen religiosen Lebens im Mittelalter, 39 (Berlin, 2008); G. Melville, ‘Zum Recht der Religiosen im “Liber extra”’, ZSSRG. KA, 87 (2001), 165–90. There are some texts falling outside the titles on monastic life and status (X 3.31, X 3.35–7) that concern the relationship between bishops and

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two regulations he did add, X 3.31.23 Statuimus novitios, which attempted to standardize how orders handled their novitiate, and X 3.31.24 Ne religiosi, which called for more strenuous efforts to repatriate fugitive monks, are instructive for what they reveal about the Liber extra’s role in proffering new legislation. Both of these texts are found in the register, but they actually originated as unsolicited statutes issued by Gregory in consultation with his cardinals.56 Evidence from a contemporary chancery formulary shows that Gregory regularly tried to publicize these two decisions in his correspondence, and so we should see the Liber extra functioning as a particularly efficient means of promulgating new enactments to the entire Church.57 Also somewhat surprising is Gregory’s lower than average contribution to ecclesiastical and criminal sanctions.58 Many of his capitula, like the seven which addressed excommunication (X 5.39) or the three treating simony (X 5.3), represent minor adjustments dealing with contingencies and unintended consequences of earlier enactments. The major exceptions to this otherwise undistinguished legacy involve the programmatic texts on heresy and blasphemy. Gregory used the Liber extra to mount a definitive ban on lay preaching (X 5.7.14 Sicut in uno), mandate perpetual imprisonment for convicted but repentant heretics (X 5.7.15 Excommunicamus) and set forth exact punishments for blasphemy (X 5.26.2 Statuimus). Like the statutes on religious life, X 5.7.15 Excommunicamus originated as an unsolicited 1231 enactment to deal with heretics in the city of Rome, but Gregory promptly set about trying to publicize the decree throughout the Church.59 Here again the Liber extra was a vehicle for the promulgation of new legislation. In the exempt orders (e.g., X 5.31.16 Nimis iniqua/prava), but these are treated under the category of Ecclesiastical Administration and Property, as they concern limits on episcopal jurisdiction. 56 The source for X 3.31.23 (Auvray 572) is undated but is grouped in the register with items issued in March 1230. The source for X 3.31.24 (Auvray 1667) is actually a decretal sent to an official in Rheims regarding a runaway monk, but it quotes the Ne religiosi statute that, according to Gregory, ‘nuper de fratrum nostrorum consilio statuendum duximus’. 57 The formulary, which is the earliest extant for the Audientia litterarum contradictarum, is contained on ff. 60r–102v of a manuscript that used to belong to Paul Durrieu (MS 5), and that is now housed at Columbia University in New York as Western MS 88. The text of both X 3.31.23 and c.24 is integrated into model decretals that appear as consecutive entries on fols 64r–65r. This formulary has been edited along with several related works by U. Pfeiffer: Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der Delegationsgerichtsbarkeit im 13. Jahrhundert (Vatican City, 2011). 58 For an exhaustive survey on the criminal regulations in canon law, with chapters devoted specifically to the Liber extra, see L. Kery, Gottesfurcht und irdische Strafe, Konflikt, Verbrechen und Sanktion in der Gesellschaft Alteuropas, 10 (Cologne, 2006). 59 The f irst instance occurs in Ille humani generis (Potthast 8859), the Feb. 1231 letter that is traditionally used as the start of the papal inquisition, various iterations of which Gregory would continue to send to other prelates throughout 1231 and 1232. On the complicated history

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case of Excommunicamus, however, the turn toward punitive incarceration had a mixed reception, judging by the clarifications bishops demanded from the Curia, some of which Raymond himself would compose.60

Conclusion: future scholarship on Gregory and the Liber extra The methodology of examining the ‘pre-history’ of pre-Gregorian decretals included in the Liber extra provides a blueprint for future research on Gregory’s own contributions.61 The majority of the texts taken from Gregory’s registers were heavily edited, and while some of the changes were done simply to remove narrative details, edits affecting the legal content of the letters are not difficult to find. Even when the edits only remove the individuating details of the letters, examining the process can reveal how jurists went about formulating general legal principles from case-specif ic decisions. A response to the archbishop of Bari on Greek sacraments became a general guideline for extra-canonical ordinations;62 a letter of commendation to a German preacher working to reform prostitutes turned into a provision counselling the placement of women convicted of adultery in convents.63 Even simple edits like changing the addressee or generalizing the nouns in the opening sentence could result in a profound transformation of a decretal’s scope and application. Thus, a set of protections carved out for the Franciscan Order became a general grant of exemption from the diocesan for both Mendicant Orders when Raymond added the name of the Dominicans and addressed what had been a letter to Northern French bishops to universis ecclesiarium praelatis, creating, in effect, a special Mendicant status within ecclesiastical administration.64 These and a host of other changes offer a deep well from which to draw for future scholarship. of the diffusion of Excommunicamus, see: V. Bivolarov, ‘Die Capitula contra Patarenos Gregors IX’, ZSSRG.KA, 99 (2013), 203–61. 60 For example, see Raymond’s April 1235 response to the Abp of Tarragona, edited in Summa de Matrimonia, 1045–8 (as in n. 13). 61 Although the differences are usually minor, Auvray must be controlled with the register manuscripts, as he sometimes reproduced the text of the letters as it appeared in older collections like the Gallia Christiana. In addition, some register entries are merely calendared rather than reproduced in full. 62 X 1.11.16 Consultationi tuae = Auvray 740 (Potthast 8832). 63 X 3.32.19 Gaudemus = Auvray 110 (Potthast 7926). 64 X 5.31.16 Nimis iniqua and X 5.31.17 Nimis prava, which despite the variation in incipit are actually from the same letter in the register, Auvray 707 (Potthast 8788).

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Beyond the text of Gregory’s contributions, there lies the question of their interpretation by jurists, as well as the reception of the Liber extra as a whole. As an exercise of papal iurisdictio, judging by the reaction of the English prelates at the Council of London to Cardinal Otto or the frequent mentions of its promulgation by contemporary chroniclers, the Liber extra was an astonishing success. As Gratian had done a century prior with the Decretum, Gregory inscribed the circle inside of which juristic debates would now take place. The progress and outcome of these debates was another matter, however. The immediate decades after 1234 saw an explosion of new commentaries, as jurists had to revise their teaching on decretals excluded or modified by the Liber extra and integrate Gregory’s new material.65 Bernard of Parma’s Ordinary Gloss provides a particularly good opportunity to track the evolution of canonistic teaching, as it was continually expanded over a fifteen year period, reflecting the development of Bernard’s thought in dialogue with other jurists.66 It is absolutely crucial to read Gregory’s new legislation through the commentaries, as we sometimes find jurists misinterpreting or even rejecting what Gregory had set forth.67 65 As mentioned in n. 9, most of these commentaries are edited only in unsatisfactory early modern editions, and many of them, including major works like those of Gottfried of Trani and Vincentius Hispanus, are still available only in manuscript. For separate bio-bibliographic entries on individual jurists, see the ever-expanding ‘Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Medieval and Early Modern Jurists’ online at: https://amesfoundation.law.harvard.edu/BioBibCanonists/ HomePage_biobib2.php. Still useful is the classic of the genre: J. F. von Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen der Literatur des Canonischen Rechts, 3 vols (Stuttgart, 1877; repr.: Union, N. J., 2000); ii; as well as the entries in: R. Naz, et al., Dictionnaire de droit canonique, 7 vols (Paris, 1935–1965). See also the studies of individual jurists in Bertram, Kanonisten (as in n. 9), with attendant bibliography. 66 The earliest versions of the gloss can be found in a 1239 Florentine manuscript (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, S. Croce III sin.9) and a 1241 Oxford manuscript (Bodleian Library, theol. lat. b. 4). The last additions to the gloss were made in 1263–1265. On the development of the Ordinary Gloss, see S. Kuttner and B. Smalley, ‘The “Glossa Ordinaria” to the Gregorian Decretals’, EHR, 60 (1945), 97–105; Kuttner, ‘Notes on the Glossa Ordinaria of Bernard of Parma’, BMCL, 11 (1981), 86–93; both repr. in: Kuttner, Studies, XIII–XIV. See also the revisions proposed by Martin Bertram: ‘Zur Entwicklung der Glossa Ordinaria des Bernardus Parmensis’, Kanonisten, 525–7. 67 A good example is the previously mentioned X 3.32.19 Gaudemus, which counselled the placement of women convicted of adultery – whose husbands refused to take them back – in convents. Due to its similarity to a Justinianic decree that had early prescribed cloistering as a punishment for adultery (Nov., 134.10), some canonists, including Bernard of Parma, conflated what Gregory was doing as a punitive mandate, as opposed to a penitential or pastoral recommendation. Gaudemus supercharged a debate that had been brewing since the late twelfth century over punitive incarceration as an ecclesiastical penalty, and specifically the monastery as the appropriate site for its administration. Since juristic opinion evolved even across multiple recensions of the same author (e.g., Bernard of Parma and Hostiensis), it serves as a case study for how post-1234 jurists fashioned their interpretations of the Gregorian legislation in conversation

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The existence of disagreement among contemporary canonists reminds us that insofar as Gregory intended the Liber extra ‘ad communem et maxime studentium utilitatem’, its exact influence depended to a great degree on the accompanying body of juristic opinion. Gregory’s claims of exclusivity were successful to the extent that no further private collections emerged to compete with the Liber extra, nor with any future collection commissioned by a pope for that matter. Moreover, the inclusion of a juridically contentious decretal in the Liber extra certainly did lend it more authority than it previously possessed on the mere strength of its legal sententia.68 Commentators did not, however, simply abandon the tradition that Raymond’s editing had passed over. The decretals received into the Liber extra remained tied to a larger legal context that included the earlier, fuller versions of the letters and the historical circumstances producing them. Commentaries continued to refer to the portions Raymond had excised – the partes decisae – and in a number of cases for Innocent III’s letters, they went back to the original letter contained in the papal registers.69 Among the list of ‘don’ts’ for law students recorded in the prologue to Hostiensis’s Summa Aurea (1253), is that students should not indiscriminately reject the older collections (the 5C) in favour of the ius novum contained in the Liber extra.70 Even Bernard of Parma, who in his gloss on Rex pacificus asserts that those who use [uti] or study [legere] the older collections be subject to excommunication, cites the partes decisae and older collections dozens of times in his Ordinary with each other. For an analysis of the debate, see E. Reno, ‘Ad agendam penitentiam perpetuam detrudatur: monastic incarceration of adulterous women in thirteenth-century canonical jurisprudence’, Traditio, 72 (2017), 301–40. 68 Bartholomew of Brescia added an interesting post-script to a debate between Johannes and the earlier commentator Huguccio on Decretum, C.27 q.2 c.21 Agathosa. The subject was whether a man – who had taken monastic vows without his wife’s consent – was obliged after his wife’s death to return to the monastery. Johannes was not so sure, in light of an Alexander III decretal (1 Comp. 3.28.3 Quidam = X 3.32.3) that said he was not obligated to fulfil his inappropriately taken monastic vows, but Huguccio insisted that he was, despite the papal guidance. Bartholomew announced that Huguccio’s opinion should be definitively rejected because the decretal Quidam had been included in the Liber extra: Decretum, C.27 q.2 c.21 s.v. tonsuratus: ‘male dixit Huguccio, cum iterum approbata sit in nova compilatione illa decretalis Quidam’. 69 For example, see Innocent IV’s prologue to his Apparatus (as in n. 14, fol. 1r), in which he lists textual emendations for nine of Innocent III’s decretals based upon the original register text. He goes into even greater detail about the fuller register versions of these letters in the body of his commentary. 70 His point on the older compilations is the eighth out of ten potential faults: ‘Caveat [studiosus] tamen ne temere reprehendat. Fit autem temeraria reprehensio multis modis […] Octavo, qui antiquas [compilationes] per ius novum indistincte condemnat, ut patet infra, de constitutionibus, c. fi. [X 1.2.13],’ Summa aurea (Venice, 1574), 3–4.

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Gloss.71 A full reckoning of Gregory’s legal accomplishments – both through his own contributions and in the Liber extra as a whole – must take into account the subsequent opinions of jurists on whom the interpretation and application of the law depended. Lastly, attention to the manuscript tradition will remain a fundamental part of any future research on the Liber extra. The overall textual stability of Gregory’s collection has traditionally frustrated attempts to draw relationships between the extant manuscripts. A huge hurdle has been cleared in recent years, however, thanks to Martin Bertram’s Signaturlist cataloguing all extant copies of the collection.72 Having a global overview of the Liber extra’s survival now opens up the possibility for more programmatic assessments about the medieval production of the text.73 This does not mean that the dream of an earlier generation of scholars for a new critical edition is suddenly in reach – quite the opposite, as our increasing familiarity with the material survival of the collection has only confirmed how successful Gregory actually was in standardizing the Ius novum. Thus, there will never be the same thrilling prospect as there has been for Gratian’s Decretum, of finding an earlier or evolving recension, which may explain in part why the interest of canon law manuscript scholarship has been drawn much more in recent years to the Ius antiquum and early stages of Decretal law in the twelfth century.74 The Liber extra’s evolution is one, rather, that took place quite literally in the margins, as subsequent generations incorporated the steady stream of new legal precedents issuing from Rome, and as different commentaries competed for space alongside the 71 Rex pacificus s.v. in iudiciis: ‘Quid erit si aliqui vellent uti et legere priorem [compilationem]? Dico quod illi essent excommunicandi, quia faciunt contra mandatum principis, infra, de maioritate et obedientia, si quis [X 1.33.2]; et 25. q. 1, generali [Decretum, C.25, q.1, c.11]’, Editio Romana, ii, 5. 72 As in n. 7. Bertram’s list also catalogues the major fragments and illuminated copies, among other sub categories. 73 This has been particularly true for the study of the illumination cycle of the Liber extra, which fairly quickly developed a standard iconography for the opening illustrations for each book. See, for example, the remarkable analysis of the thirteenth-century French illuminated manuscript tradition: F. Cahu, Un témoin de la production du livre universitaire de XIIIe siècle: la collection des Décrétales de Grégoire IX, Bibliologia, 35 (Turnhout, 2013); or the paths charted in: M. Bertram and S. Di Paolo, Decretales Pictae. Le miniature nei manoscritti delle Decretali di Gregorio IX (Liber Extra): atti del colloquio internazionale tenuto all’Istituto Storico Germanico, Roma 3–4 marzo 2010, available online: https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/handle/2307/711. 74 A. Winroth, The Making of Gratian’s Decretum, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th Ser., 49 (Cambridge, 2000). For an overview of the new avenues opened up by the discovery of Gratian’s earlier recension, see: M. Eichbauer, ‘Gratian’s Decretum and the Changing Historiographical Landscape’, History Compass, 11–12 (2013), 1111–25.

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text.75 While each manuscript is a world unto itself, refracted through the particular training and experience of the generations of students, masters and administrators through whom an individual manuscript could pass, collectively the manuscript tradition of the Liber extra tells the most fulsome story we possess of medieval canon law at the height of its influence and achievement.76 Table 3  Gregorian capitula taken from the Registers

Undated items supplied with (date range) of adjacent Register entries X

Reg

Date

X

Reg

1.2.13 1.3.32 1.3.33 1.3.34 1.3.35 1.3.36 1.6.49 1.6.50

670 213 397 434 591 626 122 184

6 Jun 1231 19 Jul 1228 31 Jan 1230 25 Mar 1230 3 Apr 1231 22 Apr 1231 30 Mar 1227 21 Mar 1228

1.42.2 1.43.12 1.43.13 2.2.16 2.2.17 2.3.3 2.5.1 2.8.4

393 380 445 534 538 438 669 488

1.6.51 1.6.52 1.6.53 1.6.54 1.6.55 1.6.56 1.6.57 1.11.16 1.16.3 1.17.18 1.18.8

221 274 454 655 741 695 192 740 988 800 712

25 Oct 1228 20 Feb 1229 17 May 1230 15 May 1231 10 Nov 1231 4 Aug 1231 22 Mar 1228 12 Nov 1231 9 Dec 1232 23 Jun 1232 10 Sep 1231

2.14.10 2.18.3 2.19.15 2.22.12 2.24.34 2.25.9 2.25.10 2.25.11 2.28.67 2.28.68 2.28.69

1.29.38 512

20 Oct 1230

3.4.16

Date

X

Reg

Date

3.32.19 3.32.20 3.33.2 3.38.31 3.39.25 3.40.9 3.40.10 3.49.9

110 500 298 205 654 1324 1324 1324

8 Jun 1227 4 Oct 1230 16 May 1229 3 Jul 1228 17 May 1231 21 May 1233 21 May 1233 21 May 1233

353 756 349 573 1010 46 302 487 390 402 511

28 Jan 1230 28 Nov 1229 27 Apr 1230 27 Jan 1231 23 Jan 1231 13 Apr 1230 18 Jun 1231 (26 Aug– 11 Sep 1230) 28 Sep 1229 21 Jan 1232 6 Oct 1229 7 Mar 1231 20 Dec 1232 22 Apr 1227 28 May 1229 26 Aug 1230 18 Jan 1230 30 Jan 1230 31 Oct 1230

3.49.10 4.1.29 4.1.30 4.11.8 4.13.11 5.1.26 5.1.27 5.3.44 5.6.18 5.7.14 5.7.15

1987 719 1009 117 805 787 52 736 733 219 539

348

26 Sep 1229

5.22.4 686

26 Jun 1234 29 Aug 1231 20 Dec 1232 23 Jun 1227 7 Jul 1232 3 Apr 1232 27 Apr 1227 4 Nov 1231 20 Oct 1231 3 Oct 1228 (23 Jan– 6 Feb 1231) 26 Jul 1231

75 The extravagantes include texts from Gregory himself, whose impact on the development of canon law was not exhausted by his compilation of the Liber extra: M. Bertram, ‘Die Extravaganten Gregors IX. und Innozenz’ IV’, ZSSRG.KA, 92 (2006), 1–44. 76 The proper telling of this story will depend, however, on adherence to the more exacting and elaborate set of description criteria elaborated by Bertram: ‘Die Überlieferung des Liber Extra mit Ausflügen ins Allgemeine’, in Rechtshandschriften des deutschen Mittelalters: Produktionisorte und Importwege, ed. P. Carmassi and G. Drossbach, Wolfenbüttler Mittelalter-Studien, 29 (Wiesbaden, 2015), 285–302, at 291–2.

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X

Reg

Date

X

Reg

1.30.8 1.31.19 1.33.13 1.33.14 1.33.15 1.33.16 1.33.17 1.38.10 1.38.11

55 551 346 668 645 783 790 16 630

24 Apr 1227 14 Feb 1231 28 Sep 1229 26 May 1231 12 May 1231 20 Mar 1232 29 Mar 1232 7 Apr 1227 26 Apr 1231

3.5.35 3.5.36 3.19.9 3.21.8 3.23.2 3.23.3 3.26.17 3.26.18 3.31.23

323 672 737 649 775 794 697 245 572

1.41.8

399

7 Feb 1230

3.31.24 1667

Date 17 Jul 1229 7 May 1231 20 Oct 1231 9 May 1231 11 Feb 1232 28 May 1232 21 Jul 1231 16 Nov 1228 (7—18 Mar 1231) 23 Dec 1233

X 5.27.9 5.31.16 5.31.17 5.31.18 5.33.31 5.36.8 5.39.55 5.40.33

Reg 46 707 707 810 475 571 1324 681

Date 22 Apr 1227 23 Aug 1231 23 Aug 1231 23 June 1232 28 Jun 1230 18 Mar 1231 21 May 1233 9 Jul 1231

About the Author Edward A. Reno III is Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Adelphi University, USA. His PhD thesis (Columbia University, 2011) was entitled ‘The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s editing of the ‘Decretals of Gregory IX’ (1234). He has published articles in Traditio, the Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, and the Proceedings of the International Congress of Medieval Canon Law.

12. Gregory IX and Rome: Artistic Patronage, Ceremonies and Ritual Space Claudia Bolgia

Abstract Literature on Gregory IX’s patronage has hitherto considered the façade mosaics of Old St Peter’s as his ‘only known enterprise’ in Rome. Previously overlooked sources (both documentary and epigraphic), combined with a fresh analysis of architectural and material evidence, lead us to demonstrate that his attention to the City was much more wide-ranging and of a far greater scope: from churches to welfare structures and urban infrastructures, including a poorhouse, the major bridge of Rome and a sewer system for the viability of the streets; from buildings in the Patriarchio to a stauroteca for the Holy Cross, from textiles to the finest manuscripts; from the commission of a monumental bell for the promotion of the Vatican, not to mention his intervention in favour of the Franciscans. Furthermore, grandly orchestrated processions throughout the city played just as an important role as the ‘patronage’ itself in shaping the Rome of Gregory IX. Keywords: Vatican, Lateran, processions, icons, relics

It is often stated that ‘the façade mosaics of Old Saint Peter’s are Gregory IX’s only known enterprise in Rome’.1 Such a statement, and those analogous to it, * I am most grateful to Brenda Bolton for reading an earlier version of this essay, providing invaluable suggestions. I also wish to thank Hendrick Dey and Giovanni Curatola for generous e-mail exchanges and bibliographical references. 1 K. Queijo, ‘Il mosaico della facciata di San Pietro in Vaticano, 1227–41’, in La pittura medievale a Roma. Corpus e Atlante, Corpus IV (Il Duecento e la Cultura Gotica), ed. S. Romano (Milan, 2012), 113–16.

Smith, D.J. (ed.), Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authority. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi 10.5117/9789463724364_ch12

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do not surprise in as much as the façade mosaics of the Vatican basilica were ‘one of the most prominent of all papal decorative campaigns throughout the thirteenth century’,2 and have thus succeeded in overshadowing the memory of any other instance of Gregory’s patronage for the city. Indeed, recent research – based, inter alia, on the discovery of hitherto overlooked sources – has unveiled several neglected aspects of the mosaics. This in turn has led to a reappraisal of relic distribution in Old Saint Peter’s, ultimately leading to a new interpretation of the façade as ‘an extraordinary dense manifesto of both Gregory IX’s ecclesiology and eschatology, as well as of his idea of the role of a changing Church – and of the pope as its leader – in guiding the faithful on the right path both on earth and to Heaven’.3 Despite the undoubted importance of the Vatican campaign, Gregory’s patronage and attention for the Urbe was far from being limited to it alone. After all, during his fourteen-year pontificate he devoted energy and financial resources to several significant building campaigns outside Rome and it would have been surprising had he only focused on one single enterprise in the Eternal City. Amongst his initiatives outside the Urbe, we ought at least to mention the foundation of the Basilica of St Francis at Assisi (which went hand in hand with the canonization of the poverello in 1228), and the construction of an annexed papal residence, a ‘magnum palatium’ in which ‘plures erant camera et diverticula multa’, in the words of Salimbene de Adam.4 This palace is particularly important as the first thirteenth-century papal residence to have been built in one single campaign and ex novo, rather than being an adaptation or extension of pre-existing structures.5 Equally well known, amongst the numerous building campaigns, is the extension of the papal palace at Anagni, Gregory’s native city.6 The enterprise was so 2 J. Gardner, The Roman Crucible: the artistic patronage of the papacy, 1198–1304 (Munich, 2013), 228. 3 C. Bolgia, ‘Jerusalem in Rome: new light on the façade mosaics of Gregory IX (1227–41) and Passion relics in Old St Peter’s’, Gesta 61, 2 (2022), 153–93. 4 Salimbene de Adam, Cronica, ed. G. Scalia, in CCCM, CXXV/I-II (Turnhout, 1998–99), i, 247–8: ‘[…] in palatio gregoriano […] fecerat enim papa Gregorius nonus magnum palatium fieri in loco fratrum minorum de Assisio, tum propter ad honorem beati Francisci, tum etiam ut ibi habitaret, quando veniret Assisium. In illo ergo palatio plures erant camera et diverticula multa […]’. For Gregory IX and the Basilica of Assisi, see W. Schenkluhn, La basilica di San Francesco in Assisi: ecclesia specialis. La visione di papa Gregorio IX di un rinnovamento della Chiesa (Milan, 1994); E. Neri Lusanna, ‘Gregorio IX e l’architettura: questioni aperte sulla basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi’, in Gregorio IX e gli Ordini mendicanti, Atti del XXXVIII Convegno internazionale Assisi, 7–9 October 2010 (Fondazione del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo) (Spoleto, 2011), 381–99. 5 For the palatium gregorianum see A. Monciatti, Il Palazzo Vaticano nel Medioevo (Florence, 2005), 49–56. 6 G. Carbonara with A. Bianchi, ‘Sul cosiddetto Palazzo di Bonifacio VIII in Anagni. Dalla storia al restauro’, Palladio n.s. 2 (1989), 19–60; Monciatti, Il Palazzo Vaticano, 39–42.

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impressive that the palace was described as resembling a ‘royal residence’ by contemporary sources.7 Following the example of both his predecessors, Gregory IX was frequently resident outside Rome (indeed, the Curia spent more than sixty percent of his pontificate outside the City),8 and his patronage partly reflects this. Near the rivers of Terni, he planted many trees and had a palace built with many commodities, appropriate for papal use.9 Amongst his numerous commissions, he provided towers and walls for several fortresses across the Patrimony, including Ostia, Montefiascone and Radicofani.10 Turning back to Rome, previously overlooked sources allow us to shed new light, not only on Gregory IX’s artistic and architectural patronage but also his concern for the city, demonstrated through a subtle ability to mobilize crowds by organizing processions and using relics and images. So impressively implemented were these skills, as we shall see, that he might well have learned them from his cousin in the third degree, Innocent III, an extraordinary impresario and past master at ‘advertising messages’.11 As a first observation we ought to note that Gregory’s biography, unquestionably biased in its depiction of Frederick II (written as it was in 1240, in the aftermath of the 1239 excommunication), can be safely considered reliable in its relatively more neutral account of the papal building and artistic enterprises. Some problems arise from the dating of such activities since several episodes in the Life are not presented in the correct chronological order, but there is no reason to doubt the accounts themselves.12 One of the urgent concerns of the pope in the City was the Lateran area, the seat of the Papal Palace or Patriarchio. His first action there was that of a ‘destroyer’, rather than of a builder: ‘near the Lateran, he demolished […] the towers and palaces of certain noble Romans which diminished its majesty and constituted an obstacle to its view’.13 He subsequently ‘erected towering buildings (domos altissimas) and a noble palace (palatium nobile) 7 Ibid., 39. 8 Ibid., 36. A. Paravicini Bagliani, ‘La mobilità della curia romana nel secolo XIII. Riflessi locali’, in Società e istituzioni dell’Italia comunale: l’esempio di Perugia (secoli XII–XIV), 2 vols (Perugia, 1988), i, 155–278, esp. Appendix I at 225–46. 9 A. Spataro, ‘Velud fulgor meridianus’, La vita di papa Gregorio IX. Edizione, traduzione e commento, Vita e Pensiero , Ordines. Studi su istituzioni e società nel medioevo europeo (Milan, 2018), 108. 10 Ibid., 81, 109, and 151. 11 B. Bolton, ‘Advertise the Message: images in Rome at the turn of the twelfth century’, Studies in Church History 28, The Church and the Arts, ed. D. Wood (Oxford, 1992), 117–30; Bolton, ‘A Show with a Meaning: Innocent III’s approach to the Fourth Lateran council, 1215’, in eadem, Innocent III: studies on papal authority and pastoral care (Aldershot, 1995), 53–67. 12 J. Marx, Die Vita Gregorii IX. quellenkritisch untersuchen (Berlin, 1889), 9–11. 13 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 84, ‘In Laterano vero turres et palatia quorundam nobilium Romanorum, que auctoritatem dedecorabant et eius prospectui prestabant obstaculum… evertit’.

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for the use of the poor in the Lateran Palace’.14 The papal biographer places this campaign in the third year of Gregory’s pontificate (1230), when – as winter approached – the pope returned from Anagni to Rome, welcomed by the exultant Roman people. It is possible, however, that the domus altissimae were built in 1234, as a form of fortification following the rebellion of the Romans against the pope.15 Even more than fortifications, nevertheless, the use of the superlative ‘highest’ indicates towering buildings. Interestingly, Gregory IX ordered the demolition of baronial palaces which obstructed the view of the Lateran palace and diminished its majestic appearance, whilst building new, towering edifices which clearly augmented its awe-inspiring visual power. His intervention seems to have been, at least in part, dictated by the desire to demonstrate power and authority through impressive monumental buildings. His authority was constantly under attack both within and without Rome, especially since the Romans were to raise troops several times against the pontiff in support of Frederick II, who had already been excommunicated by Honorius III in 1227 and would be again in 1239 by Gregory IX himself. As for the ‘noble palace built for the use of the poor’, Alberto Spataro has recently proposed that this may have been built to serve the ‘hospitale cum ecclesia sancti Nycholai iuxta portam Sancti Iohannis’, mentioned in a 1228 privilege confirming the properties of the Chapter of the Lateran basilica.16 This suggestion, however, appears far-fetched as the hospital in the privilege is clearly distinct and somewhat distant (being located near St John’s Gate) from the Lateran Palace. We propose here an alternative hypothesis, namely, that the ‘noble palace for the use of the poor’ ‘in Lateranensi Palatio’ is to be identified with one of the earliest buildings of the complex of the Lateran Hospital. Scholars have hitherto identified extant thirteenth-century buildings but no documentary evidence which predates the fourteenth century.17 Of these buildings, one is a large rectangular hall of ca. 20 x 9.5 m (Fig. 1, nr 1), with the interior articulated by diaphragm arches, and four rectangular buttresses on the exterior of the south side (the long and only visible side) (Fig. 2). The 14 Ibid., 90, ‘in Lateranensi palatio domos construxit altissimas et palatium nobile pauperum usibus deputatum’. 15 Monciatti, Il Palazzo Vaticano, 24. 16 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 162. For the privilege see J. Johrendt, ‘Die Statuten des regulierten Laterankapitels im 13. Jahrhundert. Mit einer Edition der Statuten Gregors IX. (1228) und Nikolaus’ IV. (1290)’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 86 (2006), 95–143, at 121. 17 S.M. Trenti, ‘L’Ospedale dell’Angelo al Laterano’, Arte Medievale, n.s. 2 (2003), i, 83–105, with reference to previous bibliography.

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Fig. 1 Rome, Lateran Hospital, map: 1. ward; 2. portico [From Giovannoni, ‘Restauri’, p. 483]

Fig. 2 Rome, Lateran Hospital, ward, south side (photo: author)

façade (Figs 3 and 4) is made of brickwork on the exterior (with occasional lines of small tufa blocks, i.e., tufelli), is crowned by a straight saw-toothed brick and marble cornice, and displays a central oculus surrounded by decorative ceramic bacini (glazed pottery bowls), two small windows, and a large entrance opening (now partly blocked) with a high arch. The arch was

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Fig. 3 Rome, Lateran Hospital, ward, façade (photo: author)

probably raised and given this shape in the mid-fourteenth century, if the fine marble portal now at the entrance of the historical complex (bearing the date 1348) was made for the hall, as has been suggested.18 The insertion of ceramic bacini too is also generally considered to be the consequence of a fourteenth-century alteration.19 A number of technical details, in particular the fact that the façade is made of brickwork whilst the counter-façade is in tufelli, find comparison in a small group of Roman buildings dating from the 18 A. Canezza, Gli arcispedali di Roma nella vita cittadina, nella storia e nell’arte (San Casciano Val di Pesa, 1933), 194, and generally accepted in subsequent studies. The portal still bears the inscription ‘Hoc opus inchoatum fuit tempore guardianatus Francisci Vecchi et Francisci Rosani Priorum sub Anno Domini MCCCXLVIII indi(cti)one s(e)c(un)da mensis Sept(embris).’ Forcella, Le iscrizioni delle chiese, VIII, 131 n. 338. It is probable that ‘this work’ refers not simply to the portal but to a larger campaign of restoration and decoration. 19 Trenti, ‘L’Ospedale dell’Angelo’, 86.

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Fig. 4 Rome, Lateran Hospital, ward, façade, upper part (photo: author)

1210s to the 1280s.20 But what allows for a more circumscribed dating to the first half of the thirteenth century are the features of the façade, comparable with the front wall of the Hospital of the Knights of St John in Trajan’s Market (dated before 1207), combined with the fact that the inner wall of the long east side was built just before the counter-façade as it is bonded with it.21 The function of the hall can be identified with a hospital ward, on the basis of typological parallels with similar buildings, such as the infirmary of the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova.22 In an attempt to identify documentary evidence for the construction of the Lateran ward, Sara Maria Trenti revises the information given by Onofrio Panvinio, the sixteenth-century antiquarian, who – according to her – ‘attributes to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna (d. 1245) the foundation in 20 Ibid., 90. 21 Ibid., 100; N. Bernacchio, ‘L’Ospedale dei Giovanniti nel Foro di Traiano e l’architettura ospedaliera a Roma nel tardo Medioevo’, in L’Ordine templare nel Lazio meridionale, ed. C. Ciammaruconi, Atti del Convegno Sabaudia 21 ottobre 2000 (Casamari, 2004), 247–74 for a parallel with the Hospital of the Knights of St John. 22 The identification of the structure as a ward was first proposed by Gustavo Giovannoni, who was responsible for the restoration campaign of the building: idem, ‘Restauri nell’Ospedale di S. Giovanni a Roma’, Bollettino d’Arte, 10 (1931), 481–90. Subsequently contested (the building was implausibly thought to be a church), the identification was re-confirmed by Trenti, ‘L’Ospedale dell’Angelo’, 100.

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1216 of hospitales domos for the use of the poor and pilgrims at the Lateran, which were placed occidentem versus (thus exactly where the building under examination is located)’.23 Whilst the argument is confusing (Panvinio never ascribed the foundation to 1216),24 we cannot rule out that the cardinal built the first hospital houses at the Lateran, but this does not mean that we should identify such structures with the extant ample hall at the Lateran, as tentatively suggested by Trenti.25 It is proposed here that the information according to which Gregory IX built a ‘noble palace for the use of the poor’ at the Lateran, hitherto overlooked and never – to my knowledge – associated by scholars with the surviving ward, may help to find a more probable patron and a more restricted chronological window (the pontificate of Gregory IX, possibly after 1235) for the thirteenthcentury hall. It is further suggested here that the monumental portico of the Lateran hospital (Fig. 5), standing to the north of the hall (Fig. 1, nr 2), also ascribed to the thirteenth century on the grounds of masonry analysis and parallels with similar structures (dating between the end of the twelfth century and 1230),26 was equally part of Gregory IX’s campaign. The portico, 7 m deep originally, consists of eight spolia columns with pulvins supporting a straight entablature. The south pier was decorated ab origine with a ceramic bacino, of which only the imprint and the surrounding brickwork ferrule survive. Although the five-by-five masonry module and formal parallels with similar portici clearly indicate a thirteenth-century date, Trenti suggested that the portico may perhaps be dated to the Trecento on the basis of the presence, above the fifth column from the left, of a fourteenth-century marble insignia of the Confraternity of the Raccomandati del Santissimo Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum (Fig. 6).27 This, however, is clearly inserted in the space 23 Ibid, 83. 24 Ibid., 102 n. 8. Trenti cites Panvinio from Ph. Lauer, Le Palais de Latran (Paris, 1911), 490. But see O. Panvinio, Le sette chiese di Roma (Rome, 1570), 197–8. 25 Trenti, ‘L’Ospedale dell’Angelo’, 83–104. 26 The first to suggest a thirteenth-century date was Giovannoni, ‘Restauri nell’Ospedale’, 481–90. The dating is confirmed by the fresh analysis of Trenti, ‘L’Ospedale dell’Angelo’, 99. 27 Ibid., 98–9 for the thirteenth-century date and 100 for the fourteenth-century date. On the Confraternity’s use of the insignia see the article of K. Noreen, ‘Sacred Memory and Confraternal Space: the insignia of the Confraternity of the Santissimo Salvatore (Rome)’, Roma felix – Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome, ed. É. Ó. Carragàin and C. Neuman de Vegvar (Aldershot, 2007), 159–88, who, on the question of dating (168, n. 28) refers to Trenti. See also P. Helas, ‘L’autorappresentazione dell’Ospedale del SS. Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum nelle arti visive del Tre e Quattrocento’, in Tra Campidoglio e Curia. L’Ospedale del SS. Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum tra Medioevo ed età moderna, ed. P. Helas and P. Tosini (Milan 2017), 91–108. The Trecento date is repeated more assertively (but with no additional arguments) by F. Gandolfo, ‘L’aspetto architettonico dell’antico Ospedale dell’Angelo’, in Tra Campidoglio e Curia, 65–77, at 72.

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Fig. 5 Rome, Lateran Hospital, portico on Via Santo Stefano Rotondo (photo: author)

Fig. 6 Rome, Lateran Hospital, portico on Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, fourteenth-century insignia of the Confraternity of the Raccomandati del Santissimo Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum (photo: author)

between two relieving arches and may well have been inserted later (when the Confraternity took control of this part of the via Maior), perhaps replacing an earlier marble plaque with dating inscription. Thus, the Confraternity insignia cannot be taken as a dating element.

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The portico, which – inter alia – may have had the function of sheltering pilgrims, the sick and poor in need of care and those awaiting admission to the hospital, faced the via Maior and thus offered an impressive view for anyone travelling along this main artery from the monastery of SS Quattro Coronati towards the Patriarchio.28 The via Maior, as is well known, served as backdrop to the most grandiose processions of medieval Rome, including those for the Assumption feast (which had the Acheropita icon as protagonist) and the papal Ordinatio or coronation, a ritual wherein the newly elected pope was formally ordained through a series of ceremonies first at the Lateran and then at the Vatican (including the reception of the pallium at the latter where it had rested overnight on St Peter’s tomb).29 First recorded at the end of the eighth century (under Leo IX), this procession traversed the city from the Lateran to the Vatican and then returned to the Lateran, connecting the two papal basilicas ritually as it passed along the via Maior, the via Sacra, and the via Papalis.30 28 On the Via Maior, Krautheimer, Rome: profile of a city, 248, 257, 278, 321; C. Bolgia, ‘La via Lata e la via Maior tra processioni e trasformazioni dello spazio urbano nei secoli XII-XIV: nuovi dati e nuove proposte’, in Viae Urbis. La strada a Roma nel Medioevo, a cura di L. Barelli, M. Gianandrea, S. Passigli (Rome, in press). 29 Liber Censuum, i, 311–3, no. xlviii: ‘Quomodo debeat summus pontifex eligi; et sive eligatur in urbe, seu electus et consecratus, vel electus et non consecratus ad urbem accedat, quid faciendum postmodum sit’, deals with how the pope should be received on different occasions. The main sources on the procession are the Liber Politicus of Canon Benedict of Saint Peter’s, dated c.1140; the Gesta pauperis scolaris of Albino of 1189, and the Liber Censuum of Cencius (1190s,) published in LC, i, 290–314; ii, 87–137, and 141–59, respectively. On these sources with particular reference to the campus lateranensis in the papal ceremonial, see I. Herklotz, Gli eredi di Costantino. Il papato, il Laterano e la propaganda visiva nel XII secolo (Rome, 2000), 41–57. On the Assumption procession, from an extensive bibliography see at least, H. Belting, Likeness and Presence: a history of the image before the era of art, trans. by E. Jephcott (Chicago and London, 1994), 323–9; Bolton, ‘Advertise the Message’, 117–30; and, in the Trecento, Noreen, ‘Sacred Memory’, 159–88. On papal Ordinationes, de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, i, 198–200, 319–23; ii, 608–11, 725–32. The procession from the Lateran to the Vatican is usually referred to by the Italian legal term possesso in scholarship (meaning that the pope ‘took possession’ of both the Lateran and the Vatican, and thus, took charge of the Church), but there is no mention of any equivalent or analogous Latin term in medieval sources, which instead describe the papal journey from the Lateran to the Vatican simply as ‘processio’, thus placing the emphasis on the processional aspect of the ceremony (Liber Censuum, i, 313, for instance). De Blaauw identifies the first use of the term possessio in a text on the coronation of Urban VI in 1378 (idem., Cultus et Decor, 321 n. 287), therefore it seems more appropriate to use the word procession for the earlier period. 30 For bibliography on papal ceremonial, see E.H. Kantorowicz, Laudes regiae: a study in liturgical acclamations and medieval ruler worship, University of California Publications in History 33 (Berkeley CA, 1946); S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley CA-London, 1981); eadem, ‘Change and Continuity in Late Antiquity: the ceremony of Adventus’, Historia, 21 (1972); S. Twyman, Papal Ceremonial at Rome in the Twelfth Century, Henry Bradshaw Society,

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Hendrick Dey calls via Papalis the full route, from the Lateran to the Vatican, and discusses how it came to replace the via Triumphalis as the main processional route of medieval Rome.31 Whilst I concur with his main arguments, I have preserved the term ‘via Maior’ to indicate the first tract of the route. The question of terminology is complex and will be discussed elsewhere. It will suffice to notice here that the Liber Politicus of Canon Benedict, for instance, under the heading of the Station at Saint Peter’s, describes the first tract of the route from the Lateran to the Vatican as ‘via maior’, but terms the full route back as ‘via sacra’ (giving detailed indications of the various monuments on the route), and equally calls the final length of it (from the Colosseum to the Lateran, which he had termed ‘via maior’ earlier) simply as ‘sacra via’: ‘[…] et per sacram viam iuxta Coliseum revertitur ad Lateranum’.32 Not only did the portico render the last part (or first, depending on provenance) of the via Maior more monumental, creating a processional route more appropriate for the papal performance, but it may also have functioned as a locus for people to gather and watch the procession as it moved from the Lateran to the Vatican and back again. We know from several sources that the processions were attended by most of the population, including both individuals and groups (the scholae, the Jews) that lined the streets.33 The pope was hailed with acclamations as he approached the Lateran,34 and the portico may have functioned as a privileged viewpoint to watch the first and final moments of the procession. These processions clearly served to express papal power visually in the context of Rome. Gregory IX, whose use of processions to mobilize crowds reveals him as a sapient and subtle organizer of such ceremonies, as we shall see, is therefore an excellent candidate for the commission of the portico. The latter certainly constituted a ‘noble’ entrance to the hall, and thus the portico and hall together tally well with the biographer’s passage according to which the pope built a ‘noble palace for the poor’. Subsidia iv (London, 2002), 41–54. On the ceremonial routes between Saint Peter’s and the Lateran, see also C. Wickham, Roma medievale. Crisi e stabilità di una città, 900–1150 (Rome 2013), 375–440. On the urban remodelling associated with the establishment of the processional route from the Lateran to the Vatican see the important article by F. Guidobaldi, ‘Un estesissimo intervento urbanistico nella Roma dell’inizio del XII secolo e la parziale perdita della “memoria topografica” della città antica’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Moyen Áge, 126 no. 2 (2014), 599–601. 31 H. W. Dey, ‘Landscape Change and Ceremonial Praxis in Medieval Rome: from the via Triumphalis to the Via Papalis’, in Landscapes of Pre-Industrial Urbanism, ed. G. Farhat (Washington D.C., 2020), 61–88. 32 Liber Censuum, ii, 154. 33 Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, 189–96. 34 Ibid., 208–9.

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Lacking conclusive evidence, the possibility that the hall and portico are a commission of Gregory IX must remain a matter of conjecture for the moment, but our proposal has the merit of presenting a thirteenth-century source which can be plausibly associated with the extant coeval buildings. A recent publication, ignoring all previous archaeological analyses dating hall and portico to the first half of the thirteenth century, has gone so far as to ascribe both structures to the Trecento on the grounds that a thirteenth-century dating ‘is entirely lacking a solid documentary support’.35 In Gregory IX’s Life we have identified this sound documentary support. It is worth adding that Gregory IX already had a proven record in hospital building and support for the poor. As cardinal bishop of Ostia, he erected ‘a hospital for the poor endowed with many possessions near the city gate of Anagni’.36 The institution of this hospital, near the church of S. Aussenzio, dates back to 1208, and its independence from the bishop of Anagni was reconfirmed during his pontificate in 1234.37 His initiative in support of the poor and sick at the Lateran also created an appropriate counterpart to the foundation of the hospital of Santo Spirito at the Vatican by his distant relative, Innocent III.38 Apart from Old Saint Peter’s, the biography of Gregory IX is silent on papal interventions concerning Roman churches. A different type of sources, however, fills the gap: inscriptions, both extant and lost but recorded by antiquarians. Torrigio and Ciacconio transcribed the text of a lengthy inscription formerly in the church of S. Adriano in the Roman Forum (the ancient Curia Senatus, which had been turned into a church by Pope Honorius I in the seventh century). It mentioned that Pope Gregory IX consecrated S. Adriano in 1228, following the finding of the bodies of Marius, Martha and the holy three boys in the church.39 Unfortunately, nothing 35 Gandolfo, ‘L’aspetto architettonico’, 72: ‘è del tutto priva di un concreto supporto documentario’. 36 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 80: ‘[…] in porta civitatis Anagnie ad usus pauperum hospitale multarum possessionum largitione ditatum’. 37 Letter of 26 August 1208 inserted into a letter of 22 March 1234 to the bishop of Anagni: Auvray, nos 1839 and 1840, cols 1005–10; W. Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III. (Vienna, 1984), 154–62, 127, n. 15 (26 August 1208): ‘[…] ad honorem Dei et beate Marie semper Virginis et Sancti Antonii ad subsidium peregrinorum et pauperum et possessiones augere ac hospitale construere iuxta Cruciferorum disponitis instituta’. 38 Gesta Innocentii PP. III, in PL, ccxiv, cols 17-238, at CXLIV, cols 200–203. The only modern edition is D. Gress-Wright, The ‘Gesta Innocentii III’: text, introduction and commentary, unpublished PhD, Bryn Mawr College, PA, 1981 and (Ann Arbor MI, 1994), 344–5. See also The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author, trans. J. M. Powell (Washington DC, 2004), 258–9, 267; B.M. Bolton, ‘“Received in His Name”: Rome’s busy baby box’, Studies in Church History, 31: The Church and Childhood, ed. Diana Wood, (Oxford, 1994), 153–67. 39 The best edition of the inscription is in A. Holst Blennow, The Latin Consecrative Inscriptions in Prose of Churches and Altars in Rome 1046-1263 (Rome, 2011), 145–54.

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Fig. 7 Rome, S. Eusebio, porch, marble inscription recording the consecration of the church by Gregory IX in 1238 (photo: author)

survives of that church, following sixteenth- and seventeenth-century remodelling, and a ripristino campaign in the 1930s aimed at restoring the original appearance of the Curia. 40 A surviving marble slab (Fig. 7) in S. Eusebio on the Esquiline hill, not far from S. Maria Maggiore, records that in 1238 Gregory IX consecrated ‘the church in honour of Sts. Eusebius and Vincent, with three altars, of which the main altar, of the very same confessor, he [the pope] consecrated with his own hands’.41 We are reminded of the image of Gregory IX consecrating the altar of St Gregory in the frescoes of Subiaco, reproduced on the cover of this volume. 40 P.C. Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, 1050–1300, vol. 1 (A–F), Corpus Cosmatorum, II, 1, (Stuttgart, 2002), 20–38, with bibliography. For a discussion of Gregory IX’s intervention see C. Bolgia: Gregorio IX e Roma: Arte, processioni e reliquie tra Costantinopoli e la Terra Santa (Rome, in press). 41 + Ann(o) D(omi)ni MCCXXXVIII, indictio(n)e XI m(en)se | martii, quarta feria maioris edomade quadra | gesime, d(omi)n(u)s Gregorius p(a)p(a) nonus c(on)secravit | hanc ecclesia(m) in honore beatorum Eusebii et | Vincentii, cum tribus altaribus. Quorum | maius altare confessoris ip(s)i(us) manibus pro | priis consecravit, statuens ut om(n)i anno | a quarta feria maioris edomade quadra | gesime usque ad octavam d(omi)nice resurrecti | onis hanc eccl(esi)am visitantes millis annis | et centu(m) viginti dieru(m) de iniunta sibi peni | tentia indulgentiam consequantur. Blennow, The Latin Consecrative Inscriptions, 154–7; Claussen, Kirchen, vol. 1 (A-F), 444–53; a full discussion of Gregory’s campaign is in Bolgia, Gregorio IX e Roma, in press.

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Whilst the papal biography is grudging of information concerning churches, it is surprisingly informative about infrastructures. According to the Chronicle of Richard of San Germano, when the pope was in Perugia on 1 February 1230, Rome was hit by a severe inundation with Tiber floods reaching a great part of the city as far as Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul outside the walls. 42 The devastating flood is also recorded by the anonymous papal biographer and described in rhetorical terms as a divine punishment against the Romans who were oppressing the autonomy of the Apostolic See (libertas sedis apostolice) and ravaging throughout the Patrimony. The author of the Life writes, in his hyperbolic prose, that ‘the Lord opened the cataracts of heaven and the flood of the Tiber rose in the houses up to the roofs, killing men and beasts, ruining grain and vine, and dragging beds and masses of great vessels to the sea […]’. 43 As a consequence, a terrible pestilence followed. Amongst the ensuing urban interventions by Gregory IX, the biographer records the restoration of the Pons Sancta Maria (the ancient Pons Aemilius), connecting the area of S. Maria in Cosmedin with the southern end of Trastevere (Fig. 8). Today called the Ponte Rotto, this bridge was known in the early Middle Ages as Pons Maior, the Great Bridge, presumably for both its size and importance. 44 The papal biographer also describes a significant campaign of hydraulic engineering: ‘since certain streets of the City had become almost inaccessible from the accumulation of putrefying mud because of the presence of hollows to the great detriment of the suffering citizens, the generous father ordered to have those sewers built that the Romans call clavicas: through their great openings they take care of the air and the street, making the putrid mud flow in a salubrious manner’. 45 Presumably the pontiff restored part of the old Roman system, but the biographer’s information is significant as it is generally assumed that, ‘from the fifth century on, the elaborate system of drains and sewers that had facilitated drainage and clean-up in the aftermath of floods gradually ceased to function’. 46 This must have been by and large true, as numerous archaeologically attested instances of clogged pipes and sewers indicate, 47 but with Gregory IX we have a rare – and as far as I am aware, overlooked – documented instance of papal attention to the viability of the city. 42 Ryccardi de Sancto Germano Notarii, Chronica, ed. C.A. Garufi (Bologna, 1936–1938), RISS, new ed., 7/II, 165, under the year 1230. 43 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 92. 44 R. Krautheimer, Rome: profile of a city, 312–1308 (Princeton NJ, 1980), 238. 45 Spataro, Velud fulgor, 94. 46 Dey, ‘Landscape Change’, 72. 47 Ibid., 85 no. 22.

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Fig. 8 Alessandro Strozzi, Plan of Rome, 1474, pen drawing (Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana , Cod. Redi 77, fols 7v-8r) with notable sites of Gregory IX in red circles: 1. Lateran cathedral and papal palace; 2. St Peter’s (with prominent bell tower); 3. Pons Sancta Maria; 4. Santa Maria del Popolo; 5. S. Adriano; 6. S. Eusebio

The biographer places the reconstruction of the façade of Saint Peter’s (which was raised and provided with a cavetto before being clad with mosaics) after the return of the pope at the end of February 1230.48 As we have said, chronological information from the biographer needs to be treated with caution, but it is possible that work at Saint Peter’s began then and was undertaken throughout the 1230s. In addition to a new façade mosaic, Gregory provided Saint Peter’s with a bell ‘of admirable pre-eminence superseding any other in the Urbe in size and power of the sound’. 49 The significance of the gift can be fully appreciated only if placed within that soundscape of medieval Rome – campanae supra Urbem – so finely reconstructed by Sible 48 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 94: ‘Tunc in basilica vero Apostolorum principis in maioris porte vestibulo parietem altitudine pregrandi erectum vestivit lapide deaurato nobilium imaginum decore distinctum’. 49 Ibid.

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de Blaauw.50 It is possible that the bell-founder was the same Bartholomeus of Pisa, who in 1238 cast the bell for S. Cosimato in Trastevere, which had been given to the Damianites (the future Poor Clares) by Gregory IX himself in 1234.51 Bartholomeus and his son Loteringius were responsible in 1239 for six bells (a large one and five smaller) for the basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi, whose ‘harmony of sound, resonated throughout the valley’, in the evocative account of Salimbene.52 Bartholomeus seems to have established his base in Rome as he cast the bell for the Dominicans of Santa Sabina in the same year,53 and thus probably played an important role in the ‘market’ for bells in the Urbe in those years. Since Honorius III (1216–1227) had only recently donated a large bell to the Lateran cathedral,54 the gift of a greater bell to Saint Peter’s by Gregory IX seems to have been a move towards the promotion of Saint Peter’s over the Lateran as part of a long-standing competition between the two basilicas.55 The verse inscription on Gregory’s façade mosaic also stressed the Vatican primacy: “+ CEU SOL FERVESCIT SIDUS SUPER OMNE NITESCIT | ET VELUT EST AURUM RUTILANS SUPER OMNE METALLUM | DOCTRINA ATQUE FIDE CALET ET SIC POLLET UBIQUE | ISTA DOMUS PETRAM SUPER FABRICATA QUIETAM.’56 That is, ‘As the sun shines above every star | and as gold gleams above every metal | just so this house, built upon an immovable stone, | burns with doctrine and faith, and prevails everywhere.’ The choice of words is particularly significant. The adjective quieta qualifying the stone on which the Church is built (and, ultimately, Peter), is rich in connotations: as the past participle of quiescere, its meaning is immobile and unshakable (thus solid) as well as peaceful. The verses referred to the universal primacy of the Roman Church (‘prevails everywhere’) as 50 Sible de Blaauw, ‘Campanae supra urbem: sull’uso delle campane nella Roma medievale’, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, 47 (1993), ii, 367–415. 51 K. Bull-Simonsen Einaudi and J. Barclay Lloyd, SS. Cosma e Damiano in Mica Aurea: Architettura, storia e storiografia di un monastero romano soppresso (Rome, 1998), 134. 52 Salimbene de Adam, Cronica, ii, 155. The commission by Brother Elias and the signature of the bronze-casters was inscribed on two bells: de Blaauw, ‘Campanae’, 376 and 414. See also J. Gardner, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls: a Franciscan bell-founder, Franciscan bells and a Franciscan patron in late thirteenth-century Rome’, in Medioevo: i committenti, Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Parma 21–26 September 2010 (Milan, 2011), 460–8. 53 de Blaauw, ‘Campanae’, 376 and 413. 54 Ibid., 377. 55 The rivalry had existed for much of the twelfth century: Bolton, ‘Advertise the Message’, 117–18. 56 This is the reading in the 1494 Sylloge of Petrus Sabinus, which differs from Giacomo Grimaldi’s later transcription. For a full discussion of the inscription and its relation to the mosaic programme see Bolgia, ‘Jerusalem in Rome’, 189–90.

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embodied by Saint Peter’s. It was a powerful statement about the stability of the peaceful and unshakable Roman Church (at a time of great instability), and its triumph through doctrine and faith (at a time of apostasy and heresy). In order further to promote the basilica, Gregory IX tripled the number of indulgences that could be obtained there. Since the pontificate of Innocent III, these already amounted to one year and forty days (in accordance with the prescription of Lateran IV), whilst Gregory granted three years and three quarantenes to all those visiting the basilica from Pentecost to the octave of the feast of Peter and Paul (29 June), on the grounds of the universal nature of the pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s.57 The mosaic programme and the distribution of ‘new’ relics in the sacred space of the basilica served to strengthen the primacy of the Vatican even more.58 Evidence of Gregory’s preference for the basilica is also clear from the fact that he broke with the almost uninterrupted twelfth- and early thirteenth-century tradition of papal burial at the Lateran, instead choosing to be buried at Saint Peter’s.59 Regrettably, his sepulchral monument has not survived. The papal biographer additionally reports that Gregory commissioned a most precious and subtly crafted cross-shaped gold reliquary, adorned with a great variety of priceless gems and a silver-gilt pedestal, together with a silver casket, to house a ‘large piece’ of the True Cross (‘grandem pretiosi ligni Crucis vivifice quantitatem’) in order to ‘honour’ a golden altar adorned with shining large gems of various types, of the value of 1000 pounds.60 The Life does not specify the location of this altar, but the stauroteca was clearly destined for a Roman church as the passage follows the paragraph in which the pontiff is said to have returned to the Urbe after a summer residence in Anagni.61 The precious nature of the altar and the fact that it was not felt necessary to identify the church, suggests that the reliquary may have been destined for Saint Peter’s and that the altar in question may have even been the High Altar. Here, we may notice that the fact that 57 Bullarium Vaticanum, i, 123, cited by M. Maccarrone, ‘L’indulgenza del Giubileo del 1300 e la basilica di San Pietro’, in Roma anno 1300. Atti della IV Settimana di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Medievale dell’Università di Roma La Sapienza, ed. A.M. Romanini (Rome, 1983), 731–52, at 738. 58 Bolgia, ‘Jerusalem in Rome’, at press. 59 R. U. Montini, Le tombe dei papi (Rome, 1957), 211; de Blaauw, Cultus et Decor, ii, 632. 60 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 116–18. 61 Ibid., 116. Spataro (at 179) suggests that the reliquary may be identified with that cited in the papal inventory of 1305–1314, published in L. Burkart, ‘Das Verzeichnis als Schatz: Überlegungen zu einem Inventarium Thesauri Romane Ecclesie der Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Cod. Ottob. lat 2516, fol. 126r–132r)’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 86 (2006), 144–207, 203. This hypothesis is unconvincing as the latter reliquary is described as having three arms (cum tribus brachiis) and including a small piece of the Cross (cum modico ligno Crucis).

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the reliquary was provided with a pedestal indicates that it was designed to sit on the altar rather than being hung above it. The commission of the capsa (clearly to house the reliquary) further suggests that the stauroteca may have been movable and displayed only on special occasions or carried in processions. On 22 February 1240 Gregory was, indeed, the protagonist of a procession centred on the Holy Cross, but – in that case – it concerned the holy fragment preserved, at least since the ninth century, in the Sancta Sanctorum at the Lateran.62 We can be sure of this since the Cross was carried to Saint Peter’s alongside the heads of Peter and Paul, which were also housed in the Sancta Sanctorum.63 Amongst many sources, the event is recorded in a passage of the same biography, recounting that Gregory brought to Saint Peter’s the wood of the Living Cross and the heads of Peter and Paul in an extraordinary procession which caused a multitude of the Roman people to switch their allegiance from the emperor to the pope.64 Such a statement sounds so simplistic to a modern ear that one might be tempted to dismiss it immediately, but it is actually vital to our understanding, not so much of the outcome but rather the intended goal of the procession. This orchestrated ceremony had a strong political value and was intended to reassert papal authority in the city, especially as it was repeatedly contested by the imperial faction led by many barons of Rome. We ought to remember that vast sums and a great organizational effort went into the preparation of these ceremonies, and were instrumental to the success of these events.65 Furthermore, it appears that this procession too was used to promote the primacy of Saint Peter’s over the Lateran as the ceremony culminated at the cathedra of the Apostle, in the northern transept of the Vatican basilica. Not only was the day of the Feast of St Peter’s Chair (22 February) chosen for the procession, but this also ended theatrically at the cathedra, from where the enthroned pontiff, wearing the tiara as vicar of the first bishop 62 On its ninth-century reliquary, see E. Thunø, Image and Relic: mediating the sacred in early medieval Rome (Rome, 2002). 63 The sacred heads of Peter and Paul were preserved in the papal chapel of S. Lorenzo at the Lateran (the predecessor of the Sancta Sanctorum) since at least the eleventh century: S. de Blaauw, ‘Il Patriarchio, la basilica lateranense e la liturgia’, in Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Antiquité 116 (2004), 1, 161–71, 166. 64 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 142. 65 As a reference, see Ritual and Space in the Middle Ages, ed. F. Andrews, Proceedings of the 2009 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2011); on papal processions in Rome, see Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, ‘Il papato medievale, Roma e lo spazio’, in Roma e il suo territorio nel medioevo. Le fonti scritte fra tradizione e innovazione, ed. C. Carbonetti, S. Lucà, and M. Signorini (Spoleto, 2015), 1–22, and literature cited at notes 30-31 above and at various points below.

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of Rome, invoked the assistance of Peter and Paul in defence of the Eternal City. According to the Annales Placentini gibellini the pontiff addressed the saints after having taken the tiara (corona) from his own head and placed it upon the relics, pronouncing the following words: ‘You saints defend Rome, if the Romans do not want to do it.’66 The gesture clearly evoked the imperial coronation, when – precisely in the northern transept of the basilica – the pope placed the crown on the head of the emperor elect, sanctioning his imperial authority and his role as defender of the Church. Now the emperor had failed (at least in the papal view) to maintain his commitment to the crusade and a large number of Romans had allied with the emperor. No more powerful gesture than the imposition of the tiara on the relics could have been conceived to demonstrate in the clearest possible way the authority of the pope and to impress the Romans: he had literally invested the saints with the role of official defenders of Rome and the Roman Church, showing that he could count on more powerful allies than anyone else. It is only by bearing in mind the power and significance of such ceremonies, which began at the Sancta Sanctorum and processed ‘exultantibus populis’ across the City, followed by a retinue of venerable cardinals and prelates, that we can fully appreciate and contextualize the construction of buildings such as the portico along the via Maior, whether or not a commission of Gregory’s, as well as the care for the ‘practicability’ of streets by realizing the clavicas for the draining of water. Another example of the use of the city for impressive ‘spectacles’ was the condemnation of those afflicted by the ‘morbus heretice pravitatis’ in front of the door of the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, ‘senatore ac populo Romano presentibus’.67 Judgment was based either on witnesses or open confession, and involved presbyters, clerics and lay people of both sexes. Presbyters and clerics were condemned to the sentence of perpetual deposition and were divested of their sacred vestments ‘spectante populo’.68 An exemplary and defaming punishment for those who had betrayed their mission! Gregory IX played an important role in the establishment of the inquisition (which had a multicentric birth and no official starting point),69 and this is the first 66 Annales Placentini gibellini, ed. G.H. Pertz, in Annales aevi suevici, MGH SS, 18 (Hanover, 1863), 483. 67 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 94. 68 Ibid. 69 See M. Benedetti, ‘Gregorio IX: l’inquisizione, i frati e gli eretici’, in Gregorio IX e gli Ordini mendicanti, 295–323; A. Sala, Lo sviluppo dell’inquisitio haereticae pravitatis nelle lettere di Gregorio IX (1127–41), Ph.D Thesis, Università degli studi di Milano, 2017; and the contribution of Andrea Sommerlechner in this volume.

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instance of public condemnation of heretics in Rome. The use of a liminal space such as that in front of the portal of S. Maria Maggiore is significant, especially as areas in front of church doors were preferred sites of judgment in Italian and European cities, and, indeed in Rome itself, where the side entrance of S. Maria in Aracoeli was soon to become the place used for the hearing of widows.70 When, in the 1240s and 1250s, Innocent IV widened the scope of the Inquisition in Italy and strengthened the role of the Franciscans, hearings of lay people shifted to the Capitol, where the Franciscan church of S. Maria in Aracoeli was located.71 Sentences were pronounced solemnly by Franciscan inquisitors, and were enforced by the senators. It is unknown whether Gregory IX set the stage before the main portal or the side entrance of S. Maria Maggiore, but it is worth bearing in mind that, in Italy as elsewhere in Europe, the area deployed for judicial activities was often that surrounding a side portal, usually the south portal. The most famous case is probably that of Strasbourg cathedral, where monumental statues of Ecclesia, Synagogue, and King Solomon were added in the 1230s to mark a place used by bishops as a court of law.72A similarly famous case is that of Leon cathedral, but attestations are numerous, including Modena, Cremona and Piacenza in Italy.73 Gregory also collected (contulit) books with ref ined characters and adorned with illuminations.74 The word ‘contulit’ suggests that he commissioned the purchase, rather than the making of the manuscripts, which presumably came from different scriptoria. He was munificent in donating precious textiles to the churches of Rome and was careful in choosing colours 70 C. Bolgia, Reclaiming the Roman Capitol: Santa Maria in Aracoeli from the altar of Augustus to the Franciscans, c. 500–1450 (London and New York, 2017), 291–305; eadem, ‘Giudizio e luoghi di giustizia per le donne nella Roma medievale: dalla Tavola della Pinacoteca Vaticana al Sol Iustitiae capitolino’, in Judici i Justícia. Art sacre i profà medieval i modern, ed. R. Alcoy and C. Fontcuberta (Barcelona, 2020), 81–106. 71 On the Inquisition in Italy, see M. D’Alatri, L’inquisizione francescana nell’Italia centrale del Duecento (Rome, 1996); for Rome and the Patrimonium Petri, see G. Barone, ‘Eretici e repressione dell’eresia a Roma: dallo Statuto del senatore Annibaldo del 1231 agli statuti cittadini del 1360’, in Economia e società a Roma tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, ed. A. Esposito and L. Palermo (Rome, 2005), 61–82; Raimondo Michetti, ‘Frati minori, papato e inquisizione a Roma e nel Patrimonium beati Petri (sec. XIII): tra vocazione universale e dimensione territoriale’, in Frati minori e inquisizione. Atti del XXXIII Convegno internazionale, Assisi, 6–8 October 2005 (Spoleto, 2006), 25–79. 72 P. Williamson, Gothic Sculpture: 1140–1300 (New Haven CT and London, 1995), 57. 73 B. Deimling, ‘Das mittelalterliche Kirchenportal in seiner rechtsgeschichtlichen Bedeutung’, in Die Kunst der Romanik: Architektur, Skulptur, Malerei, ed. R. Toman (Cologne, 1996), pp. 324–7; C. Verzar Bornstein, Portals and Politics in Early Italian City-States: the sculpture of Nicholaus in context (Parma, 1988), 34–5. 74 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 118.

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appropriate to the different feasts of the liturgical year: he ‘distributed for the sacerdotal offices many textiles of finest silk, admirable in colour and tincture, woven in gold and precious gems, matching them allegorically, in the variety of colours, to the solemnities of the liturgical times’.75 Furthermore, he enriched the patriarchal basilicas (that is, the Lateran cathedral, Saint Peter’s, S. Maria Maggiore, Saint Paul outside the walls, S. Croce in Gerusalemme, and S. Lorenzo outside the walls) with carpets that he had received as gifts from the legates of the sultan of Iconium.76 The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (or Iconium) in Anatolia controlled a large part of Asia Minor, with a population of Turks, Greeks and Armenians, whose primary activity was commerce. Gregory IX met Iohannes de Gabra, ambassador of the Sultan ‘Alā al-Dīn Kay-Qubād I (1220–1237) in Perugia in March 1235. The negotiations, which can be partly reconstructed through an epistolary exchange, aimed at establishing a military alliance against al-Kāmil, the Sultan of Egypt, but did not ultimately succeed.77 The Life records that the pope returned the precious gifts (presumably this was the established practice to signal that an agreement had not been reached) but accepted some carpets as a sign of devotion (‘quedam tapetia in signum devotionis’) and distributed them liberally to the patriarchal churches of Rome. Only some twenty examples of Seljuk carpets survive from the thirteenth century, having been discovered in the last century in central Anatolia.78 Some of them came from the Mosque of Alaeddin (house of the tomb of the famous Rumi) in the capital Konya, and are mostly preserved in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic art in Istanbul. The extant carpets are extremely large (as they were primarily destined for Mosques) and not particularly refined, with geometric patterns repeated in stagger rows, and a border of crude pseudo-Kufic inscriptions. Of course, smaller (and perhaps more sophisticated) examples may have existed: as diplomatic gifts to the pope those that reached Rome in the embassy of 1235 were certainly the highest expressions of local production and must have been considered luxury objects. As noted by Avinoah Shalem, Islamic artefacts were generally accepted, and enjoyed a positive recognition in Christian Europe, primarily for their aesthetic qualities.79 The materials, workmanship, and richness 75 Ibid., 116. 76 Ibid., 106. 77 K.E. Lupprian, Die Beziehungen der Päpste zu islamischen und mongolischen Herrschern im 13. Jahrhundert anhand ihres Briefwechsels (Rome, 1981), 36–8. 78 G. Curatola, Turkish Art and Architecture from the Seljuks to the Ottoman (New York, 2010). 79 A. Shalem, ‘The Otherness in the Focus of Interest: or, if only the other could speak’, in Islamic Artefacts in the Mediterranean World: trade, gift exchange and artistic transfer, ed. C.

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of colour of the carpets must have played a major role in their acceptance and display in Roman churches. The carpets may have been used to decorate the sanctuary areas, as carpets are often shown at the foot of the main altar in several later depictions of church interiors, but other destinations are possible. The embassy of the time of Gregory IX was certainly not the first occasion in which tapetia reached Rome. It is even possible that Seljuk carpets had already reached the Urbe as contacts between the papacy and the Sultanate dated back at least to Pope Alexander III (1159–1181).80 In any event, the Romans were certainly more familiar with Egyptian carpets, which already formed part of the treasure of Saint Peter’s (either purchased via the trade route or received as diplomatic gifts, or both) and, interestingly, are documented as adorning the City during one of the first appearances of Gregory IX in the Urbe, following his coronation procession and the celebration of Mass in S. Maria Maggiore on the subsequent Easter Sunday. On the following Monday in albis (Easter Monday) multicoloured Egyptian carpets, woven of gold and silver, covered the pavement of the square of Saint Peter’s, which was scented with the fragrance of various perfumes, according to Gregory’s biographer.81 In the medieval period perfumes were thought to have health benefits, serving as protection against various illnesses, including the plague.82 Their profusion, via burners and pomanders, certainly enhanced the pleasure of attending the procession, and the papal biographer is highly successful in conveying how all the senses were involved in what must have been an intoxicating experience. After having celebrated solemn Mass in the basilica, Gregory, wearing the tiara, preceded by the papal insignia (the banner with keys, first introduced by Innocent III) and surrounded by a purple flood of innumerable cardinals, prelates and clerics, was conducted along the walls of the Urbe on a horse with precious trappings. From one side canticles rang out, from the other acclamations of the rejoicing people, whilst in Schmidt Arcangeli and G. Wolf (Venice, 2010), 29–44. On the culture of gift-exchange, see also D. Howard, ‘Diplomacy and Culture’, ibid., 161–71. On textile gifts, see most recently: Textile Gifts in the Middle Ages, ed by C. Elster, S. Luther, T. Michalsky, S. Seeberg (Rome, 2022). 80 M. R. Tessera, ‘Alessandro III e l’enigma della “Instructio fidei” al Sultano d’Iconio’, in Fedi a confronto. Ebrei, Cristiani e Musulmani fra X e XIII secolo, Atti del Convegno di Studi, San Vivaldo-Montaione 22–24 settembre 2004, ed. S. Gensini (Florence, 2006), 177–91; Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 172. 81 Ibid., 80–82: ‘aureis argenteisque platea distinguitur tapetis pictis ex Egypto prostrata […] diversorum aromatum suavitate flagrabat’. 82 See for instance, M. Bagnoli, ‘Making Sense’, in A Feast for the Senses: art and experience in medieval Europe, ed. M. Bagnoli, exh. cat, Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, 16.10.2016-8.01.2017 (New Haven CT and London, 2016), 17–32, at 25.

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every single street the ‘Kyrie eleison’ resonated loudly:83 ‘The crowd was excited by the resounding sound of the trumpets, each inciting the other with mutual shouting. Judges and notaries shone in their silken copes, whilst the nobles wore precious clothes woven in gold; a great multitude of Greeks and Jews celebrated the Vicar of Christ in their own languages and according to their customs, whilst garrulous children recited impudent verses.’84 The presence of a multi-lingual populace celebrating the pope in their own tongues clearly served to demonstrate harmony and concord in favour of the pope, whilst the vociferous children created an atmosphere of festivity and freedom. Indeed, trilingual acclamations performed by the Greeks, Jews, and Romans were a traditional part of these processions as attested by earlier sources.85 ‘Thus, preceded by an incredible throng of people with palms and flowers, whilst the senator and the prefect of the City on foot held the reins of the papal horse, the riding pope was taken to the Lateran, under the arches of the square, which imitated the splendour of the gleaming stars:’86 the procession so vividly described by the biographer was clearly conceived as a visual demonstration of the pope’s lordship. The extra-liturgical crown-wearing procession performed on Easter Monday was unique amongst the stational feasts of the Roman calendar; in every aspect it mirrored the ritual performed during the coronation procession to the point that it has been suggested that it marked the papal anniversary.87 The pope’s biographer tells us that the pope was first taken around the city walls, thus metaphorically ‘taking control’ of the whole City, and then, from Saint Peter’s to the Lateran. He does not describe the route, but this is 83 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 82. For these acclamations and related sources, see Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, 209. On the musical life of the Curia in thirteenth-century Rome, see J. Gardner, ‘The Cardinals’ Music: musical interest at the papal Curia, c.1200–1304’, Early Music History, 34 (2015), 97–132. 84 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 82. The papal biographer uses the expression ‘procacia fescennia’. Gardner, noting the reference to fescennini verses, suggested that they ‘may either have celebrated the bishop of Rome’s marriage to his church or had a more general apotropaic aspect’: Gardner, ‘The Cardinals’ Music’, 99 n. 4. I am unconvinced by this reading as the expression in the Middle Ages seems to have come to indicate simply provocative or impudent verses. From the wording of the text, it is clear that the young boys were not part of a planned aspect of the procession; rather they contributed, with their presence and voices, to the festive atmosphere of the occasion. On the other hand, there is no reason to translate the expression as ‘exuberant and obscene sentences’, as in Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 83. The verses were ‘impudent’ or ‘unashamed’, as is typical of children. The biographer would not have recorded obscene verses in the context of a papal procession. 85 Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, 94–5. 86 Spataro, Velud Fulgor, 82. 87 Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, 176–8.

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known through earlier sources and has been extensively studied.88 Many of the arches on the route were certainly temporary,89 whilst others may have been existing structures ephemerally adorned to shine like stars. It is the case, for instance, of a fornix of the Claudian Acqueduct which resembled a triumphal arch, passing over the via Maior near the Lateran.90 The senator and prefect of the city held the reins of the papal horse, performing the office of the groom (officium stratoris), presenting themselves as vassals to the riding pontiff. In papal ceremonial, the newly elected emperors had to perform exactly this same office of strator to demonstrate not only that they were in the service of the pope, but ultimately to confirm their submission. A famous depiction of such an event, not distant in time from Gregory IX’s pontificate is found in the chapel of St Silvester (1246) in the monastery of SS. Quattro Coronati, where behind the image of Constantine holding the reins of Pope Sylvester’s horse lies a clear reference to the relationship between Frederick II and Innocent IV.91 Another procession saw Gregory IX as protagonist – the installation of a Marian icon in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, near Porta Flaminia (Fig. 8, nr 4) – a further testimony to the pontiff’s ability to use public performances to mobilize crowds, appease tensions, and construct alliances. The procession is not mentioned in the pope’s biography (defective in many parts, as shown by an examination of his letters), but is recorded in a fifteenth-century Liber Indulgentiarum, and in the ‘descriptions’ of the Roman churches by John Capgrave (c.1447–1452), Nikolaus Muffel (1452), and William Brewyn (ca. 1470), all of whom seem to have based their account primarily on a ‘tabula lignea quadrata ac carta pergamenata iuxta altare maius’, transcribed verbatim by a notary in 1426.92 The text of the tabula probably dated to 1400, when the icon was placed in a new marble tabernacle under the sponsorship of Pope Boniface IX; but it incorporated

88 Ibid., pp. 175–217; Wickham, Roma medievale, pp. 382–3. 89 For temporary arches on this route see the Ordo Romanus of Cencius Camerarius, ch. 39 and 58 in LC, i, 299–300; Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, 210–13. 90 See discussion in Bolgia, ‘La via Lata e la via Maior’ in press. 91 J. Mitchell, ‘St Silvester and Constantine at the SS. Quattro Coronati’, in Federico II e l’arte del Duecento Italiano, Atti della III Settimana di Studi di Storia dell’Arte Medievale dell’Università di Roma, 15-20 maggio 1978, ed. A.M. Romanini (Galatina, 1980), ii, 15–32. 92 This 1426 document, signed by the notary Sigfrido Costede, survives in an unpublished eighteenth-century transcription in Rome, Archivio Generale degli Agostiniani, Libro F, ff. 14A–14D (modern numbering), from which my citation comes. See C. Bolgia, ‘Strategie di riaffermazione dell’autorità papale. Bonifacio IX e il tabernacolo per l’icona di S. Maria del Popolo’, in La linea d’ombra. Roma 1378–1420, ed. W. Angelelli and S. Romano (Rome, 2019), 327–56.

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earlier legendary accounts.93 It contained the foundation history of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, which derived its name from its erection by the Roman populace around an altar installed by Pope Paschal II (1099–1118) at the culmination of a lengthy procession that led to the burning of the body of the nefarious Emperor Nero and the removal of the demons that infested the site. To summarize, the origins of the church are to be found in a history of collaboration between the Romans and Pope Paschal II, whose pontificate had been tormented by repeated Roman revolts. Strong antiimperial overtones were operating here as Paschal supposedly eradicated the tree inhabited by the demons that guarded the body of the Emperor Nero, who had burned Rome and killed innumerable people. It was claimed that the demons protecting Nero’s body (buried beneath the tree) slaughtered all who passed through the nearby Porta Flaminia. Thus, the removal of the emperor and his demonic guardians from the site and the installation of a Christian altar made the pope the champion of the Romans, who rushed there to build a church in honour of the Virgin, who had instructed Pope Paschal in a vision.94 In 1400 Boniface IX supported the construction of a new marble tabernacle for the icon as part of a strategy of reasserting his contested authority and demonstrating his collaboration with the Romans, as shown by a recently discovered papal bull.95 As for the role of Gregory IX, the text on the tabula (and the Liber Indulgentiarum following it) recorded that an icon of Mary – painted by St Luke – was brought to the church by Gregory IX ‘in reverence to the Glorious Virgin, because of the said miracle [that of the time of Paschal] offered to the Roman people, desirous that the same people should not appear ungrateful for such a great gift, and that the same people should address the Virgin with intense devotion’.96 The Liber Indulgentiarum underlined that the icon was carried by Gregory ‘with great solemnity’ and ‘honourably placed there’.97 Yet, the most detailed account of the arrival of the image, and of the reasons behind it, is provided by the English friar John Capgrave, writing between 1447 and 1452. The richness in detail of his narrative should come 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Published ibid., appendix 1. See also C. Bolgia, ‘The “Tabernacles” War’, II, c. 1400: new light on the competition between icons and relics in late-medieval Rome’, in Tributes to Paul Binski: Medieval Gothic: Art, architecture and ideas, ed. J. Luxford (Turnhout, 2021), 110–123. 96 Rome, Archivio Generale degli Agostiniani, Libro F, f. 14Bv. 97 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Clm 14.630 (Liber Indulgentiarum), published in C. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel Medio Evo. Cataloghi ed appunti (Florence, 1927; repr. anast. Rome, 2000), 137–156, at 150–1.

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as no surprise since Capgrave was an Austin friar, and Santa Maria del Popolo belonged to his Order at the time. Thus, he presumably resided there during his stay in Rome and based his account either on a tablet of Gregory IX’s time displayed in the church or on some documentary source in the convent. This is suggested by the fact that Capgrave’s narration opens with a medieval formula ‘In the time of the ninth pope Gregorius’, immediately followed by an explanation for his contemporary readers ‘or better, at the time of that pope called Pope Gregorius IX […]’.98 Then – he continues – a great pestilence ravaged Rome; as people were rapidly dying, groans and cries resonated across the city. Thus, a throng of Romans hastened to the pope and implored him to order a procession and command the people to pray God that this plague might cease. Embracing their petition, the pope said that ‘he wold go with hem and have a sermone and syng masse him selve’.99 That day he established the station at the place dedicated to the Madonna newly built by his predecessor Paschal, and then, ‘to multiple mor deuocioun in the puple, he wold brynge on of tho ymages that seint luke depeynted and offere it and gyue it to the place for euyr’.100 All aforesaid promises – Capgrave continues – were entirely kept, the pestilence ceased and the portrait is still there: ‘And be cause the pope gaue the ymage at instaunce of the puple and graunted eke grete pardon to the same place at the saume instaunce therfor is it clepid sancta maria de Populo.’101 This account is interesting in many respects. In the case of both Paschal and Gregory, it was the people who had asked the pope to organize a procession to free the city from a ‘terrible pestilence’ (‘a terribili peste’ is the expression used to indicate the demons in Paschal’s legend): a metaphorical pestilence at the time of Paschal, a real one at the time of Gregory (but described by the papal biographer as a divine punishment against the Romans, as we have seen). Gregory chose as the station for his sermon and performance of Mass, that is, as the goal of his procession and the f inal destination of the Marian icon, a church which had a foundation history of Romano-papal collaboration and a strong anti-imperial connotation. No better site could have been chosen by a pontiff aiming to ensure the support of the Romans against the excommunicated Emperor Frederick II. 98 John Capgrave, Ye Solace of Pilgrimes: a description of Rome, circa 1450, ed. C.A. Mills (London, 1911), 165. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid.

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Capgrave additionally provides a most interesting piece of information, according to which a scene of Emperor Nero committing suicide was depicted in the church.102 As the medieval Santa Maria del Popolo was replaced by a new building at the behest of Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484), nothing survives of that depiction. It is, nevertheless, possible that it dated from the time of Gregory IX, who seems to have been responsible for bringing the noose of Judas’s suicide to Saint Peter’s and for placing it near the altar of St Maurice (where emperors were anointed), as a warning against betrayal.103 Notably, Capgrave even ascribes to Gregory IX the origins of the name of the church as Santa Maria de populo, the title deriving – in his words – from the fact that Gregory IX had brought the image there at the instance of the people. The Marian icon today venerated in Santa Maria del Popolo, however, is evidently later than the time of Gregory. Unfortunately, a recent conservation campaign seems to have missed the opportunity to fully investigate what may lay behind the present pictorial surface. Awaiting the full report of the conservators, the only publication that has appeared so far states, in a footnote, that ‘the campaign has not allowed us to ascertain the possible presence of an earlier pictorial layer under the visible one’.104 Even if we take cautiously what has been presented as the discovery of the signature of Filippo Rusuti on the top border of the image,105 the icon as it appears today unquestionably dates to the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century.106 This opens up an important question: where is the icon brought to the church by Gregory IX? It goes beyond the scope of this essay to attempt to resolve the conundrum, but some observations may be made as they widen our horizon beyond a single church and offer a glimpse into the broader scenario of the establishment of the Mendicant Orders in Rome. A significant historical fact was recorded neither in the fifteenth-century tabula, nor in the 1400 bull (as it was of no interest in Boniface IX’s narrative) and is equally absent in the account of Capgrave (as he was an Austin 102 Ibid., 164. 103 Bolgia, ‘Jerusalem in Rome’, 171. 104 S. Antellini, ‘Sul “ristabilimento potenziale dell’opera d’arte” nel procedimento di restauro dell’icona di S. Maria del Popolo’, in Filippo Rusuti e la Madonna di San Luca in Santa Maria del Popolo a Roma. Il restauro e la nuova attribuzione di un capolavoro medievale, exh. cat. Rome, Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo, 19 oct. – 18 nov. 2018 (Milan, 2018), 33–45, at 36. 105 A. Tomei, ‘Da san Luca a Filippo Rusuti: l’icona della Madonna con il Bambino in Santa Maria del Popolo’, ibid., 15–31. 106 D. Sgherri, ‘La Madonna Odighitria di Santa Maria del Popolo’, in La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Corpus e Atlante, Corpus, vi (Apogeo e fine del Medioevo, 1288–1431), ed. S. Romano (Milan, 2017), 185–7, with reference to earlier literature.

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friar): namely, that Gregory IX had granted the church of Santa Maria del Popolo to the Franciscans. This is attested by the fact that, when the Minors were transferred to the much more central Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline hill, in the mid-thirteenth century, a papal letter prescribed that ‘the place from which the Friars Minor leave is given to the Friars Hermits’.107 Indeed, the Augustinians were then granted Santa Maria del Popolo, where they have remained, variously reformed, until today. Thus, it is probable that Gregory IX brought the icon to the church not only ‘for the people’ but also for the Minors. We may note here that the choice of granting the Franciscans a church which had a special historical connection with the Roman people demonstrates Gregory IX’s subtle understanding not only of the Minors’ mission (for which the relationship to the people was central), but also of the role that the friars could play in building bridges between the Church and the Romans. Today the Franciscans of Santa Maria in Aracoeli have their own Marian icon, ascribed to the third quarter of the eleventh century, and traditionally assumed to have formerly belonged to the Benedictines, the previous occupants of the site.108 Is it not possible that the icon presently at the Aracoeli was given to the Franciscans by Gregory IX when he first established the friars at S. Maria del Popolo, and that they brought the image with them when they were transferred to the Aracoeli? To answer this question takes us too far away from the subject of this chapter and must be left aside for another occasion. We hope to have shown, however, that Gregory’s attention to the city was wide-ranging, from the construction of a higher façade at Saint Peter’s in order to display a new message about the ecclesiology, eschatological thought and pastoral role of the pope at a time of a Reforming Church; to the commission of an enormous bell that shifted the provenance of the dominating sound above the City from the Lateran to the Vatican; from welfare structures and urban infrastructures, including the building of a fine poorhouse, the reconstruction of the major bridge of Rome and the creation of a sewer system to enhance the viability of the streets; from the erection of towering buildings in the Lateran palace to the distribution of precious textiles amongst the Roman churches, including rare Seljuk carpets 107 ‘Quod locus de quo recedunt fratres Minores detur fratribus heremitis […]’: L. Oliger, ‘De fratribus minoribus apud S. Mariam Populi Romae a. 1250 habitantibus’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, 18 (1925), 293–5; Bolgia, Reclaiming the Roman Capitol, 97. 108 D. Sgherri, ‘La Madonna Advocata in Santa Maria in Aracoeli’, in La pittura medievale a Roma 312–1431. Corpus e Atlante, Corpus, iv (Riforma e tradizione 1050–1198), ed. S. Romano (Milan, 2006), 110–13; Bolgia, Reclaiming the Roman Capitol, 124.

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to the patriarchal basilicas; from the commission of a precious stauroteca for a splinter of the Holy Cross to the purchase of the finest manuscripts, not to mention his intervention in favour of the Franciscans. Public, grandly orchestrated ritual processions throughout the city, with and without icons and relics, with a great following of people and theatrical climaxes (such as the crowning of Peter and Paul and the subsequent proclamation of dramatic words), played just as an important role as the ‘patronage’ itself in shaping the Rome of Gregory IX.

About the Author Claudia Bolgia is Professoressa Ordinaria di Storia dell’Arte Medievale all’Università degli Studi di Udine. Author of Reclaiming the Roman Capitol. Santa Maria in Aracoeli from the Altar of Augustus to the Franciscans, c. 500-1450 (London-New York, 2017), and co-editor, with Rosamond McKitterick and John Osborne, of Rome across Time and Space: cultural transmission and the exchange of ideas, c. 500–1400 (Cambridge, CUP, 2011), she has written extensively on papal patronage and the art of the Franciscan Order. She has held Fellowships at major research centres, including Pembroke College (University of Cambridge), Villa I Tatti, CASVA, the Newberry Library, and the Leverhulme Trust.

Index Abel, son of Valdemar II 198 Ad abolendam, decretal 16 Adam of Perseigne, C istercian 280 Adenolfo, brother of Gregory 25 Adolf IV of Holstein, count 198, 201 Afonso II of Portugal 216 Aimery de Sacy 108 Aiyubids 140, 240 Ala al-Din Kag Qubad I, sultan 349 Alaeddin, mosque of 349 al-Ashraf of Damascus 240 al-Aziz of Aleppo 240 al-Kamil, sultan 81, 114, 140, 205, 233, 240, 242, 349 al-Mustansir of Baghdad 241 Alanus Anglicus 312 Alarcos, battle 219 Alberic of Trois-Fontaines 207, 253, 261, 267, 271, 274 Albert Behaim of Passau 141, 206–7. Albert of Buxhövden 203 Albert of Riga 136 Alberto Alemanni 55 Alberto of Brescia 55 Albrecht I of Saxony 200 Albrecht II of Brandenburg 199 Albrecht II of Orlamünde 196 Alcalá, treaty of 219 Alcántara, military order of 223 Alessandria 96 Alexander III, pope 71, 104, 310, 350 Alexander IV, pope 58 Alexander of Scotland 119 Alfonso II of Aragon 226 Alfonso VIII of Castile 215 Alfonso IX of León 215, 220, 224 Alfonso X of Castile 233 Alleluja (Hallelujah) movement 89–91, 113, 258–9 Almohads 215–6, 225, 241 Altenesch 133 Anagni 24–5, 61, 287, 330, 332, 340, 345 Andrew, friar 171–2, 180 Andrew of Bologna 58 Angelus of Grado 54 Annales Marbacenses 263, 268 Annales Placentini gibellini 347 Annales Placentini Guelfi 81–2. Annales S. Pantaleonis 267 Annales Wormatienses 262, 266–7, 270, 274 Anthony of Padua 19, 295 Apocalypse 235, 243, 277–8, 291, 296, 298 ar-Rashid, caliph 241 Armenia 162, 168–9, 171, 349 Arnald-Amaury, abbot 44, 179, 291

Arnsberg 134 Arthur of Brittany 103 Assisi 53, 344 Asso of Arras 264 Athanasios III 169 Attho, Master 301–2 Audacia, widow of Henry of Schwerin 198 Augsburg 40 Augustine 147, 267 Augustinians 64, 67, 218 Aventinus, Johannes, historian 206 Ayyubids, see Aiyubids Badajoz 217 Baldwin II, emperor 155, 160 Baldwin of Alna 139, 204 Baldwin of Forde 29 Bari 173–4, 322 Barnim, duke of Pomerania 199 Bartholomeus of Pisa 344 Bazas, bp of 117 Beatrice of Swabia 41, 233 Becket 29, 63 Bela IV of Hungary 142 Benavente 217 Benedict XV 21 Benedict, canon 339 Benedict of Nursia 60, 69, 244, 282, 296 Benedictines 29, 45, 356 Berenguela, queen 217, 233 Bernard, penitentiary 261, 274 Bernard of Clairvaux 245, 255, 296–9 Bernard of Parma 183, 311, 323–4 Bernardo de Monteagudo 231 Bernat Calvó, bp 225 Blanche of Castile 107 Blanche of Navarre 219 Bogomils 176 Bohemond IV 169 Bologna 54–5, 59, 64, 85 clashes with Modena 85 commune of 91 dispute with Pistoia 56 Dominican chapter general at 64 episcopal palace at 58 Lombard League at 88 Ramon de Penyafort at 227, 305 reform of city statutes 90 students and teachers at 21, 114, 183 university at 28 Boniface VIII, pope 303 Boniface IX, pope 309, 353, 355 Bonifacio, fortress 47, 51 Bordeaux 108, 117 Bornhöved 191–2, 197–201, 208, 213

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Bosnia 128, 130, 154, 176 Bourges 111 Braga 229, 231 Bremen, abp of 128 Brescia 58, 83, 92–3, 95 Bugislav II of Pomerania 199 Burchard of Mount Sion 181 Caesarius of Heisterbach 271 Caffaro, chronicler 50 Cagliari, judge of 49 Calahorra 219, 230 Calatrava 223 Carpaccio 37 Casamari 21, 35–6, 38, 61, 288–9 Casimir, duke of Masovia 136–7 Castellbó 227 Castile 18, 114, 215, 217, 219, 22, 230 Cathars 16, 58, 77, 154, 176, 186, 188, 225, 272 Celestine III, pope 29–30, 36, 49, 68, 170, 219 Celestine IV, pope 82 Chaldeans 162 Chartres 106, 141 Christ Church, Canterbury 28–30 Christian, bishop 136–8 Chronicon sublacense 69 Church Union 161–74 Cilicia 171 Cinzio of San Lorenzo in Lucino, Cp 33 Cistercians 18, 43–5, 180, 212, 245, 277–8, 285, 291–3, 295–9 Cîteaux 45 Clare of Assisi 19–20, 69 Clement III, pope 281 Coloman of Slavonia 157 Compostela, see Santiago Conrad of Germany 143, 207–8 Conrad of Marburg 17, 133–5, 146, 253–5, 259–62, 267–74 Conrad of Metz 57–8 Conrad of Urach 180 Conrad of Wittelsbach 34 Conradus Dorso 262 Constance, queen of Aragon 233 Constance, queen of Sicily 32–3, 233, 280 Constance, peace of 71–5, 83, 89, 95 Constantinople 17 conquest of 153, 164–5 crisis at 143 crusade to 130, 140, 142, 145–6, 150, 156–8, 160 heretics in 176 Latin Empire of 128, 130–1, 141, 145, 149, 153, 160, 175, 187 nobles of 155 patriarchal church of 291 patriarchal rights at 166 siege of 159 Constitutiones Clementinae 303

Constitutions of Melfi 316 Copts 162, 168 Córdoba 220, 222–3 Corpus iuris civilis 308 Cortenuova 93, 95, 100 Cremona 91 cathedral at 348 diet at 74, 78–9, 88 diocese of 86 imperial faction at 93 Lombard League and 74 monks of SS Leonardo and Eutropio in 54 Cum hora undecima, papal letter 235–6, 242–51. Cumans 128 Cyprus 17, 151–2, 162, 165, 169–71, 173, 175, 184–5, 187 Cyril III, Coptic patriarch of Alexandria 168 Damietta 52 Dante 112 Dardanelles 156 Daroca 219 David IV of Georgia 128, 168 Declinante iam mundi 16, 225 Deliberatio 40 Dictamina Rhetorica 82–3, 115 Dietrich of Wied 262 Dipoldo of Vohberg 37–8, 42, 44 Ditmarschen 197 Dobrzyn 136 Domberg, battle of 139 Domina Avvegnente 53 Domina Lombarda 49, 69 Dominic of Osma, canonization of 19, 243–4, 246, 277, 295 and Gregory 19, 64–5, 243, 285, 295 and Joseph of Fiore 297 as missionary 243, 294 Dominicans, at Barcelona 221 and clerical reform 305 and Constantinople 146 and crusades 138, 145 and Eastern prelates 167 and Florensians 294–6, 298–9 and Frederick II 146 and Georgian church 168 and Greeks 242 and heresy 186, 225, 246, 272 and Jews 232 and the Liber Extra 322 and military orders 90 and mission 235–51 and Muslims 242 at Nicaea 163 at Paris 106 and preaching 240 at Santa Sabina 344

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Index

and Spain 237, 247 at Toulouse 240 Drenther peasants 128, 132, 135 Dulce 217 Eleanor of Provence 115, 119, 122 Elias of Cortona 19, 66 Elizabeth of Hungary/Thuringia 19, 133, 295 Engelbert of Cologne 195 Enrico de Fratta, bp-elect 54 Enrico Settala, abp of Milan 55 Epiros 153–4, 166 Erfurt 143 annals of 262, 267, 271, 274 council of 143 Dominicans of 253, 261 Erik IV Ploughpenny 200, 207–8 Esbern Snerlyng 212 Espareg of Tarragona 225 Este, marquis of 95 Estonia 136, 194, 203, 213 Ethelger, abbot 208 Eustorgius 171 Excommunicamus 16, 185, 225, 321–2 Exeter 106 Ezzelino da Romano 87–90, 95 Ferdinand III of Castile 215–218, 220, 222–3, 226, 230, 232–3 Ferdinand, infante 218–19, 233 Ferrara 55–6, 83, 95–6 Filioque 161, 163 Filippo Rusuti 355 Finland 136 Florence 49, 52–4, 64, 67, 114 Florensians 18, 61, 277, 279, 287, 289, 292–5, 297–9 Foix, count of 225 Fossanova 18, 25, 61, 289, 335 Francis of Assisi, basilica of 330 canonization of 19, 246, 295 and Clare of Assisi 68 and conversion 240 and Domina Avvegnente 53 and Gregory 19, 24, 64–7, 69 and martyrdom 238 and mission 239 and preaching 240 and his Testament 26 and Thomas of Celano 19 Franciscans, and the Alleluia 259, 295 and conversion 177, 242 and Constantinople 146 and crusades 145 and Florensians 278, 293–4, 298–9 and Frederick II 146 and Greeks 242

and heresy 180, 225, 246, 296 and Innocent IV 348 and Jews 232 and missions 237–9, 251 and Nicaea 163 Frankfurt, diet 41, 135, 262, 274 Frederick Barbarossa 71 Frederick II, as antichrist 284–5 and Bologna 85–6 and Conrad 207 and constitutions of Melfi 316 and coronation 56 and Cortenouva 93 and crusades 77, 79, 92, 98, 128, 142, 197, 202, 233, 284 and diet at Ravenna 88 and excommunication 66, 81, 95, 128, 206, 232, 331 and Ezzelino 88–90 and Henry of Schwerin 195 and heretical legislation 78, 84, 87, 94, 98–9, 179, 254 and Herman of Salza 137–8 and Honorius II 76 and Innocent III 32, 40, 76 and Innocent IV 129, 352 and Isabella 118–19 and James of Palestrina 93 and John of Brienne 155 and John of Vicenza 91 and Joseph of Fiore 294 and the Liber Augustalis 87 and the Lombard League 71–100 and Milanese 94–5 and Modena 85–6 and Parma 91 and the peace of San Germano 85, 156, 258 and Piacenza 93 and Rome 15, 96–7, 332 and Salimbene 283 and the sultan of Cairo 114, 140, 205 and Valdemar II 194, 199, 206 and Verona 93 Frederick II of Austria 207 Foulques de Neuilly 255 Gallipoli 156 Galvano Fiamma, chronicler 258 Genoa 45, 47, 49–53, 64, 95–7 Geoffrey, prior of Chirst Church 30 Geoffrey of Montelongo 141 Geoffrey of Trani 183 George Bardanes 173 Gerald of Casamari 36 Gerald of Wales 32, 38 Gerard de Frachet 265, 272 Gerard of S Adriano, Cd 32–4 Gerardo of Modena 91

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Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authorit y

Gerhard II, abp of Bremen 132–3, 202–3 Germanos, patriarch 163, 167, 170–1 Gesta Innocentii tertii 32, 34–5, 37 Gesta Treverorum 262, 266, 271, 273 Gilbert of Sempringham 44 Giovanni Codagnello 81–2, 84–5 Giovanni da Vicenza 259 Godfroi of Cambrai 264 Goffredo of San Marco 82, 84 Gottschalk of Ratzeburg 202–3 Gratian 111, 308, 323 Gregorio da Montelongo 96 Gregory the Great, pope 69 Gregory VII, pope 17, 101, 227 Gregory IX, pope and the Albigensian Crusade 128 and Anglo-French peace 101–26 and Antioch 167–9 artistic and architectural patronage 329–58 and the Baltic crusades 137–9, 201–5 and canonizations 19, 62, 64, 66, 245–6, 295, 330 as cardinal bp of Ostia and Velletri 39–56 as cardinal deacon 31–9 as Cardinal Hugo 23–70 and Church Union 161–9 and Cistercian quarrels 45 and Conrad of Marburg 17, 133–5, 146, 272–4 and the crusades 17, 127–50 and Cyprus 170–3 and Denmark 191–214 and Dominic 64–6 and the Dominicans 145–6, 180, 239–51, 295, 305 early career of 27–31 family of 25 and the Florensians 18, 277–300 and Francis of Assisi 64–7 and Franciscans 19, 66, 145–6, 180, 239–51 and Genoa 95, 141 and Gerald of Wales 38–9 and the Greek East 151–90 and heresy 16, 21, 86–7, 90, 113, 175–88, 225–7, 253–76, 321 and Hungary 145, 157 and imperial question 40–2 and inquisitors 253–76 and Jacques de Vitry 62–3 and Joachim of Fiore 277–300 and Kantara monks 17, 171–2 and the Latin Empire 140 legation of April to August 1217, 47–52 legation of May 1218 to August 1219, 52–6 legation to Lombardy March to October 1221, 56–60 and the Liber extra 21, 112, 114, 301–28 and the Lombard question 71–99

and mission 235–52 and the Mongols 142–3 name of 25–7 as peacemaker 17–18 and Poor Clares 20, 67–8 and Rainier of Ponza 42–4, 298 and Raymond of Penyafort 305–13 and Robert le Bougre 259–73 and Romania 162–7 and Rome 329–58 and southern Italy 173–4 and Spain 128, 215–34 and the Teutonic order 138 and universities 21 and Venice 95, 141 Grönigen 132 Guala Bicchieri 104, 180 Guerric of Saint-Quentin 184 Guglielmo da Rizolio 258 Guido Faba, rhetorician 82 Guido de Papa, Cp of S. Maria in Trastevere 34–5 Guido Pierleone 46 Gunzelin III of Schwerin 198 Halberstadt 201 Hamburg-Bremen 192 Heinrich Raspe, landgrave of Thuringia 207 Helena, mother of Otto of Lüneberg 198 Henry I of Castile 215 Henry II of England 103–4, 112, 255 Henry III of England 101, 104–10, 112, 114–19, 121–2, 160 Henry III of Meissen 207 Henry VI of Germany 32–3, 36, 40, 280 Henry VII of Germany 92, 206, 262–3, 270, 274 Henry the Latin Emperor 153 Henry the Lion 40 Henry of Bar-le-Duc 157 Henry de Paragnano 55–6 Henry of Sayn 262 Henry of Schwerin 194–8 Herman II of Lippe 133 Herman of Salza 136–8 Hildesheim, bp of 78–9, 134–5, 146, 273 Holstein, county of 194, 197 Honorius I, pope 340 Honorius III, pope and Anglo-French wars 104–5 and Church Union 152, 165 and Cistercians 45 and conversion 244 and Denmark 195, 197 and Florensians 294 and Franciscans 66 and Frederick II 56, 76, 78–9, 97, 332 and Greeks of Epiros 154 and Gregory IX 18, 46, 48, 50–1, 56–7, 61, 66, 68

363

Index

and heresy 78 and Jacques de Vitry 62 and Lateran cathedral 344 and Latin Empire 175 and Milan 78 and mission 236–9, 246–51 and Negotium Lombardie 72–80 and Orthodox priests in Antioch 169 and Poor Clares 67 and Prouille 64 and Raymond of Penyafort 312–4 and Rainier Capocci 285 and schismatics 179 and Spain 216 Hospitallers 223 Hubert de Burgh 108, 119, 122 Hubert Walter 29–30. Huesca 218, 226 Hugh de Lusignan, count 106–7, 109, 114, 117–18 Hugh of Parma, master 58 Hugh of Pisa, canon 106 Hugo, see Gregory IX Humbert V, lord of Beaujeu 157, 160 Humiliati 43, 62, 289 Hyacinth Bobone, see Celestine III Ignatius II, Jacobite patriarch 167 Ildebrandino, podestà of Volterra 51 Innocent II, pope 228 Innocent III, pope and the Albigensian Crusade 181, 129, 255 and Anglo-French peace 104, 110 and Aragon 218 and Armenian Church 168 and Canterbury monks 30 and Cistercians 44–5 and Constantinople 152–3 and conversion 256 and crusading 17, 79, 97–8, 128, 143–5, 148 death of 46, 62 and Frederick II 32, 72, 76, 283 and Genoa 50 and Gerald of Wales 38 and Greek clergy 165 and Gregory IX 21, 24, 28, 31, 39, 43, 68, 113, 229, 286–7, 297, 331 and heresy 77, 94, 97, 226, 255–6 and the Humiliati 289 and the imperial question 40–2, 76, 86, 98 and indulgences 345 and Latin Empire 154, 175 and Liber extra 311–3, 324 and Livonia 136 and Markward of Anweiler 21, 23, 33–8, 99, 127 and Milan 76–8 and the Negotium Lombardie 73, 79 and Novit ille 102, 112, 120–1

and Rainier Capocci 285 and Rainier of Ponza 25, 43–4, 287–9, 291, 297 and Ricardo Conti 61 and Santo Spirito 340 and Sardinia 49, 52 and schismatics 179 at Subiaco 26 Innocent IV, pope and Byzantines 188 and canons of Lyons I 303 and Constantinople 160 and crusading 97, 160, 167 and embassy to Ravenna 141 and Frederick II 72, 97, 129, 284, 352 and Henry III of England 112 and inquisitions 348 and mission 167, 236 and the Negotium Lombardie 73, 100 and Nicaea 167 and rex inutilis 231 Iohannes de Deo, canonist 256 Iohannes de Gabra, ambassador 349 Isaac Komnenos 162 Isabella, queen of England 107 Isabella, queen of Jerusalem 155 Iso, bp of Verden 198 Jaca 218 Jacobites 162 James I of Aragon 128, 216, 218–23, 225–6, 231–3 James of Palestrina 89, 93–4, 141 Jacques de Vitry 20, 23, 25, 50, 62–3, 69, 179, 181–2, 185–6 Jerome, Saint 61, 147 Jerusalem 34, 44, 81, 137, 158, 205, 279, 284 Dominican prior of 167–8 kingdom of 131, 140, 147 patriarch of 80, 162, 291 peace of 102, 121 Jews 94, 178, 231–2, 240, 261, 339, 351 Joachim of Fiore 13, 25, 68, 250, 277–99 Joan of Flanders 264 Joan of Ponthieu 115 Johan, margrave of Brandenburg 199 Johannes, accomplice of Conrad 262 Johannes Hispanus 231 Johannes Teutonicus 311 John X Kamateros, patriarch 153 John XXII, pope 303 John of Abbeville, legate 221, 227, 229, 231 John Asen 156–7, 166, 187 John of Bethune 160 John of Brienne 84, 128, 140, 155–6 John Capgrave 352–3 John Colonna, cardinal 84,335 John of England 79, 103–4, 110–11, 119 John of Florence, bp 53

364 

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authorit y

John de Lacy 107 John of Mâcon, count 157 John of Salerno, prince 37 John of S. Prisca, Cp 33 John of S. Stefano in Celiomonte, Cp 32–4 John of Soissons 157 John of Toledo 285–6 John Vatatzes 156, 159, 163 John of Velletri 49 John of Vicenza 90–1 John of Wildeshausen 180 Joseph of Fiore 277, 294, 297–8 Juan of Osma 220 Judas 355 Justinian 308 Jutta, daughter of Albrecht of Saxony 200 Jylland, law book 192 Kai-Qobad I of Konya 240 Kalojan, tsar 166 Kantara, monastery 17, 170–2, 180, 184 Knud VI 194 Lampsakos 156 Lantelmo of Pavia 46 La Oliva, monastery 219 Las Navas de Tolosa, battle 179, 215–16. Lateran, cathedral 340, 343–4, 349, 351–2 chapter of 332 hospital at 332–7, 340 Fourth Council of the 43. 45, 57, 67, 69, 73, 76–9, 113, 132, 168, 182, 228–9, 232, 247, 286, 302, 320, 345 palace at 21, 331–2, 356 papal burial at 345 processions from 142, 338–9 Sancta Sanctorum at 346 Second Council of the 111 Third Council of the 111 Leal (Lihula), 203 Leo I, pope 102 Leo IX, pope 102, 338 Leo of Andria 37 Leo Brancaleone 40–1, 65 Leo de Monumento 35 León, cathedral of 348 churches of 222 kingdom of 18, 114, 217, 220 Liber Augustalis 87 Libertas ecclesiae 59, 72, 77–8, 87 Liber extra 112, 113, 183, 184, 227, 301-27 Liber indulgentiarium 352–3 Liber politicus 339 Liber pontificalis 24 Liber Sextus 303 Lithuania 139 Livonia 136–7, 139, 202–3, 213, 302

Lombard League 71–100, 258 Lombardy 25, 52, 141, 206–7 London 302, 323 Loos, countess of 134 Loteringius 344 Louis VII 104 Louis VIII 116 Louis IX 105–9, 114, 116, 118–19, 129, 141, 219, 222 Lübeck 194, 196, 201–2, 213 Lucas of Túy 220 Lucca 49, 50, 51, 67, 69 Luciferians 255 Lucius III, pope 16 Lugo 229 Lund 192 Lyons 141 council of 1245, 160, 303 council of 1274, 303 Poor of 16, 225 Magna Carta 79 Magnus, priest 210 Mainz 92, 134, 262, 274 Manuel Doukas 166 Mantua 40, 58–9 Margaret, mother of Esbern Snerlyng 212 Maria of Brienne 155 Markward of Anweiler 21, 23, 33–7 Markward, cleric of Modena 58 Marianne 199 Mariengaard 208 Maronite 168 Marsilius of Padua 112 Martín Rodríguez, bp 231 Mary of Oignies 20, 62–3, 69 Mathias, father of Gregory IX 25 Matthew Paris 113, 141, 145, 148, 167, 253, 264, 267, 272–3 Maurice of Burgos 226, 232 Meaux-Paris, treaty of 247 Mechtilde 198–9 Medina Mayurqa 221 Memoriae Mediolanenses 258 Mérida 217 Michael of Florence 53 Milan, city of 58 Cremona and 86 Frederick II and 76, 95–6 Geoffrey of Montelongo and 141 heresy in 77–8, 83, 90, 95, 98 Honorius III and 79 Lombard League and 74, 77, 84 Otto of Brunswick and 76 podestà of 54 Poor Clares in 20 statutes of 90 Militia of Jesus Christ 90

365

Index

Möln 196 Mongols 17, 128, 130, 142–3, 178, 236 Montearagón, abbey 218 Montecassino, abbey 35 Montefiascone 15, 331 Morimond 224 Navarre 114, 219–20, 225 Negotium Lombardie 18, 71–7, 79–80, 83–4, 86, 88, 91–2, 95–9 Negotium pacis et fidei 18, 114, 116 Neophytos, abp 170–1 Nero, emperor 353, 355 Nicaea, Byzantine church at 151–2, 154, 185 Church Union with 160, 167, 175 court of 169 Emperor at 154, 156, 159, 163 mission to 177, 180, 185 negotiations with 162, 165, 183, 187 patriarch at 152, 154, 163, 165–6, 170 state at 153, 165 Niccolo Maltraversi 55, 57 Nicholas de Romanis 45 Nicholas of Salerno 37 Niels Stigsen 199 Nikolaos-Nektarios, abbot 173 Norbert of Xanten 255 Novit Ille 102, 112, 120–1 Nuno Sanç, count 233 Nymphaion 163 Octavian, cb of Ostia 34–5 Oldrado Grasso 258 Oliver of Paderborn 256 Ordo Cencius II 41 Ordo Romanus XII 46 Ostia 61, 331 Otto II, bp 132 Otto III of Bavaria 207 Otto IV (of Brunswick), emperor 23, 39–43, 49, 52, 68, 74, 76, 78, 86, 98 Otto of Brandenburg 199 Otto Candidus, Cd of San Nicola 89, 120, 141, 204, 208–9, 302–3, 323 Otto of Lüneberg 197–9 Otto of Wittelsbach 41 Oxford 115 Padua 58–9, 88 Paganus of Volterra 51 Paquara 90–1 Parens scientiarum 21 Paris 21, 28, 103, 114, 181, 184, 273 Parma 90–1 Paschal II, pope 17, 353–4 Paschal, notary 58 Patarenes 16, 172, 266 Pedro de Ahonés 218

Peipus, Lake 205 Pelegrina 49 Perugia 23, 45–6, 62, 67, 155, 232, 342, 349 Peter II of Aragon 216, 218, 226 Peter III of Aragon 233 Peter of Britanny, duke 108, 118, 150, 157–8 Peter of Capua, Cd 111–12 Peter Chaceporc 108 Peter de Colonna 106 Peter des Roches, bp 115, 119 Petrus Martyr 271 Philip de Aubigny 107 Philip Augustus 104, 110–12, 116 Philip of Swabia 33, 40–1, 44, 74, 233 Philippe Mousket 253, 264, 268 Piacenza 83, 92–5, 259, 348 Piero della Vigna 17 Pietro Ziani, doge of Venice 55 Pillius 29 Pisans 42, 45, 48–52 Poor Clares 20, 62, 228, 344 Poor of Lyons 16, 225 Portugal 216, 231 Prouille 64 Prussia 136–9 Pskov, city 205 Quinque Compilationes antiquae 183, 307 Quo elongati 19, 66–7. Radicofani 331 Rainald of Spoleto 232 Rainier Capocci, Cd 285 Rainier of Ponza 18, 20, 25, 42–4, 61, 68, 277, 285–6, 288–94, 298 Ralph of Coggeshall 281, 289 Ralph fitz Nicholas 107–8 Ramon Folc of Cardona 227 Ramon de Penyafort 21, 221, 227, 301, 305 Ramon de Torrelles, bp 225 Ranulf, earl of Chester 108 Raymond VI of Toulouse 78, 187 Raymond VII of Toulouse 119, 222 Raymond Berenguer V of Provence 222 Raynaldo, bp-elect of Capua 26 Reginald, monk 29 Reims 111 Reval 204 Rex pacificus 21, 113–4, 301, 306–7, 314–5, 324 Richard I of England 111–2, 280–1 Richard Conti 61 Richard of Cornwall 108, 158 Richard of Dover 29 Richard of Poitou 107 Richard of San Germano 80, 257, 342 Richer of Sénones 253, 265, 268, 272 Rieti 217, 295 Riga 139, 203–4 Rimini 78

366 

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241): Power and Authorit y

Rival 139 Robert, abbot of St. Augustine, Canterbury 287 Robert, friar 264 Robert of Artois 141–2 Robert le Bougre 253–4, 259–61, 263–5, 267–8, 270–3 Robert Courcon 104 Robert of Courtenay, emperor 155 Robert Grossteste 115 Robert of Lucca, bp 49 Rocca d’Arce 37 Rochester 106 Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada 220, 224, 230 Rolando da Cremona 259 Rolandino da Padua 91 Romania 153–8, 160, 162, 165–7, 173, 175 Romano Bonaventura 180 Romanus, legate 105, 117, 247 Roskilde 211 Rudolph, peasant leader 132 Rufinus of Sorrento 121 Rügen 211 Rusudan, queen of Georgia 128, 130 Ryd, annals 193 Sabrisho V, catholicos 167 Salerno 32, 36–8, 68 Salimbene of Parma 283, 330, 344 S. Adriano, church in Rome 340 S. Cosimato in Trastevere 344 S. Croce in Gerusalemme 349 S. Eusebio 341 S. Lorenzo outside the walls 349 S. Maria in Aracoeli 348, 356 S. Maria in Cosmedin 342 S. Maria in Maggiore 347 S. Maria del Popolo 352–6 Salisbury 106 San Damiano, sisters of 53, 60, 67–8 San Germano, peace of 33, 85, 131, 138, 156, 258 Sancha, daughter of Alfonso IX of León 217, 224 Sancha of Castile 226 Sancho II of Portugal 216, 220–2, 231–3 Sancho VII of Navarre 216, 219, 232 Sancho de Ahonés, bp 218 Sancho of Coria, bp 224 Sancta Sanctorum 346–7 Sant’Apollinare, Clares of 20 Santiago de Compostela, church of 230, 232 knights of 223 Santo Domingo de la Calzada 230 Sardinia 48–9, 52 Saule, battle of 205 Sayn, count of 134, 262, 270, 274

Schleswig 208 Semgallia, bp of 139 Senlis 106 Sens 106, 111 Sicily 32–4, 36–7, 42, 49, 96, 141–2, 233, 263 Siegfried III of Mainz 207, 261, 274 Siegfried, bp of Regensburg 206 Simon Langton 106, 108–9, 118 Sixtus IV, pope 355 Sofia, daughter of Valdemar II 199 Sorø, Cistercian monastery 212 Spoleto 15, 142 SS. Quattro Coronati 338, 352 St Paul outside the walls 342, 349 St Paul’s cathedral 301 St Peter, church of 16, 21, 41, 56, 142, 177, 291, 329–30, 339–40, 342–5, 349, 355 keys of 80 patrimony of 24, 33–4, 39, 41–2, 59, 60, 76 relics of 15–6, 142, 150, 346–7, 357 see of 159 tomb of 338 treasure of 350 Stedinger peasants 128 Stensby 205, 213 Stephen, chaplain 58 Symeon II, patriarch of Antioch 165, 169 Syria 128, 137, 151, 162, 167, 169, 178 Tallinn 194 Tancred of Bologna 36, 311, 313 Tancred of Lecce 280 Tarnovo 176 Tarragona 115, 225–6, 230–1 Tello of Palencia 226 Templars 34, 223 Teutonic Order 127, 135–9, 154, 191, 205, 213 Thessalonica 155, 166 Thibaut IV of Champagne 185, 219–20, 222, 233 Thomas Aquinas 174 Thomas de Cantimpré 62 Thomas of Capua 27 Thomas of Celano 19, 66 Thomas of Marlborough 32, 38 Tor, Dominican brother 134 Toulouse 114, 240, 247, 256 Travemünde 201–3 Treviso 58–9, 83, 95 Tudela 216, 232 Tuscany 20, 23, 25, 39, 46–8, 51, 53, 60, 61, 64, 67, 69, 91, 114, 287 Tzurulum 128, 160 Ubaldo of Ravenna, abp 54 Uffe Thrugotsen, abp 199, 209

367

Index

Umbria 20, 39, 47, 53, 62, 67, 69 Urban IV, pope 188 Urgell, county of 226 diocese of 225 Valdemar II 191–203, 205, 208, 212–13 Valdemar the Young 197 Valencia 220, 222–3, 230 Valle spoletana 23, 25, 39 Venice 54, 58, 64, 71, 95–6 Vercelli 54, 90, 94 Veruela, abbot 219 Via Maior 337–9, 342, 347, 352 Via Papalis 338–9 Via Triumphalis 339 Vicenza 54, 83, 90 Vidal de Arvial 226 Vidal de Canellas, bp 222, 225–6 Virgil of Salzburg 295 Vita Gregorii noni 23, 61, 65–6, 256, 272

Viterbo 15, 56, 204, Vox in rama 16, 21, 134, 146–7, 255, 262, 267 Waldensians 188, 226, 255. Walter of Brienne 36–7, 44 Walter de Cantilupe 108 Walter Mauclerk, bp 107 Walter of Tournai, bp 264 War of the Keys 71–2, 80, 82–6, 90, 98–9 Wenceslaus I 207 William II of Sicily 280 William Brewyn 352 William Marshal 107 William of Meliton 174 William of Modena 136, 138–9, 203–5 William of Montferrato 64, 242–3, 245, 247–8 William of Prémontré 208 Willibrand of Oldenburg, bp 128, 132, 135 Winchester 106, 108 Zaragoza 218, 225