The Fourth Lateran Council And The Crusade Movement: The Impact Of The Council Of 1215 On Latin Christendom And The East 2503580882, 9782503580883

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The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement

Outremer Studies in the Crusades and the Latin East

Volume 7

General Editor Dr Alan V. Murray (University of Leeds) Editorial Board Prof. Alfred Andrea (University of Vermont) Prof. Jochen Burgtorf (California State University, Fullerton) Prof. John France (Swansea University) Prof. Nikolas Jaspert (University of Heidelberg) Prof. Kurt Villads Jensen (Stockholm University) Prof. Peter Lock (York St John University) Prof. Graham Loud (University of Leeds) Dr Christoph Maier (University of Zürich) Prof. Helen Nicholson (Cardiff University)

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement The Impact of the Council of 1215 on Latin Christendom and the East

Edited by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith

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Cover illustration: Cornelis Claesz Van Wieringen (c. 1575-1633), De verovering van Damiate (The Capture of Damietta), oil on canvas, c. 1625. With the kind permission of the Frans Hals Museum. Photo: Margreta Svensson. A specialist in paintings of ships and sea battles working during the Dutch Golden Age, Cornelis was one of many artists commissioned by the city council of Haarlem to rewrite the city’s history in painting at a moment when Protestants were prominent in the city government. The painting commemorates the local legend that it was a ship from Haarlem which broke the chain which barred the ships of the Fifth Crusade from progressing up the Nile river towards Damietta. The Fourth Lateran Council was crucial to the planning and preparations for the Fifth Crusade, including the departure dates and places set for crusading fleets and the council’s ban on certain forms of sea trade with Muslim powers. The painting also alludes to the importance of the multiple crusades – Iberian, anti-heretical, Baltic, and anti-schismatic – which intersected with the Holy Land crusade tradition and the preparations, arrivals, and departures for various fronts which shaped the lives of so many individuals who participated in person and supported various crusades on the ‘home front’. The work was so popular that Cornelius was commissioned to produce drawings for a tapestry depicting the same legend. At 10.75 by 2.4 meters, it is currently the largest surviving seventeenth-century wall tapestry and is still displayed in the town hall of Haarlem. These two works thus provide a window into the ways in which crusading could become newly central to a town’s civic and religious identity centuries after the events indicated had taken place. The display of both the painting and the tapestry in the town hall calls into question the divisions between religious and secular (particularly as the painting was commissioned by a Protestant government in a period of religious warfare), and the uses of material objects for the purposes of commemorating mythical or imagined events which were nonetheless a crucial component of individual or communal identity. © 2018, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2018/0095/149 ISBN 978-2-503-58088-3 e-ISBN 978-2-503-58089-0 DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115775 ISSN 2565-8794 e-ISSN 2565-988X Printed on acid-free paper.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgementsvii Contributorsix Abbreviationsxi Damian J. Smith and Jessalynn L. Bird The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusades

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Part I. Liturgy, Indulgences, and Elections Richard Allington Chapter One: Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions at the Fourth Lateran Council

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Ane L. Bysted Chapter Two: Remission of Sins or of Penances?: The Meaning of Crusade Indulgences before and at the Fourth Lateran Council

41

Thomas F. Madden Chapter Three: Oaths Broken, Yet Fulfilled: Venice, Innocent III and the Patriarchate of Constantinople

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Part II. The Albigensian Crusade Martín Alvira Chapter Four: La convocation du Quatrième Concile du Latran et la Croisade contre les Albigeois

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Marjolaine Raguin-Barthelmebs Chapter Five: Le concile de Latran dans la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, une acmé

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Marco Meschini Chapter Six: Innocent III, the Fourth Lateran Council and the Albigensian Crusade

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Damian J. Smith Chapter Seven: The Reconciliation of Guillem Ramon de Montcada, the Albigensian Crusade and Fourth Lateran

131

Part III. The Baltic and the Iberian Peninsula Alan V. Murray Chapter Eight: Adding to the Multitude of Fish: Pope Innocent III, Bishop Albert of Riga and the Conversion of the Indigenous Peoples of Livonia

153

Contents Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen Chapter Nine: The Virgin at the Lateran – The Baltic Crusades, Rome and the Mother of God

171

Miguel Gomez Chapter Ten: Archbishop Rodrigo, Honorius III, and the Fifth Crusade in Spain

193

Part IV. Ad liberandam, The East, and Crusaders’ Rights Thomas W. Smith Chapter Eleven: Conciliar Influence on Ad liberandam219 James J. Todesca Chapter Twelve: Mediterranean Trade in the Wake of Lateran IV: The Millares Revisited

241

Jessalynn L. Bird Chapter Thirteen: The Fourth Lateran Council, Peace, and the Protection of Crusader Rights during the Crusades of Frederick II

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Jan Vandeburie Chapter Fourteen: Dominus papa volens scire – Echoes of the Fourth Lateran Council’s Crusade and Mission Agenda in Thirteenth-Century Manuscripts

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Index

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors of this volume gratefully acknowledge the herculean organizational efforts of those responsible for creating the Concilium Lateranense IV conference in Rome (2015), at which the papers gathered here were originally delivered: Brenda Bolton, Peter D. Clarke, Danica Summerlin and many others. Our gratitude is extended as well to the Frans Hals Museum, which granted us free usage rights to this volume’s spectacular cover image, and to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for the rights to the manuscript image featured in Jan Vandeburie’s article. Alan V. Murray graciously considered this volume for inclusion in the Outremer series at Brepols and gave valuable assistance at many points throughout the publishing process. The volume’s contributors have shown extraordinary patience with the revision and, in some instances, translation of their originally delivered papers. Our intellectual debts are many and varied, but we would particularly like to dedicate this volume to one of the foremost promoters of Innocent III and a new generation of medievalists, Brenda Bolton, and to the two scholars who inspired us as undergraduates to pursue medieval history: Edward Peters and the late Jonathan Riley-Smith.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Richard Allington recently completed his doctoral thesis in the Department of History at Saint Louis University on Prayer Warriors: Crusading Piety in Rome and the Papal States (1187–1291). Martín Alvira is Profesor Titular in the Department of Medieval History at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. He has written many books, including El jueves de Muret: 12 de septiembre de 1213 (2002) and Las Navas de Tolosa 1212: Idea, liturgía y memoria de la batalla (2013). Jessalynn L. Bird is an Assistant Professor in Humanistic Studies at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN. She has co-authored a sourcebook for the crusades with Edward Peters and the late James Powell and has written numerous articles on the activities of members of Peter the Chanter’s circle. Ane L. Bysted holds a position in the School of Culture and Society at Aarhus University. She has published multiple articles and book chapters, as well as a monograph, The Crusade Indulgence: Spiritual Rewards and the Theology of the Crusades, c. 1095–1216 (Brill, 2014). Miguel Gomez is Assistant Professor in the History Department of the University of Dayton, Ohio, having written his doctoral thesis, The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: The Culture and Practice of Crusading in Medieval Iberia, at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He has published several articles on the history of crusading in the Iberian peninsula. Thomas F. Madden is Professor of Medieval History in the Department of History of Saint Louis University and the author of numerous awardwinning books on the crusades, including Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice (Baltimore, 2003). He is Director of Saint Louis University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Marco Meschini teaches medieval history at the Università della Svizzera italiana. He has written numerous books on the history of the crusades, heresy and the papacy, including Innocenzo III e il negotium pacis et fidei in Linguadoca tra il 1198 e il 1215 (Rome, 2007). Alan V. Murray is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Studies and Editorial Director of the International Medieval Bibliography at the University ix

Contributors

of Leeds. He has written and edited a host of books on crusading and on the Baltic, including the four volume The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, and is general editor of the Outremer series published by Brepols. Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen is Associate Professor at the Institute for Culture and Global Studies at Aalborg University. He has published numerous studies on the crusades, Innocent  III, and Anders Sunesen and the recent edited volume Crusading on the Edge: Ideas and Practice of Crusading in Iberia and the Baltic Region, 1100–1500 (Turnhout, 2016). Marjolaine Raguin-Barthelmebs teaches in the Département de Langues et Littératures Romanes, Université de Liège. She is the author of Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain. Étude sur la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise (Paris, 2015). Damian J. Smith is Professor of History at Saint Louis University. He has written multiple books on the history of medieval Aragon and is currently writing a history of the reign of James I of Aragon (1213–76). Thomas W. Smith is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in the History Department at the University of Leeds. His numerous publications include articles, co-edited volumes, and a monograph: Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius III and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1216–27 (Brepols, 2017). James. J. Todesca is an Associate Professor at Armstrong State University. He has written numerous articles concerning coinage and is the editor of The Emergence of León-Castile, c.  1065–1500: Essays presented to J.F. O’Callaghan (Ashgate, 2015). Jan Vandeburie earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Kent and has written numerous articles on Jacques de Vitry, as well as co-editing The Fifth Crusade in Context: The Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century. He is currently a Leverhume fellow and joined the history department at Leicester University in 2018.

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ABBREVIATIONS

Alberigo CCA CCCM COGD

Constitutiones HCL HGL HL Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner JL

Mansi

Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. by Giuseppe Alberigo (Basel, 1962) Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise, ed. by Eugène Martin-Chabot, 3 vols (Paris, 1931) Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout, 1953–) Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta, editio critica: II/1. The General Councils of Latin Christendom from Constantinople IV to Pavia-Siena (869–1424), ed. by Antonio García y García and others, Corpus Christianorum: Conciliorum oecumenicorum generalium decreta II.1 (Turnhout, 2013) Constitutiones concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, ed. by Antonio García y García (Città del Vaticano, 1981) Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae, ed. by Leonid Arbusow et Albert Bauer (Darmstadt, 1959) Histoire générale de Languedoc, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète, 5th ed. (Toulouse, 2003) The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, ed. by James Brundage, 2. ed. (New York, 2003) Innocenzo III: Urbs et Orbis, ed. by Andrea Sommerlechner, 2 vols (Roma, 2003) Philipp Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ad annum 1198, ed. by Samuel Loewenfeld, Ferdinand Kaltenbrunner, and Paul W. Ewald, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1885–88) Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. by Giovanni Domenico Mansi, 31 vols (Firenze, 1759–98)

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Abbreviations

MDI MGH SRG MGHSS PL Potthast Pressutti PVC Register

RHGF Tafel and Thomas

xii

La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (965–1216), ed. by Demetrio Mansilla (Roma, 1955) Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores, ser. Rer. Germ. Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Patrologiae latinae cursus completus, ed. by Jacques-Paul Migne, 221 vols (Paris, 1844–64) Regesta Pontificum Romanorum inde ab anno 1198 ad annum 1304, ed. by August Potthast, 2 vols (Berlin, 1874). Regesta Honorii Papae III, ed. by Pietro Pressutti, 2 vols (Roma, 1888–95) Petri Vallium Sernaii monachi Hystoria Albigensis, ed. by Pascal Guébin and Ernest Lyon, 3 vols (Paris, 1926–39) Die Register Innocenz’ III, ed. by Othmar Hageneder, A. Haidacher, Christoph Egger, Carl Rudolf, Andrea Sommerlechner, John C. Moore, Herwig Weigl, Rainer Murauer, 11 vols to date (Wien-Roma, 1964–2013) Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. by Martin Bouquet and Léopold Delisle, 25 vols (Paris, 1869–1904) Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, ed. by Gottlieb Tafel and Georg Thomas, 3 vols (Wien, 1856–57)

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusades An Introduction

Damian J. Smith and Jessalynn L. Bird

‘Of all the desires of our heart, we long chiefly for two in this life, namely that we may work successfully to recover the Holy Land and to reform the Universal Church’.1 On this basis, Pope Innocent III, on the advice of his cardinals and other prudent men, decided that to obtain his two desires one thing must be done. A general council was to be summoned according to the ancient custom of the Holy Fathers. According to the encyclical, Vineam Domini, of 19 April 1213, the council was to be held to ‘uproot vices and implant virtues, to correct abuses and reform morals, to eliminate heresies and strengthen faith, to allay differences and establish peace, to check persecutions and cherish liberty, to persuade Christian princes and peoples to grant succour and support for the Holy Land from both clergy and laymen’.2 So that everything could be properly organized, the pope decided to put the council more than two years away, while discreet men were to be sent to the Church’s provinces to correct abuses, and other suitable men prepared the organization of the crusade (something the pope hoped to take control of personally). Those to whom Vineam Domini was addressed were expected faithfully to assist those deputed to manage the necessary aid for the Holy Land, 1

2

Potthast, 4706; Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III concerning England (1198– 1216), ed. and trans. Christopher Cheney and William Semple (London, 1953), p. 144, no. 51: inter omnia desiderabilia cordis nostri duo in hoc seculo principaliter affectamus, ut ad recuperationem videlicet terre sancte ac reformationem videlicet terre sancte ac reformationem universalis ecclesie valeamus intendere cum effectu. Potthast, 4706; Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III, p. 145, no. 51: ad extirpanda vitia et plantandas virtutes, corrigendos excessus, et reformandos mores, eliminandas hereses, et roborandam fidem, sopiendas discordias, et stabiliendam pacem, comprimendas oppressiones, et libertatem fovendam, inducendos principes et populos christianos ad succursum et subsidium terre sancte tam a clericis quam a laicis impendendum.

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 1-9 ©F

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Damian J. Smith and Jessalynn L. Bird

‘where God our King of old deigned to work salvation in the midst of the earth’.3 Innocent III’s council, the Fourth Lateran Council of November 1215, was therefore to differ significantly from the three Lateran Councils of the twelfth century (in 1123, 1139, and 1179), all of which had come in some measure as a response to the end of schism. When in 1199 the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III and the patriarch of Constantinople had mooted the idea of a council to concern questions of dogma, Innocent’s response was that any such council that he might call would be ‘pro multis necessitatibus ecclesiasticis’.4 A few years later, Innocent revealed to the archbishop of Cologne that a number of people had suggested that he call a council to curb the disobedience of prelates who did not conserve the faith ‘et alias multas necessitates’.5 But Innocent’s council, when it came (after the imprisonment of the Patriarch of Alexandria by the sultan of Egypt on the one hand and the Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa on the other), would emphatically and inextricably pair reformatio, the reform of the Church, with recuperatio, the recovery of the Holy Land. And just as the reformatio of the council was designed to help all Christians to obtain salvation, the recuperatio was equally to involve everybody. The crusading bull Quia maior was issued at the same time as Vineam Domini and it emphasized that the crusade was a device through which Christ allowed men to convert to penance and deliver themselves to His service. The pope, through his Petrine authority, granted full forgiveness of sins (following sincere confession) to those who campaigned and those who sent another on their behalf, and remission of sins to those who contributed materially according to the amount and the depth of their devotion. Anybody (except clerics) was allowed to take the cross and their vow could subsequently be commuted, redeemed or deferred. Because the pope believed that spiritual weapons were to be more important than physical ones in the conflict ahead, all men and women could participate in monthly processions whereby

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2

Potthast, 4706; Selected Letters of Pope Innocent  III, p.  147, no.  51: ubi deus rex noster ante secula salutem in medio terre dignatus est operari (After Psalm 74:12). Potthast, 862–63; Register, 2: 388, no. 200 (209), 396, no. 202 (211). See Antonio García y García, ‘Prehistoria del Concilio IV Lateranense’, in García y García, Historia del Concilio IV Lateranense de 1215 (Salamanca, 2005), pp. 15–31 (here pp. 16–17). Potthast, 1767; Regestum Innocentii III papae super negotio Romani imperii, ed. Friedrich Kempf (Roma, 1947), p. 219, no. 80.

Introduction

through prayer, fasting and almsgiving the Holy Land would be restored to the Christian people.6 As Richard Allington convincingly illustrates, Innocent’s fusion of crusading and reforming efforts would in fact be achieved by his promotion of ‘spiritual crusading’, that is by broadening participation in the crusade through the expansion of its spiritual benefits to those contributing through participation in liturgies, prayers, donations (including payment of the clerical income tax instituted at the Fourth Lateran), and the promotion of reform, including a renewed emphasis on the sacraments of penance, the mass, and devotion to the crucified Christ. In his expansion of the crusade’s scope and its benefits, Innocent built on initiatives by previous reformers and popes, yet often also took them one step further, as in the case of the crusade indulgence. As Anne Bysted notes, although indulgences had been issued by various ecclesiastical authorities since the early eleventh century, the Fourth Lateran Council was the first council to lay down guidelines for their administration in canons 60, 62, and 71, which described them as ‘remissions of sins’, in what would become the standard formula for many indulgences in following centuries. However, the council did not formulate a general theology on indulgences, or clarify their theological underpinnings or penitential ramifications, much to the disappointment of some contemporary and succeeding theologians who were forced to retroactively explain and justify the grant of partial and plenary indulgences for the crusade and other charitable activities. The pope had proposed a council for reform, peace and crusade. He had called the council so far in advance, hoping that most of the bishops would participate and that they would come prepared with reports on the problems that they faced in their dioceses. Innocent also wanted there to be sufficient time to bring about peace in the various political conflicts which beset Christendom, most obviously between England and France, those within England between King John and the barons, the Albigensian crusade and the imperial question. Resolution of political disputes was to be as vital a part of the business of the council as the reform of ecclesiastical institutions. And Innocent also wanted the crusade to be properly prepared. This plan did not always work as well as the pope had hoped, most obviously in France where his legate Robert de Courçon faced sharp criticism over his implementation of Quia maior, including

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PL 216: 817–21; Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent II to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291, ed. Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters, and James M. Powell (Philadelphia, 2013), pp. 107–12.

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from King Philip Augustus himself.7 But it did mean that the council itself was on an unprecedently large scale. In all the cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops and bishops participating numbered 412, and the abbots and priors around 800. Moreover, there were representatives of military orders and a significant representation by notable laymen and delegates of towns, cities, nobles and kings. As one anonymous eye-witness put it: ‘No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived so many different languages, so many ranks of distinguished people from every nation which is under heaven, who have gathered at present at the Apostolic See: Parthians and Medes and Elamites, with those who dwell at Jerusalem’.8 If any of them doubted Innocent’s intent in calling the council, the pope then made it clear in his opening sermon at the dawn mass on 11 November 1215. Innocent took as his theme, Desiderio desideravi, the passage from Luke, ‘I have desired with a great desire to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer’. The pope declared that he would not refuse, if it was God’s plan, ‘to drink the chalice of the passion, either for the defense of the Catholic Faith, or for the aid of the Holy Land, or for sake of ecclesiastical liberty’. Conscious that his own time was approaching, Innocent expressed a desire to remain in the flesh until the work he had begun had been completed, insisting that he had convoked the sacred council not for temporal glory but principally for the reformation of the Universal Church and the liberation of the Holy Land. It was a triple pasch, a triple passage, which Innocent wished to celebrate with those assembled: corporeal, moving from one place to another, for the liberation of Jerusalem; spiritual, moving from one state to another, for the reform of the Church; eternal, moving from this life to another, for the attainment of heavenly glory. The corporeal passage meant that Jerusalem must be freed from its distress. The pope declared himself entirely committed, wholly prepared on their advice, if they thought it fitting, to undertake a personal labour, to pass over 7

8

4

On Robert’s legation, see Marcel and Christiane Dickson, ‘Le Cardinal Robert de Courson: Sa vie’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 9 (1934): 53–142; Raymonde Foreville, Le Pape Innocent III et La France (Stuttgart, 1992), pp. 319–22. Stephan Kuttner and Antonio García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, Traditio 20 (1964): 115–78 (here p.  123): tot linguarum genera, tot uenerabilium personarum agmina que ex omni natione que sub celo est ad presens apud sedem apostolicam confluxerunt, nec oculus quidem uidit nec auris audiuit nec in cor hominis ascendisse crederentur. Parti namque et Medi et Elamite cum hiis habitant Iherosolimam.

Introduction

to the kings and princes and peoples and nations to persuade them to fight the fight of the Lord and avenge the wrong done to the Crucified.9 Innocent’s opening sermon set the tone for the rest of the council. It was evident there and then that all the ecclesiastical and political business of the council was related in some sense to the crusades. This was obvious in some respects. The matter discussed on 12 November, the question of the election to the patriarchate of Constantinople, was directly a matter of the Fourth Crusade and had an impact on the conciliar legislation concerning ecclesiastical elections. While, as Thomas Madden notes, ‘honor and profit’ underlay the Venetians’ attitude towards the patriarchate of Constantinople, for Innocent III, the contested elections to that patriarchate represented a thorny problem solved only by direct papal intervention and the installation of a new patriarch at the council itself. Innocent’s bitter experiences with electoral complications appear to have motivated the introduction of the highly detailed canons 23 and 24 which attempted to ensure there would be fewer protracted elections in the future. The somewhat fruitless debate of 13 November concerning the Toledan primacy in the Iberian Peninsula was similarly a result of the promise Innocent had previously made to Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo that he would treat the matter personally, provided it was not allowed to get in the way of the Christian campaign which led to Las Navas.10 Moreover, on 14 November, the council discussed the problem of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse. It was undoubtedly the case that the problem of heresy was a major concern of the council and it had been Innocent who, after the assassination of Pierre de Castelnau in January 1208, launched the crusade which had led to the count losing his territories to its military leader, Simon de Montfort, a decision which the pope had provisionally ratified in April 1215 while stipulating that the final decision rest with the council.11 In fact, as Martín Alvira suggests, the all-encompassing and drawn-out nature of the negotium pacis et fidei and the knotty doctrinal and political issues it raised may have been one of the primary precipitating factors for the convocation of the Fourth Lateran Council itself in Vineam Domini (1213), a project reflected in the negotiations regarding the fate of Raymond VI and his heirs and many of the council’s canons outlining the orthodox creed and those on excommunication, inquests, confession, and many other matters. However, as 9

10 11

Innocenzo  III, Sermoni (Sermones), ed. Stanislao Fioramonti (Città del Vaticano, 2006), pp. 646–56; John C. Moore, Pope Innocent III (1160/61–1216): To Root Up and to Plant, 2nd edn, (Notre Dame, 2009), pp. 231–33. Potthast, 4258; MDI, p. 483, no. 455. Potthast, 4967; PVC, 2: 250, ch. 556.

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Marjolain Raguin-Bathelmebs notes, the seemingly definitive certitude embodied in the recorded canons of the council should be counterbalanced by the rehabilitation of other sources, even if their authors were overtly hostile to the Albigensian crusade and its progenitor, Innocent III. The wonderfully skilful anonymous continuator of the Chanson de la croisade Albigeoise evokes a picture of the pope deeply troubled by the decisions which had been and were being taken, particularly concerning Raymond VI’s heir, the young Raymond VII. Was the son to be guilty for the sins of the father? Drawing on the Chanson and other sources, Marco Meschini paints a gripping picture of an Innocent  III besieged by representatives of Simon de Montfort, the count of Foix and the young Raymond  VII, and the voices of many council attendees calling for the condemnation and punishment of the latter two men. Innocent III was tormented by the ramifications of his occasionally ill-informed and therefore fallible decisions regarding the fate of the excommunicated Raymond VI, his lands, and his son, yet the pope would repeatedly prove himself all too willing to reconcile those who presented themselves as penitents at the papal curia. This is illustrated by the little known but fascinating case of Guillem Ramon de Montcada, swept up in the political struggles between major players in the Albigensian crusade, including Simon de Montfort and Peter II of Aragon. Similar to the better-known Henry II of England after the murder of Becket or Raymond VI after the murder of Pierre de Castelnau, Guillem faced excommunication and interdict for his grisly roadside execution of the archbishop of Tarragona, although there is no indication that he was ‘heretical’ per se. Guillem’s case raises the question of how many other anonymous petitioners and penitents must have scraped together funds and made their way to the council at Rome seeking absolution or justice – in Guillem’s case a spectacular public penance and a (never-to-be-fulfilled) crusade vow imposed by cardinals Nicholas of Tusculum, Hugolino and Pelayo. The decisions made at the end of the council confirming the earlier decision against Raymond VI and his allies may have gone against Innocent’s own wishes in one respect but in another may have fulfilled the pope’s purpose in Quia maior of curbing the Albigensian crusade in favour of the Holy Land. Innocent received other kinds of petitioners as well, all eager to obtain a hearing for their cause during a pontificate which, according to the Gesta Innocentii Tertii, was filled with competing agendas and priorities, and where the project of missions in the Baltic was but one of many missions and crusades competing for papal attention – the reconciliation of the schismatic Greeks, efforts in the Iberian peninsula, the anti-heretical crusade, and also diplomatic overtures and negotiations with the church 6

Introduction

of Armenia and the Bulgarian Tsar Johanitsa, neighbour to the newlyestablished Latin empire of Constantinople. At some point during the council, the archbishop of Riga and the bishop of Estonia, who had travelled to Rome, reported on the great success story of crusading victories in Livonia and the conversion of the heathen.12 They may have done so in a bid to counteract Innocent’s recent undermining of the authority of the bishop of Riga in favour of the Danish archbishopric of Lund (a position held by the Paris-educated Anders Sunesen). As Alan V. Murray and Torben Nielsen show, the presentation of the Baltic region as the dower-lands of the Virgin Mary, so well-developed in the chronicle of Henry of Livonia, would prove central to the ultimately successful lobbying efforts of the bishops of Livonia and Estonia for renewed papal support of the Baltic crusade. Representatives from the Iberian Peninsula attending the council, among them Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, were also concerned about the application of crusading privileges and funding in their region. Although the great victory at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) had inspired Innocent to call for a renewed crusading effort to the East and to convoke a general council in support of that crusade, it was perhaps all too apparent to the Iberian bishops in attendance at the council that the attention of Innocent III, and Christendom itself, had shifted to the Holy Land. Both Rodrigo and his Baltic counterparts would lobby for continued papal support for the crusading enterprise in their regions as equally important to the expansion or defense of Latin Christendom, as projects equally deserving of papal backing through the grant of crusade indulgences and a portion of the clerical income tax levied for the Holy Land, both of which Rodrigo eventually obtained, as Miguel Gomez explains. On 30 November 1215, the council ended with the approval of the dogmatic decrees and constitutions. These should not be taken as separate from the crusade because as the pope had emphasized at the outset the reform of the church and the crusade were both paths to eternal salvation. At some point, the text of the crusading encyclical Ad liberandam, probably in draft, was read out. On this matter, it appears that the pope had consulted a great deal. The constitution declared that the crucesignati were to come together in the kingdom of Sicily on 1 June 1217, where, if God willed it, the pope would be personally present. The entirety of the clergy must give a twentieth of their ecclesiastical revenue in aid of the Holy Land, while the pope himself and the cardinals would give a tenth of their revenue. False and impious Christians who carried arms, iron and wood for ships to the Saracens were to be excommunicated and anathematized. 12

HL, p. 152.

7

Damian J. Smith and Jessalynn L. Bird

A four-year peace was to be imposed through the Christian world.13 The pope then ended the council symbolically at the ninth hour, the hour of Christ’s death on the cross, by holding up a relic of the True Cross which had been acquired from Constantinople in 1204. Those present fell to their knees in veneration of the relic and received absolution from the pope.14 From beginning to end the crusade had been at the heart of the ­council. This is convincingly shown by James J. Todesca’s and Thomas W. Smith’s reappraisal of the decree Ad liberandam. Pointing to the idiosyncratic version of Ad liberandam preserved by Roger Wendover, Smith argues that this all-important crusading decree was not prefabricated by Innocent III and presented to the council for its cursory approval, but rather was drafted in an atmosphere of dialogue (occasionally contentious) which forged, at the council itself, key clauses including the grant of indulgences and privileges and the institution of the highly contested clerical income tax for the crusade. Pointing to the first few lines of Ad liberandam (finalized almost certainly after the close of the council), Todesca notes that Innocent III stressed that its provisions had not only received the approval of the ‘sacred council’ but had been formulated with ‘the advice of prudent men who are fully aware of the circumstance of time and place’. These advisors almost certainly included delegates and diplomatic contingents from virtually every important region of Latin Christendom. Their approval would have been sought for the mandate – adapted from the Third Lateran Council (1179) and reiterated in the papal call to crusade, Quia maior (1213) – barring Christians from trading arms, iron, and timber for ships, a provision further specified in Ad liberandam’s stipulation that Christians must not sell ships to Muslims or ‘give them advice or help by way of machines or anything else to the detriment of the Holy Land’. Yet, as Todesca illustrates, although papal restrictions on trade were reiterated and further specified throughout the thirteenth century, these restrictions did not represent or seek a blanket ban on trade. Merchants soon peppered the papal curia with queries proving that trade continued, while they sought out new, non-military, ­commodities to trade, resulting in the flourishing production of silver dirhams intended for use in trade with North Africa. As many of the essays in this volume stress, the ways in which the decrees of the council were implemented and the afterlife of the information gathered in preparation for it have been perhaps less explored than the transmission and impact of its decrees. In the later part of the 13 14

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Constitutiones, pp. 110–18. ‘A New Eyewitness’, p. 128.

Introduction

council, when the questions of the empire and England both raised their heads, the pope undoubtedly had in mind the protection to be afforded to King John as a crusader, and the potential of having Frederick as another. And yet, as Jessalynn Bird illustrates, the spiritual, physical and financial privileges promised to crusaders of all stripes in Ad liberandam proved difficult to implement in practice, largely because the task of interpretation and enforcement fell to a motley consortium of judges delegate, crusade preachers, and prelates. Their decisions were routinely appealed to Rome and the penalty of excommunication could be all too easily ignored or contested. In contrast, Jean Vandeburie shows the lasting influence of the information gathered on the political situation, rulers, and religions of the East both before the council and afterwards. Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Orientalis and Historia Occidentalis (which were meant to describe the ‘abuses’ in East and West addressed by the canons  of the Fourth Lateran) were soon joined by an anonymous ‘Third book’ which incorporated briefs sent to inform Innocent III of the situation in the Holy Land before the Fourth Lateran Council with accounts of the campaign of the Fifth Crusade. The Historia Orientalis and ‘Third book’ would become standard reading material for crusade planners throughout the thirteenth century and beyond. In conclusion, the importance and impact of the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council – which is undoubted, due to their dissemination through provincial councils and synods and their reiteration at the First (1245) and Second Council of Lyon (1274) – cannot be properly understood without further investigation into the circumstances surrounding the convocation of the Fourth Lateran Council, the preparations undertaken for it (including preliminary councils and the gathering of information and petitions), the dialogues which occurred during the council itself, and the attempts to implement its decrees. It is the hope of this volume’s editors and contributors that the research contained here will inspire others to continue the investigation of the context and implications of this council of councils.

9

Part I

Liturgy, Indulgences, and Elections

Chapter One Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions at the Fourth Lateran Council Richard Allington

On 30 November 1215, in the mater and caput of all the churches in the world, Pope Innocent III ended the greatest medieval Church council by blessing participants with a relic of the Holy Cross.1 The pope’s action symbolized the reform agenda of the Fourth Lateran Council, but also revealed how this program was supported by the ongoing expansion of crusading piety. The council’s deliberate unification and expansion of the crusading and reform movements marked the culmination of the emerging devotional trends during the twelfth century. The implementation of the council’s program in the thirteenth would be one of its most enduring legacies. The Fourth Lateran Council is most famous for its far-reaching decrees on the disciplinary and sacramental life of the Church, but it also played an important role in encouraging the expansion of crusading piety throughout society. As the council attempted to extend the twelfthcentury reform of the Church beyond the clergy to the laity, Innocent simultaneously strove to extend the crusading movement to include a broader cross-section of medieval society than the knightly class, which had dominated the first century of crusading. These two programs were both driven by the spirituality of affective devotion to the cross. Over the course of the second half of the twelfth century, this pious symbolism had become a staple of efforts to reform the Church, focussing largely on the clergy. The expansion of crusading piety at the council provided an important source of energy for promoting the broader reform agenda to a wider audience.

1

Stephan Kuttner, and Antonio García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, Traditio 20 (1962), 115–78 (here pp. 165–71).

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 13-40 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115852

Richard Allington

The council promoted the expansion of crusading to new participants by encouraging renewed practices of spiritual crusading. Spiritual crusading was the performance of intercessory devotions practiced in support of crusading campaigns by those physically participating in these expeditions, but also others at home. In response to the bleak situation in the Levant, the papacy attempted to integrate the battle to liberate holy Christian sites into the communal devotional life of Latin Christendom and swell crusading ranks through the spiritual participation of clergy and laity at home. Spiritual crusading had its origins in the Christian response to the defeat at the battle of Hattin some thirty years before the council, but was itself part of this broader trend to expand the reform movement to the whole of Christian society. Defeats were seen as divine indictments of a corrupt society whose armies were unworthy of God’s favor.2 Participating in penitential acts of spiritual crusading not only provided support for crusading campaigns, but actively incorporated the same Christians into the reform of the Church. In practicing intercessory crusading devotions, they embraced new commitments to prayer and penance and the purification of the Church. This purification of the Church was the central goal of the Fourth Lateran Council. The council’s program of expanding crusading activity to Christians at home extended the application of crusading piety beyond military victory in the Holy Land to support its main agenda of reforming the Church. This development had its origins before the Fourth Lateran Council, but the activities of the council united crusading with the reform movement more fully than ever before and laid the foundations for the future application of crusading piety to local causes as well as remote campaigns. This unification was achieved by expanding both the crusading and reform movements through appeals to affective devotion for the sufferings of Christ on the cross and encouraging reception of the sacraments of the Church. Innocent had been at the forefront of the expansion of the reform movement throughout his career and was always devoted to the crusades. At the Lateran in November 1215, he used the crusading relic of the wood of the Cross on which the Son of God had died to save the world, the holiest relic in Christendom, to promote his program of expanded Church reform.

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PL, 202: 1541; Christoph T. Maier, ‘Crisis, Liturgy, and Crusade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 48 (1997), 628–57; Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldgate, 2000), p. 98.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

In 1213, in preparation for the council, Innocent issued Quia maior. This letter outlined the crusading program of the council to prepare for the Fifth Crusade and incorporated this expedition into the reform agenda of the council.3 Quia maior was intended to serve as a comprehensive program for the campaign and avoid the mistakes in administration and planning that had beset previous crusades. Consequently, Innocent constructed this letter with great care and specified in some detail how the armies were to be raised and supported and the spiritual benefits for participants would accrue.4 Innocent encouraged the promotion and expansion of spiritual crusading in aid of this enterprise. He ordered that intercessory processions for the crusades were to be held every month.5 Where possible there would be separate processions of men and women, and Christians would fast and give alms on these days in order to make their prayers for the restoration of the Holy Land fly more quickly and easily to God’s ears.6 Moreover, every day at Mass, after the kiss of peace, all men and women would prostrate themselves on the ground and pray for the crusades.7 These prayers were oriented around the recitation of Psalm 78, the traditional prayer of spiritual crusaders, and a new collect, possibly composed by Innocent himself: ‘O God, who arranges all things with wonderful Providence, we urgently beg that, seizing the land that your only-begotten son has consecrated with his blood, from the hands of the enemies of the cross, you restore it to Christian worship. Direct the vows of his constant faithful mercifully to its liberation on the road of eternal salvation’.8 The promotion of these intercessory liturgies demonstrates that Innocent viewed 3 4

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PL, 216: 817–21. PL, 216: 817–21; James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–21 (Philadelphia, 1990), p. 20; Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters, and James M. Powell, Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Philadelphia, 2013), p. 107; Colin Morris, The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West: From the Beginning to 1600 (New York, 2005), p. 266. PL, 216: 820. PL, 216: 820. PL, 216: 817–21. Robert le Moine, ‘Histoire de la Premiere Croisade’, in Collection des Memoires relatifs à L’histoire de France, ed. M. [François] Guizot, 78 vols (Paris, 1825), 1: 306; PL, 216: 817–21: ‘Deus, qui admirabili providentia cuncta disponis, te suppliciter exoramus ut terram quam unigenitus Filius tuus proprio sanguine consecravit de manibus inimicorum crucis eripiens, restituas cultui Christiano, vota fidelium ad ejus liberationem instantium misericorditer dirigendo in viam

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spiritual crusading as an integral part of the crusading movement and was determined to renew and improve this aspect of crusading campaigns as part of his preparations for this new expedition. Furthermore, the emphasis of these devotions on encouraging prayer, fasting, and almsgiving among the faithful reveals that Innocent was crafting a program of spiritual crusading that would be consistent with his broader plan for the Fourth Lateran Council as a stage for promoting and expanding the reform of the Church. Penitential processions were far from a novelty for medieval Christians. They had been used before to alleviate natural disasters or ward off human enemies. This program, however, was by some distance the most systematic program of public devotions in aid of the crusades yet proposed. Innocent’s instructions in Quia maior, expanding crusading to include spiritual participation, seem to have been inspired by an earlier instance  of spiritual crusading which had supported the greatest crusading success of his pontificate. The pope had been in regular contact with Alfonso  VIII of Castile regarding the king’s expeditions against the Almohads. In 1212, believing that a crucial battle was about to take place between the Christian and Muslim armies, he called for intercessory processions to be held during the octave of Pentecost to earn divine favor for the Christian campaign that led to the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.9 In Rome, Innocent called for three processions, probably inspired by the penitential devotions, which traditionally accompanied the practice of the Major Litanies and the processions held in honor of the Holy Cross in the city.10 At the height of the morning the women of Rome gathered at Santa Maria Maggiore, the clergy at Santi Apostoli, and the laymen at Santa Anastasia. At the ringing of the bells of these churches all three groups processed to the Lateran. Nuns walked at the head of the procession of women down the via Merulana past the church of San Bartolomeo, following the cross of Santa Maria Maggiore.11 Lay women followed them in devotion and humility wearing no jewels or silk garments, weeping

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salutis eternae’; Amnon Linder, Raising Arms: Liturgy and the Struggle to Liberate Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2003), p. 35. PL, 216: 698–99; Crusade and Christendom, pp. 82–83; John C. Moore, Pope Innocent  III (1160/61–1216): To Root Up and Plant, 2nd  edn (Boston, 2013), p. 198. Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, ed., ‘Le Pontifical romano-germanique du dixieme siècle’, Studi e testi 226–27 (1963), 119; Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, ed. Michael Lapidge (New York, 1991), pp. 101, 119, 147. PL, 216: 698–99.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

and wailing. The most devout were barefoot. Once they arrived at the Lateran they were supposed to wait in silence for the other processions.12 Santi Apostoli was the congregational center for the ecclesiastical community Romana Fraternitas, who promoted the reform of the clergy of Rome.13 Innocent ordered that their cross lead the procession of the clergy. Monks and canons were to head the procession, followed by rectors and other clerics.14 After following the forum to the Colosseum they processed passed the church of Quatro Coronati up the hill to the basilica and past the palace of the bishop of Albano. The procession of laymen was led by the Hospitallers and the processional cross from the Vatican and crossed the Celian hill past the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo before coming to the Lateran. Meanwhile, Innocent with the papal clergy entered the Sancta Sanctorum and took up a relic of the cross housed in the papal reliquary before making the short procession to the basilica.15 There the pope gave an exhortatory homily while the relic remained on display as the focus of his sermon.16 After the sermon, the women processed to the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, where a cardinal said Mass for them. As part of the readings for the Mass, the cardinal included the collect for the votive Mass against pagans, previously prescribed as a prayer for the crusaders by Pope Clement III, in which the congregation begged God to humble the pride of his enemies.17 Meanwhile, the pope, accompanied by the cardinals and the other clergy, and laymen entered the Lateran basilica and celebrated 12 13

14 15

16 17

PL, 216: 698–99; Maier, ‘Liturgy, Crisis, and Crusade’, p. 633. PL, 216: 698–99; Susan Twyman, ‘The Romana Fraternitas and Urban Processions at Rome in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Pope, Church, and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda Bolton, ed. Frances Andrews, Christoph Egger, and Constance M. Rousseau (Leiden, 2004), pp. 205–21. PL, 216: 698–99. PL, 216: 698–99; Christoph  T. Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross: Innocent III and the Relocation of the Crusade’, in Pope Innocent III and his World, ed. John C. Moore (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 351–61. PL, 216: 698–99. PL, 216: 698–99; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. William Stubbs, 4  vols (London, 1868–71), 2: 359; Corpus Orationum, ed. Eugene Moeller and Joanne  M. Clement (Turnhout, 1992), no.  3846: ‘Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, in cujus manu sunt omnium potestates, et omnia jura regnorum, respice ad christianum benignus exercitum [or auxilium] ut gentes, que in sua feritate confidunt, potentia dextere tue comprimantur’; Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca, 2017), p.  316; Sylvia Schein, Gateway to the Heavenly City: Crusader Jerusalem and

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Mass there.18 Afterwards, the men processed to Santa Croce barefoot, led by the clergy and followed by the people, to pray there. Throughout the day all were expected to fast and provide alms to those in need.19 As early as the sixth century, processions were commonly employed as acts of public penance in Rome, designed to petition God for forgiveness and protection in the face of threats to the community.20 Most famously, in 590, Gregory the Great carried out or at least oversaw similar devotions in Rome after the city had been devastated by a plague and was threatened by the Lombards.21 This tradition was institutionalized in the annual practice of the Major and Minor Litanies.22 In both cases, clergy and people gathered in the main church and processed to other stations dressed in simple clothes, often barefoot, and invoking God’s protection in a sequence of supplications for protection, which were codified as the Litany of the Saints.23 Although the litanies were initially designed to unite the community in prayer, by the twelfth century, in Rome at least, they had become more exclusive ceremonies focused on the reform of the clergy. Falconieri and Dyer have both pointed out that during the twelfth century these devotional practices were far more intensely focused on the inclusion of the clergy as occasions for them to show their acceptance of papal authority and participate in the communal life of the Church.24 Dyer focuses on

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the Catholic West (1099–1187) (Burlington, VT, 2005), p. 183; Linder, Raising Arms, p. 11. PL, 216: 698–99. PL, 216: 698–99; Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’, pp. 354–55. Terence Bailey, The Processions of Sarum and the Western Church (Toronto, 1971), p. 95. Gregory of Tours, Historia libri X, ed. and trans. Rudolf Buchner, Zehn Bücher Geschichten (Berlin, 1955), X.1. Sicard of Cremona, Mitralis; seu De officiis ecclesiasticis summa, PL, 213: 574; William Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. David A. Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, 4 vols, CCCM 140–140b (Turnhout, 1995–2000), 2: 503–04; Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, p. 175. Le Pontifical romano-germanique du dixieme siècle, p. 119; Joseph Dyer, ‘Roman Processions of the Major Litany (litaniae maiores) from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century’, in Roma Felix – Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome, ed. Eamonn O’Carragain and Carol Neuman de Vegvar (Aldershot, 2007), pp. 113–37; Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, ed. Lapidge, pp. 101, 119, 147. Tommaso Di Carpegna Falconieri, Il clero di Roma nel medioevo: Istituzioni e politica cittadina (secoli VIII–XIII) (Roma, 2002), p.  76; Dyer, ‘Roman Processions of the Major Litany’, p. 125; Pierre Salmon, The Breviary Through

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

the change in the route of the processions from the earlier course out of the north gate of the city, over the Milvian bridge and back through the fields of the contado to reach the Vatican, to the twelfth-century path through the heart of the city from the Lateran to San Marco and from there directly to Saint Peter’s.25 He argues that this change in route and the trend to limiting participation in the procession to the papal curia were driven by the popes’ struggles to consolidate their temporal authority in the city of Rome and reform the clergy.26 Even though the litanies were penitential processions they were still occasions to display and promote papal lordship over the city. Boso’s description of Alexander III’s triumphant return to Rome in 1178, for example, was very much constructed as a piece of anti-imperial propaganda.27 The location of the Lateran basilica as the destination of these processions, had at least since the election of Paschal II in 1099, been chosen at least in part to promote papal authority in these processions.28 This trend led Dyer to go so far as to argue that the laity would not be welcome as participants in these processions in  the second half of the twelfth century, but were instead expected to fill the role of observers.29 The intercessory crusading devotions promoted by Innocent III, however, stressed the importance of participation by the entire community.30

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the Centuries, trans. Sister David Mary (Collegeville, MN, 1962), p. 13; Sible de Blaauw, ‘Cultus et decor. Liturgia et architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medievale’, Studi e Testi 355 (1994), p. 205. Le Liber Censuum de l’église romaine, ed. Paul Fabre and Louis Duchesne, 2  vols (Paris, 1905), 2: 307; Dyer, ‘Roman Processions of the Major Litany’, p.  128; Bernhard Schimmelpfennig, ‘Die Bedeutung Roms im päpstlichen Zeremoniell’, in Rom im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert, ed. Bernhard Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Schmugge (Sigmaringen, 1992), pp. 47–61 (here p. 53). Dyer, ‘Roman Processions of the Major Litany’, p.  136; Steffen Diefenbach, ‘Beobachtungen zum antiken Rom im hohen Mittelalter: Städtische Topographie als Herrschafts- und Erinnerungsraum’, Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 97 (2002), 40–88 (here pp. 74–75); Susan Twyman, Papal Ceremonial at Rome in the Twelfth Century (London, 2002). Boso’s Life of Alexander III, ed. and trans. Peter Munz (Oxford, 1973), pp. 1–2; Liber Pontificalis, ed. Louis Duchesne, 2 vols (Paris, 1886–92), 2: 446; Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, pp. 1–2. Liber Pontificalis, 1: 478; Twyman, Papal Ceremonial, p. 116. Dyer, ‘Roman Processions of the Major Litany’, p. 136. PL, 216: 698–99.

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The rituals in aid of the Las Navas campaign demonstrate Innocent’s vision of extending the reform movement throughout Christian society by expanding crusading participation.31 The pope was convinced that crusading success required the concerted effort of all Christians and the purification of Christendom to make its armies worthy of divine assistance. Since it was not possible for everyone to join a crusade army, Innocent found it necessary to promote ways in which everyone could make a meaningful contribution to the cause, if not by arms, then by prayer and fasting. The intercessory processions in support of the Las Navas campaign accomplished this goal. The Hospitallers leading the procession of laymen, for example, would have reminded participants that performing these devotions was a way of waging a spiritual battle in conjunction with those fighting with physical weapons many miles away. These acts of prayer and fasting, as well as providing spiritual support for the military campaigns, also incorporated the Roman population into acts of spiritual renewal: prayer, penance, almsgiving and participation in the liturgies of the Church. Participation in these liturgies was a way of supporting the crusades and provided an accessible and popular way for all Christians to enter into the liturgical life of the Church. The prominent role Innocent assigned to the Romana Fraternitas was a clear papal affirmation of their work to reform the clergy, now linked to the support of the crusades. The pope’s encouragement provides further evidence of the dual function these devotions performed in expanding the reform movement and linking this reform with concern for the crusades. The routes used and the participants who joined these devotions further emphasized the importance of spiritual crusading in expanding the reform movement beyond clergy and knights to the whole Christian community. Communal processions were far from unfamiliar to Roman Christians, but by the twelfth century the focus had shifted from the universal participation of the community to that of the clergy. Innocent’s program of spiritual crusading served to re-focus these rituals on the participation of the laity and renew their involvement in the liturgical life of the Church. Innocent furthered this expansion of crusading and reform in the program of spiritual crusading he proposed in Quia maior. Affirmed by the stunning success of the Las Navas devotions, through which the Christians had won one of the most significant victories of the Spanish crusades, Innocent now hoped that a similar program of penitential piety on the part of all Christendom would result in even more wide-reaching 31

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PL, 216: 698–99; Damian J. Smith, ‘The Papacy, the Spanish Kingdoms, and Las Navas de Tolosa’, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 20 (2011), 157–78 (here pp. 177–78); Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’, pp. 356–57.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

crusading success.32 His call for intercessory processions in the crusading documents of the Fourth Lateran Council was inspired by the practice which had proved so successful the previous year. In Quia maior, the pope stressed that all members of the congregation, both men and women, should participate in the daily Clamor ritual at Mass.33 In contrast to the focus of the twelfth-century processions, the laity were exhorted to participate in these communal rituals as a way of renewing their devotional lives. Innocent also called for the monthly communal devotions to be divided into two separate processions of men and women where possible. Certainly, in Rome the division of the participants into three processions and the routes of the processions throughout the different regions of the city were designed to emphasize the participation of the whole community in these devotions. Parisian sermons on the observance of the litanies from this period also stressed that the order of the procession led by the crosses and banners and including the laity was designed to symbolize the participation and unification of the community, seeking God’s protection.34 This effort to expand participation in these devotions coincided with Innocent’s overarching goal for the council to extend the reform of the Church beyond the clergy to incorporate the laity. The expansion of the crusading movement to include spiritual participants provided an attractive opportunity to further this reform agenda.35 An anonymous preacher explained that while the litany processions had been instituted to seek God’s protection from wild beasts, they were now prescribed as a means to free people from spiritual predators.36 Parisian statutes prescribed acts of spiritual crusading, because the reform 32

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PL, 216: 821; Sylvia Schein, Fideles Crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1274–1314 (Oxford, 1991), p.  94; Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, p. 327; Maier, ‘Liturgy, Crisis, and Crusade’, p. 634. PL, 216: 821. Anonymous of Soissons, in Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade ed. and trans. Alfred  J. Andrea (Leiden, 2000), pp.  223–38 (here pp.  234–37); Rituale seu mandatum insignis ecclesiae Suessionensis, ed. Alexander Poquet (Paris, 1856); Jessalynn Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching: The Liturgical Front in the Late Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries’, in Papacy, Crusade, and Christian-Muslim Relations (Amsterdam, 2018), pp. 155–93. Andrea Winkler, ‘Old Stories and New Theology’, in Innocenzo III, ed. Andrea Sommerlechner, 1: 471–88 (here p. 471). MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouv.acq.lat. 999, fols 251va-252rb; Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’; Jessalynn Bird, ‘Crusade and Reform: The Sermons of Bibliothèque Nationale, MS nouv. acq. lat.

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they engendered among the community at home would provide the same aid to the Holy Land as the armies campaigning in the Levant.37 The scriptural imagery of Joshua’s conquest of the Canaanite city of Ai was also employed to emphasize the purification of Christians at home as a prerequisite for military success in the Holy Land.38 In 1226, Philip the Chancellor emphasized that moral reform was vital to reversing the pattern of crusading failure and that participation in spiritual crusading rituals was the best way to participate in this reform.39 Thus, the practice of spiritual crusading was codified and promulgated as part of the continued expansion of the reform of Christendom.40 These rituals in support of the Las Navas campaign and the spiritual renewal they encouraged were driven by the crusading symbolism of the cross and the imitation of the sufferings of Christ. The processions were led by three prominent liturgical crosses, which themselves may have contained relics of the Cross.41 The ceremonies at the Lateran and Santa Croce were centered on processions and devotions in honor of the relic of the Cross. The final procession of the day not only travelled east from the Lateran to Santa Croce, but travelled barefoot to the church which served as the figure of Jerusalem in Rome, built on soil from the holy city.42 Participants in these liturgies not only shared in the crusaders’ journey to

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999’, in The Fifth Crusade in Context: The Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century, ed. Guy Perry and others (New York, 2017), pp. 92–114. Odette Pontal, Les statuts synodaux français du XIIIe siècle: Vol. 1: Les statuts de Paris et le synodal de l’Ouest (XIIIe siècle) (Paris, 1971), p. 86; Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouv.acq.lat. 999, fols 256vb-58ra; Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’. Johannes B. Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, 43  vols (Münster, 1973), 4: 839; Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’. Maier, ‘Liturgy, Crisis and Crusade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth-Centuries’, p. 632; Schein, Gateway to the Heavenly City, p. 176. Iohannis Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, ed. Herbert Douteil (Turnhout, 1976), p. 181; Sicard of Cremona, Mitralis; seu De Officiis Ecclesiasticis Summa, p. 213; Jessalynn Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons: Crusade Preaching Sermons for Palm Sunday and Good Friday’, Paper presented at Crusades: Medieval Worlds in Conflict, The Third International Symposium on Crusade Studies, Saint Louis University. PL, 216: 698–99; Virginia Raguin, ‘Rome’s Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and Relics of the Passion of Christ’, in Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam (Chicago, 2010), pp. 172–75.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

Jerusalem, but in the suffering of Christ’s journey, carrying the cross as a sign of returning to God by suffering in reparation for their sins. Rubrics for processional liturgies generally focused on the use of banners, to symbolize the victory of the cross, also carried at the head of the procession. Relics seem to have been always included, but there were no uniform practices or set statutes for carrying relics in processions.43 The relics present were largely determined by the occasion of the procession. Relics of the Cross were carried in the processions held in Rome on Good Friday and the feasts of the Invention and Exaltation of the Cross, but traditionally relics of the martyrs were most commonly employed in Roman processions.44 They recalled the ancient Christian heroism of the first Roman Christians and celebrated the memory of the apostles that had sanctified Rome as the holy city in support of papal authority. In emphasizing the role of the relic of the Cross in the spiritual crusading liturgies in support of Las Navas and stressing devotion to the Cross, Innocent was promoting a more extensive type of piety that aimed at a broader program of reform than devotion to the individual saints of a particular city. When prescribing processions in aid of the crusades in Quia maior, Innocent wrote that these devotions should include a sermon in which the word of the cross was preached to the people.45 The phrase verbum crucis is an allusion to Saint Paul’s rhetoric in first Corinthians, that salvation would come from the suffering of the cross, not worldly power.46 It was used to preach reform and increasingly in crusade sermons to encourage audiences to embrace the suffering of crusading as a means of achieving salvation.47 Innocent again used this phrase in his instructions to crusade preachers issued after Quia maior, exhorting them to carry the word of the cross to their audiences.48 The use of this phrase in the letters laying out Innocent’s program of crusading piety in preparation for the council and the Fifth Crusade, inspired in part by the Las Navas devotions, suggests 43 44

45

46 47 48

Bailey, Processions of Sarum, p. 115. Les Ordines Romani du haut Moyen-Âge, ed. Michel Andrieu, 5 vols (Louvain, 1931–61), 1: 108–26, 71–76; Liber Pontificalis, 1: 496–97; Caroline J. Goodson, ‘Building for Bodies: The Architecture of Saint Veneration in Early Medieval Rome’, in Roma Felix, pp. 51–80 (here p. 67); Twyman, Papal Ceremonial at Rome, pp. 73–75. PL, 216: 821: ‘In ipsa processione verbum salutiferae crucis cum diligenti exhortatione populo proponatur’. I Corinthians, 1.18. Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. PL, 216: 822.

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that the pope used this language of devotion to the cross in his sermon outside the Lateran in 1212. This sort of affective devotion to the cross had become increasingly popular beginning in the eleventh century. Early Christianity had focused on Christ’s passion, but without the same emphasis on the human sufferings of Christ. Now those meditating on Calvary no longer emphasized the gulf between creature and creator. Instead they sought to imitate and commemorate Christ’s redemption as an act of taking on human suffering.49 These early devotions to the cross of Christ were brought to greater prominence and harnessed to the idea of reform in the twelfth century by Bernard of Clairvaux, who viewed a truly spiritual life as one intimately connected to rediscovering the redemptive experiences of the suffering Christ.50 In his Sententiae, Bernard presented four different crosses as varying examples of how the Christian life could be lived.51 He and other devotional leaders like the Victorines focused on religious reform motivated by devotion to and imitation of the experience of the cross.52 Expositions of the different ways of embracing the suffering of the cross can be found throughout Latin Europe in the twelfth-century, but in most cases in sermons about monastic life by monks to their fellow religious. This type of exclusivity was also demonstrated in the development of crusading piety during the twelfth century. Affective Christo-mimetic rhetoric is noticeably absent from the text of Quantum praedecessores

49

50

51

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Sandro Sticca, ‘Officium Passionis Domini: An Unpublished Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century’, Franciscan Studies 34 (1974), 44–199, (here p.  153); Josef  A. Jungmann, Die Stellung Christi im liturgischen Gebet (Münster, 1962); Friedrich Heiler, Das Gebet: eine religionsgeschichtliche und religionspsychologische Untersuchung (München, 1923), p. 242. St  Bernard, ‘Sermones in Cantica’, Sermo 44, PL, 183: 995; Rachel Fulton, From Judgement to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200 (New York, 2002), p. 305. St Bernard, ‘Sententiae’, 3.1, in Opera ad fidem recensuerunt, ed. Jean Leclercq, Henri. M. Rochais and Guido Hendrix, 9 vols (Roma, 1957), 6: 74. Matthew Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium: Devotion to the Cross, Crusading, and the Imitation of the Crucified Christ in the High Middle Ages, c. 1050 – c. 1215’, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Saint Louis University, 2006), p. 31; Jean Leclercq, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France (Oxford, 1979), pp.  86–87; Giles Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought: The Interpretation of Mary and Martha, the Ideal of the Imitation of Christ, the Orders of Society (Cambridge, 1998).

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

issued by Eugenius III.53 The pope’s recruitment rhetoric instead emphasized upholding the tradition of the earlier generation of crusaders who had liberated the holy city on the First Crusade and the feudal obligation of Christian knights to defend the lands of Christ.54 Bernard of course influenced the final drafting of Quantum praedecessores and led much of the preaching of the Second Crusade. At the same time, he flatly refused to lead a crusade, considering that it would be scandalously improper to forsake his monastic calling for such a worldly cause.55 He wrote that the goal of a monk was to seek the heavenly rather than the earthly Jerusalem within the walls of the abbey, a monk’s earthly holy city.56 These distinctions reveal Bernard’s view of the role of crusading in the reform of the Church. He saw crusading as a worthy spiritual encounter for reform-minded knights, who wished to engage with Christ on an elementary level, but still inferior to the monastic life, since the act of crusading was still rooted in the world.57 Bernard nevertheless hoped that crusading’s focus on the earthly Jerusalem, would encourage the crusaders to eventually seek the heavenly Sion. He therefore focused less on preaching crusading as an imitation of Christ, but more as an initial encounter that would eventually encourage purer acts of Christo-mimetic reform.58 Over the course of the second half of the twelfth century, this exclusivity was gradually broken down and affective devotion to the cross as an inspiration for reform extended to more diverse audiences. By the late twelfth century, devotion to the sufferings of the cross in imitation of Christ had been adopted by several theologians as a vehicle for preaching moral reform to the laity. The group of Paris masters known as the circle

53

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55 56 57

58

‘Der Text der Kreuzzugsbulle Eugens III vom. 1. März 1146, Trastevere ( J.-L. 8796)’, ed. Peter Rassow, Neues Archiv 45 (1924), 300–05; William J. Purkis, Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia, c. 1095-c. 1187 (Woodbridge, 2008), p. 87. ‘Der Text der Kreuzzugsbulle Eugens III’, p. 303; S. Bernardi, Opera, 8: 313; Odo of Deuil De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem: The Journey of Louis VII to the East, ed. Virginia G. Berry (New York, 1965), p. 130; Schein, Gateway to the Heavenly City, p. 39. St Bernard, Opera, 8: 163–65; Purkis, Crusading Spirituality, pp. 99–108. St Bernard, Opera, 8: 380. St  Bernard, Opera, 3: 214; Rudolf Hiestand, Papsturkunden für Templer und Johanniter: Archivberichte und Texte (Göttingen, 1972), p. 215; Schein, Gateway to the Heavenly City, pp. 121–22; Purkis, Crusading Spirituality, p. 117.

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of Peter the Chanter were especially prominent in this regard.59 Peter himself, in his Verbum Adbreviatum, used the symbolism of the cross to encourage the virtue of patience.60 He explained that all penitents, even if they were great sinners like the good thief or Simon of Cyrene, could carry the cross of self-denial in imitation of the sufferings of Christ and compassion for their neighbor.61 Maurice de Sully, a student of the Victorines and bishop of Paris from 1160–96, employed affective devotion to the cross to preach reform.62 He encouraged his audiences to take up their own crosses of self-denial and reform their lives by following Christ more closely through penitential love for God and renouncing their sins.63 Raoul Ardens (Ralph Ardent), another member of the Paris circle, encouraged his listeners to follow Christ through abstinence from worldly pleasures and described the Christian’s life as a crucifixion in imitation of Christ.64 By embracing penance and reform in acts of affective devotion for the crucifixion, Christians could purify themselves of sinful vices and obtain the mercy of God.65

59

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61 62

63

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Jessalynn Bird, ‘Heresy, Crusade and Reform in the Circle of Peter the Chanter, c.  1187-c.  1240’, (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 2001), pp. 1–30, 120–83; Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, p. 332; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, p. 9. Peter the Chanter, Verbum Adbreviatum, ed. Monique Boutry, CCCM 196 (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 693–95; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, p. 60. Peter the Chanter, Verbum Adbreviatum, pp. 693–95. Jean Longère, Les sermons latins de Maurice de Sully (Dordrecht, 1988), pp. 13, 265, 288–89; Jessalynn Bird, ‘Reform or Crusade? Anti-Usury and Crusade Preaching during the Pontificate of Innocent III’, in Pope Innocent III and His World, pp.  165–85; Jessalynn Bird, ‘Innocent  III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence: Theory, Implementation, and Aftermath’, in Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, 2: 501–24. Jean Longère, Les sermons latins de Maurice de Sully, pp. 13, 265; Charles A. Robson, Maurice of Sully and the Medieval Vernacular Homily (Oxford, 1952), pp. 1–9; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, pp. 58–59. Raoul Ardens, ‘In solemnitate sancti Andrea apostoli’, PL, 155: 1308a, see also ‘In inventione sanctae crucis’, PL, 155: 1372c and ‘Sermo de epistola Beati Pauli’, PL, 155: 1508c-d; John F. Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants: the social views of Peter the Chanter and his circle (Princeton, 1970), pp. 40–41; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, pp. 61–2. Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, p. 181.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

One of the most famous students of Peter and his companions was Innocent III, who studied in Paris in the 1180s.66 The influence of the Parisian circle is apparent in Innocent’s sermons in which he also promoted affective imitation of the suffering Christ to encourage reform. In his sermon for the common feast of a martyr, Innocent preached on Luke 9 and contrasted the voluntary way Christ carried the cross through the virtue of patience with Simon of Cyrene’s coerced carrying of the cross. He explained the two thieves as those who suffer for the sake of justice in punishment for their sins.67 The pope called on his audience to take up the cross of self-denial and crucify their concupiscences as the means of restoring themselves to spiritual health and defending themselves from the devil.68 In another sermon for a common feast of multiple martyrs, Innocent exhorted his listeners to mortify the sinful desires of the flesh through faithful imitation of the sufferings of the cross.69 Innocent again used this type of piety, promoting imitation of the sufferings of the cross, in sermons he wrote for the feast of saints Peter and Paul, the two great martyrs of the Roman church, in which he quoted Matthew 16 summoning Christians to deny the flesh by taking up the cross of spiritual reform in imitation of Christ.70 Innocent also invoked this language of devotion to the cross to encourage spiritual reform in his sermons in honor of female saints and the Blessed Virgin. He used Luke 9 again in his sermon for the common feast of a virgin and in preaching on the feast of Mary Magdalene.71 The pope explained that the ‘good part’ which Mary had chosen and which enabled her to save her soul was choosing to put away her sins and crucify herself in imitation of Christ, even following him to Calvary.72 In one of his sermons for the feast of the Purification, Innocent used this occasion to promote affective devotion to the cross, emphasizing that this day was

66

67

68 69 70 71 72

PL, 216: 172; Helene Tillmann, Pope Innocent III, trans. Walter Sax (Amsterdam, 1980), p. 11; Moore, Pope Innocent III, p. 7. Innocenzo  III, Sermoni (Sermones), ed. Stanislao Fioramonti (Città del Vaticano, 2006), pp.  532–36; Luke 9.23; Wilhem Imkamp, Das Kirchenbild Innocenz’ III (Stuttgart, 1983), pp.  23–32; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, pp. 62–63. Innocenzo III, Sermoni, p. 534. Innocenzo III, Sermoni, p. 566. Innocenzo III, Sermoni, pp. 428, 440; Matthew 16.24. Luke 9.23. Innocenzo III, Sermoni, p. 446.

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the anniversary of Christ’s first entry into Jerusalem and into the temple, but also a precursor to his later entrance into the holy city to redeem it through his death on the cross.73 Innocent’s emphasis on devotion to imitating the sufferings of the crucified Christ as a foundation for spiritual reform reveals the influence of his teachers in Paris and the extension of this devotion to encourage reform beyond monastic circles to the episcopal leaders of the Church and their congregations. The promotion of reform by expanding affective devotion for the cross to the laity was given further impetus through its adoption by crusade preachers after the battle of Hattin. When confronted with the horror of the defeat of the crusading army and the capture and profanation of the holy cross, many Latin Christians interpreted these disasters as God’s judgement that He found their society sinful and displeasing. As well as a call to share in this second crucifixion of Christ, they saw the Third Crusade as an urgent call to expand the reform of their society so that God might once again deem their efforts in His name worthy of victory. Initially the reform movement had spread from the monasteries to the papacy and the Church hierarchy.74 Later, movements like the Peace and Truce of God promoted the dissemination of this movement beyond the clergy to incorporate knights and sanctify the practice of their profession, eventually contributing to the First Crusade.75 Now in the light of the disaster at Hattin, the spiritual leaders of Christendom recognized that the Christian reform movement needed to be broadened yet again, to include all the laity, whom they called to participate in the work of the cross and support the crusades through acts of spiritual reform at home. Alain de Lille, also a member of the Parisian school-circle, made use of affective devotion to the cross in preaching the crusade. He called on his audience to take up the cross, not out of a sense of compulsion like 73 74

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Innocent III, PL, 217: 507. Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, 1988); Ian S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 35–37. Frederick S. Paxton, ‘History, Historians, and the Peace of God’, in The Peace of God. Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca, NY, 1992), pp. 21–40 (here p. 31); Georges Duby, Hommes et structures du Moyen Âge: Recueil d’articles (Paris, 1973), pp. 124–26; Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Kirchenschutz, Rechtswahrung und Reform: Zu den Zielen und zum Wesen der frühen Gottesfriedensbewegung in Frankreich’, Francia 11 (1983), 193–239.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

Simon of Cyrene, but out of a desire to do penance like the good thief, in contrast to the rhetoric of family tradition employed by Eugenius III when preaching the Second Crusade.76 Although the loss of the Holy Sepulcher remained important to crusade preachers, the loss of Jerusalem was not yet known when Pope Gregory VIII issued Audita tremendi. The Muslim capture of the relic of the cross at Hattin, in a devotional climate increasingly fascinated by the cross, provided an immediate focus for the call to crusade.77 Henri de Marcy, who refused to allow his fellow cardinals to elect him as pope after the death of Urban III, because he wished to dedicate the rest of his life to preaching the crusade, also explained this defeat as a reflection on all Christians and an occasion for affective reform. He described the profanation of the cross by the Saracens as a re-crucifixion of Christ.78 The cardinal asked his listeners how was it that they did not yearn to suffer with Christ and His mother and endure the same torments of Calvary through acts of compassion in fighting to reclaim this precious relic and preserve it from further Muslim abuse?79 The defeat at Hattin and the subsequent papal plan to expand and reinvigorate the crusading movement furthered the extension of affective devotion to the suffering Christ on the cross to all Christians as part of the reform this defeat had shown was necessary. The pope of the time, Gregory VIII, attributed the losses of the crusaders to the sinfulness of all Christians, including himself.80 He instructed the faithful that this divine judgement could only be remedied through spiritual conversion and penance and called on all to participate in this work of reform by taking up the symbol of the cross.81 Crusading was no longer solely restricted to knights, nor necessarily focused on the reform 76

77

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79 80 81

Alain de Lille, ‘Sermo de cruce Domini’, in Alain de Lille, Textes inédits. ed. Marie T. d’Alverny (Paris, 1965), p. 281. Peter of Blois, ‘Passio Raginaldi’, ed. Robert  B.  C. Huygens, CCCM 194 (Turnhout, 2002), pp.  34–35; Peter of Blois, ‘Sermo de obedientia, cruce et passione Christi’, PL, 207: 610a; Richard W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe (Oxford, 2001), pp. 196–201; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, p. 183. Clericus Ansbert, ‘Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris’, in Quellen zur Geschichte der Kreuzzuges Kaiser Friderichs I, ed. Anton Chroust (Berlin, 1928), p. 11. Ansbert, ‘Historia de expeditione Friderici’, p. 11. PL, 202: 1541. PL, 202: 1541; Schein, Gateway to the Heavenly City, p.  170; Phillips, ‘O Magnum Crucis Misterium’, pp. 65–66.

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of the knightly class. Christendom had developed into a far more diverse society over the course of the twelfth century, but now all were indicted by the divine judgement of Hattin. Christians were called to bear the cross and imitate Christ to purify their entire society. The pope also announced bans on gambling, hunting, feasting, and extravagant clothes. These reforms were encouraged as ways for all Christians, including those remaining at home, to support the crusades by renewing their devotional life in imitation of the sufferings of Christ. Gregory provided a medium for this expansion of reform by introducing the opportunity to participate spiritually in the crusades through a program of devotional exercises. These practices included Lenten fasts on Fridays in Advent, abstinence from meat, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and in the case of the papal court, also on Mondays. Special Masses and prayers were to be said for the intention of the crusades on these days.82 These devotions formed the basis of the rituals prescribed by Innocent in aid of Las Navas and in support of the Fifth Crusade at the Fourth Lateran Council. They offered a way for all Christians to share in the sufferings of the crusaders and imitate Christ. Gregory called on all Christians to find some way to take the cross and perform penance for their sins that was consistent with their own particular station in life before turning their attention to the enemy.83 The defeat at Hattin was interpreted by prominent churchmen throughout Christendom as God’s call to expand the reform of Church and society. The loss of the relic of the Cross at Hattin harnessed interest in affective devotion to the cross with concern for the need to extend the reform of Christian society. Gregory attempted to implement this reform by expanding the crusading movement to all Christians through participation in the intercessory liturgies he promoted as a way of taking up the cross in response to the defeat. These liturgies had their foundation in the emerging tradition of affective devotion for the Passion, whose proponents encouraged all to find a way to embrace the sufferings of the cross of Christ in their lives. Spiritual crusading as introduced by Gregory and expanded by Innocent at the Fourth Lateran Council was therefore part of a larger trend, accelerated after Hattin, to expand the reform movement through affective devotion to the sufferings of Christ. This movement was further stimulated by the extension of crusading piety to new participants and its application to a new range of political and spiritual concerns extending beyond the Levant.

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PL, 202: 1539. PL, 202: 1541.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

Innocent often employed the piety of affective devotion to the cross to promote reform. This pattern extends to his crusade preaching. Examples from the early years of his pontificate demonstrate that before the Fourth Lateran Council he had embraced the idea of using crusading to promote this reform. By August 1198, he had already issued Post miserabile, which would eventually give rise to the Fourth Crusade. Innocent opened the text with a long sermon-like prologue, which further reveals the expansion of affective crusading piety after Hattin. The pope lamented the condition of the Holy Land and in particular the capture of the cross, which had subjected Christ to further torments at the hands of unbelievers. This disgrace was again linked to a call to reform. Innocent was in no doubt as to the cause of this misfortune, condemning the princes of the present day for giving themselves up to worldly luxuries and adulterous embraces, while no one stopped to consider the injuries to the Crucified.84 He encouraged the recipients of his letter to take up the cross as an act of moral reform. The pope urged Christians to give up even lawful pleasures, in order to purify themselves of worldly attachments and make themselves most pleasing to God.85 Innocent’s language in Post miserabile showcased the trend of expanding crusading piety at the end of the twelfth century by striving for affective unification with the sufferings of Christ on crusade, as part of the moral reform of Christian society. The pope referred to Christ regularly as ‘the Crucified’ and focused on the opportunity to share in the sufferings of Christ offered by the expedition. Innocent promoted affective crusading piety with particular zeal in 1208 in Utinam Dominus, the letter encouraging crusading participation, which he addressed specifically to the papal patrimony.86 Exhorting his correspondents to contribute to the aid of the Holy Land, Innocent couched his appeal in terms of affective piety for Christ’s passion. He wrote that Christ’s sufferings had been renewed in his exile from the Holy Land and now Christians had the opportunity to end this exile.87 Innocent offered a moving depiction of the suffering of the redeemer, abandoned by his disciples and mocked by his enemies, and asked how anyone could be so brazen and cold-hearted to refuse Him help in this distress. Behold! Because of our sins Christ himself, beaten, is exiled from his own inheritance. Behold! As if disinherited he appeals for our help to rescue him, and yet there is no one who would comfort the exile or assist the

84 85 86 87

PL, 214: 308. PL, 214: 308; II Samuel, 11.10–11. PL, 215: 185; Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades, p. 100. PL, 215: 185.

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petitioner. Stretching out his arms on the cross, he seeks out repeated humiliation as if re-crucifying himself for our sake, yet there is almost utterly no one inspired by due devotion to avenge him. His side is pierced by the lance, his hands and feet transfixed by cruel nails, and yet almost no one’s heart is wounded by [enough] compassion for such great cruelty that they would repay his death for them, that they would offer themselves up for his sake [and] rise up to assist him.88

This letter included an appeal to strive for reform and abnegation of self in order to follow Christ more faithfully. Again, Innocent was clear that it was the sins of Christians that had driven the Crucified from His inheritance and delayed His return. The pope called on all who could, to take up arms in defense of the Crucified, but added that those who were unable should support the fighters through spiritual and monetary offerings.89 The option to participate in the crusades financially was another innovation of this period, and further promulgated at the Fourth Lateran Council. It too was implemented at the site of the processions organized in support of the crusades, where trunks were placed in the churches to collect offerings and preachers emphasized the importance of alms-giving.90 It provides another example of the expansion of crusading under Innocent’s direction, as an impetus for extending Church reform to include new participants. In the documents and accounts of the council, Innocent made his efforts to unify the expansion of crusading and reform at home still more explicit. The reform of the Church proposed at the council, based on an increased participation in the sacraments, was encouraged and reinforced by the expansion of crusading to include spiritual activities at home. In Vineam Domini, Innocent had billed the main tasks of the council as an ambitious program of pastoral reform encompassing both clergy and laity as part 88

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PL, 215: 185: ‘Ecce ipse de sua haereditate pro nostris iniquitatibus pulsus exsulat, ecce ad suam subventionem auxilium nostrum quasi exhaeredatus implorat, nec est qui vel foveat exsulem vel adjuvet implorantem. Expansis in cruce brachiis iteratam quasi crucifigentium se nobis insinuat contumeliam, et pene penitus nullus est qui ad ejus debita moveatur devotione vindictam. Transfigitur lancea latus ejus, manus et pedes clavis crudelibus configuntur, et neminis fere pectus compassio crudelitatis tantae transverberat ut mortem sibi retributurus, quam tribuit illi pro ipso, in adjutorium ejus exsurgat’. PL, 215: 185. Sharon Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology and the Daily Lives of the Poor (Cornell, 2002); Michel Mollat, Études sur l’histoire de la pauvreté: Moyen Âge-XVIe siècle, 2  vols (Paris, 1974); Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

of the recovery of the Holy Land.91 Crusade preachers were instructed to preach this reform as part of their recruitment efforts.92 Similarly, Quia maior provided early evidence of the council’s unification of those goals, using affective devotion. Cecilia Gaposchkin has pointed out that the Deus qui admirabile collect, promulgated for the first time in this letter, and possibly composed by Innocent himself, further demonstrates the growing importance of affective piety in the crusading movement. Unlike earlier prayers used for spiritual crusading, this text focused less on the strength of the Muslims and Christian efforts to secure military victory, but instead emphasized the sinfulness of the Christians that had led to the capture of the Holy Land, and both physical and spiritual crusading as opportunities to share more fully in Christ’s Passion.93 In other parts of the letter, as in Post miserabile, Innocent repeatedly described going on crusade as aiding the Crucified.94 He called on Christians to take up the cross and imitate Christ, emphasizing the crusading spirituality of sharing in the experiences of the suffering Christ. The greatest benefits to the crusaders were therefore those of a spiritual nature. They would be converted to penitence and suffer martyrdom in the service of the Crucified, rather than falling prey to carnal desires and earthly seductions at home.95 Innocent was now promoting crusading as an act of affective piety, which simultaneously supported campaigns abroad and pious reform at home. Innocent continued to emphasize the expansion of crusading imagery to promote programs beyond the immediate recovery of the earthly Jerusalem when he opened the council proper on 11 November at a predawn Mass in the Lateran. The pope had already made his plans clear in his letters summoning the council. Now, his task was to inspire his audience with the same sense of mission he himself felt. The text for his sermon 91

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PL, 216: 824; Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, p. 16; John W. Baldwin, ‘Paris et Rome en 1215: Les Reformes du IVe Concile de Latran’, Journal des Savants (1997), 99–124; Georgine Tangl, Studien zum Register Innocenz III (Weimar, 1929), p. 65. Jessalynn Bird, ‘The Religious’ Role in a Post Fourth Lateran World’, in Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (New York, 1998), pp.  209–29; Jessalynn Bird, ‘The Victorines, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade: Two Unpublished Crusading Appeals in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS Latin 14470’, Medieval Sermon Studies 48 (2004), 5–28; Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, p. 325. PL, 216: 817–21; Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, p. 331. PL, 216: 817–21. PL, 216: 817–21.

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was Christ’s discourse at the Last Supper, ‘I have desired with longing to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer’.96 The pope went on to describe the work of the council as uniting three Passovers: the restoration of the Holy Land, the reform of the Church, and finally the passing over into eternal life. In outlining the importance of a physical Passover that would liberate Jerusalem, Innocent made use of an affective text from Jeremiah, ‘All you who pass by in the way, look and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow’.97 For Innocent, it was the holy city Jerusalem that cried out in this way for aid. In the defilement of Jerusalem by the infidel, Christ himself was injured and the assembled bishops and priests were therefore called upon to preach the crusade to redress this injury inflicted on the Crucified and share in his sufferings. In this part of the sermon, consistent with his earlier preaching, Innocent employed affective devotion for the suffering Christ to encourage crusading. The pope linked this devotional crusading imagery with broader spiritual reform in the next part of his sermon, when he explained his vision of a spiritual Passover to reform the Church. Innocent focused on the symbolism of the Tau, the Greek letter ‘T’, found in Ezekiel chapter nine. As God prepared to wreak vengeance on his unfaithful people, He instructed the prophet to mark with the Tau all those living in Jerusalem, who rejected the abominations of the city that they might be spared from his wrath.98 Innocent interpreted this passage in the context of the theme of the council as a call to penance and renewal, as symbolized by the cross of Christ.99 He stated that those who deplore the abominations committed in the Church will appear marked with the Tau. Innocent exhorted his listeners to be wearers of the Tau in the way they lived their lives and mark those in their care with this symbol.100 In this way they might stand apart from the corruption of the world and purify Christendom, restoring it to God’s favor. At the opening sermon of the previous Lateran Council in 1179, Alexander III justified the program of the council by emphasizing the 96 97 98 99

100

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PL, 217: 677. PL, 217: 677; Lamentations 1.1. PL, 217: 677; Ezekiel 9. PL, 217: 677; Gary Dickson, ‘Innocent  III and the Children’s Crusade’, in Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 586–97 (here p. 595). PL, 217: 677; André Vauchez, Francis of Assisi: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint, trans. Michael F. Cusato (New Haven, 2012), p. 316; Lawrence Cunningham, Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life (Grand Rapids, MI, 2004), p. 90.

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unique teaching authority of the Roman Church, as the see of Peter.101 In calling on his hearers to take up the Tau as a symbol of reform, Innocent set the reform program of the council within a broader framework that linked the implementation of this agenda to the success of the crusades. He had used this imagery in his sermon for the feast of a martyr in calling on his audience to mark themselves with the Tau by taking up the suffering of reform and suffering spiritual martyrdom for Christ as a means of salvation.102 Now he also connected this reform with the crusading imagery of the Tau and proposed this reform to contribute to the recovery of Jerusalem. The Tau was well established as a symbol of crusading piety by 1215. Isaiah 11.12, which also emphasizes the saving mysticism of the Tau, had been used in the twelfth-century liturgy commemorating the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade.103 Innocent himself had described crusaders as those marked with the Tau of Ezekiel when announcing the departure of the Fourth Crusade to the Patriarch of Armenia. Henri de Marcy, cardinal-bishop of Albano also employed this imagery in 1187 to link crusading with reform at home. He had explained to Christian prelates that the Holy Land had been taken away from the Christians because they had behaved like sinners and publicans and therefore it was necessary not only to mark those in their pastoral care with the sign of the Tau on their foreheads, but also to mark them with the sign of Christ’s passion on their hearts as an act of Christian reform, if the crusade was to be truly successful.104 Henri connected this reform with encouragement to implement the fasting practices proposed by Gregory VIII in support of the crusades. More recently, Nicholas of Cologne, a leader of the Children’s Crusade, had used the Tau as his standard in 1212 to signify God’s protection and his followers’ commitment to purifying themselves of worldly desires in the service of the crucified Christ.

101

102 103

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‘Sermo habitus in lateranensi concilio sub Alexandro papa III’, ed. Germain Morin, ‘Le discours d’ouverture du concile générale de Latran et l’oeuvre littéraire de maître Rufin, évêque d’Assise’, Atti della Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia, 3rd series, Memorie (Roma, 1928), pp.  116–20; Anne J. Duggan, ‘Alexander ille meus: The Papacy of Alexander III’, in Pope Alexander III (1159–81): The Art of Survival, ed. Peter D. Clarke and Anne J. Duggan (Burlington, 2012), pp. 13–50 (here p. 47). Innocenzo III, Sermoni, p. 534. Amnon Linder, ‘The Liturgy of the Liberation of Jerusalem’, Mediaeval Studies 52 (1990), 110–31; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. PL, 204: 247.

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Innocent’s use of this symbol of crusading piety to explain the reform of the Church demonstrates how the Fourth Lateran Council served as the setting for the expansion of crusading piety to all members of Christendom and its application to contexts beyond military expeditions to the Holy Land. The promotion of the Tau, a crusading symbol, as the mark of reform in imitation of the crucified Christ, demonstrates Innocent’s efforts to advance the reforms of the council by uniting them with the imagery and language of crusading piety. The famous crusade preacher Jacques de Vitry would also use the imagery of the Tau in a sermon for Maundy Thursday, calling on his congregation to take up the cross, the Christian Tau, marking the elect, and embrace a life of penance in imitation of Christ’s sufferings. Jacques’ sermon provides another example of the application of crusading imagery to encourage reform at home, implementing and promoting the trend supported so publicly by Innocent at the council.105 The council documents reveal common approaches to crusading and reform, which indicate that promoting Church reform also supported the work of the crusading movement and vice versa. The reform program of the Fourth Lateran Council is most famous for its promotion of greater participation in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. Canon twenty-one, Omnis utriusque, required that every member of the Church receive communion once a year and make an annual confession of their sins.106 This greater participation in the sacraments had been promoted during the second half of the twelfth century by the Parisian masters as a key path of spiritual reform. In expanding the scope of the reform movement to include the laity they linked this practice with devotion to the cross. Maurice de Sully and Raoul Ardens both explained that the good thief was saved despite his sins, because he accepted the cross of penance and confession.107 Innocent himself wrote a treatise on the mysteries of the Mass in which he emphasized devotion to the Eucharist as a means of sharing in the sufferings of

105

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Jacques de Vitry ‘Sermo II’, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross, ed. Christoph  T. Maier (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 100–27 (here p. 104); Isaiah 11.12; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. Henri Leclercq, Histoire des conciles d’après les documents originaux, ed. Karl J. Hefele (Paris, 1949), p.  1350; Katherine  L. Jansen, ‘Innocent  III and the Literature of Confession’, in Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 369–82 (here p. 380). Longère, Les sermons latins de Maurice de Sully, pp.  13, 265, 288–89; Raoul Ardens, ‘Inventione sanctae crucis’, PL, 155: 1371c–72c.

Crusading Piety and the Development of Crusading Devotions

Christ.108 The mendicant orders, who would come to dominate the medieval Church in the century following the Fourth Lateran Council, also made encouraging devotion to these sacraments a central aspect of their efforts to reform Christendom. Francis of Assisi’s devotion to the Eucharist is well known and Dominicans like Stephen of Bourbon became famous for encouraging regular confession.109 The crusading program, promoted by Innocent at the Fourth Lateran Council, and especially the spiritual crusading devotions, provided an opportunity to promote this participation in the sacraments and thus linked the reform of the Church with expanding support for the crusades. It is striking in the context of the council’s promotion of these sacraments that Innocent reiterated his wish that the crusade should be conducted in an atmosphere conducive to sacramental reform and penitence. In Ad liberandam, the only document dealing exclusively with the crusade produced by the council, the pope instructed that priests should minister to the army and be on hand to provide access to the sacraments when the crusaders lapsed into sin.110 These provisions further linked Innocent’s crusading program with his reform agenda. It established crusading expeditions as environments for advancing the greater participation in the sacraments promoted by the council. In outlining his plan for intercessory crusading devotions in Quia maior, Innocent explained that the daily Clamor would take place within the context of Mass. It would be inserted at a juncture immediately before the congregation received the Eucharist and after the prayers celebrating the unification of the members of Christ’s Church, both clerical and lay.111 These devotions would be offered for, ‘the deliverance of land where Christ established the sacraments of our redemption from the hands of the pagans’.112 108

109

110

111

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Innocent  III, PL, 217: 839–40; Anko Ypenga, ‘Innocent  III’s De Missarum Mysteriis Reconsidered’, in Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 323–39 (here pp. 327, 339). Jean-Thiébaut Welter, L’Exemplum dans la littérature religieuse et didactique du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1927), p.  66; Francis of Assisi, ‘Epistola ad Fideles’, in Franscesco d’Assisi: Scritti, ed. Aristide Cabassi (Milano, 2002), pp.  467–89; Cunningham, Francis of Assisi, p. 53; Winkler, ‘Old Stories and New Theology’, p. 475. ‘Ad liberandam’, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner, 2 vols (Washington DC, 1990), 1: 267–71. Linder, Raising Arms, pp. 37–40, 52; Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’. PL, 216: 820: Liberando terram illam in qua universa redemptionis nostrae sacramenta peregit de manibus paganorum.

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That the pope chose this way of describing the Holy Land in the context of the council’s agenda and the liturgical environment in which the Clamor was performed, suggests that he hoped that the practice of these devotions would support his efforts to encourage confession and reception of the Eucharist as part of the reform of Church. Perhaps the large processions he envisioned would include the opportunity to receive both sacraments. Christoph Maier has pointed out that the Roman spiritual crusading in support of Las Navas not only incorporated the whole society in contributing to the crusading cause but also encouraged devotion to the Eucharist.113 The devotions concluded with the celebration of the Eucharist and the idea underpinning spiritual crusading, of affectively participating in the sufferings of Christ through prayer, was explained in terms of the Eucharist, another devotional source for sharing in Christ’s sacrifice.114 The promotion of devotion to the Eucharist as a way of uniting reform at home with support for the crusades is evident in the dissemination of preaching themes from Holy Week, especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to crusade sermons in the years after the council.115 Especially during this period, these sermons encouraged audiences to purify themselves in preparation for the reception of the Eucharist at Easter.116 They emphasized the redeeming power of the cross and the need to emulate it in order to approach the sacraments, the surest means of salvation.117 These themes were easily applied to the crusading movement to encouraging spiritual support for the crusades among Christians at home. Odo of Cheriton, an English cleric, preached a sermon in which he described those participating in the reform movement at home as milites Christi, marked with the Tau. He encouraged them to draw strength to continue their spiritual battles through the reception of the Eucharist.118 He explained that by rejecting vice, preaching reform, and frequently receiving the Eucharist, the laity at home could take up the crusader’s cross, and contribute to the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher and their

113 114 115 116

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Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’, pp. 354–56. PL, 216: 513–14; Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross’, pp. 358–60. Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16506, fol.  281ra-rb; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16506, fol. 119vb; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16506, fols 119vb-121vb; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’.

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own salvation.119 Odo declared that even those Christians who remained at home were part of the all-encompassing ecclesiastical army of Christ each with their own part to play and that by reforming their spiritual observance and receiving Christ worthily in the Eucharist they would be playing their part in supporting the crusading campaigns abroad.120 One anonymous sermon, preached following a crusade appeal, exhorted the congregation to defeat the roaring lion of the Devil by partaking of the Eucharist, after carrying out sufficient penance and preparation.121 Examples like these demonstrate the broader implementation of Innocent’s rhetoric at the Fourth Lateran Council, encouraging the unification of crusading and reform programs by employing crusading imagery to promote reform at home. This practice laid the foundations for crusading piety to play a central role in the expanded Church reform of the thirteenth century. Participation in the sacraments helped reform Christendom and supported the crusading armies, while devotions carried out in aid of the crusades provided a setting to carry out this increased participation in the liturgical life of the Church. As a young man in Paris, Innocent had seen his mentors defend the sacrament of penance against heretical attacks and then encourage crusading as another means along with confession and the Eucharist to extend the reform of the Church.122 The taking of the cross or participation in acts of spiritual crusading now provided a similar way for Christians to show their desire to do penance and undertake reform and simultaneously encouraged attachment to these sources of grace.123 When Innocent took up the relic of the cross, the Christian Tau, to bless the assembled council fathers it was an action that emphasized the growth of crusading piety from a charisma reserved exclusively for knights, to the taking up of the cross by the whole of Latin Christendom. It was a part of 119

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MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16506, fols 102ra-104va; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16506, fols 272va-285rb; Bird, ‘Beyond Model Sermons’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouv.acq.lat. 999, fols 239vb-240ra; Bird, ‘Crusade and reform’. Nikolaus Paulus, Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter vom Ursprunge bis zur Mitte des 14 Jarhunderts (Paderborn, 1922); James  A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, 1969); Paul Anciaux, La theologie du sacrament de penitence au XIIe siècle (Paris, 1949); Bird, ‘Innocent III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence’, pp. 505–8. Bird, ‘Innocent III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence’, p. 512.

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this same relic that had been captured by Saladin’s army at Hattin provoking the Third Crusade. Innocent blessed the council participants with one of the many relics brought to the west after the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade and the council fathers recognized that this was a call to reform in support of the crusades. Among those blessed by Innocent with this relic, was Raoul de Mérencourt, patriarch of Jerusalem, trusted subordinate of Innocent and key participant at the council. He had participated in the Fourth Crusade before travelling to the Holy Land, where he was elected patriarch in 1214 and installed the next year at the council. After Innocent’s sermon opening the council on 11 November, Raoul was chosen to preach next and encouraged support for the new crusade. When the time came to launch the Fifth Crusade, once the armies had gathered at Acre, he faithfully followed Innocent’s program and example. He first led the devotions of the Greater Litanies in the days leading up to the Ascension, almost certainly incorporating the prayers prescribed for spiritual crusading processions by Innocent. On the day of the feast itself, he launched the campaign by taking up the relic of the Cross from the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Acre and blessing the army.124 This ceremony recalled the loss of the Cross at Hattin, but also, combined with the penitential liturgies of the preceding days, revealed the implementation of Innocent’s Lateran program of crusade and reform and the recognition that military success in the Levant would be built on spiritual victories. The symbol of the cross was now the symbol used to call for the reform of the Church. It represented commitment to Christian reform, but also signified that this effort was driven by a desire for the recovery of the relic of the Cross now in Saracen hands and indeed the recovery of the entire Holy Land.

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Oliver of Paderborn, ‘The Capture of Damietta’, in Crusade and Christendom, pp.  158–225 (here p.  162); Alan  V. Murray, ‘Mighty Against the Enemies of Christ: the Relic of the True Cross in the Armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’, in Crusades and their Sources: Essays presented to B. Hamilton, ed. John France and Warner G. Zajac (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 217–38; Bird, ‘Rogations, Litanies and Crusade Preaching’.

Chapter Two Remission of Sins or of Penances? The Meaning of Crusade Indulgences before and at the Fourth Lateran Council

Ane L. Bysted

The Fourth Lateran Council was the first church council to lay down guidelines for the administration of indulgences, and thus it can be regarded as the culmination of almost two centuries of development since the issuing of the first indulgences in around 1035.1 Canon 71 of the council furthermore gave what would become the standard formula for crusade indulgences for the following centuries. However, while the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council became models for the phrasing of indulgences, they did not formulate a general theology on indulgences, or bring clarity to the theology of the matter. In some respects, it might even be said that the wording of these decrees made the theological implications of indulgences more ambiguous. Indulgences are mentioned in canons 60, 62, and 71 of the Fourth Lateran Council, and in these, they are described as remissions of sins, and not as remissions of penances, as would be the more correct usage in theological terminology.2

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On the history of indulgences, see Nikolaus Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 3 vols (Paderborn, 1922–23); Bernhard Poschmann, ‘Buße und Letzte Öhlung’, in Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte, ed. Michael Schmaus and others, 1st  edn (Freiburg, 1951-), 4/3: 112–23; James  A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, 1969), pp. 139–57; Robert W. Shaffern, ‘The Medieval Theology of Indulgences’, in Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits: Indulgences in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Robert N. Swanson (Leiden, 2006), pp. 11–36; Ane L. Bysted, The Crusade Indulgence: Spiritual Rewards and the Theology of the Crusades, c. 1095–1216 (Leiden, 2014). Alberigo, pp. 238–40, 243–47; English translation in Patrick J. Geary, Readings in Medieval History, 2nd edn (Peterborough, ON 1997), pp. 477–82.

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 41-57 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115853

Ane L. Bysted

The use of the term ‘remission of sins’ in decrees of indulgences has been the subject of controversy and debate, both between Catholics and Protestants, and among crusade historians. The remission of sins, remissio peccatorum, is the phrase also used in the sacramental bestowal of grace, as, for instance, in the definition of baptism found in the Nicene Creed. Well into the twentieth century, the formula formed the basis for polemics by Protestant scholars who found that it proved that indulgences were supposed to grant the remission of sins in exchange for money.3 On the other hand, some crusade historians have maintained that the use of this phrase defines a ‘real’ indulgence, and that the attempts of some twelfthcentury popes to phrase indulgences as remissions of penances instead, reveal some reservations on the part of these popes towards indulgences.4 In relation to the latter debate, this paper will argue that these popes were actually trying to bring the formula of indulgences in line with contemporary theology, and that this attempt was prompted by the need to find fitting formulas for partial crusade indulgences. Further, it will draw attention to the fact that even as eminent a theologian as Thomas Aquinas found the formula adopted by the Fourth Lateran Council ambiguous and in need of explanation. This paper will first give a brief outline of the early development of the institution of indulgences, and then address the theological debate in the twelfth century and the development of formulas for the crusade indulgence, before turning to the meaning of the formulas in canons 62 and 71 of the Fourth Lateran Council and the discussion by Thomas Aquinas.

The Early Development of Indulgences The granting of indulgences arose as a practice from the fourth decade of the eleventh century onwards, when bishops in Northern Spain and Southern France began to remit a portion of the penances of those who would contribute to the construction of a certain church, attend the masses there, or perform some other specific form of good works.5 They 3

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An example is Theodor Brieger, ‘Indulgenzen’, in Realenzyklopädie für Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, ed. Albert Hauck, 24 vols (Leipzig, 1896–1913), 9: 76–94 (here esp. p. 86). See further examples in Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 1: 253–59. See note 23 below for references. On the origins and early history of indulgences, see Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 1: 132–57; Poschmann, ‘Buße und Letzte Öhlung’, pp. 112–16; Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 75–82.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

first became widely publicised in 1095, when Urban II promised a plenary indulgence to all who would take part in the First Crusade. Already from the outset, it seems that they were reserved for bishops and popes to grant, on the basis of their powers to bind and to loose, but apparently, the institution evolved without any conciliar discussion on how they worked or on who had the power to issue them. The first trace of an attempt to legislate about the administration of indulgences is a decretal by Alexander III (1159–81), issued in response to a letter from the archbishop of Canterbury who had asked whether indulgences granted at the consecration of churches or for making contributions to the construction of bridges were valid also for people from outside the jurisdiction of the issuer of the indulgence. Alexander III’s response was that indulgences were only valid if they were issued by the recipient’s ‘own judge’ or if his ‘own judge’ had given permission for it. This decretal was included in the Brevarium extravagantium by Bernard of Pavia, composed in 1188–92, and later in the Liber Extra of Gregory IX from 1234.6 The canonists who discussed it did not agree upon who these ‘judges’ were; some thought that it was the bishops of the recipients,­ others thought that it was their confessors.7 The next legislation appeared with canons 60 and 62 of the Fourth Lateran Council. Canon 60 confirms that indulgences could only be granted by bishops and not by abbots, while canon 62 sets limits for these episcopal grants: a maximum of one year for indulgences given at the consecrations of churches, and a maximum of 40 days for all other occasions. The decree does not set any limits for the indulgences granted by the pope, but states that, ‘the Roman pontiff himself, who possesses the plenitude of power, generally observes this moderation in such things’.8 These limitations of one year or 40 days remained in force for the bishops, while the popes continued to grant plenary indulgences for crusades, and from the year 1300 onwards, also for the Roman Jubilees.9 Canon 62 furthermore cites a model for letters of indulgences, while canon 71, 6

7

8 9

The decretal ‘Quod autem consuluisti’ in ‘Compilatio prima’ (c.III.V.33), in Quinque compilationes antiquae, ed. Emil Friedberg (Leipzig, 1882), p.  63; and in ‘Decretales Gregorii IX’, (lib.V.38.c.iv), Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Emil Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879–81), 2: 885. See Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 2: 218–19; Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 122–23. Alberigo, pp. 238–39. On the Roman Jubilee in 1300, see Gary Dickson, ‘The Crowd at the Feet of Pope Boniface VIII: Pilgrimage, Crusade and the First Roman Jubilee (1300)’, Journal of Medieval History 25 (1999), 279–307.

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the crusading charter known as Ad liberandam, provides what would become the standard formula for crusade indulgences, used in almost all later thirteenth- and fourteenth-century crusading bulls, and even into the sixteenth century.10 Both of these formulas speak of the remission of sins (in remissionem peccatorum and peccaminum veniam) but in the meantime, theologians of the latter part of the twelfth century had defined indulgences as remissions of penance – or to be precise: as remissions of the temporal punishments for sin – and they had furthermore provided the conceptual framework that set out these remissions as clearly distinct from the remission of sins granted in the sacraments and the absolution granted after confession. Many of the early scholastic theologians pointed out that the ‘remission of sins’ could have multiple meanings, i.e. both the remission of temporal punishments, as in the indulgences for penances, and the forgiveness of the guilt for sin, as granted in the sacramental absolution.11 At this time, theologians were also developing the theology on the sacraments, and it became important to establish how and when divine grace was bestowed in the sacraments, and to distinguish which institutions were sacramental and which were not. About ten years after the Lateran Council, that is in around 1222–25, William of Auxerre summed up much of this discussion, and stated that the remission of sins meant two things: forgiveness of the guilt for sin (quantum ad culpam) and forgiveness of the penalties for sin (quantum ad penam). The remission of penalties could apply to either temporal or eternal punishments. The remission of guilt as well as the remission of eternal punishment was effected by the operation of God’s grace alone. The remission of temporal punishments, however, was obtained by human merit.12 In other words, committing a sin incurs both the guilt and the punishments for sin. The guilt of sin will lead to eternal punishments in Hell if it is not forgiven, but the Church administers the remedy for this in the absolution granted after confession. However, 10

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Text in Alberigo, pp. 246–47. See Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 2: 31; Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1988), p. 33; Adolf Gottlob, Kreuzablaß und Almosenablaß: Eine Studie über die Frühzeit des Ablaßwesens (Stuttgart, 1906), p. 136. For example, Peter Abelard, Ethics, ed. and trans. D.  E. Luscombe (Oxford, 1971), p. 56; other examples in Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 1: 255–59; see also Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, p. 153. William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea (lib.3 tr.10. c.1. q.2), ed. Jean Ribaillier, 4 vols (Grottaferrata, 1980–86), 3: 118–19. See Paulus, Geschichte des Ablaßes im Mittelalter, 1: 255–58; Åge Rydstrøm-Poulsen, The Gracious God: Gratia in Augustine and the Twelfth Century (Copenhagen, 2002), p. 465.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

there may still be a temporal punishment left in the form of penances or purgatorial punishment. The remission granted by indulgences applies only to these temporal punishments. Indulgences do not remit the guilt of sin, because this has already been forgiven at the absolution, and the absolution as well as confession and contrition are prerequisites for obtaining an indulgence.

The Early Scholastic Debate on Indulgences The theological discussion on indulgences had begun relatively late. While the first theologian to mention them had been Peter Abelard in around 1130, they had not been treated by either Gratian or Peter Lombard. Abelard, for his part, had denied the use of indulgences – quite simply because he did not believe that they worked. In his view, penitential works were indispensable in the process of justification for sin. The penitential works of fasting, almsgiving, prayers, etc. were meant to be a medicine for the soul that would teach the sinner to turn away from sin and back to God. If the penance was remitted in an indulgence, it would only mean that the sinner had to atone for it after his death – and then the penalty would be much worse, according to Abelard.13 The next generation of theologians in the latter part of the twelfth century were left with the task of explaining the foundations of an institution that had been practised for decades and was becoming increasingly popular, but which did not sit very easily with their theological outlook. Peter the Chanter stated quite openly in his Summa de sacramentis (1192–97) that indulgences raised many problems. However, as it is always easier to raise problems than to find solutions, he would, timidly and confused, approach a solution on the grounds that the Church had given authority to indulgences by using them, since the authority granted to something by the consuetudo ecclesiae (the customary practise of the Church) is no negligible authority – even though it does not have a greater weight than reason or Holy Scripture, he added.14 Indulgences, as general remissions of penances, were regarded as problematic by theologians for three main reasons. First, indulgences challenged the principle that sins had to be atoned for. Penance was believed to be essential in the process of justification, because there had 13 14

Peter Abelard, Ethics, pp. 76, 104–6, 108–10. Peter the Chanter, Summa de sacramentis et animae consiliis, ed. Jean-Albert Dugauquier, 3 vols (Louvain, 1954–67), 2: 194–95.

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to be some kind of satisfaction provided for every sin in order to set the balance right. Secondly, penance was also essential according to the theologians because it furthered the process of inner conversion and repentance in the sinner that brought him back to loving God in the right way. Penance might be a bitter medicine for the soul, but it taught the sinner to feel contrition and remorse, which was believed to be necessary for his justification. Indulgences seemed incompatible with the needs for both satisfaction and contrition.15 The third reason was that indulgences were granted generally to anyone who fulfilled a certain condition – to those who attended the consecration of a church, gave a certain amount in alms, or went on a crusade – without consideration of their individual circumstances. How could an indulgence have the same worth for a rich man and a poor widow who spent the same amount of alms? Surely, God reckons not the amount, but the will to give, and the rich man who does not spend all that he can does not have a good will, argued Peter of Poitiers.16 The leading theologians of this period, many of whom have been connected to the ‘Chanter’s circle’ in Paris, were inclined to advise caution in the use of indulgences and that they be administered individually, rather than generally to larger groups, and only to people who for some reason were prevented from performing their penance, and with the consent of their confessor.17 It appears that some of this discussion actually made an impact on the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, for instance in the reasons stated for the restrictions on episcopal indulgences: that the keys of the Church were being brought into contempt and the penitential satisfaction was weakened because of indiscriminate and excessive indulgences. However, the demands for individual remissions and consent by the confessor would have altered the institution profoundly, if not made it impractical, and these demands were therefore not met by the council.18

15 16

17

18

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See Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 114–21. Peter of Poitiers, ‘Sententiarum libri quinque’ (lib.III, c.16), in PL 211: 783– 1280, here col. 1076. Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, p. 128. On this circle, see John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants. The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ, 1970). See also Jessalynn Bird, ‘Innocent III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence: Theory, Implementation, and Aftermath’, in Innocenzo III. ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 503–24. Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 129–32.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

The Formulas of the Crusade Indulgences The key words of the formula of canon 71, Ad liberandam, are ‘plenam suorum peccaminum … veniam indulgemus’, and this (or peccatorum veniam) had been the formula used by Innocent III in all of his longer and more elaborate, full-scale crusading bulls since the first year of his pontificate, thus in Plorans ploravit and Post miserabile from 1198, Graves orientalis terrae from 1199, Nisi nobis from 1200, as well as Quia maior from 1213.19 The Fourth Lateran Council thus ratified the formula drawn up by Innocent III. Before Innocent, that is during the twelfth century, crusading indulgences had been phrased somewhat variantly, and some popes appear to have preferred to phrase them as remissions of penances, some as remissions of sins, and some as both. While Urban II used the words remissio peccatorum to describe his grant at Clermont in his letter to the faithful in Flanders from December 1095, he described the same grant as a release from all penance imposed for confessed sins in a letter to the clergy of Bologna in September 1096.20 His successor, Paschal II, used the formula remissio peccatorum, or the alternative peccatorum veniam (forgiveness of sins) or peccatorum absolutionem (absolution of sins) quite consistently.21 Remissio peccatorum was also the formula adopted by Calixtus II and the First Lateran Council in 1123 and by Eugenius III for the Second Crusade in 1145–46.22 However, some popes tried out more elaborate formulas which mention both sins and penances. These different formulas have been scrutinized by crusade historians, and some have seen the shifting formulas as signs of conflicting ideas about the transcendental implications of indulgences, that is, whether indulgences were supposed to remit either ‘penances alone’ or all temporal punishment, including time in Purgatory. Some historians have further maintained that the use of the words remissio peccatorum or the equivalent signalled that the papacy intended to grant a ‘real’ indulgence, whereas formulas containing references to remission 19

20

21

22

Plorans ploravit: Register, 1: no. 302; Post miserabile: Register, 1: no. 336; Graves orientalis terrae: Register, 2: no. 258; Nisi nobis: Register, 2: no. 259; Quia maior in PL, 216: 817–22. Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100 (Innsbruck, 1901), pp. 136–37. Hagenmeyer, Kreuzzugsbriefe, pp. 174–75, 179; Paschal II, PL, 163: 45c, 65a, 366d. First Lateran Council (1123), canon 10, in Alberigo, pp. 167–68. Eugenius III in PL, 180: 1065–66.

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of penances indicated that the papacy did not want to promise an effect in Purgatory.23 An examination of all the decrees of crusade indulgences up to Innocent III reveals a different explanation. In particular, the letters of Gelasius II and Alexander III provide important clues to the meaning of crusade indulgences in this period.24 Gelasius II (1118–19) divided his formula in two and spoke of remission of both penance and sins in his letter to the Christian army at Zaragoza from December 1118.25 The reason is that this letter distinguished between the rewards for those who gave their life and those who survived the expedition. Those who died would be released ‘from the chains of their sin’ (a suorum vinculis peccatorum absolvimus) and those who survived would have a remission of their penance in proportion to the labour they had

23

24

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Gottlob, Kreuzablaß und Almosenablaß, pp.  91–139; Mayer, Crusades, pp.  30–37; I.  S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), pp.  341–49; Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades? (London, 1977), pp. 58–60. Riley-Smith changed his opinion in later works. See, for example, What Were the Crusades? 4th edn (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 60–66; Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), pp.  27–30; Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A  History, 2nd  edn (London, 2005), p. 13; Ernst-Dieter Hehl, Kirche und Krieg im 12. Jahrhundert: Studien zu kanonischem Recht und politischer Wirklichkeit (Stuttgart, 1980), p.  127. Hehl has also changed his opinion, see Ernst-Dieter Hehl, ‘Was ist eigentlich ein Kreuzzug?’, Historische Zeitschrift 259 (1994), 297–336. On this discussion see Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 31–44, and Ane L. Bysted, ‘The True Year of Jubilee: Bernard of Clairvaux on Crusade and Indulgences’ in The Second Crusade: Holy War on the Periphery of Latin Christendom, ed. by Jason  T. Roche and Janus Møller Jensen (Turnhout, 2015), pp. 35–49, here pp. 38–43. I have examined roughly 35 papal decrees issued prior to the pontificate of Innocent  III and 23 from his pontificate in Bysted, The Crusade Indulgence, pp. 163–204. PL, 163: 508c: ‘Et quoniam et vos ipsos et vestra extremis objicere periculis decrevistis, si quis vestrum, accepta de peccatis suis poenitentia, in expeditione hac mortuus fuerit, nos eum Sanctorum meritis et totius Ecclesiae catholicae precibus a suorum vinculis peccatorum absolvimus. Caeterum qui pro eodem Domini servitio vel laborant vel laboraverint et qui praefatae urbis ecclesiae a Sarracenis et Moabitis dirutae, unde reficiatur, et clericis ibi Deo famulantibus, unde pascantur, aliquid donant vel donaverint, secundum laborum suorum et beneficiorum suorum Ecclesiae impensorum quantitatem ad episcoporum arbitrium, in quonum parochiis degunt, poenitentiarum suarum remissionem et indulgentiam consequantur’.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

put into this service for the Lord, and also to the size of the donation to the local church that they were also expected to give. A similar distinction can be found in the letters of Alexander III, who issued several crusading bulls during his long pontificate (1159–81).26 These can be divided into six full-scale crusading decrees and several shorter decrees. In his longer decrees, the statuta on indulgences are graded in proportion to the efforts of the crusaders. In most cases, it seems that those who died on the expedition would get a full remission, whereas those who survived would be granted a remission of penance in proportion to their time of service. For example, the letter In quantis pressuris (1166) granted a full peccatorum absolutionem (absolution of sins) to those who served for two years, but half of injuncte penitencie (imposed penance) to those who served for one year.27 Alexander’s next crusade bull, Inter omnia from 1169, was even more conceptually consistent when it referred to remission of penances for both categories of crusaders, granting a remission of all imposed penance (injunctae poenitenciae) to those who served for two years, whereas those who served for only one year would have half their penance remitted (de medietate satisfactionis impositae).28 Inter omnia was 26

27

28

On Alexander  III’s crusading policy, see Jonathan Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land: Relations between the Latin East and the West, 1119–87 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 149–54, 186–90, 245–49; Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007), pp. 56–65. Rudolph Hiestand, Papsturkunden für Templer und Johanniter: Archivberichte und Texte (Göttingen, 1972), pp. 251–53, no. 53. PL, 200: 600c–1c: ‘Nos autem sollicitudinem vestram favore apostolico prosequentes illis, qui pro divinitatis amore laborem hujus profectionis assumere et, quantum in se fuerit, implere studuerint, de indultae nobis a Domino auctoritatis officio, illam remissionem impositae poenitentiae per sacerdotale ministerium facimus, quam felicis memoriae Urbanus et Eugenius, patres et antecessores nostri temporibus suis statuisse noscuntur, ut videlicet qui ad defensionem terrae idoneus et ad  hoc obsequium expeditus, suscepta poenitentia biennio ibi ad defensionem terrae permanserit et sudorem certaminis ad praeceptum regis et majorum terrae pro amore Christi portaverit, remissionem injunctae poenitentiae se laetetur adeptum, et cum contritione cordis et satisfactione oris profectionem istam satisfactionis loco ad suorum hanc indulgentiam peccatorum; nisi forte rapinae vel furti vel perceptae usurae reos esse constiterit, in quibus, si facultas adfuerit, non purgatur peccatum, nisi restituatur ablatum. Si vero facultas reddendi defuerit, praedicta satisfactio ad istorum quoque remissionem sufficiat peccatorum. Qui vero per annum in hoc labore permanserit, exoneratum se de medietate satisfactionis impositae auctoritate apostolica recognoscat.  […] Praeterea omnibus sepulcrum

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in many ways the most theologically well-defined of all the crusading decrees from the twelfth century, and by using a vocabulary of remission of penances the formula was brought in better accordance with theology. The other reason for the explicit references to penances in indulgence formulas is the emergence of partial indulgences for crusades. From the outset, the crusade indulgence was plenary and granted only to those who went in person and put their own lives at risk, but during the course of the twelfth century and especially from the time of the Third Crusade, partial indulgences for various degrees of participation were granted.29 The grant mentioned above, made by Gelasius II in 1118, was an early, singular example of grading crusade indulgences according to different types of sacrifices and contributions. The next pope who granted partial indulgences for crusades was Alexander III, and the explicit references to remissions of penance in his bulls, including Cor nostrum (1181) as well as the provisions against the Albigensians at the Third Lateran Council (1179), are explained by his policy of grading indulgences according to the crusaders’ time of service and of differentiating between different theatres of war. Thus, he granted plenary indulgences only to those who fought in the Holy Land for a minimum of two years, or to those who died on a crusading expedition, whereas those who served for only one year in the Holy Land and those who fought in other theatres of war would be granted a partial indulgence. For example, the former category received a remission of all their confessed sins, while the latter received remission of half or another percentage of their imposed penance.30 These shifts from remissions of sins to remissions of penances in some twelfth-century crusading bulls should be seen as efforts to find theologically fitting formulas for partial indulgences. As long as indulgences were granted plenarily, the traditional formula remissio peccatorum would be satisfactory, because after true confession and sincere repentance of all sins, the absolution by the priest, and the forgiveness of all punishment, the sinner did end up with a ‘full remission of sins’. However, popes like Gelasius II and Alexander III apparently realised that in theological terms

29

30

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Dominicum pro instanti necessitate visitare volentibus, tam in itinere morte praeoccupatis, quam usque illuc pervenientibus, laborem itineris ad poenitentiam, obedientiam et remissionem omnium peccatorum injungimus, ut post hujus certaminis ergastula vitam aeternam consequi mereantur’. See Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader, pp.  154–55; Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 160–62. Cor nostrum, PL, 200: 1295–96; Third Lateran Council (1179), canon 27, in Alberigo, p. 201.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

a ‘partial remission of sins’ would be highly problematic. The key to understanding this is the basic theological principle – that was also pointed out by Thomas Aquinas in this context – that strictly speaking, sins, i.e. the guilt of sins, can only be forgiven fully or not at all. A sinner must confess and repent all his sins, and then the absolution will wipe out all his guilt of sin, but if the sinner fails to confess some of his sins, none of his sins are forgiven, and the absolution does not work.31 A ‘partial remission of sins’ might be taken to imply that people could confess only some of their sins and have these wiped from the slate, while leaving other, perhaps more embarrassing, sins for a later occasion. However, both theologians and church authorities stressed the need for confession of all sins, so that the church could administer the only remedies: penance and absolution.32 Hence, also the repeated reference not only to confession and contrition, but also to imposed penance in the crusade bulls of Alexander III and some of his successors. The immediate successors of Alexander III followed the precedent set by him in using formulas of remission of both penance and sins, as well as in grading crusade indulgences in relation to different types of contributions. Lucius III (1181–85) even followed Alexander verbatim by reissuing his Cor nostrum in 1184.33 Gregory VIII (1187) may appear more generous in his crusading bull for the Third Crusade, Audita tremendi, as he granted a full relaxation of imposed penances for confessed sins for all participants, regardless of the time they served or whether they died on the crusade. To those who died in true penitence and faith, he further granted ‘full indulgence of their sins and eternal life’.34 This policy was no doubt influenced by a renewed sense of urgency: Gregory was elected pope in October 1187, just 31

32

33 34

We will return to Thomas Aquinas below. This principle had also been a concern of the late eleventh century reform, stated as a demand for penance for all sins by Gregory  VII, Urban  II, and in the theological work Liber de vera et falsa poenitentia. See Register Gregors  VII, ed. Erich Caspar, 2  vols (Berlin, 1923), 2: 404 (VI 5b); 481–2 (VII 14a), cf. also 2: 471–2 (VII 10); The Councils of Urban II: Volume 1. Decreta Claromontensia, ed. Robert Somerville (Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 79 and 115; ‘De vera et falsa poenitentia’, in PL, 40: 1113–30. See Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 88–90. Another consequence of this emphasis on confession was the demand for annual confession in canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council. See Phillips, Defenders of the Holy Land, pp. 255–57. The bull appears in (Ansbert), ‘Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris’, in Quellen zur Geschichte Kaiser Friedrichs I, ed. Anton Chroust, MGH SRG n.s. 5 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 6–10; (also in PL, 202: 1542).

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as the news of the triumph of Saladin at Hattin was reaching Europe, and Audita tremendi was issued only a week after his election. There is also evidence to suggest that Gregory VIII instituted the regular indulgences for sending subsidies for crusades. At least his successor, Clement III (1187–91), mentioned Gregory as a precedent when he granted partial indulgences for those who sent help to the Holy Land. In addition, he granted plenary indulgences (remissionem omnium peccatorum) to all who went on the crusade in person and in a state of true penitence.35 Celestine III (1191–98) combined the formulas and privileges of several predecessors in Misericors et miserator from 1195, when he granted ‘full indulgence of sins’ to those who died on crusade, ‘full relaxation of imposed penance for confessed sins’ to those who participated and survived, and partial indulgences to those who sent financial subsidies to the Holy Land.36 Unlike the partial indulgences of his predecessors, Celestine  III’s grant was not phrased as a remission of penances, but as ‘forgiveness of their sins’ (de peccatis suis veniam). Perhaps the word veniam (forgiveness) was chosen to signal that this was not a sacramental remission, such as the remissio peccatorum granted in baptism or the absolutio (absolution) granted after confession? It is possible, even if the distinction seems slight and hardly escapes the problems of the ‘partial remission of penances’ discussed above, for veniam and remissio share similar meanings: forgiveness, remission, pardon. The theological and conceptual consistency of Gelasius II, Alexander III, and Gregory VIII seem to have vanished. At any rate, the precedent was now set, and under Innocent III, partial indulgences for sending help to the Holy Land became a regularly occurring privilege, issued for both the Fourth and the Fifth Crusades.37 Let us now turn to the canons on indulgences from the Fourth Lateran Council and look at the meaning of remissions in these.

35

36 37

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The letter appears in Gerald of Wales, ‘De principis instructione liber’, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. F. Brewer, James. F. Dimock, and George F. Warner, 8  vols (London, 1861–91), 8: 237–38. For a fuller discussion of the indulgences of Gregory VIII and Clement III, see Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 160–61, 223–27, 290. PL, 206: 1109c–10a. See Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 161–62.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

The Meaning of Canons 62 and 71 of the Fourth Lateran Council Canon 62, Cum ex eo, contains a warning against false letters of indulgences, and in order to lay down what a genuine letter should look like, it cites a ‘copy of the form of letter which the apostolic see generally grants’. This model uses a formula for remissions of sins: We therefore admonish and exhort you all in the Lord and for the remission of your sins enjoin you to bestow pious alms and to give them grateful charitable assistance from the goods God has conferred upon you so that through your help their need may be cared for and you, by these and other good things which, God inspiring you, you have done, can attain eternal happiness.38

In this case, it can be gathered from the subsequent paragraph that what was meant was indeed the remission of penance and not of sins, since it is said about the indulgences of the bishops that, ‘the remission granted shall not exceed forty days of the penance imposed’. The statutes on indulgences in canon 71, Ad liberandam, are divided into different privileges for different kinds of contributions as in Alexander  III’s bulls, even though they use different formulas. First, those who personally and at their own expense go on crusade are granted a plenary indulgence: ‘full forgiveness of their sins (plenam peccaminum veniam) about which they are truly contrite in heart and have confessed with their mouth’. Secondly, those who do not go personally, but pay a substitute to go, as well as those who do not pay for themselves, but go as these substitutes, are also granted plenary indulgences (plenam veniam peccatorum). Thirdly, it is stated that those who make smaller contributions by sending aid to the Holy Land will ‘participate in this remission’ (remissionis … esse participes) in proportion to their contribution, meaning

38

Alberigo, p. 239: ‘universitatem vestram monemus et exhortamur in Domino atque in remissionem vobis iniungimus peccatorum, quatenus de bonis a Deo collatis, pias eleemosynas et grata eis caritas subsidia erogetis, ut per subventionem vestram ipsorum inopiae consulatur, et vos per haec et per alia bona, quae Domino inspirante feceritis, ad aeterna possitis gaudia pervenire’. The English translation in the main text is altered slightly from that in Patrick J. Geary, Readings in Medieval History, 2nd  edn (Peterborough, ON, 1997), p. 477.

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that they will get partial indulgences.39 The formula is quite elaborate, but also difficult because forgiveness or remission must mean something different in the first and the third section. The first section clearly states that what is remitted are the sins that the crusaders have repented in their hearts and confessed with their mouths.40 In this case, it must refer to the sins, since it is not penances that are confessed. It might seem that the distinction between guilt and punishment was not entirely clear to those who drew up the decree, but actually there was a long tradition for using the word ‘sin’ in the sense of punishments for sins, and – as already noted – many of the theologians of the twelfth century pointed out that ‘remission of sin’ had multiple meanings. The explicit mention of confession of sins in the first section may very well be understood as stating that the condition for enjoying the benefits of the indulgence was that the recipient had confessed his sins and obtained absolution for them by his own priest. Since this indulgence was a plenary indulgence, it meant that the crusader ended up with a full remission of both sins and penances: his guilt of sins and eternal punishment had been remitted at the absolution after confession, and the indulgence remitted the remaining temporal punishments. Thus, the formula can be perceived as a kind of shorthand for ‘remission of both sins and penances’. The phrasing is, however, somewhat imprecise. This imprecision is accentuated in the third section of the privilege, that is, the partial indulgence for 39

40

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Alberigo, pp.  146–47 (my numbering): ‘[1:] Nos igitur omnipotentes Dei misericordia et beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli auctoritate confisi, ex illa, quam nobis, licet indigne, Deus ligandi atque solvendi contulit potestate, omnibus qui laborem propriis personis subierint et expensis, plenam suorum peccaminum, de quibus liberaliter (veraciter) fuerint corde contriti et ore confessi veniam indulgemus et in retributione justorum salutis aeternae pollicemur augmentum. [2:] Eis autem, qui non in personis propriis illuc acesserint, sed in suis dumtaxat expensis juxta facultatem et qualitatem suam viros idoneos destinarint et illis similiter, qui licet in alienis expensis, in propriis tamen personis accesserint, plenam suorum concedimus veniam peccatorum. [3:] Huius quoque remissionis volumus et concedimus esse participes juxta qualitatem subsidii et devotionis affectum, omnes qui ad subventionem ipsius Terrae de bonis suis congrue ministrabunt aut consilium et auxilium impenderint opportunum. [4:] Omnibus etiam pie proficiscentibus in hoc opere communi universalis synodus omnium beneficiorum suorum suffragium imparitur, ut eis digne proficiat ad salutem’. For an English translation, see Geary, p. 482. Alberigo, pp.  246–47: ‘plenam suorum peccaminum, de quibus liberaliter fuerint corde contriti et ore confessi, veniam indulgemus’.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

those who do not take part as crusaders, but contribute with money or assistance, who will ‘participate in this remission in proportion to their help and to their devotion’.41 The decree does not state whether this is understood as a remission of sins or of penance. Since the first sentence speaks of a remission of sins, it would appear that it was a partial remission of sins – but that would be inappropriate, since sins could only be remitted fully or not at all.

Thomas Aquinas on the Formula of the Crusade Indulgence Notwithstanding these difficulties, the formula that was drawn up by Innocent  III and ratified by the Fourth Lateran Council became the standard formula for crusade indulgences in the following centuries. This is not the place to survey the developments after the council, but as an epilogue to the discussion of the meaning of the formula, Thomas Aquinas’s analysis may serve to demonstrate and further explain the inherent ambiguities. Thomas Aquinas took time to explain its meaning in connection with a question on ‘Whether a crusader who dies before he can take the journey across the sea will have the plenary remission of sins?’ which is handed down in his Questiones quodlibetales from around 1270.42 While he answered the question affirmatively (on the conditions that the stipulations in the papal letter were fulfilled, and that the crusader had truly repented and confessed his sins), he raised two problems in relation to the formula of the crusade indulgence. The first is that the formulas remissio peccatorum or veniam peccatorum may cause a confusion between indulgences and the sacramental absolution of sins granted after confession. Thomas Aquinas referred to this in the beginning of the questio, where he stated ‘God only remits sins in relation to the guilt (quantum ad culpam). When the pope therefore gives a plenary indulgence of sins (indulgentiam omnium peccatorum), this does not refer to the guilt, but to the totality of punishments’.43 Later in the same questio, he returned to 41

42

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Alberigo, p.  247: ‘Huius quoque remissionis volumus et concedimus esse participes, iuxta qualitatem subsidii et devotitionis affectum’. Thomas Aquinas, Questiones quodlibetales (II.8.2.), ed. Raymundi Spiazzi (Torino, 1956), pp. 37–38. On this question, see Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 143–47. Aquinas, Questiones quodlibetales, p.  37: ‘Praeterea, solum Deus remittit peccatum quantum ad culpam. Cum ergo Papa dat indulgentiam omnium pec­­ catorum, hoc non est referendum ad culpam, sed ad universitatem poenarum’.

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this and sorted out the roles of God and the minister of the Church with regard to the forgiveness of sins; only God has the authority to forgive the guilt of sin, but the priest may also be said to forgive sins when he administers the sacraments of forgiveness of sins, for example in baptism or penance. ‘However, an indulgence does not include the forgiveness of the guilt of sin, because it is not sacramental’.44 The second problem with the formula is that sins, i.e. the guilt of sins, can only be forgiven fully or not at all, and thus, there can be no partial remission of the guilt of sins. The remission of sins is a gift that cancels the guilt of sin completely, and restores the sinner to the state of grace. Conversely, a sinner cannot regret only one sin and have only this one sin forgiven – that would mean that he remained in sin in other ways, and that his contrition was not sincere. Thomas Aquinas addressed this problem at the end of the questio: ‘Now, no one can be absolved from one sin without being absolved from all. However, punishment can be dismissed either totally or partially. For punishment is dismissed partially by sacramental absolution, but totally by the spiritual grace of a [plenary] indulgence’.45 Here Thomas Aquinas referred to the third part of the formula of the crusade indulgence and the impossibility of granting a partial indulgence as a ‘remission of sins’. These points were not new or invented by Thomas Aquinas, but they are mentioned here to illustrate that when Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council defined the partial as well as the plenary indulgences as remissions of sins, they did not settle all the problems of indulgences. While there is reason to believe that the Paris theologians had an influence on some parts of the council’s constitutions on the administration of indulgences,46 they do not appear to have been heard when it comes to the formula. In this instance, Innocent III appears to have chosen the precedents of Paschal II, the First Lateran Council, and Eugenius III over that of Alexander III, the Third Lateran Council, and Gregory VIII. A reasonable 44

45

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Aquinas, p.  37: ‘Ad secundum dicendum, quod per auctoritatem solus Deus culpam remittit, sed ministerio etiam sacerdos, in quantum exhibet sacramentum remissionis peccati, puta in baptismo vel poenitentia. Et tamen indulgentia non se extendit ad remissionem culpae, quia non est sacramentalis’. Aquinas, p. 38: ‘Non potest autem aliquis absolvi ab una culpa, quin absolvatur ab omnibus. Poena vero potest totaliter dimitti, vel particulariter. Particulariter quidem in absolutione sacramentali poena dimittur; totaliter vero in spirituali gratia indulgentiae’. See also the work cited by Bird, ‘Crusade Indulgence’; Bysted, Crusade Indulgence, pp. 128–32.

Remission of Sins or of Penances?

explanation is that ‘remissio peccatorum’ was a familiar phrase, known from the Creed and the liturgy of baptism and the Eucharist, and connected with pardon and grace. This made it more reassuring and trustworthy than the newly invented formulas of ‘relaxations of penances’ or ‘remissions of enjoined penances’. In the end, tradition won over attempts to find more theologically adequate expressions, and the authority of the Fourth Lateran Council secured the prevalence of ‘remissio peccatorum’. However, this formula of Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council should not be projected back on the twelfth century and taken as a hallmark of a ‘real’ indulgence. Some crusade historians have thought that the reference to imposed penance in Alexander III’s and other twelfthcentury crusading bulls are signs of reservations about the transcendental implications of indulgences, but seen in the context of theology a more likely explanation for the shifts between remissions of sins and penances was the need to find fitting formulas for the partial crusade indulgences that emerged in this period.

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Chapter Three Oaths Broken, Yet Fulfilled Venice, Innocent III, and the Patriarchate of Constantinople

Thomas F. Madden

Although a new crusade to rescue Jerusalem was a chief concern of the Fourth Lateran Council, the attendees were also occupied with the aftermath of Innocent III’s two earlier crusades. It is well known that the council provided a settlement for the Albigensian Crusade, deposing Count Raymond VI of Toulouse and granting his lands and title to Simon de Montfort. Less well known are the council’s attempts to solve the vexing problems of the Latin patriarchate of Constantinople – a product of the Fourth Crusade. These included the adjudication of an election dispute that had dragged on for nearly four years and the installation of a new patriarch of Constantinople at the council itself. Innocent’s experiences with the Latin patriarchate over the previous decade likely influenced canons 23 and 24 of the council, which insisted on timely and simple ecclesiastical elections. The situation in Constantinople was precisely the opposite. The purpose of this study is to unravel the poorly understood disputes regarding the elections of the patriarch, as well as the motivations and agendas of those directly involved. Like the short-lived Latin Empire, the Latin patriarchate of Constantinople had a tumultuous history. Its core problems were derived from elements present at its foundation. Prior to the Fourth Crusade’s conquest of the Byzantine capital, the leaders of the host swore to an agreement, commonly known as the Pact of March. One of its provisions dictated that, should the city fall, a committee of six Venetians and six non-Venetians (i.e. Franks) would elect an emperor. Should they elect a Frank, Hagia Sophia and the patriarchate would

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 59-74 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115854

Thomas F. Madden

belong to the Venetians, and vice versa.1 Therefore, in 1204, shortly after the coronation of Emperor Baldwin of Flanders, Doge Enrico Dandolo and his advisors took possession of the patriarchal palace. Dandolo then appointed a group of Venetian clergy as canons of the cathedral and charged them with the election of the new patriarch. Because the Pact of March guaranteed that the patriarch would be a Venetian, the newly appointed canons swore to elect one. They settled on Tommaso Morosini, a subdeacon living in a monastery in Ravenna.2 Morosini had formerly lived in Rome and, as Innocent III later wrote, ‘we knew him to be a noble by birth, honorable in his ways, esteemed for his foresight, and sufficiently educated in letters’.3 Hurriedly negotiated, it appears that the Pact of March was the product solely of the lay crusade leadership. It is difficult to believe that it was reviewed by anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of canon law. After the conquest, the French clergy in Constantinople took advantage of its flaws. They refused to accept the election of Morosini, arguing that the Venetian cathedral canons, appointed by a layman, were invalid and the election, therefore, unfree. Only the pope could appoint the patriarch, they insisted. They made this case directly to Innocent, although an embarrassed Emperor Baldwin later forced them to withdraw their objections to Morosini. The Venetian canons of Hagia Sophia also sent representatives to Rome, begging the pope to accept and ordain their choice.4 Innocent was not well disposed toward the Venetians, whom he believed had hijacked his crusade.5 Nonetheless, he had no wish to sow divisions at the very start of this new era in the history of the patriarchate. Innocent, therefore, accepted the French clergy’s arguments, but also gave Baldwin and the Venetians what they wished. He ruled that the provisions regarding the patriarchate in the Pact of March were invalid because they treated ecclesiastical property as plunder. Further, the election of Morosini was null because the canons were illegitimate, having been appointed by

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There are two texts of the treaty, one in the name of Dandolo, the other in the names of the Frankish leaders. See Tafel and Thomas, 1: 444–52, nos 119–20. Register, 7: 351–59, nos 202–3. Register, 7: 358, no. 203: … quam noveramus genere nobilem, honestam moribus, providentia circumspectam, et competenter litteris eruditam. Register, 7: 358, no. 203; Alfred J. Andrea, ‘The Devastatio Constantinopolitana, a Special Perspective on the Fourth Crusade: An Analysis, New Edition, and Translation’, Historical Reflections 19 (1993), 107–49 (p. 137). Thomas F. Madden, Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice (Baltimore, 2003), pp. 178–80.

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a layman. He therefore invalidated the election, and appointed Morosini as patriarch of Constantinople on his own authority.6 Tommaso Morosini received the pallium from Innocent on March 30, 1205.7 It is clear from the pope’s instructions on several occasions that he already envisioned the rights, privileges, and extraordinary freedom of action given to patriarchs enunciated in canon 5 of the Fourth Lateran Council. Morosini received complete control over the property of the Byzantine church, the right to appoint or approve bishops and archbishops, and the right to hear all cases arising from his see. He owed Rome obedience and could not impede appeals, but was otherwise free to exercise his patriarchal authority in every respect. In several letters, Innocent reiterated that his appointment of the patriarch was an exception. In the future, the canons of Hagia Sophia should conduct free elections of the patriarch of Constantinople. To that end, he ordered Morosini to appoint men of suitable birth and education and from all nations as canons of the cathedral.8 The new patriarch left Rome for his native Venice, where he appointed a dozen or so canons who were to accompany him to Constantinople. Yet despite his now-lofty position, Morosini was no hero in Venice. The vice-doge, Ranieri Dandolo, insisted that the patriarch and his newly appointed canons sign an oath that they would appoint or elect only Venetians or those who had lived in Venice for ten years to subsequent vacancies among the canons and the patriarchate. The canons took the oaths, many of which survive. In addition, Morosini was required to swear that he would not abridge the rights and privileges of the Patriarchate of Grado, the mother church of Venice. The patriarch refused to sign the oaths, so Dandolo refused to allow him to leave Venice. Eventually beset by creditors, Morosini acquiesced, although he added an oral addendum reserving the rights of the pope.9 He and his canons then sailed out of the lagoon to take up their new positions. These oaths are traditionally interpreted as another Venetian attempt to hijack papal initiatives in the East for their own benefit. Robert Lee Wolff is typical when he states that the behavior of the Venetian leaders 6

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The dispute appears in multiple papal letters, including two not enregistered. Register, 7: 350–1, no. 201; 7: 354–59, no. 203; Tafel and Thomas, 1: 534–38, no. 134; Tafel and Thomas, 1: 538–39, no. 135. Gesta Innocentii III, in PL, 214: 143. Register, 8: 32–33, no. 19; 8: 35, no. 21; 8: 38–39, no. 25; Tafel and Thomas, 1: 538–39, no. 135. Register, 9: 233–35, no. 130; 11: 93–100, no. 72 (76); 12: 198–205, no. 105; 12: 280–81, no. 140; Tafel and Thomas, 1: 547–53, nos 144, 145, 146; 2: 113, no. 215.

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can be taken ‘not only as an indication of the political (and almost certainly economic) importance attached by the Venetians to ecclesiastical predominance in Constantinople, but also as an extraordinary and violent attack upon the established principles of canon law, and a bold attempt to capitalize upon the new situation in the east’.10 This interpretation fits well with the treason theories for the diversion of the Fourth Crusade, popular at the time Wolff was writing.11 However, without that narrative substructure, Venetian interests in the patriarchate become more complex. In all accounts of Morosini’s oath, including the written versions, witness accounts, testimonies, and a later confession, there are two main elements: the promise to appoint only Venetians as canons, and the promise to leave the patriarchate of Grado alone. Scholarly attention has focused on the first, while from the Venetian perspective the second was equally important. The funding of the patriarchate of Grado had posed a vexing problem for centuries. As a community set in a lagoon, Venice’s parishes and episcopal sees relied heavily, and in some cases exclusively, on monetary tithes. Compared to their counterparts on the terra firma, Venetian ecclesiastical entities owned few revenue-generating properties. This was especially true for the patriarchate of Grado, which for historical reasons was situated many miles away from the Venetian lagoon, set on a small island with few resources. Six bishops answered to the patriarch, including the bishop of Castello (the bishop of Venice), but they rarely rendered their full tithes. Several popes, including Gregory VII, had admonished the bishops for this dereliction, but with no effect. Patriarch Domenico Marengo had been forced to resign the see of Grado in 1091 because he could no longer afford to keep it.12 Several doges attempted new funding schemes, yet all required the good will of the bishops, who preferred to keep the patriarchate weak and poor, particularly as the office tended to

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Robert Lee Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1204– 61’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954), 225–303 (here 242). On the older historiography of the Fourth Crusade, see The Latin Conquest of Constantinople, ed. Donald E. Queller (New York, 1971). Italia pontificia sive repertorium, privilegiorum et letterarum a Romanis pontificibus ante annum MCXXXXVIII, ed. Paul F. Kehr et al., 10 vols (Berlin, 1906–78), 7: 20, no. 33; Daniela Rando, ‘Le struttura della Chiesa locale’, in Storia di Venezia: Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, 12 vols (Roma, 1992–98), 1: 645–75 (here p.  650); Cinzio Violante, ‘Venezia fra papato e impero nel secolo XI,’ in La Venezia del mille, ed. Francesco Calazzo (Firenze, 1965), pp. 47–84 (here pp. 68–69).

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attract reformers.13 Finally, in 1107 Doge Ordelafo Falier scrapped the failed system and replaced it with a grant of properties in Constantinople’s Venetian Quarter. These included warehouses, rental properties, and most importantly the church of St Acydinus, which housed the Venetians’ weights and measures.14 The incomes from these holdings put the patriarchate back on a sound financial footing. In 1157 Pope Hadrian IV gave Grado authority over all Venetian churches in the Byzantine Empire, further strengthening the see.15 The Latin patriarchate of Constantinople threatened to unravel this system. There was already a deep suspicion in Venice regarding the outcome of the Fourth Crusade, which seemed to have transformed a profitable market – the Byzantine Empire – into a costly and dangerous maelstrom of chaos.16 The Venetian government disclaimed all territories allotted to it in the Treaty of Partition, leaving them for Venetian entrepreneurs to develop with their own means and at their own risk. Indeed, the doge initially rejected the famous title ‘lord of three-eighths of the whole Roman Empire’, giving it instead to his podestà in Constantinople.17 When set into this framework, the oaths extracted from Morosini fit comfortably with other Venetian attempts to manage the risks and minimize the damage caused by the conquest of Constantinople. A Latin patriarch could reasonably make a claim to jurisdiction over the Latin churches and property currently controlled by Grado. Such a claim would be disastrous for the Venetian church. Avoiding this seems to have been a major rationale behind the oaths.18 Patriarch Morosini arrived in the capital in the summer of 1205. He did not receive a warm welcome. The French clergy refused to accept him, insisting that his appointment was based on lies. Some of the French clergy appear to have also received word of the oaths taken in Venice. They 13

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See, for example, the patriarchate of Pietro Badoer (1092–1104). Marco Pozza, I  Badoer: Una famiglia veneziana dal X al XIII secolo (Padova, 1982), p.  21; Violante, ‘Venezia fra papato e impero’, pp. 77–78. Tafel and Thomas, 1: 67–74, no. 32. Giorgio Fedalto, ‘Il patriarcato latino di Costantinopoli (1204–61)’, Studia Patavina 18 (1971), 390–464 (here 413–16). Madden, Enrico Dandolo, pp. 197–98. John Knight Fotheringham, Marco Sanudo: Conqueror of the Archipelago (Oxford, 1915), p. 49; Robert Lee Wolff, ‘A New Document from the Period of the Latin Empire of Constantinople: The Oath of the Venetian Podestà’, Annuaire de l’Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales et slaves 12 (1953), 539–73 (here p. 550). Tafel and Thomas, 1: 551–53, no. 146.

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informed the papal legate, Peter Capuano, who forwarded the matter to Rome. In the meantime, Morosini excommunicated all who did not accept his authority.19 These included the clergy of thirty conventual churches in Constantinople, which Peter Capuano had elevated to praepositurae (churches headed by praepositi or provosts) because they were the leading churches in the city. Aside from the Church of the Holy Apostles and the imperial chapels at the Blachernae and Bucoleon palaces, we do not know which churches were on this list. Even before the challenge arrived in Rome, though, Innocent had been hearing rumors of Morosini’s oath and had expressed concerns that the Venetians were treating the church of Constantinople as a hereditary right. He therefore sent a letter, probably in late summer, altering the election procedure for future patriarchs. Henceforth, they were to be chosen by a body of electors that included not only the canons of Hagia Sophia, but also the praepositi of the thirty conventual churches. Since all thirty were outside of the Venetian section of Constantinople, all were led by non-Venetian, predominantly French clergy. Peter Capuano had previously given the right of presentation (essentially appointment) of the praepositi to the emperor, thus insuring that they would remain non-Venetian for the foreseeable future.20 Tommaso Morosini naturally opposed the rebellious clergy, as well as imperial control over the conventual churches. He appealed to Rome and to the new papal legate, Benedict of St Susanna. Sometime in 1207 Benedict decided the issue with a compromise. Of the thirty churches, Benedict demoted twenty-three, taking the right of appointment to them for himself or the pope, and removing their right to vote in patriarchal elections. These churches, he said, were now too poor to merit being conventual churches. The remaining seven had their positions unchanged.21 The French naturally appealed to Rome, but the matter was never completely settled. Benedict did manage to strike a short-lived peace between the patriarch and the French clergy of Constantinople. Morosini pledged not to attempt to replace them in return for their grudging acceptance of his authority.22 The remainder of Morosini’s tenure was a landscape of quarrels, suits, and appeals. Innocent’s intention may have been to give the patriarch a free hand, but in practice he was forced to intervene repeatedly. Strong animosity lingered between the patriarch and the French clergy, which 19 20

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Gesta Innocentii III, in PL 214: xviii–ccxxviii (cap. c). The letter is not in the register. See Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate’, p. 229 and Appendix II. Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate’, p. 279 and Appendix V. Gesta Innocentii, ch. c.

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only grew with each new dispute. Morosini soon began rejecting most of the French clergy elected to lead churches in Constantinople. And, as he had sworn to do, he appointed only Venetians to the canons of Hagia Sophia. After receiving numerous complaints, in June 1206 Innocent ordered his legates, Benedict and Peter Capuano, to investigate the matter. If French appointees were suitable, the legates were to ensure that Morosini confirmed them. If he did not, the legates should threaten to absolve Morosini’s clergy from their oath of obedience to him.23 In the same letter, Innocent asked his legates about the rumor circulating in Rome that the patriarch had promised to appoint only Venetians to the church of Constantinople. Shortly thereafter, the pope wrote directly to Morosini, confronting him with the report that the Venetians had violently extorted an oath from him binding him to appoint to the Hagia Sophia chapter only Venetians or those who had lived in Venice for ten years. In addition, Innocent had heard that Morosini had promised to accept only Venetians as new bishops in Greece and to do all that he could to ensure a Venetian would succeed him to the patriarchate. Innocent absolved Morosini of the oath and forbade him to fulfill it. He ordered him to denounce the oath to the canons as well.24 Morosini did not respond, nor, it appears, did he address the matter with the canons. Indeed, newly appointed canons continued to take the same oath.25 Since the patriarch refused to appoint non-Venetian canons, Innocent ordered his legates to do so. On 25 July 1206, the pope confirmed two new canons, Walter of Courtrai (the former chancellor of the Latin Empire) and Clement of St Stephen of Constantinople.26 He then wrote to Morosini informing him of the appointments and stating that he did not want them contested on any grounds, including that the chapter was already full.27 One year later the pope confirmed another non-Venetian canon, Wibert, who had been appointed by Benedict.28 Although new faces appeared in Hagia Sophia’s chapter, the drumbeat of complaints regarding Morosini’s favoritism toward Venetians grew progressively louder in the curia. At last, in April 1208, representatives of the patriarch and his accusers aired the matter in a public consistory in Rome. Innocent later wrote a letter detailing the proceedings, which he sent to the archbishop of Vrysis, the bishop of Panados, and the cantor 23 24 25 26 27 28

Register, 9: 182–84, no. 100. Register, 9: 233–35, no. 130. Tafel and Thomas, 2: 61–62, no. 184; 2: 175, no. 199. Register, 9: 233, no. 129; 239–40, no. 134. Register, 9: 270–71, no. 148. Register, 10: 219, no. 128.

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of the church of St Paul in Constantinople.29 The letter is very one-sided, suggesting that the patriarch’s representatives did not mount a vigorous defense, or perhaps were unable to do so. The accusers stated that the Venetians had received the patriarchate of Constantinople in the Pact of March and thus considered it a hereditary possession. They had forced the canons of Hagia Sophia to take an oath that they would accept only Venetians or ten-year residents and that they would elect only a Venetian as patriarch. Benedict of St Susanna and Peter Capuano had appointed other legates, yet Morosini had refused to accept them, forcing them to appeal to Rome. They also pointed out that virtually no non-Venetian bishops had been appointed or confirmed in Greece. Only a few lines are afforded to the response of the patriarch’s representatives. They pointed out that Morosini had contested the authority of the legates to appoint canons to Hagia Sophia, and had appealed that case to Rome. It was, therefore, not right for Morosini to accept the appointees without the matter decided. Furthermore, the papal legates had been charged to appoint canons only if the patriarch failed to do so. Yet the patriarch had not failed to do so. Indeed, the chapter was full, precluding the patriarch from accepting these new, unlawful appointments. Regarding the oath, they strongly denied that Morosini had taken one. Innocent had little patience for the patriarch’s defense regarding the canons, and quickly dismissed his denial of the oath. He stated that ‘we have heard from a certain person’ that when the patriarch was in Venice he was detained and put at the mercy of creditors until he swore the oath, although he admitted that Morosini had added a line about respecting the rights, reverence, and honor of the Holy See. The final decision of the consistory was that Morosini must publicly abjure the oath before the clergy of Constantinople. He was furthermore to order the canons to repudiate their oaths under pain of losing their positions and benefices. Finally, Morosini was to henceforth accept all canons appointed by papal legates. If he refused, the letter’s addressees were to deprive him of his office.30 On the same day, 23 April 1208, Innocent wrote directly to Morosini informing him of the decision.31 He reminded Morosini of the favors he had shown him, elevating him from a subdeacon to the patriarchate and sending Benedict as a legate to assist him. The very first command that Innocent had given to Morosini was that he should appoint canons of all nations. ‘In truth, you not only did not keep this commandment … you swore to bind it in chains. Behold what fruits are collected from 29 30 31

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Tafel and Thomas, 2: 83–87, no. 201. Tafel and Thomas, 2: 83–87, no. 201. Tafel and Thomas, 2: 76–83, no. 200.

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this new plant! Behold the pattern of your deeds offending the divine majesty, injuring the Apostolic See, destroying the liberty of the church, and bringing shame to the church among kings and people!’32 Imagine, Innocent went on, if the Romans took an oath that they would accept only Romans as cardinals, who would elect only Romans as popes, who would confirm only Romans as bishops and archbishops throughout the world.33 Morosini had no choice but to comply. In a meeting of Constantinople’s clergy, the pope’s letter was read publicly. The patriarch then spoke, stating that he had indeed been detained in Venice and persecuted by his creditors. He had sworn not to accept as a canon anyone who was not either a Venetian or one who had lived in Venice for ten years, and who had not themselves taken such an oath. He had, however, added a clause respecting the rights of the Holy See and he had affirmed that he would ever be obedient to the pope. He insisted that he had never taken any other oath, including one to appoint only Venetians as bishops or to disobey the pope. He admitted, however, to making an oral promise to try to appoint Venetians to archbishoprics. The Venetians had demanded the oath, he said, because they feared that if another nation should take over the chapter of Hagia Sophia, then the Venetians would be deprived of the patriarchate and the church, which were their spoils of war guaranteed by the emperor.34 Despite the dramatic confession, it appears that Morosini continued to do everything that he could to pack Venetians into the electorate of his successor. On 2 November 1209, Innocent confirmed the appointment by his legate of a cleric in the retinue of Emperor Henry, referred to as G., to the Hagia Sophia chapter.35 At about the same time Innocent wrote to Morosini ordering him to stop ordaining his own praepositi to the conventual churches and treating the nominees of the emperor as excommunicates.36 On 15 March 1210 Innocent again wrote to the patriarch, reporting that the emperor had complained that Morosini continued to favor Venetians and to reject French clergy for appointments. He 32

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Tafel and Thomas, 2: 76–83, no.  200: Tu vero non solummodo non servasti mandatum, sed, si dictis veritas suffragatur, ut illud servare de cetero non valeres, juramentum ad iniquitatis vinculum praestitisti. Ecce quales fructus ex nova planta colligimus! Ecce quod exemplum ex facto tuo in divinae majestatis offensam, injuriam apostolicae Sedis, ecclesiasticae libertatis dispendium et opprobrium Ecclesiae generalis ad Reges et populos derivatur! Tafel and Thomas, 2: 76–83, no. 200. Register, 12: 198–99, no. 105. Register, 12: 249, no. 113. Register, 12: 250–52, nos 115–16.

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ordered him to accept three nominees of the emperor: a priest, H., James a subdeacon, and Pietro di Christo.37 Although Morosini and the Venetians shared a desire to keep Hagia Sophia and the patriarchate in Venetian hands, their underlying motives differed substantially. The primary interest of Venetian leaders was the safeguarding of the assets of the patriarch of Grado necessary for the funding of their metropolitan see. Their secondary, yet still powerful interest, was maintaining Venetian honor by holding on to the patriarchal throne that they had won. This second element can be seen in a confidential letter sent by the Venetian podestà in Constantinople to the doge in 1219. The podestà assured his lord that he was working diligently to maintain the honor of the doge and of Venice by combatting French efforts to take away the patriarchate, ‘because by our account, the patriarchate is all the honor that you have left in this Empire’.38 Morosini’s motives are more difficult to discern. He was likely sensitive to the matter of Venetian honor and, therefore, did not want to see the patriarchate, like the imperial throne, fall to the French. Yet, given the hostility with which the French had greeted him and continued to exhibit, his actions must also have derived from a reluctance to bestow benefices and positions of authority on his enemies. While the Venetians were more amiable to the patriarch, Morosini was by no means their creature. Indeed, in 1208, now relieved of his oath, Morosini moved against the Venetian church. Innocent ordered several bishops in Constantinople to hear a case in which Morosini had demanded tithe payments from Venetian churches, including those belonging to the Patriarch of Grado, and threatened excommunication for those who did not pay.39 The final decision of the case is not preserved, but it appears that once again Morosini was ordered to back down. Around the same time the pope revoked all the privileges enjoyed during the period of the Byzantine emperors from a list of national churches. Venice and the patriarch of Grado do not appear on the list, suggesting that they continued to be exempt from patriarchal control.40

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Register, 13: 40–41, no. 18. Tafel and Thomas, 2: 220, no.  257: Quia totum honorem, quem in Imperio habetis, hunc esse computamus. Register, 11: 22–23, no. 16 (17). Jean Richard, ‘The Establishment of the Latin Church in the Empire of Constantinople (1204–27)’, in Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Benjamin Arbel, Bernard Hamilton and David Jacoby (London, 1989), pp. 45–62 (here p. 50).

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Morosini died in June or July 1211. The election of his successor was as troubled as his patriarchate. Shortly after word reached Constantinople of the patriarch’s death, the praepositi of the thirty original conventual churches went to Hagia Sophia and publicly read Innocent’s original election instructions from five years earlier, ignoring the subsequent demotion of twentythree of them by the papal legate in 1207. They were told to return in three days when the canons of the cathedral would be assembled for the election. Three days later they arrived to find the great church filled with armed Venetians, who threatened to kill anyone who voted for a non-Venetian. The praepositi decided to retreat. As they did so, they witnessed the canons of Hagia Sophia emerging from a secret conclave and announcing the majority election of their dean, Philip, as the new patriarch. Outraged, the praepositi assembled elsewhere and, rather than elect their own candidate, unanimously chose three candidates, the names of whom they forwarded to Innocent to make the final choice. To underscore the favorability of their solution, they conspicuously chose three Paris-educated men well known to Innocent III. They were Bishop Sicard of Cremona, Peter Capuano, and Robert de Courçon, a canon of the cathedral of Paris. Innocent, however, declined to select one. Instead, on 5 August 1211, he wrote to the canons of Hagia Sophia declaring their recent election invalid because it had excluded the praepositi. He ordered them to try again.41 A new election was held on Christmas Eve 1211. It was vexed from the start by the continued uncertainty over who was eligible to vote – an uncertainty to which Innocent himself had contributed. Even now, unpacking the election is difficult, since it is related in two versions entwined within one letter from Innocent to his notary.42 There has never been an accurate description of the versions of the election or its significance. All the votes cast were for two candidates. The French candidate was, ironically enough, a Venetian, although one known well to the praepositi: Archbishop Gervasio of Heracleia in Thrace. Gervasio, which was an uncommon name in Venice, can probably be identified with the abbot of SS Ilario e Benedetto referenced in Venetian archival materials no later than April 1199.43 He may have traveled to Constantinople with the crusade, because he was obviously well known to the French prelates. The candidate of the

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PL 216: 459b–60c. PL 216: 675c–81d. Given the later accusations against him as a monk. SS. Ilario e Benedetto e S.  Gregorio, ed. Luigi Lanfranchi and Bianca Strina (Venezia, 1965), p.  113, no. 41.

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Venetians had no ties to the local French. He was Ludovico, the plebanus (parish priest) of the church of San Polo in Venice.44 According to both versions of the election, twenty-four canons of Hagia Sophia who were present in Constantinople were admitted into the conclave. As a compromise, they also admitted the seven praepositi as well as two others from the other twenty-three, referred to as praelati in Innocent’s letter. According to the Venetian partisans of Ludovico, Gervasio received the votes of nine of the canons, six of the praepositi, and both of the praelati, for a total of 17 votes. However, they pointed out that the two praelati were from the churches of the two imperial palaces – Blachernae and Bucoleon – and not subject to the patriarch. They should, therefore, not have a vote in the election. In addition, four of Gervasio’s electors were proxies, not the praepositi themselves. Those should also be excluded. And finally, one of the voters had recently been made archbishop of Verissa and therefore was no longer eligible to vote in this election. The final tally for Gervasio, then was ten. They reminded Innocent that the number of conventual churches had been reduced to seven, although they had allowed the other two praelati to vote for the sake of peace. As for Ludovico, he received the votes of fifteen canons and the praepositus of the Church of the Holy Apostles. However, the Venetians pointed out that the cantor of Hagia Sophia and eight other canons were absent from Constantinople. They had sent proxy votes, all of which were for Ludovico. The final tally then was ten for Gervasio and twenty-five for Ludovico. They also informed Innocent that Gervasio was illiterate and sexually incontinent. Indeed, while a monk he had fathered a son. He was also ambitious. They claimed that even while the election was being held, Gervasio had come to Constantinople and seated himself on the patriarchal throne to the strains of the Te Deum. He had also stolen the patriarchal seal, which he was using to send letters and spend money. According to the French clergy, things went rather differently. They repeatedly reminded Innocent that he had originally given all thirty conventual churches the right to vote so that ecclesiastical property in Constantinople might never be considered a hereditary right. The two praelati admitted into the conclave, they claimed, were the representatives of the other praelati not admitted. Their description of the voting is a bit contorted and the Latin obscure, which has led to a great deal of confusion. What they alleged is that eighteen praelati in the city and another six absent 44

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The entire dispute is contained in the letter of Innocent to his notary, describing the controversy as well as the claims and counter-claims. PL 216: 675c–81d.

Oaths Broken, Yet Fulfilled

were represented by the two praelati admitted. It is not clear why this number adds up to twenty-four rather than twenty-three. It may be Innocent’s mistake. Therefore, the vote for Gervasius was nine canons, six praepositi, and another twenty-four praelati represented by the two praelati. The total therefore was thirty-nine. They agreed with the Venetians on the votes cast for Ludovico, but they rejected all proxy votes, claiming that many of the missing canons had not lived in Constantinople for years. They also denied all charges leveled against Gervasio, and stated that even if they were true, he had fully reformed himself. They also repeatedly pointed out that there were twice as many votes for Gervasio as Ludovico.45 Both parties sent their cases to Rome. It is clear from the outset that once again Innocent accepted the French reasoning, if not their final numbers. In a letter of 18 August 1212, he agreed that none of the proxy votes from the canons should be counted and he further agreed (at least implicitly) that the two praelati could cast proxy votes for all of those excluded by Benedict of St. Susanna in 1207 and the Venetians in 1211.46 However, he did not rule in Gervasio’s favor. Instead he ordered the papal notary, Maximus, to investigate the matter. He was to travel first to Venice to investigate both candidates’ suitability for office. He was then to go to Constantinople to investigate the twenty-four praelati to ensure that there were still working churches associated with them or even men holding the offices. This last task appears to be Innocent’s only concession to the decision of his legate in 1207. Innocent instructed Maximus that Gervasio was to be confirmed as the new patriarch if he was found to be worthy and had twice as many votes as Ludovico. Ludovico was to be confirmed if Gervasio did not have twice as many votes or if Gervasio was found to be unworthy and his electors in Constantinople knew this while voting for him. In any other case, the matter was to be returned to Rome where Innocent would appoint a patriarch, perhaps one of those two, but perhaps not.47 Historians have seen this as a hopelessly confused election, almost impossible to untangle. Robert Lee Wolff, the only scholar to examine it in detail, stated plainly that he was at a loss to explain it. Why, for example, he asked, must Gervasio secure a two-thirds majority when Ludovico could be elected with only one-third of the vote? Wolff offered several possible solutions, all of which he ultimately rejected. Finally, he posited

45 46 47

PL 216: 675c–81d. PL 216: 675c–81d. PL 216: 675c–81d.

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that Innocent was simply trying to create an insoluble problem so that he could appoint whomever he wished.48 Part of the problem with modern attempts to unlock this election is a consistent misreading of numbers and sums. Wolff, for example, believed that there were only twenty-four votes in total for Gervasio, because he made several errors in reading the letter.49 To be fair, it is a difficult text. But the greatest error is in the failure to notice that Innocent throughout the letter refers with precision to Ludovico’s election and Gervasio’s postulation. An elector postulates when he votes for someone with an impediment to his election because it is routinely or easily dispensed. In this case, Archbishop Gervasio was bound to his see of Heracleia. By Innocent’s pontificate it was firmly established in canon law that only the pope could move a bishop to another see.50 An election, therefore, is a right, but a postulation is a grace.51 The pope has no obligation to grant it and can therefore set any condition to it he wishes. In this case, it was a two-thirds majority. What is especially interesting, though, is the fact that, according to Innocent’s letter, the postulators for Gervasio claimed twice in their report to have that super majority.52 Did Innocent take the condition from their own boasting of their electoral margin of victory? Whatever the case, it does not appear that Innocent meant for his decision to set a precedent. There is no mention of postulation in the Fourth Lateran Council’s canons 23 or 24 regarding elections. Indeed, canon 23 allows only for ballots, direct appointment, or divine inspiration. Given that a two-thirds majority threshold for postulations appears nowhere else in Innocent’s correspondence, this seems to have been an ad hoc solution 48 49

50

51

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Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate’, pp. 250–51. Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate’, pp.  250–51. Wolff mistook the reference to eighteen praelati in the city and six outside the city as the total vote count for Gervasio. In fact, the letter states that the twenty-four were those excluded from the elections, for whom the two admitted praelati voted. Since ‘promotions’ of bishops were common, postulations increased the role of the papacy in episcopal elections across Europe. On this dynamic, see Geoffrey Barraclough, ‘The Making of a Bishop in the Middle Ages: The Part of the Pope in Law and Fact’, Catholic Historical Review 19 (1933), 275–319, especially 287, 310. Jean Gerbais, Réflexions sur la décrétale d’Innocent  III. pour l’élection du patriarche de Constantinople (Paris, 1688), p.  38. For additional instances of postulations under Innocent, see Raymonde Foreville, Le pape Innocent III et la France (Stuttgart, 1992), pp. 145–49; Christopher R. Cheney, Pope Innocent III and England (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 142–43, 148–50. PL 216: 675c–81d.

Oaths Broken, Yet Fulfilled

to a particular problem. The disputed patriarchal election did likely affect canon 24, however, with regard to its strict prohibition against voting by proxy unless canonically impeded, as well as against secret conclaves. As it happened, Maximus was unable to finish his investigation. Suspecting where the matter was headed, the Venetians detained him.53 Innocent finally appointed Cardinal Pelayo of Albano to take it up the case in Constantinople.54 What happened next is unknown, since the register years are missing. But as Wolff long ago demonstrated, the matter was judged at the Fourth Lateran Council. On the advice of his cardinals, Innocent deposed both men and then elevated Gervasio.55 Innocent may not have meant for his solution to become part of canon law, but it did. It was included in Gregory IX’s decretals. If a postulation and election occur together and the number for the postulant is twice the greater, and the postulant is suitable, the postulation will be accepted and the election rejected. If he is unsuitable, and the majority of those for the postulant did not know it, the postulation and the election are rejected. If they did know it and the elected is suitable, the election is confirmed, and likewise if the number for the postulation is not double, the election is confirmed.56

The decretal is drawn directly from Innocent’s instructions to Maximus. In the current code it is found in canons 180–83, which require a twothirds majority for postulations.57 Gervasio held the patriarchal office only four years, and justified the Venetians’ objections against him. He appointed his own legates, sent them to hear cases that should have gone to Rome, and claimed authority in his see superior to that of the pope. Honorius III eventually accused him of imitating a Greek patriarch, appropriating powers reserved to the papacy.58 The pope later ordered his legate to investigate the cases of 53 54 55 56

57

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PL 216: 891c–93b. PL 216: 907c–d. Wolff, ‘Politics in the Latin Patriarchate’, pp. 252–53. Decretal. lib.I., tit.VI. De electione, cap. 40 (Corpus iuris canonici, coll. 84–88): Si postulatio cum electione concurrit, et numerus postulantium est duplo maior, et postulatus est idoneus, postulatio admittur reiecta electione. Si vero indignus, et hoc maior pars postulantium ignoravit, postulatio et electio reprobatur. Si vero sciebant, et electus est idoneus, confirmatur electio, et idem, si numerus postulantium non est duplo maior. New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, ed. John P. Beal, James A. Coriden and Thomas J. Green (Mahwah, NJ, 2000), pp. 218–19. Pressutti, 1: 264, no. 1585; Leo Santifaller, Beiträge zur Geschichte des lateinischen Patriarchats von Konstantinopel (Weimar, 1938), p. 92.

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churches which had been exempt from patriarchal jurisdiction under the Greeks yet had their exemptions revoked by Gervasio.59 This included the properties of the Patriarch of Grado. Gervasio died in 1219. Once again two candidates were elected by their respective factions. After two years of litigation, Honorius III appointed a Venetian, Bishop Matteo of Jesolo, a suffragan of Grado, as the new patriarch.60 Matteo was not one of the two candidates, but he does appear to have been the product of Venetian persuasion. The confidential letter of the Venetian podestà, in fact, advises the doge that since the election will ultimately be decided in Rome, ‘you may arrange to send to the pope the kind of discreet and clever men who can handle a matter of this sort…’ They apparently did their job well. Among Matteo’s first actions as patriarch was the restoration in perpetuity of all churches and all rights of the patriarchate of Grado in the Byzantine Empire, just as they had existed under the Greek emperors.61 With regard to the patriarchate of Constantinople, then, the matter that had threatened the Venetians since 1204 was managed by the oaths of Morosini and the canons, but only removed by Matteo’s decree of 1221. With the properties and income of Venice’s mother church secure, the only issues that remained for Venetians were those of honor. That was enough for them to seek to elect a Venetian in 1226, when Matteo died. But it was not enough to make trouble when Gregory IX appointed the first non-Venetian, Simon, archbishop of Tyre, to the position in 1229. With a quarter of a century having passed since the conquest, there was a new realization that the patriarchate of ruined Constantinople was not quite the prize it had once been. The monopoly broken, the honor of the Venetians was perhaps bruised. But with the danger to Grado past, they were content to let that go. They made no further organized attempts to put a Venetian in the office. For the Venetians, the patriarchate of Constantinople was not a market to be exploited or a territory to be absorbed. As a state, Venice never gained anything tangible from its association with the patriarchate. Instead, it was a prize of honor, given in place of the imperial throne that the Venetians had ceded to the French, as well as a potential threat to the proper functioning of the Venetian church. Morosini’s oath was an attempt to retain the honor while mitigating the threat. The tangible and the intangible were bound tightly within this problem. Every Venetian doge’s oath of office contained a promise to promote and protect ‘the honor and profit of the Venetian people’. Those two elements, honor and profit, are ultimately what formed the Venetians’ attitude toward the Latin patriarchate of Constantinople. 59 60 61

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Pressutti, 1: 432, no. 2607. Pressutti, 1: 507, no. 3099. Tafel and Thomas, 2: 225–26, no. 259 (31 January 1221).

Part II

The Albigensian Crusade

Chapter Four La convocation du Quatrième Concile du Latran et la Croisade contre les Albigeois Martín Alvira*

La Croisade contre les Albigeois et le Quatrième Concile du Latran constituent deux épisodes majeurs du pontificat d’Innocent III. D’un point de vue historiographique, les débats conciliaires et les sentences relatives aux terres conquises sur les barons occitans par Simon de Montfort, ainsi que leurs conséquences pour l’évolution de la guerre après 1215, ont été abordés.1 Mais les spécialistes qui ont analysé la ‘préhistoire’ du Concile du Latran ne mentionnent généralement pas la Croisade contre les Albigeois dans la genèse du projet d’Innocent III. Il est vrai que les connexions sont moins claires et plus indirectes que celles qui existent entre le concile général et la croisade d’Orient, mais on peut tout de même tenter de circonscrire quelques points de contact.2

* Sous le titre ‘La Cruzada contra los Albigenses y el IV Concilio de Letrán’, ce texte a été présenté au congrès international Concilium Lateranense  IV. Commemorating the Octocentenary of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 (Rome, 23–29 November 2015). Je remercie Laurent Macé pour la correction du brouillon français, ainsi que Damian J. Smith et Jessalynn Bird pour leurs commentaires et suggestions. Notre travail fait partie du projet de recherche Confrontatio. Violencia religiosa en la Edad Media peninsular: guerra, discurso apologético y relato historiográfico (ss. X–XV), financié par l’Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad–Gobierno de España (référence: HAR2016–74968–P). 1 La bibliographie a été rassemblée dans notre ‘Non prevaluit consilium Achitophel. Debates y decisiones del Cuarto Concilio de Letrán sobre la Cruzada Albigense’, Revista Chilena de Estudios Medievales 9  (2016), 27–62, dont la première partie (pp. 27–34) est ici revue et développée. 2 Ils ont été récemment suggérés par Rebecca Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (London, 2009), p.  57; Pascal Montaubin, ‘Une tentative pontificale de reprise en main du Midi: la légation du cardinal Pietro The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 77-91 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115855

Martín Alvira

Nous pouvons nous demander, d’abord, si la situation religieuse et politique du Midi avant 1208 a influencé la volonté d’Innocent III de convoquer un concile général. Olivier Hanne a récemment rappelé l’image classique de Lothaire de Segni perçu comme un pontife ‘héréticomaque’.3 Bien que le pape pensait plutôt à Jérusalem, son célèbre appel à l’épée matérielle, dans une lettre envoyée en avril 1198 à l’archevêque d’Auch, suggère une préoccupation prématurée pour la question de l’hérésie et de sa répression.4 Dès le début, Innocent III préfère la parole comme instrument de persuasion des hérétiques mais les efforts des légats pontificaux demeurent inefficaces. Par ailleurs, la situation politique du Midi a changé. Au début de l’année 1204, le comte de Toulouse Raymond VI se marie avec Eléonore d’Aragon, la sœur du roi Pierre le Catholique et du comte de Provence Alphonse II. En avril, tous les trois passent à Millau une alliance militaire défensive. Le triple accord confirme l’entrée du comté toulousain dans l’orbite de la Couronne d’Aragon et rend plus difficile toute décision punitive contre Raymond VI.5 Ces circonstances semblent accélérer le pas vers une politique de force. En mai 1204, le pape nomme comme légat dans le Midi l’abbé de Cîteaux Arnaud Amaury, un rigide défenseur de l’orthodoxie. Au même moment, il offre au roi de France Philippe Auguste, suzerain du comte de Toulouse, les bénéfices spirituels de la croisade de Terre sainte s’il intervient manu militari (lui-même ou son fils le prince

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Beneventano en 1214–15’, en Innocent III et le Midi, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 50 (Toulouse, 2015), pp. 391–418 (ici p. 393). Olivier Hanne, ‘L’élaboration d’un discours sur l’hérésie chez le cardinal Lothaire/Innocent III’, en Innocent III et le Midi (Toulouse, 2015), pp. 207–30 (ici p. 225). Voir aussi Antonio Oliver, Táctica de propaganda y motivos literarios en las cartas antiheréticas de Inocencio  III (Roma, 1957); Werner Maleczek, ‘Innocenzo III’, in Enciclopedia dei Papi, 3 vols (Roma, 2000), 2: 326–50 (ici p. 337); Keith H. Kendall, ‘Mute Dogs, Unable to Bark. Innocent III’s Call to Combat Heresy’, in Medieval Church Law and the Origins of the Western Legal Tradition: A Tribute to Kenneth Pennington, éd. Wolfgang Müller et Mary E. Sommar (Washington DC, 2006), pp. 263–75; Marco Meschini, Innocenzo III et il negotium pacis et fidei in Linguadoca tra il 1198 e il 1215 (Roma, 2007), pp. 417–523 (ici p. 523); Christian Grasso, ‘La problématique de l’hérésie dans les sermons d’Innocent III’, en Innocent III et le Midi, pp. 231–53. Register, 1: no. 81. Karl Borchardt, ‘Casting Out Demons by Beelzebul. Did the Papal Preaching Against the Albigensians Ruin the Crusades?’, in La papauté et les croisades. Actes du VIIe Congrès de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (Avignon, 27–31 août 2008), éd. Michel Balard (Farnham– Burlington, 2011), pp. 7–90 (ici p. 84). Voir Martín Alvira, ‘Le traité de Millau (avril 1204)’, Heresis (sous presse).

La convocation du Quatrième Concile du Latran

Louis) contre les barons occitans qui protègent les hérétiques.6 La passivité du roi capétien oblige le pontife à insister au début de 1205.7 Presque trois ans plus tard, le 17 novembre 1207, après un autre échec des campagnes de prédication conduites par les légats, Innocent III appelle à nouveau Philippe Auguste et les barons français, en offrant les indulgences de Terre sainte à ceux qui combattraient les hérétiques toulousains.8 Quant à la réunion d’un concile général, l’idée apparaît pour la première fois dans deux lettres du pape envoyées en novembre 1199 à l’empereur byzantin Alexis  III Ange et au patriarche de Constantinople Jean  X Kamateros dans le cadre des préparatifs de la Quatrième Croisade. Mais il est difficile de déterminer si l’initiative a été pontificale ou orientale.9 Après, durant l’hiver 1202, Innocent III déclare dans une lettre à l’archevêque de Cologne que beaucoup lui avaient suggéré la convocation d’un concile afin de corriger le manque de discipline du haut clergé.10 On voit donc que

6

7 8

9

10

Register, 7: no. 77 [76, 77] (31 mai 1204), 79 (28 mai 1204). Sur les lettres au roi de France et les indulgences, voir Meschini, Innocenzo III, pp. 553–59, 626–31; Rist, Papacy, pp. 62–66; Rebecca Rist, ‘Salvation and the Albigensian Crusade: Pope Innocent III and the Plenary Indulgence’, Reading Medieval Studies 36 (2010), 95–112 (ici pp. 96–100). Register, 7: no. 186 (16 janvier). Register, 10: no. 149. Aussi Marco Meschini, ‘Innocenz III. und der Kreuzzung als Instrument im Kampf gegen die Häresie’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 61 (2005), 537–83; Jessalynn Bird, ‘Paris Masters and the Justification for the Albigensian Crusade’, Crusades 6 (2007), 117–55 (ici p. 123). Register, 2: no.  200 (209), 202 (211) (12–13 novembre 1199). Voir Michele Maccarrone, ‘Il  IV Concilio Lateranense’, Divinitas 2  (1961), 270–98 (ici pp. 274–75); Michele Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto e la predicazione della crociata’, in Studi su Innocenzo III (Padova, 1972), pp. 3–163 (ici p. 100); Antonio García y García, ‘Tradición manuscrita y editorial del Concilio 4 Lateranense’, in Iglesia, sociedad y derecho, 2 vols (Salamanca, 1987), 2: 15–59 (ici p. 20); Brenda Bolton, ‘A Show with a Meaning: Innocent  III’s Approach to the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215’, 2nd édn, in Innocent III: Studies on Papal Authority and Pastoral Care (Aldershot, 1995), VIII, pp. 53–67 (ici p. 58); Alberto Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini, 10 April 1213: New Efforts and Traditional Topoi – Summoning Lateran IV’, in Pope Innocent III and His World, éd. John C. Moore (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 63–71 (ici p. 64); Antonio García y García, Historia del Concilio IV Lateranense de 1215 (Salamanca, 2005), pp. 16–17. Friedrich Kempf, Regestum Innocentii III papae super negotio Romani imperii (Roma, 1947), no. 80 (20 novembre 1202–13 janvier 1203). Voir Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, p. 103; García y García, ‘Tradición’, p. 20; García y García, Historia, p. 17.

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les données sur un concile général sont rares pour la première décennie de ce pontificat. En outre, la séquence des événements ne présente pas de liens directs avec la croisade antihérétique. Certes, le souci de l’hérésie a fait partie de la ‘préhistoire’ du Quatrième Concile du Latran. La mise en œuvre des mesures de grande portée contre les hérétiques, vue déjà à Latran III, était probablement dans l’esprit du pape. Mais les sources disponibles ne permettent pas d’établir une relation évidente entre les deux circonstances. En janvier 1208, l’assassinat du légat Pierre de Castelnau par un vassal du comte de Toulouse précipite les événements. Trois mois plus tard, Innocent III prêche la guerre sainte contre les hérétiques et leurs protecteurs.11 Soulignons l’importance de cette croisade dans l’histoire de Lothaire de Segni: près de la moitié de son pontificat – dès la bulle de croisade du 10 mars 1208 jusqu’à sa mort le 16 juillet 1216 – a été marquée, d’une façon ou d’une autre, par cette affaire. Mais comment l’évolution du negotium pacis et fidei a-t-elle pu influencer le projet pontifical d’assembler un concile général? C’est une question sans réponse pour la première étape de la guerre car nous ne trouvons pas d’éléments explicites dans les lettres papales des années 1209–12.12 Le moment décisif dans la genèse du Quatrième Concile du Latran fut précisément l’année 1212. Aucune source ne donne une seule raison pour expliquer la décision d’Innocent III.13 Le projet va mûrir grâce à la combinaison de plusieurs facteurs liés au projet de croisade en Terre sainte. Michele Maccarrone est le spécialiste qui a le mieux résumé cela.14 D’une part, il y a les nouvelles inquiétantes concernant la situation des chrétiens d’Égypte et la vulnérabilité militaire du royaume de Jérusalem. En 1211, le sultan al-Adil (Safadin) a commencé à construire une citadelle sur le Mont Thabor, une position stratégique qui menace les territoires latins d’Outremer.15 Le danger est provisoirement écarté à cause des problèmes internes des Ayyoubides. En 1211–12, al-Adil offre une trêve de plusieurs années: elle est acceptée par le roi de Jérusalem Jean de Brienne. Aussitôt, ce dernier demande à Rome de mettre en œuvre une nouvelle croisade. Innocent III a bien réalisé la nécessité de saisir cette période de trêve, ce qui explique l’urgence d’avancer les préparatifs de l’expédition d’Orient.16 11 12 13 14 15 16

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Register, 11: no. 25 (26, 27). Constitutiones, pp. 8–9. Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini’, p. 65. Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, p. 100. PL, 216: 817–22 (ici col. 818). On a parlé d’une trêve de cinq ans en vigueur depuis juillet 1212, Steven Runciman, Historia de las Cruzadas, trad. espagnole (Madrid, 2008), p. 718;

La convocation du Quatrième Concile du Latran

Un autre moteur important du projet conciliaire est le renouvellement du mouvement croisé incarné par l’explosion de piété populaire manifestée par la Croisade des Enfants.17 Et surtout, la victoire des rois ibériques remportée sur les Almohades à la bataille de Las Navas de Tolosa (16 juillet 1212) a fortement touché Lothaire de Segni. Sur le plan liturgique et spirituel, cette campagne fut une croisade soutenue personnellement par Innocent III. Sans surprise, la grande Supplicatio generalis qu’il a présidée à Rome en mai 1212, afin de prier Dieu pour permettre la victoire en Espagne, sera prescrite pour les croisades à venir dans la bulle Quia maior d’avril 1213.18 La nouvelle de Las Navas de Tolosa a été reçue à Rome avec une immense joie.19 Il n’est pas excessif de voir ici, avec John C. Moore, le moment le plus heureux vécu par Innocent III durant son pontificat.20 Après plusieurs années de défaites en Orient et en Occident, Las Navas fut perçu comme un succès inattendu et spectaculaire. Remportée par les rois de Castille, d’Aragon et de Navarre, aussi bien que par des croisés léonais, portugais et non ibériques, la victoire a été un vrai symbole de l’unité des

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aussi d’une trêve de six ans accordée en 1211, Guy Perry, John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, Emperor of Constantinople, c.  1175–1237 (Cambridge, 2013), pp.  56–58, 78–80. Voir aussi Helmut Roscher, Papst Innocenz  III. und die Kreuzzüge (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 137–38, 143, 287; García y García, ‘Tradición’, p.  20; James Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–21 (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 26–28; Bolton, ‘A Show’, p. 58. Gary Dickson, ‘Innocent III and the Children’s Crusade’, in Innocenzo III, éd. Sommerlechner, 1: 586–97; Gary Dickson, The Children’s Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory (Basingstoke, 2010). Aussi Powell, Anatomy, p. 9; Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini’, p. 65. PL, 216: 698–99, 820–21. Voir Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, pp.  102–03; Gary Dickson, ‘La genèse de la croisade des enfants’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 153–51 (1995) 53–102 (ici p. 82); Damian J. Smith, Innocent III and the Crown of Aragon. The Limits of Papal Authority (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 105–06; Christoph T. Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist and the Cross: Innocent III and the Relocation of the Crusade’, in Pope Innocent III and His World, pp. 351–60 (ici pp. 352–56); Martín Alvira, Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212. Idea, liturgia y memoria de la batalla (Madrid, 2012), pp. 143–52. MDI, pp. 520–21, no. 488 (26 octobre 1212). John  C. Moore, Pope Innocent  III (1160/61–1216). To Root Up and to Plant (Leiden, 2003), p. 203; Damian J. Smith, ‘La guerra contra los musulmanes en España en palabras del papa Inocencio III’, Orígenes y desarrollo de la guerra santa en la Península Ibérica. Palabras e imágenes para una legitimación (siglos X–XIV), éd. Carlos de Ayala, Patrick Henriet et J. Santiago Palacios (Madrid, 2016), pp. 207–18 (ici pp. 217–18).

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chrétiens à laquelle Innocent III aspira toujours, unité à laquelle il voulait parvenir en 1215 à travers l’assemblée universelle du Latran.21 Pour lui, Las Navas fut aussi un signe de Dieu annonçant la fin de la Bête (l’Islam) et le début d’une nouvelle ère dans l’histoire du monde. Le temps de reconquérir Jérusalem était arrivé.22 En fait, la question, non soulevée par certains historiens de la ‘préhistoire’ du Quatrième Concile du Latran, est de savoir si Innocent III aurait convoqué une grande assemblée de l’Eglise universelle et programmé une nouvelle expédition vers l’Orient en avril 1213 si la croisade en Espagne avait échoué.23 Il se trouve dans cette ‘atmosfera di ottimismo creata dallo straordinario successo della Crociata di Spagna’ ainsi que dans le mouvement populaire de la Croisade des enfants qui a abouti, dans l’esprit d’Innocent III, à l’idée de lancer un grand croisade en Orient en convoquant un concile général.24 21

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Joseph F. O’Callaghan, ‘Innocent III and the Kingdoms of Castile and Leon’, in Pope Innocent III and His World, pp. 317–35 (ici p. 334); Marco Meschini, ‘Pro negotio crucesignatorum. Innocenzo  III e il sostegno de la guerra santa’, in Regards croisés sur la guerre sainte: guerre, idéologie et religion dans l’espace méditerranéen latin, XIe–XIIIe siècle, éd. Daniel Baloup et Philippe Josserand (Toulouse, 2006), pp. 159–85 (ici p. 171). Sur la recherche de la paix par le pape, voir Powell, Anatomy, pp. 18, 42; John Gilchrist, ‘The Lord’s War as the Proving Ground of Faith: Pope Innocent III and the Propagation of Violence (1198– 1216)’, in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth Century Syria, éd. Maya Shatzmiller (Leiden, 1993), pp.  65–83 (ici pp.  71–72, 80); Rist, Papacy, pp.  46, 61–62; Damian J. Smith, ‘The Papacy, the Spanish Kingdoms and Las Navas de Tolosa’, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 20 (2011), 157–78 (ici pp. 170–71, 175–76). PL, 216: 818; Smith, Innocent III, p. 114; Smith, ‘La guerra’, pp. 217–18. Sur la bulle et ses éléments apocalyptiques, voir Powell, Anatomy, p. 18 (sans mentionner Las Navas); Gilchrist, ‘The Lord’s War’, p.  77; John  V. Tolan, Sarracenos. El Islam en la imaginación medieval europea, trad. espagnole (Valencia, 2007), p. 229; Jean Flori, L’Islam et la fin des temps. L’interprétation prophétique des invasions musulmanes dans la chrétienté médiévale (Paris, 2007), pp. 316, 335–37; Brett E. Whalen, Dominion of God. Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 125–48; Jean Flori, Prêcher la croisade, XIe–XIIIe siècle. Communication et propagande (Paris, 2012), pp. 231–39. L’importance de la victoire de Las Navas pour la convocation du Concile du Latran est soulignée dans Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, p.  100; O’Callaghan, ‘Innocent III’, p. 334; Smith, Innocent III, p. 114; Alvira, Las Navas de Tolosa, pp. 478–81. Elle est ignorée par García y García, ‘Tradición’, pp. 19–20; Powell, Anatomy, p. 18; Bolton, ‘A Show’, p. 58; Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini’, p. 65. Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, p.  100. Cf.  Powell, Anatomy, p.  9: ‘on the eve of Innocent’s announcement  […], an atmosphere of failure and frustration gripped the imagination of many among the lower classes’.

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Et la Croisade contre les Albigeois? Pour comprendre les liens entre ce conflit et le projet du pape, il faut également se placer en 1212. Après trois années de victoires, les croisés du baron français Simon de Montfort ont conquis une grande partie du Midi. Les princes occitans accusés d’être des fauteurs d’hérésie (Raymond VI de Toulouse, Raymond Roger de Foix, Bernard IV de Comminges, Gaston VI de Béarn) ne conservaient que quelques terres périphériques, les villes de Toulouse et de Montauban, et divers châteaux.25 Les succès militaires des croisés ont pu faire penser à une fin rapide du conflit, au moins parmi les observateurs les plus optimistes. Et on peut dire que le pape Innocent III, au cours des derniers mois de 1212, était un homme optimiste: il voulait croire à la pacification du Midi. Mais il ne s’agit pas uniquement d’optimisme ou de crédulité, car il y avait aussi des raisons pratiques derrière cela. Finir la guerre permettrait de poursuivre la lutte contre les Musulmans en Espagne et, surtout, d’organiser une opération en Terre sainte, projet inextricablement lié au concile général.26 Innocent III connaissait la complexité du conflit occitan. Il savait que la guerre à outrance promue par les légats et les évêques du Midi n’était pas la solution. Il fallait une sortie juste et négociée qui tiendrait compte d’une réconciliation offerte aux barons occitans.27 Le pape était également conscient que pour y arriver, il devait reprendre le contrôle des événements.28 25

26

27

28

En décembre 1212, Montfort fit rédiger les Statuts de Pamiers, une législation qui permettrait aux croisés de gouverner les terres conquises une fois la guerre finie. Sur l’évolution du conflit, voir Michel Roquebert, L’Épopée cathare, 2nd édn, 2  vols (Paris–Toulouse, 2001), 1: 484–502; Laurence  W. Marvin, The Occitan War. A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209– 18 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 28–160. Raymonde Foreville, Latran I, II, III et Latran IV, (Paris, 1965), pp. 246–48; Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, pp.  103–8; Constitutiones, pp.  3, 9; Powell, Anatomy, p. 29; Rist, Papacy, pp. 57, 69–70; Rist, ‘Salvation’, pp. 105–7. Sur les réserves du pape par rapport à la position des prélats, voir Helene Tillmann, Pope Innocent  III, trad. anglaise (Amsterdam, 1980), pp.  233–34; Raymonde Foreville, ‘Innocent  III et la croisade des Albigeois’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 4  (1969), 184–217 (ici pp.  205–11); Raymonde Foreville, Le pape Innocent III et la France (Stuttgart, 1992), pp. 266–71; Powell, Anatomy, p. 43; Bird, ‘Paris Masters’, pp. 125–6; Rist, Papacy, pp. 50–1, 58. Austin Evans, ‘The Albigensian Crusade’, in A History of the Crusades: Volume  II: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311, éd. Robert Lee Wolff, Harry  W. Hazard et Kenneth Setton (Madison, 1969), pp.  277–324 (ici p.  308); Bird, ‘Paris Masters’, pp. 120–22, 131; Rist, Papacy, pp. 46, 49, 53; Montaubin, ‘Une tentative’, pp. 396–98.

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À la fin de 1212, après la Croisade des Enfants et la victoire de Las Navas, Innocent III a reçu avec espoir le ‘plan de paix’ proposé par le roi d’Aragon Pierre le Catholique.29 Il était le monarque le plus puissant du Midi, parent et allié du comte de Toulouse, et seigneur des comtes de Foix et de Comminges, du vicomte de Béarn et aussi de Simon de Montfort, en tant que seigneur de Carcassonne.30 Pierre était, en même temps, un fidèle vassal de la Papauté et un croisé victorieux, ce qui constituait une condition vraiment exceptionnelle dans l’Europe du début du XIIIe siècle. Le roi d’Aragon a dénoncé auprès de Rome les excès de la croisade antihérétique: Simon de Montfort avait attaqué aussi bien des hérétiques que des catholiques, y compris ses propres vassaux, tandis que lui défendait la chrétienté dans la péninsule ibérique.31 Pierre va ensuite se présenter comme le médiateur du conflit. Il propose de mettre de côté Raymond VI de Toulouse, l’expédiant en Terre sainte ou en Espagne, et d’assurer la tutelle de son fils (le futur Raymond VII), agissant au nom de la Papauté comme garant auprès des autres suspects d’hérésie. En retour, la croisade pourrait finir, comme Innocent le souhaitait, et le roi pourrait placer sous l’étendard de la croix les croisés français et les barons occitans afin d’obtenir de nouvelles victoires sur les Sarrasins ibériques.32 En ce qui concerne ce dernier point, nous savons que les Almohades ont attaqué plusieurs positions du nord de l’Andalousie pris par les chrétiens pendant la campagne de Las Navas et qu’ils en ont conquis d’autres sur les frontières orientales (Cuevas, Alcalá del Júcar). C’est cette réaction almohade qui a 29

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31

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Sur ce roi, voir les actes recueillis dans Martín Alvira, Pedro el Católico, rey de Aragón y conde de Barcelona (1196–1213). Documentos, testimonios y memoria histórica [online], 6 vols (Zaragoza, 2010) [DPC]. Roquebert, Épopée cathare, 1: 163–76, 575–695; Martín Alvira, El Jueves de Muret: 12 de Septiembre de 1213 (Barcelona, 2002), pp.  49–115, 145–226; Martín Alvira, Muret 1213: La batalla decisiva de la Cruzada contra los Cátaros (Barcelona, 2008), pp. 9–99; Pere Benito, ‘L’expansió territorial ultrapirinenca de Barcelona i de la Corona d’Aragó: Guerra, política i diplomàcia (1067– 1213)’, in Tractats i negociacions diplomàtiques de Catalunya i de la Corona catalanoaragonesa a l’edat Mitjana: Vol. I.1: Tractats i negociacions diplomàtiques amb Occitània, França i els estats italians, 1067–1213, éd. Maria Teresa Ferrer et Manuel Riu (Barcelona, 2009), pp. 13–150 (ici pp. 100–30). Aussi Damian J. Smith, ‘Peter  II of Aragon, Innocent  III and the Albigensian Crusade’, in Innocenzo III, éd. Sommerlechner, 2: 1049–65. MDI, p. 525, no. 493; 531–33, no. 496; PL, 216: 741–43 (17 janvier 1213), 739– 40 (18 janvier 1213). MDI, pp. 523–24, no. 492; 522–23, no. 491; PL, 216: 839–40 (16 janvier 1213), 744–45 (15 janvier 1213).

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été exagérée consciemment par les envoyés de Pierre le Catholique afin de faire croire au pape que le calife organisait une grande contre-offensive.33 Voilà pourquoi, en janvier 1213, le pape a ordonné à son légat Arnaud Amaury, déjà archevêque de Narbonne, d’accorder une trêve aux barons occitans pour que le roi Pierre puisse s’engager contre les Musulmans. Et puisque le negotium fidei avait assez prospéré, il annonça la suspension des indulgences accordées aux croisés antihérétiques.34 Cette décision suggère qu’en janvier 1213 le pape et ses conseillers avaient déjà en tête l’organisation d’une campagne en Terre sainte et, en tenant compte de l’interaction entre la croisade et le concile, ils envisageaient la convocation d’une assemblée générale.35 Dans les mois suivants, le conflit albigeois va changer d’une façon très rapide. Étonnamment, cette évolution semble déconnectée des grands projets pontificaux. Les prélats réunis au concile de Lavaur (14–21 janvier) ont rejeté la médiation du roi d’Aragon, alertant Innocent III de ses manœuvres en faveur des fauteurs d’hérésie.36 Le 27 janvier 1213, à Toulouse, les barons occitans et les villes de Toulouse et Montauban se placent sous la protection directe de Pierre le Catholique, devenant ses ‘amis, vassaux et sujets’. Le roi d’Aragon remplace de facto le roi de France comme seigneur supérieur des barons du Midi, un fait qui confirme que son intervention dans le conflit répond à la volonté de protéger et d’élargir les traditionnels intérêts transpyrénéens de la Couronne d’Aragon.37 Dès 33

34

35

36

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MDI, p. 523, no. 491; PL, 216: 744. En réalité, les Almohades étaient en position de faiblesse. Les lieux chrétiens perdus à la fin de 1212 furent rapidement récupérés par le roi Alphonse VIII de Castille, qui a pris aussi les châteaux de Dueñas, Eznavexore, Alcaraz et Riopal en février-mars 1213, tout en négociant avec son vieux rival, le roi Alphonse  IX de Léon, une offensive commune contre les Musulmans. Francisco García Fitz, Relaciones políticas y guerra: La experiencia castellano-leonesa frente al Islam, siglos XI–XIII (Sevilla, 2002), pp. 144–48; Alvira, Las Navas de Tolosa, pp. 471–76. MDI, p. 523, no. 491; PL, 216: 745. Au même moment, le pape rappela à Simon de Montfort sa condition de vassal du roi d’Aragon et lui ordonna de restituer les terres de ses vassaux, MDI, p. 522, no. 490; 525, no. 493; PL, 216: 743–44; Smith, Innocent  III, p.  119. Ces faits sont racontés par Pierre des Vaux-deCernay, Hystoria Albigensis. Voir PVC, 2: 128–33, chs 438–40 (ici ch. 438). Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, p.  101; Smith, Innocent  III, p.  119; Rist, Papacy, p.  57; Smith, ‘La guerra’, p. 218. MDI, pp. 526–31, no. 494–95; PL, 216: 836–39, 840–42; Smith, Innocent III, pp. 122–24. Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 158–70; Smith, Innocent III, pp. 124–27; Alvira, Muret 1213, pp.  53–59, 60–64, 66–8; Martín Alvira, Laurent Macé et Damian  J.

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la fin janvier, et tout au long du mois de février, le légat et les évêques du sud de la France envoient plusieurs lettres au pape pour dénoncer Pierre le Catholique et le prier de ne pas arrêter une guerre toujours nécessaire pour détruire l’hérésie.38 À ce moment-là, le prince Louis, fils du roi de France, prend la croix contre les Albigeois.39 Même si Philippe Auguste ne partage pas l’enthousiasme de son héritier, l’esprit de croisade chez ses vassaux annonce un futur affrontement entre Français et CatalanoAragonais pour l’hégémonie dans le Midi.40 Les lettres des évêques ont pu arriver à Rome au cours du mois de mars 1213. Selon Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay, les émissaires de la croisade ont été froidement reçus par Innocent III.41 Après avoir lu les missives, il a commencé à douter, mais il y a deux circonstances qui surprennent. Premièrement, le pape a pris deux mois pour réagir contre le roi d’Aragon: il ne l’a pas contacté avant le 21 mai. Deuxièmement, le 19 avril, un mois après les plaintes des prélats, Innocent a promulgué l’encyclique Vineam Domini Sabaoth pour une convocation au concile général,42 et, quelques jours après, l’encyclique Quia maior afin d’organiser la croisade en Orient.43 Il semble, donc, que la prompte pacification du Midi a contribué à créer, comme d’autres circonstances favorables (les problèmes internes du

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Smith, ‘Le temps de la Grande Couronne d’Aragon du roi Pierre le Catholique. À propos de deux documents relatifs à l’abbaye de Poblet (février et septembre 1213)’, Annales du Midi 121–265 (2009), 5–22 (ici pp. 9–18). PL, 216: 833–36, 839, 843–44; Tillmann, Pope Innocent  III, pp.  235–36; Roquebert, Épopée cathare, 1: 649–60; Alvira, El Jueves, pp.  162–63; Smith, Innocent III, pp. 121–24; Alvira, Muret 1213, pp. 59–60. PVC, 2: 109–10, ch. 417, 2: 111–13, ch. 420; Roquebert, L´Épopée cathare, 1: 665–66; Marvin, Occitan War, p. 168. En fait, le roi d’Aragon a manoeuvré pour contrôler la réaction française, PVC, 2: 110–14, chs 419–21; Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 184–91; Smith, Innocent III, p. 135; Alvira, Muret 1213, pp. 73–79. Sur la participation des Français dans la croisade, voir Daniel Power, ‘Who Went on the Albigensian Crusade?’, English Historical Review 128 (2013), 1047–85. PVC, 2: 95, ch. 398; 2: 96–97, ch. 400; 2: 132–33, ch. 440; Smith, Innocent III, p. 131. Les émissaires étaient l’évêque Garcias de Comminges, l’abbé de Clairac, l’archidiacre Guillaume de Paris, le légat Thédise et le correcteur pontifical Pierre-Marc. PL, 216: 823–27; Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini’, pp. 72–73. PL, 216: 817–22. Il est intéressant de noter l’absence de l’hérésie dans la lettre de convocation du concile, Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini’, p.  70. Quant à Quia maior, la prédication aux hérétiques a pu servir de modèle aux procureurs de la nouvelle croisade, Powell, Anatomy, p. 22.

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Sultanat des Ayyoubides, la soumission en Angleterre du roi Jean Sans Terre, le déclin de l’autorité de l’empereur Otton IV, la fin d’une crise de succession dans le royaume de Jérusalem),44 les conditions propices pour l’organisation du concile et d’une nouvelle expédition en Terre sainte.45 Il est presque certain, aux yeux du pape, que le concile était l’occasion de réunir toutes les parties et de trouver une solution au conflit. C’est ce qui va se passer en 1215. Mais pour y parvenir, il était nécessaire de se soumettre aux ordres d’apaisement de Rome. C’est après mars-avril 1213 que l’affaire albigeoise est devenue un obstacle gênant pour les grands projets du pape.46 Avant la convocation du concile général, Innocent III était déjà convaincu par son légat et par les évêques du Midi. L’hérésie n’était pas réprimée, la noblesse occitane ne pouvait pas assumer la tâche attendue et il était trop dangereux de laisser le destin du negotium fidei aux mains du roi d’Aragon dont les partisans combattaient les croisés depuis le concile de Lavaur.47 Un premier changement de position apparaît dans l’encyclique Quia maior, à savoir la suspension des indulgences accordées depuis 1212 à la croisade d’Espagne.48 La tête tournée vers Jérusalem, le pape a renoncé à soutenir spirituellement une future campagne ibérique qui serait composée de barons occitans et de croisés français placés sous la direction du roi d’Aragon. L’encyclique parle également de la Croisade albigeoise. Une fois écarté le projet royal de pacification du Midi, le pape a voulu maintenir limitée la croisade. Pour ce faire, dans Quia maior il a restauré les indulgences pour les croisés seulement présents sur le terrain mais pas pour ceux qui voudraient se déplacer pour combattre les hérétiques.49 Innocent a accepté ainsi de soutenir Simon de Montfort, comme les légats et les évêques le demandaient, mais en réduisant sa capacité militaire, car il a empêché l’arrivée de renforts extérieurs.50 Le compromis de Rome 44 45

46 47

48 49

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Maccarrone, ‘Orvieto’, p. 100; Perry, John of Brienne, pp. 57, 74. Aussi Rist, Papacy, pp.  69–70; Rist, ‘Salvation’, pp.  105–6; Montaubin, ‘Une tentative’, p. 393. L’idée aussi dans Rist, Papacy, pp. 69, 70. PVC, 2: 85–86, ch. 390; 2: 106–7, chs 412–13; 2: 121–22, ch. 427; CCA, vol. 1, laisse 130, lines 11–14 and laisse 131, lines 6–18; vol.  2, laisse 132, lines 1–17; Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 212–13. PL, 216: 820. PL, 216: 820. Aussi Marvin, Occitan War, pp. 166–67; Rist, Papacy, p. 51; Rist, ‘Salvation’, p. 102. Toutefois, le renouvellement des indulgences en Espagne et le Midi était prévu si un changement de situation l’exigeait, PL, 216: 820. Voir la correction du texte de Migne dans Powell, Anatomy, pp. 21, 31 (n. 18), 44.

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avec la nouvelle croisade orientale a eu des effets pervers pour l’affaire albigeoise: l’armée croisée va manquer, durant l’été 1213, de renforts reçus les années précédentes.51 Le changement d’attitude d’Innocent III par rapport au roi d’Aragon va se concrétiser le 21 mai. Dans une lettre où il a modifié sa décision de janvier, le pape lui ordonne d’abandonner toute protection aux barons occitans, d’accepter une trêve avec Simon de Montfort et de s’éloigner du conflit albigeois, menaçant de restaurer les indulgences de la croisade s’il refuse.52 Il faut insister sur la chronologie des événements: cette décision est venue deux mois après avoir reçu les lettres des évêques et un mois après la convocation du concile. Innocent III est à ce moment-là très occupé par la préparation de la grande assemblée.53 Les limitations de la Curie concernant la situation du Midi est aussi à remarquer. En fait, on peut imaginer que le pape doutait après avoir été trompé par tous.54 Trompé par les envoyés du roi d’Aragon, qui lui ont fait croire au bilan optimiste de la lutte antihérétique que lui-même voulait entendre. Et trompé aussi par les envoyés des légats, qui ont peint le tableau pessimiste d’un Midi hérétique dans lequel toute personne était compromise sauf, bien sûr, Simon de Montfort et ses croisés. Même en prenant parti pour les prélats, la Curie a dû faire attention aux positions de Pierre le Catholique. Nier à la Couronne d’Aragon toute possibilité de soutenir ses vassaux d’outrePyrénées exigeait aussi une compensation. C’est pour cela qu’Innocent III a accordé au roi une demande exprimée plusieurs mois auparavant: celle de remplacer son représentant principal dans le Midi, l’intransigeant Arnaud Amaury, par un autre légat, un ‘homme honnête, averti et constant’, non incliné ‘à droite ou à gauche’; bref, un légat capable de pacifier le conflit.55 Nous pouvons nous demander pourquoi le pape ne l’a pas nommé immédiatement, à la fin mai ou en juin 1213: le cardinal Pierre de Bénévent ne

51 52

53 54

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PVC, 2: 129–32, ch. 439; 2: 134–35, ch. 442; Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 199–200. MDI, pp.  546–50 (ici p.  549), no.  505; PL, 216: 849–52; PVC, 2: 133–34, ch.  441. Aussi Alvira, El Jueves, pp.  170–74, 194–97; Smith, Innocent  III, pp. 130–34; Alvira, Muret 1213, pp. 64–66; Bird, ‘Paris Masters’, p. 129; Marvin, Occitan War, pp. 167–68; Rist, Papacy, pp. 51–52, 66. Maccarrone, ‘Il IV Concilio’, pp. 275–77. On a parlé de la crédulité de Lothaire de Segni, de sa sensibilité particulière aux changements de conjoncture, de sa tendance à se laisser influencer par le dernier avis entendu ou de son inclination à être influencé par les gens avec lesquels il traitait directement. Marvin, Occitan War, p. 237; Rist, Papacy, pp. 52, 54. Sur la personnalité du pape, voir Tillmann, Pope Innocent III, pp. 289–304. MDI, p. 549, no. 505; PL, 216: 851; Smith, Innocent III, pp. 133–34.

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sera légat qu’en janvier 1214, huit mois après l’annonce au roi d’Aragon.56 Dans la lettre expédiée à Pierre, Rome exigeait d’abord la réconciliation des Toulousains et des barons occitans avec l’Église.57 Mais il faut dire que l’accomplissement de cette condition était assez chimérique car elle signifiait de facto la capitulation sans conditions de tous les ennemis de la croisade. Durant ces mois, Innocent III n’a rien fait pour empêcher les croisés de relancer la guerre.58 Ajoutons qu’il n’a rien fait non plus pour empêcher le roi d’Aragon de détruire l’armée de Simon de Montfort. Le risque était prévisible après l’avoir mis de côté, en feignant d’ignorer ses puissants intérêts dans la région et en espérant qu’il attendrait passivement la soumission de ses vassaux et l’arrivée d’un nouveau légat. Entre sa lettre au roi d’Aragon (21 mai) et la bataille de Muret (12 septembre), le pape semble absent. Manque de sources? Silence volontaire? Le défaut de nouvelles relatives à la tension militaire dans le Midi semble peu probable. Personne n’aurait su que Pierre préparait son armée pour traverser les Pyrénées? Personne ne savait que Montfort n’avait que des effectifs réduits à cause de la suspension des indulgences et de l’intensification du conflit entre les Capétiens et les Plantagenêt? Innocent  III a pu penser que son fidèle vassal Pierre le Catholique n’oserait pas contester son autorité. La seule lettre envoyée au roi entre mai et septembre 1213 est la confirmation d’un privilège dans lequel il ne pouvait être excommunié que par la personne du pape.59 La demande, faite auparavant, avait un objectif tactique: neutraliser la capacité des légats à l’empêcher d’agir contre les croisés. La confirmation de Rome date du 4 juillet. Le même jour, le comte de Comminges Bernard IV est en compagnie du roi, au nord de l’Aragon, pour préparer l’offensive contre Montfort.60 À la fin de sa lettre, Innocent a mis en garde Pierre de ne pas abuser du privilège, ce qui suggère que la Curie avait des doutes sur son obéissance.61 N’oublions pas que les émissaires du concile de Lavaur exerçaient encore des pressions sur le pape. La confirmation d’Innocent III, 56

57 58 59 60 61

PL, 216: 958–60; Montaubin, ‘Une tentative’, pp.  396–98. Sur Pierre de Bénévent, voir aussi James M. Powell, ‘Innocent III and Petrus Beneventanus. Reconstructing a Career at the Papal Curia’, in Pope Innocent III and His World, pp. 51–62; Damian J. Smith, ‘Inocencio III, Pedro Beneventano y la historia de España’, Vergentis 2 (2016), 85–97 (ici 88–91). MDI, p. 549, no. 505; PL, 216: 850–51. Rist, Papacy, p. 52. MDI, p. 551, no. 507; PL, 216: 888–89. DPC, no. 1529; Roquebert, Épopée cathare, 1: 687; Alvira, El Jueves, p. 201. MDI, p. 551, no. 507; PL, 216: 889; Smith, Innocent III, p. 135.

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étonnante dans un tel contexte, pourrait s’expliquer comme une volonté d’écarter la Couronne d’Aragon du conflit albigeois. Au lieu de l’apaiser, la décision de Rome a probablement encouragé Pierre le Catholique. Autour du 20 juillet, les troupes catalano-aragonais cantonnées à Toulouse depuis le mois de janvier vont soutenir les Toulousains dans la prise du château du Pujol.62 Deux jours plus tard, le légat Arnaud Amaury et l’évêque Foulque de Toulouse contactent Pierre le Catholique pour lui rappeler les ordres du pape et lui demander d’accorder une trêve avec Simon de Montfort. Les dirigeants de la croisade savaient bien que l’intervention du roi d’Aragon était imminente.63 On peut dire, à cet égard, que Pierre le Catholique a bien maitrisé le tempo de son offensive. En retardant la concentration de son armée à la mi-août et la marche vers Toulouse aux premiers jours de septembre, il a pu faire croire qu’il n’agirait finalement pas contre les croisés. La passivité d’Innocent III pendant ces mois centraux de 1213, sa confirmation au roi Pierre, son indifférence à l’égard de l’armée de Montfort, son absence dans un tel moment critique pour le destin de la croisade antihérétique, tout cela – plus les brusques changements d’avis dans les mois précédents et sans d’autres sources qui puissent clarifier les faits – nous permet d’imaginer un pape dans l’expectative. La Curie, submergée par plusieurs affaires simultanées et dépassée par l’expédition de rapports contradictoires, manquait peut-être de données actualisées. Innocent a pu croire que tous obéiraient à ses ordres. Ou peut-être était-il conscient de sa propre ‘inutilité’: il pensait que l’affrontement entre Pierre le Catholique et Simon de Montfort était inévitable.64 On peut conclure que la croisade contre les Albigeois a joué sur la convocation du Quatrième Concile du Latran, d’une façon indirecte et secondaire. Entre la fin 1212 et avril 1213, et tout autant que d’autres conflits en voie de résolution pendant ces quelques mois, l’achèvement probable de la guerre occitane a pu contribuer à créer les conditions favorables dans lesquelles Innocent III et ses conseillers ont proclamé la convocation du concile et l’organisation de l’expédition en Orient. Pour le pape, la pacification du Midi, par l’entremise du roi d’Aragon, devait permettre de combattre les Almohades en Espagne et de préparer l’offensive en Terre sainte. Mais peu de temps après, ne pouvant laisser l’affaire aux mains de la Couronne d’Aragon, Innocent III a relancé le negotium pacis et fidei localement, de sorte qu’il ne puisse interférer avec ses autres grands projets. 62

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PVC, 2: 125–6, ch.  434; CCA, 2: 6–10, laisses 133–34; Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 213–14. DPC, nos 1537–38; PVC, 2: 134–35, ch. 442; 2: 136–37, chs 444–45. Meschini, Innocenzo III, pp. 648–52.

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Puis il a mis à l’écart Pierre le Catholique, espérant qu’il se soumettrait aux consignes de Rome. Ceci suggère un haut degré de volontarisme et une apparente ignorance de ce qui se passait sur le terrain. L’idée du pape était probablement de gagner du temps pour amener la croisade à un point définitif au moment du concile. La promesse au roi d’Aragon d’envoyer un nouveau légat, une fois les Occitans réconciliés, répondait aussi au plan de laisser le conflit en hibernation jusqu’à l’assemblée du Latran. Rome avait besoin de temps. Mais c’est justement ce temps que le roi d’Aragon ne pouvait pas perdre. Le prestige remporté à la bataille de Las Navas, la situation délicate de ses vassaux occitans et l’infériorité numérique des croisés ont abouti à une opportunité exceptionnelle d’abattre d’un seul coup Simon de Montfort. Une fois détruite l’armée de la croisade, une fois Pierre le Catholique devenu maître du Midi, il serait plus facile de convaincre Rome, par la politique du fait accompli, de remettre la Couronne d’Aragon au centre de la solution du conflit albigeois. Il est donc difficile de comprendre le silence d’Innocent  III pendant les mois centraux de 1213, le moment le plus dangereux pour la croisade antihérétique depuis sa mise en place en 1209. Tout comme Las Navas de Tolosa, le ‘jugement de Dieu’ exprimé à la bataille de Muret a été aussi un signe. Le 12 septembre 1213, le roi d’Aragon a subi le châtiment divin pour avoir défendu les hérétiques.65 La neutralité demandée à Pierre le Catholique en mai va arriver en septembre de façon inattendue: avec sa mort et le début d’une longue minorité (celle de Jacques Ier) qui a pour conséquence d’écarter la Couronne d’Aragon de l’échiquier occitan pendant des années.66 La bataille de Muret a résolu ainsi le problème politique le plus important d’Innocent III en ce qui concernait l’avenir de la France méridionale: quel rôle devait jouer la Couronne d’Aragon dans la croisade contre les Albigeois et surtout, étant donné que le concile général était déjà convoqué, dans l’après-guerre de la croisade contre les Albigeois?67 C’est de cela dont on devait décider en novembre 1215 lors de la grande assemblée du Quatrième Concile du Latran. 65 66

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Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 381–407; Alvira, Muret 1213, pp. 205–20. Damian  J. Smith, ‘Pope Innocent  III and the Minority of James I’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 30–31 (2000), 19–50; Smith, Innocent III, pp. 143–72; Alvira, El Jueves, pp. 509–92; Alvira, Muret 1213, pp. 221–66. L’importance de la mort du roi d’Aragon par rapport à la sentence finale du concile fut déjà signalée par Tillman, Pope Innocent III, p. 239. Aussi Jörg Oberste, ‘La fin d’un coupable. Raymond VI, comte de Toulouse, aux mains de l’Église au temps de la Croisade albigeoise’, in La culpabilité. Actes du XXe Journées l’Histoire du Droit, éd. Jacqueline Hoareau-Dodinau et Pascal Texier (Limoges, 2001), pp. 455–80 (ici p. 473).

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Chapter Five Le concile de Latran dans la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, une acmé* Marjolaine Raguin-Barthelmebs

Introduction Notre propos étant l’analyse d’un texte de littérature dans une perspective de philologue. Nous ne nous faisons donc pas juge ici de l’historicité de ce récit, par ailleurs souvent attestée, ni du contenu de l’épisode du Concile de Latran. Le premier objectif d’un tel exposé est d’étudier dans ce texte ce qui fait l’argumentation et les mécanismes de sa performativité. Parler de la scène du concile de Latran dans la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise1 comme d’une acmé c’est prendre le parti de dire que c’est à cet endroit précis du texte de la chanson de geste (partiellement historiographique)2 que se noue l’affaire, et que l’on y atteint un paroxysme de la démonstration comme de la tension scénique qui va animer le texte et toucher son public.3 C’est là un constat, fondé sur notre analyse minutieuse et patiente * La présente contribution est celle qui fut donnée à Rome, le 27 novembre 2015, lors du Congrès Concilium Lateranense  IV Commemorating the Octocentenary of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. 1 Sauf mention contraire, nous citons le texte et la traduction d’après l’édition d’Eugène Martin–Chabot, La Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, t. 1–3 (Paris, 1931–61). Désormais: CCA. 2 Sur les chansons de geste historiographiques en ancien occitan, voir Carol Sweetenham, ‘“Eu ne cug encar far bona canson novela”: les origines et le développement de la chanson de geste historiographique en occitan’, Revue des langues romanes 121 (2017), à paraître. 3 Sur la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise et pour une étude in extenso des passages clefs et la bibliographie afférente, on verra récemment Marjolaine Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain: étude sur la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, préface de Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Paris, 2015); reprise de Marjolaine Raguin, The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 93-112 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115856

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de l’œuvre des deux auteurs: à Latran les événements, les personnages en scène, comme le déroulé de l’aventure signalent au lecteur qu’à partir de ce lieu du texte, tout est joué. Ouvrir le livre du récit à Latran et en lire quelques vers, pourrait être un renouveau de la pratique des sortes sanctorum.4 La chanson de geste bipartite qu’est la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, longue de près de 10000 alexandrins, rend compte des événements de cette croisade.5 Rédigée par deux auteurs aux opinions opposées, favorable puis défavorable à la croisade, elle connaît un changement d’auteur juste avant les événements de la bataille de Muret – le 12 septembre 1213 – et la bien connue mort du roi Pierre II d’Aragon.6 Au premier auteur, un clerc navarrais, qui se désigne lui-même dans le prologue du texte

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Propagande politique et religieuse dans la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, texte de l’Anonyme (thèse de Doctorat en Études occitanes, Université PaulValéry-Montpellier  III, 2011). http://www.biu-montpellier.fr/florabium/jsp/ nnt.jsp?nnt=2011MON30064. C’est là une pratique bien connue: le personnage du pape y a recours dans le texte de l’Anonyme pour déterminer l’avenir de Raymond  VI de Toulouse; voir CCA, 2: 60, laisse 147, vers 9–10: ‘El a ubert un libre e conos.c una sort / Que·l senher de Tolosa pot venir a bon port (Ayant ouvert un livre, il reconnut par un sort que le comte de Toulouse pourrait arriver à bon port)’. Cette pratique, condamnée par l’Église, restait en usage. Elle avait été interdite par un capitulaire de Charlemagne en 789, voir: MGH: Capitularia regum Francorum, éd. Alfred Boretius (Hannover, 1883), 1: 64, no. 20. Nous parlons de la croisade albigeoise au singulier, pas tant par conformité vis-à-vis de la tradition mais parce que pour nos auteurs les expéditions en Languedoc relèvent bien d’une seule dynamique et volonté, ce que le singulier rend bien. Néanmoins nous n’ignorons pas les différentes croisades reconnues. On verra notamment le rappel de Marco Meschini, ‘Diabolus… Illos ad mutuas inimicitias acuebat: divisions et dissensions dans le camp des croisés au cours de la première croisade albigeoise (1207–15)’, in La croisade albigeoise: Actes du colloque du Centre d’Études Cathares (Carcassonne, 4–6 octobre 2002), éd. Michel Roquebert et Marie-Paule Gimenez (Carcassonne, 2004), pp. 171–96. Paul Meyer, ‘Recherches sur les auteurs de la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 26 (1865), 401–22; Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain, pp.  89–100; Martin-Chabot, La Chanson, 1: vi; Jean-Marie d’Heur, ‘Sur la date, la composition et la destination de la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise de Guillaume de Tudèle’, in Mélanges d’histoire littéraire, de linguistique et de philologie romanes offerts à Charles Rostaing par ses collègues, ses élèves et ses amis, éd. Jacques de Caluwé, Jean-Marie d’Heur, René Dumas, 2 vols (Liège, 1974), 1: 231–66.

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comme Guilhem de Tudela,7 succède un second, anonyme, farouche partisan de la coalition méridionale se plaçant sous l’égide des comtes Raimondins de Toulouse et avec pour mécène Roger-Bernard de Foix.8 Par ailleurs, rappelons9 qu’au moment de la rédaction du texte (1228–29), c’est Raimond VII qui règne, soutenu par son dernier fidèle, le comte Roger-Bernard de Foix. Le texte anonyme, qui représente les deux tiers de la Chanson, est idéologiquement celui de la reconquête. Il a pour objet la recomposition d’une force de résistance à la croisade à partir de 1215, après que tout semble perdu pour les seigneurs méridionaux, et alors que Simon de Montfort s’est rendu maître de la plus grande partie du pays. Faisant le récit des événements dramatiques de la mort du roi Pierre II d’Aragon lors de la défaite de Muret en 1213 (très brièvement) mais surtout des grands moments de la résistance de 1215 à 1219, l’auteur compose en 1228–29 alors que la situation a bien changé et que les jeunes comtes de Toulouse et de Foix ne peuvent mutuellement plus compter que l’un sur l’autre. L’objet du texte anonyme est d’insuffler, selon le modèle épique, un élan de résistance aux jeunes générations qui devront se montrer dignes de leurs fiers parents. Pour l’idéologue et le propagandiste qu’est son auteur, le moment charnière pour lancer l’entreprise de reconquête est celui du Concile de Latran, dit Latran IV, dont il offre un compte rendu saisissant et qui porte à le penser témoin des débats ayant eu lieu lors de l’audition de la noblesse occitane dans l’affaire de la croisade. C’est donc à ce récit conciliaire que nous nous intéressons ici. Si les figures centrales en sont le comte Raimond-Roger de Foix et l’évêque, et ex-troubadour dit de Marselha, Foulque de Toulouse, leur joute verbale comme l’ensemble de la présentation du concile prennent un sens particulier au vu du reste du récit. Le concile est le lieu où l’auteur dénoue les difficultés d’ordre divers (morales, religieuses, politiques, culturelles) et met en branle l’idéologie de la reconquête.

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Nous citons les vers du prologue et leur traduction d’après: Marjolaine Raguin– Barthelmebs, ‘Problèmes de transmission textuelle et d’interprétation dans l’épique: le cas du prologue de la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise. Édition synoptique critique’, Medioevo romanzo 40 (2016), 373–98, laisse 1, vers 2–3: ‘Comensa la cansos que maeste Guilhems fit / Us clercs qui, en Navarra, fo a Tudela noirit (commence ainsi la chanson que Maître Guilhem composa; un clerc qui fut instruit à Tudèle en Navarre)’. Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain, pp. 71–81. Nous renvoyons en première instance à Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain, pp. 43–87.

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L’auteur fera la démonstration du déni de justice qui frappe les comtes de Toulouse et les comtes de Foix ainsi que, plus généralement, les seigneurs méridionaux bons catholiques et dépossédés par la croisade. L’Anonyme va tout à tour assurer le soutien du pape à la cause du jeune comte Raimond de Toulouse, futur Raimond VII, la catholicité des comtes de Toulouse et de Foix, et la haine à leur égard de l’évêque Foulque, qui se fait sous sa plume parvenu revanchard plutôt que bon pasteur, mais aussi l’impuissance du pape face à ses prélats et à la manipulation en cours à Rome pendant le concile et plus généralement pendant la croisade pour, sous couvert d’hérésie, spolier l’héritage des jeunes seigneurs méridionaux au profit du conquérant français. Il convient avant toute chose de bien comprendre que l’exposé des débats conciliaires que nous donne l’Anonyme se trouve au début de son texte. La Chanson est longue de 214 laisses, le premier auteur rédige les 131 premières, en écrivant de courtes laisses qui ne représentent qu’un tiers du total des vers de l’œuvre. Or, l’exposé du concile occupe les laisses 143 à 152 du texte, soit le début de la rédaction anonyme, et presque un huitième de la totalité de son récit – qui s’étale des laisses 132 à 214. C’est donc à n’en pas douter un épisode auquel, pour les raisons idéologiques que l’on a vues, il donne toute son importance, puisqu’il lui accorde tant de place dans son récit. Par ailleurs, la précision du récit, comme sa connaissance des personnages en présence portent à croire qu’il dilate, certes, ce qui a une importance idéologique particulière en vue de son objectif propagandiste, mais qu’il expose surtout en détail ce dont il a été témoin, ainsi aussi la défense de Beaucaire puis de Toulouse. Les récits des chroniqueurs sur le concile de Latran IV semblent s’accorder avec les traits d’ensemble de la mise en scène partisane de l’Anonyme.10 La scène du Concile peut être divisée en trois grands mouvements: l’exposé de la situation des seigneurs méridionaux et le fameux duel oratoire en le comte de Foix Raimond-Roger et l’évêque de Toulouse Foulque (1), la mise en scène du débat propre à la curie et la démonstration des pressions exercées sur le pape qui va s’avérer pieds et poings liés face à un clergé redouté (2); et enfin, la phase finale qui est celle de l’énoncé des sentences (3).

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Ainsi, les chroniqueurs contemporains: l’Anonyme de Giessen dans Stephan Kuttner, Antonio García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, Traditio 20 (1964), 115–78 (d’après le MS 1105 de la Bibliothèque universitaire de Giessen, et le MS Vat. lat. 3555); Riccardo di San Germano dans Ryccardi de Sancto Germano chronica, éd. C.  A. Garufi (Bologna, 1938).

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La situation initiale: des Méridionaux catholiques, un évêque tyrannique et un comte de Foix héroïque Une première donnée de l’épisode du concile de Latran est certainement celle de sa scène d’ouverture. Il faudrait d’abord dire que l’épisode du concile s’ouvre formellement avec l’annonce de l’ouverture du concile11 qui avait réuni le pape ‘vrai religieux’, les prélats de l’Église et les seigneurs laïcs qui y avaient été convoqués. Du côté méridional, les trois grands personnages qui vont occuper la scène pendant le concile, sont présentés dès le début de l’épisode: ce sont les comtes de Toulouse, père et fils, et le comte de Foix. Le jeune comte de Toulouse particulièrement, dont l’avenir se confond avec celui de la reconquête méridionale, est dès le début du texte réconcilié à l’Église par le pape: E mandec l’Apostolis que reconciliatz fos.12 Cette première laisse est celle de l’exposé de la situation des comtes méridionaux, parvenus à grand danger jusqu’à Rome, afin de récupérer l’héritage de leurs ancêtres: E denant l’apostoli gietan s’a genolhos  / per recobrar las terras que foron dels pairos.13 Cette laisse a valeur résomptive explique comment le pape qui reconnut comme catholique le comte de Toulouse fut obligé par ses prélats d’attribuer la terre à Simon de Montfort. L’exposé de la situation patrimoniale désastreuse du comte de Toulouse, qui le conduit à se rendre à Rome comme un faidit,14 introduit la problématique du droit des seigneurs méridionaux à posséder l’héritage de leurs pères dans l’épisode du Concile. Ce sont des hommes injustement spoliés qui vont exposer leur cause devant le Pape afin que celui-ci, jugeant selon le Droit, leur rende leurs terres. Et le premier à faire cet exposé du droit des Méridionaux est le comte Raimond-Roger de Foix, qui prend la parole devant la cour conciliaire15 11

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CCA, 2: 40, laisse 143, vers 1–6: ‘Cant la cortz es complida, es mot grans lo ressos, / Del senhor apostoli, qu’es vers religios. / Lai fo faitz lo concilis e la legacios / Dels prelatz de la Glieza, que lai foron somos, / Cardenals e avesques e abatz e priors, / E comtes e vescomtes, de motas regios (Quand l’assemblée du seigneur pape, à la piété sincère, fut au complet, grand fut le bruit. Ce fut là que se tint le concile, réunion des prélats de l’Église, qui y avaient été convoqués: cardinaux, évêques, abbés prieurs, et aussi des comtes et des vicomtes de maints pays)’. CCA, 2: 42, laisse 143, vers 12: ‘Le Pape ordonna qu’il reçût l’absolution’. CCA, 2: 42, laisse 143, vers 18–19: ‘Devant le Pape, ils se jettent à genoux, afin de recouvrer les domaines qui appartinrent à leurs ancêtres’. Voir CCA, 2: 36, laisse 142, vers 9; 2: 40, laisse 143, vers 7–9. Le comte est présenté comme celui aux multiples qualités et qui va parler (2: 44, laisse 143, vers 40–41), puis qui parle: 2: 44, laisse 144, vers 6.

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et ouvre ainsi, avec la réponse que l’évêque Foulque lui adresse ensuite, l’épisode bien connu du duel oratoire. L’évêque de Toulouse sera ridiculisé pendant cet échange avec le comte de Foix, où celui-ci apparaît comme le véritable héros de cette première partie du concile (laisses 144–46). Ce comte s’exprime en son nom et au nom du comte de Toulouse son suzerain. Lorsque l’on connaît le mécénat du jeune comte de Foix envers l’auteur anonyme, on peut penser que la gloire du comte Raimond Roger, son père, à Latran a été accentuée afin de glorifier la lignée des comtes de Foix. Sans négliger bien sûr ailleurs les Raimondins dans son récit, il est très net que le comte de Foix est ici celui qui parle le premier; et certainement le mieux, il était par ailleurs connu pour son éloquence.16 Son élégance théâtrale contrastera avec les manières grossières de Foulque.17 Ce comte expose sa catholicité et l’injustice avec laquelle il fut traité, il rappelle son droit à posséder ses terres, puisqu’il n’est pas hérétique. Ce à quoi l’évêque toulousain rétorquera que le domaine du comte est rempli d’hérétiques qu’il protège18 et que sa propre sœur Esclarmonda est devenue hérétique à la mort de son mari. Retirée à Pamiers elle aurait entraîné de nombreuses personnes sur le chemin de la conversion. Foulque tient pour preuve de la culpabilité du comte le combat de celui-ci contre la croisade alors qu’elle pourchassait ‘eretges, rotiers e faizitz’.19 Pour sa défense Raimond-Roger explique que, comme ses ancêtres, il s’est donné à l’abbaye cistercienne de Boulbonne, et que le problème de Montségur est lié au statut juridique du château. Selon lui, il n’en a jamais été le ‘senher poestaditz’,20 et sa sœur, bien qu’hérétique, jouit du droit de demeurer dans le pays dont elle est originaire, leur père ayant pris des dispositions en ce sens avant sa mort. Quant au massacre des ‘peregris’21 16

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Claudine Pailhès, Le comté de Foix: un pays et des hommes: regards sur un comté pyrénéen au Moyen Âge (Cahors, 2006); Claudine Pailhès, L’Ariège des comtes et des cathares (Toulouse, 1992). Voir Gérard Gouiran, ‘Tragediante? Pis encore: jongleur! ou De l’art de déconsidérer un adversaire: la présentation de l’évêque Foulque de Toulouse, alias Folquet de Marseille, par l’Anonyme de La Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 38 (2003), 111–33. Il aurait dans ce but fortifié le castrum de Montségur. Voir CCA, 2: 48, laisse 145, vers 11. Notamment à Montgey, lorsque le comte et ses troupes ont massacré une colonne de croisés, en 1211 (voir laisse 69 de la Chanson). CCA, 2: 52, laisse 145, vers 41. CCA, 2: 50, laisse 145, vers 16.

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que sont les croisés en Albigeois, brandi par Foulque, Raimond-Roger reconnaît avoir massacré ces ‘fe-mentitz’22 qui ont marché sur le Midi pour sa ruine. Il clame haut et fort sa joie de les avoir estropiés lui qui a toujours protégé les pèlerins (sous-entendu les vrais): ‘E jur vos, pel Senhor qu’en la crotz fo ramitz, Ques anc bos peregris ni lunhs romeus aizitz, Que serques bos viatges que Dieus ha establitz, No fo per me destruitz ni raubatz ni fenitz, Ni per ma companhia lor camis envazitz. Mas d’aquels rubadors, fals trachors, fe mentitz Que portavan las crotz, per que eu fos destrusitz, Per me ni per los meus non fo nulhs cosseguitz Que no perdes los olhs e·ls pes e·ls punhs e·ls ditz: E sab me bo de lor ques ai mortz e delitz E mal d’aquels que son escapatz e fugitz’.23

Ce sont là des éléments raisonnés, partisans mais raisonnés, de sa ligne de défense à Rome. Là où, par contre, le texte devient vraiment piquant parce qu’y pointe la rancœur personnelle de l’auteur, sinon du comte, contre l’évêque, ramenant le texte de la chronique à la dialectique du ­trobar, c’est tout particulièrement la fin de cette longue tirade: la réplique à l’évêque est sans appel et le comte de Foix sort à coup sûr, pour le public de la Chanson, vainqueur de l’affrontement. Ainsi dans des vers bien connus des lecteurs de l’œuvre, Raimond-Roger dira de l’évêque qu’il est un parvenu qui a trahi Dieu et son peuple avec ses paroles mensongères et fut jongleur à la mauvaise doctrine. Partout où il passe la lumière s’éteint, ayant à cœur de détruire plutôt que de prendre soin du peuple de Dieu, l’accusant d’être une figure de l’Antéchrist plutôt qu’un messager de Rome. ‘E dic vos de l’avesque, que tant n’es afortitz Qu’en la sua semblansa es Dieus e nos trazitz, Que ab cansos messongieras e ab motz coladitz, 22 23

CCA, 2: 52, laisse 145, vers 54. Voir CCA, 2: 52, laisse 145, vers 49–59: ‘Et je vous jure, par le Seigneur qui fut mis en croix, que jamais aucun bon pèlerin ni “romieu”, engagé dans un saint voyage institué par Dieu, ne fut maltraité ni dépouillé, ni mis à mort par moi, ni attaqué sur sa route par des gens à moi. Mais, quant à ces brigands, ces traîtres et ces parjures, qui, porteurs de la croix, sont venus me ruiner, aucun ne fut pris par moi ou par les miens qu’il ne perdît les yeux ou les pieds, les poings ou les doigts. Et je me réjouis de ceux que j’ai tués et massacrés, comme j’ai regret de ceux qui ont pu échapper et s’enfuir’.

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Dont totz hom es perdutz qui·ls canta ni los ditz, Ez ab sos reproverbis afilatz e forbitz, Ez ab los nostres dos, don fo enjotglairitz, Ez ab mala doctrina es tant fort enriquitz C’om non auza ren diire a so qu’el contraditz. Pero cant el fos abas ni monges revestitz, En la sua abadia fo si·l lums escurzitz Qu’anc no i ac be ni pauza, tro qu’el ne fo ichitz. E cant fo de Tholosa avesques elegitz, Per trastota la terra es tals focs espanditz Que jamais per nulha aiga no sira escantitz: Que plus de cinq cent melia, que de grans que petitz, I fe perdre las vidas e·ls cors e·ls esperitz. Per la fe qu’ieu vos deg, als seus faitz e als ditz Ez a las captenensas, sembla mielhs Antecritz Que messatges de Roma!’24

Parler de la mala doctrina de l’évêque comme il le fait c’est faire référence à une hérétication de celui-ci dans ses actes, opposable à celle dont on accuse indûment les Méridionaux ou en tout cas ceux venus plaider leur cause à Rome. L’ancien troubadour, ici a dessein qualifié de vulgaire joglar, devenu évêque à force d’intrigues et de médisances, n’a pas seulement trahi les populations de son diocèse, mais aussi Rome25 et Dieu. Comme 24

25

CCA, 2: 52–54, laisse 145, vers 60–77, ‘Quant à l’évêque, qui montre tant de véhémence qu’en sa personne et Dieu et nous sommes trahis, je vous dis que c’est grâce à ses trompeuses chansons, à ses poésies si insinuantes que quiconque les chante ou les récite perd son âme, grâce à ses sarcasmes piquants et tranchants, grâce aux dons que nous lui avons faits et qui lui permirent de mener l’existence de jongleur, et grâce à sa doctrine mauvaise, qu’il s’est élevé à une situation si haute, qu’on ose rien répondre à ses mensonges. Aussi bien, quand il eut pris l’habit monacal et fut abbé, le flambeau fut si obscurci dans son abbaye qu’il n’y eut bonheur et tranquillité jusqu’à ce qu’il en fut sorti. Et, après son élection comme évêque de Toulouse, un tel incendie s’est propagé dans tout le pays qu’aucune eau jamais ne pourra l’éteindre: à plus de cinq cent mille personnes, de rang élevé comme du commun, il y a fait perdre la vie et du corps et de l’âme. Par la foi que je vous dois! À cause de ses actes, de ses paroles et de toute sa conduite, il semble être plutôt l’Antéchrist qu’un délégué de Rome!’. Rome représente à la fois l’institution ecclésiastique telle que l’incarnent ses prélats en exercice au moment du concile, mais aussi la Rome idéale, ou céleste, en tant que siège de l’Église, ‘pierre’ sur laquelle est bâtie l’Église de Dieu. Sur Rome dans la Chanson, voir aussi la partie ce travail sur la représentation de l’Église et la question sotériologique dans le texte.

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l’Antéchrist, il obscurcit le monde et empêche la lumière divine de se répandre dans le monde religieux et séculier. Le cas du jeune Trencavel,26 sera soulevé par Raimond de Roquefeuil qui réclame que le Pape rende au fils l’héritage paternel. Les termes employés sont forts: ‘Senher, ret li la terra, garda ta dignitat! / E si no la·lh vols rendre, Dieus t’en do aital grad / Que sus la tua arma aias lo pecat!’;27 rendre son bien à un innocent injustement déshérité, c’est savoir demeurer digne, en plus de se conformer à la justice divine et de ce monde. Ainsi s’achève l’audience des princes méridionaux; la question de l’hérésie a été complètement évacuée (des enjeux) du débat qui est maintenant orienté sur le droit à l’héritage.

Le débat de la curie: un pape lié par son clergé Après l’exposé devant la cour qui a occupé les laisses 144–46, l’Anonyme donne comme vers de clôture qu’intra s’en l’Apostolis,28 pour passer dans un jardin et se distraire de sa colère contre les prélats ligués contre les seigneurs Méridionaux: L’Apostolis s’en intra del palaitz en un ort, / Per defendre sa ira e per pendre deport. / Li prelat de la Gleiza vengro a un descort.29 On remarque que dès lors que le Pape est au calme, et que la tenue de la cour a cessé, laissant normalement place à la réflexion avec le jugement le prononcé de la sentence, c’est en fait une deuxième phase du pseudo-débat qui s’ouvre. Alors que les grands seigneurs languedociens sont absents et ne peuvent donc plus se défendre, les prélats en profitent pour redoubler d’accusations à leur égard en assaillant le Pape. Cette mise en scène de l’auteur a pour fonction évidente de souligner l’isolement du pape, l’intensité des pressions auxquelles il est soumis, et la malignité des prélats de l’Église, afin, en définitive, de réduire la portée, la sincérité, et 26

27

28 29

Né en 1207, il avait été dépouillé de son héritage maternel et paternel au profit de Simon de Montfort en 1211; HGL, 8: 609, 787. Le comte de Foix, son cousin, le prit plus tard sous sa tutelle, voir Guilhem de Puylaurens, Chronique (1145– 1275): Chronica magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii, éd., trad., et annoté par Jean Duvernoy (Paris, 1976), ch. 32, p. 114. CCA, 2: 58, laisse 146, vers 41–43, ‘Sire, rends-lui sa terre, aie égard à ta dignité! Si tu ne consens à la lui rendre, que Dieu t’en récompense en faisant peser sur ton âme le poids de ses péchés’. CCA, 2: 58, laisse 146, vers 53: ‘le Pape rentre’. CCA, 2: 58, laisse 147, vers 1–3: ‘De son palais, le Pape entre dans un jardin, pour combattre son irritation et se distraire. Les prélats de l’Église vinrent à un débat’.

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l’éventuelle justesse, d’une sentence (un fait historique) que l’Anonyme ne peut, elle, modifier. En d’autres termes, l’auteur propagandiste, ne change pas les faits d’histoire mais le regard que son public va porter dessus et donc leur interprétation. L’épisode du concile tout entier, et particulièrement les entretiens du pape avec les prélats, sont donc l’occasion pour l’Anonyme de montrer combien le souverain pontife, plutôt favorable aux Méridionaux, se trouve isolé et soumis à de multiples pressions, et à une séance d’intimidation par les prélats favorables à la croisade et aux spoliations territoriales. Le Pape intercède en faveur du comte de Toulouse qu’il sait bon catholique, Simon de Montfort ne devrait pouvoir conserver que les terres des véritables hérétiques: ‘Senhors’, ditz l’Apostolis, ‘en aiso·m dezacort, Ses dreg e ses razo cum farei tant gran tort Que·l coms, qu’es vers catholics, dezerete a tort, Ni que·lh tolha sa terra, ni que son dreit trasport? No·m par razos per far; mas en aiso m’acort Que Simos l’aia tota, car ais la i cofort, Ses d’orfes e de veuzas, dal Poi tro a Niort; Aquela dels iretges, de Rozer trosc’al Port.’30

Selon ses prélats, le pape criminel qui voudrait déshériter Simon est aussi accusé de les mettre en porte-à-faux: ils ont prêché la croisade albigeoise en prétendant que le comte Raimond de Toulouse était un homme pervers dans sa conduite. Le jugement du pape qui le reconnaît comme catholique dément le contenu de leurs prédications:31 [Foulque, évêque de Toulouse dit:] ‘Senher dreitz apostolis, cars paire Innocens, Co potz dezeretar aisi cubertamens Lo comte de Montfort, qu’es vers obediens […] E tu li tols li la terra e·ls locs e·ls bastimens, Qu’es per crotz conquerida e ab glazis luzens, […] E aisso que lh’autreias es dezeretamens, 30

31

CCA, 2: 60, laisse 147, vers 11–18: ‘“Seigneurs”, reprit le Pape, “voici sur quoi je ne suis pas d’accord: comment, sans droit ni raison, commettrais-je l’injustice si grande de priver de son héritage le comte, qui est un catholique sincère, de lui confisquer sa terre et de transmettre à autrui ses droits? Je ne vois pas de motif raisonnable pour faire cela; mais je consens à ceci, que sire Simon ait toutes les terres des hérétiques, volontiers je les lui assure, excepté, toutefois, celles des orphelins et des veuves, du Puy jusqu’à Niort et du Rhône jusqu’aux Pyrénées”’. Cette délimitation géographique est celle des terres qui ont subi la croisade. CCA, 2: 64, laisse 148, vers 36–39.

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Car pel comte Ramon es lo comensamens: Tu·l receps per catolic e qu’es bos om e senhs, E·l comte de Cumenge e·l de Fois ichamens; E doncs s’il so catholic ni per catholics prens, La terra que l’autreias, aisso es, la i reprens, C’aiso que tu li donas es non res e niens. Mas lhiura li la terra tota cominalmens E a lhui e al lhinatge, ses totz retenemens; […] Cardenals e avesques, arsevesques tres cens’. Dizo a l’Apostoli: ‘Senher, totz nos desmens: Nos avem prezicat e retrait a las gens Que·l coms Ramons es mals e sos captenemens, Per que no escairia que fos terra-tenens’.32

32

CCA, 2: 62–66, laisse 148, vers 3–5, 9–10, 16–24, 40–41, 45–51, 57–67: ‘L’arquidiagues se leva, que esté ensezens, / Del Leo sobrel Roine, e ditz lor duramens: […] / “E si Glieiza l’encuza [Raimond], quelh degra esser guirens, Ela n’er encolpada e nos valdrem ne mens.  / E vos, senhern evesque, tant etz mals e punhens  / Qu’ab les vostres prezics e ab durs parlamens,  / Dont tug em encolpatz e vos trop magermens, / Plus de cinq cens melhiers ne faitz anar dolens, / Los esperitz plorans e los corses sagnens” […] / “Senhor”, ditz l’Apostolis, “dels vostres durs talens  / Ni dels vostres prezics engoichos e cozens, / Que faitz outra mon grat, dor eu non so sabens, / Ni dels vostres talens non deu esser cossens / Qu’anc, per la fe qu’ieus dei, no m’ichic per las dens / Que lo comte Ramons fos dampnatz ni perdens  / Senhors, ja recep Glieiza pecadors penedens; / E si encuzatz pels nescis non sabens, / Si anc fetz re vas Dieu quelh sia desplazens, / El s’es a mi rendutz, sospirans e planhens, / Per far los nostres digs e lo meus mandamens”’ (“Sire pape légitime, notre cher père Innocent, comment peux-tu déposséder ainsi, de cette façon déguisée, le comte de Montfort, qui est un vrai serviteur […] Tu lui enlèves la terre et les villes et les forteresses, qu’il a conquises par la croix et avec les épées luisantes. […] Ce que tu accordes au comte Simon équivaut à une spoliation, car tes premiers mots sont en faveur du comte Raimond: tu le tiens pour catholique, homme de bien et pieux, et de même les comtes de Comminges et de Foix; donc si ceux-là sont catholiques, la terre que tu lui octroies, en fait tu la lui reprends, car ce que tu lui donnes ce n’est vraiment rien du tout. Donne-lui plutôt, à lui et à sa lignée, toute la contrée sans aucune exception”. […] L’archidiacre de Lyon sur le Rhône, qui était là siégeant, se leva et leur dit rudement: […] “Si l’Église, qui devrait le protéger, l’accuse, elle en portera la faute et nous en serons diminués. Et vous, messire évêque, vous êtes si méchant et agressif qu’avec vos prêches et vos paroles dures, qui nous compromettent tous, et vous plus que quiconque, vous plongez dans la douleur plus de cinq cent mille personnes, qui pleurent dans leurs âmes et saignent par leurs corps”. […] “Seigneurs”, dit le Pape, “ni de

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Dans la chanson, le débat entre le pape et ses prélats a pour objectif de retirer toute crédibilité à ceux qui plaident pour un transfert de la seigneurie à Simon des territoires conquis sur les comtes méridionaux. La laisse 148 est en quelque sorte à elle seule, le sommet de cette acmé qu’est l’épisode du concile dans le texte de l’Anonyme. Le long discours de Foulque comme la réponse et les accusations de l’archidiacre de Lyon comme ensuite du pape soulignent la mauvaiseté, presque diabolique, de l’évêque de Toulouse. En effet tout y est, l’innocence du comte de Toulouse, l’immoralité et l’égarement coupable des prélats, la voix minoritaire de l’homme de bien (l’archidiacre de Lyon)33 qui tente de faire entendre une voix différente, soulignant que tous le clergé catholique n’est pas sur la même ligne, l’isolement d’un pape faible face aux pressions exercées sur lui, mais qui les condamne. L’Anonyme travaille, met en scène, en un mot oriente. Après un tel exposé, il est sûr que le public méridional sait à quoi s’en tenir. C’est dans ces conditions donc, que se lève l’archidiacre de Lyon pour prendre duramens la défense du comte Raimond, dont il sera l’un des rares soutiens dans la place. L’argumentation tient dans l’idée que Raimond VI doit être accueilli par l’Église et que son fils de si riche lignée (‘tant es de rics parens’, l. 148, v. 55 b). L’attaque contre Foulque34 est là encore féroce, il est doublement accuser d’être insensible à la souffrance des corps et au tourment des âmes, en mauvais pasteurs. Les comtes de Toulouse, par la noblesse de leurs lignages – ils sont parents des rois de France, d’Angleterre

33

34

vos cruels sentiments ni de vos prédications semeuses d’angoisse et de douleur, faites par vous contre mon gré, je ne sais rien et à vos désirs je ne dois pas être consentant. Jamais, par la foi que je vous dois, il n’est sorti de ma bouche que le comte Raimond dût être condamné ni ruiné. Seigneurs, l’Église ouvre ses bras aux pécheurs repentants; s’il est accusé par des sots ingrats, s’il a jamais fait chose déplaisant à Dieu, il est venu à moi soumis, soupirant et pleurant, prêt à obéir à nos décisions et à faire ce que je lui ordonnerai”). Sur la mention ‘Folquet lo nostr’evesque’ (vers 1), voir Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain, p. 78, note 169. Cet archidiacre de Lyon est anonyme, mais Martin-Chabot l’a identifié dans deux bulles du pape Honorius III. Il a d’abord été excommunié le 1er février 1217 et déposé de sa charge le 27 février 1218 pour avoir ‘osé défendre des hérétiques’. Voir Pressutti, nos 304, 1022. CCA, 2: 54, laisse 145, vers 74–75 et laisse 148, vers 50–51. On notera la parenté évidente des deux formules, le comte de Foix accusant en outre l’évêque de la mort de ces malheureux: ‘Que plus de cinq cent melia, que de grans que petitz, / I fe perdre las vidas e·ls cors e·ls esperitz’, à comparer à ‘Plus de cinq cens melhiers ne faitz anar dolens, / Los esperitz plorans e los corses sagnens’.

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et d’Aragon, en plus d’avoir al faveur de l’Empereur – ne peuvent errer dans le monde, faiditz, sans que ne s’élèvent rapidement les protestations, en leur faveur, des plus puissants seigneurs d’européens. Cela prépare l’intervention de l’archevêque d’‘Obezin’35 (York) en faveur du jeune Raimondet et plus tard le raisonnement développé au cours de son entretien avec le pape.

Sentences conciliaires et élan de reconquête méridionale Pourtant, l’Anonyme écrit l’histoire certes, dans une narration dont il est le maître, jouant des éclairages, favorisant tel parti plutôt que tel autre, tout en ne pouvant rien changer aux grands faits de l’histoire de cette croisade, assurément connut de son public, comme c’est le cas de la sentence conciliaire. L’auteur peut jouer sur la narration et ses effets, mais assurément pas sur les faits. Ainsi donc, malgré tout ce que l’auteur peut énoncer et mettre en scène pour démontrer à son auditoire le bon droit des grands seigneurs languedociens, leur catholicité, et l’inclinaison du pape en leur faveur, l’Anonyme doit bien composer avec les sentences que le Pape a historiquement prononcées. Dès lors, c’est sans surprise dans cette chanson de geste historique que, bien que lui-même, certains prélats marginaux, et la Justice, soit favorables à la lignée raimondine, le pape déclarera que Simon de Montfort détiendra la terre puisqu’il ne peut la lui retirer en raison des pressions exercées par ses prélats (laisses 147–50). Eût égard à son rang, le pape laisse au jeune Raimond un patrimoine qui lui permette de vivre soit quémander le secours.36 Le pape convient du fait que le jeune Raimond ne doit pas subir le sort inique d’un déshérité et lui adjuge le Venaissin et la partie de ses domaines qui avait été sous la domination de l’Empereur.37 On peut penser que, lorsque l’Anonyme mentionne cette restitution provençale, son calcul est double: il rappelle la filiation du prince et l’ancrage des Raimondins en Provence (et le statut spécial de

35

36

37

CCA, 2: 72–74, laisse 150, vers 5–20. Ce personnage est identifié par MartinChabot comme l’archevêque d’York. Il corrige Obezin en Eborvic et s’en explique dans son édition de la Chanson, 2: 73, n. 4. CCA, 2: 74, laisse 150, vers 19: ‘Ira-t-il donc par le monde à l’aventure, comme un mauvais larron?’. À savoir les domaines que le comte de Toulouse possédait sur la rive gauche du Rhône, qui constituaient son marquisat de Provence et relevaient de l’Empereur en tant que partie de l’ancien royaume d’Arles ou de Provence.

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ces terres d’Empire au sujet desquels l’Empereur38 est chatouilleux), mais surtout il annonce au public que la future campagne de reconquête qui débute par la Provence est parfaitement légale et légitime. L’Anonyme dote Innocent III d’une dimension prophétique intéressante. En effet, le pape va par deux fois, dans la laisse 150, évoquer la possibilité pour le jeune Raimond de récupérer les domaines dont il a été privé par sa décision, ce qui est bien sûr le cœur de la partie anonyme de la Chanson: ‘Car ieu li darai terra aital com’er vejaire: Veneisi e aquela que fo del Emperaire; E si el ama ben Dieu ni la Gleiza sa maire, Qu’el no sia vas lor ergulhos ni bauzaire, Dieus lhi rendra Tholosa e Agen e Belcaire […] Mas eu ai mantas vetz auzit dir e retraire: Hom joves ab bon cor, can sab dar ni mal traire Ni es be afortitz, recobra son repaire. E si l’efans es pros, ben sabra que deu faire; Car ja non l’amara lo coms de Montfort gaire, Ni no·l te per filh ni el lui per son paire’.39

La laisse 151 est celle de la clôture du concile après le prononcé de la sentence conciliaire, le dictar (laisse 151, vers 3). Comme lors de l’ouverture du récit, le comte de Foix accompagne celui de Toulouse devant le pape afin d’en prendre congé. Le comte de Toulouse plaide sa cause une dernière fois, sans grand succès puisqu’il demeurera privé de ses territoires, alors que le comte de Foix, en quelque sorte bien plus coupable d’avoir favorisé l’hérésie, mais moins puissant et de figure beaucoup plus brillante,40 se verra restituer son château. Raimond VI tient alors un véritable réquisitoire: il souligne la confiance qu’il avait accordée à la sainte institution à travers la personne du 38 39

40

Il s’agit de Frédéric II de Hohenstaufen. CCA, 2: 76, laisse 150, vers 22–26, 37–42: ‘parce que je lui donnerai telle terre qu’il me semblera bon: le Venaissin et ce pays qui a dépendu de l’Empereur; et s’il aime bien Dieu et l’Église sa mère et si envers eux il ne se montre pas orgueilleux ni déloyal, Dieu lui rendra Toulouse et Agen et Beaucaire […] Mais j’ai souvent ouï-dire et raconter qu’un homme jeune doué de courage, quand il sait être généreux et supporter la souffrance et qu’il a assez d’énergie, recouvre la demeure de ses ancêtres. Si cet enfant est valeureux, il saura bien ce qu’il doit faire, car, certes, le comte de Montfort ne l’aimera guère et ne le tiendra pas pour son fils, ni lui ne le tiendra pour son père’. Les qualités d’orateur du comte de Foix devaient être remarquables. Voir CCA, 2: 44, laisse 143, vers 40–41, 44, laisse 144, vers 1 et 78, laisse 151, vers 8.

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souverain pontife, laquelle est la cause manifeste de tous ses malheurs, pour aboutir en fin de compte à sa dépossession, laquelle le condamne à la mendicité. Bien que la faute principale incombe au concile, le pape est personnellement accusé de porter la responsabilité du faidiment de Raimond VI dans la mesure où il n’a pas su imposer sa décision aux prélats. Innocent s’est manifestement laissé dépasser par l’ampleur prise par la croisade qu’il avait appelée de ses vœux: ‘Senher dreitz apostolis, cui Dieus ama e ten car, Bem fas grans meravilhas cals boca pot parlar Que nulhs hom me degues per dreit dezeretar; Qu’ieu non ai tort ni colpa per quem deias dampnar. En ton poder me mezi per ma terra cobrar: Er son intratz en l’onda on no posc aribar, Qu’ieu no sai on me vire, o per terra o per mar. E anc mais no fo vist ni auzit del meu par Que m’avinhes per setgle querir ni mendigar. Aras pot totz le mons a dreit meravilhar Car lo coms de Toloza es datz a perilhar, Qu’ieu no ai borc ni vila on posca repairar. Cant te rendei Tolosa, cugei merce trobar; E si ieu la tengues no m’avengra a clamar: E car l’a tei renduda e no la·t vulh vedar, Soi vengutz al perilh e al teu mercejar! Anc no cugei vezer ni·m degra albirar Qu’ieu ab la santa Glieiza pogues tant mescabar! Lo teus ditz e·l meus sens m’a fait tant folejar C’ara no sai on m’an ni on posca tornar. Ben dei aver gran ira, can m’ave a pessar Que d’autrui m’er a penre ez ieu solia dar! E l’efans, que no sab ni falhir ni pecar, Mandas sa terra toldre e lo vols decassar! E tu, que deus Paratge e Merce guovernar, Membre·t Dieus e Paratges e no·laiches pecar, Car tua n’er la colpa, s’ieu non ai on estar!’41

41

CCA, 2: 78–80, laisse 151, vers 11–37: ‘Sire Pape légitime, aimé et chéri de Dieu, je suis grandement stupéfait qu’il y ait une bouche pour dire que quelqu’un me doive légalement dépouiller de mon patrimoine, moi qui suis indemne de tort et de faute pour quoi tu aurais à me condamner. Je me mis en ton pouvoir, afin de rentrer en possession de ma terre et maintenant me voici au milieu de l’onde, sans pouvoir aborder nulle part et ne sachant de quel côté me tourner, ou par terre ou par mer. Jamais, il me semble, on n’avait prévu ni entendu dire

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Ce passage de la laisse 151 est d’un grand intérêt: il représente le fondement de l’argumentation de l’Anonyme qui consiste à dire qu’il convient en définitive pour les résistants à la croisade de placer leur confiance en Dieu, dont la volonté et la justice dépassent celles de l’Église et de son pape. La fin de l’entrevue du pape avec le comte de Toulouse voit la bénédiction du comte par le souverain pontife. C’est sur cette idée d’une foi en Dieu et en leur destinée que les résistants à la croisade sont invités par l’auteur à se fonder pour l’avenir de leurs combats contre les clercs et les Français acquis à la croisade en Languedoc. Pour assumer la catholicité de la lutte contre la croisade devenue guerre de spoliation, l’Anonyme va mettre en scène, après cette première bénédiction papale à Raimondet, la bénédiction et le soutien du chapelain du comte de Toulouse, Aribert, prélat de l’Église qui bénit les résistants à la croisade lors de leurs luttes, établissant ainsi une contre-croisade par laquelle les Méridionaux œuvrent à leur tour pour leur salut.42 Conformément à la volonté du pape, le jeune comte Raimond (le futur Raimond  VII) est resté à Rome. Le souverain pontife souhaite disposer à son propos après avoir spolier le père. Cette laisse 152 est la dernière laisse de l’épisode. Le jeune comte expose au pape une pensée à la fois sage et résignée: il se place sous sa garde. Le pape étant son père en Christ, il veillera sur lui dans la voie du Salut. À Rome, le jeune comte affirme son droit et sa volonté de donner et non de recevoir – allusion au risque d’indigence à laquelle une spoliation le condamnerait – ainsi

42

qu’il m’arriverait d’aller par le monde quêter et mendier. Maintenant chacun peut à bon droit s’étonner parce que le comte de Toulouse est exposé aux pires hasards, puisque je n’ai plis ni bourg ni ville où je puisse rentrer. Lorsque je te livrai Toulouse, je crus obtenir miséricorde; si cette ville je la possédais, il ne m’arriverait pas d’élever une plainte; mais parce que je te l’ai remise et ne te l’ai pas refusée, je suis réduit à la misère et à implorer ta merci! Je n’aurais jamais cru ni ne devais supposer qu’avec la sainte Église je pourrais être autant déçu! Tes paroles et ma confiance m’ont fait commettre une folie telle que maintenant je ne sais de quel côté aller ni me tourner. J’ai bien sujet de me désoler quand je viens à penser qu’il me faudra recevoir de la main d’autrui, moi qui étais habitué à donner. Et mon fils, qui ignore ce qu’est faute ou péché, tu ordonnes que sa terre lui soit enlevée et tu consens à le déposséder! Toi qui dois être le guide de Parage et Miséricorde, qu’il te souvienne de Dieu et de Parage; ne me laisse pas succomber, car c’est sur toi qu’en retombera la faute si je n’ai pas où demeurer!’. Voir Marjolaine Raguin, ‘L’Anonyme de la Chanson de la Croisade et les clercs: Per las guerras formir, los coratges essendre e las lengas forbir’, Revue des langues romanes 116 (2012), 461–80.

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que sa volonté de combattre à mort Simon de Montfort avec lequel il ne saurait tolérer le partage de son héritage. Le pape ordonne au jeune comte de respecter la paix de Dieu instituée par l’Église, tout en affirmant que face à qui déshérite et veut voler un bien, on doit savoir se défendre. Ce qui servira évidemment à justifier la reconquête: Pero qui·t dezereta ni·t vol dezenantir, / Be·t sapias defendre e ton dreit retenir.43 Ainsi la reconquête que l’auteur mettra par la suite en scène, apparaît comme ayant été prévue sinon souhaitée par le pape. Le jeune comte de Toulouse acquiert dès lors son statut de chef de la rébellion légitime à la croisade, et semble obtenir la bénédiction papale pour la reconquête qui s’amorce. Cette bénédiction se double par ailleurs de recommandations et de bons vœux: c’est que le public conclura des propos d’un pape qui lui souhaite la réussite en toute chose: L’Apostolis l’esgarda e gite un sospir, E en apres lo baiza e pres l’a benezir: ‘Tu garda que faras e apren que vulh dir, Que tot cant que s’escura a obs a esclarzir. Be·t lais Dieus Jhesu Crist comensar e fenir, E grans bonaventura que·t posca perseguir!’44

Cette fin de l’épisode du concile à Latran est évidemment habile. En effet, le soutien du pape au jeune comte Raimond de Toulouse et la bénédiction prononcée qui vaut pour l’entreprise de reconquête qui s’amorce dès le début de la laisse suivante, ont pour fonction de faire de lui le vrai héros de la guerre des Languedociens contre cette fausse croisade et ses spoliations. Quelle que soit la place que prendront son père Raimond VI et ses vassaux dans cette entreprise, le destin des Méridionaux apparaît désormais entre les mains de Raimondet. L’audience papale, entrevue d’un ‘père’ avec son ‘fils’, et la légitimité de la contestation de la croisade qui en découle, redonneront espoir à tous les Méridionaux auxquels le texte s’adresse. Il est évident que le futur Raimond VII est l’avenir des Méridionaux, là où son père désavoué et dépossédé de ses terres par la croisade représente un monde passé et que, condamné, il incarne plus difficilement l’espoir en l’avenir. À partir de ce lieu et de ce moment du texte de l’Anonyme, début 43

44

CCA, 2: 86, laisse 152, vers 36–37: ‘Pourtant contre quiconque voudrait te déposséder et t’abaisser, sache bien te défendre et maintenir ton droit’. CCA, 2: 88, laisse 152, vers 60–65: ‘Le Pape le considère et pousse un soupir et puis il le baise et lui donne sa bénédiction: “Veille à ce que tu feras et retiens mes paroles: tout ce qui s’obscurcit, un jour nécessairement redevient brillant. Puisse Dieu Jésus-Christ te permettre de bien commencer et de bien finir et puisses-tu rencontrer une heureuse chance!”’.

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du deuxième tiers de l’œuvre, mais début de la rédaction de ce second auteur, la narration a déjà basculé, on le sait, en faveur du camp méridional. Néanmoins, avec la débâcle de Muret, la mort du roi Pierre II d’Aragon et la chute de Toulouse et la fuite des Raimondins faiditz, l’affliction est totale à la fin de la laisse 142, et alors que le Concile qui ouvre un nouvel épisode commence à la laisse 143. C’est confronté à ces débuts désastreux des événements historiques qu’il a à relater tout en les leur donnant ce rapport spécial à la vérité qu’a la chanson de geste historiographique que l’auteur compose avec génie l’épisode du concile de Latran, soleil après la nuit, calme et sursaut de vie après la tempête. Il réussit par les procédés que nous avons vus, discours enchâssés, échanges violents, argumentations et réponses, exposés d’opinion tranchées et de plus nuancée dans la bouche de partisans assumés et emportés ou de personnages plus tièdes, à composer avec les événements historiques qu’il se doit de relater, pas franchement favorables aux Méridionaux à l’issue du Concile, à conduire son public à persister dans l’idée de l’iniquité de cette croisade. Plus encore, le public de la chanson devient convaincu que le pape, une figure qu’il est difficile d’égratigner pour pouvoir fédérer la communauté des chrétiens méridionaux où les hérétiques sont minoritaires, fut à Latran isolé face à d’affreux prélats rapaces et des Français conquérants, mais que s’il avait pu il aurait rendu leurs territoires aux Languedociens et renvoyés les croisés et leurs prédicateurs. Dès lors, il apparaît logiquement en creux de ce discours que c’est aux Méridionaux de se prendre en main, à l’exemple de Raimondet, futur Raimond VII, qui, ne l’oublions pas reçoit la bénédiction du pape pour tout ce qu’il entreprendra, et ce qu’il entreprend c’est précisément de lancer l’élan de reconquête dès la laisse suivante (153).

Conclusion L’épisode du Concile de Latran constitue bien, tel que nous voulions en faire la démonstration par cette contribution en l’acmé du texte de la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise en matière de discours de légitimation de l’entreprise de reconquête. D’un point de vue codicologique, cet épisode de la tenue du concile45 fait partie des treize moments clefs qui furent, sur la totalité du texte, représentés par de fins dessins à la plume illustratifs des grands moments de l’œuvre.

45

Raguin–Barthelmebs, ‘Problèmes de transmission textuelle et d’interprétation dans l’épique’, p. 378.

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La responsabilité de l’Église, ses prélats et son faible pape, apparaît totale dans la spoliation des seigneurs méridionaux. L’orthodoxie de Raimond VI et de son fils permettra de justifier la résistance à la croisade devenue alors non plus une guerre religieuse, mais une guerre de reconquête territoriale. La figure, presque perdue pour l’histoire étant donné sa condamnation, de Raimond VI, s’efface en partie au profit d’abord du comte de Foix qui défend (en théorie) leurs intérêts à tous deux face à Foulque, puis par son fils le jeune Raimond, appelé par l’hérédité à gouverner ces terres, sinon la tentative de leur reconquête. On notera la précaution prise dans le traitement de la figure du pape par l’auteur. Alors que celui-ci se montre faible et influençable, qu’il a déchainée une croisade inique, l’Anonyme prend tout de même la précaution de ne pas le condamner avec la cohorte de ses prélats prédicateurs de la croisade albigeoise. Il s’agit certes d’un calcul, le texte étant formulé pour la reconquête il s’agit de ne pas cliver les croyants méridionaux, mais on sait par ailleurs que le Pape semble avoir condamné la prédication excessive, les iniquités de la croisade, et la partialité de ses légats.46 On ne saurait croire ici à l’innocence d’un pape vraiment contraint, ce n’est d’ailleurs pas ce dont l’auteur tente de nous convaincre; il ne s’agit à aucun moment de dédouaner le pape de sa responsabilité, mais bien plutôt de le montrer faible, dépassé et d’inviter les méridionaux à se saisir de leur propre destin, tout en ayant reçu à travers leur chef la vague mais néanmoins claire bénédiction du souverain pontife. Comme toujours l’Anonyme compose son personnage et s’en sert, entre diégèse et histoire. La fictionnalisation d’un événement même historique est l’occasion pour l’auteur de donner à voir une vérité plus juste tout en étant moins vraie. Ainsi formulé le discours de rassemblement de l’Anonyme s’adresse autant aux timorés qu’aux résistants convaincus, il les assure à sa manière qu’en prenant les armes derrière le jeune Raimond et pour la reconquête ils se conforment à la secrète volonté du pape s’il a leur faveur, ou au contraire leur garantit de lutter pour ce que ce pleutre n’a pas su leur accorder, tout en luttant ensemble contre des prélats et Français ligués pour leur perte à tous. Dès lors, personne ne semble risquer son Salut à prendre part à la lutte, et se fait au contraire instrument d’une justice telle que la concevrait le vicaire du Christ en ce monde. En définitive, l’objectif de cet épisode du Latran est de rassembler, et d’exposer la situation des Méridionaux telle que l’auteur la perçoit, en persuadant chacun de la nécessité et de la justice primaire de la résistance à la croisade. Le pape n’ayant rien pu pour eux, les Méridionaux doivent s’en 46

On verra sur ce point notamment Meschini, ‘Diabolus…’, particulièrement pp. 191–92.

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remettre à Dieu, instance suprême, et lutter avec un cœur confiant, c’est en somme le sens des derniers mots du pape à Raimondet. À ce titre, les références au Christ et à Dieu qui émaillent constamment le texte prennent tout leur sens. Elles sont un élément essentiel du système propagandiste développé par l’Anonyme, et c’est en faisant de leur guerre contre ceux que le comte de Foix qualifie dans son résuisitoire à Latran de faux pèlerins une voix d’accession au Salut chrétien que l’auteur élabore véritablement l’idéologie et le discours sotériologique d’une contre-croisade.47 La tension dramatique de l’écriture dans l’épisode de Latran, le recours à une mise en scène (intérieur/extérieur; cour/jardin), l’entrée et la sortie des personnages, leur ordre d’apparition, les dialogues vifs comme les arguments et les enjeux font de Latran le nœud argumentatif du texte: à partir de là, la reconquête peut commencer, il n’est plus question d’hérésie mais de spoliation, le pape a béni l’entreprise, les seigneurs de Toulouse et de Foix sont les héros de l’affaire, l’assemblée conciliaire apparaît corrompue et partisane, étrangère à la notion de droit et de mission pastorale. Les laisses du concile sont bien une acmé dans l’écriture de l’auteur, et le texte, c’est un lieu où le talent apparaît lumineux: peu seraient capables d’écrire Latran après cet anonyme.

47

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Toulouse s’apparente à Jérusalem qui doit être libérée des faux croisés, les comtes de Toulouse s’approchent du Christ, et les Méridionaux accèdent par cette voix au Salut avec la bénédiction d’un prêtre de l’Église romaine, c’est là le portrait à grands traits de l’idéologie développée par l’Anonyme: voir Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain, pp. 352–56, 417–69.

Chapter Six Innocent III, the Fourth Lateran Council and the Albigensian Crusade Marco Meschini

The problem of heresy was one of the major concerns of Innocent III’s pontificate and particularly heresy in Languedoc. What is usually now called the ‘Albigensian crusade’ was, in Innocent’s words, the negotium pacis et fidei.1 This negotium began at the same time as Innocent’s pontificate, while the crusade was only launched in 1207 and became a reality two years later, following the murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau. The main events of this ‘First Albigensian Crusade’ are well known:2 the massacre at Béziers in July 1209 and the subsequent surrender of Carcassonne; the election of Simon de Montfort as leader of the crusade; the suspicious death of Raymond Roger Trencavel; the repeated victories of Montfort – in sieges and open battle – at the expense of the Occitan barons; the direct confrontation with Raymond VI of Toulouse and the city of Toulouse itself; the intervention of Peter II of Aragon and his resounding defeat at Muret in September 1213; the Montpellier council of January 1215, where Peter of Benevento, the papal legate from the beginning of 1214,3 appointed Montfort as princeps et monarcha of the county of Toulouse and of all the lands conquered from heretics and their supporters, while leaving the final decision to the Lateran Council.4 1

2 3

4

See Michel Roquebert, L’épopée cathare, 2  vols (Paris, 2001); La croisade albigeoise. Actes du colloque du Centre d’Études Cathares, sous la présidence de Michel Roquebert (Carcassonne, 4–6 octobre 2002) (Carcassonne, 2004); Marco Meschini, Innocenzo III e il negotium pacis et fidei in Linguadoca tra il 1198 e il 1215 (Roma, 2007). Marco Meschini, L’eretica: Storia della crociata contro gli albigesi (Roma, 2010). See Pascal Montaubin, ‘Une tentative pontificale de reprise en main du Midi: la légation du cardinal Pietro Beneventano en 1214–15’, in Innocent III et le Midi (Toulouse, 2015), pp. 391–418. HGL, 8: 643. See PVC, 2: 247, ch. 553: ‘dominus et monarcha’.

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 113-130 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115857

Marco Meschini

The topic of the Lateran Council is here going to be examined from two angles. Firstly, we will examine the question of how Montfort and his followers and the counts of Toulouse and their supporters and allies intended to use the council for their ends. Secondly, we will look at the position of the pope and how and why he took the decisions that he did.

The Diplomatic Strategies of Raymond VI and Simon de Montfort Montfort did not go to Rome for the Lateran Council but sent his brother Guy, along with ‘other trustworthy and judicious messengers’ (alii fideles nuntii et discreti).5 By contrast, on the Occitan side, Raymond VI of Toulouse, together with his son Raymond VII and Count Raymond Roger of Foix, were all present.6 Many of their allies were there as well: Arnaud de Villemur, the ‘brave’7 co-lord of Saverdun;8 the ‘daring’ PierreRaymond, co-lord of Rabastens;9 Raymond de Roquefeuil;10 Arnaud de Comminges;11 Guillaume Porcellet.12 We can also add a merchant (mercator) mentioned by the chronicler Puylaurens, whose name, Arnaud Topina, is revealed by the Canso,13 and, besides these, Raymond VI’s fifth wife, Eleonor of Aragon.14 So the Occitan party had ‘put in the field’ a large number of its leading lights, while the anti-heretical crusade party had only one figure of major importance and, most obviously, Simon de Montfort himself was absent. The primary reason for Simon’s absence from the council was military. Experience had shown that Simon’s absences from Languedoc resulted almost invariably in rebellions. The mere presence of Simon in the newly 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14

PVC, 2: 261, ch. 571. PVC, 2: 260, ch. 571. CCA, 2: 38, laisse 142, line 17: ‘qu’es de bon cor garnitz’. CCA, 2: 38, n. 1. CCA, 2: 38–39, n. 2. CCA, 2: 56–57, n. 3. CCA, 2: 58–59, n. 1. CCA, 2: 85, n. 2. For all these names, see PVC, 2: 261–62, n. 2. More generally, for the Occitan nobility see Elaine Graham-Leigh, The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (Woodbridge, 2005), in particular pp.  42–57, which speaks of ‘victims of the Crusade’. CCA, 2: 41, n. 3. Stephan Kuttner and Antonio García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness of the Fourth Lateran Council’, Traditio 20 (1964), p. 124, n. 48, and p. 139.

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subjugated region was the best guarantee for averting these. There were, moreover, political reasons for staying in Languedoc. The council would be decided by men of the Church,15 and in this respect Montfort had a plethora of supporters: in addition to Bishop Foulques of Toulouse,16 Bishops Garsie of Auch and Thédise of Agde, who would speak in Montfort’s favour, there were more than fifty other prelates, mostly French and Provençal, who immediately sided with the ‘count of Christ’.17 Close to sixty ‘learned men’ (litterati) – cardinals, bishops and abbots – stood in Montfort’s favour, against less than a tenth of the other clergy present who sided with the defeated barons.18 Raymond  VI, by contrast, needed to be in Rome to defend and, if possible, restore his image and that of his lineage. Not only his land but also his honour and his name were at stake. He was the heir of one of the heroes of the First Crusade, Raymond de Saint-Gilles. ‘Une croisade a fait le prestige de la dynastie raimondine, une autre a eu raison d’elle’;19 Raymond VI’s name had been dragged through the mud, as he had been accused of the death of the papal legate, supporting heresy and being a heretic himself.20 Raymond VI committed himself to clearing his name in the presence of the very man who had called the crusade which appeared to be ruining him, while Simon de Montfort enjoyed a superlative reputation. A letter from Innocent  III in early spring 1215, which Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay enthusiastically reports in his Historia albigensis,21 is an indication of the reputation Montfort had attained: ‘The report of your faith and purity goes forth into virtually the entire earth’ (In omnem fere 15

16 17

18

19

20 21

In the pope’s words: ‘usque ad tempus concilii generalis (in quo de ipsis plenius consilio prelatorum possimus salubriter ordinare)’ (PVC, 2: 250, ch. 556). CCA, 2: 74, laisse 150, line 8. PVC, 2: 262–63, n. 2. We can also add the cardinals Robert de Courçon and Peter of Benevento, former papal legates for the negotium and both aligned to the cause of Montfort, even if the ambiguous attitude of the second will be discussed below. For the expression ‘count of Christ’ see Meschini, L’eretica, p. 194. Their names are collected in PVC, 2: 261, n. 2: Arnaud Amaury, former abbot of Cîteaux, and archbishop of Narbonne; Renaud, archdeacon of Lyon; Hugh, abbot of Beaulieu and another English clergyman, perhaps Walter Gray, then archbishop of York, John of England’s right-hand man. Laurent Macé, Les comtes de Toulouse et leur entourage XIIe-XIIIe siècles: Rivalités, alliances et jeux de pouvoir (Toulouse, 2000), p. 363. PL, 215: 1357a. PVC, 2: 248–52, chs 554–59. The entire passage is full of scriptural and liturgical resonances.

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terram tue puritatis et fidei sonus exivit). Simon is defined as ‘a faithful and vigorous soldier of Christ’ (verus et strenuus Christi miles) (twice), as well as ‘unconquered defender of the catholic faith’ (invictus catholice fidei propugnator), who merits the ‘crown of righteousness’ (corona justitie), and is one step away from the ‘palms of victory’ (palma victorie). Innocent even drew a parallel between the mission (legatio) of Christ in the name of the heavenly Father for the redemption of the world and the legatio of Simon on behalf of the pope. This was not the first time that Innocent III had used bold words and biblical imagery to delineate the figure and work of Simon:22 Montfort had expelled the ‘swarm of locusts’ (multitudo locustarum) which had gone out ‘from the pit of the abyss’ (de abisso putei) against ‘the people of God’ (plebs Dei) (Apocalypse 9.2–3); he had left prostrate in the dust a crowned head, a sign of the ‘judgement of God’ (judicium Dei).23

The Written and Spoken Word Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay completed the first redaction of his Historia for the council in order to present it to the pope.24 The major surviving Latin source for the anti-heretical crusade was therefore a weapon which the supporters of Montfort could brandish. How could their opponents answer? What of the famous Canso or Chanson de la croisade albigeoise? The only copy we have – from the end of the thirteenth century – is conserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France25 and consists of a Provençal text of 9582 verses which starts with the confrontation between heresy and the Church in Languedoc at the beginning of the century and ends with the events of the year 1219. There were two authors, who are quite different: the first part (2772 verses in 131 stanzas) was by Guillermo de Tudela, a cleric who was favourable to the crusade, although not to the crusaders’ excesses; the second part (6810 verses in 83 stanzas) was written by an anonymous author, possibly from Toulouse, who was completely opposed to the crusade and Montfort. The order of the stanzas and the style and also the periods of redaction of the ‘two’ texts are certainly different: Tudela possibly stopped his work between 1213 and 1214, perhaps 22 23

24 25

PL, 216: 151–52. See Meschini, L’eretica, p. 148. Martin Alvira Cabrer, El Jueves de Muret (12 de Septiembre de 1213) (Barcelona, 2002), in particular pp.  581–82. The pattern of these studies is, of course, Georges Duby, La domenica di Bouvines, 27 luglio 1214 (Torino, 2010). PVC, 3: xviii–xxi. See CCA, 1: v.

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in the middle of 1213, and the Anonymous wrote his text towards 1228.26 For our current discussion, it is important to note that at the time of the Fourth Lateran Council the text of Guillermo de Tudela was lost – or at least silenced –,27 while the text of the Anonymous had not yet been composed. No text in Provençal was available for the audience of the council. This meant that, in the war of words, the victory of the crusader party was liable to be complete at the time of the council. However, it is only from the second and anonymous part of the Canso, that we can listen to, at least partially, the debates that were held in the Lateran, because the only source which reconstructs the debates of November 1215 is the Provençal Anonymous. Now, we can reject in toto the reconstruction that the Anonymous offers us, with the result that we must rely exclusively on the formal pronouncements of the council, since other sources are totally silent on the Albigensian debate. However, with all due caution, the voice of the Anonymous should be heard, because the base of his account is substantially confirmed by external and independent sources, as we shall see. This is what the Anonymous had to say. The question of the negotium pacis et fidei was debated on 14 November 1215.28 And, as the Anonymous has it, the first to speak29 was a man of the South, i.e. the count of Foix. And in what manner did he speak? Here literary fiction prevailed over historical facts, as everyone in the debate was made to think and communicate in Provençal, when, in all probability, some of the exchanges must have occurred through the intermediary of interpreters. In reality, the processes of communication would have been slowed down and complicated by the different codes involved. Rising from a kneeling position,30 in front of the pope and the council, the count of Foix speaks confidently: Legitimate lord pope, on whom the whole world depends, you who stand in place of Saint Peter and his authority, in whom all sinners must find a protector, who must uphold right, peace and justice, because you are placed there for our salvation – my lord, hear my words and restore to me all my rights.31 26 27

28

29

30 31

CCA, 2: xiii–xiv. See Marco Meschini, ‘Diabolus… illos ad mutuas inimicitias acuebat: les divisions et les dissensions intérieures aux croisés albigeois’, in La croisade albigeoise, pp. 171–96. On the session specifically dedicated to the negotium pacis et fidei see Foreville, Latran, pp. 265–68. Of course, only after the ‘opening session’ by the pope, who also seems to ‘push’ the Occitan party to action (CCA, 2: 42, laisse 143, lines 26–36). CCA, 2: 42, laisse 143, line 18: ‘e denant l’apostoli gietan s’a genolhos’. CCA, 2: 44, laisse 144, lines 6–11: ‘Senher dreitz apostolis, on totz lo mon apent / E te·l loc de sent Peire e·l seu governament, / On tuit li pecador devon

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The count of Foix, in his opening gambit, recognizes the power and function of the sovereign judge (senher dreitz apostolis), and humbly submits in a way which equates all the contending parties since they are all sinners (tuit li pecador); in reality, however, through his posture (desobre∙l paziment)32 and central position (tota la cortz l’escouta e l’esgarda e l’entent)33 the count takes the initiative and speeds to the heart of the matter, which is that all his rights should be returned (totz mos dreitz me rent).34 The count could now proceed effectively: For I can defend myself and can truly swear that I have never been a friend to heretics or their supporters.35

The actor who controls the scene thus proclaims himself innocent of any heretical responsibility: and after all, who really knows the count of Foix in Rome? Probably the pope and a few cardinals, but, in general, his name and face would have been ‘new’ to most, and thus, in a certain sense, ‘clean’ in comparison with Raymond VI. In fact, that the case of Raymond VI is known to all is clear from Foix’s next words: I have come to your court for a loyal judgment, I and the mighty count my lord, and his son too, who is fair and good and wise and of tender age. He has neither been guilty of trickery nor of failing in his duty and since the law does not accuse him and reason does not reproach him, since he has done no wrong nor fault to any living thing, I greatly wonder why and for what reason any wise man might endure his loss of his inheritance.36

The name of Raymond  VI is thus linked to a virtual unknown who professes innocence (the count of Foix) and another virtual unknown (Raymond VII), who really can only be innocent, given his age. This line of defence becomes even clearer:

32 33 34 35

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trobar guirent,  / E deus tener drechura e patz e judjament,  / Per so car iest pauzatzal nostre salvament,  / Senher, mos diitz escota e totz mos dreitz me rent’. CCA, 2: 44, laisse 144, line 2. CCA, 2: 44, laisse 144, line 3. CCA, 2: 44, laisse 144, line 11. CCA, 2: 44, laisse 144, lines 12–14: ‘Qu’ieu me posc escondire e far ver sagrament / C’anc non amei eretges ni nulh home crezent’. CCA, 2: 44–46, laisse 144, lines 18–23: ‘Soi vengutz en ta cort per jutjar leialment, / Eu e·l rics coms mos senher, e sos filhs ichament, / Qu’es bel e bos e savis e de petit jovent / Ez anc no fe ni dig engan ni falhiment. / E pos dreh no l’encuza ni razos no·l reprent, / Si non a tort ni colpa a nulha re vivent, / Be·m fas grans meravilhas per que ni per cal sent / Pot nulhs prosom suffrir son dezeretament.

Innocent III, the Fourth Lateran Council and the Albigensian Crusade

The mighty count, who is my overlord and whose domains are immense, placed himself and his land at your discetion, surrendering Provence, Toulouse and Montauban. And lo! these were then given up to death and torture, to his worst and fiercest enemy, Sir Simon de Montfort, who seizes them, oppresses them, devastates them and destroys them without mercy […] And I myself, great lord, on your command surrendered the castle of Foix with its mighty battlements… If it is not returned to me in just as I delivered it, let no one ever again trust in any fine agreement.37

In short Foix cleverly glosses over the ‘Raymond VI problem’: had he favoured the heretics? Was he personally a heretic? Was he guilty of the murder of the papal legate? Was he not the main enemy of the Crusade? None of this matters: for he had left himself to the discretion of the pope. In this regard, the two counts, of Toulouse and Foix, are on the same level: they had entrusted themselves to the pope spontaneously and without delay and now call for what they have placed in custody to be restored to them.38 Briefly, the defense does not deny the existence of heresy – thus there were heretics in Languedoc – but insists on the non-complicity with them, with particular reference to the young Raymond; Foix therefore seeks to move the prosecution’s focus to the violence and injustice of the crusaders and most particularly Montfort. In the Anonymous’s account, the words of Foix were then partly confirmed by Cardinal Peter of Benevento: Lord, every word the count says is entirely true. I did indeed receive the castle and I entrusted it to the abbot of Saint-Thibéry, who in my presence installed a garrison.39

37

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39

CCA, 2: 46, laisse 144, lines 24–42: ‘E lo rics coms mos senher, cui grans honors apent, / Se mezeis e sa terra mes e·l teu cauziment, / Proensa e Tholosa e Montalba rendent;  / E poi foron lhiurat a mort e a turment  / Al pejor enemic e de pejor talent, / A·n Simon de Montfort, que·ls lhia e los pent, / E·ls destruit e·ls abaicha, que merces no lh’en prent…Ez ieu meteis, ric senher, per lo tieu mandament,  / Rendè·l castel de Foih ab lo ric bastiment  / … Si cum eu lo lhiurei qui aital no·l me rent / Ja nulhs om no·s deu creire e nulh bel covenent’. Furthermore, the count of Foix claims to have had guarantees to that effect by the legate Peter of Benevento (CCA, 2: 54, laisse 146, lines 1–2). CCA, 2: 48, laisse 144, lines 45–48: ‘Senher, so que·l coms ditz de sol un mot no i ment, / Qu’ieu recubi·l castel e·l lhiurei verament, / E la mia prezensa i mes establiment / L’abas de Sent Tuberi’.

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Cardinal Peter only actually thus confirms one part of what Foix had said40 but the Anonymous frames his comments in a way that suggests he is wholly in favour of Foix and, more generally, of the party that he represents.41 It is at this point that the other main actor enters the scene, in the person of the bishop of Toulouse. Foulques aims to demolish the credibility of the count of Foix: he is an advocate of heretics and his land is the main wellspring of heresy; he has fought brutally – causing many deaths and horrific mutilation – against the ‘pilgrims’ (peregris), i.e. the crusaders.42 The bishop draws the obvious conclusion – he no longer has to own his land, here is what he deserves! – but the effect is paradoxical and he is met with a riposte from another layman, Arnaud de Villemur, who utters these ‘scandalous’ words:43 If I had known what grief there would be would be and that such a noise would be made about it in the court of Rome, there would in truth be more without their eyes or their noses!

The reaction of those present was of course one of astonishment and bewilderment – ‘By God!’, they said to one another, ‘this is crazy and impudent’ – but in fact the Occitan party had scored another point in its favour. Raymond Roger spoke again and replied point by point to the allegations made against him by the bishop of Toulouse, exculpating himself from the sins of others – for example, those of his sister Esclarmonde, a famous heretical leader who converted many women in the Languedoc to ‘Catharism’ –44 and raising the question of the motivation of the crusaders: were they really ‘pilgrims’ (peregris) and ‘Romers’ (romeus)45 those ‘thieves, 40

41

42 43

44

45

Moreover, he surpresses the fact that the legate had then put the castle of Foix into the hands of Simon de Montfort (cf. CCA, 2: 49, n. 2). An attitude reinforced by the content of the verse 3 of the following stanza: ‘E∙l coms a bonament Dieu e tu obezit’. CCA, 2: 48–50, laisse 145, lines 6–25. CCA, 2: 50, laisse 145, lines 26–28: ‘N’Arnaut de Vilamur es sus em pes salhitz, / e fo ben entendutz e gardatz e auzitz, / pero gent se razona, no s’es espaorzitz: / Senhors, si eu sabes que·l dans fos enantitz / Ni qu’en la cort de Roma fos tant fort enbrugitz, / Mais n’i agra, per ver, ses olhs e ses narritz!’ In this passage, Foix delves into the inner specific rights to his family, that he alone can know at that meeting (CCA, 2: 50–52, laisse 145, lines 37–41). ‘Romeus’ initially referred to pilgrims in general, including westerners headed to the Holy Land, but the term came to be applied to those visiting holy sites in the city of Rome as well. See Dante, Vita nova, trans. Andrew Frisardi (Evanston,

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traitors and perjurers’ (raubadords, fals trachors, fe-mentitz) who, under the guise of the cross (que portavan las crotz), had ruined him? Raymond Roger of Foix implicitly challenged the legal basis of the Albigensian Crusade, and thus he challenged the person who had ordered it, Innocent III. Was this a glaring error on the part of the count? Probably not, and for at least one good reason: the count of Foix had to have known that the crusaders had faced similar accusations in the past,46 and that it was likely he could play on the doubts of those present who may have already had some misgivings concerning how the crusade had developed. Moreover, Raymond Roger shifted the emphasis in his second speech to a direct attack on the bishop of Toulouse: he, who had been a troubadour – indeed, a ‘jongleur’ (don fo enjotglaritz) – and had been guilty of doing wrong to many souls, had enriched himself enormously and because of him throughout the Languedoc there had been over 500,000 deaths, ‘body and soul’. In short, his acts (faitz) and his words (ditz), indeed all his behavior (captenensa), showed him to be not an envoy of Rome, but rather ‘Antichrist’ (Antecritz).47 The attack was brutal, harsh, direct, and intended to radically shift the question to the actions of the leaders of the crusade. But to close like that would have meant allowing his opponents to respond immediately and thus instead, with great rhetorical skill, the count of Foix leads the discussion back to where it began: As the envoy of Rome [i.e. Peter of Benevento] promised me and agreed that the pope would return to me my inheritance…48

46 47 48

IL, 2012), p. 305; Dante, Vita nuova, XL, 6–7: ‘E dissi “peregrini” secondo la larga significazione del vocabulo; ché peregrini si possono intendere in due modi, in uno largo e in uno stretto: in largo, in quanto è peregrino chiunque è fuori de la sua patria; in modo stretto non s’intende peregrino se non chi va verso la casa di sa’ Iacopo o riede. E però è da sapere che in tre modi si chiamano propriamente le genti che vanno al servigio de l’Altissimo: chiamansi palmieri in quanto vanno oltremare, là onde molte volte recano la palma; chiamansi peregrini in quanto vanno a la casa di Galizia, però che la sepultura di sa’ Iacopo fue più lontana de la sua patria che d’alcuno altro apostolo; chiamansi romei in quanto vanno a Roma, là ove questi cu’ io chiamo peregrini andavano’. Meschini, L’eretica, pp. 211–14. CCA, 2: 52–54, laisse 145, lines 60–78. CCA, 2: 54, laisse 146, lines 1–2: ‘Que·l messatge de Roma m’a dig e autreiat / Que·l senher apostolis me rendra ma eretat’.

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In short, the Occitan count reiterates that the whole matter is in the hands of the pope, after having pointed out, once again, that he has ‘right’ (dreg) and ‘reason’ (razo) on his side. The debate had thus far consisted of two laymen taking on one bishop (as well as the somewhat ambiguous intervention of the cardinal) and setting out the injustices of the Occitan party. The illitterati had made an effective start. Summoned, Innocent III seems to have responded immediately:49 he committed himself to finding a permanent solution and the ‘good right’ (bon dreg). Even if the count was guilty, the pope trusted in the mercy of the Church, if he were repentant. That said, Innocent asserted that ‘all his disciples’ (tug li meu dissiple) must act with equity (dreitura) and true charity (vera caritat).50 And this statement of high principle was one that another of the Occitan party took up immediately: Raymond de Roquefeuil imposed himself (a en aut escridat) and called attention to the fate of the young Trencavel, an orphan after his father Raymond Roger, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, who had been taken hostage by Montfort at the time of the surrender of Carcassonne in 1209, had died under suspicious circumstances while in prison: ‘Lord give him back his land and keep your own dignity!’.51 In the council, Raymond de Roquefeuil is a complete unknown: he represents the voice of the Anonymous and that of the enormous crowd of people who are not present but who seek justice in Languedoc. And, he does not speak for himself, but for someone who is absent (an orphan) and someone who is dead, the young and innocent baron murdered by the crozat. Were they really ‘crusaders’, logically, at that point? And is it not for you, lord pope, who is the person responsible for everything, to do something? Garda ta dignitat! The affront is total and the words resound: ‘Barons’, each said to the other, ‘how well he has laid his accusation!’.52 At these words, Innocent replied laconically: Amix, ja er be emendat (‘friends, soon this will certainly be seen to’), and retired into the palace. Before the scene closes, however, with the silence of the pope, the anonymous author inserts a powerful passage, through the mouth of another of 49

50 51

52

After he had recognized that the count knew how to put forth his case vigorously, with the effect, however, of diminishing a little the rights of the same pope: ‘“Coms,” so ditz l’Apostolis “mot as gent razonat / Lo teu dreg, mas lo nostre as un petit mermat”’ (CCA, 2: 54, laisse 146, lines 10–11). CCA, 2: 56, laisse 146, lines 21–30. CCA, 2: 58, laisse 146, line 41. See Graham-Leigh, The Southern French Nobility, pp. 125–29. CCA, 2: 58, laisse 146, line 47.

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the Occitan party, Arnaud de Comminges: ‘We have done well; now we can go, because so much has been obtained that the pope enters inside’.53 To conclude this first part, we note that the Occitan party had led a strategically well-orchestrated rhetorical and dialectical offensive in which they had in some depth covered a range of topics which were important to them. They had, moreover, and importantly, got their major arguments in first,54 against the bishop of Toulouse, against the crusaders and Simon de Montfort, and even against the pope when he veered away from the principles which he publicly professed. Should not the pope be the first guardian of the orphans and those who suffer because of injustice? With great skill they turn the arguments of their opponents against them and more than hold their own against the litterati. We should also note that at this point that the key player, Raymond VI, has not yet revealed his own hand in this contest. Somebody else talks for him. Moreover, Raymond VII is not asked to speak in person but, rather like the young Trencavel, has his innocence conserved through his silence. Neither the use of his son nor Trencavel nor indeed having other people speak for him seem out of keeping with what we know from elsewhere about Raymond VI’s personality as he was rarely one to stand on the front line.55

The Pope’s Dilemma From the palace, the pope entered into a garden, to control his anger and to distract himself.56

The problems whose solution the pope sought were many, serious and urgent. There was not even time to catch his breath, since a large group

53 54

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56

CCA, 2: 58, laisse 146, lines 51–53. See Mirjan R. Damaška, I volti della giustizia e del potere. Analisi comparatistica del processo (Bologna, 1991). We refer to his pragmatic attitude at the battles of Castelnaudary and Muret (Meschini, L’eretica, pp. 189–95, 224–38). And, after all, Raymond could count on another tacit advantage: between the end of 1209 and beginning of 1210 he had already met Innocent III (CCA, 1: 96-110, laisses 39–40, 42–44; cf. PVC, 1: 140–43, ch. 137), his and their judge, and he had not failed to understand the extent to which the priest Lothar was willing to concede a last chance to those who showed regret. CCA, 2: 58, laisse 147, lines 1–2: ‘L’Apostolis s’en intra del palaitz en un ort, / per defendre sa ira e per pendre deport’.

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of the prelat de la Gleiza surrounded him and immediately placed before the pope two radical alternatives: ‘Lord, if you give them back the land, we are all half dead; if to lord Simon, we are safe and sound’.57 Here the contradiction is even more radical: either life or death, certainly for Simon, but also for the pope’s men. There followed a long discussion58 between the pope and his priests, which can be summarized in two main points.

The Voices of the Council Though perhaps there were not precisely three hundred council fathers who were in favour of Montfort,59 it is clear that the majority of the council sided against the Occitan barons. Foulques of Toulouse,60 Garcie of Auch,61 Thédise of Agde62 and other clerics led the argument for the crusade.63 Four prelates supported the Occitan cause in some measure: the archdeacon of Lyon,64 the archbishop of Narbonne,65 the archbishop of York66 and the abbot of Beaulieu.67 Amidst this frenetic succession of speeches and responses, Innocent III speaks a dozen times,68 and every time he does so, it is to counter the arguments put forward by pro-crusade clerics. So the most important question here is whether there was really a ‘schism’ between the majority of the council and the pope himself ? There are two main reasons for suggesting this was indeed the case. The first derives from two ‘external’ sources. The first one is a passage from the

57

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

CCA, 2: 58, laisse 147, lines 6–7: ‘Senhor, si lor rens terra, nos em tuit demeg mort; / Si la datz a·n Simo em gueritz e estort’. It occupies 4 stanzas (147–50) for a total of 213 verses (24 + 74 + 69 + 46). CCA, 2: 64, laisse 148, line 35. CCA, 2; 62–4, laisse 148, lines 1–31. CCA, 2: 62, laisse 148, lines 32–34. CCA, 2: 68, laisse 149, lines 11–14. CCA, 2: 70, laisse 148, lines 35–39; 2: 68–72, laisse 149, lines 19–35, 66–69. CCA, 2: 64–66, laisse 148, lines 40–56. CCA, 2: 66, laisse 148, lines 68–71. CCA, 2: 72–74, laisse 150, lines 5–20. CCA, 2: 76, laisse 150, lines 27–32. CCA, 2: 58–60, laisse 147, lines 8, 11–18, 66; laisse 148, lines 57–67, 72–74, 68–72; laisse 149, lines 1–2, 4–10, 15–18, 36–65, 72–76; laisse 150, lines 1–4, 21–26, 33–42.

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Gesta Philippi Augusti by Guillaume Le Breton (written between 1220 and 1225):69 In eodem concilio […] idem papa […] comitem Sancti-Egidii, qui vocabatur Tolosanus, et ejus filium damnatos de heresi videbatur velle restituere ad terras suas quas eis catholici, una cum Simone nobili comite Montisfortis, de mandato Romane ecclesie per Dei adjutorium abstulerant et de ejusdem pape licentia possidebant; quod ne fieret universum fere concilium reclamabat.70

Even this author, independent from the anonymous of the Canso, outlines a deep contrast between the will of ‘virtually the entire council’ (universum fere concilium) and the will of the pontiff, who seemed to want to restore (videbatur velle restituere) the seized lands to Raymond VI and his son.71 In addition, Guillaume Le Breton emphasizes the contrast between the position of the pope and what he wanted previously: ‘by the command of the church of Rome […] and by the authorization of the very same pope (de mandato Romane ecclesie […] et de ejusdem pape licentia)’. So the contrast is explained in the light of a fundamental contradiction: the pope has changed position. The second source is the text of another anonymous author, who was no doubt an eyewitness. According to this source, the pontiff had opened the proceedings of the Lateran council formulating an extreme hypothesis: ‘If the devil were capable of repentance, certainly his repentance ought to be accepted (Si diabolus posset penitere, certe recipiendus esset)’.72 This passage is of a great interest, both because it fits with what we know about the overall personality of Innocent III,73 and also because it can be 69

70

71

72 73

Henri-François Delaborde, Étude sur la chronique en prose de Guillaume Le Breton (Paris, 1881), p. 24. Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume Le Breton, historiens de Philippe-Auguste, ed. Henri-François Delaborde, 2 vols (Paris, 1882–85), 1: 306. The outcome, however, was the expected one: ‘Per hec tempora, Simon comes Montisfortis factus est comes Tolosanus, Innocentio papa procurante et rege Philipo concedente, propter hereticam pravitatem Albigensium et propter apostasiam Remundi comitis Tolosani. Et cum tota terra Albigensium dicto Simoni reddita fuisset, Albigenses et Tolosani contra juramentum et homagium venientes, Tolosani civitatem contra ipsum munierunt, quam dictus Simon viriliter obsedit; sed, in ipsa obsidione lapide percussus, vitam in fide catholica finivit’(Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume Le Breton, 1: 322 [Continuation, n. 4]). Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness’, p. 126. See Werner Maleczek, ‘Innocenzo III’, in Enciclopedia dei papi, 3 vols (Roma, 2000), 2: 326–50, and Meschini, Innocenzo  III e il negotium pacis et fidei, pp. 417–523.

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read in parallel with relevant passages of the Canso, and in particular this one: ‘Every wicked sinner, lost and chained, must be kindly received by the Church, if she finds him in danger, provided he repents with a good heart and does her will’.74 Now, what better example than Raymond VI? He was certainly a sinner and indeed had been defined by Innocent himself as the ‘servant of the Devil’ (minister Diaboli):75 here the consonance of the words, as well as of the concepts, is almost absolute. It is precisely at this moment that we have to observe the position of the pope very closely.

The Voice of the Pope How many wills – how many ‘souls’ – does the pope have? Like every power (especially, a sovereign one), the pontiff (any pontiff ) could find himself entangled in the narrow confines of what he was required to do, compared with what he would like to do, or at least what he would prefer to do. We do not speak, of course, of duplicity, but of a duality, namely the presence of an official will, related to the role and function of the institutional and juridical person of the pontifex maximus, and the corresponding faculty of the corporeal and individual person, in our case Lothar of Segni. And it is clear that these two ‘souls’ cannot always agree, particularly since both are not motionless hypostases, perpetually identical to themselves, but are subject to the evolution of the world.76 The fact was that the pope had changed his opinion – and therefore his position. Concerning the problem of heresy, Innocent’s pontificate had begun with the famous decretal Vergentis in senium,77 which, based on the concept of treason (crimen lese maiestatis), introduced the idea of 74

75 76

77

CCA, 2: 56, laisse 146, lines 17–19: ‘Tot pecador maligne, perdut e encadenat / Deu be recebre Glieiza, si·l troba perilhat, / Si·s penet de bon cor ni fa sa volontat’. In the Ne nos ejus, of 10 March 1208 (PL, 215: 1354–58, in particular col. 1354d). For the emblematic event of the Fourth Crusade, see Alfred  J. Andrea and John  C. Moore, ‘A Question of Character: two Views on Innocent  III and the fourth Crusade’, in Innocenzo  III, ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 525–85; Marco Meschini, 1204: l’incompiuta. La quarta crociata e le conquiste di Costantinopoli (Milano, 2005). Marco Meschini, ‘Validità, novità e carattere della decretale Vergentis in senium di Innocenzo  III (25 marzo 1199)’, Bulletin of the Medieval Canon Law 25 (2002–3), 94–113.

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disinheritance for the heirs of the protectors of heresy (defensores, receptatores, fautores et credentes hereticorum), legally paving the way for military powers – royal, baronial or other – to take action against them. As is well known, this decisive clause would not be inserted in the text of canon 3, Excommunicamus, issued by the Lateran council.78 It seems probable that Innocent revised his position in light of a passage from Ezekiel: You ask: ‘Why is not the son charged with the guilt of his father?’. Because the son has done what is right and just, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. Only the one who sins shall die. The son shall not be charged with the guilt of his father, nor shall the father be charged with the guilt of his son. The virtuous man’s virtue shall be his own, as the wicked man’s wickedness shall be his own.79

With consistent relevance, it was indeed a passage that we find in the mouth of the pope in the Canso: ‘And Jesus Christ, who is king and lord, said that the son is not to be held account for the sin of the father’.80 It was the same concept expressed in open court by the count of Foix, as we have shown above. The count argued that the young Raymond was a good, wise and tender youth. He had never been guilty of fraud or misconduct in his duty and therefore it was a matter of great surprise and wonder that a wise man should consent to him being deprived of his inheritance.81 This observation of Foix struck at the root of one of the legal foundations of the Albigensian crusade, i.e. the question of disinheritance of the heirs of the advocates of the heretics, which Innocent had introduced with Vergentis in senium. In short, the words of the prophet – that is the voice of God, which in the Canso becomes Jhesus Crist – spoke against him, the pope, pontiff and leader of the Christianity: he had issued Vergentis and had wanted to apply it at all costs, even against the will of others – the king of France, for instance, who refused several times to intervene in Languedoc – and now he realized that he was wrong. And a pope – that is, a sovereign power – 78

79 80

81

Marco Meschini, ‘L’evoluzione della normativa antiereticale di Innocenzo III dalla Vergentis in senium (1199) al IV concilio lateranense (1215)’, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo 106/2 (2004), 207–31. Ezekiel 18.19–20. CCA, 2: 70, laisse 149, lines 42–43: ‘E ja ditz Jhesus Crist, que reis et senher es, / que pel pecat del paire le filhs non es mespres’. CCA, 2: 44–46, laisse 144, lines 18–23.

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who is wrong (and in a capital matter, because at stake was the essential distinction between orthodoxy and heterodoxy), is found trapped within the confines of the contradiction. Innocent’s sorrow was one of the great problems inherent in all the council debates on the crusade, and perhaps ‘the’ main problem. It emerges also from another passage of the Canso: ‘Leave me a while to recover and reflect and I will take action to amend your right and my wrong’.82 To the count of Toulouse who threw himself on his knees before him (e lo coms s’umilïa),83 Innocent promises to return to the matter as soon as possible and to repair the wrong (tort) he has done. Here the error is actually the compliance with the council but, pivoting on the concept of justice and error, it is clear that, from whatever side we look at the problem, somehow the pope was ‘wrong’. So the Anonymous testifies here – albeit in the manner most advantageous to himself and the Occitan party – to the inner torment of Pope Innocent III. Because, after all, how could he, the supreme pontiff, explain to Christianity that he had committed an error of such a nature and magnitude? Evidently, in plain speech it was not possible. So he had to look for a solution that was – at least in part – acceptable: for Innocent III, for Lothar and for the rest of the world.

Conclusions On 30 November 1215, the council gave the county of Toulouse to Simon de Montfort, and thus inflicted a political and dynastic defeat on Raymond VI.84 The decisions taken were, however, double edged: the former count of Toulouse was found guilty of heresy and the use of mercenaries with the consequent ‘exclusion’ from his lands, but at the same time it was not specified what fate he had to suffer and, moreover, 400 marks were destined for his livelihood; moreover, the lands which had been his which the crusaders had not conquered – the possessions in the Rhône region – would be assigned to his son Raymond VII once he had come of age and if he had proved loyal to the Church. In other

82

83 84

CCA, 2: 80, laisse 151, lines 42–43: ‘Si∙m laiassas un petit revenir ni membrar, / eu farai lo teu dreit e∙l meu tort esmendar’. CCA, 2: 78, laisse 151, line 10. HGL, 8: 681–84. Even the count’s wife received more favorable treatment.

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words Innocent sought a solution of equity85 in order to establish peace in Europe and promote the Crusade in the Holy Land.86 In deciding thus, Innocent must have had in mind some of the purposes behind the council itself: ‘To root out vices and planting virtues, to correct abuses and reform morals, to remove heresies and to strengthen faith, to silence discords and establish peace, to eliminate oppression and promote freedom, to induce the princes and Christian people to succour and help the Holy Land…’87 Was such a compromise realistic? Would it have been acceptable to the crusaders or the Occitan barons? Probably not. All those things that for Lothar and Innocent were primarily matters of faith and order were reduced by the barons to concerns which they felt to be more ‘lay’: That Jesus Christ does not wish, if it pleases him, to consent that Sir Simon takes my honor and divides it with me! Death or the land, there’s the choice, that one or the other will have all until it’s his time to die. And as I see that it all returns to fighting, lord, I do not wish to ask anything else but that you leave me the land if I am able to conquer it.88

The great final scene of confrontation between Innocent and the Occitan barons ends with the visage and the words of the young Raymond, the efans Raymond, i.e. Rai-mon, the ‘beam’ which illuminates the ‘world’, a Christlike figure who becomes the real counterpart of Montfort, the ‘companion of Christ’.89 It is Raymond who becomes final witness and herald of the fixed idea which identifies his world: la mort o la terra, ‘the land or death’. In the secular spirit of these men the will (vulh) rests in the deep clods of the earth, the ancestral fatherland, wherein resides honor: one’s own honour and the honour of generations, the honour of the family and of feudal ties, the honour that pulses with the blood.90 In the era

85

86 87 88

89

90

For a more focused treatment of the problem in relation to Innocent III see Meschini, Innocenzo III e il negotium pacis et fidei, pp. 436–38. See Meschini, L’eretica, pp. 263–64. PL, 216: 823–27 (Vineam Domini Sabaoth), in particular col. 824b. CCA, 2: 86–88, laisse 152, lines 53–59 (emphasis added): ‘Ja Jhesu Christ no vulha, s’a lui platz, cossentir / qu’en Simos ab mi prenga honor a devezir! / Que, la mort o la terra, la fara sopartir, / que laüs l’aura tota tro qu’el n’er a morir! / E, pus ieu vei que torna del tot al esgremir, / senher, re als no∙t vulh demander ne querir, / mas que∙m laiches la terra si la posc conquerir’. Elisa M. Ghil, L’Age de Parage: Essai sur le poétique et le politique en Occitanie au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1989), pp. 178–81. On the relevance of the concepts of ‘heritage’ and ‘disinheritance’, see Ghil, L’Age de Parage, pp. 152–61.

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we call ‘feudal’, in that honour civilization, in that Age de Parage in which the highest values of aristocrats and nobles (pretz, leialtatz, dreitura, razo and even merces)91 entwine, for such men honour and land mattered more than everything else.

91

Ghil, L’Age de Parage, especially pp. 152–62, 177: ‘C’est le non-clérical, plutôt que l’anti-clérical qui impressionne dans ce cas, c’est-à-dire cette étique et cette spiritualité autres, qui font fi des modèles promus par la propagande de l’Eglise  […] et érigent avec assurance et pathos leur propres modèles interprétatifs  […]. Si érésie il y a, il s’agira plutôt d’une sorte d’hérésie “du Parage”’. Elisa Ghil also includes the entire ‘groupe’ of all that is Occitan, of all that is ‘Tolosa’ (Ghil, L’Age de Parage, pp. 186–87).

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Chapter Seven The Reconciliation of Guillem Ramon de Montcada, the Albigensian Crusade and Fourth Lateran Damian J. Smith

I Although the Albigensian crusade was one of the major political events discussed at the Fourth Lateran Council and a memorable account of the tumultuous debate survives through the anonymous continuator of the Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise,1 there is an interesting aspect of the crusade dealt with at the council which was not the continuator’s concern and which has largely escaped the notice of modern historians. That is the reconciliation to the Church of the viscount of Béarn, who had, twenty-one years before, murdered an archbishop of Tarragona and never atoned for the crime. This chapter explains something of the circumstances of the original crime, its relation to the Albigensian crusade, and its resolution at the time of the council. On 16 February 1194, the archbishop of Tarragona, Berenguer de Vilademuls, who had then been archbishop for twenty years, was brutally stabbed to death by the Catalan noble, Guillem Ramon de Montcada. There is a detailed account of the actual assassination in the narratio of a letter sent by Celestine III to the prelates of the province of Tarragona in June of that year. Celestine’s original letter does not survive and nor does much else original from the church of Tarragona during the twelfth century because Napoleon’s troops destroyed most of the contents of the cathedral archive two centuries ago.2 The letter, however, had been read 1

2

See Marjolaine Raguin, Lorsque la poésie fait le souverain. Étude sur la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise (Paris, 2015). On the history of the cathedral of Tarragona during the Napoleonic wars, see Sofia Mata de la Cruz, ‘Los avatares de la catedral de Tarragona entre 1808 y 1813’, Locus Amoenus 11 (2011–12), 193–213.

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and written about by various historians from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, including Pierre de Marca (who had been sent extracts to do with the case by another Montcada, the diplomat and historian Francesc de Montcada, 3rd marquis of Aitona) and Jaime Villanueva, who as part of his Viaje literario a las Iglesias de España, just before the destruction of the archive, transcribed Celestine’s letter and other relevant documents.3 It had been reported to Celestine III that Guillem Ramon, who was the archbishop’s vassal, had received many favors from him, and had even married Berenguer’s niece, conceived a ruse by which he sent a messenger to the archbishop telling him that his wife, that is, the archbishop’s niece, wished for his advice on a certain matter of business. Guillem Ramon, assuming that upon this matter the archbishop would go to Girona (where presumably the archbishop’s niece was), intercepted Berenguer en route, and, approaching him on horseback, in the guise of friendship, then impiously wounded him and knocked him to the ground from the mule on which Berenguer had been sitting.4 Not content with this, while the archbishop lay on the ground, already lethally wounded, Guillem Ramon attacked him again, and then tried with all his might to impede the archbishop’s chaplain while Berenguer began to make his confession to him. At this time, Berenguer also assumed the habit of the Cistercian Order. During the confession, the archbishop forgave his murderer, continuously pleading to God for him in imitation of the glorious protomartyr, Stephen. With the archbishop lying half dead on the ground, the insatiable Guillem Ramon, having ridden to a distance of some two to three crossbow shots away from the archbishop, then turned back, like some twisting serpent or even more like a crab, and returned to inflict so many wounds on the archbishop that there was barely a place on his body left for him to wound. Finally, Guillem Ramon got down from his horse and drove the sharp edge of his sword through the archbishop’s brain.5 In spite of the savagery of the attack as it was reported to the pope, Berenguer de Vilademuls, between the initial attacks and the final attack, had been able to give some instructions concerning what was to be done with what he owned. Eight days after the murder, on 24 February 1194, the chaplain who was with Archbishop Berenguer and to whom he had 3

4 5

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Pierre de Marca, Histoire de Béarn (Paris, 1640), pp. 557–58; Mansi, 22: 643–45 (from Marca); Jaime Villanueva, Viage literario a las iglesias de España, 22 vols (Madrid, 1803–52), 19: 305–8, no.  40; PL, 206: 1045c–1048b; JL, 17128 (10479). Marca, Histoire de Béarn, pp. 557–58; Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 305–6. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 558; Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 306.

The Reconciliation of Guillem Ramon de Montcada, the Albigensian Crusade

confessed, Guillem Clemens, and Berenguer’s notary, Ferrer, appeared before Provost Joan and the chapter of Tarragona, and swore before God and on the four holy gospels to report what they had seen and heard when the archbishop lay wounded on the ground.6 Berenguer had been of sound mind and in his full senses when Guillem Clemens urged the archbishop to confession and penitence. After Berenguer had confessed, Guillem Clemens had asked Berenguer to decide what from his belongings he wished to leave in alms. Berenguer ordered that, when all his debts had been paid, everything he had should be offered for the love of God and for his soul. Guillem then asked him where his money was and Berenguer said that a small amount was with his relative Ramon de Vilademuls, which Ramon could keep, and a small amount was in Tarragona, which the church could have. The chaplain pressed him on how much money there was overall and where it was and the archbishop indicated that Ferrer knew and the notary confirmed that. After that Archbishop Berenguer did not change anything he said and, ‘wounded again, he departed from this light’ (iterum uulneratus decessit ab hac luce).7

II This, of course, was not the only assassination of an archbishop of Tarragona in this period. In April 1171, just a few months after the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop Hug de Cervelló had been assassinated.8 These two Tarragona cases are not especially like the Becket case and not too much like each other, although there are, as one might expect, certain similarities. Archbishop Hug de Cervelló had been murdered by members of the Burdet family. The Burdet were Norman adventurers who were secular lords of the city of Tarragona in the early days of its restoration, at which time they had a large measure of control over the developing city. However, having done much of the hard work to maintain the territory, they saw their influence diminish as the city started to flourish and everybody wanted to share in its prosperity, most relevantly here the archbishops of Tarragona and the counts of Barcelona who were now also rulers of Aragon. As the church and crown pushed forward with the repopulation of new areas of Tarragona, the once almighty Burdet by the late 1160s were gradually reduced to little more than bandits who attacked

6 7 8

Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 309. Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 309. Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 159.

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the church in order to reclaim their perceived lost rights.9 They considered their chief opponent to be Archbishop Hug, who had, in 1164, attempted to settle his vassals, including members of his own family, on the open land by the major suburb of Constantí.10 After various conflicts, when one of their own, Guillem Burdet, was murdered in the streets of Tortosa,11 they took their revenge on the archbishop himself. Pope Alexander III (1159–81) was outraged by this and frustrated by what he saw as the undue length of time the crown took to act against the murderers. Members of the Burdet family were, however, exiled to Almoravid Majorca.12 In this first case, a great deal can be known about the background to the crime, but less of the crime itself. In the second case, there is a vivid description of the assassination but the background is rather nebulous. Guillem Ramon de Montcada was from a very influential family, which had risen to prominence under Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona (1131–62), and Guillem Ramon was also the lord of Vic, a very important city, where the Montcada battled for rights and influence against the local bishop.13 Guillem Ramon was married to Guilleuma de Castellvell, who was the niece of Archbishop Berenguer de Vilademuls.14 The young Guillem Ramon had joined forces with a group of disaffected lords, many from the region of Urgell (in the north-west of Catalonia). These lords, 9

10

11 12

13

14

Alfonso  II Rey de Aragón, Conde de Barcelona y Marqués de Provenza. Documentos (1162–96), ed. Ana Isabel Sánchez Casabón (Zaragoza, 1995), p. 100, no. 59; Pierre de Marca, Marca Hispanica (Paris, 1688), p. 1352, no. 455; Lawrence McCrank, ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest. Robert Burdet and the Principality of Tarragona, 1129–55’, Journal of Medieval History 7 (1981), 67–82 (repr. McCrank, Medieval Frontier History in New Catalonia [Aldershot, 1996], IV); Eduard Juncosa Bonet, Estructura y dinámicas de poder en el señorío de Tarragona: creación y evolución de un dominio compartido (ca. 1118–1462) (Barcelona, 2015), pp. 95–107. Cartas de población y franquicia de Cataluña, ed. Josep Maria Font i Rius, 2 vols (Madrid, 1983), 2: 182–84, no. 125. Marca, Marca Hispanica, pp. 1353–54, no. 456. PL, 200: 730, 870, 952–53; Villanueva, Viage literario, 5: 239; 19: 265–67, 287–89; Emilio Morera, Tarragona cristiana, 2 vols (Tarragona, 1899), 1: 467–68; Juncosa, Señorío de Tarragona, pp. 104–5. On the Montcada family, see especially John Shideler, A  Medieval Catalan Noble Family: The Montcadas 1000–1230 (Berkeley, 1983). On the church of Vic in this period, see Paul Freedman, The Diocese of Vic: Tradition and Regeneration in Medieval Catalonia (New Brunswick, 1983). Certainly from 1185, when they subscribed a grant of workshops at Vacarisses and Rellinars (Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó [ACA], C, Alfons I, perg. 393).

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most importantly the Cabrera and Castellbò, were almost continually at odds with the king of Aragon and also the counts and bishops of Urgell, all of whom tried to extend their authority in the region.15 In 1190, the viscount of Cardona, customarily an ally of the king, had violently repossessed the castle of Brull, which he had pledged to Guillem Ramon’s grandfather, the great seneschal Guillem Ramon de Montcada, in return for a loan (which he now considered himself to have repaid). The great seneschal had left the castle to Guillem Ramon de Montcada in his will.16 It appears it was at this stage that Guillem Ramon broke with Alfonso II of Aragon (who presumably had done nothing to help him) and fell out with the bishop of Vic (with whom he was sooner reconciled).17 It was during this period that the tensions between the crown and the Castellbò party started to boil over. The often vitriolic poems of the troubadour Guillem de Berguedà indicate that the party which Guillem Ramon had joined (which was also Guillem de Berguedà’s party) considered that their chief opposition at the royal court in the early 1190s was led by Archbishop Berenguer whom, in their opinion, the king of Aragon, Alfonso II, did everything to please.18 However, it should be said that in early 1194 Archbishop Berenguer de Vilademuls clearly was not expecting his niece’s husband to attack him or he would have come to meet him with more military protection or, most likely, he would not have come to meet him at all. It should perhaps here be noted that there was a history of extremely violent attacks by the Castellbò party (tied to the count of Foix) against churches and clergy in the region of Urgell particularly during these years.19 Those attacks were combined with despoliation of the Eucharist and the Cross but there is no suggestion that Guillem Ramon’s attack on the archbishop of Tarragona sprang from heretical 15

16

17

18

19

See Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship and the Origins of European Government (Princeton, 2009), pp. 504–6; Damian J. Smith, Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition in the Lands of the Crown of Aragon (Leiden, 2010), pp. 94–95. Miquel Coll i Allentorn, La Llegenda de Guillem Ramon de Montcada (Barcelona, 1957), pp. 39–41; Shideler, Montcadas, pp. 124–25. ACA, Fons del Marquesat de Castelldosrius, 17–18; Martí de Riquer, El Trovador Guillem de Berguedà y las luchas feudales de su tiempo (Castellón de la Plana, 1953), p. 24; Shideler, Montcadas, p. 125. Riquer, Trovador, pp. 37–38; Riquer, Guillem de Berguedà, 2 vols (Poblet, 1971), 2: 182–91. Register, 1: 676–77, no.  452; PVC, 1: 204–5, chs  202–3; Cebrià Baraut, ‘L’evolució política de la senyoria d’Andorra des dels orígens fins als Pariatges (segles IX–XIII)’, Urgellia 11 (1992–93), 290–99, no. 1.

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sympathies. Indeed, if Guillem Ramon had been strongly associated with heresy, it is very likely that some record of this would survive, either in the initial report to Celestine or later when his family was opposed to the Albigensian crusade. Pope Celestine III, who had been a papal legate in Spain twice, knew more about the political situation of the Iberian Peninsula than anybody else at the Roman Curia. He had been present when the customs of SaintRuf were instituted in the cathedral church of Tarragona in 1154, and had known Hug de Cervelló well enough to be owed money by him, which the archbishop sought to pay back in his will (also set down after he was wounded). Celestine therefore was well aware that this was not the first time that Tarragona had suffered in this way, and mentions this in his letter to the prelates.20 As Celestine saw it, it was not only the province of Tarragona which should mourn but all Spain, or rather all Christendom. Like Alexander III, he was highly critical of the king, Alfonso II, and in this case the queen of Aragon as well, Sancha of Castile, both of whom Celestine knew well (indeed, when a legate, he had even attended their wedding), for not doing enough. Celestine wondered just who could be found who would dare to risk his neck serving the Tarragona church.21 The pope instructed the prelates of the province to anathematize Guillem Ramon and any who were his accomplices, and all their lands and those where they were present were placed under interdict. This was to remain the case until Guillem Ramon and his accomplices should come to the Apostolic See. The pope instructed that soldiers and other laity were to pursue Guillem Ramon and his followers just as if they were the most desperate of Saracens. Nobody was to communicate with them, deal with them, grant them food or hospitality, until barefoot across the earth, in great abstinence and in rough clothing, they approached the Apostolic See. The king and the queen and other princes and barons were to be advised to outlaw Guillem and his accomplices from their kingdom and their property was to be confiscated to make satisfaction for the damage done to the Church and so that a free episcopal election might be held. If the king and queen failed to comply with this they were themselves to be subject to excommunication and their lands placed under interdict.22 This may have all been a little harsh on Alfonso II of Aragon who was generally closely allied to the archbishops of Tarragona. The murder took 20

21 22

Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 214–15, 267, 306–7; Damian  J. Smith, ‘The Iberian legations of Cardinal Hyacinth Bobone’ in Pope Celestine III: Diplomat and Pastor, ed. John Doran and Damian J. Smith (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 81–111. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 558; VL, 19: 306. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 558; Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 306–8.

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place in late February. Celestine’s letter was dated in late June. Given that those who described the event to Celestine (presumably Guillem Clemens and Ferrer themselves, given the detail of the account) most probably set off for Rome in the spring, Alfonso did not really have too much time to react before they left. Moreover, Alfonso most probably would have first preferred a judgment from the pope rather than having to renew a conflict with Guillem Ramon de Montcada and his even more powerful allies. That was especially the case as this all took place at a time when the crown had its work cut out with renewed pressure from the Almohads in the south which would culminate in the Castilian defeat at Alarcos in July 1195.23 On the other hand, Tarragona’s envoys to Rome clearly felt that Alfonso had failed to act and Guillem Ramon does appear to have been in the company of Prince Peter (Peter II of Aragon) soon after the murder and at the court of the king in late 1194.24 He also definitely went with Guilleuma to the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, with which his family had very close ties, and, on 27 November 1194, exchanged two manses and thus strengthened, to the benefit of the abbey, a donation of manses which they had originally agreed in November 1189.25 After 1194 Guillem Ramon disappears from the scene for about a decade; he was probably exiled to the lands of his family in Poitou, perhaps returning briefly after Alfonso II’s death in 1196 only for an interdict to be imposed on the kingdom, as is indicated by a Barcelonan chronicle composed after 1213.26 He probably then returned to Poitou and then passed some time 23

24

25

26

With Alfonso  II of Aragon acting as intermediary, accords were agreed between the count and bishop of Urgell and Arnau de Castellbò in August 1194 (Charles Baudon de Mony, Relations politiques des Comtes de Foix avec la Catalogne jusqu’au commencement du XIVe siècle, 2 vols (Paris, 1896), 2: 42–47, nos 24–25). ACA, C, Alfons  I, perg.  688 (the acknowledgment of a debt to Poncius de Aleste on 20 February 1194, which Prince Peter witnessed); perg.  694 (on 10 November 1194, Guillem Ramon, Guillelma, and their son Guillem gave a manse in the parish of Sant Pere de Vic to [among others] Ramon de Cervera, Berenguer de Mata, Guillem de Sala and Pedro Cornel in return for 50 morabetins ‘assensu et voluntate domini regis et vicensis episcopi’. Alfonso II subscribed, although possibly at a later date). El ‘Llibre Blanch’ de Santes Creus, ed. Frederic Udina Martorell (Barcelona, 1947), p. 332, no. 331 and pp. 380–81, no. 379. (Cronicó Barceloni), Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona [AHCB], ms. L–5, fol.  36v: ‘Anno Domini millesimo CXCIII .XIII. kalendas marcii, die mercurii, interfecit G.  R.  de Montechateno, Berengarium, archiepiscopum taraconensem sub fide ad ipsum Prat de Matabous, pro quo fuit factum multum

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in England. In April 1205, he recognized the loan of 7200 Barcelonan sous made to him by Bernat Andreu and his son ‘for the journey which I made in England’ (in itinere quod ego feci in Anglia) in exchange for the mortgage of the castle of Vacarisses.27 After 1205, however, Guillem Ramon returned home and between 1205 and 1209 on a number of occasions he is to be found either in agreements with Peter II or witnessing his charters.28 In the years following 1209 both he and his son, Guillem, were borrowing money quite heavily, while by this stage Guillem Ramon’s wife, Guilleuma, had left him, married Viscount Aimery III of Narbonne, and parted from Aimery as well.29 And there we will leave Guillem Ramon

27

28

29

malum. Primo fuit destructus et arsus totus Vales et Ausonia et Ampuriis et plus tantum. Et non pluit neque nevavit de tres annis, neque per .VII. annos nisi parum, et fuit magna mortalitas, fames, et percussiones et guerre in terra ista, quod fuit mirum. Et fuit iam dictus G. R. in Pictanis et stetit ibi per III annos; et obiit Ildefonsus, rex Aragonum et cito dictus G. R. reversus fuit in sua terra. Et ipso veniente, dicte ecclesie de regimine Aragonie fuerunt interdicte, a Circumcissione Domini usque in kalendas aprilis. Et tunc reversus fuit dictus G. R. ad Gastonem, fratrem suum, in Pictanis. Et postea fuit relevatum predictum interdictum usque ad annos MCCXIII, in quo mortus fuerit P., rex Aragonum in bello. Et tunc reversus fuit totum comitatum Barchinone’. I am grateful to Dr Pere Benito i Monclús for his help in locating this text. See also Crònica de Bernat Desclot, ed. Miquel Coll i Allentorn, 5 vols (Barcelona, 1949), 1: 15, n. 6; Coll, Llegenda de Guillem Ramon, p. 56. Sebastià Riera Vaider has published a separate Catalan text written 1295–1301 from the same manuscript. See ‘El Cronicó Barceloní I’, Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia 22 (2001), 257–62 (259): ‘Anno Domini MXCIII XIII dies a la exida febrer murí lo senyor en Berenguer arcabistbe de Tarragona, lo qual acís en Guillem Ramon de Montcada en Valès’. ACA, C, Pere I, perg. 211; Pedro el Católico, Rey de Aragón y Conde de Barcelona (1196–1213): Documentos, Testimonios y Memoria Histórica, ed. Martín Alvira Cabrer, 6 vols (Zaragoza, 2010) [hereafter DPC], 2: 639–40, no. 531. DPC, 2: 664–65, no. 563; 2: 705–7, no. 609; 2: 724–27, nos 630–31; 2: 854–55, no. 782; 2: 860–62, no. 787; 2: 932–33, no. 857. DPC, 3: 1031–33, no. 964. On Guilleuma, see Blanca Garí, ‘El matrimonio de Guillerma de Castelvell’, Medievalia 4 (1983), 39–50. The evidence presented by Garí leaves little doubt that Guilleuma did not depart from Guillem Ramon because of the murder of her uncle. The marriage to Aimery of Narbonne only took place in 1202 and ended in about 1208. There does not appear to be any evidence for Guillem Ramon and Guilleuma’s marriage ever having been annulled by the Church.

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for a moment to languish, in debt, unreconciled, although probably not quite alone since he had acquired a mistress, Navarra.30

III Guillem Ramon was the younger brother of Gaston VI of Béarn. They were sons of Guillem de Montcada and Viscountess Marie of Béarn.31 Even though the chronicler Pierre Vaux-de-Cernay, with his customary impartiality, insisted that Gaston VI of Béarn was the worst of men and had supported Count Raymond VI of Toulouse throughout, there is really little evidence that Gaston, whose lands were in the southwest of France and thus removed from the immediate area of the Albigensian crusade, supported anybody at all in the first three years after the legate Pierre de Castelnau’s assassination in January 1208.32 But it should be remembered that Gaston VI of Béarn was married to Petronille of Bigorre, the next county along to the east, and Petronille of Bigorre was the daughter of Bernard IV of Comminges, the next county along again and bordering the counties of Toulouse and Foix.33 In 1209, Raymond VI of Toulouse had placed his son, also Raymond, under the guardianship of Bernard IV 30

31

32 33

In his will of September 1215, Guillem Ramon left lands to Navarra and to their daughter Navarra (Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid [AHN], Santes Creus, carpeta 2776, no. 14). In 1170, Marie, viscountess of Béarn, sister and heir of Gaston  V, took homage and oath of fidelity to King Alfonso  II, promising not to marry without his consent (Tractats i negociacions diplomàtiques de Catalunya i de la Corona catalanoaragonesa a l’edat mitjana: Volum  I.1. Tractats i negociacions diplomàtiques  amb Occitània, França i els estats italians 1067–1213, ed. Pere Benito i Montclús and Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol [Barcelona, 2009], p. 65 and pp. 372–74, no. 88). In 1171, Guillem de Montcada confirmed at Zaragoza, with his homage to King Alfonso II, the sovereignty of Barcelona upon Béarn. See ACA, C, Alfons I, perg. 103; Shideler, Montcadas, pp.  109–10; Pierre Tucoo–Chala, La vicomté de Béarn et le problème de la souveraineté, des origines à 1620 (Bordeaux, 1961), p. 47. On the relations between the Montcada and Béarn generally, see Joaquim Miret i Sans, ‘La casa de Montcada y el vizcondado de Béarn’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona 1 (1901–2), 49–55, 130–42, 186–99, 230–45, 280–303. PVC, 2: 37, ch. 338. Charles Higounet, ‘Comté et maison de Comminges: entre France et Aragon au Moyen Âge’, Bulletin Hispanique 49 (1947), 311–31; Higounet, Le Comté de Comminges de ses origines à son annexion à la couronne, 2 vols (Toulouse, 1949), 1: 69–98.

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(among others) in the event of his death and by the end of the following year Innocent was writing to Bernard and Gaston, alongside Raymond VI and Raymond Roger of Foix, recommending to them Simon de Montfort and the crusaders.34 As the ambitions and scope of the Albigensian crusade expanded, so Gaston  VI of Béarn found himself drawn into opposing the crusade, alongside his father-in-law. He participated in the siege of Castelnaudary in autumn 1211, after which time he was excommunicated and anathematized.35 Although Gaston made some attempt to come to terms with Simon de Montfort in late 1212, as the crusaders saw it Gaston was part of the axis of evil, and in the eyes of Vaux-de-Cernay, Gaston and the counts of Foix and Comminges were the most wicked and damned of men.36 In January 1213, Peter II asked the prelates of the council of Lavaur that Gaston’s territories be restored to him. They, however, responded that Gaston was an ally and protector of heretics. Moreover, Gaston was opposed to the crusade and a persecutor of the clergy, maintaining mercenaries who had done severe damage to the churches in his lands. Gaston, they said, had also kept in his company the murderer of the legate Pierre de Castelnau (unfortunately for us, the prelates at Lavaur did not reveal who that murderer was!).37 The prelates did say that, after he had given satisfaction to the Church and been granted absolution, if Gaston had any grievance he would be heard, despite his many previous crimes. The damage which he had done to the cathedral church of Oloron was something Gaston was actually ready to admit and make reparation for to the bishop of Oloron.38 However, the council of Lavaur’s general intransigence led Gaston, along with the other lords under threat, into the waiting arms of King Peter II, for the formation, on 27 January 1213, of ‘the greater crown of Aragon’, as Alvira Cabrer has described it.39 Peter received the oaths of fidelity of Raymond VI and Raymond VII of Toulouse, and the counts of Comminges and Foix, as 34

35

36 37 38 39

HGL, 3: 108 and 8: 573 (will of Raymond  VI); HGL, 8: 601 (letter recommending Montfort). PVC, 1: 253, ch. 254 and 2: 80, ch. 382; Michel Roquebert, L’Épopée Cathare, 2  vols (Toulouse, 2001), 1: 597–98; Lawrence Marvin, The Occitan War: A military and political history of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–18 (Cambridge, 2008), p. 117. PVC, 2: 37, ch. 338 and 2: 129, ch. 439. PVC, 2: 78–80, ch. 382. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 530. MDI, pp.  465–67, nos  461–63; PL, 216: 845–48; Martín Alvira Cabrer, El Jueves de Muret: 12 de Setiembre de 1213 (Barcelona, 2002), pp. 164–70.

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well as that of Gaston, and all of them delivered all of their lands into the power of the king. Each asked that Peter intercede for them and promised that they would do everything that Innocent and the Holy Roman Church required of them.40 The prospects of Aragon were diminished, of course, after the prelates of the Midi complained en masse to Innocent III about his suspension of the crusade, and insisted that the lands of Comminges, Foix and Béarn were still plagued with heresy.41 Innocent then modified his decisions of January concerning the reduction of the crusade and expressed his particular displeasure that Peter had gained a false mandate to restore the counts of Comminges and Foix and Gaston of Béarn to their lands.42 They were diminished even further when Peter II was defeated in battle by Simon de Montfort and killed on 12 September 1213.43 But Gaston of Béarn would not be at the battle of Muret; nor was he there in the spring of 1214, when Cardinal Peter of Benevento fulfilled his impressive task in rescuing the new king of Aragon, James, and receiving the submission to the Church of many of the major opponents of the crusade.44 Most probably at this stage Gaston was already sick and he died later in 1214.45 Gaston and Petronille had no children. The viscounty of Béarn thus fell to Gaston’s younger brother, Guillem Ramon de Montcada.

IV With Montfort in the ascendant, the king of Aragon dead, and the lords of the region in disarray, this was hardly an ideal moment for Guillem Ramon to come into his inheritance, especially when one remembers what had happened to the count of Toulouse, Raymond VI, on the suspicion 40 41 42 43

44

45

DPC, 3: 1482–88, nos 1448–52; PVC, 2: 85, ch. 389. PL, 216: 833–39, 843–44; PVC, 2: 87–95, chs 392–98. MDI, no. 505, pp. 546–50; PL, 216: 849; PVC, 2: 97–105, chs 400–11. See Alvira Cabrer, El Jueves de Muret; Alvira Cabrer, Muret 1213: La batalla decisiva de la cruzada contra los cátaros (Barcelona, 2008). HGL, 8, nos 172–75; Pascal Montaubin, ‘Une tentative pontificale de reprise en main du Midi: la légation du cardinal Pietro Beneventano en 1214–15’, in Innocent  III et le Midi (Toulouse, 2015), pp.  391–418; Damian  J. Smith, ‘Inocencio III, Pedro Beneventano y la historia de España’, Vergentis 2 (2016), 87–100. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, pp. 529–30, places Gaston’s death in 1215 but note Shideler, Montcadas, pp. 138–39, n. 105. See also Roquebert, L’Épopée Cathare, 1: 725, 791; Tucoo–Chala, La vicomté de Béarn, p. 52.

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of having helped to do to the legate Pierre de Castelnau that which nobody doubted Guillem Ramon de Montcada had done to Archbishop Berenguer de Vilademuls. While Cardinal Peter of Benevento was putting the affairs of Aragon in order, hasty alliances were being made to the north. In October 1214, a treaty of peace and friendship was agreed between Guillem Ramon de Montcada and his son, Guillem, with Count Sancho and Nuno Sanç of Roussillon,46 and another was agreed in November between Petronille of Bigorre and Guillem Ramon.47 Guillem de Cervera, one of the most powerful Catalan nobles and later a provincial master of the Templars, was also party to these treaties.48 Probably in early 1215, before Simon de Montfort could intervene, Petronille of Bigorre was married to Nuno Sanç, the son of Sancho, the new procurator in Aragon and the great-uncle of the new King James I, although the marriage was within the prohibited degrees.49 But it must have been or must have rapidly become evident to all that, with the crusade threatening, Guillem Ramon’s prospects in his viscounty would remain very dim until he was reconciled to the Church. Alongside the external threat of Montfort, he had the internal problem of gaining the approval of the bishop of Oloron and the Bearnois, who by no means took his succession for granted.50 On 10 September 1215, at a parliament at Huesca in Aragon, it was agreed that two ambassadors should be sent to the General Council to discuss business relating to the dead King Peter and matters concerning his successor. The Catalan Guillem de Cervera and the Aragonese Pedro Ahones were selected (Pedro Ahones would die a decade later in a conflict with the young king, thus sparking a civil war). They were to go alongside Bishop Hispan of Segorbe-Albarracín, who had already played a significant role in going to Rome to secure the recovery of King James from Montfort (Hispan died just days after the Lateran Council 46

47

48

49

50

ACA, C, Jaume  I, perg.  26; Ferran Soldevila, Els primers temps de Jaume  I (Barcelona, 1968), pp. 101–2 (misdated to 1215). Archives départementales des Pyrénées-Atlantiques (Pau), E 288; Shideler, Montcadas, p. 139, n. 107; Marca, Histoire de Béarn, pp. 535–36 (misdated to 1215). Gener Gonzalvo Bou, ‘Guillem  IV de Cervera, cavaller i monjo de Poblet’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 28 (1998), 405–18. HGL, 6: 498; Marca, Histoire de Béarn, pp. 822–23. ACA, C, Jaume I, perg. 26, may well anticipate the marriage taking place but it does not mention the marriage specifically (correcting Smith, Innocent III and the Crown of Aragon, p. 155, n. 68). Marca, Histoire de Béarn, pp. 534–35; Tucoo–Chala, La vicomté de Béarn, p. 53.

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finished).51 The procurator, Count Sancho, promised to pay all the expenses for the journey of the two nobles.52 The procurator did not pay for Guillem Ramon de Montcada, but he was going to Rome as well. On 20 September he demanded from his men in Vic a donation and a loan in order to undertake the journey.53 He may well have extorted some money from the church at Vic at the same time.54 On 27 September, Guillem Ramon promised to pay annually a gold morabetin to the nuns of Sant Pere de les Puelles in Barcelona for the aid of his soul and those of his parents.55 Probably that same day, Guillem Ramon borrowed money for his journey from Guasch de la Tor, a Gascon lender, which he guaranteed to pay on his return from Rome, and the next day from Poncio de Aleste ‘for this present journey which I am making to Rome’ (in hoc presenti uiatico quod facio Romam).56 Also on 29 September 1215, Guillem Ramon made his will at the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, ‘proceeding to the thresholds of the apostles Peter and Paul’, and made a number of donations (although not a vast number) to monasteries in Catalonia and Gascony, as well as the Templars and Hospitallers. As well as this, he left his lands to his son, Guillem, and provided for his mistress Navarra and her daughter, various other assorted children whom he had acquired along the way, and Guilleuma, whom he still described as his wife.57 There was plenty of time from late September for the envoys of the crown and Guillem Ramon to get to Rome for the entire council.58 It is not clear when the matter of the reconciliation of Guillem Ramon was 51

52 53

54

55 56 57

58

Colección de documentos inéditos del Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, ed. P. de Bofarull y Mascaró et al. (Barcelona, 1847–1910) [CDIACA], 6: 78–79, no. 10; Villanueva, Viage literario, 3: 37. CDIACA, 6: 78–79, no. 10. Jurisdiccions i privilegis de la ciutat de Vich, ed. Eduard Junyent i Subirà (Vic, 1969), p. 139, no. 76. Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium historiam illustrantia, ed. Augustin Theiner (Roma, 1863), p. 66, nos 95–96; MDI, p. 569, nos 540–41. ACA, C, Jaume I, perg. 50. ACA, C, Jaume I, perg. 51; C, Jaume I, carpeta 106, app. 2. AHN, Santes Creus, carpeta 2776, no. 14. Guillem Ramon stipulated that he was to be buried at Santes Creus or, if he died in Gascony, at Oloron cathedral. On the council, see Stephan Kuttner and Antonio García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, Traditio 20 (1964), 115–78; Brenda Bolton, ‘A Show with a Meaning: Innocent  III’s approach to the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215’, Medieval History 1 (1991), 53–67; Juan Francisco Rivera Recio, ‘Personajes hispanos asistentes en 1215 al IV Concilio de Letrán’, Hispania Sacra 4 (1951), 335–55.

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treated. Some of the decisions related to the county of Foix came after the council was over.59 The pope’s instructions concerning the governance of Aragon were dated in mid-January.60 We do not have the papal register for Innocent’s last year but we do know from the rubrics of Innocent’s lost register that Guillem Ramon was ordered by the pope to give satisfaction to the bishop of Vic, Guillem de Tavartet (who had himself in 1205 been accused at Rome by some of his own canons of many crimes), for damage done to the church and clergy of Vic. The archbishop of Tarragona, Espareg de la Barca, and Bishop Berenguer de Palou II of Barcelona were sent instructions to see that he did so.61 Guillem Ramon was back home in Vic on 7 February 1216.62 Given that Guillem Ramon had waited twenty-one years since the murder took place and he had finally chosen to go to Rome only when it was politically expedient, one might suspect that his motives were less than pure, but it was neither for Innocent III nor the cardinals nor indeed for any priest to guess in advance the extent of his sincerity. The pope assigned Nicholas of Tusculum to hear Guillem Ramon’s confession and he was advised concerning the proper penance by two other cardinals, Pelayo of Albano and Hugolino of Ostia.63 These were very important figures among the cardinals. Nicholas was fresh from his legation to England. So whatever friction may have existed between Nicholas and Innocent because of the pope’s sometimes foggy instructions or the legate’s independent

59 60

61

62

63

HGL, 8: 682, 684; Potthast, 5014, 5113. MDI, pp. 566–68, nos 537–38; Thomas N. Bisson, ‘The Finances of the Young James  I (1213–28)’, in Bisson, Medieval France and her Pyrenean Neighbours: Studies in early Institutional History (London, 1989), pp. 351–92 (p. 375, no. 1). Theiner, Vetera monumenta, p.  66, nos  95–96; MDI, p.  569, nos  540–41; Damian J. Smith, ‘A new letter of Innocent III from the archive of Vic shedding light on Cum Oporteat (X 5.1.19)’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen 50 (2008), 197–207. ACA, C, Jaume I, perg. 53. An agreement with Bernat Barutí concerning the 1000 Jacan sueldos Bernat had given apparently on Guillem Ramon’s behalf to Ponç Gascó. The agreement was drawn up by the priest Andreu, the scriptor of the town of Vic. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 559; VL, 19: 304. All three cardinals were certainly in Rome for the council, Nicholas having returned to Rome by April and Pelayo by June 1215 (Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: Die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz. III [Wien 1984], pp. 147–50).

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actions was presumably now a thing of the past.64 Pelayo of Albano, the one Spanish cardinal, was already tied to the affairs of the East and was now to embark on the most controversial phase of his career in the Fifth Crusade.65 Cardinal Hugolino would become Pope Gregory IX in 1227.66 The cardinals decided on the penance and Cardinal Nicholas gave Guillem Ramon a letter to carry to the archbishop and chapter of Tarragona.67 Guillem Ramon, on returning home, as soon as he was in sight of the city of Tarragona, was to get down from his horse, stripped to his waist and barefoot, with a noose around his neck, and holding rods in his hands, and at the porch of each church within the boundaries of the city, he was to be whipped by any priest. Finally, he was to go to the cathedral church, to the archbishop of Tarragona and to the chapter, humbly ask for pardon, do homage and concede annually from the revenues of his land twenty pounds. Moreover, having received the signum crucis from the hand of the pope, he was to go overseas with 200 knights and 30 crossbowmen and archers, all fully provided for, and spend with them five years in the Holy Land. For as long as he lived, he was to fast on bread and water on Fridays, and every year on the day on which he had committed the crime, fasting on bread and water, he was to provide for 100 paupers and give to each of them a woolen tunic. He was always to fast (though it is not specified this was to be on bread and water) the forty days before Christmas and on the Mondays and Wednesdays in Lent (unless he was fighting overseas on those days), until he had completed the Jerusalem journey. After this time, he was always to wear a hair shirt, unless when required by his wife to render the conjugal debt. His Monday and Wednesday fasts could be redeemed by providing for five paupers on those days. Other prelates could offer other remissions.68 Of course, if there were any doubt concerning the continuity of solemn public penance at the time the Church defined the rules for private

64

65

66

67 68

See Maleczek, Kardinalskolleg, pp. 147–50; Christopher Cheney, Innocent III and England (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 340–68. Maleczek, Kardinalskolleg, pp.  166–69; Demetrio Mansilla, ‘El cardenal hispano Pelayo Gaitán’, Anthologica Annua 1  (1953), 11–66; James Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade 1213–21 (Philadelphia, 1986). Maleczek, Kardinalskolleg, pp.  126–33; Ernst Brem, Papst Gregor  IX. bis zum Beginn seines Pontifikats: Ein biographischer Versuch (Heidelberg, 1911), pp. 4–24; Salvatore Sibilia, Gregorio IX (Milano, 1961), pp. 17–61. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 559; Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 304–5. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 559; Villanueva, Viage literario, 19: 304–5.

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penance, then Guillem Ramon would be a good example to show that it continued.69 His was in many ways a traditional penance. Guillem Ramon’s crime was notorious, so his penance had to be dramatically played out before the people of Tarragona. The financial settlement, the restitution to the church of Tarragona, would allow for a final peace. Fasting, particularly the forty-day fast, was the punishment most traditionally associated with solemn penance, and the extended period of this fasting was normal in the penitentials for major crimes.70 The hair shirt was the age-old sign of repentance and atonement.71 The crusade as penance for committing a serious crime (or being culpable in some way) was becoming quite common, and one might think of Henry II or Raymond VI, but here the whole letter is very close to the 1203 letter concerning the assassins of Bishop Conrad of Würzburg, where many of the very same punishments were assigned. Although the murderers of Conrad suffered possibly more in some senses – no bearing arms again except against the Saracens or in self-defense, no fancy clothing, no attendance of public spectacles, no remarrying after their current wives died – on the other hand they were only to be beaten in the cathedral itself and did not have to provide for the massive retinue that Guillem Ramon did for their four-year sojourn in the Holy Land.72 Here the cardinals must surely have considered Guillem Ramon’s status (they would not have seen his bank 69

70 71 72

There is no doubt, of course. See Mary  C. Mansfield, The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth–Century France (Ithaca, 1995), pp. 1–2; Rob Meens, Penance in Medieval Europe 600–1200 (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 215–16. Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, p. 26. Mansfield, Humiliation of Sinners, p. 170. Register, 6: 75–76, no.  51; PL, 215: 52–53; Atria Larson, Masters of Penance: Gratian and the Development of Penitential Thought and Law in the Twelfth Century (Washington DC, 2014), p.  478. On Henry  II’s reconciliation, see Anne Duggan, ‘Diplomacy, status and conscience: Henry  II’s Penance for Becket’s Murder’, in Forschungen zur Reichs–, Papst– und Landesgeschichte. Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen dargebracht, ed. Karl Borchardt, Enno Bünz (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 265–90. On Raymond VI’s reconciliation, see PVC, 1: 77–79, chs 77–78; PL, 216: 89–98. Another relevant case is that which came before Honorius III in 1217 concerning Archbishop Peter of Corbeil’s sentence of the prior and town officials of Saint-Ayoul to carry the body of a merchant who had been lynched by a mob in their town after he had murdered a citizen of Provins, along with his gallows, in procession to each cathedral church in the province of Sens (Pressutti, no. 288). My thanks to Dr Jessalynn Bird for this reference.

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balance!), and probably the length of time before his reconciliation, and almost certainly men of their great experience would have been aware of the political ramifications of his case.

V By early February, Guillem Ramon was back home.73 On 7 March 1216, Guillem Ramon was in Barcelona where he made a donation in favor of Pere Grony, one of the city’s most distinguished citizens.74 In April, Guillem Ramon was at Tarragona and paid to the archbishop and the chapter the first annual payment that he owed.75 It seems reasonable to think that at that time he would have performed the public penance stipulated in the letter from Nicholas of Tusculum which he carried. He did not actually fulfil his crusade vow and seven years later he admitted that, although he had received the mark of the true cross from the hand of the pope (assumpto charactere verae crucis de manu Domini Papae), he had not fulfilled the pilgrimage, with his men, which he had been supposed to undertake because of his many and grave excesses (pro gravibus et pluribus excessibus meis). By this stage ill, he gave substantial donations to the Hospitallers and the Templars by way of making amends.76 By that time, however, he had been in the wars again. As anticipated, in 1216 Simon de Montfort intervened and the church in Gascony annulled the marriage of Petronille of Bigorre and Nuno Sanç. Once that happened Montfort had Petronille married to his own youngest son, Guy de Montfort.77 This was all too much for Nuno Sanç and Guillem Ramon who took the attack to Montfort and successfully defended Lourdes in

73 74 75

76 77

ACA, C, Jaume I, perg. 53. Arxiu Capitular de Barcelona, 4–90–79. Arxiu Històric Arxidiocesà de Tarragona, Thesaurus sanctae metropolitanae ecclesiae Tarraconensis (1783), fol. 256v–57r. Marca, Histoire de Béarn, p. 561. HGL, 3: 295 and 6: 498; PVC, 2: 279, ch.  587; Guillaume de Puylaurens, Chronique 1145–1275, ed. Jean Duvernoy (Paris, 1976), ch. 24, p. 101; CCA, 2: 256–57 (laisse 180), n. 1; Catalogue des Actes de Simon et d’Amaury de Montfort, ed. Auguste Molinier (Paris, 1874), no.  136; Recueil des Actes des Comtes de Provence appartenant à la maison de Barcelone: Alphonse  II et Raimond Bérenger  V (1196–1245), ed. Fernand Benoit, 2  vols (Paris, 1925), 2: no.  22; Roquebert, L’Épopée Cathare, 1: 1029–31.

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November 1216.78 Guillem Ramon, having managed to stay out of trouble for nearly a year, was to be excommunicated again, along with Nuno, by Honorius III, writing to the archbishop of Auch and the cardinal legate Bertrand in November 1218, unless he came to his senses and gave fitting satisfaction.79 But their real quarrel was with Montfort and like a number of lords, including Nuno’s father the procurator Sanç, when Simon was killed, their quarrel with the crusade was over.80 So Guillem Ramon in his final years was again reconciled to the Church. He earned a good reputation among historians of the region of Béarn for his judicial and administrative reforms, and in his final will, arranging for the succession of his son, he was, not surprisingly, careful to involve local prelates in the task and see that his successor was at peace with the Church in the region and that he would also pay outstanding debts to the church at Tarragona.81 It was probably the case that already during Guillem Ramon de Montcada’s lifetime his assassination of the archbishop was associated with the death, famine and violence which had spread across Old Catalonia in the years following Archbishop Berenguer’s murder.82 It may also be the case that a legend had developed that the Montcada family was under some sort of curse because of his actions. Following the death of Guillem de Montcada (Guillem Ramon’s son) and Ramon de Montcada and then three other members of the family during the conquest of Majorca, James I of Aragon (whose autobiography was probably written down in the 1270s) recalled that another of their number, Count Hug d’Empúries, just before his own demise, declared that all of those who were of the lineage of the Montcada ‘would have to die there’.83 However, in the longer term, across the centuries, the story of Guillem Ramon’s murder of the archbishop became confused and conflated by various authors with the 78

79 80

81 82 83

Chanson, 2: 256; Demetrio Mansilla, La documentación pontificia de Honorio III (1216–27) (Roma, 1965), p. 154, no. 195; PVC, 2: 279, n. 5; Roquebert, L’Épopée Cathare, 1: 1031. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 154, no. 195. Count Sanç certainly stepped down from his procuratorship after Simon de Montfort’s death (Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, ed. Ambrosio Huici Miranda and María Desemparados Cabanes Pecourt, 5 vols [Zaragoza, 1976–82], 1: 45–48, no. 14). But Soldevila suggests Sanç may have already decided on this course because he had lost control of the king (Els primers temps, p. 150). Marca, Histoire de Béarn, 561; Shideler, Montcadas, pp. 146–47. Coll, La Llegenda de Guillem Ramon, p. 56. Llibre dels Fets del Rei En Jaume, ed. Jordi Bruguera, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1991), 2: 103, ch. 92: ‘E el comte d’Ampúries, quan viu la mort d’aquests .III. dix que tots aquels qui eren del liynatge de Muntcada hi haurien a murir’.

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story of the life of his grandfather, the great seneschal, Guillem Ramon de Montcada (d.  1173). The seneschal’s fictional part in the union of Aragon and Catalonia itself in 1137 and his actual part in the foundation of the great Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, were both to be made expiatory acts for the archbishop’s death (even though they occurred a lifetime before!).84 The chronicler Bernat Desclot, writing in the 1280s, described how Guillem Ramon de Montcada, the seneschal, had been exiled from the lands of Ramon Berenguer  IV (for reasons Desclot does not wish to mention) and went to Aragon and would, after the battle of Fraga and the death of Alfonso I of Aragon in 1134, arrange the marriage of the daughter of the monk-king Ramiro to the count of Barcelona.85 A little after this, however, in the Libre dels reis and then, in the fifteenth century, most influentially in Francesc’s Llibre de les nobleses dels reis, the reason for the seneschal Guillem Ramon de Montcada’s exile is explained as his assassination of Archbishop Berenguer de Vilademuls (the two Guillem Ramons having become confused), while the Cistercian Bernat Mallol, in his Compendium (c. 1430), went further and explained that after achieving the union of the kingdom of Aragon and the principate of Catalonia, the seneschal Guillem Ramon de Montcada had been moved to repent for the death of the archbishop, and, going to Rome, had been absolved by the pope who had given him the penance of building the great Cistercian house of Santes Creus.86 While later literature generously managed to give the assassin Guillem Ramon de Montcada a place in the story of the origins of the AragoneseCatalan union, from an early stage liturgy and art had guaranteed that his victim, Berenguer de Viladmuls, would be out of the limelight. As was the case across the Christian Iberian Peninsula, it was the cult of Becket which spread rapidly in Catalonia in the final years of the twelfth century.87 Bishop Bernat de Berga had consecrated an altar to Becket in the cathedral of Barcelona on 29 December 1186 and the endowment of a benefice

84 85 86

87

Coll i Allentorn, Llegenda de Guillem Ramon, pp. 61–136. Crònica de Bernat Desclot, 2: 15–18. Libre dels reis, ed. Stefano Cingolani (València, 2008), pp. 221–22; Francesc, Llibre de les nobleses dels reis, MS Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya, no. 487, fols  115v–116r, 117, 119r–120r; Bernat Mallol, Compendium, MS Tarragona, Biblioteca pública de Tarragona, no. 182. See Tomás Becket y la península ibérica (1170–1230), ed. Gregoria Cavero Domínguez, Etelvina Fernández González, Fernando Galván Freile, Ana Suárez González (León, 2013).

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there was confirmed by Clement III in May 1188.88 At the monastery of Ripoll, the feast of St Thomas was being celebrated from 1190.89 In his will of December 1194, Alfonso II of Aragon left to St Thomas of Canterbury a chalice and a thurible worth eight silver marks and a pyx worth one mark.90 At Santa Maria de Terrassa, the canons of Saint-Ruf, Becket’s great promoters, commissioned the Master of Espinelves to paint scenes of Thomas’s consecration, martyrdom and burial in the south transept apsidiole.91 The central depiction of Becket’s death by the sword, his head severed from his body, was a very powerful one. Did life imitate art when Guillem Ramon ran his sword through Archbishop Berenguer’s brain? Guillem Ramon could hardly have been unaware of Becket. The dating of the frescoes is uncertain, but the latest research suggests they were completed before 1194.92 They are about twenty kilometers north-west of Prat de Matabous, which is where the early thirteenth century chronicle says Guillem Ramon de Montcada killed the archbishop.93 What is certain is that little attempt was made by the Church in Catalonia to equate either Hug de Cervelló or Berenguer de Vilademuls with the English martyr. 88

89

90

91

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Arxiu Capitular de Barcelona, Libri Antiquitatum, 1, fol. 350, nos 999–1000 and 4, fol. 80, no. 215. Miquel Gros Pujol, ‘El Llibre de refeccions del monestir de Santa Maria de Ripoll’, Studia Monastica 46 (2004), 365–78 (at p.  368). The feast was also celebrated at Vic from an early stage. See Gros Pujol, ‘El Liber Consuetudinem Vicensis Ecclesie del canonge Andreu Salmúnia – Vic, Museu Episcopal, MS.  134 (LXXXIV)’, Miscel·lània litúrgica catalana 7  (1996), 175–294 (at pp. 204, 242). Alfonso  II Rey de Aragón, p.  813, no.  628. Alfonso also intended to establish lamps to Thomas as well as Santiago (p. 814). See Milagros Guàrdia, ‘Sant Tomàs Becket i el programa iconogràfic de les pintures murals de Santa Maria de Terrassa’, Locus Amoenus 4 (1998–99), 37–58; Carles Sánchez Márquez, ‘Becket o el martiri del millor home del rei. Les pintures de Santa Maria de Terrassa, la congregació de Sant Ruf i l’amonenat Mestre d’Espinelves’, in Pintar fa mil anys: els colors i l’ofici del pintor romànic, ed. Manuel Castiñeiras, Judit Verdaguer (Barcelona, 2014), pp.  87–106. The depiction of the Terrassa matyrdom can be found, among other places, at http://www.magistricataloniae.org/en/indexmceng/master/item/espinelves. html. On Terrassa and Saint Ruf, see Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, Saint-Ruf und Spanien: Studien zur Verbreitung und zum Wirken der Regular Kanoniker von Saint-Ruf in Avignon auf der Iberischen Halbinsel (11. und 12. Jahrhundert), 2 vols (Paris, 1992–96), 2: 583–660. Sánchez Márquez, ‘Becket’, p. 106. AHCB, ms. L–5, fol. 36v.

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Part III

The Baltic and the Iberian Peninsula

Chapter Eight Adding to the Multitude of Fish Pope Innocent III, Bishop Albert of Riga and the Conversion of the Indigenous Peoples of Livonia

Alan V. Murray

Introduction Of the many hundreds of senior clerics who attended the Fourth Lateran Council, among those who had travelled the greatest distance were Albert von Buxhövden, bishop of Livonia, and his suffragan Theoderic, titular bishop of Estonia. Given the huge attendance and the amount of business transacted at Rome in November 1215, it is possible that their presence would have remained either obscure or unknown, were it not for a report contained in the chronicle of the priest Henry of Livonia, written just over ten years after the council took place.1 Henry tells how at the council Albert and Theoderic ‘reported the troubles, the wars, and the affairs of the Livonian church to the supreme pontiff and to all the bishops. They all rejoiced together over the conversion of the heathen and likewise over the wars and the manifold triumphs

1

Henry of Livonia, Heinrichs Livländische Chronik (Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae), 2nd  edn, ed. Leonid Arbusow and Albert Bauer, MGH SRG  31 (Hannover, 1955). English translations from Henry’s chronicle in this essay are taken from: Henricus Lettus, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, trans. James Brundage, 2nd edn (New York, 2003). References cite chapter and section(s) as well as page numbers in order to facilitate comparisons between these two works as well as with a new edition with facing page translation into Italian: Enrico di Lettonia, Chronicon Livoniae: La crociata del Nord (1184–1227), ed. and trans. Piero Bugiani (Livorno, 2005). For the current state of research on Henry and his chronicle, see Crusading and Chronicle Writing: A Companion to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, ed. Marek Tamm, Linda Kaljundi, and Carsten Selch Jensen (Farnham, 2011).

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of the Christians’. The focus of Henry’s account then shifts to Bishop Albert alone, who is portrayed in a dialogue with the pope: The bishop spoke: ‘Holy Father’, he said, ‘as you have not ceased to cherish the Holy Land of Jerusalem, the country of the Son, with your Holiness’ care, so also you ought not to abandon Livonia, the land of the Mother, which has hitherto been among the pagans and far from the cares of your consolation and is now again desolate. For the Son loves His Mother and, as He would not care to lose His own land, so too, He would not care to endanger His Mother’s land.’ The supreme pontiff replied and said, ‘We shall always be careful to help with the paternal solicitude of our zeal the land of the Mother even as the land of the Son’.2

Henry’s account thus presents a picture of Bishop Albert at the centre of attention during one of the plenary sessions of the council, receiving a personal assurance from Innocent III about the papacy’s concern for the Livonian mission. While we might be sceptical about whether the scene played out in precisely the manner described by the chronicler, his words allow us to discern some of the arguments deployed by Bishop Albert in his bid to gain papal support for the young church of Livonia. The issue which is foregrounded is the idea that Livonia was the ‘land of the Mother’, which Henry’s account implies was accepted by the pope as having equal importance with the Holy Land, ‘the 2

HCL, XIX.7, ed., pp. 131–32: De concilio romano. Anno Dominice incarnationis MoCCoXVo celebratum est concilium in ecclesia Romana, presidente papa Innocencio, presentibus patriarchis et cardinalibus et episcopis quadringentis, abbatibus octingentis. Inter quos erat episcopus Lyvonensis Albertus cum Estiensi episcopo. Qui referebant tribulationes et bella et negocia Lyvonensis ecclesie summo pontifici, simul et omnibus episcopis. Et congaudebant omnes de conversione gencium, simul et de bellis et triumphis multiplicibus christianorum. Et ait episcopus: ‘Sicut’, inquit, ‘pater sancte, terram sanctam Ierosolimitanam, que est terra filii, sanctitatis tue studio fovere non desinis, sic Lyvoniam, que est terra matris, consolationum tuarum sollicitudinibus hactenus in gentibus dilatatam eciam hac vice desolatam derelinquere non debes. Diligit enim filius matrem suam, qui, sicut non vult terram suam perdi, sic nec vult terram matris utique periclitari’. Cui respondit summus pontifex et ait: ‘Sicut terram filii, sic et terram matris paterne sollicitudinis nostre studiis semper promovere curabimus. Et finito concilio remisit eos cum gaudio, renovata auctoritate predicandi et peregrinos remissionem peccatorum signandi, qui Lyvoniam secum proficescentes novellam ecclesiam a paganorum tuerentur insultibus’. The phrasing in the edition by Arbusow and Bauer clearly implies that the initial report at the Lateran Council was given by both bishops (referebant), although Brundage’s translation (‘the bishop reported’) implies that it was given by one only.

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land of the Son’. In fact, the idea of Livonia as terra matris was quite novel. In 1201 Albert had moved the seat of his bishopric from its original location inland at Üxküll (mod. Ikšķile, Latvia) to the newly built city of Riga, and dedicated not only the new cathedral, but ‘all of Livonia to Mary, the Blessed Mother of God’.3 The dedication of churches and monasteries to Mary was of course common throughout the Catholic West, but there was no particular association of the Virgin with Livonia as a whole, and Albert’s dedication simply seems like an astute move which was intended to increase the importance of the Livonian mission in the eyes of the wider church, and, as will be argued below, to seek support for the independence of his episcopal see. However, Henry’s account of the report given by Albert and Theoderic to the Lateran Council highlights a second propagandistic theme, namely the conversion of peoples (conversio gentium). In this essay, I would like to show how this idea was deployed by the bishopric of Riga in the years leading up to the Lateran Council in order to justify its conduct of the mission and to maintain the goodwill and support of the papacy.4

The Papacy and Livonia The see which was moved from Üxküll to Riga in 1201 was a missionary bishopric, established some fifteen years earlier with the aim of converting the pagan peoples of an area roughly equivalent to modern Latvia and Estonia. While Bishop Albert evidently wished to solicit support for Livonia to the extent that he placed its importance on par with the 3

4

HCL, VI.3, p. 17: … Albertus episcopus de Ykescola in Rigam tercio sue consecrationis anno transtulit et cathedralem episcopalem cum tota Lyvonia beatissime Dei genitricis Marie honori deputavit. The name terra beatae Virginis (or variants thereof ) occurs several times in the chronicle (HCL, XXV.2, p. 179; XXV.2, p. 181; XXV.4, p. 184; XXVI.2, p. 187) and the cult of Mary becomes a major theme within it. See Linda Kaljundi, ‘Livonia as a Mariological Periphery: A Comparative Look at Henry of Livonia’s Representations of the Mother of God’, in Livland – eine Region am Ende der Welt? Forschungen zum Verhältnis zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie im späten Mittelalter / Livonia – A Region at the End of the World? Studies on the Relations between Centre and Periphery in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Anti Selart and Matthias Thumser (Köln, 2017), pp. 431–60. Notwithstanding the spelling used by Arbusow and Bauer in their edition, the discussion that follows uses the more standard Latin forms gentes, gentium etc.

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recovery of the Holy Land, the papal perspective and priorities were rather different. Recent studies have emphasised that while Innocent III was supportive of the Baltic mission, he saw it as a lesser priority than the crusade to recover the Holy Land, and he tended to react to events and appeals rather than taking initiatives.5 The Gesta Innocentii Tertii contains one solitary reference to Livonia, relating to a report received by the curia from the archbishop of Lund in 1207. This report stated that ‘the whole of Livonia had been converted to the Christian faith, and no one remained there who had not accepted the sacrament of baptism’, and that ‘the neighbouring peoples were, for the most part, ready for this’.6 These few lines, which can only have been a summary of a much longer and more detailed report from the archbishop, are sandwiched between longer accounts dealing with the Cistercian Order and a social conflict among the people of the city of Todi. This single reference to Livonia reflects the essentially Roman perspective of the curia as depicted in the Gesta Innocentii and its concerns about the most pressing issues of the time: the security of the papal states, the disputes over the kingdom of Sicily and the Holy Roman empire, the recovery of the Holy Land, and relations with the Greek Orthodox church. It is thus a reasonably accurate reflection of the papacy’s view of the significance of the mission in the eastern Baltic lands, which had to compete with many other demands for attention and support during the pontificate of Innocent III. The report concerning Livonia in the Gesta Innocentii was sent by Anders Sunesen, archbishop of Lund and primate of both the Danish and Swedish realms.7 The existence and content of this report might give the impression that the Christianisation of Livonia was proceeding under the direction of 5

6

7

See especially Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147– 1254 (Leiden, 2007), pp.  79–31; Barbara Bombi, ‘Innocent  III and the Baltic Crusade after the Conquest of Constantinople’, in Crusading on the Edge: Ideas and Practice of Crusading in Iberia and the Baltic Region, 1100–1500, ed. Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen and Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt (Turnhout, 2016), pp. 117–33. ‘Gesta Innocentii’, in PL 214: 164: Interea venit ad ipsum relatio ex parte Lundensis archiepiscopi, quem legatum direxerat ad convertendos paganos, quod tota Livonia erat ad fidem Christi conversa, nullusque in ipsa remanserat qui non recepisset sacramentum baptismatis, vicinis gentibus ad hoc ipsum ex magna parte paratis. Translation from: The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author, trans. James M. Powell (Washington D.C., 2004), p. 235. Leonid Arbusow, ‘Ein verschollener Bericht des Erzbischofs Andreas von Lund aus dem Jahre 1207 über die Bekehrung Livlands’, Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Altertumskunde der Ostseeprovinzen Russlands (Riga, 1919), pp. 4–6.

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Livonia at the Time of the Fourth Lateran Council

the Danish church, but in fact the earliest missionary efforts had started under the initiative of Hartwig II von Uthlede, archbishop of HamburgBremen, around 1185.8 The first three bishops of Livonia were all Germans: Meinhard (d. 1196) and Berthold (d. 1198) came from the Augustinian 8

P. Peter Rebane, ‘From Fulco to Theoderic: The Changing Face of the Livonian Mission’, in Muinasaja loojangust omariikluse läveni: Pühendusteos Sulev Vahtre 75. sünnipäevaks, ed. Andres Andresen (Tartu, 2001), pp. 37–68, reprinted in The North-Eastern Frontiers of Medieval Europe: The Expansion of Latin Christendom in the Baltic Lands, ed. Alan V. Murray (Farnham, 2014), pp. 85–116; Carsten Selch Jensen, ‘The Nature of the Early Missionary Activities and Crusades in Livonia 1185–1201’, in Medieval Spirituality in Scandinavia and Europe: A Collection of Essays in Honour of Tore Nyberg, ed. Lars Bisgaard, Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen and John H. Lind (Odense, 2001), pp. 121–38.

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house at Segeberg and the Cistercian monastery of Loccum respectively; the third, Albert von Buxhövden, appointed in 1201, was a canon of Bremen.9 It was Bishop Albert who transformed the halting and hitherto fairly unsuccessful Livonian mission through new and energetic initiatives. The original episcopal seat situated inland at Üxküll was vulnerable to pagan attacks; by moving the see to Riga, close to the mouth of the River Düna (mod. Daugava/Dvina), Albert established a new principal missionary base that was easily accessible for large merchant ships from Lübeck, which increasingly brought crusaders and military equipment, as well as immigrant burgesses.10 To provide a permanent military force Albert and his colleague Theoderic, at that time abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Dünamünde (mod. Daugavgrīva, Latvia), founded a new military order on the model of the Templars in the form of the Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ in Livonia (Fratres Militiae Christi de Livonia), popularly known as the Sword Brethren after the insignia of the sword worn on their surcoats. Albert also regularly travelled to Germany to recruit crusaders who would come to fight in support of the Baltic mission, as well as priests and monks to serve as missionaries.11 Finally, his appointment in 1211 of 9

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For Meinhard, see Carsten Selch Jensen, ‘The Early Stage of Christianisation in Livonia in Modern Historical Writings and Contemporary Chronicles’, in Medieval History Writing and Crusading Ideology, ed. Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen and Kurt Villads Jensen (Helsinki, 2005), pp. 207–15. For Berthold of Loccum, see Bernd Ulrich Hucker, ‘Der Zisterzienserabt Bertold, Bischof von Livland, und der erste Livlandkreuzzug’, in Studien über die Anfänge der Mission in Livland, ed. Manfred Hellmann (Sigmaringen, 1989), pp. 39–64. Bernhard Jähnig, ‘Die Anfänge der Sakraltopographie von Riga’, in Studien über die Anfänge der Mission in Livland, pp. 123–58. For the role of Lübeck, see Carsten Selch Jensen, ‘Urban Life and the Crusades in Northern Germany and the Baltic Lands in the Early Thirteenth Century’, in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, 1150–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 75–93. Friedrich Benninghoven, Der Orden der Schwertbrüder: Fratres Milicie Christi de Livonia (Köln, 1965); Evalds Mugurēvics, ‘Die militärische Tätigkeit des Schwertbrüderordens (1201–36)’, in Das Kriegs­ wesen der Ritterorden im Mittelalter, ed. Zenon Hubert Nowak (Toruń, 1991), pp. 125–32; Mugurēvics, ‘The Military Activity of the Order of the Sword Brethren (1202–36)’, reprinted in The North-Eastern Frontiers of Medieval Europe, pp.  117–22; Barbara Bombi, ‘Innocent  III and the Origins of the Order of the Sword Brothers’, in The Military Orders, 3: History and Heritage, ed. Victor Mallia-Milanes (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 147–55. For a prosopographical study of missionaries in Livonia during this period, see: Alan V. Murray, ‘Catholic Missionaries in the Evangelization of Livonia, 1185–1227’, in Quis est qui ligno pugnat? Missionari ed evangelizzazione nell’Europa tardoantica e medievale (secc. IV–XIII) / Quis es

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Theoderic as bishop of Estonia, an area not yet under Christian control, was a clear signal of his determination to expand the church of Livonia into the pagan lands to the north.12 By this time both the Danish church and monarchy were beginning to show an interest in the eastern Baltic lands. In the course of the twelfth century the Danes had extended their control over the pagan Slavic territories along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, seizing control of Mecklenburg, the island of Rügen and much of Pomerania.13 Danish political and missionary ambitions were clearly directed east, as can be seen in events around the beginning of the thirteenth century. In 1191 and 1202 Danish expeditions were sent against Finland (the second of these being led by Anders Sunesen), while in 1210 King Valdemar II himself led a campaign into the Prussian territory of Samland.14 Since Denmark could deploy significant naval forces, the islands and coasts of Livonia and Estonia were another obvious objective for Danish mission and expansion. In January 1206 Archbishop Anders Sunesen obtained from the pope the right to ordain a bishop in any ‘city’ (civitas) that he might gain from the pagans.15 This formulation deserves some thought. At this time, the only place anywhere in the eastern Baltic lands that could be considered as a city was Riga, where the sole Livonian bishopric was already located. The word civitas in the papal privilege thus cannot have been intended as referring to any existing urban settlement. Rather, it is most likely to be understood in the sense of ‘bishopric’; the Danish archbishop was being given authority to establish a new bishopric

12 13

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qui ligno pugnat? Missionaries and Evangelization in Late Antique and Medieval Europe (4th-13th Centuries), ed. Emanuele Piazza (Verona, 2016), pp. 353–66. HCL, XV.4, p. 92. Ane Bysted, Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen and John  H. Lind, Jerusalem in the North: Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522 (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 59–88; Jens E. Olesen, ‘A Danish Medieval “Empire” in the Baltic (1168–1227)’, in The Norwegian Domination and the Norse World c.  1100 – c. 1400, ed. Steinmar Imsen (Trondheim, 2010), pp. 263–89. Bysted, Jensen, Jensen and Lind, Jerusalem in the North, pp.  145–55; Stella Maria Szacherska, ‘Valdemar II’s Expedition to Pruthenia and the Mission of Bishop Christian’, Mediaeval Scandinavia 12 (1988), 44–75. Diplomatarium Danicum, ed. Niels Skyum-Nielsen et al. (København, 1957-), 1/4, no. 109: ut in ciuitate quam paganorum eliminata spurcicia Christo iuuante poteris ad cultum fidei christiane redigere. catholicum ualeas episcopum ordinare; Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, ‘The Missionary Man: Archbishop Anders Sunesen and the Baltic Crusade, 1206–21’, in Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier, pp. 95–118.

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in any territory which could be taken from pagan control. It is difficult to know how well the curia understood the geography of the eastern Baltic lands, and it might have been the case that the pope thought of the Danes and Germans as operating in quite distinct areas. Yet in effect, the pope was granting the Danes permission to compete with the existing German mission in the eastern Baltic region, if they chose to do so; and choose they did. The same year King Valdemar II of Denmark landed with an army on the island of Ösel (mod. Saaremaa, Estonia), which was the westernmost territory inhabited by pagan Estonians. He was accompanied by Anders Sunesen and other Danish bishops. This attack may have been an attempt to extinguish the bases of pirates who for years had carried out naval raids against the coasts and islands of the Danish realm (and elsewhere), but the island also constituted a potential base for expansion onto the mainland of Estonia.16 The Danish forces were able to subdue the inhabitants of the island and build a fort. At this point the campaign looked like the beginning of a permanent Danish occupation of Ösel but when King Valdemar decided to return home to attend to other matters, he could not persuade any of his followers to remain on the island and ordered that the fort should be destroyed. While the royal forces returned to Denmark, Anders Sunesen travelled to Riga, where he spent the winter of 1206–7, bringing both material and spiritual comfort to the Christians there in the form of food supplies and theological instruction and lectures. It must have been towards the end of his stay in Riga that Anders Sunesen sent the pope his report on the state of the mission in Livonia.17 Bishop Albert was absent from Livonia during this period, on a campaign to recruit crusaders in northern Germany. During this time Riga seems to have been left under the authority of his brother, Engelbert, provost of the cathedral chapter, who was responsible for the reception of the Danish archbishop. Albert must have been concerned, if not worried, by the intrusion of the head of a different church province into the ecclesiastical affairs of Riga, especially in the light of developments which followed. In 1211, he appointed Theoderic, then abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Dünamünde, as bishop of Estonia. Apart from the Danish landing on Ösel, scarcely any efforts had been made to convert the Estonian tribes at this point. It looks as if the appointment of Theoderic 16

17

For seaborne raids by the Estonians of Ösel against Denmark, Sweden and Christian Livonia, see HCL, VII.1, pp. 18–19, XIV.12, pp. 86–87, XV.3, p. 89, XVIII.8, p. 121, XIX.1–2, pp. 122–23, XIX.5, pp. 127–28, XXX.1, pp. 215–16. Nielsen, ‘The Missionary Man’, pp. 103–10; Ane Bysted, Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen and John H. Lind, Jerusalem in the North: Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522 (Turnhout, 2012), pp. 195–97.

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was an attempt to stake out Estonia as missionary territory for Riga, a move which was intended to rebuff any designs of the Danes there, but it also enhanced the status of Albert by providing him with his first suffragan bishop. Albert was evidently hoping to have the bishopric of Riga raised to the status of a metropolitan see, so that with a rank equal to both Lund and Hamburg-Bremen, it would be able to acquire autonomy and sole responsibility for the church and mission in Livonia. The time for such a move was opportune. When Archbishop Hartwig died in 1207, a majority of the canons of Bremen elected as his successor Waldemar, bishop of Schleswig, who in 1192 had made an unsuccessful attempt to become archbishop with the support of Emperor Henry VI and an imperialist party among the clerics and burgesses of Bremen. Now Pope Innocent refused to confirm his election, and a minority of the canons decamped to Hamburg, where they and the local cathedral chapter elected the provost of Bremen, Burchard von Stumpenhausen, leaving the see in a state of schism. Burchard was invested as archbishop in Hamburg by the king of Denmark, but Waldemar had the support of the people of Bremen and remained in control of the city. In 1210 the king withdrew his support for Burchard, who resigned voluntarily and joined with a number of his fellow clerics to elect Gerhard, the bishop of Osnabrück, who was immediately recognised by Innocent. Nevertheless, the dispute was not fully resolved until 1217 when Waldemar was finally expelled from Bremen.18 It was probably because of the paralysis affecting the archbishopric that in 1213–14 Albert was able to obtain letters stating that the bishopric of Estonia, and then the church of Riga itself, were to exempted from the authority of any metropolitan see.19 Yet despite these important privileges, Albert had good reason to fear the ambitions of the Danish church, which was backed by a king with military and naval resources far superior to the relatively small numbers of episcopal vassals, Sword Brethren and seasonal crusaders available to the church of Riga. In 1212 Anders Sunesen gained additional privileges from the pope in the work of converting the pagans in the countries bordering Denmark and Sweden, and the following year, the more specific right to appoint a bishop in Saccalia and Ugaunia. These were areas of southern Estonia inhabited by pagans, but they were situated directly to the north of the Livonian territory 18

19

‘Annales Stadenses’, in MGH SS 16: 271‒379 (here 354‒56); Günter Glaeske, Die Erzbischöfe von Hamburg-Bremen als Reichsfürsten (937‒1258) (Hildesheim, 1962), p. 197‒200, 207‒16. Bishop Waldemar was an illegitimate son of King Knud  V of Denmark, and evidently cherished claims to all or part of the Danish realm, which would explain why he was not supported by his kinsman and namesake Valdemar II. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, pp. 85, 124–25.

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already Christianised by the Germans. The church of Riga was planning to expand its conquests and preaching missions into precisely this region, and so the papal privilege of 1213 represented a challenge and potential obstacle to the ecclesiastical and political expansion of the bishopric of Riga.20 The appearance of Albert of Riga at the Fourth Lateran Council is portrayed by his propagandist Henry of Livonia as a triumph in which the bishop secured the goodwill and support of the papacy for the young Livonian mission. Yet it is obvious that in the preceding years the ecclesiastical and political authority of the bishop of Riga was being progressively challenged by the Danish church, which clearly enjoyed the support of Innocent III.21 I would argue that it was because of this burgeoning rivalry that from the time of the Danish invasion of Ösel, Albert intensified his appeals and propaganda to the papacy with the aim of retaining papal support, using themes which were particularly designed to appeal to Innocent’s theological understanding.

The Conversion of Peoples In one of Innocent’s first letters concerning the Baltic region, dated 5 October 1199, he had offered a remission of sins to any of the faithful of Saxony and Westphalia who were prepared to go and fight for the Livonian church. He started by recounting the deeds of the first bishop, Meinhard. During his ten-year episcopate Meinhard had made only a few converts among the Livs of the Düna region, yet Innocent puts a very positive gloss on his activity, stating that ‘after entering the province of Livonia, he cast his nets in order to make a catch in the word of the Lord among the barbarous peoples’ there.22 This allusion is of course a reference 20 21

22

Nielsen, ‘The Missionary Man’, pp. 111–13. Other factors may have been involved in Innocent’s support for the Danish church. Albert had been a canon of Hamburg-Bremen, an archbishopric which had often aligned itself with the papacy’s imperial opponents. Anders Sunesen had studied at Bologna and Paris, a career which resembled Innocent’s own, and was a respected theologian and jurist. It is possible that he was personally known to Innocent, who had also studied in Paris around the same time. On the relationship between the two, see Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, ‘Archbishop Andrew Sunesen and Pope Innocent  III ‒ Papal Privileges and Episcopal Virtues’, in Absalon and His World, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen and Inge SkovgaardPetersen (Copenhagen, 2000), p. 113‒32. Register 2: 348–9, no.  182 (191): Accepimus enim quod, cum bone memorie M(einardus), episcopus Liuonensis, fuisset provinciam Liuonensem ingressus, in verbo laxans predicationis sue retia in capturam inter populos barbaros; Barbara

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to the story of the ‘miraculous draught of fishes’ in Luke 5.1–11, in which Christ told the fisherman Simon Peter to cast down his nets for a catch: Now when he had ceased to speak, he said to Simon: ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught’. And Simon answering said to him: ‘Master, we have laboured all the night and have taken nothing: but at thy word I will let down the net’. And when they had done this, they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes: and their net broke. And they beckoned to their partners that were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking. Which when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying: ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’. For he was wholly astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken (Luke 5.4).23

This biblical passage evidently appealed greatly to Pope Innocent. It offered theological support for Petrine primacy, but it also provided a prefiguration of events he saw unfolding in his own time. For the pope, the fishes represented different peoples such as the barbaros populos of Livonia mentioned in his letter. Six years later, he gave a more elaborate exegesis of the same biblical text in a letter of 21 January 1205 sent to the clergy of the Latin empire of Constantinople, established after the capture of the Byzantine capital by the Fourth Crusade the previous year. At first the pope had been horrified by the turn of events which had seen a crusade originally intended to attack Egypt perverted and directed against a Christian ally, but gradually he came to accept that this outcome should be regarded as an act of divine providence which offered the prospect of the union of the Greek and Roman churches.24 In this letter Innocent identified the boat of

23

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Bombi, ‘Innocent  III and the praedicatio to the Heathens in Livonia (1198– 1204)’, in Medieval History Writing and Crusading Ideology, pp. 232–41. Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber et al., 3rd edn, ed. Bonifatius Fischer et al. (Stuttgart, 1983), p. 1614: Ut cessavit autem loqui dixit ad Simonem duc in altum et laxate retia vestra in capturam et respondens Simon dixit illi praeceptor per totam laborantes nihil cepimus in verbo autem laxabo rete et cum hoc fecissent conluserunt piscium multitudinem copiosam rumpebatur autem rete eorum et annuerunt sociis qui erant in alia navi ut venirent et adiuvarent eos et venerunt et impleverunt ambas naviculas ita ut mergentur. Quod cum videret Simon Petrus procidit ad genua Iesu dicens exi a me quia homo peccator sum Domine stupor enim circumdederat eum et omnes qui cum illo erant in captura piscium quam ceperant. The English version cited above is taken from the Douay-Rheims translation. John  C. Moore, Pope Innocent  III (1160/61–1216): To Root Up and to Plant (Leiden, 2003), pp. 136–41; Bombi, ‘Innocent III and the Baltic Crusade after the Capture of Constantinople’, pp. 127–31.

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Simon Peter with the Roman church, ‘which was the successor of St Peter’ (Navis ergo Simonis est ecclesia Petri, quia catholica ecclesia una est), and the other boat with the Greek church, which had alienated itself from ‘the unity of the universal church’ (Alia navis erat Grecorum ecclesia, que fecit se aliam, cum ab unitate universalis ecclesie se alienare presumpsit). Innocent contrasted the efforts of the two churches in casting their nets for fish, stressing how the Roman church had met with success in its endeavours: Although my predecessors have toiled greatly they have taken virtually nothing. But where I have let down the net at the word of the Lord, my brothers and I have enclosed a great multitude of fish: in Livonia, by converting pagans through preachers sent there for the faith; in Bulgaria and Vlachia, by leading divided peoples back into unity; in Armenia, by seeking out those long-lost peoples through dispatching legates to them.25

Here Innocent was signalling how his own pontificate had been far more fruitful in bringing pagans and schismatics into the Catholic fold than those of his predecessors. In this respect, he saw the success of the mission in Livonia as a parallel development to negotiations with the church of Armenia and the Bulgarian Tsar Johanitsa (Kalojan), who ruled over a resurgent empire of Bulgarians and Vlachs to the north and west of the new Latin empire of Constantinople. We can gain an impression of the subject-matter of correspondence between the church of Riga and the curia from some of the surviving letters which Innocent sent to Livonia, Germany and Scandinavia.26 A letter of October 1199 describes the ‘province of Livonia’ (provincia Livonensis), which was inhabited by ‘barbarous peoples’ (populos barbaros). Another letter sent on 12 October 1204 to the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen reports more specifically about the work of preaching among the gens Livonum, that is the Livish race or people.27 The Livs were the first ethnic group with which 25

26

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Register 7: 354–59, no. 203: … licet predecessores mei plurimum laborarint, ipsi tamen pene penitus nichil ceperint, sed ubi ego in verbo Dei laxavi rete, conclusimus ego et fratres mei piscium multitudinem copiosam, sive in Liuonia convertendo paganos per predicatores illuc directos ad fidem, sive in Bulgaria et Blachia reducendo divisos ad unitatem, seu etiam in Armenia requirendo diutius direlictos per legatos ad hos populos destinatos. Translation given in Moore, Pope Innocent III, pp. 136–39. Letters and embassies from Livonia to the Curia are dealt with in more detail by Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, pp. 113–17, and Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Riga and Rome: Henry of Livonia and the Papal Curia’, in Crusading and Chronicle Writing, pp. 209–27 (here 212–18). Not all papal letters were enregistered, and it is likely that those which survived in the registers only represent a small proportion of the total. Register 7: 226, no. 139.

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the mission had come into contact. They spoke a Finno-Ugric language, and were thus culturally distinct from the various Lettish tribes to their east and south, whose dialects belonged to the Baltic language group. In modern times, the Livs have dwindled to extinction as a distinct ethnicity, but in the early thirteenth century they inhabited most of western Livonia between the rivers Düna and Salis (mod. Salaca), particularly the areas around the two missionary centres of Üxküll and Riga. Up to the point that the Danes invaded Ösel in 1206, the only converts to Christianity were to be found among the Livs located along the lower Düna, but from this time the mission based at Riga began to reach out to other peoples, as reported in some detail by the chronicler Henry, who probably arrived in Livonia around this time.28 The historian Paul Johansen concluded that Henry’s chronicle was written in two stages between 1225 and 1227 at the instigation of William, bishop of Modena, whom Henry had served as interpreter during the latter’s visit to Livonia as papal legate in 1225‒28.29 However, it is quite likely that Henry was writing reports about the mission for the curia long before this. The chronicle describes its author variously as an interpreter (interpres), priest (sacerdos, minister) and scholar (scolaris). The first two roles are easily understood, since the text gives specific examples of Henry’s activities in them. The meaning of scolaris is less clear.30 It may have meant a person who was training for the priesthood, but it is equally possible that it meant a scholar in the sense of one who had acquired learning.31 And one can gain a sense of that learning from the contents of Henry’s chronicle itself. Historians have remarked on its wealth of information on the native peoples of the region. Henry had a real interest in the indigenous population, giving important information on the areas occupied by each group, and their customs and religious beliefs. His knowledge of at least some of the languages used in Livonia and Estonia can be deduced not only from his description of himself as interpreter, but also from some two dozen words and phrases of Livish, Lettish and Estonian origin which he quotes at various points in the chronicle.32 28

29 30 31

32

Paul Johansen, ‘Die Chronik als Biographie: Heinrich von Lettlands Lebensgang und Weltanschauung’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas n.s. 1 (1953), 1–24. Johansen, ‘Die Chronik als Biographie’, pp. 9–18. HCL, XI.7, p. 62, XVI.3, p. 107, XVII.6, p. 114, XXIV.1, p. 169. This distinction could be better expressed in German: Henry was not ein Schüler, but ein Gelehrter. Leonid Arbusow, ‘Das entlehnte Sprachgut in Heinrichs Chronicon Livoniae: Ein Beitrag zur Sprache mittelalterlicher Chronistik’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 8 (1951), 100–53 (here 145–51); Thierry Canava, ‘Les peuples fenniques dans la chronique de Henri le Letton’, Etudes finno-ougriennes 26 (1994), 99–119; Jüri Kivimäe, ‘Henricus the Ethnographer: Reflections on

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The parts of the chronicle dealing with the years 1206–7 place a stress on how missionaries went out from Riga and its environs in order to convert neighbouring districts. The section headings in the main surviving manuscript (the Codex Zamoscianus) signal a rapid progression of the conversion of the Livs (X.13: De baptismo Lyvonum), the Wends (X.14: De baptismo Wendorum), the Idumeans (X.15: De baptismo Ydumeorum) and the Letts (XI.1: De baptismo Lettorum).33 The accompanying narrative describes how a missionary named Daniel first preached the Christian faith to the Livish and Lettish populations along the River Düna and then in the district of Treiden (Latv. Tureida) to the north.34 Thereafter he proceeded north-east where he encountered a people whom the chronicle calls the Wendi, a Latin ethnonym usually translated in English as Wends.35 Henry states that the Wends were a small people who had originally lived on the coast of Curonia but had been driven away by their enemies. After spending some time at the site where the city of Riga was later constructed, they took refuge among the Lettish population, where they settled at a third location, a hill in what is now the town of Cēsis in northern Latvia. Their settlement there came to be known in German as Wenden, a toponym which is a German form deriving from the name of these inhabitants.36 The precise ethnicity of the Wends has been much debated by historians, but irrespective of their origins, they were regarded as having retained an identity distinct from their neighbours.37 Henry makes a distinction between Wendi and Letti

33 34 35 36

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Ethnicity in the Chronicle of Livonia’, in Crusading and Chronicle Writing, pp.  77–106; Alan  V. Murray, ‘Henry the Interpreter: Language, Orality and Communication in the Thirteenth-Century Livonian Mission’, in Crusading and Chronicle Writing, pp. 107–34; Murray, ‘Eesti keel Henriku kroonikas: Suulisus ja suhtlus XIII sajandi Liivimaa misjonis’, Keel ja Kirjandus 8–9 (2009), 559–72. These section headings are not reproduced in Brundage’s translation. HCL, X.14, pp. 44–45. HCL, X.14, pp. 45–46. For the site see Bernhart Jähnig, ‘Die Anfänge der Sakraltopographie von Riga’, in Studien über die Anfänge der Mission in Livland, pp. 123–58. I have previously argued that the Wends were a relict population of Slavs who had migrated from the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, which would explain why Henry had a particular interest in them. He probably came from the area of Magdeburg, and the regions east of this city were the focus of sustained immigration from Saxony, Frisia and Flanders, but there still remained substantial Slavic-speaking populations there, with whom Henry must have been familiar. See Alan V. Murray, ‘Henry of Livonia and the Wends of the Eastern Baltic: Ethnography and Biography in the Thirteenth-Century Livonian Mission’, Studi Medievali 54 (2013), 807–33, and other works cited there.

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even though the two groups are shown as living in proximity at Wenden.38 Even at the end of the thirteenth century the militia from Wenden served in the forces of the Teutonic Order under its own distinctive banner.39 The settlement at Wenden appears to have been the only part of Livonia to be inhabited by the Wends, who thus must have been greatly outnumbered by the Livs and Letts of the surrounding areas.40 Yet despite their tiny numbers, because they were recognised as a distinct ethnicity, they were important to the propaganda of the mission because they could be counted as another complete people which had been converted. The next group mentioned by Henry are the Idumeans. The geographical name written by him as Ydumea or Idumea may have been influenced by the Latin name for the biblical region of Edom in Palestine, but this is a coincidence, since it derives from a Finno-Ugric (probably Livish) form Idamaa, meaning ‘eastern country’ and referring to a region which was inhabited by both Livs and Letts as well as the much smaller Wendish population.41 Henry reports that after converting the Wends, the priest Daniel ‘was sent to the Idumeans where he baptized a great many, both Letts and Idumeans’.42 Thus Henry regarded Idumea as being populated predominantly by two ethnic groups which he calls Letts and Idumeans respectively. This usage suggests that he was using the latter term to denote the Livish-speaking inhabitants, who, as the name of the region indicates, were probably its original population. However, he evidently wished to differentiate the Livs of Idumea from the Livs in the lower Düna region, who had converted some years before, and we find phrasing elsewhere in

38

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40

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HCL, XXIX.3, p.  210: Et inde procedens in Wenden a fratribus milicie et ab aliis Theuthonicis ibidem habitantibus devotissime receptus est, et invenit ibi Wendorum et Lettorum maximam multitudinem. Livländische Reimchronik, ed. Leo Meyer (Paderborn, 1876), lines 9219–29: Von Wenden was zû Rîge komen / zûr lantwer, als ich hân vernomen, / ein brûder und wol hundert man: / den wart daz mêre kunt getân. / die quâmen hovellîchen dar / mit einer banier rôt gevar, / daz was mit wîze durch gesniten / hûte nâch wendischen siten. Evald Tõnisson, Die Gauja-Liven und ihre materielle Kultur (11. Jh. – Anfang 13. Jhs.): Ein Beitrag zur ostbaltischen Frühgeschichte (Tallinn, 1974). Heinrich Laakmann, ‘Estland und Livland in frühgeschichtlicher Zeit’, in Baltische Lande, 1: Ostbaltische Frühzeit, ed. Albert Brackmann and Carl Engel (Leipzig, 1939), p. 207; Tõnisson, Die Gauja-Liven und ihre materielle Kultur; Kivimäe, ‘Henricus the Ethnographer’, pp. 88–89; Enrico di Lettonia, Chronicon Livoniae, p. 86 n. HCL, X.15, p. 46: De baptismo Ydumeorum. Postea autem ad Ydumeos missus, quam plures ibidem et Leththos et Ydumeos baptizans …

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the chronicle which supports this distinction.43 The subsequent account deals with the conversion of the Letts, who were a more numerous ethnic group and divided among several tribes, and it is clear that their conversion was more gradual and slower than those of the Wends and Idumeans. However, by identifying and describing the Livs of the coast as well as the Wends, Idumeans and Letts as distinct ethnicities, Henry can count four separate peoples who had been converted by 1208. This approach could be deployed in a way that would appeal to Pope Innocent’s aspiration to bring diverse peoples into the fold of the Roman church. One can see this aim reflected in one of the rare surviving communications from Innocent III concerning Livonia. On 31 January 1208, the pope sent a general letter addressed to the archbishops, bishops and prelates of Germany, urging them to provide support for the church in Livonia. This letter was not recorded in the papal registers, but its second half tells how the bishop of Livonia had reported the conversion of ‘all of Livonia, the Idumeans, the Wends and almost half of the Letts’ (totam omnino Livoniam, Idumeos et Wendos cum media pene parte Lettorum).44 The information given here is very similar, if less detailed, than that 43

44

HCL, XXII.4, p. 151: Et sequenti die transita Coywa processit ad regem Nogardie nec non et ad patrem suum in Ydumea et terram Lettorum et Ydumeorum et Lyvonum …; XVII.4, p. 113: Woldemarus, advocatus Ydumeorum et Lettorum. Published as an appendix to Hermann [Freiherr] von Bruiningk, ‘Die Frage der Verehrung der ersten livländischen Bischöfe als Heilige’, Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Alterthumskunde der Ostseeprovinzen Russlands for 1902 (1903), 3–36: … Venerabilis frater noster episcopus Livoniensis et alii, quos cum ipso in Cristi evangelium segregavimus, totam omnino Livoniam, Idumeos et Wendos cum media pene parte Lettorum, ubi nondum, ut dicitur, auditum fuerat nomen eius, ad fidem Domini Jhesu Cristi, cooperante ipso, prout gaudentes accepimus, converterunt. Quia igitur noviter ibi propagata religio fraterna est in Domino caritate fovenda, presertim cum a barbaris circumstantibus usque adeo molestetur, quod duo de conversis ad Dominum pro causa fidei de immanibus tormentis eorum ad palmam martirii pervenisse credantur, universitatem vestram monemus et exhortamur attencius, per apostolica vobis scripta precipiendo mandantes, quatenus apud diocesanos vestros per sedule diligenciam exhortacionis instetis, ut in remissionem peccatorum suorum ad edificandum ibidem ecclesias et Cristi pauperes sustendandos helemosinarum suffragia largiantur, et contra persecutores fidei fidelibus tribuant auxilium oportunum, clericos quoque ac monachos moneatis, ut in libris et aliis ecclesiasticis ornamentis, seu eciam quibuscumque necessitatibus, novelle plantacioni studeant subvenire, mandatum nostrum taliter impleturi, quod cum nove regeneracionis infanciam beneficiis vestris in fide Cristi Jhesu concurritis solidare, retribucionis eorum efficiamini, qui eam in Cristo parturiere, participes, et religiosos nos esse probetis eiusdem fidei zelatores.

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contained in the letter of the archbishop of Lund recorded in the Gesta Innocentii Tertii. However, the identification of the bishop of Livonia as the source of this information makes it clear that it was Albert von Buxhövden, rather than Anders Sunesen, who had provided the detail to which the pope was responding. This reveals that Albert was not prepared to allow the Danish archbishop to take credit for the successes of the mission, but was determined to provide his own explanation for the course of conversion. In the letter, the phrase ‘all of Livonia’ (omnino Livonia) seems to be used of the Livs in the narrower sense which excludes the Idumeans, and is followed by the names of three peoples also described by Henry, showing a high degree of correspondence which indicates that Innocent was responding to a relatively detailed report sent to the curia by Bishop Albert. The conversion of different tribes brought significant advantages to the church of Riga. It extended the territory under Christian control, and new strongholds could be established there to be held by garrisons of the Sword Brethren. As each heathen tribe accepted the Christian faith, it was obliged to provide military service, known in Latin by the Livish word malewa.45 This strategy vastly increased the military forces available to the Christian powers. However, the conversions of 1206–7 also provided a propagandistic boost which served the wider interests of the church of Riga in its attempts to retain the engagement and support of the papacy. Alongside the idea of Livonia as the ‘land of the Mother’, Henry’s account of Bishop Albert of Riga’s appearance at the Lateran Council highlights the importance of the conversio gentium on the periphery of Christendom. By the end of the twelfth century the basic meaning of the word gentes as ‘peoples’ or ‘races’ had received a new impetus deriving from its biblical usage for the ‘gentile’ peoples who figured in the Old Testament as enemies of the Israelites. Pope Urban II applied the term gentes to the Turks and other Muslims of the Near East from whom he intended the First Crusade to free Jerusalem and the Holy Land. For example, according to Baldric of Dol at the Council of Clermont he quoted Psalm 78.1, Deus venerunt gentes in hereditatem tuam / polluerunt templum sanctum tuum.46 45

46

Alan V. Murray, ‘The Sword Brothers at War: Some Observations on the Military Activity of the Knighthood of Christ in the Conquest of Livonia and Estonia’, Ordines Militares: Yearbook for the Study of the Military Orders 18 (2013), 27–38. Baldric of Dol, ‘Baldrici episcopi Dolensis Historia Jerosolimitana’, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 5 vols (Paris, 1844–95), 4: 1–111 (here 14). Psalm 78 came to figure in the liturgy of crusade appeals more than any other Psalm: Amnon Linder, Raising Arms: Liturgy in the Struggle to Liberate Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2003) [references listed at p. 407].

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Henry’s own use of Bible quotations repeatedly draws explicit comparisons between the struggle of the church and crusaders in Livonia and the wars fought by the Israelites (especially the Maccabees) against the Philistines and other gentile peoples.47 It was logical for chroniclers and theologians to extend the term gentes to the Baltic region, but with a significant difference. The Muslims of the Near East were regarded as inveterate enemies of Christendom, who had to be driven out of the Holy Land; the pagans of the Baltic region were to be combatted, but with the aim of bringing them into the fold of Christianity. Yet while Henry’s understanding of the Bible reveals that he found Old Testament prefigurations of events in his own time, his chronicle also shows a real interest in the peoples of the region, not simply as an undifferentiated mass of pagans to be converted, but as individual ethnicities with their own languages and cultures. Finally, we should note that the correspondence of Innocent III, in particular his exegesis of Luke 5.1–10, uses the term ‘peoples’ (populi) rather than ‘races’ (gentes). A possible reason for this choice of vocabulary is that gentes was normally used only of Muslims or pagans, whereas the more neutral populi could be applied to schismatic Christians as well, allowing the pope to paint a picture of quite diverse peoples being brought into the fold of the Roman church, from the Christian Armenians, Bulgarians and Vlachs to the pagans of Livonia. I suggest that the chronicle of Henry of Livonia reflects the attempts of Bishop Albert and the German mission at Riga to demonstrate their success in converting more of the ‘barbarian peoples’ on the northern periphery of Christendom. The first twenty years of the mission had managed to convert only the Livs of the Düna basin, but Henry tried to make the most of the spurt of missionary activity which occurred in the years immediately following the appointment of Albert von Buxhövden as bishop. Henry’s identification of the Idumeans as a distinct people was perhaps disingenuous, since their territory was inhabited by speakers of the Livish and Lettish languages. Similarly, the numerical strength of the Wends was only a fraction of those of the other indigenous peoples. Yet, once the Idumeans and Wends had been brought into the fold Henry could look forward to the conversion of the different Lettish tribes, which would vastly increase the numbers of neophytes in Livonia. Both Bishop Albert’s despatches and the narrative of Henry’s chronicle could claim that by the time of the Lateran Council, the conversion of the Wends, Idumeans and half of the Letts represented three more fishes which the missionaries of Livonia had succeeded in hauling into the ship of St Peter, and which thus could be presented as a significant success of the mission on Christendom’s northern periphery. 47

Jan Undusk, ‘Sacred History, Profane History: Uses of the Bible in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia’, in Crusade and Chronicle Writing, pp. 45–76.

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Chapter Nine The Virgin at the Lateran – The Baltic Crusades, Rome and the Mother of God Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen

Modern crusade scholarship has long recognized the crusades that targeted the pagans in the north as very important to the history of the crusade movement at large, and on a par with other theatres of war outside the Levant, in Iberia and elsewhere.1 In the last few decades much new research has surfaced that discusses multiple (e.g. military, missionary, political, canon law) aspects of the thirteenth century Baltic crusades and the violent conversion of the many pagan tribes inhabiting the regions then known as Livonia and Estonia. Scholars have investigated the relationship between the papacy and the Baltic, analysing, among other things, papal privileges and crusade indulgences issued to Baltic addressees, seeking in particular to establish the papal ‘policy’ (if any) towards the Christian peripheries vis-a-vis the papal centre.2 We know representatives of the young church in the Baltic were present at the Fourth Lateran Council. These representatives surely looked to the papacy for legal and political backing, and this article traces how arguments for such papal backing may have been presented and, eventually, 1

2

For the Baltic crusades in general consult the articles in the recent collected volumes Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2001) and The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier, ed. Alan V. Murray (Aldershot, 2009). Both volumes offer a useful bibliography of works in English. For an analysis of the papal relationship with the Baltic see for example Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The Popes and the Baltic Crusades, 1147–1254 (Leiden, 2007); Barbara Bombi, Novella plantatio fidei: Missione e crociata nel nord Europa tra XXI e XIII secolo (Roma, 2007); Bombi, ‘Innocent III and the Baltic Crusade after the Conquest of Constantinople’, in Crusading on the Edge. Ideas and Practice of Crusading in Iberia and the Baltic Region, 1100–1500, ed. Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen and Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt (Turnhout, 2016), pp. 117–33.

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 171-192 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115860

Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen

how this presentation may have been received and evaluated. Judging from arguably the most important narrative on the fight for conversion, a lively chronicle written around 1227 by the German priest Henry, one key to this admittedly elusive subject was how protagonists in the Baltic configured the Virgin Mary.3 As it turns out, the Mother of God would play a decisive role in the violent establishment of Christian Livonia and she would be acknowledged as patron by a number of its ecclesiastical institutions. What follows below is the dramatic story of the Baltic representatives’ travel from the crusading scene in Livonia to the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. The deliberations in the Council included a report on the situation in the Baltic, involving a direct association of the Virgin Mary with the Livonian cause. This and other literary and institutional appropriations of Mary in the Baltic setting will be analysed before finally considering how such use of the Mother of God may have been received by Innocent III in Rome.

From Riga to Rome – travelling in wartime In the summer of 1215 a group of mostly German travellers embarked from Riga on the eastern Baltic coast in nine vessels, heading first for Gotland off the Swedish coast and from there on to Lübeck in Germany. Most of the travellers would have been looking forward with joy to the prospect of reuniting with family and friends when returning to their homes in northern Germany after having served a year of military pilgrimage on the crusading frontier in Livonia. Others in the company, however, hoped to be able to travel further and eventually to take part in the great church council at the Lateran in Rome. One of the hopeful dignitaries heading for Rome was Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg, a Premonstratensian.4 Since 1210, Philip had stayed in Livonia on an armed pilgrimage, for which he 3

4

Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae, ed. Leonid Arbusow et Albert Bauer (Darmstadt, 1959). English translation in The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, trans. James Brundage, 2nd edn (New York, 2003). References below will be given as HCL and HL respectively with the numbers of chapters, subchapters and pages. His election, following the death of Bishop Isfried (1204), was disputed with half the chapter voting for another candidate. An agreement was reached through negotiations led by Count Albert II of Orlamünde (c. 1182–1245), a nephew to the Danish King Valdemar II (r. 1201–41). Albert II had replaced the former Count Adolf III (d. 1225), when the Danish king conquered Holstein in 1202. Ratzeburg is situated to the south of Lübeck.

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had been handpicked by the ruthlessly energetic Albert von Buxthövden (r.  1198–1229).5 In the early decades of the thirteenth century, Bishop Albert, himself the third missionary bishop to the region, would regularly organize preaching and recruiting campaigns to the northern parts of Germany in order to persuade new crusader pilgrims to offer their armed assistance in keeping his recently established bishopric in Livonia free from pagan attacks and possibly expanding Christianity in the area. Consequently, it was Philip of Ratzeburg who at the time of departure from Riga was in charge of the Christian mission in all of Livonia and Estonia; since 1214 Bishop Albert had been away, preaching and recruiting in Germany. Another of the travellers on board, who also hoped to journey beyond the main destination, the port of Lübeck, and on to Rome, was Theoderic, a former abbot of the Cistercian monastery (founded 1202) at Dünamünde (Latv. Daugavgriva) outside Riga. Theoderic was consecrated bishop of Estonia in 1211 by Albert of Riga with the understanding that a ‘real’ church province would soon be established for him from the conquests that were expected from the then ongoing Christian penetration into the Estonian regions of Saccalia (Est. Sakala) and Ungannia (Est. Ugandi) to the north-east of Livonia.6 Anti Selart has recently argued, against what he perceives as a ‘curiacentered’ perspective in much recent research, that travelling to the Holy See was absolutely necessary to gain papal support.7 While this may be true for many locales outside the Italian peninsula wishing to obtain support from the papacy, at least in the period before the establishment of more permanently Roman-based representations to the Holy See, Selart reminds 5

6

7

Philip may have preferred to return to Germany after an ordinary one-yearpilgrimage and military service. He was hindered in doing so, however, by the sentence of excommunication put upon Otto  IV on 18 November 1210 and because of his former association with the excommunicated emperor. This expansion was begun in 1208 when the brother of the Rigan bishop, also named Theoderic, knights from the local military order of the Sword Brothers (established 1202, sanctioned by Innocent III in 1204), and auxiliary Lattgalian (Lett) troops attacked the Estonian region of Ungannia. Anti Selart, ‘Popes and Livonia in the First Half of the Thirteenth Century: Means and Chances to Shape the Periphery’, Catholic Historical Review 100 (2014), 437–58, here 438. See also Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Riga and Rome: Henry of Livonia and the Papal Curia’, in Crusading and Chronicle Writing on the Medieval Baltic Frontier: A Companion to the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, ed. Marek Tamm, Linda Kaljundi and Carsten Selch Jensen (Aldershot, 2011), pp. 209–27.

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us that travelling from the Baltic in fact demanded meticulous planning and considerable means. The conditions for travel to and from the Baltic region were determined by the weather. Travelling seasons were different for maritime or land based travel. Due to icy conditions with very low temperatures and the high risk of autumn storms, the maritime travelling season was limited to early May until September or perhaps early October. Travelling by land was – especially when it came to military operations – heavily reduced in the months of spring, when thawing made it difficult for horses and machinery to move about in the boggy marshes and forests of the region. Consequently, the cold and frozen winter months and the dry, short summers were preferred for land-based travel. Although the characteristics of the Baltic geography in this way offered an extremely restricted time period for travel and thus ‘possibilities for communication’, Selart notes that Theoderic of Estonia went to the curia at least six times, while Albert of Riga travelled to Germany at least ten times. Three of Albert’s journeys to Germany included an extended trip to Rome as well. In the years preceding the Fourth Lateran Council, Albert sent petitions to the curia in 1199–1200, 1201, 1203–4, 1210, 1212 and 1213.8 We know of the travelling bishops from Henry of Livonia, whose chronicle, written in the 1220s, is probably the earliest piece of Christian literature to be produced in the Baltic.9 Henry’s work covers the Christian warfare and mission to Livonia and Estonia from 1184 until 1227. Probably born around 1180, Henry came to Livonia around 1205 as a young priest to serve under Albert of Riga, who appears to be the main protagonist in Henry’s chronicle.10 Consecrated in 1198, Albert 8

9

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Selart, ‘Popes and Livonia’, pp.  438, 447. The ‘itineraries’ of Albert are established in Gisela Gnegel-Waitschies, Bischof Albert von Riga: Ein Bremer Chorherr als Kirchenfürst im Osten (1199–1229) (Hamburg, 1958), pp. 168–74; Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Popes and the Baltic Crusades, p. 83. Compare, however, Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Riga and Rome’, p. 210, which claims that Albert sent petitions ‘a good dozen times’. Crusading and Chronicle Writing, ed. Tamm, Kaljundi, and Jensen, serves as a fine introduction to the man, his chronicle, and his circumstances during the Baltic crusades. It is likely that Henry’s ecclesiastical training and his spiritual outlook were established in the Augustinian convent of canons-regular at Segeberg. See James  A. Brundage, ‘Introduction: Henry of Livonia, The Writer and His Chronicle’, in Crusading and Chronicle Writing, pp. 1–19, especially pp. 1–7; Vilis Biļķins, ‘Die Autoren der Kreuzzugszeit und das deutsche Milieu Livlands und Preussens’, Acta Baltica 14 (1975), 231–54; Paul Johansen, ‘Die Chronik als Biographie: Heinrich von Lettlands Lebensgang und Weltanschauung’,

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von Buxthövden established himself firmly in Livonia by moving the original Christian settlement in Üxküll (Latv. Ikšķile) downstream on the river Düna (Latv. Daugava), hereby founding what was to become the city of Riga in 1201.11 A military order, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword – Fratres militiae Christi Livoniae – was founded in the following year. This military force, and occasional papal crusading bulls, strengthened Albert’s efforts to violently convert and subdue the pagan tribes of Livonia and Estonia. In Livonia in 1215 at the time the bishops departed tensions were running high. Since Easter of that same year, the German crusaders had been engaged in a full-fledged war against neighbouring pagan tribes, who had formed yet another alliance to rout the German colony, but to no avail. Many of the pagan armies that had assembled for battle eventually fled from the German forces, only to find themselves hunted down by the retaliating German knights, with their Lett allies serving as auxiliary troops. Henry of Livonia’s account of the events from spring and early summer of 1215 is in fact an account of the crusading warfare in the Baltic en miniature: They entered Ungannia, despoiled all the villages, and delivered them to the flames. They burned alive all the men they could capture[...]They burned down all the forts, so that they would have no refuge in them. They sought out the Ungannians in the dark hiding places of the forests and the Ungannians could hide from them nowhere. They took them out of the forests and killed them and took the women and the children away as captives. They drove off the horses and flocks, took many spoils, and returned to their own land[...]some they burned, while they cut the throats of others. They inflicted various tortures upon them, until the Estonians showed them all their money and until they led them to all the hiding places of the woods and delivered the women and children into their hands[...]devastating the land with nine armies, they made it so deserted and desolate that now neither men nor food were found there. Their aim was to fight long enough so that either those who were left would come

11

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas n.s.  1 (1953), 1–24. Henry’s biography must be deduced from the scanty information that may be culled from his chronicle. Hence, some of the biographical details discussed in the literature listed above seem slightly speculative. The first (missionary) bishop to the region, the Augustinian Meinhard, had arrived from Saxony around 1184. Meinhard died in 1196 and the mission was militarized with the arrival of his successor, the Cistercian Berthold, who was killed in a pagan attack only two years later.

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to seek peace and baptism or they would be completely wiped out from the earth.12

At the time when the bishops were travelling towards the papal city, priests who had been despatched to baptize the Saccalians had recently returned, since ‘they were not able to live in those parts because of the hostility of the other Estonians’.13 Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the seafarers in the nine vessels were soon to realize that theirs would be a hard journey. Thunder and storm soon forced the travellers to shelter in a port on the island of Ösel (Est. Saaremaa). The pagan Ösilians soon captured and killed some of the travellers while they were on land foraging. According to Henry, the Ösilians sent word to all the provinces of Estonia that they had captured the bishop of Riga, with the effect that a considerable pagan army soon gathered. ‘Pirate ships blackened the entire sea’, scaring the living daylights out of the Christians.14 Having soon blocked the harbour with wooden rock-filled structures,15 the pagans launched waterborne missiles: fires lit on tree trunks ‘kindled from dry wood and animal fat’ were steered towards the German ships. The floating fire, ‘taller than all of the ships’, was getting alarmingly near, when the travellers at long last decided to call on deck the highest-ranking 12

13

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HL, pp. 145–46; HCL, XIX.3, pp. 184–88: ‘[…] et intravenerunt Ugauniam, despoliantes villas omnes et flammis tradentes, et viros omnes, quos comprehendere potuerunt[...]vivos[...]cremaverunt et castra omnia incen­ derunt, ut nullum in eis refugium haberent. Et querebant eos in tenebrosis nemorum latibulis, et nusquam ab eis abscondere se potuerunt, et extractos de silvis interfecerunt et mulieres et parvulos eorum captivos secum deduxerunt et equos et pecora minantes spolia multa tulerunt et reverse sunt in terram suam[...] alios igne cremantes, alios gladiis iugulantes diversis tormentis afficiunt, donec omnes pecunias suas eis aperiunt, donec ad omnia nemorum suorum latibula eos deducunt et mulieres et parvulos in manus eorum tradunt[...]donec eadem estate novem exercitibus terrram ipsam devastantes desolatam ac desertam ponerent, ut iam nec homines nec cibaria invenirentur. Cogitabant enim eos tam diu debellare, donec aut pro pace et baptismate venirent, qui residui errant, aut omnino eos exstirpare de terra’. HL, p. 147; HCL, XIX.4, p. 188: ‘nondum valentes cohabitare cum eis propter aliorum Estonum ferocitatem’. HL, p. 148; HCL, XIX.5, p. 190: ‘Et facto diluculo in primo mane totum mare contra nos tenebrosum apparuit, pyraticis ipsorum repletum[...]Unde timore magno perterriti putabamus manus eorum non evadere’. Apparently, this was an often-used method. Earlier that same year, the Ösilians had besieged the city of Riga by filling brigantines and ‘wooden structures’ with rocks and sinking them at the mouth of the river Dvina. HCL, XIX.2, p. 182.

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ecclesiastic. The incessant prayer of Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg, alone in his cabin, was no longer enough to ward off the danger.16 Once on deck, Philip raised his eyes and hands in prayer,17 and, behold, a miracle occurred: suddenly the wind shifted and the travellers anxiously held their breath to watch the fires drift, closely and only too slowly, alongside the ships and on to the open sea. When shortly thereafter two pagan vessels collided, one of them splitting down the middle, drowning all men on board, the Christians were finally able to make it out into open sea. From there they could see the pagans raging ‘violently at one another with a good deal of noise and blows too’ before they ‘dispersed on the sea and each of them went away by his own route’.18

The Virgin in Livonia What had happened? Who was the force behind these miracles? To Henry there was no doubt: ‘The blessed Virgin freed us that day, as she has freed the Livonians from all their troubles up to the present day’.19 Bishop Philip had turned to praying again by exclaiming repetitively the lines from the breviary hymn Ave Maris Stella: ‘Monstra te esse matrem’ – ‘show thyself a mother’. This hymn was normally sung at vespers on feasts to the Virgin, making it plausible that the event took place on 2 July, the feast day of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.20

16

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HL, p.  148; HCL, XIX.5, p.  190: ‘ex siccis lignis et pinguedine animalium incensos; alcior coggonibus omnibus; Et cum iam ignis idem, alcior coggonibus omnibus, flammas suas ad nos extenderet, evocavimus episcopum de camerula sua, in qua erat orans die et nocte’. HL, p. 148; HCL, XIX.5, p. 190: ‘Et elevans oculos suos et manus utrasque ad celum orabat ab igne presenti liberari’. HL, p. 150; HCL XIX.6, p. 192: ‘Et irati sunt valde in invicem clamore magno simul er verberibus; dispersi sunt in mari et abierunt unusquisque in viam suam’. HL, p. 150; HCL, XIX.5, p. 194: ‘Et liberavit nos in illa die beata Virgo, sicut et omnes Lyvonenses hactenus liberavit ab omnibus angustiis suis usque in hodiernum diem’. This feast day, commemorating the Virgin Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth, herself pregnant with John the Baptist (Luke 1.39–56), is of unclear medieval origin. It is known to have been celebrated from at least 1263 where it was especially championed by Saint Bonaventure and the Franciscan Order. Since 1969, this feast day is celebrated on 31 May.

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Henry throughout his chronicle strives to establish the Virgin Mary as celestial champion and protector of crusaders and neophytes alike.21 He highlights how the Germans in Riga fought and converted under her banner.22 He singles out Marian feast days as propitious for waging war and he describes important events as taking place on the Virgin’s feast days.23 Further, Henry remarks upon the religious buildings dedicated to the Mother of God. Albert’s new cathedral church in Riga was consecrated on the feast day of her Assumption, 15 August 1202, and, together with ‘all of Livonia’, was dedicated to the ‘Blessed Mother of God’.24 Aside from Riga, the cathedral in Reval and the chapter in Curonia (albeit this is later than Henry’s chronicle) were dedicated to Mary. Further churches that had adopted Mary as their patron saint were located in Dorpat (Est. Tartu), Narva and Wesenberg (Est. Rakvere).25

21

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23

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Compare HCL, XII.6 and XXVIII.6 for prayers to her aid. Occasionally the Virgin is held up as protector of the neophyte Livonians against unduly heavy exploitation and burdens imposed by their new masters. See for example, HCL, XXV.2. The HCL mentions the ‘vexillum beate Virginis’ in episodes relating from 1208 (XI.6, p. 78) and the Rigan-led expansion into Estonian Ungannia (XII.3, p. 88); from 1212 (XVI.4, p. 160); from 1220 (XXIII.10, p. 252 and XXIV.2, p. 256). Theoderic and the neophyte local leader, Caupo, returned from a visit to Rome in 1204 on the Virgin’s nativity, 8 September (VIII.2, p. 32); war broke out on 15 August 1216, the feast of her Assumption (XX.2, p. 202); on the same date in 1223, a Christian siege to the castle in Fellin (Est. Viljandi) proved successful (XXVII.2, p. 294). This date is used simply for dating in XXVIII.5, p. 306 and XXVIII.6, p. 310, as is also the date of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin on 2 February (XXIII.8, p.  242). According to Linda Kaljundi: Waiting for the Barbarians: The Imagery, Dynamics and Functions of the Other in Northern German Missionary Chronicles, 11th – Early 13th Centuries (MA-thesis, Tallinn University, http://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/576/kaljundi.pdf ), p.  200: ‘Henry starts to emphasise the Virgin Mary as the patroness of the Rigan mission especially after the year 1219, when the Danish mission started in Northern Estonia, and during the 1220s, when also the Swedish and Russian interests were present in Estonia’. I would argue, rather, that Henry develops the idea of a patronage of the Virgin Mary especially for the Rigan church from an earlier date, that is, from the beginning of Bishop Albert’s episcopacy, but also that this imagery grows in importance with the expansion into Estonia from 1208 onwards. HCL, VI.3, p. 22. Anu Mänd, ‘Saints’ Cults in Medieval Livonia’, in Clash of Cultures, pp. 191–223 refers to H. Bruiningk, Messe und kanonisches Stundengebet nach dem Brauche

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In addition to serving as an object for devotion and prayer, the Virgin Mary played another important role. Fighting under her banner meant that the spoils of war and the lands conquered would fall into the hands of the bishop and church in Riga. In fact, the vexillum beate Marie seemingly often refers directly to the feudal and military powers of the Rigan bishop. From 1212, Henry relates how the Rigan bishop’s army took ‘Dobrel’s fort’ in Tureida (Est.), where ‘the apostate Livonians’ were.26 Following a siege, which saw the besieged tossing dead animals against the Christian force (literally: ‘in faciem episcopi’), representatives were sent into the pagan fort, with the ‘bishop’s banner’ – ‘some of them put it up; others then threw it down’. Finally, however, ‘they gave up, raised Blessed Mary’s standard on high, and bowed their necks to the bishop’.27 From 1219, Henry relates how the elders from the province of Vironia (Est. Wirumaa) ‘accepted baptism and gave themselves and all of Wirland to Blessed Mary and the Livonian church’. From the same year comes the claim, raised against demands from the Danish king, that ‘all of Estonia had been subjected to the Christian faith by the Rigans under the banner of the Blessed Virgin’.28 Following the looting and the burning down in 1209 of the hillfort of Gerzike (Latv. Jerzika), a sub-principality of Russian Polotsk,29 it was proposed to the ruler of the fort and city, a certain Visvaldis (Russ. Vsevolod), that his wife would be released from Rigan

26

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29

der Rigaschen Kirche im späteren Mittelalter (Riga, 1904), pp. 226, 327. Kersti Markus, ‘The Church on the Borderland: The Impact of Crusading on the Architecture of Gotland and Livonia’, in Crusading on the Edge, pp. 333–64, argues convincingly for a development in church architecture that would see inspirations and artistic loans from churches in Northern Germany in Visby on Gotland and in Riga, mirroring of course the ordinary travelling route of German merchants and crusaders. A  substantial number of these important religious buildings were dedicated to Mary. HCL, XVI.4, p.  158: ‘castrum idem Dabrelis, in quo fuerunt Lyvones apostatantes, et non solum Lyvones fratrum milicie, sed et Lyvones episcopi’. HCL, XVI.4, p. 160: ‘Episcopus […] vexillum suum in castris mittit, quod ab aliis elevatur et ab aliis proicitur. Unde tamen tradentes se vexillum beate Marie sursum erigunt, episcopo colla sua subiciunt’. HL, p. 180; HCL, XXIII.7, p. 242: ‘et accipientes sacri baptismatis mysterium tradiderunt se totamque Vyroniam beate Marie et Lyvonensi ecclesie’ and XXIII.10, p. 252: ‘Estoniam totam vexillo beate Virginis a Rigensibus ad fidem christianam subiugatam referebat’. See also XIII.4 from 1209 and XVI.4 from 1212. Referred to as such in Anti Selart, Livonia, Rus’ and the Baltic Crusades in the Thirteenth Century (Leiden, 2015), p. 65.

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captivity together with numerous other prisoners, if he would grant his ‘kingdom’ to ‘the church of Blessed Mary’ and receive (some of ) it back from the hands of Bishop Albert.30 The Virgin is presented here in the garb of a feudal lord, first conquering land and then offering it back to the conquered as a fief. Naming the Virgin as ‘warden’ or ‘custodian’ of Livonia obviously adds further to this legalistic and feudal element.31 In his use of the figure of the Virgin Mary, Henry seems to oscillate between claiming her as a celestial champion for the city of Riga, under the undisputed leadership of its bishop, and presenting her as protectress of all of Christian Livonia.32 Henry’s figurations of the Virgin culminate in an especially powerful passage in book 25 of his chronicle. Relating the events of 1221, the passage is preceded by the story of a Danish royal emissary, Gottschalk, who was allegedly sent to take over the city of Riga and place it under Danish royal rule in 1221.33 Gottschalk’s claim was fiercely opposed and he was 30

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HL, p. 92; HCL, XIII.4, p. 104: ‘si regnum tuum ecclesie beate Marie perpetua donatione conferre volueris, ut a nostra tamen manu iterum recipias’. Henry here details a ritual of vassalage which among other elements involved a gift from the bishop of three standards (a manu episcopum trium vexillorum sollempni porrectione recipit) and a certain number of vows from Vsevolod. This treaty is documented in the earliest extant charter from Livonia. HCL, XXI.1 depicts Livonia in ‘the custody of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Mother’ (hac vice custodiendam). This portrayal is further enhanced by Henry’s terming the peoples subjected to the church of Riga ‘serfs’ (servos). The feudal element is also highlighted in Arnold of Lübeck’s chronicle (finished c. 1210). Here, albeit wrongly dated to 1186 and the then incumbent Bishop Meinhard, the episcopal see in Riga is put under the patronage (patrocinium) of the Virgin: ‘fundata est sedes episcopalis in Livonia a venerabili viro Meinardo, intitulata patrocinio beate Dei genitricis Marie, in loco quo Riga dicitur’. See Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, ed. I.  M. Lappenberg MGH SS, 14 (Hannover, 1868), V.30, p. 213. Compare Jüri Kivimäe, ‘Servi Beatae Marie Virginis. Christians and Pagans in Henry’s Chronicle of Livonia’, in Church and Belief in the Middle Ages: Popes, Saints and Crusaders, ed. Kirsi Salonen and Sari Katajala-Peltomaa (Amsterdam, 2016), pp.  201–26, who argues (p.  213) that both the Rigan church and the Order of the Sword Brothers appropriated the Virgin in this way, even if this military order was dedicated not to the Virgin but rather to Christ. Since 1201 the Danish king had been in control of Lübeck, at times using a blockade of the embarking port to the Baltic as a political tool against the bishop of Riga by denying him the influx of new armed pilgrims. In 1219, the

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forced to return. The Danish royal emissary travelled without a pilot to his ship, and, consequently, because ‘He had come to Livonia, perhaps, against the will of Him Who rules the winds [...] the winds, therefore, rose not unjustly against him. The sun of justice did not shine upon him, because he had offended Mary His Mother, Who is called the Star of the Sea’.34 The sermon-like character and the amassing here of Scriptural quotes and allusions make the long, frenzied passage stand out from the rest of the chronicle.35 In the passage, Henry names the Virgin not only ‘star of the sea’ (maris stella), but also ‘Lady of the World’ (domina mundi), ‘empress of all lands’ (imperatrix terrarum omnium) and ‘queen of Heaven’ (regina coeli), before he once again invokes Mary’s protection of Her special land, Livonia.36 The Virgin is held up as a highly vindictive, avenging champion for the Rigan cause. She is lauded for afflicting all the enemies of the Rigan church, pagans and Christians alike. Russian princes have been struck with sudden death, deprivations, and humiliation; the Virgin was instrumental in having the Swedes slaughtered by pagans, because they unlawfully entered the lands subjected to the ‘banner of the Blessed Virgin’. The Danish king, arguably the strongest of the many opponents of the Rigans, had to suffer

34

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36

Danes conquered northern Estonia, thus putting further pressure on Albert. For an account of the hodgepodge that was Baltic politics at this time, see Ane L. Bysted, Carsten Selch Jensen, Kurt Villads Jensen, and John H. Lind, Jerusalem in the North. Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100–1522 (Turnhout, 2012), pp. 195–226. HL, p. 198; HCL, XXV.2 p. 268: ‘Et quia fortassis contra voluntatem ipsius, qui [ventis imperat], venerat in Lyvoniam, ideo nom immerito venti contra eum insurrexerunt et sol iusticie non illuxit ei, quod Mariam matrem eius offenderat’. The editors judge the ‘sun of justice’ to be lifted from the breviary text to the mass for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, celebrated 8 September: HCL, p. 269, n. 4. Henry of Livonia, XXV.2, contains references to Malachi 4.2, Judith 1.11, Psalm 103.25, I Maccabees 3.7, Samuel 31.1, I Kings 20.7, Exodus 23.22, Isaiah 10.2, Acts 9.15, Matthew 8.26, 23. 4 and 11.30, Luke 8.25, John 5.20, 17.3, and 20.31, I John 5.13 and Romans 1.25 plus a number of references to the missal and offices in the breviary. See also the analysis in Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, ‘Providential History in the Chronicles of the Baltic Crusades’, in The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources, ed. Elizabeth Lapina and Nicholas Morton (Leiden, 2017), pp. 361–402. HCL, XXV.2 p. 268: ‘Sic, sic maris stella suam semper custodit Lyvoniam; sic, sic mundi domina terrarumque omnium imperatrix specialem suam terram semper defendit; sic, sic regina celi terrenis regibus imperat’.

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a ‘long and marvellous’ captivity for wishing to trouble her land with his rule. It was by the hands of her servants and under her auspices that so many pagan leaders were killed.37 Henry trumpets the vengeful actions of the Mother of God against those who attack her land: Behold how the Mother of God, so gentle to her people who serve her faithfully in Livonia, always defended them from all their enemies and how harsh she is with those that invade her land or who try to hinder the faith and honor of her Son in that land! See how many kings, and how mighty, she has afflicted! See how many princes and elders of treacherous pagans she has wiped off the earth and how often she has given her people victory over the enemy! Up to this time, indeed, she has always defended her banner in Livonia, both preceding it and following it, and she has made it triumph over the enemy.38

Henry offers an understanding of the Virgin Mary as blatantly militant and violent. Even if named Mother of Mercy, she shows the enemies and opponents of the church in Riga neither mercy, nor forgiveness. Motherhood is inextricably connected to fertility and genealogy, and Henry in fact deals with exactly such issues. In book 28 of his chronicle, relating a story from 1224, Henry depicts the church of Livonia as a mother to the church of Estonia. This mother is, however, threatened by other false and sterile mothers who claim the young church in Estonia as their child. In the same paragraph, Henry then establishes the young church of Estonia as a woman in labour, who is threatened by a dragon out to snatch away her offspring immediately after birth (compare Apocalypse 12). Henry further develops this rather crude analogy by identifying the ‘many mothers’ (i.e. the perceived enemies of the Rigan church), who ‘claimed this daughter (i.e. Estonia) falsely’, as the Behemoth, the land monster in the Book of Job, who is confident that the river Jordan will run into his mouth ( Job 40.10–19).39 37 38

39

HCL, XXV.2. HL, p. 199; HCL, XXV.2, p. 270: ‘Ecce Dei mater, quam mitis circa suos, qui fideliter ei deserviunt in Lyvonia, qualiter ipsa semper defendit eos a cunctis inimicis suis, quamque crudelis circa illos, qui terram ipsius invadere sive qui fidem et honorem filii sui in terra ipsa conantur impedire! Ecce quot et quantos reges ipsa exacerbavit! Ecce quot perfidorum et paganorum principes ac seniores de terra delevit, quoties victoriam suis de inimicis concessit! Semper enim hactenus vexillum suum in Lyvonia et preeundo et subsequendo defendit ac de inimicis triumphare fecit’. HCL, XXVIII, p.  304: ‘Que fuit tamquam mulier pariens, que tristiciam et dolorem magnum habet, donec pariat; cuius eciam partum draco persequitur, Behemoth videlicet ille, qui fluvium absorbens fiduciam adhuc habet, quod

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Other elements in his fertility discourse appear throughout Henry’s chronicle. Concepts of (Christian) plantations and of sowing and harvesting in God’s own vineyard are commonplace imagery in many missionary accounts. Such metaphors also appear in Henry’s text. This imagery normally serves generically to describe a young and often struggling missionary church in the midst of adversities.40 The most prominent element of Henry’s fertility discourse, however, is very much local and specific. It involves a pun on the city of Riga and the Latin verbs rigare or irrigare, which mean ‘to moisten’ and ‘to water’. This pun appears several times throughout the chronicle. This wordplay works very well in connection to the other configurations of the Virgin; like a true Mother, the Virgin Mary would protect the new plantation on her own land and see it prosper and thrive through the watering done by her church in Riga. Thus does Riga water the nations  […] By washing she purges sin and grants the kingdom of the skies. She furnishes both the higher and the lower irrigation. These gifts of God are our delight. The Glory of God, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary gives such joy to their Rigan servants on Ösel! Vanquishing rebels, baptizing those who come voluntarily and humbly, receiving hostages and tribute, freeing all the Christian captives, returning with victory – what kings hitherto have been unable to do, the Blessed Virgin quickly and easily accomplishes through her Rigan servants to the honor of her name.41

To Henry at least, there was no doubt as to the importance of the Virgin Mary in the fight for the conversion of the Livonian and Estonian peoples. She was considered the protectress of the righteous crusaders, a celestial champion and a beacon of hope in times of distress and anxiety. She was also presented in the guise of a this-worldly liege lord offering protection

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Iordanis influeat in os eius’; ‘licet plures sibi matres falso filiam hanc usurpantes, mentientes semper, attraxerint’. I  have analysed this passage as ‘providential kinship relation-building’ in Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, ‘Sterile Monsters? Russians and the Orthodox Church in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia’, in Clash of Cultures, pp. 227–52 and in Nielsen, ‘Providential History’, pp. 377–79. See Kaljundi, Waiting for the Barbarians, p. 210. HL, p. 245; HCL, XXX.6, p. 338: ‘Sic, sic Riga semper rigat gentes! […] Per lavacrum purgans vitium, dans regna polorum altius irriguum donat et inferius. Hec dona Dei sunt gaudia nostra. Gloria Dei et domini nostri Iesu Christi et beate Marie virginis servis suis Rigensibus in Öesilia talia dedit gaudia: vincere rebelles, baptizare sponte et venientes humiliter, obsides et tributa recipere, captivos omnes christiani nominis restituere, cum victoria redire! Quod reges hactenus non potuerunt, hec beata virgo per servos suos Rigensis breviter et leniter ad honorem sui nominis adimplevit’.

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to and demanding loyalty from her servants. Henry depicted the Virgin as a military leader wreaking chaos and havoc on her enemies. Finally, the Virgin is configured as Mother – of Mercy, as is her traditional epithet, but also of regeneration; she would carefully nurse her offspring (the Estonian church and all the faithful in Livonia) through the leadership of the Rigan church.

The Virgin at the Lateran Bishop Albert may have had some or all of these configurations in his head when he and Bishop Theoderic addressed the solemn Lateran council in Rome with a first-hand report from the missionary fields. The bishops related the wars with the pagans and the affairs of the Livonian church, causing the entire council to rejoice over the ‘conversion of the heathen’ and ‘the manifold triumphs of the Christians’.42 Spurred on, perhaps, by the convivial atmosphere aroused by such positive report, Albert allegedly then turned directly to Innocent III to present what may read like a simple, yet striking condensation of the different configurations of the Virgin outlined above: ‘Holy Father’, he said, ‘as you have not ceased to cherish the Holy Land of Jerusalem, the country of the Son, with your Holiness’s care, so also ought you not abandon Livonia, the Land of the Mother, which has hitherto been among the pagans and far from your consolation and is now again desolate. For the Son loves His Mother and, as He would not care to lose His own land, so, too, He would not care to endanger His Mother’s land’.43

This striking passage is most likely not the eyewitness report it purports to be. It is unlikely that Henry, a mere parish priest from the periphery of Christendom, would have been allowed to participate in the council

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HCL, XIX.7, p. 196: ‘Qui referebant tribulationes et bella et negocia Lyvonensis ecclesie summon pontifici, simul et omnis episcopis. Et congaudebant omnes de conversione gencium, simul et de bellis et triumphis multiplicibus christianorum’. HL, p. 152; HCL, XIX.7, p. 196: ‘Sicut, inquit, pater sancta, terram sanctam Ierosolimitatam, que est terra filii, sanctitatis tue studio fovere non desinis, sic Lyvoniam, que est terra matris, consolationum tuarum sollicitudinibus hactenus in gentibus dilatatam eciam hac vice desolatam derelinquere non debes. Diligit enim filius matrem suam, qui, sicut non vult terram suam perdi, sic nec vult terram matris utique periclitari’.

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to such an extent.44 Furthermore, Henry might only have reached Rome when the council had closed.45 The strongest argument against Henry actually listening to Albert’s speech is however an argument de silentio – had Henry in fact taken part in the council, he would surely have related this in more detail in his chronicle, considering the council’s importance.46 Eyewitness report or not, the concept of Livonia as the land of the Mother (on a par with the Holy Land as the land of the Son), would surely have been an effective rhetorical device, especially when put forward in a council called exactly with the overall purpose of promoting another crusade. According to Henry, Innocent III replied to Albert’s speech in the affirmative; he would indeed lend his help to the land of the Mother as well as to the land of the Son. Innocent, then, seemingly bought into Henry’s (Albert’s?) concept of a special, bordering on topophilic,47 ­relationship

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The list of participants to the council mentions two representatives from the Baltic region, and not by name, only by their episcopal sees: ‘De Livonia, De Hestia’. This makes it likely that the persons meant were Bishops Albert of Riga and Theoderic of Estonia. See Achille Luchaire, ‘Un document retrouvé’, Journal des Savants (1905), 557–68. Presumably, Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg died while en route to Rome. The details of Bishop Philip’s sickness, death and funeral are only known from Henry’s chronicle, making it plausible that our chronicler in fact accompanied Philip to Verona, where he died on 14 November 1215. If Henry stayed on for the funeral of the bishop, Kivimäe assumes Henry would have been unable to reach Rome before the closing of the council on 30 November. See the arguments in Kivimäe, ‘Servi Beatae Marie Virginis’, especially pp. 215–16. Henry relates miraculous appearances in connection to Philip’s death and recalls his virtuous life, his vow of silence, and his persistence in the face of danger, clearly trying to promote a veneration of the bishop. See HCL, XIX.6, pp. 194–96. Henry mentions the council at the beginning of his Chapter XIX, section 7, offering specific (if wrong) participation numbers (‘four hundred patriarchs, cardinals, and bishops and eight hundred abbots’), but his language seems slightly detached here, which of course suggests that he was not himself present. Albert’s speech has been questioned on other grounds as well. Ernst Pitz has called the claiming of Livonia as ‘terra matris’ a Redefigur, a mere figure of speech to be used as a part of the council discussions on the crusade indulgence. See his Papstreskript und Kaiserreskript im Mittelalter (Tübingen, 1971), pp. 72–73. The term topophilia denotes a strong and emotionally nurtured sense of place in people, to the level where a place is of importance to people’s cultural identity. See Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1974).

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between the Virgin and Livonia.48 Henry tells us that Innocent, having heard Albert’s speech at the Lateran council in November 1215, willingly ‘renewed’ privileges to preach the crusade and enlist pilgrims to go to Livonia for the ‘remission of their sins’.49 Henry in his chronicle closes his report on the Lateran council with a lively, and punning, statement: ‘Roma dictat iura, Riga vero rigat gentes’ – ‘Rome makes the laws, while Riga waters the peoples’.

Innocent III and the Baltic Virgin Henry’s claim about the renewed privileges seems, on the face of it, justified. Shortly after the Lateran council, Innocent issued a letter: the Alto divine from December 1215, addressed to the Christians in Denmark but possibly also directed to other church provinces, in which he promised the remission of sins to pilgrims and crusaders who due to ill health or poverty could not go to the Holy Land, but chose to go to Livonia instead.50 In these privileges no mention was made, however, of any kind of special relationship between Livonia and the Virgin Mary. However, could Innocent perhaps have nodded to the Livonian claim of a special relationship in other ways? Is it possible to make connections between

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HCL, XIX.7, p. 196. HCL, XIX.7, p.  196: ‘Et finite concilio remisit eos cum gaudio, renovate auctoritate predicandie et peregrinos in remissionem peccatorum signandi, qui Lyvoniam secum proficiscentes novellam ecclesiam a paganorum tuerentur insultibus’. Diplomatarium Danicum, ed. Niels Skyum-Nielsen and others (København, 1957-), 1/4: 5, no. 61. Innocent III had earlier granted crusading privileges to the Livonian mission (in 1199 and 1204). In these the pope had focused on voluntary conversion and the defence of the newly converted from pagan neighbours, albeit mostly offering only partial indulgences for the efforts. See Diplomatarium Danicum, ed. C.  A. Christensen and Lauritz Weibull (København, 1977), 1/3: 3, no.  254 and Register, 7, no.  139. It is important, however, to evaluate the content of these privileges vis-à-vis the papal privileges offered for crusading in the Levant. As Fonnesberg-Schmidt has convincingly shown, ‘the indulgence granted to crusaders defending the Holy Land was far more wide-ranging, both in its penitential content and in the group of people it encompassed’ (Popes and the Baltic Crusades, p. 96). Clearly, when it came to underpinning the crusading efforts with privileges and indulgences, the ‘Land of the Son’ was more important to Innocent III than the ‘Land of the Mother’.

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an ‘Innocentian’ stance on the Virgin and the Marian configurations so clearly en vogue in the Baltic crusades? It is no straightforward task to ascertain Innocent’s views on the Virgin: None of his many letters seem to display a specific Mariological interest, and none of his theological works deal with Virgin Mary at any length. The most promising place to look for a papal attitude towards the Virgin is in Innocent’s sermons. His authorship of a book of sermons is highlighted in the Gesta Innocentii from 1208, and John C. Moore has argued that such a collection may have been produced sometime between 1201 and 1205.51 More than sixty manuscripts in over thirty repositories throughout Europe confirm that Innocent’s sermons enjoyed popularity, perhaps also among protagonists in the Baltic, even if no manuscripts containing Innocentian sermons are extant there.52 Among the Innocentian sermons in Migne’s Patrologia Latina are six sermons that deal directly with the Virgin Mary.53 In his investigation of these sermons Wilhelm Imkamp claims to detect a slight aloofness, a reservation on Innocent’s part towards the Virgin. Imkamp concludes that Innocent remained true to his overall Christocentric theological outlook, most often simply discussing – and, by implication, diminishing – the role played by the Virgin in the Incarnation.54 This conclusion notwithstanding, details from Innocent’s Marian sermons merit a closer look. In a sermon on the Assumption of the Virgin (15 August), Innocent deals with the biblical story of Martha and Mary from Luke 10. Innocent here interprets the place where the sisters lived as simply the Virgin: ‘castellum

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John  C. Moore, ‘The Sermons of Pope Innocent III’, Römische historische Mitteilungen 36 (1994), 81–142. According to J.  B. Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, Heft 4 (Münster, 1972), pp. 48–49. PL, 217. Wilhelm Imkamp: ‘Virginitas quam ornavit humilitas. Die Verehrung der Gottesmutter in den Sermones Papst Innocenz’ III’, Lateranum n.s. 46 (1980), 344–78. Imkamp names the Incarnation, the Eucharist and (the powers of ) Saint Peter as the three main elements in Innocentian theology and ecclesiology. In addition, see his Das Kirchenbild Innocenz’ III. (1198–1216) (Stuttgart, 1983). There is also an interesting analysis in Constance M. Rousseau, ‘Pregnant with Meaning: Pope Innocent III’s Construction of Motherhood’, in Innocent III and his World, ed. John  C. Moore (Aldershot, 1999), pp.  101–12 and her ‘Produced in Sin: Innocent III’s Rejection of the Immaculate Conception’, in Pope, Church and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda Bolton, ed. Frances Andrews, Christoph Egger and Constance M. Rousseau (Leiden, 2004), pp. 47–58.

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illud, quod intravit Jesus est Virgo’.55 The outer wall in this spiritual castle is likened to her corporal virginity while the tower is her heart’s humility. To avert the ‘insults of lust’ and ‘the assaults of pride’ one must approach this spiritual castle, that is, one must pray to the Virgin Mary.56 ‘Who has ever called upon Her without being heard?’, Innocent asks rhetorically.57 Bishop Philip’s incessant preaching during the pagan naval attack, related above, springs to mind. In another sermon for the same feast, Innocent likens the Virgin to ‘the dawn’ in Song of Songs 6.10.58 The Virgin is the dawn, because she ended the ‘night of damnation’ by carrying Christ. The dawn has three qualities – it is ‘as fair as the moon, as bright as the sun and as frightening as an army in array’. Innocent then likens the beauty of the moon to the virginity and fertility in the Virgin; the splendour and warmth of the sun to her wisdom and love; and, finally, he likens the army under banners simply to the Virgin. This is because the Virgin houses the ‘plenitude of virtues’ that fight – and win – the battle against the ‘multitude of vices’.59 In these sermons, the Virgin appears in a salvific role as intercessor and helper of sinful man because of her role as carrier of the incarnate Christ. Innocent summarizes that whoever shall face the enemy, ‘in the world or in the flesh’, should plead to Mary that ‘she may offer help through her Son’.60

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‘Sermo  XXVII. in solemnitate assumptionis gloriosissimae semper Virginis Mariae’, PL, 217: 575d–82a, at 575d. ‘Sermo XXVII. in solemnitate’: ‘Quaeramus ergo si tale fuerit hoc castellum. Sane in hoc spirituali castello, quod est Dei genetrix Virgo Maria, murus exterior est virginitas corporis, turris interior est humilitas cordis[...]Habet ergo castellum istud murum virginitatis contra insultum luxuriae, habet turrim humilitatis contra incursum superbiae[...]Sic quando te luxuria carnis impugnat, ad hoc castellum procede, muro virginitatis adhaere, deprecare Mariam’ (PL, 217: 577d). ‘Sermo  XXVII. in solemnitate’: ‘Quis unquam invocavit eam et non est exauditus ab ea?’ (PL, 217: 578c). ‘Sermo XXVIII. in eadem solemnitate’, PL, 217: 581b–86a. ‘Sermo XXVIII. in eadem solemnitate’: ‘Acies ergo castrorum, id est plenitudo virtutum ita fuit in virgine ordinata ut de se vere dicere possit: Introduxit me rex in cellam vinariam et ordinavit in me charitatem, ut postquam in ea plenitudo divinitatis corporaliter habitavit, vicit ex toto malitiam’ (PL, 217: 584c). ‘Sermo XXVIII. in eadem solemnitate’: ‘Quicumque entit impugnationem ab hostibus, vel a mundo, vel a carne, vel a daemone, respiciat castrorum aciem

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In a sermon for the feast of the Nativity of Mary (8 September), the Virgin is likened to the ‘star that shall rise out of Jacob’s staff ’ and the sceptre (virga) that shall spring from Israel and strike the chiefs of Moab and shall waste the sons of Sheth’ in Numbers 24.10. – ‘The star, that is Mary, who is understood to be the star of the sea’ (Stella, id est Maria, qui stella maris interpretatur), Innocent claims.61 As did Henry, so also Innocent knew very well this traditional hymn. In Innocent’s sermon, the praise for Mary is further developed with the pope’s scholastic dissection of Isaiah 11.1 dealing with the sacral genealogy in the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11.1). Here the Virgin is designated as the fertile twig (virga) on the root that will eventually bring forth the flower that is Christ, playing on the words virga and virgo.62 Taking as its starting point God’s words in the book of Job (40.19), another sermon for the feast of the Nativity of Mary combines the virga/ virgo constellation with an exegesis of the monster Behemoth, also used in Henry’s chronicle. In Innocent’s sermon, God has thrown his Son into the world to catch the Behemoth, i.e. to overcome the devil. Job 40.19 describes the Behemoth with eyes like a hook (hamus), and, accordingly, even if a land-based creature as opposed to the sea monster Leviathan from the same chapter in Job, the Behemoth must be caught using the instruments of fishermen: a fishing rod, line, hook and bait. Innocent’s allegorising establishes the (fishing) hook as Christ. The fishing rod (virga), however, is the Virgin. Using yet again the wordplay virga/virgo, Innocent establishes how the Virgin is resilient without being rigid. She holds an unbent straightness and a fitting length – just like a good fishing rod. This is a very figurative and suggestive text, and many of the words used may have several meanings and associations. In my translation below of this passage I have tried intentionally to convey the ambiguity and polyvalence in Innocent’s prose.

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ordinatam, deprecetur Mariam, ut ipsa per Filium mittat auxilium de sancto et Sion tueatur’ (PL, 217: 585a–86a). ‘Sermo XI. in nativitate Sanctae Mariae’, PL, 217: 497c–504d at col. 499c. ‘Sermo  XI. in nativitate Sanctae Mariae’: ‘In verbis propositis tria praecipue considerare debemus, radicem, virgam et florem. Radix, David; virga, Virgo; et flos est Christus’ (PL, 217: 499c). The so-called Clavis by Pseudo-Melito (once thought to be written by Melito of Sardis (d. 180), but most probably a ninth century work) offers eight different allegorical interpretations to virga, including ‘divinae potestatis insignia’, ‘radix Jesse’ and simply ‘virgo’. See Analecta sacra spicilegio solesmensi parata, ed. Jean-Baptiste Pitra, 8 vols (Monte Cassino, 1884), 2: 46.

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Among the fishing equipment we should take note of four, that is the rod, the line, the hook and the bait. The Prophet explains what this rod is when he says: ‘And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root’. ‘It is a pillar of smoke of aromatic myrrh and frankincense’. ‘The rod bloomed and carried fruit’, because the Virgin conceived and gave birth to Christ; because of this we may say that the rod is Mary. The rod is resilient, erect, and long; resilient that it may not be stiff, erect that it may not be curved, long that it may not be short. Mary possessed virginity, humility, and love; virginity without lust, humility without pride, love without malice.63

The virga/virgo constellation is often used in medieval Christian devotional as well as more scholastic and exegetical writing, and Innocent may have been inspired among others by Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096–1141) who wrote a small treatise on exactly this constellation.64 In slight contrast, the figure of Behemoth is not among the most commonly used in medieval Christian literature, even if found in crusader sermons regarding

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‘Sermo  XXIX. in solemnitate nativitatis gloriosissimae semper Virginis Mariae’, PL, 217: 585b–88c: ‘In instrumento piscatoris quatuor notare debemus, virgam et lineam, hamum et escam. Quae sit haec virga propheta determinat, dicens: “Egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet”. “Haec est virgula fumi, ex aromatibus myrrhae et thuris”. “Virga floruit et attulit fructum”; quia Virgo concepit et peperit Christum; hanc ergo virgam dixerim esse Mariam. Virga teneritudinem habet, rectitudinem et longitudinem; teneritudinem, ne sit dura; rectitudinem, ne sit curva; longitudinem, ne sit curta. Maria vero virginitatem habet, humilitatem et charitatem; virginitatem sine concupiscentia, humilitatem sine superbia, charitatem sine malitia’ (PL, 217: 586a). See also Imkamp, ‘Virginitas quam ornavit humilitas’, p. 351. PL, 177: 826c–27c: ‘Quod multiplici ratione Maria dicatur virga, et Christus flos ejus’. The virga/virgo constellation seemingly lends itself to what looks like fairly unclouded eroticism with its phallic focus on rods. This is also recognised by James  F. Burke, Desire Against the Law: The Juxtaposition of Contraries in Early Medieval Spanish Literature (Stanford, 1998), who claims that ‘virga’ could mean penis as well as rod and staff, which obviously offered clerks and scribes ‘a superb opportunity to indulge in what seems to us moderns sacrilegious punning’ (p. 127). To Burke this means that even if some in a medieval audience would have had ‘thoughts that were not entirely pious’, nevertheless, ‘the medieval writer or artist seems to have felt that erotic overtones could lend themselves to a properly devotional attitude’ (p. 128). – I would like to thank Jessalynn Bird for this reference.

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the Albigensian theatre.65 More importantly to the present argument, perhaps, Innocent III used the figure on occasions in sermons and letters.66 The figure of Behemoth and the swallowing of the river Jordan is probably where we get closest to any kind of a ‘smoking gun’, if we are looking for direct relations between Innocent III’s and Henry’s renderings. And this is admittedly very tenuous, although some of the letters in which Innocent applied the Behemoth figure were in fact addressed to parties involved in the Baltic crusades. The Behemoth appears in a letter from 1204 to Archbishop Hartwig II of Hamburg-Bremen in which the pope urged the archbishop and his suffragans to support Bishop Albert of 65

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See for instance the sermon edited in Jessalynn Bird, ‘The Victorines, Peter the Chanter’s Circle and the Crusade: Two unpublished Crusading Appeals in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Latin 14470’, Medieval Sermon Studies 48 (2004), 5–28 at p. 27. Here, as in other instances, a reference to Behemoth may be associated with lust. This is obviously strengthened by the mentioning in Job 40 of the monster’s loins, belly, the stiffness of its tail (‘like a cedar’) and the tendons of its testicles (in verses 11–12). The monster’s desire for ‘moist places’ (verse 16) supports this reading. Nearly all medieval learned exegesis on this would have relied heavily on Gregory the Great’s (c. 540–604) hugely influential Moralia in Job from c. 591. Gregory interpreted these ‘moist places’ to mean ‘voluptuous deeds’ (Loca quippe humentia sunt opera voluptuosa), ‘the genitals’ (Nonnulli vero loca humentia, membra genitalia suspicantur) or plainly, ‘the lust of the body’ (quid aperte aliud locis humentibus nisi luxuria designatur, ut et per calamum gloria superbiae, et per loca humentia luxuria corporis exprimatur?) (Moralia in Job, PL, 76: 674c) See also Innocent  III’s ‘Sermo  XXIII. in solemnitate sanctae Pentecostes’, PL, 217: 415a–18d, at col. 415a. See his ‘Sermo  XIII: Dominica prima in Quadragesima’ (PL, 217: 374); ‘Sermo XV: Dominica tertia in Quadragesima’ (PL, 217: 383), ‘Sermo XXIII: In solemnitate sancta Pentecostes’ (PL, 217: 415), ‘Sermo XXIV: In festi Beati Petri ad vincula’ (PL, 217: 562), ‘Sermo IV: In consecratione pontificis’ (PL, 217: 669). Innocent applied the metaphor of the swallowing of the Jordan (without naming the Behemoth) in a letter from 1198 to the archbishops of Aix and Narbonne on the struggle against heresy. The Behemoth is mentioned by name in a letter from 1204, with which Innocent III sent his legate and a papal banner with a cross and the papal keys to King Kalojan of Vlachia and Bulgaria. The Behemoth also appears in a letter to the abbot of Cîteaux concerning the battle against heresy, from 31 May 1204 and a year later, in 25 November 1205, in a letter to the bishop of Ferrara on how to better ecclesiastical discipline in his diocese. See Register, 1: 135–38, no. 94; 7: 27, no. 12; 123, no. 77; 8: 280, no. 158. I would like to thank Ass. Prof. Herwig Weigl, University of Vienna, for his assistance in checking the registers for me.

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Riga’s preachers heading for Livonia in defence of the Christians there. The reference appears once again in a letter from 1209 urging the Danish king to fulfil his crusading vows and go to Livonia to ‘extirpate the errors of paganism and expand the bounds of the Christian faith’.67 Henry may not have had access to these letters, but he might have heard them read out and he might have transferred phrases from these into his own account.68 In conclusion, even if the prelates coming to Rome from the Baltic perhaps considered themselves as waging a crusading warfare fully equivalent to crusades to the Holy Land, they must also have been aware of the difference in the papal attitude towards the two crusading theatres. Bringing their ideas of the Virgin to the Lateran may have been a way for them to counter this difference and hence procure more substantial papal privileges. However, this ‘strategy’ did not immediately play out; only Innocent’s successor, Honorius III, viewed the two crusading theatres in parity. Fishing rods and Behemoths, roots and twigs and towered spiritual castles. Even if Innocent’s sermons do not display much of the militancy that is so marked in Henry’s chronicle, issues of virginal fertility, the Virgin’s sacred genealogy and her role in offering celestial protection do present themselves in Innocent’s sermons. In this sense, at least a broad resonance between themes is detectable in the two authors. Such broad alignment, together with the immediateness in the rhetorical device applied, may be the reason why Innocent apparently let the Baltic representatives at the Lateran Council get away with claiming Livonia as their terra Mariana.69

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Register, 12: no. 103 (31 October 1209): ‘ad extirpandum paganitatis errorem et terminos Christiane fidei dilatandos’. So Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Riga and Rome’, p. 216. For a discussion of Henry’s sources in general, see Leonid Arbusow, ‘Das entlehnte Sprachgut in Heinrichs Chronicon Livoniae. Ein Beitrag zur Sprache mittelalterlicher Chronistik’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 8 (1950), 100–53. The designation has stuck with the region until today. A  poetic synonym for Estonia is Maarjamaa (‘Mary’s Land’), and the highest Estonian state decoration offered to foreign citizens is the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana (instituted 1995). Among its recipients have been Queens Margrethe  II of Denmark and Elizabeth  II of the United Kingdom, former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, former President of France, Jacques Chirac and former President of Germany, Johannes Rau.

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Chapter Ten Archbishop Rodrigo, Honorius III, and the Fifth Crusade in Spain Miguel Gomez

The cathedral archive of Toledo preserves a letter from Honorius III, dated late November 1217, and addressed to the archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, his suffragan bishops and other church officials.1 The letter relates the arrival of King Andrew II of Hungary and Duke Leopold VI of Austria, along with their vassals and armies, ‘at the coast of the territory of Jerusalem’, as part of the first wave of the Fifth Crusade. Narrating his own role in the unfolding campaign, Honorius reported that: When notice reached us that they had arrived that land, we poured out our heart and soul to God, praying to him for them in an outpouring of tears, and because we lack confidence in quality of our own merit, we called together the clerics and people of the city in the Basilica of the Savior (that is St. John Lateran) and from that place, we went in procession to worship at the Church of His glorious Mother, with bare feet and proceeded by the heads of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, so that we might obtain from His Mother heavenly aid for the aforementioned athletes of Jesus Christ, for which we understood our own merit does not suffice.2

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Archivo de la Catedral de Toledo (hereafter ACT) O.C.3.C.1.53. The document is Toledo’s copy of the letter Adversus hostes, which Honorius disseminated throughout Christendom. See Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca, 2017), pp. 217–19. ACT O.C.3.C.1.53: Sane nos cum ad nostrum venit notitiam illos terram predictam intrasse, animam nostrum effudimus coram deo, illum pro eis in lacrimarum affluentia deprecantes et quia de meritorum nostrorum qualitate diffidimus tam clerum qua populum Urbis convocavimus in Basilisca Salvatoris, atque inde ad venerandum gloriose matris eius ecclesiam prelatis capitibus beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli pedibus nudis processionaliter ivimus, ut prefatis Jhesu Christi atletis eius genitricis obtentu supernum in pateremus auxilium ad quod nostra non sufficere merita sciebamus.

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 193-215 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115861

Miguel Gomez

Pointing out that ‘all of the Christian people should carry on this business for them (the crusaders)’, the pope requested that similar prayers and processions be conducted on the first Friday of every month ‘in every city and any other place in which people gather’.3 Moreover, the prelates were expected to set examples for the devotion of their people with their own bare feet. Cloistered religious were to carry out these rogations in their monasteries, and lay men and women were to be discouraged from appearing in rich clothes or other finery at the processions. Honorius made the importance of these spiritual exertions clear: Behold now the time where all the faithful ought to bring together these arms. Behold the time where they ought to strew their own head with ash. Behold the time where they ought to cry out to heaven with prayerful voices and tears, so that He who does not triumph through numbers might, through renewed signs and altered miracles, according to His omnipotence, overcome the multitude (of enemies) with the few.4

Perhaps most importantly, the Pope asserted that there was indeed precedence for the success of these spiritual exercises, which would have been very familiar to the Iberian audience of this letter: We are instructed by the examples of the ancients to fight against visible enemies with spiritual weapons, that is, prayers, and we likewise glory in the renewal of this example in our own time, when the Lord delivered a multitude of infidel armies into the hands of a few faithful during the war in Spain.5

The spiritual weapon that the pope’s letter was invoking, was the processio generalis, a processional and liturgical cycle designed to focus the spiritual energies of Christendom on the war efforts waged by its crusading 3

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ACT O.C.3.C.1.53: ‘Verum quia per eos totius populi christiani negotium geritur, quare dignum est ad exorandum pro eis christianus quilibet in orationem prosternatur sollempnes propter hoc processiones in singulis civitatibus et aliis locis in quibus est frequentia populorum prima sexta feria cuiuslibet mensis providimus faciendas’. ACT O.C.3.C.1.53: ‘Ecce tempus quo universi fideles ad haec debent arma concurrere. Ecce tempus quo cinere debent aspergere caput suum. Ecce tempus quo debent in caelum lacrimarum et orationum vocibus exclamare, ut ille qui non in multitudine dimicat, inovatis signis et mirabilibus immutatis, secundum omnipotentiam suam multitudinem in paucitate devincat’. ACT O.C.3.C.1.53: ‘Adversus hostes visibiles invisibilibus armis id est orationibus dimicare veteribus exemplis instruimur, que nostris quoque temporibus innovata quando exercituum Deus infidelium multitudinem bello in Hyspania tradidit in manus paucorum fidelium gloriamur’.

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armies.6 The processio was, as the letter suggests, a rather new institution of the crusade. It was deployed for the first time during the ‘war in Spain’ to which Honorius was referring. This war, of course, was the victory won just five years before at Las Navas de Tolosa. While the success of Las Navas de Tolosa may have provided the model and inspiration for Innocent’s ambitious new crusade to the Holy Land, it also spelled a sudden end for papal support of crusading in Spain. In Quia maior, Innocent revoked the indulgences granted to foreign crusaders headed to the Iberian peninsula, ‘since they were granted for reasons that are now entirely past’.7 Two years later, at the Lateran Council, the prospects for new Spanish crusades were dealt another blow, when it became clear that the 1/20th tax on clerical incomes, earmarked to support the new crusade to the Holy Land, would apply to Spain as well.8 Innocent did concede that he might again extend crusade privileges to Spain ‘if required to act in any immediate necessity’, but it must have been apparent to the Iberian bishops in attendance at the council that the interests of the papacy, and indeed, the focus of Christendom, had shifted considerably to the east of the Spanish frontier.9 For Innocent and those who thought like he did, the shift was entirely appropriate. His vision of the crusade had always been broad and international. Writing to Alfonso VIII of Castile during the celebrations following Las Navas, Innocent advised him that: ‘This victory was without a doubt not brought about by human work, but by divine; and the sword of God, not of man, or even more truly the sword of the men of God

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On the processio generalis, see Christoph Maier, ‘Mass, the Eucharist, and the Cross: Innocent III and the Relocation of the Crusade’, in Pope Innocent III and his World, ed. John  C. Moore (Burlington, 1999), pp.  351–60; Damian Smith, Innocent III and the Crown of Aragon (Burlington, 2004), pp. 105–6; Miguel Gómez, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: The Culture and Practice of Crusading in Medieval Iberia’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Tennessee, 2011), 98–99; Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, pp. 201–19. Quia maior, in PL, 216: 817–21 (here col. 820): ‘Et propter eamdem causam remissiones et indulgentias hactenus a nobis concessas procedentibus in Hispaniam contra Mauros[...]revocamus; maxime cum illis concessae fuerint ad tempus quo iam ex toto praeteriit’. Peter Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), p. 6. Quia maior, PL, 216: 820: ‘si forte requirereret, non ingruenti necessitate prospicere curaremus’.

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destroyed the enemies of the Lord’s cross’.10 Moreover, God had brought about this victory not just for Alfonso or Castile, but for the populum Christianum, all the Christian people. The universal nature of the victory was a recurring theme in the clerical accounts of the battle. The papal legate Arnaud Amaury, near the end of his account of the battle of Las Navas, which he sent to the Cistercian general chapter, says: Blessed be in all things the Lord Jesus Christ, who through his mercy, in our time, under the blessed apostle of the Lord Pope Innocent, bestowed victories upon the catholic Christians over three pestilential peoples and enemies of his holy church, namely eastern schismatics, western heretics, and southern Saracens.11

From the perspective of Rome, it was clear that the victory, and the crusading institutions that helped bring it about, belonged to Christendom, and would be shifted to where they were needed. In 1215, the need was deemed to lie in the Holy Land. For the Spanish Christians, however, the lessons of the victory were somewhat different. The victory had not belonged equally to all of Christendom, but rather to a select few. A letter circulated to the knights of the kingdom of Castile, noted that ‘we who are from this kingdom ought to sing to Him especially and glorify and praise His name as blessed forever because the victory was in our land and it was especially our cause’.12 Much later in his account of the battle in De Rebus Hispanie, the archbishop of Toledo reported that the victory had been won by soli hispani, and at that mostly the Castilians.13 Similarly, Alfonso  VIII memorialized the

10

11

12

13

MDI, pp.  519–21 (here p.  521): ‘Ista enim victoria dubio non humani operis extitit, set divini; et gladius Dei, non hominis, immo verius Dei hominis inimicos crucis dominice devoravit’. Letter of Arnaud Amaury to the Cistercian General Chapter, in RHGF, 19: 250–55 (here p.  253): ‘Benedictus per omnia Dominus Jesus-Christus, qui per suam misericordiam in nostris temporibus, sub felici apostolatu domini Papae Innocentii, de tribus pestilentium hominum et inimicorum ecclesiae sanctae suae, videlicet orientalibus schismaticis, occidentalibus haereticis, meridionalibus Sarracenis, victorias contulit catholicis christianis’. The letter is transcribed and translated by Lucy Pick, Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of Medieval Spain (Ann Arbor, 2004), pp. 211–12. Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, ‘De Rebus Hispaniae sive Historia Gothica’ (henceforth DRH), in Roderici Ximenii de Rada opera omnia, ed. Juan Fernández Valverde (Turnhout, 1987), p. 266.

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battle in which ‘I defeated Miramomelin, king of Carthage, on the field of battle’ in his subsequent charters.14 Within a few months, the prideful boast was tempered a bit, as the king began to add that he defeated the caliph ‘not by my own merit but by the mercy of God and the help of my vassals’.15 Nevertheless, the fight had been, and would continue to be, depicted as an Iberian one.16 The timing of this shift of the crusading effort was also potentially dangerous from the Iberian perspective. The kingdoms of Aragon and Castile were beset by dynastic problems, stemming from the untimely deaths of Peter II (September 1213) and Alfonso VIII (October 1214), and the subsequent succession of minors. Poor harvests and famines in those same years helped to ensure that the Christian kingdoms were in no position to capitalize on the recent victory over their Muslim enemies.17 Moreover, the Almohad governors of the cities of al-Andalus were still quite capable of defending themselves, and even undertaking offensive actions against the Christian frontier. In 1213 and 1214 Archbishop Rodrigo had led the defense of the Toledo hinterland against a Cordoban army. Three years later, the governor of Seville led considerable forces in an attempt to relieve the siege of Alcácer do Sal in Portugal.18 The latter conflict is of particular interest in that it illustrates the effort by local Christians to relocate the crusade back to the Iberian peninsula. In summer 1217, a fleet of Rhenish, Dutch, and Frisian crusaders landed in Portugal, on their way to the Holy Land. Although they certainly knew that crusade indulgences for Spain had been revoked, the bishops of Lisbon and Evora, alongside the commanders of the Portuguese military orders, attempted to convince the northerners to join them in an attack on

14

15

16

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Julio González, El Reino de Castilla en la epoca de Alfonso VIII, 3 vols (Madrid, 1960), 3: 580–81: ‘eo videlicet anno quo ego predictus Aldefonsus rex Almiramomeninum regem Cartaginis campestri prelio superavi’. González, Alfonso VIII, 3: 584: ‘Facta carta apud Guadalfaiaram, era MCCL prima, V die mensis Junii, secundo videlicet anno postquam ego A., rex predictus, Amiramomelinum, tunc regem Marracos apud Las Navas de Tolosa campestri prelio devici non meis meritis set Dei misericordia et meorum auxilio vassalorum’. See also Peter Linehan, Spain 1157–1300: A Partible Inheritance (Malden, 2011), pp. 51–56. So suggest the Anales Toledanos, which chronicle famines in 1213 and 1214. Los Anales Toledanos  I y II, ed. Julio Porres Martín-Cleto (Toledo, 1993), pp. 176–82. Anales Toledanos, p. 188.

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the Muslim fortress of Alcácer do Sal.19 Some of the crusaders demurred, citing their obligation to continue to the East, but others, under the count of Holland, stayed to help. The siege and defeat of a relief army were successfully concluded by October. The fourteenth-century Moroccan chronicler Ibn Abī Zarʿ called the defeat ‘one of the great ones, only a bit less important than Las Navas de Tolosa’.20 After the city was captured, the bishops quickly wrote to Honorius to explain what had happened. It is apparent from the language of the letter that they understood that the pope might not approve: When in general council, if your Holiness recalls, the archbishops Lord Pedro of Compostela and Lord Rodrigo of Toledo, and all who attended of the Spanish bishops, with all the earnestness they could muster, insisted before Pope Innocent, of blessed memory, that the remission, which he had granted as aid to the Holy Land, should be extended to Spain for the defeat of the Saracens, and the response to them from the Lord Pope and the council of cardinals was that if there was a war against the Saracens in Spain, he would freely grant the same full remission.21

They went on to request that the vows of some of the crusaders be discharged and that they be allowed to return to their own countries. Similarly, the count of Holland wrote to Honorius requesting further orders after the victory.22 The pope’s answer, coming in January 1218, was direct: while he congratulated them on the victory, the crusaders who had taken vows for the Holy Land were to proceed there with all haste. Service in Spain did not count.23 19

20

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22 23

The episode is recounted by both Derek Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (New York, 1978), p. 132, and Joseph O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia, 2003), pp. 79–80. Ibn Abī Zarʿ, Rawd al Qirtas, trans. and ed. Ambrosio Huici Miranda (Valencia, 1964), pp. 471–72. Mansilla, La Documentación Pontificia de Honorio III (1216–27) (Rome, 1965), pp. 76–77: ‘Cum in concilio generali, si vestra recolit sanctitas, domini Petrus Compostellanus et Rodericus Toletanus archiepiscopi et omnes qui adherant de Hyspania episcopi, cum quanta potuerunt instantia, institerunt apud domnun papam Inocentium sancte memorie, ut remissionem, quam Terre Sancte subvenientibus concesserat, concederet et in Yspania expugnantibus sarracenos, et responsum fuisset eis a domno papa de consilio cardinalium, quod si guerra esset contra sarracenos in Yspaniam libenter ibidem plenam concederet remissionem’. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 78. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 106–7. A few days later, the pope agreed to commute the vows of those who were too poor to go on to the Holy Land: Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 116.

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But despite urging the northern fleets on to the East, Honorius was indeed interested in reopening the Iberian crusading front. The pope was surely encouraged that the siege of Alcácer do Sal looked like history repeating itself. During the Second and Third Crusades, northern fleets had successfully intervened in Spain, and now again, in the early stages of the Fifth Crusade, the western frontier of Christendom appeared to offer a promising chance for victory. A few days after ordering the northern crusaders on to Jerusalem, the pope invested Archbishop Rodrigo with legatine powers for a war against the Muslims, noting that the time was opportune for a strike against them.24 The letter announcing Rodrigo’s new powers was sent to the archbishop of Tarragona and the suffragan bishops of Toledo in the kingdom of Castile, almost certainly indicating the geographical scope of the new legation. With underage monarchs in both the kingdom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, empowering a clerical crusade organizer would allow the martial resources of the kingdoms to be activated in the absence of royal leadership. The letter was issued shortly after the archbishop’s departure from Rome, where he spent much of late 1217, pursuing numerous ecclesiastical issues in the curia.25 The new Iberian crusade was likely Rodrigo’s idea, as he had been haranguing the papacy for just such a concession since the Fourth Lateran Council, nearly two years earlier.26 Indeed, there is reason to believe that Rodrigo might have seen the new year of 1218 as an opportune moment to strike against alAndalus. The untimely death of the young Henry I the year before, and the quick move by Queen Berenguela to secure the throne for her son, the young Ferdinand III, ended the struggle for power amongst the Castilian aristocracy that had characterized the years immediately following the death of Alfonso VIII in 1214.27 The return of royal stability, and with it the restoration of Archbishop Rodrigo’s central position in Castilian politics, almost certainly left him feeling secure and confident to pursue

24 25

26 27

Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 119–20. Javier Gorrosterrazu, Don Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, Gran Estadista, Escritor y Prelado (Pamplona, 1925), pp. 179–84. For a broader take on the archbishop’s activities in those years, see Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy, pp. 7–19. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy, p. 6. The best accounts of this episode are Miriam Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (New York, 2009), pp.  86–96; Janna Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand (Philadelphia, 2012), pp. 104–39.

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his own projects.28 In those days, the crusade was certainly one of his most beloved projects. Rodrigo had been one of the principal promoters and organizers of the victorious crusade of 1212. The victory of Las Navas de Tolosa would be the lens through which he would frame Alfonso VIII in his history. Indeed, he continued to center his narrative on the crusade, as the climax in the lengthy De Rebus Hispanie is the conquest of Córdoba by Ferdinand III.29 The conquest of al-Andalus and the promotion of crusading was a preoccupation of the archbishop throughout his career. It was with this tool that he had helped achieve one of the principal goals of the Church: the end of the internecine conflicts which had preoccupied Christian rulers in Spain throughout the twelfth century.30 It was with these goals in mind that Rodrigo returned to Spain in late 1217. The royal minority of Henry I had thrown Castile back into civil war; the new royal minority could potentially lead to conflict with León. A new crusade offered the chance to redirect the energies of the restless nobility. Nevertheless, Rodrigo’s ambitions were relatively modest. Given recent dynastic difficulties, the new king of Castile was not prepared to expose himself to the dangers of the campaign until he had at least produced an heir. Moreover, the kingdom was officially still under truce with the Almohads, arranged by Alfonso VIII in the summer of 1214.31 Rodrigo’s plans for a new crusade were necessarily limited. Pope Honorius, on the other hand, may have had something rather grander in mind. In early 1218, the Fifth Crusade still appeared to be unfolding as planned.32 King Andrew of Hungary and Duke Leopold of Austria (himself a veteran of the Spanish crusade, after a fashion) were still in Acre, and reinforcements were on the way.33 The pope likely felt confident, and therefore willing to expand the scope of the crusade to the Iberian front as well. His dramatic letter granting the archbishop legatine powers to lead the new campaign should be seen as a new bull for the 28

29

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31

32

33

On the archbishop’s marginalization during the Lara regency for Enrique I, see Simon Doubleday, The Lara Family (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 52–55. Bernard Reilly, ‘The De Rebus Hispanie and the Mature Latin Chronicle in the Iberian Middle Ages’, Viator 43.2 (2012), p. 142. See, for example, Christopher Tyerman, The Invention of Crusading (London, 1998), pp. 83–88; Gómez, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa’, pp. 63–69. The truce was made in the spring of 1214, almost certainly for the standard ten-year term. See Julio González, Alfonso VIII, 1: 1072. On the Fifth Crusade, see James  M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–21 (Philadelphia, 1986). Duke Leopold had led an Austrian force to Spain in 1212, but arrived too late to take part in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: DRH, p. 276.

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crusade in Spain. It is forceful in its tone, and may be read as an epistolary sermon. Honorius referred to the Muslims of Spain as the descendants of Ishmael, living in shadow. It referenced the destruction of the Jebusites (King David’s capture of Jerusalem), and invoked the memory of Las Navas de Tolosa: ‘Since however all good things come about in their own time, behold the opportune moment (we believe) to strike against the Agarenes, by whom you were besieged five years ago now when the Lord of Hosts divinely supplied the miracle of that victory’.34 Honorius may have hoped for similar results in the new campaign, and with good reason. The greatest crusade victory of his predecessor’s tenure had been won in the Iberian Peninsula. Moreover, the recent victory of the crusaders at Alcácer do Sal was certainly encouraging. The entire crusade seemed to be going swimmingly and opening up a new western front likely seemed a safe bet with great potential returns. Along with the legatine appointment, Honorius dashed off several other letters. One instructed the new legate to enforce the peace ordered at the Fourth Lateran Council among the monarchs of the Peninsula, since peace between the Christian kingdoms had always been the sine qua non of Iberian crusading.35 Another letter established that the archbishopric of Seville was to fall under the authority of Rodrigo of Toledo, as the primate of Spain, once it was recaptured.36 This last letter was, to a certain extent, a practical concession to Archbishop Rodrigo’s other hobbyhorse, the primacy of the see of Toledo. Seville had been historically the seat of an archdiocese, and Rodrigo was keen to ensure that any restored archbishops would not eclipse the status of his own office.37 Moreover, confirmation of primatial rights had been one of Rodrigo’s primary items of business during his stay in Rome. The results of the archbishop’s lobbying were perhaps less than he hoped. While confirming all prior papal pronouncements on Toledo’s primatial status, the pope refused to expand them further, at least not at the expense of other sitting archbishops.38 But granting Toledo primacy over an as-of-yet unconquered archbishopric was a cheap and easy nod to Rodrigo’s ambitions. The timing of 34

35 36 37 38

Mansilla, Honorio  III, pp.  119–20: ‘Cum autem omnia sint in tempore suo bona, ecce tempus oportunum ut credimus ad insurgendum contra eos, quibus estis circummdati, agarenos cum miraculo illius victorie, quam Dominus exercituum anno nunc quinto celitus ministravit’. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 121. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 123. Gorosterratzu, Don Rodrigo, pp. 182–83. Mansilla, Honorio  III, pp.  111–13. See Linehan, History and the Historians (Oxford, 1993), pp. 333–35.

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this ecclesiastical housekeeping was not entirely arbitrary, however. Conditions would ensure that the coming thrust into al-Andalus in 1218 would focus on the western part of the Peninsula. Seville lay at the end of the Via de Plata, the major north-south Roman road from León into Extremadura, and so the Andalucian metropolis lay in the potential path of the planned new crusade.39 The archbishop returned to Spain via southern France.40 It seems likely that Rodrigo made efforts to recruit international support for the upcoming campaign in this region, as the campaign was later joined by several Gascon crusaders.41 The diplomatic groundwork for the crusade was achieved very quickly, as Ferdinand III and Alfonso IX concluded a peace treaty early in the year.42 The peace between father and son was to be guaranteed by the ecclesiastical leadership of the kingdoms. Adopting a papal strategy that dated back to the time of Celestine III, the job of enforcing the terms of the treaty on the kings was placed in the hands of the bishops of the opposite kingdom.43 Ferdinand III would be excommunicated, and Castile placed under interdict, by the archbishop of Compostela and the bishops of Astorga and Zamora, should he fail to meet his treaty-obligations. Similarly, Alfonso IX and León were placed under the power of the archbishop of Toledo and the bishops of Burgos and Palencia. The new treaty also paved the way for the coming campaign by guaranteeing that Castilian volunteers could join the crusade under

39

40

41 42

43

On the Silver Road, see J. M. Roldan Hervás, El Camino de la Plata (Madrid, 1967). His exact itinerary is difficult to pin down. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 86, cites a letter from Honorius  III requesting safe passage from the archbishop of Bordeaux for Rodrigo’s journey home. It is dated 23 December (x kal. Jan.). Archbishop Rodrigo was certainly party to the peace treaty signed between Alfonso  IX and Fernando  III that same winter. González, Alfonso  IX, 1: 181, dates the treaty to January 1218. If Rodrigo was in Rome in mid-to-late December, and on the Leonese frontier by late January, his trip was certainly made at a rapid, though technically possible, pace. It is also possible that the peace treaty was finalized somewhat later in the winter. Anales Toledanos, p. 189. González dates the treaty, plausibly but not definitively, to late January. See above, note 40. The text of the treaty is in González, Alfonso IX, 2: 460–62. On this diplomatic arrangement, see the forthcoming article by Miguel Gómez and Kyle Lincoln, ‘“The Sins of the Sons of Men”: A  new letter of Pope Celestine  III concerning the 1195 crusade of Alarcos’, Crusades 2017 (forthcoming).

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the banner of the king of León, despite the truces binding Castile and the Almohad Empire. It was indeed that banner that led the crusade late in the year. Among the many letters sent by Honorius dated to January of that year was one directed to Alfonso IX. The pope pointed out to the king of León that the ‘Saracens living in Spain on this side of the sea have been preserved not by their own power, but because of dissension of the Christians’.44 Encouraging the king by holding out the possibility of honor and good fortune which would be his for ‘expanding the borders of Christianity’, he asked Alfonso IX to cooperate with Archbishop Rodrigo in all things related to the crusade and peace between the Christian kingdoms.45 The sources are vague about how, or even if, this cooperation was forthcoming. Rodrigo, in his own historical writings, gives no account of the campaign of 1218 (or any of the campaigns in subsequent years), and indeed focuses his attention explicitly on the activities of Ferdinand III and his mother Queen Berenguela in those years. In his Chronicon Mundi, Lucas of Túy gives a summary of the campaign, indicating that after making peace with his son Ferdinand, the king of León led a raid around the city of Cáceres, though the precise timeline is very vague.46 The Anales Toledanos, composed in Rodrigo’s own cathedral, gives a much fuller version: The friars [of the military orders] of Spain and the people of the king of Castile and of the king of León, and whoever wanted to come from the other kingdoms, made a crusade, along with Savaric de Mauleón with many people of Gascony, and they went to Cáceres, and besieged it, but they did not take it, because there were such great rains that they could not remain. This was in the middle of November, and they stayed until close to Christmas, when they returned, Era 1256 (AD 1218).47

44

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46

47

Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 124: ‘Certum est quod sarraceni existentes in Yspania citra mare nequaquam propriis virtutibus, sed Christianorum dissensionibus defendatur’. Mansilla, Honorio  III, p.  124: ‘Christianorum terminos dilatandos’. The kingdom of León lay outside Rodrigo’s legation, and so the extra papal instruction was necessary to establish the archbishop’s authority and role in the crusade. Lucas of Túy, Chronicon Mundi, ed. Emma Falque, CCCM 74 (Turnhout, 2003), p. 35. Anales Toledanos, p. 189: ‘Ficieron Cruzada los Freyres de España con las gientes del Rey de Castiella, e del Rey de Leon, e de los otros Regnos quisieron venir y, e Savaric de Mallen con muchas gientes de Gascoña, e fueron cercar Cancies, e lidiaronla, e non la prisieron, que facia tan grandes aguas que non pudieron

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Though neither source confirms the presence of both Alfonso IX and Archbishop Rodrigo, it seems quite likely that they were both present, cooperating as Rome had hoped. The diplomatic evidence corroborates with the Chronicon Mundi, suggesting that Alfonso IX was absent from his kingdom late in that year.48 González argued, based on a charter composed in Plasencia, that the Castilian contingent crossed over into Leonese Extremadura there along the Tajo frontier, no doubt to join Alfonso IX.49 The charter itself is a clear testament of the crusading nature of the campaign. The document records the grant of the frontier castle of Miravete, for the purpose of repopulation to ‘Roy Bermudez, fide [son of ] Bermud Pedrez, cruçado’.50 This, alongside the use of the term cruzada in the Anales Toledanos, certainly mark some of the very earliest appearances of the word ‘crusade’ and ‘crusader’ in the Castilian language.51 Though no source mentions Rodrigo’s presence directly, it seems safe to conclude that the presence of Gascon crusaders was a result of recruitment efforts on his travels through France the previous winter. It was an area in which he had enjoyed considerable success recruiting crusaders before the crusade in 1212.52 The presence of Savaric de Mauléon, a Gascon magnate and future seneschal of Henry III in Gascony and Poitou, is testament to the continued connections between the Plantagenet realms and Castile. He would go on to join the Fifth Crusade in the eastern Mediterranean in the autumn of 1219.53 Interestingly, Savaric and his entourage may have joined the fight in Spain while on the way to the Holy Land. He made a series of gifts and donations to the monastery of the Holy Cross in Talmond (and other religious houses) in preparation for his departure ‘ad subsidium Terre Sancte’. Most of the charters are simply dated to 1218,

48 49 50

51

52 53

y durar. Esto fue mediado de November, e duro hasta cerca de Navidad, e tornaronse ende, Era MCCLVI’. González, Alfonso IX, 2: 480–81. González, Alfonso IX, 1: 190. The charter is published in Ramon Menéndez Pidal, Documentos Linguisticos de España (Madrid, 1919), pp. 438–39. See Gómez, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa’, pp.  196–97; Gómez, ‘Las Navas de Tolosa and the culture of crusade in the Kingdom of Castile’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 4 (2012), pp. 53–57 (here 55–56). See also Benjamin Weber, ‘El término “Cruzada” y sus usos en la Edad Media’, in Orígenes y desarrollo de la guerra santa en la Península Ibérica (Madrid, 2016), pp. 221–34. Gómez, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa’, pp. 70–85. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, pp. 167–69, 242.

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however one gives the more specific date of July.54 While Savaric could have made his way back to Gascony between the end of the Cáceres campaign (December 1218) and his arrival in the Egypt (autumn 1219), he evidently made his preparations to go on crusade before arriving in Spain. This may suggest that, like the papacy, many crusaders indeed saw Spain and Palestine as simply the western and eastern theaters in the same war. While the sources do not explain why the attempt to capture Cáceres was delayed until autumn, there were many factors which may have contributed to the decision. The Gascon contingent, probably expected from the time of Archbishop Rodrigo’s winter visit, may have delayed their departure given the uncertainty of affairs in France. The end of the First Baron’s War (which pitted the Plantagenet realms against the Capetians) in late 1217, followed by the death of Simon de Montfort, the leader of the Albigensian Crusade at the siege of Toulouse in June of 1218, certainly left that kingdom disordered. The Leonese may have been delayed due to hostility with Portugal, which would boil over into war in the following spring (1219).55 The weather itself may have played a role in the decision to delay the campaign. Cáceres lies in the middle of some of the hottest terrain in the Iberian Peninsula. Excessive heat had, perhaps, played a role in the premature departure of the last ultramontano crusaders in the peninsula, during the Las Navas de Tolosa campaign.56 It was later noted that Alfonso IX did not have much of a stomach for the summer heat.57 If this was the case, it turned out to be a poor calculation. The autumn is distinctly the rainy season in that part of Spain, and November 1218 was no exception. While Lucas of Túy reports that the operation ended after a successful devastation of the surrounding countryside, the account of the Anales Toledanos suggests a rather more waterlogged and dispirited collapse of the campaign.58 Despite opening up this new crusading front, Pope Honorius III was still pursuing the collection of the tax of one twentieth for the Fifth Crusade in Spain, concerning the collection of which the Iberian prelates 54

55 56

57

58

The charters are in the Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Talmond (Poitiers, 1873), pp.  318–27, no.  445 (p.  325) which gives the date ‘mense julii, anno gracie MCCXVIII’. There is an additional charter from Savaric in the Archives Historiques du Poitou, 63 vols (Poitiers, 1877), 6: 31–32. Julio González, Alfonso IX, 2 vols (Madrid, 1944), 1: 191–94. Such was the explanation offered by Alfonso VIII in his after-action report to Innocent III. See González, Alfonso VIII, 3: 568. Chronica Latina Regum Castellae, ed. Luis Charlo Brea (Turnhout, 1997), p. 95. Lucas of Túy, Chronicon Mundi, p. 335.

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had been procrastinating fiercely.59 There seems to have been rumors of misappropriation of the crusade tax swirling around the peninsula: in November 1218 Honorius felt the need to dispatch a letter assuring the bishops that the rumor that the Hospitallers and Templars were hoarding wealth, to the detriment of poor crusaders in the East, was not true.60 But the financial resources were arguably the most important part of the crusade, and Archbishop Rodrigo no doubt harassed Rome to relax the collection of funds for the East in Spain. The archbishop got his results the next spring, when Honorius granted him half of the twentieth from the dioceses of Toledo and Segovia for the campaign he planned to lead in 1219.61 There was nothing unusual about this move. Indeed, by 1219, Honorius was regularly allowing the crusade tax to cover local expenses. Savaric de Mauléon himself was granted the Poitevan twentieth to cover his debts. Powell has argued that ‘the papacy endeavored to win as much local support as possible for its crusade tax by demonstrating that it was being used to support local contingents’.62 Rodrigo was also authorized to make use of the tercias funds of the diocese for three years to fund his campaign. The pope also granted the archbishop the ability to commute the vows of crusaders, who were originally planning to go to the Holy Land, for fighting in Spain, a privilege which he had markedly refused the year before. This new privilege was accompanied by a broader bull unequivocally restoring the crusade indulgence to any who fought on the Iberian front.63 Again it appears likely that Honorius was hoping for grand results in Spain in 1219, as he also announced papal protection for King Sancho VII of Navarre, one of the victors of Las Navas, who had again taken the cross.64 Some of the churches of Navarre were also granted exemptions from paying the twentieth crusade tax, presumably so they could support their own kingdom’s efforts.65 Honorius wrote to Archbishop Rodrigo, asking for him to assist in the protection of Navarre while its king and his men would be ‘marching against the Saracens’.66 Cooperation between the legate/archbishop and the king of Navarre was clearly envisioned. As in 1218, Rome still appeared confident in the overall direction in which 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy, pp. 7–19. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 155. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 160–61. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 93. ACT A.6.H.I.11.c.; Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 161. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 167. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 174. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 170: ‘rex Navarre ac sui eundo contra sarracenos’.

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the crusade was moving. The army in Egypt was besieging Damietta, and the Albigensian crusade was restarted in summer 1219, when Honorius granted privileges to the expected campaign of the Prince Louis in the South of France.67 To this we can add a sure hope for success in Spain. However, despite the expectations of Rome, the campaigns of 1219 were as inconclusive as the previous year’s. Whereas the campaign of 1218 had been directed at the frontier beyond Castile’s western border, Archbishop Rodrigo looked east toward the frontier south of Aragon in 1219. The ultimate target of the campaign was the fortress of Requena.68 For Sancho VII, this region was a logical target. It lay to the south of the independent lordship of Albarracín, ruled by the Navarrese Azagra clan.69 The king of Navarre worked to align his kingdom with the Azagra, and seems to have seen Albarracín as a new frontier for the conquest of Muslim-held lands.70 The archbishop also had a particular interest in the region. His diocesan ancestor, Celebruno, had assisted in the transfer of the old Visigothic diocese of Segóbriga to Albarracín. This had helped the Azagra ensure their independence from Aragon, and had allowed Toledo to claim primatial rights over the region.71 Defending and expanding this diocese, and ultimately Toledo’s control over the Sharq al-Andalus (with an eventual eye on beating out the archbishop of Tarragona for El Cid’s diocese of Valencia) was a project near to Rodrigo’s heart.72 The Anales Toledanos, again our best source for the campaign, squarely identifies Archbishop Rodrigo as the leader of the new crusade.73 Sancho VII is not mentioned, but was quite likely present.74 The campaign 67 68 69

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Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 178–79. Anales Toledanos, p. 189. Martin Almagro Basch, Historia de Albarracín y su Sierra, 3 vols (Teruel, 1959), 3: 156–58. See, for example, the castles purchased from Pedro Fernández de Azagra within Albarracín in the years after Las Navas: Almagro Basch, Historia de Albarracín, 3: 155–57 and 137–45. See also Luis Javier Fortun Perez de Ciriza, Sancho el Fuerte (1194–1234) (Iruña, 1987), pp. 275–79. Almagro Basch, Historia de Albarracín, pp. 62–74. Lucy Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, p. 53, described Rodrigo moving towards Valencia ‘like a latter-day El Cid’. On the competition between Toledo and Tarragona for Valencia, see Guillermo de León and Luis Mombiedro, ‘Una Cruzada, un noble, y un castillo en la frontera de Moya’, in Moya: Estudios y Documentos I (Cuenca, 1996), pp. 21–42. Anales Toledanos, pp. 189–90. Fortun Perez de Ciriza, Sancho el Fuerte, p. 283, argues his participation in the campaign can be demonstrated by the infusion of extra cash and resources in

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was again delayed until the autumn, though somewhat earlier than the previous year’s effort. The Castilian-Navarrese army moved south from Albarracín in September, capturing a number of castles before laying siege to Requena. The Toledan chronicler dates the siege from Michaelmas (late September) to the feast of Saint Martin (early November). Despite damaging the walls with mangonels and ballista, they failed to take the city, and retired after losing many men.75 But despite two years with no substantial results, it appears that Honorius was willing to try again in 1220 to sponsor a crusading victory in Spain, perhaps confident after the capture of Damietta in Egypt by the crusader forces in the East. In February, Honorius wrote to the archbishop of Tarragona, encouraging him to assist the archbishop of Toledo’s efforts.76 Citing the castles captured during the previous year’s campaign, the pope asked for aid ‘in persons and things’, ‘hoping that this labor should, with the cooperation of divine assistance, be fruitful in crushing the Moors’, and also ‘diverting aid from the Saracens of the east’.77 Directing the request for aid to the archbishop of Tarragona, and citing the previous year’s successes, it would seem clear that Rome expected Rodrigo to follow up on the previous year’s campaign in the east of the Peninsula, near Aragon, perhaps with the goal of capturing Requena, which the crusade had failed to do in 1219. Indeed, Honorius mentioned, in a letter sent to the archbishop that July, ‘your messenger explained,

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his grants in the years 1219–22. A surer sign of his participation is a February 1221 letter from Honorius III which explicitly states that Sancho VII had been on crusade away from his kingdom the year before (Mansilla, Honorio  III, pp. 273–74). The terms used in the Anales Toledanos for the siege equipment, almajanequis and algarradas, are Arabic loan words. See Peter Purton, A  History of the Early Medieval Siege (Woodbridge, 2009), p.  347. The Anales report 2000 dead Christians, an exaggeration no doubt, but one designed to convey the severity of the losses. Martín-Cleto, Anales Toledanos, p. 190, noted that ‘given his political ability’, Rodrigo of course profited from the campaign. In 1221, he granted the castles captured in 1219 to Gil Garcia de Azagra, his cousin, in return for an annual payment and military support. The charter is summarized in Francisco Hernández, Cartularios de Toledo (Madrid, 1985), pp. 358–59. See also Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, pp. 54–55; De León and Mombiedro, ‘Una cruzada’, pp. 21–42. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 207. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 207: ‘sperantes igitur quod eius labor esse debeat, divino cooperante auxilio, fructuosus in mauris conterendis[...]et ab orientalium sarracenorum subsidio retrahendis’.

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speaking to us in person[...] that you intended to go against the Moors’ that year.78 The day after asking the archbishop of Tarragona to aid Rodrigo, the pope wrote to his tax collector in Spain, Huguccio, informing him that he had granted the archbishop the balance of the uncollected twentieth ‘in his legation’, for the expenses ‘he has undertaken manfully [while] fighting the Moors’.79 As the language makes clear, this seems to be a grant to cover past expenses, but whether that meant expenses already undertaken for the upcoming campaign, or for the previous years’ campaigns is not clear. There is some ambiguous evidence that Rodrigo besieged Requena for a second time; the fragmentary Anales Toledanos III attest that Archbishop Rodrigo besieged the city in 1220.80 The more complete Anales (traditionally labelled I and II), which, as we have seen, offer considerable details for the prior two years of campaigning, do not mention a campaign in 1220. Similarly, the fragmentary Anales III do not mention the campaigns of 1218 or 1219. Unfortunately, there is no further evidence concerning the projected campaign. It seems more than likely that this second siege of Requena never occurred. For the music stopped abruptly for Archbishop Rodrigo’s crusading efforts in summer 1220. At the beginning of July, Honorius III sent letters to both the archbishop of Tarragona and the archbishop of Toledo, concerning the conduct of the papal tax collector Huguccio, who had ‘committed many abusive and irregular acts’ while ‘exceeding the mandate’ of his office.81 While Archbishop Espareg of Tarragona was asked to report on any irregularities committed by Huguccio in his diocese, Rodrigo was outright accused of complicity or at least of ignoring the terrible conduct of Honorius’s tax collector. Three days later, Archbishop Rodrigo received a letter revoking the grant of the uncollected twentieth made just five months before.82 What exactly happened is not entirely clear. Peter Linehan attempted to reconstruct the events from the papal correspondence, and concluded 78 79

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Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 226–27. ACT A.6.H.1.8.c and d; Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 208: ‘Attendentes expensas discrimina et labores, quos venerabilis frater noster archiepiscopus Toletanus apostolice sedis legatus aggressus est Mauros viriliter impugnando’. ‘Anales Toledanos III’, in España Sagrada, ed. Enrique Florez et. al., 51  vols (Madrid, 1754–1918) 23: 410–23 (here p. 412). Both O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p.  82, and Lomax, Reconquest of Spain, p.  133, accepted the evidence of a second siege of Requena in 1220. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 225–26: ‘mandatorum nostrorum fines excedens […] multa enormia et abusive patravit’. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 226–27.

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that Rodrigo had teamed up with Huguccio ‘to their own shameless advantage and to the Church’s considerable loss’.83 However, this rather dim view of the archbishop enriching himself at the expense of the Church does not seem to take into account the whole picture. Rodrigo was involved in the planning of three and the execution of at least two considerable military campaigns in three years in a period in which the Castilian economy was under considerable strain.84 The crusade taxes and other ecclesiastical resources which the pope authorized him to deploy for those purposes likely did not cover all the attendant expenses, even if they had been collected in full.85 Rather than looking for embezzlement, it is perhaps easier to explain the affair emerging from more predictable points of contention. The imposition of papal taxation for the crusade had never been popular, and the papacy had to work carefully to achieve cooperation.86 The Spanish episcopate had been especially recalcitrant.87 Granting a portion of the twentieth to the archbishop of Toledo to use for the crusade in Spain had perhaps satisfied the most vocal critic of papal taxation, but it was unlikely to satisfy all Iberian bishops. Despite his reputation as a successful crusader, Archbishop Rodrigo was certainly a divisive figure in the peninsula because of his vigorous promotion of the primacy of Toledo. Many of the bishops had been witness to his sweeping and strident defense of the primacy at the Fourth Lateran Council, an event which certainly left a bad taste in the mouth of the other Iberian archbishops.88 Rodrigo had not let up on the issue in the following years and one suspects that Archbishop Espareg of Tarragona was none too pleased when he received the letter from Honorius in early 1220 asking him to assist his Toledan rival. This displeasure certainly multiplied and spread when it became clear that the twentieth throughout the territory of the legation (which included the archdiocese of Tarragona) was to flow into Rodrigo’s hands. When one adds to this that Rodrigo’s activities in the Sharq al-Andalus were in part aimed at incorporating the diocese of Valencia into the archdiocese of Toledo, and not Tarragona, cooperation was impossible. The denunciation of Huguccio, the papal tax collector, was an easy step, and 83 84

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Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy, p. 8. Anales Toledanos, pp.  176–82, chronicle severe food shortages in 1213 and 1214. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy, p. 8, n. 5, cites further crop failures in 1219. Gómez, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa’, pp. 92–98. See Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, pp. 91–95. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy, pp. 6–8. Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 328–31.

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one which took advantage of the unpopularity of the twentieth throughout Spain. Huguccio had been aggressive and forceful in his attempts to collect the tax.89 Amongst the complaints which Honorius echoed to Archbishop Rodrigo when he denounced his collector was ‘pretending that he was a papal legate’.90 Rodrigo’s degree of complicity in the collector’s aggressive tactics is unclear, but one can certainly see the proximity between ‘pretending to be a legate’ and acting in the name of a legate.91 In short, the divisive archbishop had never been an ideal figure to unify the various constituent parts of Christian Spain under the banner of the crusade. The greater the powers entrusted to Rodrigo, the sooner dissension was sure to follow. In the end, Honorius cited ‘discord amongst the kings’ as the reason Rodrigo had been ‘unable to proceed against the Moors’.92 Such dissension was, of course, the traditional enemy of successful crusading efforts, and was in evidence in those years. Certain Aragonese magnates had raided the kingdom of Navarre while Sancho VII was on crusade in 1219.93 Alfonso IX of León and Afonso II of Portugal clashed briefly in 1219.94 The king of León also experienced a dramatic falling out with his half-brother and potential heir, Sancho Fernández, the following year.95 Afonso II found himself in deep conflict with the Church in 1220.96 Coupled with the 89

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There are numerous accounts that confirm this. In December 1219, Honorius assured the Cistercian abbots that they were protected from demands of papal legates and collectors (Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 197); in the same month the pope assured the Templars that they could not be excommunicated except by Rome (Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 199–200); in April 1220, Honorius confirmed the exemption of the Cistercians from paying the twentieth, and cancelled sentences of excommunication and interdict imposed by Huguccio (Mansilla, Honorio  III, p.  214); specific confirmations of the rights of the Cistercian monasteries of Poblet and Sant Hilari de Lleida, and the female Hospitaller house of Sigena, all within the Crown of Aragon, were issued in May (Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 280, 214–17); a confirmation of the exemption from paying the twentieth for the Order of Santiago was also issued in the same month (Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 217–18). Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 226: ‘apostolice seis legatum se mentiens’. Pick, Conflict and Coexistence, p. 55, suggests as much. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 226–27: ‘unde cum sicut audivimus, propter regum discordias nunc contra Mauros ipsos procedere nequeas’. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 273–74. See above, note 55. See Jana Bianchini, The Queen’s Hand, pp. 180–82; Annales Toledanos, p. 191. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 252–60.

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aforementioned royal minorities in Castile and the Crown of Aragon, the pope had experimented with legatine leadership in place of royal. But ultimately, the archbishop had not proved a successful stand-in for royal leadership of the crusade. Having lost confidence in his legate, Honorius shifted attention to the crusade plans of Alfonso IX of León by the end of the year, considering this avenue would produce better results. In December, the pope issued a pair of letters indicating the new shape of his approach to Iberian crusading. The first letter, addressed to all Christians in the peninsula, offered indulgences to all, just as they had been granted to ‘those who fight against the Moors in Spain, especially our dear son in Christ the illustrious king of León, who assumed the cross’.97 This brief letter is of some significance, as it marks perhaps the first explicit reference to an Iberian monarch ‘assuming the cross’.98 The second letter directed the kings of Spain to allow the knights of Calatrava to fight against the Moors.99 The exact timeline of the king of León’s campaigns in these years is somewhat difficult to trace. We do not know, for example, when he took his crusader’s vow.100 After the aforementioned campaign against Cáceres in 1218, Lucas of Túy mentions a long-distance raid towards Seville, which included a substantial battle near Tejada.101 Lucas associated this raid and battle with the 1219 peace established between Portugal and León, and so it is possible that these events were contemporaneous with Archbishop Rodrigo’s Requena campaign. However, Lucas also associates these campaigns with a Leonese raid on Badajoz and a Portuguese raid on Elvas, which certainly took place some years later.102 We are on firmer ground, however, with our other sources. Sometime over the winter of 1220–21, the 97

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Mansilla, Honorio  III, p.  251: ‘Cum certas facerimus indulgentias his, qui pugnant in Hispania contra Mauros, et specialiter charisimo in Christo filio nostro Legionensi regi illustri, qui signum crucis assumpsit’. See O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 82–83. On this, Goméz, ‘Battle of Las Navas’, pp. 196–97. Mansilla, Honorio III, pp. 251–52. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 82, argued that this was directed towards Ferdinand III of Castile, who was still observing his truce with the Almohads. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p.  82, suggests it may have been as early as 1217, though that would pre-date the reopening of the Iberian crusade. The spring of 1218 is likely the earliest moment, though the pope’s letter of December 1220 may be referring to a new vow taken in that year. Lucas of Túy, Chronicon Mundi, p. 336. Lucas of Túy, Chronicon Mundi, p. 336, says that Sancho II led the Portuguese raid, but he did not come to the throne of his kingdom until spring 1223.

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king of León had written to Honorius, announcing his intention to ‘move against the Moors[...] who occupy the land of the faithful’.103 Studiously ignoring his legate Rodrigo, the pope wrote to all of the Christians of Spain to offer indulgences to anyone who assisted Alfonso IX in person or materials. The sweeping letter, dated February 1221, makes explicit reference to the capture of Damietta by the forces of the Fifth Crusade in Egypt (November 1219) as a ‘good sign’ from God, a near exact reference to Innocent’s ‘good sign’, the victory of Las Navas de Tolosa, from the bull Quia maior, which launched the Fifth Crusade.104 Indeed, this letter amounts to a new crusade bull, and therefore represents a genuine break with the crusading efforts that Rome had been promoting in cooperation with the Archbishop of Toledo. However, despite this fresh approach, Honorius was to be disappointed with the results. The king of León does not appear to have seen any need to move quickly with his new crusade plans. Plans were finalized in November of that year for a new attack on Cáceres in 1222.105 Alfonso IX moved south in June with a large force that included the military orders and volunteers from other kingdoms.106 The attack on the city was perhaps more successful than it had been in 1219, and the city appeared close to falling. However, the governor of the city offered Alfonso a substantial payment to abandon the siege, and he did so, returning to León later that summer.107 The ignoble end to the crusade should perhaps come as no surprise. Alfonso IX had a particularly difficult relationship with crusading.

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The Chronica Latina, pp.  94–95, places these two raids in 1226. González, Alfonso IX, 1: 194, mistakenly dates the raid on Badajoz to 1219. Mansilla, Honorio III, p. 274: ‘contra mauros, qui terram fidelium, non absque ignominia christianorum omnium et specialiter Hispanorum detinent in partibus occidentis, viriliter et potenter insurgat’. Mansilla, Honorio  III, p.  274: ‘Sperantes igitur, quod Dominus, qui fecit nobiscum signum in bonum[...]’ In Quia maior, PL, 216: 817, Innocent  III wrote: ‘confidimus tamen in Domino, qui iam fecit nobiscum signum in bonum, quod finis huius bestiae appropinquat’. Interestingly, Honorius wrote to the archbishop of Tarragona one month later, encouraging him to send any avowed crusaders in his province on to the East, to assist in the hopedfor arrival of Prester John’s forces. See Linehan, ‘Documento español sobre la Quinta Cruzada’, Hispania Sacra 20 (1967), 177–182. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 83. Anales Toledanos, p. 193. The Anales Toledanos, p. 193, say that the bribe was made when estaban en la hora de la prender, that is when the city was about to fall. González, Alfonso IX, 1: 196–97, discusses the campaign.

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As O’Callaghan noted, he is probably the only major figure of the era to be both the target of one crusade (back in 1197) and the leader of another.108 But by the time this latest effort collapsed, it is unclear if the pope noticed or cared. By the end of 1221 the collapse of the Fifth Crusade no doubt had left Honorius despairing of any crusading victories.109 The attempt by Honorius III to open a new western front for the Fifth Crusade had been built on a history of successful Iberian crusading. However, in doing so, he exposed a major disagreement in the proper strategic approach to the crusade. The papal vision enacted in 1212 before the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was a holistic, grand-strategic attempt to defend the borders of Christendom. As allies close to the papacy declared, over and over, the Spanish campaigns were just a part of the whole. To be sure, after 1212, they were the most successful part, but Rome still felt that the real prestige of their vision for the Christian world lay in the recovery of the holy city of Jerusalem. It was an international affair. But for the Spanish prelates and monarchs, it was not. Moreover, they were hardly interested in relinquishing the powerful institutional tools that had been unleashed at Las Navas. The crusade helped them sort out internal political conflicts, and deflect their all too frequent fratricidal energies outward. It allowed them to requisition resources, and marshal the energies of their kingdoms towards expansion, a goal that all kings endorsed. After all, the crusade itself was really nothing more than the apotheosis of the expansionistic ethos of the military elites. The great accomplishment of the reform church was to harness those energies towards its own goals. But in doing so, the pope always risked stepping on the toes of the king and local prelates. Nowhere was this truer than in Spain, where the very fact that the goals of the crown and the papacy often fitted hand-in-glove meant that the kings and their barons (lay or ecclesiastical) were sure to become resentful, and resistant, when the interests of Rome shifted away from their own. Why would a Spanish king or bishop assent to the transfer of resources away from their own war, where everyone agreed that God’s favor had recently been manifest, to another war where, objectively, God’s favor had been absent for decades? The developments in the Spanish crusading theater in the years after the Fourth Lateran Council therefore alert us to some of the basic dynamics of the whole venture. By developing the ideas and institutions that could mobilize the martial energies of Christendom into successful projects, they necessarily empowered local elites, who might not always share Rome’s grand strategic vision. The victory won at Las Navas de Tolosa was the 108 109

O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 83. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, pp. 175–91.

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first unambiguous success of the mature institutional crusade. It gave Innocent III the confidence and capital to launch his most ambitious effort yet to restore Jerusalem. But the victory won in 1212, predictably, left the leaders of the Iberian Christians firmly interested in consolidating and expanding upon their own success. They were fundamentally concerned with the Iberian crusade, and only laterally in the Holy Land. After years of struggling to do so, the papacy had finally convinced them to take up the cross and adopt the goals of the crusade within Spain. They were to have little luck in getting them to relinquish those goals.

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Part IV

Ad liberandam, The East, and Crusaders’ Rights

Chapter Eleven Conciliar Influence on Ad liberandam* Thomas W. Smith

Scholars rank the Fifth Crusade among the best planned expeditions ever launched to recover the Holy Land.1 The crusade was the brainchild of Pope Innocent III, who first outlined his conception of the enterprise in the encyclical Quia maior of April 1213 and codified the plan in November 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council in the provisions for the Holy Land, Ad liberandam.2 The classic interpretation of Innocent’s authority over the council is that the council existed merely to rubber stamp a papal programme prepared in advance. In attributing responsibility for drafting the 1215 canons, Raymonde Foreville placed the emphasis squarely on Innocent and his curialists prior to the assembly.3 Similarly, in the *

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I am very grateful to Jessalynn Bird and Damian Smith for their extremely helpful suggestions on this chapter, as well as to Karl Borchardt and Georg Strack for their advice on aspects of the work. Reinhold Röhricht, Studien zur Geschichte des fünften Kreuzzuges (Innsbruck, 1891), pp.  3–7; Helmut Roscher, Papst Innocenz  III. und die Kreuzzüge (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 140–2, 147; Maureen Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, 1244–1291: The Chief Instruments of Papal Crusading Policy and Crusade to the Holy Land from the Final Loss of Jerusalem to the Fall of Acre (Leiden, 1975), pp.  23–31; James  M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–21 (Philadelphia, PA, 1986), p. 1; Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades, trans. John Gillingham, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1988), pp. 217–20; Jean Richard, Histoire des croisades (Paris, 1996), pp. 269–70; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History, 2nd edn (London, 2005), pp. 173–75. On Quia maior, see Thomas W. Smith, ‘How to Craft a Crusade Call: Pope Innocent III and Quia maior (1213)’, Historical Research (forthcoming). Raymonde Foreville, Latran I, II, III et Latran IV (Paris, 1965), pp. 248–49: ‘Rien d’improvisé, en effet, dans l’ensemble des dispositions préconciliaires promulguées par Innocent  III au printemps de l’année 1213. La similitude même des mesures édictées dans Quia major nunc et dans la constitution Ad liberandam Terram sanctam adjointe aux décrets du concile en novembre 1215 – mis à part les derniers détails de rassemblement des armées et de direction de

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 219-239 ©F

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introduction to the best and most recent Latin edition of the Lateran IV decrees – a work that crowned his research into the council – the late Antonio García y García argued that ‘the Lateran constitutions are not the work of the Council as such, but were written before that assembly, by the canonist and theologian Pope Innocent III’.4 Different approaches, however, draw this analysis of papal interaction with general councils into question.5 James Powell highlighted the differences that Ad liberandam exhibits from Innocent’s plan of 1213 and suggested that the council’s participants helped to shape the Holy Land ordinances, stressing, like Yves Congar, the importance of consensus to Innocent’s approach.6 But the exact role of the council in shaping Ad liberandam remains opaque to this day. Comparison of Quia maior with Ad liberandam can only take

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l’expédition – atteste une phase “anté-préparatoire” close à Pâques 1213. On décèle, à la même date, une égale maturité dans la mise en oeuvre du concile lui-même: projet d’inspiration divine, soutenu par une prière instante, arrêté après “mûre et fréquente délibération avec nos frères et avec d’autres personnes prudentes, comme il convient à tel dessein”. Nul doute que la Curie, et le pape en personne comme on le verra à propos des décrets de réforme, aient dressé des “schémas” de travail, voire, en de nombreux cas, déjà mis au point un ensemble de réglementations canoniques’. COGD, p. 154. García y García’s contribution to the study of the Fourth Lateran Council was enormous, among his many works, those worth mentioning for our purposes here are his Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis glossatorum, ed. Antonius García y García, Monumenta Iuris Canonici Series A: Corpus Glossatorum, 2 (Città del Vaticano, 1981) and his ‘Las constituciones del Concilio IV Lateranense de 1215’, in Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 200–24. See Danica Summerlin, ‘Papal Councils in the High Middle Ages’, in A Companion to the Medieval Papacy: Growth of an Ideology and Institution, ed. Keith Sisson and Atria A. Larson (Leiden, 2016), pp. 174–96 (here pp. 174–75, 187–89, 195). Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, pp. 29, 45–46; Yves M.-J. Congar, ‘Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 4th series, 35 (1958), 210–59 (here p. 216). See also Riley-Smith, The Crusades, pp. 173–75. Kenneth Pennington writes that, although the bulk of the constitutions was not drafted during the plenary sessions of the council, Ad liberandam was ‘probably shaped to some extent by the discussions of the participants’: Ken Pennington, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council, its Legislation, and the Development of Legal Procedure’, in Texts and Contexts in Legal History: Essays in Honor of Charles Donahue, ed. John Witte Jr., Sara McDougall and Anna di Robilant (Berkeley, CA, 2016), pp. 179–98 (here p. 182).

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us so far in the attempt to trace conciliar influence. For one thing, it does not account for any changes that Innocent made to his plan between 1213 and 1215, most notably the introduction of a crusade tax. There is a source, however, that can shed crucial light on what went on behind the scenes of the plenary council sessions: the draft version of Ad liberandam that filtered out of the council and which Roger of Wendover preserved in his chronicle.7 The present chapter traces the evolution of Innocent’s crusade plan at Lateran IV through a close textual comparison of Ad liberandam with this crucial intermediary source. Its significance is twofold. First, it demonstrates the importance that Innocent attached to the pursuit of consensus in his administration of the universal Church, and second, it probes the limits of his authority and his power to push through a curial policy – concerns which speak to recent scholarship on the responsiveness of papal government to requests from outside the curia.8

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Stephan Kuttner and Antonio García y García first discovered that the text of Ad liberandam extant in Roger of Wendover’s Flores historiarum represents an early draft of the document: Stephan Kuttner and Antonio García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, Traditio 20 (1964), 115–78 (here pp. 133–34). In their Appendix C (pp. 174–78), Kuttner and García y García compare abbreviated texts of Roger’s document with Ad liberandam to prove that the former text represents a preliminary draft, but since their focus is not on the crusade, they do not go beyond this to analyse how these differences pertain to the papal plan for the expedition. The potential of the preliminary draft of Ad liberandam for use in such a comparison is pointed out in Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291, ed. Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters and James M. Powell (Philadelphia, PA, 2013), p. 121. See Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1989), pp.  212–13, 571; Patrick Zutshi, ‘Petitioners, Popes, Proctors: The Development of Curial Institutions, c. 1150–1250’, in Pensiero e sperimentazioni istituzionali nella ‘Societas Christiana’ (1046–1250): Atti della sedicesima Settimana internazionale di studio Mendola, 26–31 agosto 2004, ed. Giancarlo Andenna (Milano, 2007), pp. 265–93 (here p. 268); Anne J. Duggan, ‘Making Law or Not? The Function of Papal Decretals in the Twelfth Century’, in Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Esztergom, 3–8 August 2008, ed. Peter Erdö and Szabolcs Szuromi (Città del Vaticano, 2010), pp. 41–70 (here p. 41); Barbara Bombi, ‘The Teutonic Order and the Papacy’, in As Ordens Militares: Freires, Guerreiros, Cavaleiros, Actas do VI Encontro sobre Ordens Militares, ed. Isabel Cristina Ferreira Fernandes, 2 vols (Palmela, 2012), 1: 455–64 (here pp. 457–58); Thomas W. Smith, ‘Honorius III and the Crusade: Responsive Papal Government versus the Memory of his

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After delegates to the Fourth Lateran Council in November 1215 ratified Innocent’s provisions for the Holy Land, Ad liberandam, at the third and final solemn session of the council, it was appended in its final version to the seventy conciliar constitutions and began to circulate in the West.9 The manuscript tradition of the canons of Lateran IV is complex, but there is an excellent modern edition of the decrees and Ad liberandam in the Conciliorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decreta.10 As Kuttner and García y García discovered, however, a preliminary draft of the text of Ad liberandam survives in the Flores historiarum compiled by the well-informed monastic chronicler, Roger of Wendover (d. 1236).11 Henry Coxe published the first modern edition of the Flores in 1841–42, and this edition was succeeded – but not supplanted – by Henry Hewlett’s effort for the Rolls Series in 1886–89.12 For the present chapter, I have relied on

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Predecessors’, Studies in Church History 49 (2013), 99–109; Thomas W. Smith, Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius III and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1216– 1227 (Turnhout, 2017). Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, pp. 127–29: ‘Item tercio sollempnizatum est concilium in die beati Andree  […] Postea tractatum de negocio sancte Crucis et expedicione signatorum, firmissima pace ipsius constitute et inducta […] Deinde leguntur constitutiones domini pape […] Hec in ultima festiuitatis die, eum sollempniter tantum tribus diebus predictis in ecclesia Lateranensi concilium extiterit, coram infinita catholicorum uirorum multitudine pertractatum esse dinoscitur’. COGD, pp. 151–204. Ad liberandam is found on pp. 200–4. A translation of Ad liberandam can be found in Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp. 124–29. On the manuscript traditions and their problems, see Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis, pp.  18–32; Summerlin, ‘Papal Councils in the High Middle Ages’, pp. 178–79. Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, pp.  133–34, 174–78. The relevant passage in the Flores is: Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry  O. Coxe, 4  vols (London, 1841–42), 3: 341–44. A  translation of the passage can be found in Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp.  121–24. On Roger’s chronicle, see Lisa M. Ruch, ‘Roger of Wendover’, in The Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Graeme Dunphy, 2 vols (Leiden, 2010), 2: 1291; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England c.  550 to c.  1307 (London, 1974), pp. 359–60. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe; Roger of Wendover, Liber qui dicitur Flores Historiarum ab anno domini MCLIV annoque Henrici Anglorum regis secundi primo, ed. Henry G. Hewlett, 3 vols, Rolls Series 84 (London, 1886–89). To most extents and purposes, these

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Coxe’s text, given its superior notes and marginal summaries. To these documentary sources, one can also add the two accounts of the council, one preserved in a letter written by an anonymous German delegate to the meeting, and the other in the chronicle of Richard of San Germano, respectively.13 Before we can analyse the gestation of Innocent’s crusade plan, it is necessary to cast a glance at the nature of the council and the way in which delegates discussed its decrees.14 The consensus among scholars is that Innocent personally drafted the constitutions, but Anne Duggan clarifies that ‘he did so in a context of wide consultation and promulgated them in a forum which represented the whole Church  […] there was opportunity for individuals or groups to present their own views both before the council met and during the intervals between its three formal sessions’.15 Indeed, one of Innocent’s purposes in circulating such detailed information in Quia maior more than two years before the council (as well as dispatching legates, such as Robert de Courçon, who also convened local councils) was surely to supply delegates with the working documents and thinking space necessary to facilitate informed and fruitful discussion

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editions are the same, for which Hewlett found himself at the receiving end of the sharpest of criticism by W. H. Stevenson, who blasted the latter edition for being ‘little better than a reprint of the edition published’ by Coxe: W. H. Stevenson, ‘Review of The Flowers of History. By Roger de Wendover. Vol. I., A.D. 1154–1204. Edited from the original manuscripts by Henry G. Hewlett’, English Historical Review 3 (1888), 353–60 (here p. 353). The vivid account of the German cleric is edited and introduced in Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account of the Fourth Lateran Council’, and translated in Medieval Europe, ed. Julius Kirshner and Karl F. Morrison (Chicago, 1986), pp.  369–76. The account of Richard of San Germano is printed in Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii Chronica, ed. Carlo Alberto Garufi, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 7.2 (Bologna, 1936–38), pp. 61–73. On the course of the council sessions, see: Brenda Bolton, ‘A Show with a Meaning: Innocent  III’s Approach to the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215’, in Bolton, Innocent  III: Studies on Pastoral Authority and Pastoral Care (Aldershot, 1995), ch. XI, pp. 53–67; Paul B. Pixton, The German Episcopacy and the Implementation of the Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1216–1245: Watchmen on the Tower (Leiden, 1995), pp. 4–6. Anne J. Duggan, ‘Conciliar Law, 1123–1215: The Legislation of the Four Lateran Councils’, in The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140– 1234: From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, ed. Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington (Washington, DC, 2008), pp. 318–66 (here p. 344, see also p. 343).

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at the Lateran in 1215.16 Alberto Melloni similarly argues that although Innocent and his cardinals prepared the constitutions beforehand, it did not totally preclude discussion and external input.17 If the main sessions did not offer much scope for debate on the plan for the crusade, there were gaps in the programme of council sessions during which interested parties might attempt to influence the course of events, and one must be careful not to overestimate the power of the pope and his cardinals to push through their own programme. As Danica Summerlin emphasises, general councils were fora for debate: delegates discussed many important and complicated issues in smaller gatherings outside of the plenary sessions, and popes were not always successful in getting their own way, as Innocent III himself discovered in 1215 when delegates forced through the deposition of Count Raymond of Toulouse, apparently against the wishes of the pope.18 Furthermore, not all of the papal reform legislation that Robert de Courçon and Stephen Langton piloted in England and France during 1213–14 met with approval in Rome in November 1215; in response to opposition at Lateran  IV, some of it was abandoned.19 Similarly, as a result of criticism of the indiscriminate signing of would-be crusaders with the cross that had featured in Quia maior, Innocent quietly dropped the clause from Ad liberandam.20 To clinch the argument that the pope sought advice in crafting Ad liberandam, however, one need only turn to Innocent’s own sermon, Desiderio desideravi, with which he opened the council. Midway through this address to the assembled delegates, Innocent announced that he sought their advice regarding the recovery of the Holy Land.21 It is clear, then, that the pope fostered an atmosphere of collaboration regarding the crusade. 16

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See Bolton, ‘A Show with a Meaning’, pp.  55, 57–58; Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, pp. 25–28, 33–36; John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols (Princeton, 1970), 1: 317. Alberto Melloni, ‘Vineam Domini – 10 April 1213: New Efforts and Traditional Topoi – Summoning Lateran IV’, in Pope Innocent III and his World, ed. John Moore (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 63–73 (here pp. 69–70). Summerlin, ‘Papal Councils in the High Middle Ages’, pp. 187–89. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants, 1: 317–18. Jessalynn Bird, ‘Innocent  III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence: Theory, Implementation, and Aftermath’, in Innocenzo  III, ed. Sommerlechner, 1: 503–24 (here pp. 508–17). PL, 217: 676: ‘Quid itaque faciemus? Ecce ego, dilecti fratres, totum me vobis committo, totum me vobis expono, paratus juxta consilium vestrum, si videritis expedire, personalem subire laborem, et transire ad reges, et principes,

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We can assume that Innocent discussed Ad liberandam with participants in one or more of the smaller discussion groups with the ecclesiastical and secular delegates present.22 As Kuttner and García y García pointed out, the account of the German Anonymous reveals that Innocent brought up parts of the Holy Land ordinances in the first and third plenary sessions, ‘before they were cast into the final form as we know it’.23 This is highly suggestive of ongoing development of the crusade provisions during the course of Lateran IV. There was, after all, more than enough time to make such modifications. Almost three weeks passed between the opening session on 11 November and the closing one on 30 November. That the text of Ad liberandam was still in flux during the course of the council is confirmed by the very existence of the draft preserved in Roger of Wendover’s Flores, which Kuttner and García y García suggest was read before the assembled delegates during the first session.24 That the German Anonymous and Richard of San Germano do not furnish us with further details regarding Innocent’s design for the Fifth Crusade means that the pope did not discuss the Holy Land further in the main sessions of Lateran IV; rather, he must have addressed the matter in smaller, more exclusive ‘breakout’ groups, to which the Anonymous and Richard were clearly not privy.25 It is necessary, therefore, to turn to the documents and

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et populos, et nationes; adhuc autem et ultra, si clamore valido eos valeam excitare, ut surgant ad Domini praelium praeliandum, et vindicandam injuriam Crucifixi, qui pro peccatis nostris ejectus est de terra, et de sede sua, quam sanguine comparavit, et in qua universa redemptionis nostrae sacramenta peregit’. I am very grateful to Georg Strack for this reference, who is about to publish a book on medieval papal sermons entitled Solo sermone: Überlieferung und Deutung politischer Ansprachen der Päpste im Mittelalter (forthcoming). Roger of Wendover gives an overview of the delegates at the council and we know that, in addition to the ecclesiastical representatives, there were large contingents of ambassadors sent from most of the lay powers of Christendom: Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 341. On the discourse between the secular powers and the papacy over crusaders’ rights in this period, see Jessalynn Bird, ‘Crusaders’ Rights Revisited: The Use and Abuse of Crusader Privileges in Early Thirteenth-Century France’, in Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe, ed. Ruth Mazo Karras, Joes Kaye and E.  Ann Matter (Philadelphia, PA, 2008), pp. 133–48. Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, p. 133. For the Latin text of the German Anonymous on these two council sessions, see pp. 124, 128. Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, pp. 133–34. Unfortunately, such breakout groups have left very little trace in the documentary record. Here, it pays to turn to the remarks of Foreville: Raymonde Foreville,

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attempt to read between their lines in order to identify any remaining traces of conciliar influence on Innocent’s plan for the crusade. First, one must consider what kind of document Roger of Wendover had in his possession. There were at least two recensions of Ad liberandam: ‘the first circulated during the Council and the second was promulgated after it (14 December 1215)’.26 Roger and the German Anonymous record that Innocent delivered the draft version of the text orally following the sermon Desiderio desideravi on the first day of the council. Roger writes that ‘[a]t length he commenced to preach concerning the business of the cross, and the subjection of the Holy Land, adding as follows: “Moreover, that nothing be omitted in the matter of the cross of Christ […]”’.27 The German Anonymous corroborates this, writing that ‘[a]mong other things in this sermon he most of all urged the recovery of the Holy Land’.28 Our German eyewitness also confirms that in delivering this speech on the business of the Holy Land, Innocent read from the draft text of Ad liberandam, since his account matches that of the draft on the pope’s

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‘Procédure et débats dans les conciles médiévaux du Latran (1123–1215)’, Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 19 (1965), 21–37 (here p. 32): ‘Les unes et les autres en congrégations générales présidées par le pape (dites séances plénières dans certaines relations). Clercs et laïcs concernés étaient introduits et prenaient la parole pour exposer leur cause. Le pontife se retirait ensuite, l’affaire étant “mise en délibére”. Il en conférait avec les évêques avant d’émettre une sentence arrêtée en concile et promulguée ultérieurement’. A. García y García, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council and the Canonists’, in The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, ed. Hartmann and Pennington, pp. 367–78 (here p. 368). Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p.  122; Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342: ‘Tandem de negotio Crucifixi et subjectione terrae sanctae verbum praedicationis exorsus subjunxit dicens, “Ad haec sane nequid in negotio Jesu Christi de contingentibus ut non omittatur […]”’. Medieval Europe, ed. Kirshner and Morrison, p.  370; Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, p. 124: ‘In eodem sermone inter cetera pro redemptione terre sancte plurimum exhortatus est’. Richard of San Germano also records that Innocent discussed the Holy Land during the first session: Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii Chronica, ed. Garufi, p.  62: ‘Quoniam igitur utile satis est, ut ad posterorum notitiam processus concilii huic operi annectatur, primum sermone premisso, quem ipse papa in prima sexione quam fecit xo intrante mense Novembris, in festo uidelicet beati Martini satis eleganter proposuit, in quo precipue agitur et principaliter de reformatione uniuersalis ecclesie et liberatione terre sancte’.

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plan to meet the crusaders at the point of embarkation and to provide a fleet of ships for the Roman crusaders: ‘The lord pope also asserted in his sermon that, if the princes would take thought for the Holy Land, he would personally assume the task; if not, he promised to pay in addition for the preparation of ships for pilgrims leaving from Rome’.29 This is a slight misunderstanding of the content of the draft. In fact, in the first plenary session, Innocent promised that he would meet with the crusaders at their departure ports so that he could provide them with counsel and assistance, not that he would take part as a crusader.30 Similarly, he did not make the provision of funding for a Roman fleet contingent upon a lack of interest among the secular princes.31 This misunderstanding is consistent with the Anonymous either mishearing – he notes that because of the tumult of the participants, he ‘could unfortunately only understand very little of his sermon’ – or subsequently misreading the text – he writes that, on account of not being able to hear the sermon, ‘I did not cease to search for it as best as I could, until I obtained a copy and committed it to writing’.32 The account of the German Anonymous reveals that written copies of the sermon, including the draft of Ad liberandam, were circulating among the council’s participants and that tenacious and determined clerics were able to obtain them.33 Roger must have acquired his copy of the 29

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Medieval Europe, ed. Kirshner and Morrison, p.  370; Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, p. 124: ‘Asseruit etiam dominus papa in eodem sermone quod si principes consulent ad terram sanctam, personaliter sibi laborem vellet assumere; sin autem, in preparationem nauium insuper peregrinorum ab urbe proficientium promisit expendere’. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343–44: ‘ut ita se cruce signati praeparent, ut in kalendis Junii sequentis post proximum, et qui disposuerint transire per mare, conveniant in regnum Siciliae, alii apud Brundusium, alii apud Messanam, ubi et nos per Dei gratiam personaliter adesse disposuimus, quatenus nostro auxilio et consilio exercitus Christianus salubriter ordinetur, cum benedictione divina et apostolica profecturus’. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342–43: ‘Nos vero aliis exemplum praebere volentes triginta millia librarum in hoc onus concedimus et donamus, praeter navigium, quod cruce signatis de hac urbe atque vicinis partibus conferemus’. Medieval Europe, ed. Kirshner and Morrison, p.  370; Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, p. 124: ‘Pro quo tamen potui inuestigare non desii donec ipsum optinui et scripto commendaui’. It is stated in Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, p. 132 that: ‘[t]he text of the papal sermon must have been circulated immediately

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draft of Ad liberandam through a similarly conscientious intermediary as the Anonymous. He presumably came into contact with the draft by virtue of his contacts and St Alban’s Abbey’s premier location just north of London and its links with cells in East Anglia, the midlands, and the north of England.34 He may have received it through one of the English prelates who attended the council and who were involved in the discussion of the crusade – perhaps a high-ranking figure closely aligned with Innocent, such as the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton.35 But this still leaves the question of how the text of the sermon and the draft of Ad liberandam came to be committed to parchment in the first place. Did a delegate copy down the text from the pope’s speech and write it up later? That parts of the text match those of the engrossment (that is, the final, neat copy of a document issued by the papal chancery) perfectly would appear to rule out this possibility. Rather, the most plausible explanation is that Innocent supplied participants with written reproductions of the draft text, possibly with the intention of using them as working documents (just as he had supplied Quia maior as a working document to other participants), and that these filtered out of the curia through copies made by eager clergy such as the German Anonymous. According to Roger of Wendover’s version of the text, the draft simply opened with the words ‘Ad haec sane nequid […]’ and continued on regarding the promotion of the crusade by the clergy and the request that lay powers who could not crusade in person might finance contingents of soldiers in their place.36 This section, however, appears later on in the engrossed recension.37 This raises another question: whether Innocent’s first reading of the ordinances really began as Roger has it. Kuttner and

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after the council, since our chronicler […] did eventually obtain a copy’. It is possible that such a text would have been available earlier in the proceedings, however. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, p. 360. Jakob Werner, ‘Die Teilnehmerliste des Laterankonzils v. J. 1215’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 31 (1906), 577–93 (here p. 587). Innocent first met Langton at Paris at the end of the twelfth century, then, in 1206, the pope made the Englishman cardinal-priest of S. Crisogono, and, controversially, manoeuvred him into position as archbishop of Canterbury: Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: Die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III. (Wien, 1984), pp. 164–65. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342. Ad liberandam occupies lines 1275–1432 of the latest edition: COGD, pp. 200–4. The opening section of the draft (‘Ad haec sance nequid […]’) does not appear until line 1308 of the engrossment (p. 208).

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García y García argue that there was a section preceding ‘Ad haec sane nequid […]’, but that it ‘is unfortunately not preserved’ in Roger’s text.38 This is possible, but far from certain. If that is the case, it is not clear exactly how much text is missing; it is probably not a lot. The preceding parts of the engrossment were heavily reworked and restructured. As such, the opening of the draft is only missing the famous incipit, the statement of conciliar approval (which, of course, was added only after the close of proceedings), and sections on crusader clergy and their benefices. It is apparent that Innocent did not present a complete set of provisions for the crusade in his first plenary speech and that he intended to develop the document at the council itself. Ad liberandam, even in its finished form, is not the best structured document. Parts of the text are repetitive and certain themes fragmented, most notably the option for the laity to fund warriors to crusade in their stead and the indulgence, both of which appear relatively early on in the document but are also discussed once more at the very end of the ordinances.39 It lacks the masterful development of argument and thematic transitions that one finds in the crusade encyclical, Quia maior, for instance.40 Of course Ad liberandam and Quia maior, while stablemates, were produced to serve different purposes: the rhetorical impact of Quia maior was much more important; Ad liberandam was not designed primarily as a piece of propaganda to be preached to potential pilgrims, but more as a collection of guidelines for clergy involved in administering crusading vows. That the incipit of the draft begins with the word ‘moreover’ (‘Ad haec’), as if continuing from a previous sentence of the provisions, should not be taken at face value as proof that the text is deficient. In fact, it is fully consistent with Roger’s account that Innocent joined the reading of the ordinances to the sermon on the Holy Land (‘subjunxit dicens, “Ad haec […]”’).41 Thus ‘Ad haec’ could indeed be the transition between Desiderio desideravi and the preliminary composition of Ad liberandam. The final point to be made is that it is improbable that Innocent’s speech would be transmitted in manuscript in a deficient form so soon after the event, especially since it is unlikely in the extreme that the text was reconstructed from the notes of someone in the audience and given that the German Anonymous makes it clear that manuscripts of the speech circulated during the council. Although not unbreakable, the chain of the manuscript transmission to Roger was short and strong. 38 39 40

41

Kuttner and García y García, ‘A New Eyewitness Account’, p. 134. COGD, lines 1312–18, p. 201 and lines 1417–26, p. 204. MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Registra Vaticana 8, fols 140v–41v; printed in PL, 216: 817–22. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342.

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It can reasonably be argued, therefore, contrary to Kuttner and García y García, that Roger’s text is, in fact, probably complete. Comparison of the draft with the engrossment reveals a raft of changes to the content, wording and structure of the text – changes which testify to the authenticity and completeness of the draft in Roger’s chronicle. Most of the original draft text is present in the engrossed version of Ad liberandam, albeit some of it in a revised and restructured form. But it really only forms a core of material, of moderate size – about one-third of the total – embedded in the final document. That means that the majority of the text of the engrossment, around two thirds, was new content added after the initial reading of the Holy Land ordinances at the first plenary session. Indeed, the draft looks quite basic when compared with the final version, both in terms of length and complexity. Ad liberandam clearly underwent a massive transformation during the course of the council, and this metamorphosis can be traced back to the concerns of the wider Church and Innocent’s desire to achieve his goals by consensus. The first section of the engrossed version of Ad liberandam displays a number of important differences from the draft. For a start, there is evidence for the restructuring of the opening passages. An important section on the embarkation of crusaders, planned for 1 June 1216 at the ports of Brindisi and Messina, originally found at the end of the draft, was restructured to appear at the beginning of the engrossment.42 Innocent also made changes to the ports from which pilgrims were supposed to travel. In the draft, the pope ordered crusaders to sail from either Brindisi or Messina.43 The final text, however, is much less prescriptive, advising simply that ‘all who have arranged to cross by sea shall come together in the kingdom of Sicily; some, as shall be convenient and fitting, at Brindisi, and others at Messina and the places adjoining on both sides’.44 The significant additions here are that the crusaders might select their place of embarkation ‘as is suitable and fitting’ (sicut oportuerit et decuerit) and that the range of departure points was expanded with a much looser definition that included adjoining places (et partes utrobique vicinas). It 42

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Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343–44; COGD, lines 1278–84, p. 200. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343–44: ‘qui disposuerint transire per mare, conveniant in regnum Siciliae, alii apud Brundusium, alii apud Messanam’. Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp.  124–25; COGD, p.  200: ‘omnes qui disposuerunt transire per mare conveniant in regnum Sicilie; alii, sicut oportuerit et decuerit, apud Brundusium et alii apud Messanam et partes utrobique vicinas’.

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is also noteworthy that the final text of Ad liberandam includes reference to those planning to travel to the Holy Land per terram and states that such persons should announce their intention to the papacy so that an accompanying legate a latere might be provided.45 This demonstrates that Innocent and the council participants revised this opening section of Ad liberandam quite substantially during Lateran IV so as to front-load the document with the most vital information: where and when crucesignati should congregate. They also built in more flexibility regarding the point of departure and the method of travel. In the end, no crusaders selected the land route, but its addition in the engrossment, along with the softening of the guidelines regarding the Sicilian ports, must represent the result of Innocent’s consultation with council delegates – both ecclesiastical and secular – who, in turn, were probably representing the concerns of crusaders from their dioceses.46 In this light, the addition of the statement to the opening of the document that the ordinances were passed with the approval of the council (sacro approbante concilio diffinimus) was clearly more than mere window dressing designed to make the provisions palatable to the western clergy. It really did reflect the genuinely consultative nature of the council.47 The concerns of local crusaders and clergy find further expression in the next parts of Ad liberandam, which is a long section of entirely new content, not present in the draft (along with the incipit, this is the material that Kuttner and García y García suggest is deficient in Roger’s text).48 After the provision for crusaders planning to travel overland, the rest of this new section is devoted primarily to the affairs of crusader clerics. First, Innocent outlined the role of churchmen within the crusader host. They were to ‘minister with prayer and exhortation, teaching them [the lay crusaders] by word and example alike’, and to conduct themselves with humility, ‘[s]o that, so armed with spiritual and material weapons, they may fight more confidently against the enemies of the faith’.49 Second, he permitted crusader clergy to continue to enjoy the fruits of their ecclesiastical 45

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COGD, p.  200: ‘Ad eundem quoque terminum se studeant preparare qui proposuerunt proficisci per terram, significaturi hoc interim nobis, ut eis ad consilium et auxilium legatum idoneum de nostro latere concedamus’. On the attendance of secular delegates, see above n. 21. COGD, p. 200. COGD, lines 1284–1307, pp. 200–1. Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p. 125; COGD, p. 200: ‘orationi et exhortationi diligenter insistant, docentes eos verbo pariter et exemplo […] ut sic spiritualibus et materialibus armis muniti, adversus hostes fidei securius prelientur’.

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benefices for three years while they took part in the expedition, and also, if necessary, the right to pledge their benefices for the same time so as to raise further cash for the campaign.50 Third, the pontiff ordered that all prelates press backsliders to fulfil their crusade vows – under threat of excommunication and interdict – so as not to impede recruitment.51 While it is difficult to apportion responsibility for the first and third clauses regarding the conduct of clerics on crusade and the enforcement of vows – these could have come equally from Innocent or the prelates, although the section regarding the punishment of backsliders may have been included in response to queries of the prelates tasked with administering vows and associated penalties – the second provision regarding the benefices of crusader clergy is a developed version of the promise from Quia maior.52 These provisions are clearly the result of a two-way process of consultation between the pope and council delegates, and they appear to enshrine in Ad liberandam the preoccupations of those clergy in the localities signed with the cross and those prelates tasked with the administration of the recruitment drive. Indeed, in the letters of Gervase, abbot of Prémontré, dispatched to Innocent III and his successor, Honorius III, in 1216 and 1217, one finds a continuation of this constructive dialogue between the centre and the periphery.53 One can trace further conciliar influence in subsequent sections of the document, which display additional alterations to the draft, especially concerning the offer of the indulgence and the persuasion of the ‘ungrateful’ Christians who ignored the call to arms. It appears that council delegates raised concerns with Innocent regarding the indulgence of remission of sins. There are two important differences in this regard between the engrossment and the draft. First, it is apparent that an effort 50

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COGD, p.  200: ‘Ipsis autem clericis indulgemus ut beneficia sua integre percipiant per triennium ac si essent in ecclesiis residentes et, si necesse fuerit, ea per idem tempus pignori valeant obligare’. COGD, p.  200: ‘Ne igitur hoc sanctum propositum impediri vel retardari contingat, universis ecclesiarum prelatis districte precipimus ut singuli per loca sua illos qui signum crucis disposuerunt resumere ac tam ipsos quam alios crucesignatos et quos adhuc signari contigerit, ad reddendum domino vota sua diligenter moneant et inducant […]’. PL, 216: 819: ‘Clericis autem ad hoc negotium necessariis providimus indulgendum ut, omni contradictione cessante, beneficiorum suorum proventus propter hoc valeant usque ad triennium pignori obligare.’ Sacrae antiquitatis monumenta historica, dogmatica, diplomatica, ed. Charles Louis Hugo, 2  vols (Étival, 1725–31), 1: 3–5, 6–8; translated in Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp. 135–41.

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was made to clarify the terms of the indulgence. Innocent’s first mention of the indulgence in the draft stated that those who could not crusade in person but sent a number of soldiers in their stead might enjoy ‘remission of their sins’, as he had expressed ‘in the general letters’.54 It seems likely that council delegates voiced concerns about the clarity of this clause, because in the engrossment we find: ‘for the remission of their sins – as has been expressed in our general letters, and as, for the greater assurance, we shall also express below’.55 This signposting of the explanation of the indulgence sought to circumvent a major structural flaw in Ad liberandam that went unresolved in the engrossment: this section which had opened the original draft (Ad haec sane nequid in negotio Jesu Christi) still appeared before the explanation of the conditions of the spiritual rewards at the end of the engrossed document.56 The most plausible explanation for this greater clarity is that Innocent modified the text in response to feedback he received during council discussions. Embedded in their dioceses, usually far removed from the papal curia, ecclesiastical prelates who applied such papal guidelines as overseers of recruitment would have been highly attuned to the everyday practicalities of the business, as well as the worries and questions of would-be crusaders. As Jessalynn Bird has demonstrated, they fed this information back to the pope ‘as part of a dialogue’ that informed Innocent’s crusade decisions.57 These modifications, then, surely bear their fingerprints. The second amendment regarding the remission of sins can also be attributed to external input. In Roger’s copy of the draft document, Innocent had originally planned to grant remission of sins to those who built the ships to carry the crusader host to the Near East.58 The engrossed text extended this indulgence ‘not only [to] those who furnish their own ships, but also [to] those who on account of this work have striven to build

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Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p.  122; Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342: ‘in remissionem peccatorum suorum, prout in literis generalibus est expressum’. Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p.  126; COGD, p.  201: ‘in remissionem peccatorum suorum, prout in generalibus litteris est expressum et ad maiorem cautelam etiam inferius exprimetur’. COGD, lines 1316–20, p. 201 and lines 1417–26, p. 204. Bird, ‘Innocent III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence’, p. 504. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342: ‘set etiam illos hujus remissionis volumus esse participes, qui propter hos opus naves studuerunt fabricare’.

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new ships’.59 The only logical explanation for this addition must be that those supplying such shipping, or prelates representing their interests, made an application to the pope during the council, and that this revised wording is the result. Crusade recruiters closely linked with contingents preparing their own fleets, such as Oliver of Cologne (who had drummed up support in Frisia and Cologne, among other places), for example, were present at the council.60 A subtle softening of papal rhetoric can also be detected regarding those ‘ungrateful’ Christians who resisted crusade recruitment efforts. While Innocent’s first draft singled out ‘those who refuse, if any be so ungrateful’ to receive God’s awful judgement, the final document moderates this slightly, adding the word ‘forte’ (‘by chance’, ‘perhaps’) to render the statement in a more subjunctive mood: ‘those that refuse to go, if any by chance should be so ungrateful to our Lord God’.61 Although this change is only subtle, the final text conveys a less combative stance adopted by the pope, which again was probably something suggested by the prelates with more personal experience of persuading the laity to take the cross. Such experience might perhaps also explain the addition of the more specific reference of ingratitude ‘to our Lord God’, and the modification of the text regarding Christ’s crucifixion to emphasise that He was crucified ‘for sinners’ (pro peccatoribus) where the draft simply has that he was crucified – improved readings that had more persuasive power.62 It is difficult to assess the origins of these latter additions with any certainty, however, and they could equally have come from the agile mind of the pope, but it is certain that council participants functioned as a sounding board for Innocent’s ideas, as well as presenting their own. This softening of the papal stance is nowhere more evident than in the legislation for the crusade tax of one twentieth (5%) on ecclesiastical 59

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Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p. 126; COGD, p. 201: ‘Cuius remissionis volumus esse participes non solum eos qui ad hoc naves proprias exhibebunt, set et illos qui propter hoc opus naves studuerint fabricare’. Oliverus, Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, späteren Bischofs von Paderborn und Kardinal-Bischofs von S.  Sabina, ed. Hermann Hoogeweg (Tübingen, 1894), pp. xxv–xxvi. Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp. 122, 126; Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342: ‘Renuentibus autem, et si qui ingrati fuerint’; COGD, p. 201: ‘Renuentibus autem, si qui forte tam ingrati fuerint domino Deo nostro’. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342: ‘si ei pro illo Crucifixo servire renuerint in hoc negotio’; COGD, p. 201: ‘si ei pro peccatoribus crucifixo servire renuerint in hoc negotio’.

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income for three years.63 This was arguably the most contentious issue in Ad liberandam for the wider Church and Innocent clearly refined his approach in response to consultation. In the draft, the pope simply stated that, in addition to paying a full tenth, he would donate thirty thousand pounds and equip a fleet of ships for Roman crusaders (the latter admittedly using money collected from alms) so as to set an example for others (see above).64 He ordered that clerics were to pay the tax and would share in the remission of sins as a result.65 The final version, however, contains an expanded and reworked explanation that went to greater lengths to smooth ruffled feathers. It reassured recipients that they should be in no doubt that the papacy and the wider Church were equal partners in financing the endeavour: ‘Lest, however, we seem to impose heavy and unbearable burdens to which we ourselves are unwilling to put a finger, like those who only say and do not do (Matthew 23.3–4); behold, we, from what we have been able to spare beyond our necessary and moderate expenses, do grant and give thirty thousand pounds to this work’.66 The way in which Innocent massaged the text is significant. Rather than the pope setting an example as leader of the Church, the engrossed version of Ad liberandam strikes a much more conciliatory and collegial tone – something that was apparently not a priority in the first draft. This was crucial if the pope were to achieve the willing consent of the council in the final reading of the document and he must surely have altered the text in response to feedback from council delegates.67 The engrossment of Ad liberandam displays further evidence of the pope’s concern for a consensus-driven approach to financing the crusade. Innocent and the delegates also clarified how the papacy had disposed of the alms collected from the faithful for the business of the Holy Land. The draft is opaque on this matter, noting simply that the pope would use ‘three thousand marks of silver, which remain to us out of the alms of

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On the tax, see Smith, Curia and Crusade, pp. 297–342. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 342–43. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343. Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p. 126; COGD, p. 201: ‘Ne vero in humeros hominum honera gravia et importablia imponere videamur, que digito nostro movere nolimus, similes illis qui dicunt utique, set non faciunt, ecce nos de hiis que ultra necessarias et moderatas expensas potuimus reservare, triginta milia librarum in hoc opus concedimus et donamus, preter navigium quod crucesignatis de urbe atque vicinis partibus conferemus’. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade, p. 46.

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some of the true faith’ to help equip the fleet for the Roman crusaders.68 The engrossment, on the other hand, supplies much more specific detail about how the alms were distributed: ‘we assign in addition, for this same purpose, three thousand marks of silver which have remained over to us from the alms of some of the faithful, the rest having been faithfully distributed for the needs and uses of the aforesaid land, through the hand of the abbot of blessed memory, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the masters of the Templars and Hospitallers’.69 The addition of this extra text was obviously an attempt at transparency in the papacy’s collection of money for the Holy Land. Much like modern taxpayers, the medieval clergy wanted to know through whose hands the money had passed and to what purpose it had been put. It is significant that this effort at consensus-led taxation also characterised Honorius III’s administration of the tax after Innocent’s death.70 This also explains the insertion in the engrossment of the words ‘by reason of the general approval of the council’ (ex communi concilii approbatione) immediately preceding the levy of the twentieth, which added the authority of the general council to the collection and underlined that the universal Church had agreed to the principle of the tax.71 As a system of checks and balances, this was all quite rudimentary, but, nevertheless, these more conciliatory and collegial noises were steps in the right direction as far as the rest of the Church was concerned. They appear to have been designed with the sole purpose of convincing the rest of the council to agree to the tax – a levy which set a dangerous precedent and was not to be taken lightly. The consultative process that Innocent engaged in at Lateran  IV witnessed the exercise of influence by both the pope and his delegates. Some religious orders clearly exploited their premier position within the Church hierarchy to avoid the burden of paying the tax. The addition of 68

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Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp. 122–23; Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343: ‘assignantes nihilominus ad hoc ipsum negotium tria millia marcas argenti, quae apud nos de quorundam fidelium eleemosynis remanserunt’. Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p.  126; COGD, p.  201: ‘assignaturi nihilominus ad hoc ipsum tria milia marcharum argenti, que apud nos de quorundam fidelium eleemosynis remanserunt, aliis in necessitates et utilitates predicte terre per manus felicis memorie Alberti hierosolymitani patriarche ac magistrorum templi et hospitalis fideliter distributis’. See Smith, Curia and Crusade, p. 341. COGD, pp. 201–02: ‘ex communi concilii approbatione statuimus ut omnes omnino clerici, tam subditi quam prelati, vicesimam ecclesiasticorum proventuum usque ad triennium integre conferant in subsidium terre sancte’.

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clauses extending exemption from the tax from crusader clergy to certain religious must have resulted from lobbying during the council (when Honorius III sent out the first collection mandates, he designated the exempt orders as the Cistercians and Premonstratensians).72 But Innocent also appears to have used the council discussions to persuade the Church to accept the harsh penalty of excommunication to be used against those who defrauded the tax – a punishment missing from the draft that first appears in the engrossment.73 Therefore the discussions that Innocent led with the council delegates were not simply a case of either side bending to the demands and concerns of the other. Rather, Ad liberandam emerges from Lateran IV as a set of ordinances that was produced in a more collegial and cooperative manner than previously thought. There are a large number of additions to the text, however, which trace their origin to the crusade call Quia maior. Between the first reading of the Holy Land ordinances and that delivered at the third plenary session of the council, Ad liberandam acquired a large section dealing with many practical aspects of the crusading movement. Innocent protected crucesignati from paying interest on loans, punished prelates if they did not render justice to wronged crusaders, banned piracy, trade with Muslims and tournaments, and ordered that a general peace be observed throughout Christendom for four years.74 Some parts of this, such as the legislation that prevented Jewish moneylenders from extracting interest from crusaders, were refined from the initial draft of Ad liberandam.75 Most of the provisions, however, are omitted in the draft. Many of the augmentations were taken from Innocent’s earlier plan for the crusade,

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Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343: ‘illis exceptis, qui assumpto vel assumendo crucis signaculo sunt personaliter profecturi’; COGD, p.  202: ‘quibusdam dumtaxat religiosis exceptis, ab hac prestatione merito eximendis, illisque similiter qui assumpto vel assumendo crucis signaculo, sunt personaliter profecturi’. See Smith, Curia and Crusade, p. 304. COGD, p.  202: ‘sciantque se omnes ad  hoc fideliter observandum per excommunicationis sententiam obligatos, ita quod illi qui super hoc fraudem scienter commiserint, sententiam excommunicationis incurrant’. COGD, lines 1361–1417, pp. 202–04. Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. Coxe, 3: 343; COGD, p. 202. On usury and the provision of justice for crusaders, and the modification of the papacy’s approach in response to those attempting to implement its instructions ‘in the field’, see Bird, ‘Crusaders’ Rights Revisited’ and ‘Innocent III, Peter the Chanter’s Circle, and the Crusade Indulgence’.

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issued in 1213.76 The crucial point, though, is that these additions from Quia maior are glossed and expanded upon in the final version of Ad liberandam, they were not simply carried over unchanged. This demonstrates that, at some point between the issue of Quia maior and Ad liberandam, Innocent developed his plans for these practical provisions, most probably during consultation at the council. A perplexing question remains, however. If these crucial provisions were already extant in an earlier form in Quia maior, why did Innocent not include them in the draft iteration of his crusade ordinances at the beginning of the council? There are two possible explanations. The first is Kuttner and García y García’s argument that the draft is deficient, which is possible, but seems unlikely given that these practical arrangements also include a lot of new text that appears to be the end product of conciliar development. The second possibility is that, like the example of the indulgence analysed above, Innocent considered the practical matters settled following Quia maior, but council delegates pressed the pope for their reiteration and elucidation in the new document for purposes of clarity, modifying Innocent’s previous proclamation and ensuring that all the information and legislation necessary for promoting the new crusade was contained in a single document. In any case, the point to take from this is that it is extremely probable that Innocent also revised these sections in response to discussion with council delegates, in line with the development of the rest of the document, as we have seen above. The conclusions to be drawn from this comparison of the draft and engrossed versions of Ad liberandam have important ramifications for our understanding of Innocent III’s organisation of the crusading movement and his approach to the Fourth Lateran Council. That a large number of extensive changes were made to the ordinances between their first presentation in the opening plenary session and the final session is irrefutable proof that Innocent pursued a cooperative approach in his organisation of the crusade to recover the Holy Land. It is thus hard to accept the interpretation that the pope drafted this new content on his own without input from others.77 It would have gone against the character of all of Innocent’s preparations in the years leading up to the council, during which he actively sought input from outside the curia.78 But it is not just the expanded length of the ordinances that should pique our interest. Picking the genesis of the text apart, from draft to engrossment, 76

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COGD, lines 1352–1366, p. 202, lines 1374–1384, pp. 202–03, lines 1386–1392, p. 203. Cf. Foreville, Latran I, II, III et Latran IV, pp. 248–49; COGD, p. 154. Bolton, ‘A Show with a Meaning’, pp. 55, 57–58.

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through close textual comparison has enabled us to trace the consultative and consensus-driven approach of Innocent in very fine detail. It has revealed that the council delegates whom the pope invited into his inner circle of crusade planners represented the preoccupations and concerns of local clergy and crusaders from their dioceses, persuading Innocent to make a raft of alterations so as to improve crusade recruitment and levy an ecclesiastical crusade tax successfully. We can presume that such advice, which softened the papal stance on a number of potentially contentious points, most notably ecclesiastical taxation, played a key role in smoothing the way for Innocent’s ordinances. The question of whether Innocent really needed to convince the assembled participants to assent to his decrees, or whether he was attempting to win support with an eye to easing their future implementation, cannot be answered here, but should be acknowledged. What is now clear, though, is that the modifications made to Ad liberandam demonstrate that Innocent did not merely use the council as an echo chamber for his own voice. Rather, the evidence presented here reveals that council participants functioned as a valued sounding board to test and improve his plans for the crusade, in keeping with the culture of consultation that Innocent had nurtured in the lead up to the Fourth Lateran Council since 1213.

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Chapter Twelve Mediterranean Trade in the Wake of Lateran IV The Millares Revisited

James J. Todesca

The decree known as Ad liberandam fits uncomfortably with the other acts of the Fourth Lateran Council.1 Unlike the majority of the council’s canons, Ad liberandam did not attempt to define Church law or doctrine, rather it was an ad hoc call to arms. It outlined Innocent III’s plans for an expedition to recover Jerusalem set for June 1217, a date perhaps meant to coincide with the expiration of a truce with the Ayyubids of Egypt.2 In modern editions of the canons, Ad liberandam traditionally appears last as number 71.3 This arrangement is consistent with Roger of Wendover’s account, although he reports that the council first deliberated and approved only 60 articles and then listened as Innocent ‘commenced to 1

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Anne Duggan, ‘Conciliar Law, 1123–1215: The Legislation of the Four Lateran Councils’, in The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234, ed. Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington (Washington, 2008) (hereafter, Hartmann and Pennington), pp. 318–66 (here pp. 344–52), provides a thematic summary of Lateran IV’s canons. Ad liberandam stands alone in her schema. Similarly, Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History (New Haven, 1987), p. 144, labels canon 71 an ‘appendix to the decrees’. Writing to Abbot Gervase of Prémontré, John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem (1210–c. 1222) spoke of ‘treugas enim adhuc habemus, sed ex parte Saracenorum claudicantes [...] & timemus quod treugas debeant interrumpere’ (Sacrae antiquitatis monumenta, historica, dogmatica, diplomatica, ed. Charles-Louis Hugo, 2  vols [Étival, 1725], 1: 36, no.  36). The letter is undated, but John’s mention of his marriage to Stephanie of Armenia puts it around 1214. John does not say when the truce was to expire. See Guy Perry, John of Brienne (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 56–58, 75–76. Compare James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 19, 28. Constitutiones, pp. 15–17; compare García y García, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council and the Canonists’, in Hartmann and Pennington, pp. 367–78 (here p. 368).

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James J. Todesca

preach concerning [...] the subjection of the Holy Land’.4 Roger’s version of Innocent’s appeal is shorter than the formal Ad liberandam, leading scholars to suggest that the latter was not put into final form until some two weeks after the council adjourned.5 In the first lines of Ad liberandam, Innocent recognized the approval of the ‘sacred council’ but also acknowledged ‘the advice of prudent men who are fully aware of the circumstance of time and place’.6 These advisors must have been found among the many delegates who attended the council from ‘cities and other places’ mentioned by Roger of Wendover.7 One can perhaps detect their input in the last part of the decree which limits trade with the Muslim world. Indeed, Roger’s shorter account does not contain this trade embargo, implying it was added later. But the idea was not new. Ita quorundum from the Third Lateran Council of 1179 convoked by Alexander III (1159–81) barred Christians from providing Saracens with arms, iron and timber for ships. It also warned against Christians captaining Muslim ships.8 Innocent’s bull Quia maior, published in 1213,

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Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, trans. John Allen Giles, 2 vols (London, 1849), 2: 343–46. In the sixteenth-century, L.  Cherubini assigned 14 December 1215 to Ad liberandam without explaining the basis for that date. Antonio García accepts that it may have taken until then to produce the finalized text. See Constitutiones, p. 16; García y García, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council’, p. 368. See also Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291, ed. Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters and James M. Powell (Philadelphia, 2013), p. 121. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman  P. Tanner, 2  vols (London, 1990), 1: 267; Constitutiones, p. 110: ‘De prudentum virorum consilio, qui plene noverunt circumstantias temporum et locorum’. Roger of Wendover’s Flowers, trans. Giles, pp. 343–44. ‘Sarracenis arma ferrum et lignamina galearum deferant’ is translated incorrectly as ‘they provide the Saracens with arms and wood for helmets’ in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 1: 223. John Tolan, also rendering a faulty English translation, mistakenly concluded that it was not until Fourth Lateran’s Ad liberandam that iron was included among the prohibited items. See John V. Tolan, ‘Taking Gratian to Africa: Raymond de Penyafort’s Legal Advice to the Dominicans and Franciscans in Tunis (1234)’, in A Faithful Sea: The Religious Cultures of the Mediterranean, c. 1200–1700, ed. Adnan A. Husain and Katherine E. Fleming (Oxford, 2007), pp. 47–63 (here pp. 50–52). Cf. Stefan K. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality: Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice (Oxford, 2014), p. 60.

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reiterated these prohibitions.9 Ad liberandam of Lateran IV is slightly more specific, stipulating that Christians must not sell ships to Muslims or ‘give them advice or help by way of machines or anything else to the detriment of the Holy Land’.10 Perhaps because of its secular nature and because it was aimed at a specific event, Ad liberandam was not included in Johannes Teutonicus’s Compilatio quarta, published before Innocent’s death in July 1216.11 Outside the world of canon lawyers, however, Lateran IV’s ban on selling war materials to Islam was not ignored, though it was variously interpreted. In 1221, Honorius III (1216–27), attempting to rekindle the Fifth Crusade after the loss of Damietta, gave the patriarch of Constantinople permission to ‘absolve those who had been selling timber and other prohibited commodities to the Muslims’.12 If Honorius appears lenient, the papal legate John of Abbeville, sent to Iberia to impose the reforms of Lateran IV, interpreted the ban more stringently at a council held in Lérida in 1229.13 In support of James I (1213–76) of Aragon-Catalonia’s campaign in the Balearic Islands, the council found it prudent to add to the constitutions of Alexander III and Innocent III and forbade the export not only of ‘arms, iron (and) wood’ but ‘naval apparatus, bread, horses, beasts or animals for eating, for plowing land or riding’.14 9 10

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PL, 216: 820. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 1: 270; Constitutiones, pp. 115–16: ‘Eos etiam qui galeas eis vendunt vel naves [...] vel in machinis aut quibuslibet aliis aliquod eis impedunt consilium at auxilium in dispendium Terre Sancte’. See also Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, p. 128. Lateran IV’s canon 42, on churchmen and lay offices, was also excluded from the Compilatio quarta. See García y García, ‘The Fourth Lateran Council’, p. 367; Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 60. Innocent did not approve the Compilatio quarta. See Kenneth Pennington, ‘Decretal Collections, 1190– 1234’, in Hartmann and Pennington, pp. 293–317 (here p. 314). David Jacoby, ‘The Supply of War Materials to Egypt in the Crusader Period’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), 102–32 (here p. 113). Linehan concluded that John’s ‘departures from the Lateran norm were all in the direction of greater stringency’. Peter Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), pp.  22–24, 28–29. See also Edward Andrew Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text: Raymond of Penyafort’s Editing of the Decretals of Gregory  IX (1234)’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Columbia University, 2011), p. 51. Colección de cánones y de todos los concilios de la iglesia de España y de América, ed. Juan Tejada y Ramíro, 7  vols (Madrid, 1859–63), 3: 341: ‘Arma, ferrum, lignamina, navium instrumenta, panem, equos, bestias vel animalia ad

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James and his fellow Christian princes in Iberia were taking advantage of declining Almohad power in al-Andalus and the Maghreb in the wake of the Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. At the same time, however, the papacy encouraged the new Franciscan and Dominican orders to undertake missionary work in North Africa and ‘to care for [the] Christian believers who lived among the infidels’.15 These Christians included not just captives or slaves but a growing number of mercenaries and merchants. Genoese, Pisan, Venetian and Catalan merchants established fundachos in the ports of Ceuta, Bougie and Tunis.16 Papal interest in these developments stood, as Whalen pointed out, ‘in stark contrast to the language of the coeval crusading movement’.17 The juxtaposition of crusading ideology alongside changing attitudes toward Islam ultimately impacted the papal position on trade in the decades after Lateran IV. While David Jacoby and Sophia Menache have dismissed the papacy’s efforts to regulate commerce with Islam, John Tolan and Stefan Stantchev have seen the policy as multi-layered and at least somewhat effective.18 This essay argues that Ad liberandam affected trade in the Mediterranean in ways the Church fathers gathered at

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comedendum, vel ad terras colendum, vel equitandum’. See also Robert  I. Burns, ‘Renegades, Adventurers and Sharp Businessmen: The ThirteenthCentury Spaniard in the Cause of Islam’, The Catholic Historical Review 53 (1972), 341–66 (here pp. 359–60). Brett E. Whalen, ‘Corresponding with Infidels: Rome, the Almohads, and the Christians of Thirteenth-Century Morocco’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 41 (2011), 487–513 (here p. 496). The Lérida council of 1229 condemned ‘Omnes quoque Christiani tam milites, quam alii qui se ad Mauros transtulerint ad faciendum guerram Christianis’ (Tejada y Ramíro, Colección, 3: 341). For mercenaries, see Michael Lower, ‘The Papacy and Christian Mercenaries of Thirteenth-Century North Africa’, Speculum 89 (2014), 601–41; Burns, ‘Renegades’, pp. 352–54; Roser Salicrú i Lluch, ‘¿Ecos de aculturación? Genoveses en el mundo Islámico occidental y Musulmanes en Génova en la baja edad media’, in Genova: Una ‘Porta’ del Mediterrraneo, ed. Luciano Gallinari, 2 vols (Genova, 2005), 1: 178, n. 10. For merchants, see Whalen, ‘Corresponding’, p.  494; David Abulafia ‘The Role of Trade in Muslim-Christian Contact During the Middle Ages’, in The Arab Influence in Medieval Europe, ed. Dionisius Agius and Richard Hitchcock (Reading, 1994), pp. 1–24. Whalen, ‘Corresponding’, p. 489; Lower, ‘The Papacy’, pp. 601–04. Sophia Menache, ‘Papal Attempts at a Commercial Boycott of the Muslims in the Crusader Period’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63 (2012), 236–59; Jacoby, ‘The Supply’, 114.

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Lateran IV could not have foreseen.19 As Innocent’s successors, particularly Gregory IX (1227–41), attempted to formulate policies defining what could be traded with Islam, Latin merchants sought new, non-military, commodities to trade. In particular, mints in southern Europe began striking counterfeit silver dirhams, known in the Latin world as millareses, which merchants then carried to North Africa in vast quantities. If Ad liberandam was initially ignored by canon lawyers, Gregory IX and his confessor, the Dominican friar Raymond de Penyafort, rescued it. Raymond, a Catalan by birth, accompanied John of Abbeville on his legation in Spain and so was familiar with the issue of trade with Islam.20 Summoned to Rome by Gregory, Raymond published his Decretals, the papacy’s first ‘universally binding’ collection of canon law, in September 1234. The work included only nine texts predating Gregory IX’s pontificate which had not appeared in previous collections.21 The part of Ad liberandam addressing trade with the Muslims was one of the texts Raymond deliberately selected.22 That autumn, Gregory also issued Rachel suum videns calling for a renewed effort to liberate the Holy Land. The bull paraphrased Ad liberandam’s injunction against providing any material or counsel to the Saracens ‘to the detriment of the Holy Land’.23 Ad liberandam’s tenet that Christians should not sell war materials to Islam ultimately looked back to Roman law which outlawed trade in such goods with ‘barbarians’.24 But the problem of trading with the enemy became more acute for Latin Christendom as its economy steadily revived after 800. As early as the ninth century, Amalfian and Venetian merchants responded to the Muslim demand in the Eastern Mediterranean for

19 20 21

22

23

24

Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text,’ pp. 1–2. Linehan, The Spanish Church, p. 49; Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text’, p. 51. Raymond began working on the Decretals (or Liber extra) in 1230. The work was officially published with Gregory IX’s Rex pacificus on 5 September 1234. Reno, ‘The Authoritative Text,’ pp. 1–2, 52–53; Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 60; Tolan, ‘Taking Gratian’, pp. 48–49. Corpus iuris canonici, ed Aemilius Ludwig Richter and Emil Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879), 2: 778, X.5.6.17. Epistolae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum Romanorum, ed. Carl Rodenberg and Georg H. Pertz, 3 vols (Berlin, 1883–94), 1: 491–95, no. 605. See also Crusade and Christendom, ed. Bird and others, pp. 269–76, no. 30; Christoph T. Maier, Preaching the Crusade: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1994), p. 35. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, pp. 68–69.

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timber and iron as well as Frankish weapons.25 Alexander III’s council at Montpellier in 1162 may have been the papacy’s first attempt at limiting that trade. It was followed by Lateran III’s Ita quorundum. Both councils attempted to impose an embargo on arms and other ‘necessities (used) to attack Christians’.26 After the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, Clement III (1187–91), in a letter to the Genoese known as Quod olim, may have envisioned a more encompassing ban. He excommunicated all those ‘who from now on hold trade with the Saracens, or cause to be distributed to them by their own or by other boats, or by whatever other means, any things of assistance or counsel, as long as war between us and them will last’.27 Clement’s words can be read to mean that he intended to stop not just ‘things of assistance’ but all trade with Islam in time of war.28 On the other hand, his letter implied that some trade with Islam was permitted in time of peace. Raymond de Penyafort incorporated Ita quorundum and Quod olim into the fifth book of the Decretals along with his selection from Ad liberandam. It is easy to see that Ad liberandam echoes its two predecessors, but it adds a qualifier. Where Ita quorundum took aim at anything used 25

26

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28

Peter Johanek, ‘Merchants, Markets and Towns’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, c. 900-c. 1024, ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 64–94 (here pp. 73–74). Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 1: 223. A  council meeting at Montpellier in 1195 recalled that the council of Montpellier in 1162 as well Lateran III prohibited trade in ‘arma seu armamentum vel lignamina galearum’ but made no mention of iron. Decrees for Montpellier, 1162 do not survive. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. Giovanni  D. Mansi et al, 53 vols (Paris 1901–27), 21: 1160 and 22: 668. Jacoby, ‘The Supply’, p. 109, assumes the Montpellier text mentions iron as does Olivia  R. Constable, ‘Clothing, Iron and Timber: The Growth of Christian Anxiety about Islam in the Long Twelfth Century’, in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century, ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and John Van Engen (Notre Dame, 2012), pp. 279–313 (here p. 285). Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Richter and Friedberg, 2: 775, X.5.6.12; Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 50, n. 44: ‘Omnes illos excommunicationi supponimus, qui iam amplius cum Sarracenis mercimonium habuerint, vel per se vel per alios navibus, seu quocunque alio ingenio, eis aliqua rerum subsidia seu consilia, quamdiu inter nos et illos guerra duraverit, duxerint impendenda’. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, pp.  50–52, argues that Clement was calling for a ‘total embargo’ in times of war. In Quod olim, however, he reads ‘cum Sarracenis mercimonium’ as ‘trade with Saracens in general’. Compare Lower, ‘The Papacy’, p. 605.

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‘to fight Christians’ and Quod olim hinted at stopping all trade in time of war, Ad liberandam excommunicated those who sell the Saracens war materials or ‘give them advice or help by way of machines or anything else to the detriment of the Holy Land’.29 That last phrase – ‘to the detriment of the Holy Land’ – potentially limited the scope of the papal embargo. Was this qualifier a contribution from the ‘men of experience’ who helped write Ad liberandam? John Tolan concluded that ‘one can almost sense the presence of Genoese and Pisan lobbyists in the papal court, salvaging their lucrative trade’ with the Almohads of North Africa and al-Andalus.30 If merchandise sold in the Maghreb did not hinder efforts in the Holy Land, did it then become permissible? In July 1233, while Raymond was nearing completion of the Decretals, Gregory IX wrote to the minister of the Franciscans in Spain and the Maghreb.31 He was responding to a complaint from the Genoese who claimed they were trading licit merchandise (licitis mercimoniis) in Spain and North Africa but had been unjustly excommunicated. Gregory agreed with the Genoese and admonished the Franciscans, informing them that a sentence of excommunication should only be applied to ‘those who bring to the Saracens arms, iron, timber and other things with which to fight the Christians, yet in time of war they are to deny to them the rest’.32 His decision drew from both Ita quorundum – one could not trade anything used to fight Christians – and Quod olim – all trade was to stop in times of war. Gregory seemed unconcerned with or unaware of fighting in Spain which should have dictated that all trade with the enemy cease. Indeed, Castile and Aragon were in the midst of their ‘great leap forward’ into al-Andalus and the Franciscans surely realized it.33 Having won this round, the Genoese continued to press their point regarding trade in North Africa. The next year, 1234, the papal curia received a list from the 29

30 31

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Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Richter and Friedberg, 2: 773–78, X.5.6.6; X.5.6.12, X.5.6.17; Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 1: 270. Tolan, ‘Taking Gratian’, pp. 51–52; Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 60. I Libri Iurium della Repubblica di Genova, vol. 1/6, ed. Maria Bibolini (Genova, 2000), p. 40, no. 950: ‘Gregorius […] ministro et fratribus Minorum Ordinis in Ispania et insula que Garbum dicitur’. While there is an island of Garbum off the west cost of Tunisia, it is likely the papal curia was confused. The Genoese had used Garbum to mean the Maghreb in general (Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 64, n. 108). I Libri Iurium, ed. Bibolini, p. 40, no. 950. Peter A. Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford, 1993), p. 422.

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Franciscan minister and the Dominican prior of Tunis regarding doubtful items (dubitabilia) the Genoese and Pisans wished to trade there. Raymond de Penyafort drew up a reply on 19 January 1235, noting that he was faithfully recording Pope Gregory’s own decisions. The first item in the response shows the nature of the merchants’ tactics. They inquired of the mendicants whether they could sell old boats (naves [...] maxime veteres) to the Saracens, presumably since their utility would be negligible. Gregory rejected the proposal. Citing Ad liberandam, he held that old boats could still prove a detriment to the Holy Land and, citing Ita quorundum, he warned they could be used to fight Christians in general.34 As any ‘sharp businessman’ might, the Genoese and their associates were attempting to dodge the spirit of the law.35 What if, they asked, one brings arms into a Saracen land not intending to sell them but later has to do so out of financial need? Gregory responded that they would be excommunicated.36 Well, what about allowing iron to be shipped from ‘one Saracen land to another?’ Gregory wavered, ruling that it was allowed unless the material ultimately proved a detriment to the Holy Land or was used against Christians?37 What about small pieces of wood (ligna parvicula), tiny knives (cultellos parvissimos) or miniscule nails (clavos minutissimos)?38 Gregory’s answer was again that these could be traded unless used for war. Told that the Spaniards sell ‘spurs, bits and saddles’, Gregory seemed to fall back on Quod olim. They should only be forbidden in time of war.39 By referencing the canon law that had just appeared in the Decretals, Gregory (presumably with Raymond’s help) here attempted to formulate a firm but not completely inflexible policy toward trade with Islam, especially in the western Mediterranean. But shortly thereafter, in the spring of 1236, James I of Aragon renewed his effort to conquer Valencia, and Gregory, in February 1237, called for the crusade to be preached

34

35 36 37

38 39

John Tolan, ‘Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses to Questions Concerning Relations Between Christians and Saracens: Critical Edition and Translation’, HAL archive-ouvertes (2012), pp.  1–30 (here pp.  10, 18). Accessed March 9, 2017, hal-00761257. Burns, ‘Renegades’, p. 361. Tolan, ‘Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses’, pp. 11, 18, no. 5. Tolan, ‘Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses’, pp.  15, 21, no.  23. Here I am also indebted to the discussion in Tolan, ‘Taking Gratian’, pp. 54–55. Tolan, ‘Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses’, pp. 15, 21–22, nos 25 and 27. Tolan, ‘Ramon de Penyafort’s Responses’, pp. 10, 18, no. 2.

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in Catalonia and Southern France.40 The pope’s attitude toward trade hardened accordingly. In a letter of February 1237, he appears exasperated with Christians in Tarragona and recently conquered Ibiza who, after repeated excommunications, continued to trade food and war material with Muslims, presumably at besieged Valencia. In a separate letter, he allowed those who had violated the ban on prohibited items to gain absolution by joining the Valencian crusade, but they must stay until the city fell.41 By 1241, however, with Valencia conquered, Gregory recognized the right of Christians and Muslims to trade on Majorca except in ‘arms, iron and other things that can be used to fight Christians’.42 As Stantchev points out, while Gregory’s stance on trade might seem confusing, the underlying message was clear: Any trade between Christians and Muslims was a moral issue, one that could potentially endanger the soul [...] The responsibility for determining the potential sinfulness of trade in the grey area of borderline cases [...] lay on the shoulders of the merchants themselves.43

The existence of the dubitabilia inquiry of 1234 itself demonstrates that Italian merchants did not take papal policy lightly, though they clearly sought loopholes. They soon looked to a new, lucrative export to Islam that was seemingly free from papal scrutiny: counterfeit Muslim dirhams. The same year the Genoese and Pisans sent their inquiry to the papal curia, Genoese interests in Ceuta were threatened by the chaotic rivalry between the Almohads and the family of Ibn Hud (d. 1238). According to the Annales ianuenses, in 1234 Christian mercenaries called Calcurini attacked Ceuta where the Genoese ‘had many ships’ and ‘a great quantity of bezants, merchandise and (other) goods’.44 These Calcurini seem to have been hired by the Almohad ruler of Marrakesh to attack an upstart 40

41

42

43 44

Joseph  F. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia, 2003), pp. 99–103. Les registres de Grégoire IX, ed. Lucien Auvray, 3 vols (Paris, 1896–1908), 2: 552, no. 3485; 554, no. 3491. O’Callaghan, Reconquest, p. 103; Burns, ‘Renegades’, p. 360. Les registres, ed. Auvray, 3: 454, no.  5960; Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq, L’Espagne catalane et le maghrib aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Paris, 1966), p. 86. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, pp. 75–76. Annali genovesi di Caffaro e de’ suoi continuatori dal mccxxv al mccl, vol. 3, ed. Cesare Imperiale di Sant’ Angelo (Roma, 1923), p.  72: ‘cum multis navibus et cum maxima quantitate biçantiorum mercium et rerum’. According to the Annales, these Calcurini called themselves crusaders: ‘Calcurini cruce signati cum maximo exercitu venerunt ad obsidionem Septe’.

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member of the Banu-Hud ruling in Ceuta.45 In response, the Genoese sent 18 galleys to reinforce their fundacho but in the ensuing battle much of the city was burned, including the fundacho. The next year Genoa sent more than 100 vessels, perhaps the largest Genoese fleet ever assembled, and forced an agreement with the Almohad ruler. He promised a portion of his custom revenue to compensate them for damages. The Genoese called the agreement the mahona. Individual merchants or their surviving kin now filed for damages.46 For example, in 1236 Oberto of Cafaro, citing ‘the strife at Ceuta between the Christians and the Saracens’, claimed 180 bezants of millareses from the mahona with which to repay his creditor.47 Bezant was originally a name for the Byzantine gold solidus, but as trade with the Islamic world increased during the twelfth century, Italian merchants applied the term to the Muslim gold dinar. In the western Mediterranean, the Almohads, as successors to the Almoravids, controlled the trans-Saharan caravan routes that led to the gold of medieval Ghana and so were able to produce quality dinars. Breaking with tradition, however, the first Almohad caliph, ‘Abd al Mu’min (1130–63), issued dinars on a lighter weight standard than those of the Almoravids.48 His 45

46

47 48

Annali genovesi, p.  72, identifies the Almohad ruler as Idris al-Ma’mun, but he died in 1232. It was his son, Abu Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahid (d.  1242), who appears responsible. See Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A  Political History of al-Andalus (Harlow, 1996), pp.  265–66, 314; John  E. Dotson, ‘Ship Types and Fleet Composition at Genoa and Venice in the Early Thirteenth Century’, in Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, ed. John H. Pryor (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 63–76 (here pp. 69–70). For the BanuHud in Ceuta, see Harry W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa (New York, 1952), pp.  266, 272–73. For ‘Abd al-Wahid’s use of Christian mercenaries, see Lower, ‘The Papacy’, p. 619, though he does not treat the Calcurini raid on Ceuta. Dotson, ‘Ship Types’, pp. 69–70; Raffaele Di Tucci, ‘Documenti inediti sulla spedizione e sulla mahona dei genovesi a Ceuta (1234–37)’, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria 64 (1935), 271–340 (here pp.  316–20); Steven  A. Epstein, Genoa and the Genoese, 958–1528 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996), pp. 122–23; Robert Reynolds, ‘In Search of a Business Class in Thirteenth-Century Genoa’, The Journal of Economic History 5 (1945), 1–19 (here p. 12); Alfred E. Lieber, ‘Eastern Business Practices and Medieval European Commerce’, The Economic History Review, n.s., 21 (1968), 230–43 (here p. 241). Di Tucci, ‘Documenti’, pp. 320–21, no. 2. Hazard, The Numismatic History, p. 66. See further James J. Todesca, ‘Selling Castile: Coinage, Propaganda and Mediterranean Trade in the Age of Alfonso VIII’, forthcoming.

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new light dinar was also distinguished by a square border imposed on the coin’s circular field (fig. 1). The Genoese called this small gold piece the bezant mazmudina.49 Since gold was relatively cheap for the Almohad rulers to produce, their dinars tended to be used in payments outside the kingdom. They were invariably drawn east to Egypt and Syria or increasingly to Latin Europe, whose sovereigns starting with Alfonso VIII of Castile-León (1158–1214) were beginning to strike their own gold.50 As Almohad central authority declined following their defeat by Alfonso at Las Navas in 1212, their command of the Sudanese gold trade suffered and even less gold was available for domestic use.51 Demand for the silver dirham subsequently grew in North African markets. In another radical departure from monetary tradition, ‘Abd al Mu’min had issued dirhams that were actually square (fig. 2). While he put his name on these coins, his successors soon omitted both names and dates making it hard to distinguish one square dirham from another.52 Latin merchants called these anonymous dirhams millareses, a name whose etymology has not been adequately explained. As early as the 1190s, Genoese contracts begin to mention bezants of account comprised of millareses.53 By the time 49

50

51

52

53

The term mazmudina derived from the origins of the Almohad movement among the Masmudah Berbers. See Harry W. Hazard, ‘Moslem North Africa, 1049–1394’, in A History of the Crusades, vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Harry  W. Hazard (Madison, 1975), p.  466. See, for example, the notarial entry dated 1161 in Il Cartolare di Giovanni Scriba, ed. Mario Chiaudano and Mattia Moresco, 2 vols (Torino, 1935), 2: 51, no. 910: ‘Biscancios .ccc. messemutinos apud Septem usque proximum natale sana enunte illuc navi ipsius Tanti’. Peter Spufford, Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 163–70; Todesca, ‘Selling Castile’, forthcoming. Hazard found only a single double dinar surviving for Idris al Ma’mun (d. 1232), who abandoned al-Andalus in 1228. His son, Abu Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahid, did strike both silver and gold but it is difficult to gauge how extensively he and his successors maintained the latter. Hazard, The Numismatic History, p. 68; Kennedy, Muslim Spain, pp. 265–66, 314. The Almohad dirham, like their dinar, was also distinguished by cursive ‘Naskhi script’ as opposed to Kufi. See Hazard, Numismatic History, pp. 66–67, 263–71. See also Pascal Buresi and Hicham El Aallaoui, Governing the Empire: Provincial Administration in the Almohad Caliphate (1224–69) (Leiden, 2013), pp. 164–65. A notarial entry of 1191 reads ‘Bisant cc de mijarexis’. See Guglielmo Cassinese (1190–92), ed. Margaret W. Hall, Hilmar C. Krueger and Robert L. Reynolds, 2 vols (Torino, 1938), 1: 35, no. 85. In 1203, Vivaldo of Portovenere acccepted

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Figure 1. Dinar of ‘Abd al-Mu’min (1130-63), minted at Bougie, wt. 2.286 gr.

Source: American Numismatic Society 1917.215.685; Harry W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa (New York, 1952), p. 143, no. 447.

Obv. Field: There is no god except God, Muhammad (is) the messenger of God Bougie Margins: (top) In the name of God the compassionate, the merciful (left) God bless Muhammad (bottom) and his good family (right) the pure Rev. Field: The Mahdi, Imam of the nation, the upright in (the) commandment of God Bougie Margins: (top) Abu Muhammad ‘Abd (left) al-Mu’min ibn Ali, (bottom) commander of the believers (right) praise be to God

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Figure 2. Almohad Dirham

Source: Jesús Vico, S.A., auction 139, lot 311; Compare Harry W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa (New York, 1952), p. 271, no. 112.

Obv. (There is) no god except God The command is all God’s (There is) no strength except in God Cordoba Rev. God is our master Muhammad (is) our messenger al-Mahdi is our imam

of the Genoese expedition against Ceuta in 1235, the square silver coins dominated Maghrebi trade and Oberto of Cafaro estimated his losses in bezants of millareses. In addition to Oberto’s claim, Di Tucci published 33 Genoese notarial documents claiming losses at Ceuta, most of which used this same unit of account.54 From these documents, Watson concluded that the Genoese lost close to 55,000 actual dirhams in the destruction at Ceuta.55 But Oberto and the

54 55

40 soldi genovesi and promised to pay in Ceuta ‘bisantios octo et medium miliarensium mundos et iusti ponderis’. See Lanfranco (1202–26), ed. Hilmar C. Krueger and Robert L. Reynolds, 3 vols (Genova, 1951–53), 1: 138, no. 297. Di Tucci, ‘Documenti,’ pp. 320–40. The notarial documents express sums in bezants of millareses. It is unclear how many millareses Watson counted to each bezant to arrive at his total figure. Andrew M. Watson, ‘Back to Gold – And Silver’, The Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 20 (1967), 1–34 (here p. 13). Hazard, drawing presumably from Ibn

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other claimants simply estimated their losses in millareses. As the Annales tell us, the Genoese ships at Ceuta were loaded with ‘bezants, merchandise and [other] goods’. We cannot know, therefore, what Oberto’s original capital consisted of at Ceuta. Nevertheless, he expected the mahona agreement, based on a share of custom duties, to pay him back in silver millareses: ‘180 bezants of millareses that I ought to receive and have in the said mahona’.56 The anonymous square dirham had become the coin of daily exchange in the Maghreb. To the east, the Hafsids of Tunisia, who broke from the Almohads of Morocco in 1230, also struck the coin.57 In addition to the goods they purchased in North Africa (hides, wool, beeswax, olive oil, alum and even ebony and ivory), Latin merchants naturally returned home with some millareses that could be used for future trips.58 In 1234, Raymond Baharin left Marseille for Bougie with 5 and half measures (quintales) of linen along with 24 ‘bezants of good millareses of the right weight’. Jacques Guitelme left the same year for Ceuta with 160 bezants of millareses.59 Their colleagues going east, however, carried gold. Amouroux took 18 ‘Saracen gold bezants of Alexandria’ on board the Genoese Falcon sailing to Alexandria in 1235. Several years later, Bertrand de Cavaillon brought 80 ‘good bezants of Acre’ on his trip to Latin Syria.60 To some extent, these merchants simply chose to bring the appropriate local currency with them, but purchasing power was also a factor. Since Mediterranean gold came from North Africa, its purchasing power was less there. Hence Italian merchants spent their gold in the East where it

56

57

58

59

60

Khaldun, reports that the Genoese demanded a total of 400,000 bezants in compensation. If this is accurate, Di Tucci’s documents represent only a fraction of the claims. See Hazard, ‘Moslem North Africa’, p. 470. Di Tucci, ‘Documenti’, pp.  320–21, no.  2: ‘bisanciorum CLXXX de miliarentibus quos reccipere debeo et habere in dicta madona’. Hazard, Numismatic History, pp.  273–74; Hazard, ‘Moslem North Africa’, p. 470. Idrisi mentions ‘wool, oil, hides and wax’. Quoted in Hilmar C. Krueger, ‘The Wares of Exchange in the Genoese-African Traffic of the Twelfth Century’, Speculum 12 (1937), 57–71 (here p. 69, n. 1). See also Spufford, Money, p. 171. Documents inédits sur le commerce de Marseille au moyen-age, ed. Louis Blancard, 2 vols (Marseille, 1884), 1: 70–71, no. 50; 77–78, no. 54. Documents inédits, ed. Blancard, 1: 84–85, no. 59 and 1: 28–29, no. 22; Watson, ‘Back to Gold,’ p. 14. The ‘bezants of Acre’ were probably imitation dinars of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. See D. M. Metcalf, Coinage of the Crusades and Latin East (London, 1995), pp.  47–48; Henry  L. Misbach, ‘Genoese Commerce and the Alleged Flow of Gold to the East, 1154–1253’, Revue Internationale d’Histoire de la Banque 3 (1970), 67–87 (here p. 75).

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bought more. Conversely, silver was more in demand in the Maghreb than in the East or in Europe. As Spufford points out, North African ‘goods seemed relatively cheap to the European merchants who brought their silver across the Mediterranean’.61 Notarial entries from Marseille show 12 contracts drawn up in millareses in 1248 alone.62 Two years later in Genoa, Abinus of Turre received 1,000 millareses promising to pay back the debt in Genoese denarii by Christmas.63 If one could not obtain millareses, the alternative was to carry silver-based European denarii or perhaps silver ingots to North Africa which, as any traveler knows, was not as advantageous. Merchants coming to ports such as Ceuta or Bougie had their goods inspected at the diwan where they were likely pressured to exchange foreign coin and ingots at state-determined rates.64 At some point, then, pragmatic traders concluded that it was worth the effort to mint millareses in Europe and carry them to Maghrebi ports. The lack of a ruler’s name or date on the square dirhams made them easy to counterfeit. An entry in Venice’s Liber plegiorum dated 1228 might be an early sign that some had misgivings about the practice. It forbids Venetians ‘to carry or order to be sent in any way millareses by whatever pretext or artifice’.65 If the Venetian authorities had qualms about the counterfeits, their rival Italian towns did not. Three documents from late 1253 point to production of the coins in and around Genoa. Lopez brought to light an agreement of October 1253 where the Fieschi family allowed two men to strike millareses in the territory of Savignone, north of Genoa. A month later, a Genoese notary recorded that Orlando Paglia received slightly more than 822 lbs. genovesi (with 240 denarii to the pound), promising 61

62

63

64 65

Spufford, Money, p. 171. On gold bezants to the east, see Misbach, ‘Genoese Commerce’, pp. 80–81. Louis Blancard, Essai sur les monnaies de Charles I, comte de Provence (Paris, 1868), pp. 491–92; Spufford, Money, p. 173. Giovanni Pesce and Giuseppe Felloni, Le monete genovesi (Genova, 1975), p. 339, no. 28. Jacoby, ‘The Supply’, p. 103; Lieber, ‘Eastern Business’, p. 237. Problemi monetari veneziani, ed. Roberto Cessi (Padova, 1937), p. 10, no. 11: ‘Nullus venetus a modo in antea audeat portare vel mandare in aliquo viatico miliaresos per aliquod ingenium vel argumentum’. In these same years, following the Fifth Crusade, Venice attempted to limit or shut down trade with Egypt. See Louise Buenger Robbert, ‘Venice and the Crusades’, in A History of the Crusades, vol. 5: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East, ed. Norman P. Zacour and Harry W. Hazard (Madison, 1985), pp. 379–451 (here pp. 441–43); Jacoby, ‘The Supply’, p. 111.

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to pay it back by 1 March in bezants of millareses ‘of the mint of Genoa or if he wishes in those that are as good as the mint of Genoa’.66 Might Orlando have chosen to pay in millareses struck at nearby Savignone? A third notarial entry dated 23 December records that three merchants received a quantity of sheepskin from Guglielmo of Campa promising to pay him ‘6,060 bezants of millareses of silver, good and of just weight of the mint of Genoa’ before 1 August.67 Finally, Lopez called attention to a fourth entry from earlier in the year. In February, borrowers promised to pay back their debt in ‘silver millareses of the mint of Genoa or the mint of Tuscany’.68 Since this reference predates the Savignone license, it seems to point to still other Italian mints. Indeed, Pisa and Lucca may also have begun striking the coin.69 Lopez argued that millares in these documents referred not to counterfeit dirhams but to the grossi of Genoa and other northern Italian towns which began to appear in the first decades of the thirteenth century. These grossi were, as the name implies, heavier versions of the common denarii and worth several of the latter. Denarii were consequently now often called piccoli or small money. But as we have seen, the term millares appears in Genoese documents before 1200, that is, before the appearance of the grossi. In addition, evidence from elsewhere in southern Europe makes Lopez’s position difficult to accept.70

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Robert S. Lopez, ‘Contributo alla storia delle miniere argentifere di Serdegna’ Studi economico-giuridici 24 (1936), 17–32 (here pp. 26–27): ‘de ceca Janue aut tam bonos vellut sunt de ceca Janue’. See also Pesce, Le monete genovesi, p. 340, no.  32; William  R. Day, Michael Matzke and Andrea Saccocci, Medieval European Coinage: Vol. 12, Italy (1) (Northern Italy) (Cambridge, 2016), pp. 153, 301. Pesce, Le monete genovesi, p.  341, no.  39. The authors give only a modern translation of the entry. There is no indication that the skins were North African, as Spufford implies, but the assumption is a logical one (Spufford, Money, p. 173). Robert  S. Lopez, ‘Settecento anni fa: Il ritorno all’oro nel’occidente duecentesco’, Rivista storica italiana 65 (1953), 19–55 (here p. 46): ‘miliarensium argenti de ceca Ianue vel de ceca Tuscie’. According to Lopez, a notarial entry dated 17 December 1250 cites ‘bisancios miliarensium argenti lucenses vel pisanos’. See Lopez, ‘Settecento anni fa’, p. 47, n. 2. Lopez, ‘Settecento anni fa’, pp. 46–49; Spufford, Money, pp. 227–29. On the Genoese grosso and the millares, see also Day and others, Medieval European Coinage, pp. 260–61.

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Charles of Anjou, as count of Provence, confirmed the coinage of Marseille in May 1257. One version of that agreement states that, as his seigniorage, Charles received 12 denarii ‘of the small money of Marseille’ for each mark of fine silver made in that money. Another version of the agreement, however, is more detailed: Of the said money (large and small) that shall be made in Marseille, the lord count has 12 denarii of the small money of Marseille for each mark of fine silver which will be worked or made [...] and the money of millareses is to be observed in the same manner.71

It seems clear from this passage that Marseille minted denarii and grossi as well as millareses. Here the millares seems to have been included in the count’s seigniorage as an afterthought, perhaps because its production was not entirely licit. Nonetheless, the document as we have it should provide assurance that Genoese notaries were not using millares as synonymous with grosso. Charles of Anjou had claimed Provence through marriage in 1246, allowing the county to pass from a cadet branch of the royal house of Aragon-Catalonia to the Capetians. But James I of Aragon, through his mother, still held the commercially (and intellectually) vibrant town of Montpellier.72 By 1257, he probably had begun striking millareses there to compete with Marseille. In July 1259, he expanded production south of the Pyrenees by allowing Pedro Andrea to make ‘money of quirats’ in either Barcelona or Lérida at the same weight and fineness as the quirats struck in Montpellier.73 Quirat usually refers to a half dirham, but here James meant the small Almohad dirham.74 For each mark of silver Pedro struck into quirats (or millareses), he was required to give two solidos barcelonenses, that is, 24 denarii, to the crown, twice what Charles of Anjou received in Marseille. As with Charles in Marseille, James was not paid 71

72

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Blancard, Essai, pp. 454–55, no. 3, p. 483, n. 3: ‘De predictis monetis (grossi et minutis) que fient in Massilia, habeat dominus Comes XII d. massiliensium minutorum tantum pro marcha argenti fini qui operabuntur seu fient [...] et eodem modo intelligatur de moneta milliarensi’. Thomas N. Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History (Oxford, 1986), pp. 40, 68–69. Documentos de Jaime  I de Aragón, ed. Ambrosio Huici Miranda and María Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, 5 vols (Valencia, 1976–88), 4: 217, no. 1116: ‘monetam aquilatorum’. In a grant of May 1273, Jaime speaks of ‘monetam miliarensium vel alquilatorum’. See Álvaro Campaner y Fuertes, Numismática Balear (Palma de Majorca, 1879), pp. 263–64, no. 5.

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in millareses since these were strictly for export. James anticipated the demand for these coins would be high but promised to exact no more than the two solidos per mark: By all means however much profit you make in the said minting beyond the two solidos barcelonenses per mark, we freely concede and give to you and yours all of it [...] Above all we wish that you do not strike or otherwise make the said money of quirats without safeguards so [quam] we will appoint a guard for us in Barcelona or in Lerida to whom you will render the said two solidos barcelonenses, for us and our location, [for] the letter patent of safe conduct for the said P[edro] Andrea and all those who shall bring silver to the said mint and [for] their tolls and customs.75

Three years later, in 1262, James allowed the ‘merchants of San Antoninus’ to produce millareses in ‘whatever location in all the kingdom of Aragon’.76 That same year he also gave Arnold Lawrence permission to strike ‘the money of silver, which are called millareses’ in the city of Valencia.77 The license to Arnold Lawrence is the first instance we hear of minting millareses in a formerly Muslim kingdom; Valencia had only been conquered in 1238. Of the Muslims that remained in the territory, each household paid an annual tax of a bezant.78 At first, this bezant may 75

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Documentos de Jaime  I, 4: 217, no.  1116: ‘Immo quantumcumque in dicta moneta luccro feceritis ultra duos solidos barchinonenses in quilibet marcha, totum illud vobis et vestris libenti animo concedimdus atque damus [...]Preterea volumus, quod dictam monetan [sic] aquilatorum non cudatis nec endi faciatis sine guardas quam guardam nobis dabimus in barchinona vel in Ilerda cui respondebitis de duobus solidos barchinonenses predictis, pro nobis et loco nostri, litera aperta guidatici dicto P.  Andree et omnibus illis qui argentum tulerint ad dictam monetam et suis, pedatico et lezda’. See also Robert  I. Burns, ‘The Guidaticum Safe-Conduct in Medieval Arago-Catalonia: A MiniInstitution for Muslims, Christians and Jews’, Medieval Encounters 1  (1995), 51–113 (here pp. 86, 87, n. 92). Jean Duplessey, ‘La circulation des monnaies arabes en Europe occidentale du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle’, Revue Numismatique, 5th ser., 18 (1956), 101–63 (here pp. 142–43, no. 42): ‘Et dictam monetam operari et cudi faciatis in quocumque loco tocius regni Aragonum’. Felipe Mateu y Llopis, ‘Sobre la política de Jaime I y las acuñaciones valencianas de 1247 y 1271’, Anales del Centro de Cultura Valenciana 19 (1947), 3–31 (here pp. 18–19): ‘Monetam argenti, que vocatur millarensis’. Arnold was to render 1 solido valenciano as seigniorage to the crown for every mark minted. Robert  I. Burns, Medieval Colonialism: Postcrusade Exploitation of Islamic Valencia (Princeton, 1975), pp. 79–85. For examples of the tax, see Foundations

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have been rendered in dirhams left over from Almohad rule. In 1258, however, James ordered that the Muslims residing in the city of Valencia need not pay the annual ‘bisancio argenti’ but only 3 solidos and a half of royal denarii.79 The millareses he licensed to be struck in the city shortly afterward, therefore, were clearly not intended for domestic use; they were an export coinage. In his two grants of 1262, James specified that the millareses were to be roughly 10 d. fine or about 83% silver.80 In 1267, however, James’s mint master in Montpellier, Pedro Vidal, complained that he could no longer mint at a standard of even 9 and half denarii fine because ‘in villages and locations which are in other lordships surrounding Montpellier, [the millares] is struck at a lesser fineness’.81 James therefore permitted Pedro to strike the coins ‘at the fineness that the merchants who buy them want’.82 The mint master’s complaint testifies to the widespread proliferation of striking millareses. More importantly, it underscores that these coins were commodities for export, and, as with any product, one had to consider what the market could bare. Merchants were going to buy the cheapest, i.e., the basest, coins they believed they could pass off in North Africa. Pedro, the mint master in Montpellier, had competition from Marseilles, less than 200 kilometers to the east, and probably also from the town of Arles.83 But Pedro was most vexed by the bishop of Maguelonne who in the wake of the Albigensian Crusade had gained lordship of nearby Melgueil. In February 1262 (or perhaps 1263), Berengar, acting as bishop of

79

80

81

82

83

of Crusader Valencia: Revolt and Recovery, 1257–63, ed. Robert  I. Burns, Diplomatarium regni Valentiae, 2 (Princeton, 1991), pp. 123–24, no. 143 and pp. 143–44, no. 166. Foundations of Crusader Valencia, ed. Burns, p. 151, no. 179; Burns, Medieval Colonialism, pp. 82–83. Medieval mints expressed fineness in increments called, confusingly, denarii. 12 d. fine was pure silver; 6 d. was 50% silver. The merchants of San Antoninus were instructed to strike ‘ad legem videlicet .x. denarii’ (Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, pp. 142–43, no. 42). In Valencia, Jamie seemed to allow a tolerance of 10 to 10 1/2 d. See Mateu y Llopis, ‘Sobre la política’, pp. 18–19. Documentos de Jaime  I, ed. Huici Miranda and Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, 5: 228–29, no. 1538: ‘In villis et locis, que sunt alterius dominaciones in circuito Montispesulani, cuditur ad minorem legem’. Documentos de Jaime I, ed. Huici Miranda and Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, 5: 228–29, no. 1538: ‘Ad legem, quam mercatores, qui eam ement, voluerint’. Blancard, Essai, p.  483, published an undated excerpt from statutes of Arles stating that millareses could only be minted with the permission of the archbishop and town council.

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Maguelonne and ‘count and lord of Melgueil and Montferrand’, allowed three burghers from Montpellier to strike millareses anywhere in his lordship, save at either the castle of Melgueil or Montferrand. The coins were to be made from an alloy slightly less than 10 denarii fine as was done in Montpellier. The act itself was drawn up in Montpellier, part of Berengar’s dioceses, underscoring that the bishop intended to cut into the profits James I of Aragon enjoyed there.84 But by 1266, the bishop’s entry into the millares market may have been brought to a halt. The production of the counterfeits had finally come to the attention of Rome. Gregory  IX’s successor, Innocent  IV (1243–54), had little time to monitor Christian merchant traffic in the Maghreb.85 His general council held in Lyon in the summer of 1245 deposed the Emperor Frederick II (1220–50), directed church revenues in support of the Latin empire of Constantinople, exhorted the peoples of Eastern Europe to raise defenses against the ‘Tartars’ and called for a new crusade to the Holy Land, where the Franks had suffered a catastrophic defeat the previous October at La Forbie.86 As with the acts of Lateran IV, the Council of Lyon’ last decree addressed plans for this crusade. The canon excerpted the part of Ad liberandam targeting trade detrimental to the Holy Land as well as its passage excommunicating anyone aiding pirates.87 The council did not, however, allude to the broader precept of Quod olim that seemingly called for a halt to all trade during any conflict with Islam. Born Sinibaldo Fieschi of Genoa, Innocent IV spent much of his life away from the maritime republic. Still, in Epstein’s opinion, his commentaries on canon law show a practical knowledge of economics; he 84

85

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E.  Cartier, ‘Notice sur la monnaie frappée au XIIIe siècle par les évêques de Maguelone avec le nom de Mahomet’, Revue Numismatique, ser.  1, vol.  20 (1855), 199–227 (here pp. 220–24, no. 2); compare Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, p. 142, no. 41. On Gregory’s death, Celestine IV ruled for 15 days. There followed an eighteenmonth vacancy of the Roman see as the cardinals squabbled with Frederick II of Germany. John  N.  D. Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes (Oxford, 1986), p. 192; Whalen, ‘Corresponding’, p. 501 Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 1: 273–301. For La Forbie, see Peter Jackson, ‘The Crusades of 1239–41 and Their Aftermath’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50 (1987), 32–60 (here p. 32). As it includes the passage dealing with pirates, the crusading canon of Lyon I does not seem to have been taken from the Decretals or Gregory’s Rachel suum videns. The council must have relied on a fuller version of Ad liberandam. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, 1: 300; Jacoby, ‘The Supply’, p. 114.

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understood that ‘markets benefitted from an atmosphere of trust’.88 In June 1253, for example, the pope wrote to Venice, Genoa’s arch-rival, and overturned a ruling by his legate, Odo (Eudes) of Châteauroux, that had barred the Venetians from any trade with the Muslims of the East (qui partes Orientalis inhabitant). Granting special dispensation, Innocent allowed Venetians to trade there so long as they did ‘not carry prohibited things to the enemies of the faith’.89 Similarly, while he did not ignore the Christian struggle in Iberia against Islam, there is no evidence he attempted to interfere in trade or stop the counterfeiting of Almohad dirhams. He in fact promoted Rome’s missionary interest in North Africa. At Lyon in 1245, he appointed the Aragonese Franciscan Lope Fernández de Ain as bishop of Morocco and the following year wrote to the Almohad ruler Abu al-Hasan urging his conversion to Christianity.90 It was probably also at Lyon, however, that Innocent IV tapped Odo of Châteauroux to preach the crusade to the Holy Land. As we have seen from his ruling against Venice in 1253, Odo was a hardliner. Formerly the chancellor of the University of Paris, he had been involved in the famous disputations there condemning the Talmud. Innocent soon made him the cardinal-bishop of Tusculum and legate for the crusade. As such, he accompanied the pious Louis IX (1226–70) of France on his expedition to Egypt and the Holy Land.91 There Odo, perhaps with Louis’s support, called the pope’s attention to Christian counterfeits of Muslim coins. Innocent wrote to Odo on 20 February 1253 upholding the legate’s excommunication of ‘all those in the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch and the county of Tripoli who engrave or moreover cause to be engraved the name (of Muhammad) or the number (of years since his

88 89

90

91

Epstein, Genoa, pp. 102–03, 126; Whalen, ‘Corresponding’, p. 501. Les registres d’Innocent  IV, ed. Élie Berger, 4  vols (Paris, 1884–1920), 3: 230, no.  6586: ‘Dummodo inimicis fidei res vetitas non portetis’. Compare Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 65. Lower, ‘The Papacy’, pp.  621–24; Whalen, ‘Corresponding’, pp.  501–02. On Innocent’s support of the wars in Spain, see O’Callaghan, Reconquest, pp. 107–23. Charles H. Haskins, ‘The University of Paris in the Sermons of the Thirteenth Century’, The American Historical Review 10 (1904), 1–27 (here p. 7, n. 4), gives Odo’s tenure as chancellor in Paris as 1238–44. Odo is also notable for having composed three sermons in the 1260s promoting a crusade against the Muslim colony of Lucera in southern Italy. See Caroline Smith, Crusading in the Age of Joinville (Aldershot, England, 2006), p. 36; Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 65.

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birth)’ on ‘bezants and drachmas of silver or gold’.92 Ironically, Innocent’s family, the Fieschi, licensed the striking of millareses in Savignone later that same year. While the pope called the counterfeits in the east a disgraceful abomination, he never addressed the rapidly growing market for millareses in the western Mediterranean.93 Typical of newly arrived crusaders, Odo and Louis had easily become indignant of established customs in the east. Mints in the Crusader states had been striking imitation gold dinars for over 100 years. The coins were easily distinguished from authentic dinars of Alexandria in that they were underweight, less fine, and displayed ‘faulty’ legends based on old, out-ofdate prototypes. As such, they were primarily intended to circulate within the Latin states.94 Crusader imitations of Ayyubid silver dirhams, which Innocent called drachmas, were a different matter. These coins were more careful copies and were used in trade with neighboring Syria and Egypt.95 In fairness, Odo and Louis did not object to the monetary niches these imitative dinars and dirhams filled, but they did insist their legends be amended. Possibly even before the arrival of Innocent’s supporting letter of 1253, mints in the east started putting crosses on their dinars along with legends in good Arabic proclaiming the Trinity and the year of the Incarnation.96 The dirhams likewise had their legends changed and, at least initially, a cross was added to their design. The cross, however, appears to have become smaller and in some cases disappeared entirely as Muslim merchants objected to the overt Christian symbol.97 Louis IX returned to France in 1254, the year of Innocent IV’s death, but it was years before he took action against the counterfeit coins in his own realm. In 1266, he began to make plans to return east on crusade and informed Pope Clement  IV (1265–68). Clement had been born in Languedoc and served at Louis’ court while still a layman. He was ordained after his wife’s death, rising to bishop of Le Puy in 1257 and archbishop of Narbonne in 1259.98 Perhaps as part of his preparations for 92

93

94 95 96 97 98

Les registres, ed. Berger, 3: 176, no. 6336: ‘Omnes illos qui nomen et numerum ipsa in eisdem bisanciis et dragmis sive in auro sive in argento sculperent de cetero vel sculpi facerent in regno Jersolimitano, principatu Antiochie ac comitatu Tripolitano’. Les Registres, ed. Berger, 3: 176, no. 6336: ‘Non solum indignum esse, sed etiam abominabile’. Metcalf, Coinage, pp. 43–51; Misbach, ‘Genoese Commerce’, p. 75. Metcalf, Coinage, pp. 98–103. Metcalf, Coinage, pp. 44–45; Misbach, ‘Genoese Commerce’, p. 75. Metcalf, Coinage, pp. 103–04. Riley-Smith, The Crusades, p. 174; Kelly, The Oxford Dictionary, pp. 196–97.

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taking the cross a second time, Louis now sought Clement’s help in eradicating the millares, a coin the pope must have known well. Specifically, Louis needed Clement’s help in Melguiel, whose count, Berengar, was also bishop of Maguelonne. In 1266, Clement, citing injury done to both the king of France and the King of Heaven, ordered Bishop Berengar to stop striking the dirhams ‘in his diocese’ because they carried the name of the prophet.99 The pope made no mention of minting in Montferrand where Berengar was also count, but he may have hoped the bishop could halt minting at nearby Montpellier which was in his diocese. James I, however, was secular lord there and apparently ignored papal misgivings. The following year, as we have seen, he allowed his mint master in Montpellier to adjust the fineness of his millareses to stay competitive with other mints.100 Still Louis’ efforts uncovered more mints in the kingdom of France. In 1267, he ordered his brother Alphonse, count of Poitiers, to halt production of millareses in the Venaissin, i.e., the territory around Avignon.101 Alphonse obediently sent letters to his seneschal in the Venaissin prohibiting these coins that carried the ‘name of perfidious Mohammed’.102 The following year, he directed the seneschal of Saintonge to halt production of the coins on the island of Olerón, south of La Rochelle.103 The king’s condemnation was taken seriously enough that in 1269 Alphonse wrote again to his seneschal in the Venaissin concerning a case of confiscated millareses.104 And a royal inquest of that same year settled a dispute between the seneschal of Carcassonne and the lord of Mirepoix over ‘a

99

100

101

102

103

104

Cartier, ‘Notice sur la monnaie’, pp. 219–20, no. 1; Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, p.  143, no.  43; Thomas  N. Bisson, ‘Coinages and Royal Monetary Policy in Languedoc during the Reign of Saint Louis’, Speculum 32 (1957), 443–69 (here p. 465). For Louis and the bishop of Maguelonne, see William Chester Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of Crusade (Princeton, 1979), pp. 137–40. Bisson, The Medieval Crown, p. 69, writes that James ‘was obliged to acknowledge the suzerainty of the bishop of Maguelone, and finally the overlordship of the king of France’. In the case of the millares, he appears defiant. Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, p. 143, no. 44: ‘In terra vestra de Venessi cudator moneta milliarensis’. See Bisson, ‘Coinages and Royal Monetary Policy’, pp. 465–66. Correspondance administrative d’Alfonse de Poitier, ed. Auguste Molinier, 2 vols (Paris, 1894–1900), 1: 336–37, no. 556. Correspondance, ed. Molinier, 1: 440, no.  695; Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, p. 144, no. 46. Correspondance, ed. Molinier, 2: 360, no. 1757; compare 2: 397–98, no. 1810.

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sum of prohibited millareses which were of Marseilles, said to be taken from Pisans at sea’.105 Louis was not offended that Christians were supplying Muslims with coins that might ultimately be used to fight other Christians or ‘to the detriment of the Holy Land’. As with the gold and silver imitations he encountered in the east, the king was offended because the millareses ‘mention the name of perfidious Mohammad and he is on them said to be the prophet of God’, which Louis found ‘contemptuous’ of the Christian faith.106 Pope Clement had made a similar objection writing to the bishop of Maguelonne: ‘Truly what Catholic can coin money with the title of Muhammad?’107 Hazard suggested that European moneyers often distorted the Arabic for God, Muhammad and al-Mahdi in the legends of their dirhams, but there is no way to tell if this practice came before or after Louis IX’s objections or even whether it was intentional.108 It may have simply been the result of non-Muslims engraving the dies poorly (fig. 3). Not all of Louis’ contemporaries were as upset as he by the legend on the millareses, particularly since demand for the coins remained high. When James I of Aragon renewed the license to make dirhams in Montpellier in 1267, he was responding to Pedro Vidal’s complaint of many nearby mints striking at a lesser fineness.109 James thus allowed him to strike millareses at the fineness acceptable to the merchants ‘who buy them’. Two years later, in 1269, ironically the same year he set out east on crusade, James acknowledged that Pedro had converted 54,509 marks into millareses. The king now described him as ‘master of the millareses works’ in Montpellier.110

105

106

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109 110

Les Olim ou registres des arrêts rendus par la cour du roi, ed. Arthur Beugnot, 3  vols (Paris, 1839–48), 1: 316–17, no.  3: ‘Quamdam summam Miliarensium prohibitorum, quam quidam Massilienses dicebant se abstulisse Pisanis in mari’. Compare Les Olim ou registres, ed. Beugnot, 1: 1012, n.  141; Bisson, ‘Monetary Policy’, p. 466. Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, p. 143, no. 44. Of course, Louis’s desire to eradicate the millares can also be interpreted as part of a maturing monetary policy (Bisson, ‘Monetary Policy’, p. 465). Cartier, ‘Notice sur la monnaie’, pp.  219–20, no.  1: ‘Quis enim catholicus monetam debet cudere cum titulo Mahometi?’ See also Duplessey, ‘La circulation’, p. 143, no. 43. Hazard, The Numismatic History, pp.  269–70, no.  1101 (compare p.  267, no. 1085). Documentos de Jaime I, 5: 228–29, no. 1538. A. Germaine, De la monnai Mahométane attribuée a un éveque de Maguelone (Montpellier, 1854), pp. 11–13, n. 3; Watson, ‘Back to Gold’, p. 13. James set out

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Figure 3. Two Millareses or Counterfeit Dirhams

Source: Auktionshaus H.D. Rauch, auction 82, lot 2677, wt. 1.57 grams; American Numismatic Society 0000.999.17133. Compare Harry W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa (New York, 1952), p. 269-70, no. 1101.

But despite its impressive output, Montpellier, the Aragonese enclave in Capetian Languedoc, had not saturated the market. In August 1272, the seneschal of Provence and Forcalquier, acting for Charles of Anjou, now king of Sicily, granted a license to two mint masters of Marseille allowing them to strike coin in the castle of Tarascon (in castro Tarasconi), located between Montpellier and Marseille. The masters were to produce coronats or denarii bearing Charles’s crowned image (monetam provincialium coronatorum). The two-year license goes on to stipulate that no other money, i.e. denarii, should be made in Provence (or Forcalquier) without consent of the masters, with the exception of Marseille, which on crusade in September 1269, but a storm forced the fleet back (Riley, The Crusades, p. 174).

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had its own money or mint (que habet monetam specialem). Finally, the seneschal felt compelled to add the following: In the aforesaid lands [of Provence and Forcalquier], millareses should not be made by any means or by anybody except by the consent of the said masters, and this [minting of millareses] ought to be especially forbidden in the aforesaid lands of Provence and Forcalquier.111

The seneschal did not object to the millares on religious grounds, since he allowed the masters at Tarascon the option to mint them. Rather he seemed to recognize that unlicensed production of the coins was mushrooming. His concern brings to mind the mint master of Montpellier’s complaint of competition from unnamed mints ‘in villages and (other) locations’.112 By the time of the Tarascon license, Charles’s brother Louis had been dead two years. He died in the August heat of 1270 besieging the city of Tunis. While historians have largely cleared Charles of blame for diverting Louis’ expedition to Tunisia, he benefitted from the outcome. As king of Sicily, he compelled al-Mustansir, the emir of Tunisia, to renew tribute to Sicily as well as pay an indemnity for the crusade.113 One wonders if the new accord with Tunisia encouraged the production of millareses in Charles’s French domains. We do not know if the masters at Tarascon exercised their option to strike the counterfeit dirhams. Presumably Marseille, with its ‘special’ status, did continue to produce them. In the wake of the crusade against Tunis, the Genoese renegotiated their own privileges in the port. They came to an agreement in November 1272 with Tunis’s head of customs (chaytum dugane) and the city’s alcalde (alchadi de Tunexi), acting in the name of al-Mustansir. The second article of the treaty stipulates that the Genoese pay the customary duty (ut consuetum est) on all merchandise they sell in Tunisia (de illis mercibus 111

112 113

Blancard, Essai, pp. 459–62, no. 7, p. 484: ‘Nec, in predictis terris, debent fieri millarenses per aliquem nec aliquos, nisi de voluntate dictorum magistrorum; – et hoc debet per predictas terras Provincie et Forchalqueri specialiter inhiberi’. Documentos de Jaime I, 5: 228–29, no. 1538. Charles originally demanded the tribute in gold, but settled for ‘certam quantitatem milliarisiorum et plattarum de argento’. See Traités de paix et de commerce et documents divers concernant les relationes des chrétiens avce les arabes de l’Afrique septentrionale, ed. M.  Louis de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1866), pp. 156–58, nos 4–7; Michael Lower, ‘Tunis in 1270: A Case Study of Interfaith Relations in the late Thirteenth Century’, The International History Review 28 (2006), 504–14 (here p. 506); Michael Lower, ‘Conversion and St Louis’s Last Crusade’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 58 (2007), 211–31 (here pp. 211–14); Hazard, ‘Moslem North Africa’, pp. 471–72.

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quas vendent in dictis terris). The same article then seems to address the sale of coinage: ‘And of millareses, [and] money of gold, they should give and render half the tax, which is customary’.114 The next article, number three, continues on the topic of coinage, taking aim at debased millareses: Likewise, the said Genoese ought not to bring money into Tunisia that is not of good silver; and if anyone carries or shall carry it, the customs (officer) is allowed to take it and cut it.115

Taken together, the two articles suggest that the Genoese were allowed to bring in millareses, counterfeit or otherwise, as well as gold, but debased silver would be confiscated. The regulation was obviously a response to European mints producing millareses at whatever fineness merchants believed they could pass off. Significantly, a Tunisian-Genoese accord done twenty-two years earlier contains a similar stipulation that the Genoese pay a tax on ‘bezants and millareses’ but does not address coins of poor fineness.116 If Tunisian custom officials were destroying debased millareses in 1272, it did not deter James I of Aragon. In the spring of 1273, he granted to Vincent of Ascasia, described as a ‘specialist’ of Lerida (speciario Ilerdae), and his colleague, Bernard of Turribus, a five-year license to strike millareses on Majorca, wherever they wished. Echoing his grant to Pedro Vidal, he allowed them to produce the coins ‘at that fineness, of course, that merchants who wish to buy them want’. James then added the proviso that Vincent and Bernard must ‘sell this coinage at the mark and in marks and not otherwise in small [quantities]’.117 James also allowed the pair to mint counterfeit mazmudinas, or Almohad dinars, as well as double dinars. But these gold coins, mainly intended for the domestic or European market, were to be struck at the fineness of those made in Lerida and did not have to be sold in bulk. The millares production was clearly on a grander scale. 114

115

116

117

Traités de paix, ed. Mas Latrie, pp. 122–25, no. 10: ‘Et de miliarensibus, moneta auri, dabunt at solvent medium drictum, ut consuetum est’. Traités de paix, ed. Mas Latrie, pp. 122–25, no. 10: ‘Item, quod aliquis Januensis non apportet monetam in Tunexi que non sit de bono argento fino; et si aliquis aportaret, vel aportabit, liceat dugana ipsam accipere et incidere’. This earlier treaty may tax coinage brought out of Tunisia: ‘Et Januenses de omnio eo quod portabunt in terrris suis, de bissanciis et milarensibus’ (Traités de paix, ed. Mas Latrie, pp. 118–21, no. 7). Campaner y Fuertes, Numismática Balear, pp. 263–64, no. 5: ‘ad legem scilicet illam quam voluerint mercatores qui ipsam emere voluerint. Ita tamen quod ipsam monetam ad marcham et marchas vendatis et non aliter perminutum’.

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Millareses continued to be struck in Europe and sold to merchants bound for North Africa because there was a profit to be made. The reasons behind the demand for the coin, however, are not clear. Latin merchants traded in North African ports before 1200 without resorting to carrying counterfeit dirhams.118 While the export of millareses to Africa may have started as early as the 1220s, minting proliferated in southern Europe after 1250. At the same time, the fineness of the imitations deteriorated. Production did not seem to suffer much from Louis IX’s condemnation in the 1260s. What changed in the balance of trade to cause this explosion of counterfeit dirhams in the thirteenth century? After Lateran IV, Latin merchants found themselves under Church scrutiny regarding what they could licitly trade in Africa. The inquiry sent to the papacy in 1234 by the Franciscans and Dominicans in Tunis reveals clearly that Genoese and Pisan merchants were concerned about the future. These merchants questioned the Church on the legality of miscellaneous, low-value items: small pieces of wood, nails, small knives, etc. In other words, they sought permission for anything they hoped might sell in Africa. With easily-detectable shipments of timber and iron now subject to censure, the savvy merchant looked to alternatives. Meanwhile, Europe’s demand for one African commodity, gold, was on the rise. The kingdom of Castile had been the front runner in Europe’s ‘return to gold’ when it began striking an imitative dinar, the morabetino, c.  1172. Following its successes, Frederick  II’s augustale appeared in 1231 and Genoa and Florence launched the gold genovino and florin in 1252.119 If European mints were to continue to strike gold, however, they needed to procure it, and the best source was Ghana via the Maghreb. Indeed, the initial gold for the Castilian morabetino and Frederick’s augustale came in the form of tribute payments from North Africa.120 The increasing demand for counterfeit millareses after 1250, therefore, was probably the result of Latin merchants using them to acquire gold in African ports. The Genoese treaty of 1272 with al Mustansir of Tunisia contains a proviso that possibly sheds light on this exchange:

118 119

120

Krueger, ‘The Wares’, pp. 68–70. Todesca, ‘Selling Castile’, forthcoming; Philip Grierson and Lucia Travaini, Medieval European Coinage: Vol. 14, Italy (III) (South Italy, Sicily, Sardinia) (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 172–77; Robert S. Lopez, ‘Back to Gold, 1252,’ Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 9 (1956), 219–40. For the morabetino, see Todesca, ‘Selling Castile’, forthcoming. For Frederick II’s tribute from the Hafsids, see Spufford, Money, p. 169.

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Concerning gold that shall be sold by the said Genoese in the mint of Tunis, or in other lands of the said lord [al-Mustansir], they shall not be held to pay a tax beyond what is customary.121

The passage may simply be requiring the Genoese to sell foreign gold coins in their possession at the mint or elsewhere. But the treaty already states earlier that they should pay medium drictum on millareses or moneta auri. This reference, then, might be targeting gold in a different form. Italian notarial records occasionally refer to aurum de paiola or paleola, which historians variously render as gold dust, nuggets or straws. It is possible that the Tunisian authorities were here attempting to force Genoese merchants to sell/exchange raw gold, acquired on the open market, for gold coins and thus pay a tax in the transaction. These exchanges may have taken place at the mint itself or elsewhere at the insistence of customs officials.122 It is, however, easy to imagine merchants avoiding this official exchange and returning home with gold bullion rather than bezants. The phenomenon of the counterfeit silver millares, as with so many facets of the crusading era, was the product of overlapping spiritual and financial forces. The coin helped ease the moral dilemma of Latin merchants after 1215 in that it was a new commodity that did not further war against Christians or hinder, in any direct way, the Christian recovery of the Holy Land. No church leader is known to have condemned it on those grounds. But the wholesale exportation of these coins to Africa after 1250 was also fueled by Europe’s expanding economy and its need for highvalue gold coin. As John Day succinctly wrote, ‘the European economies of the late middle ages, despite the development of mercantile credit and deposit banking, remained in essence hard money economies, relying for their basic needs in normal times on circulating coins’.123 Neither James I of Aragon, Charles of Anjou or even Louis IX saw exporting precious metal, in the form of counterfeit coins, as a way 121

122

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Traités de paix, ed. Mas Latrie, pp. 122–25, no. 10: ‘Quod de auro quod vendetur per dictos Januenses in cecha Tunexis, sive in aliis terris dicti domini, non teneantur solvere drictum, nisi sicut consuetum est’. The earlier accord of 1250 reads: ‘de auro vendito in cecha Tunesis et Bucee, non solvatur drictum, nisi sicut consuetum est’ (Traités de paix, ed. Mas Latrie, pp. 118–21, no. 7). For aurum de paiola, see Pesce, Le Monete, pp. 342–50; Lopez, ‘Back’, p. 227; Spufford, Money, p. 176; Misbach, ‘Genoese Commerce’, pp. 80–81. For custom houses, toll stations and money exchanges in the Muslim world, see further see Shelemo D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: Vol. 4, Daily Life (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 27–28; Jacoby, ‘The Supply’, p. 103. John Day, ‘The Great Bullion Famine of the Fifteenth Century’, Past and Present 79 (1978), 3–54 (here p. 3).

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of aiding the enemy, though there was precedent in Roman law. The Justinian code reads: ‘Not only should no gold be given to barbarians, but…if gold is hereafter carried to barbarian land [...] by the merchants, they will no longer be subjected to a fine, but to punishment by death’.124 But merchants were not exporting precious metal wholesale from Europe, at least not blatantly, at the time that Lateran III and IV attempted to define licit trade with the Muslim world. The imitative millares, then, escaped the attention of subsequent canon lawyers of the thirteenth century. While they certainly availed themselves of Roman law, their use of it in relation to trade ‘was not extensive’. Neither did they look much at the actual flow of goods.125 Furthermore, Lateran  IV’s Ad liberandam was aimed narrowly at prohibiting trade that was a ‘detriment to the Holy Land’, and in the later thirteen century it may have trumped its predecessors. Lateran III’s Ita quorundum had forbidden supplying anything to the Muslims that could be used to attack Christians anywhere. And Clement III’s Quod olim had sought to stop all trade during any hostilities between Muslims and Christians. While Gregory IX drew on all three texts in his response to inquiries from the mendicants, Innocent IV at the general council of Lyon in 1245 only promulgated Ad liberandam’s passages on trade. He, like Innocent III before him, was concerned with the war effort in the East. As a Genoese, Innocent IV may well have known of the millares but viewed it as a permissible part of commerce in the Maghreb where he had also actively promoted conversion. Thus, despite the broader Ita quorundum and Quod olim, the millares was only eventually condemned because of its offensive legends and that objection was perhaps circumvented by making the coins illegible. In one strange way, exporting millareses could be seen as keeping within the spirit of Roman law since it extracted precious gold from barbarian hands. The success of gold coins like the genovino and florin followed by the Venetian ducat helped the Italian republics dominate Mediterranean trade in the following two centuries. Though it was not deliberate, the papal embargo that emerged out of Lateran III and IV helped prompt the millares trade and so enabled Europe’s triumphant return to gold. The production of millareses, however, seems to die down considerably by the close of the century. Perhaps customs officials in Tunis and other ports eventually made headway in the fight against bad coins.126 By the 124 125 126

Codex 4.63.2 as quoted in Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, p. 69. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality, pp. 68–69. Spufford, Money, p. 175, reports that the Hafsids increased the fineness of their dirhams in the 1270s to help combat the importation of debased counterfeits.

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fifteenth century, Italian merchants were crossing the Sahara to Timbuktu in an attempt to cut the North African ‘middle man’ out of the gold trade. Nonetheless a treaty of 1433 between the king of Tunis and Genoa reasserted the old injunction against carrying false money.127 Latin merchants continued to ship coin and bullion to North Africa, but not as brazenly as in the days of the millares.

127

Hazard, The Numismatic History, p. 273, sees no distinction in Hafsid dirhams between 1253 and 1311. Traités de paix, ed. Mas Latrie, pp.  134–42, no.  16; Watson, ‘Back to Gold’, pp. 19–20.

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Chapter Thirteen The Fourth Lateran Council, Peace, and the Protection of Crusader Rights during the Crusades of Frederick II Jessalynn L. Bird

Crusading logistics and the impact of crusading on the home front have recently become topics of renewed interest for medieval historians. How did the complex interlacing of the spiritual and temporal aspects of crusade organization – diplomacy, communications, crusading ‘propaganda’, long-distance travel, credit, wills, ransoms, prayer, liturgy and lawsuits – both deeply impact and reflect the nature of medieval society?1 Yet general histories of the reign of Frederick II typically overlook the role of crusade preachers and diocesan clergy in promoting the crusade, despite the recent work of James Powell, Pierre Claverie, and others in highlighting the importance that recruiting and peacemaking played in both papal and imperial preparations for the crusade from roughly 1213 until 1229. Contemporaries considered the participation of both Frederick  II and his supporters crucial to the success of the crusade, but not much has been published on the topic of precisely by what means support for the crusade was mustered in Germany. As in other regions, peacemaking efforts were crucial in Germany and Flanders-Brabant for enabling the departure of crusaders both greater and lesser and civil unrest was cited by Frederick II as one of the many factors which led to protean deadlines for imperial departure. The shifting of projected departure in turn jeopardized the participation of magnates and those hoping to accompany them and put crusade recruiters and organizers in awkward positions. In a volume dedicated to tracing the impact of the Fourth Lateran Council on the crusading movement, this chapter will examine how preparations for Fourth Lateran and the decrees of the council itself influenced the ways in which ecclesiastics promoting the crusade sought to ensure the 1

For example, see Christopher Tyerman, How to Plan a Crusade: Reason and Religious War in the High Middle Ages (New York, 2015).

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protection of crusaders’ privileges in tandem with organizing the departure of crusade contingents and keeping the peace.2 Many studies of the ‘business of the faith and of peace’ (negotio pacis et fidei) have highlighted the role which peace played in the anti-heretical crusades, as have studies of the papal-imperial crusades in Italy and contemporary crusade initiatives in England.3 James Powell, Pierre Claverie, Thomas Smith, and others have devoted considerable attention to peacemaking and fundraising initiatives on a high plane in Germany, Italy, England and elsewhere for the Fifth Crusade. However, much less attention has been lavished on the fate of middle-tier and lesser crusaders and how the negotiations leading up to, during, and after the Fourth Lateran and the statutes it passed on the enforcement of a four-year Christendomwide peace, excommunication, interdict, crusade taxation, and specific aspects of crusader rights were implemented in practice. Some specialized

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Thomas Van Cleve, The Emperor Frederick  II of Hohenstaufen: Immutator Mundi (Oxford, 1972), pp.  110–13 mentions civil unrest, but not the role of preachers. David Abulafia, Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor (Oxford, 1988), pp.  94–201 and Wolfgang Stürner, Friedrich  II, 2  vols (Frankfurt, 2003) are far more reliable, although they deal with peace-making efforts and crusade organization only at the highest levels. The recent book by Marcello Pacifico, Federico II e Gerusalemme al tempo delle cruciate: Relazioni tra cristianità e islam nello spazio euro-mediterraneao medieval: 1215–50 (Sciasca, 2012) has remained unavailable to me. I am currently writing an article on the impact of shifting departure deadlines on crusaders in Germany, Flanders-Brabant and Frisia. See also note 3 below. For the Midi, see Paix de Dieu et guerre sainte en Languedoc au XIIIe siècle (Toulouse, 1969); Daniel Powers, ‘Who Went on the Albigensian Crusade?’, English Historical Review 128.534 (2013), 1047–86; Laurence W. Marvin, The Occitan War: A  Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–18 (Cambridge, 2008); Rebecca Rist, The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198–1245 (New York, 2009); Richard Kay, The Council of Bourges, 1225: A Documentary History (Aldershot, 2002). For England, see Christopher Tyerman, England and The Crusades, 1095–1588 (Chicago, 1988); Nicholas Vincent, The Letters and Charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, Papal Legate in England, 1216–18 (Woodbridge, 1996); Nicholas Vincent, Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205–38 (Cambridge, 1996); David Carpenter, The Minority of Henry  III (Berkeley, 1990). For Italy, see Augustine Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth Century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford, 1992); Norman Housley, The Italian Crusades: The PapalAngevin Alliance and the Crusades Against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343 (Oxford, 1982), and note 4 below.

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monographs and substantial articles have already rightly highlighted the contributions of Cardinal Hugolino to peace-making in Italy and the involvement of Konrad von Reifenberg (who as bishop of Hildesheim, became responsible for organizing the promotion of the crusade in Germany) and Konrad von Urach (also known as Conrad, cardinal of Porto) in the reconciliation of Konrad von Urach’s brother, Egino von Urach, with Frederick II, the creation of peace between Heinrich von Schwerin and Valdemar, king of Denmark, and dealing with the aftermath of the murder of Archbishop Engelbert of Cologne, all processes which involved the participation of other recruiters for the crusade and local ecclesiastics.4 In contrast, this essay will focus on the cases of lesser participants from Frisia and Cologne, as well as the fate of the counts of Loos and Holland and the duke of Brabant. Many of the crusade preachers directly appointed by Innocent III and Honorius III to promote the crusade in 1213 possessed extensive experience as judges delegate, as did the men these papal delegates in turn appointed as under-preachers and dispensers of vows.5 After the Fourth Lateran 4

5

James M. Powell, Anatomy of a Crusade: 1213–21 (Philadelphia, 1986); PierreVincent Claverie, Honorius  III et l’Orient (1216–27): Étude et publication de sources inédites des Archives vaticanes (ASV) (Leiden, 2013); Christine Thouzellier, ‘La légation en Lombardie du cardinal Hugolin (1221): un épisode de la cinquième croisade’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 43 (1950), 508–42; Guido Levi, Registri dei cardinali Hugolino d’Ostia et Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (Roma, 1890). For recent work, see Thomas W. Smith, ‘Honorius III’s Legates as Peacemakers in northern Italy and England during the Fifth Crusade’, in War and Peace during the Crusades, ed. Manuel Rojas (Cáceres, forthcoming) and Smith’s Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius  III and the Effort to Recover the Holy Land (Turnhout, 2017). For Konrad von Reifenberg (also known as Conrad of Speyer), see Paul  B. Pixton, ‘Konrad von Reifenberg, eine talentierte Persönlichkeit der deutschen Kirche des 13. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 34 (1982), 43–81; Irene Crusius, ‘Bischof Konrad  II von Hildesheim: Wahl und Herkunft’, in Institutionen, Kultur, und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter. Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. Lutz Fenske, Werner Rösener and Thomas Zotz (Sigmaringen, 1984), pp.  431–68. For Konrad von Urach, abbot of Villers, later cardinalbishop of Porto, see Falko Neininger, Konrad von Urach (1227): Zahringer, Zizterzienser, Kardinallegat (Paderborn, 1994). For example, there is evidence for the appointment of the abbots of Heisterbach, Sichem, Himmerode, and Villers and the cathedral clergy and/ or bishops of Halberstadt, Bonn, and Cologne as judges delegate before their appointment as crusade preachers (PL, 215: 36–42 [1203], 220–21 [1209],

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Council (1215), perhaps in response to plaints of Gervase of Prémontré regarding the uncertain enforcement of crusaders’ rights and problems with deadlines and the collection and distribution of crusade funds in France, Friedrich, bishop of Halberstadt, Konrad von Marburg, and Jean de Xanten, all of whom had preached the Fifth Crusade, were named as papal protectors of crusaders’ rights in the archdiocese of Bremen by 1216.6 Oliver of Paderborn appears to have appointed judges for crusaders as early as 1214, and he urged the bailiff of Philippe de Namur, count of Flanders, to collaborate with them. When called away from his preaching grounds in Frisia in 1224 to attend a planning council overseen by the legate Conrad of Porto, Oliver again appointed several individuals whose faithfulness and industry he had personally experienced to oversee the ‘business of the cross’ in Groningen and Frisia and the diocese of Münster, business which included making peace, overseeing the laying down of arms, and legal cases involving crusaders. Oliver clearly envisaged his appointees as operating in a manner similar to papal judges delegate; he included the standard clause that if all could not be simultaneously present, at least two should execute his commission.7 The work of these judges was complicated by multiple factors. The mustering of crusade contingents and plans for their departure and funding remained linked to the participation of great magnates, either ecclesiastical or secular, who were expected to provide leadership and

6

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PL, 216: 407–8, 413–14 [1211], 535–36, 558 [1212], 822–23 [1213]). Conrad of Porto was abbot of Villers from c.  1208–9 to c.  1213–14 (Neininger, Konrad von Urach, pp. 91–92, 96). On Innocent III’s appointment of preachers, see Penny  J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, MA, 1991), pp. 104–59; Powell, Anatomy, pp. 15–50, 89–120. For the functions of papal judges delegate, see Jane E. Sayers, Papal Judges Delegate in the Province of Canterbury, 1198–1254: A Study in Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Administration (Oxford, 1971). PL, 217: 255–58; Jessalynn Bird, ‘Crusaders’ Rights Revisited: The Use and Abuse of Crusader Privileges in Early Thirteenth-Century France’, in Law and the Illicit in Medieval Europe, ed. Ruth M. Karras, Joel Kaye and E. Ann Matter (Philadelphia, 2008), pp. 133–48; Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291, ed. Jessalynn Bird, Edward Peters, and James  M. Powell (Philadelphia, 2013), pp. 124–29, 133–40. Hermann Hoogeweg, Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, späteren Bischofs von Paderborn und Kardinalbischofs von S. Sabina Oliverus (Tübingen, 1894), ep. 1, pp. 285–86 ( June 1214); ep. 8, p. 315 (May 1224); Emo of Wittewierum (Emo van Bloemhof ), Chronicon, ed. Ludwig Weiland, MGHSS, 23: 499.

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funding. In the regions of Flanders-Brabant, Frisia, and Germany, these magnates included Ludwig (Louis), landgrave of Thuringia, William, count of Holland, Louis (Ludwig) II, count of Loos, the archbishop of Cologne and the bishop of Liège, and most importantly Frederick II. In these regions and elsewhere, appeals from the East prioritizing either money or recruits and Frederick II’s perpetually shifting plans for departure directly impacted plans and deadlines for departure, the distribution and collection of funds, the commutation of crusade vows, and even the categories of individuals to whom the cross was given and the forms of participation in the crusade permitted to these individuals (financial, liturgical, or military). Frederick II in turn frequently argued that his own departure was impacted by the presence or absence of peace in his lands. One of the most important functions of the crusade preacher became that of peace broker, through negotiated compositions or dramatic reconciliations during crusade preaching, or through their labor as judges delegate for the crusade.8 Multiple individuals’ participation in the crusade was directly impacted by the turmoil and fluctuating allegiances which characterized the disputed successions to the German throne and to the county of Holland. At Frederick II’s coronation at Aachen in 1215, the dean of its chapter, Jean de Xanten, preached the crusade. Over the following two days, Frederick and many other magnates, including Hugues de Pierrepont, bishop of Liège, Heinrich, duke of Brabant, Louis, count of Loos, and many others took the cross as a gesture of reconciliation and involvement in a joint enterprise. Previous adherents of Otto IV of Brunswick transferred their loyalties, longstanding conflicts were settled and legal cases were brought before the new king. Crusade preachers were active participants in this process. Their recruitment and equipping of viable contingents were profoundly affected by the need to create peace in the imperium, by varying appeals from the army at Damietta for the pope to hasten aid and money or recruits to the eastern front, and by often re-designated deadlines for imperial departure. Frederick’s potential leadership and subsidy were used as lures to encourage crusaders to fulfill their vows. However, many crusaders in France soon found themselves pressured, under threat of excommunication and forfeiture of their temporal and spiritual privileges as crusaders, to fulfill their vows at a set date while being deprived of the leadership and funds necessary to do so. So too, crusaders in Frederick II’s domains were given varying departure dates publicized through preachers 8

I am writing an article on the non-legal peacemaking functions of several crusade preachers including Oliver of Paderborn, Giles de Loos, Jean de Xanten, and Jacques de Vitry.

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and prelates, threatened with excommunication if they failed to depart, and promised absolution only if they departed at a new deadline set.9 The situation in France was similarly complex. A composition between Philip Augustus, king of France, and his episcopate barred the appointment of special ordinatores and meant that crusaders’ only recourse for protection was, after the recall of Robert de Courçon for the Fourth Lateran Council, the French episcopate and bishops of Senlis and Paris. After Ad liberandam’s pledge of specially appointed crusade organizers (ordinatores) in addition to the episcopate, some crusaders felt betrayed. Gervase, abbot of Prémontré and acquaintance of Robert de Courçon and Jacques de Vitry, had recommended to Honorius III the appointment of local ordinatores to work with bishops in certain regions. Chosen from the diocesan clergy, the ordinatores would combine the roles of tax collectors, dispensators, and judges delegate for crusaders’ rights responsible for coordinating and funding the departure of local contingents. Gervase’s recommendations appear to have been followed at least in part, for one of the individuals he recommended appointing as an organizer, Jean (I.), archdeacon of Châlons, soon served in at least two cases involving crucesignati.10 Perhaps in response to Gervase’s plaints, Innocent appointed individuals responsible for preaching the crusade, protecting crusaders’ rights, and the collection and paying out of crusade funds in the provinces of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, and Bremen as early as January of 1216, including Oliver of Cologne, Jean de Xanten, Hermann, dean of Bonn, Jean de Nivelles, canon of Liège, and Arnold, priest of Münster. Local prelates were charged with enforcing the rights promised to crucesignati in Ad liberandam, including immunity from tolls and taxation and the protection of persons and possessions from the moment of adopting the cross until the crusader’s certain death or return. The money collected in trunks was to be used to subsidize useful local crusaders at the time of the general passagium set by the Fourth Lateran Council and the ordinatores were to commission suitable individuals to oversee the commutation, redemption, or delay of the crusade vows of those less useful to crusade in each diocese, who were

9 10

See note 6 above and Claverie, Honorius III, pp. 23–133. Pressutti, no.  1327 (May 1218), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib.  9, ep.  1111, fol.  257r-v; Bird, ‘Crusaders’ Rights Revisited’; Sacrae antiquitatis monumenta historica, dogmatica, diplomatica, ed. Charles Louis Hugo, 2 vols (Étival, 1725–31), 1: 6–8, ep. 4. For a full treatment of these letters, see Brenda Bolton, ‘Faithful to Whom? Jacques de Vitry and the French Bishops’, Revue Mabillon n.s. 9 (1998), 53–72 at p. 71.

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nevertheless to enjoy the temporal and spiritual privileges of crusaders.11 At least one of these preachers, Oliver of Paderborn, had already used the powers granted to crusade preachers in Quia maior and Pium et sanctum to appoint several protectors working under him in Namur (1214) and again in 1224 in Frisia. At intervals, popes stepped in to appoint specific protectors as well. For example, Honorius III commissioned three abbots from the diocese of Münster to re-establish peace (or at least a truce) between two Frisian communities who were warring and endangering crusade preparations in the winter of 1220, granting the team the power to invoke ecclesiastical censures if necessary to keep the peace.12 Renier of Liège credited Oliver of Paderborn with successfully implementing the papal instructions of 1216 in the diocese of Liège. However, it would soon fall to Konrad von Reifenberg (bishop of Hildesheim from 1221–49) and then to Konrad von Urach, cardinal-bishop of Porto (1219–27), to act as overall coordinators for the departure of crusade contingents in imperial lands. By 1221, the weakness of ecclesiastical censure as an enforcement tool for vow fulfillment and crusaders’ privileges (as envisaged in Ad liberandam) had become glaringly apparent: Konrad von Reifenberg had complained that some prelates in Germany were associating with crucesignati excommunicated for failing to fulfill their vow, leading others to do the same. As a result, many had dropped all pretense of fulfilling their vows and some prelates and clerks had removed their crosses without obtaining any kind of dispensation. Honorius III urged prelates to solemnly publish the sentences of excommunication and to uphold them until the crucesignati fulfilled their vows; those who had abandoned their crosses must be forced to take them up again and journey to the Holy Land.13 Innocent  III had earlier urged all church authorities to ensure that tolls (pedagia) were not extorted from crusaders, 11

12

13

PL, 217: 255–58 (8 January 1216). See also, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Köln, ed. Leonard Ennen and Gottfried Eckertz, 6 vols (Köln, 1860–79), 2: 58, no. 50 (wrongly dated to 1215); Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium historiam illustrantia, ed. Augustin Theiner (Roma, 1863), 1: 64, nos  32–33 (Potthast, no. 5048) and 1: 65, no. 53 (Potthast, no. 5163). See note 7 above; Claverie, Honorius III, p. 72; Epistolae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum romanorum selectae, ed. Charles Rodenberg, 3  vols (Berlin, 1883– 94), 1: 111, no. 158; Honorius III, Opera omnia, ed. César Auguste Horoy, 5 vols (Paris, 1879–82), here 3: 51; Bird, Peters, and Powell, Crusade and Christendom, pp. 107–13. e.g. Pressutti, nos 1869, 2071, 2207–8; Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 68, 70, 75–76, nos 95, 97, 106–7. I am writing an article on the impact of Frederick’s delays on recruiting in Germany.

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but by September 1221, Honorius III had to warn secular and religious leaders in Germany that he had heard that some who ought to be aiding crusaders with favor and subsidies were instead harassing them with ‘unowed taxes’ (exactionibus indebitis) and other vexations, delaying the fulfillment of their vows. No crusader in their lands ought to be unduly harassed. Moreover, considering to whom the crusaders had vowed their services, the prelates ought to remit a portion of whatever the crusaders might owe in order to repay Christ to whom they owed everything.14 These letters offer precious glimpses into the difficulty of implementing Ad liberandam’s call for the use of excommunication and interdict to enforce the peace and the fulfillment of crusader vows, and also testify to the importance of enabling potential crusaders to find the money to undertake their journeys. However, in some regions, notably in Frisia, Cologne, and Liège, crusade preachers were extraordinarily active in the protection of crusaders’ rights and the creation of peace. Jacques de Vitry, Oliver of Paderborn, and Heinrich, abbot of Heisterbach were well-aware that the success of their recruiting hinged on the creation of peace and engaged in dramatic public reconciliations during their crusade preaching or acted as arbitrators in long-running conflicts. The dependence of crusade preaching’s success on the creation of civil order even prior to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) can also be illustrated by the public penance of Heinrich I, duke of Brabant, excommunicated and interdicted by Hugues de Pierrepont, bishop of Liège, for the sack of the city of Liège in 1212. By February 1214, Count Ferrand of Flanders had persuaded the duke to make reparations to the bishop and city of Liège: 15,000 pounds of silver and a donation of 100 pounds to the fabric of Liège’s cathedral, ensured by the grant of Heinrich’s two sons as hostages. In return, Heinrich and his lands were absolved from interdict and in a ritual drawing heavily on the conventions of monastic clamor, Heinrich entered the cathedral, lifted up the crucifix from the ground and prostrated himself before the relics of Saint Lambert of Liège. While the clerics sang, he remained prone in prayer. Then, together with his men, Heinrich gave the bishop and Count Louis of Loos the kiss of peace. Heinrich was enacting his remorse for wounding Christ by harming the human members of his body and for his offense to Saint Lambert, whose city and cathedral he had damaged. Both the duke of Brabant and the count of Flanders possessed ties to the masters promoting the crusade. It is no accident that on the virtual first anniversary of Heinrich’s reconciliation, Oliver of Paderborn exploited the triumph 14

Theiner, Vetera monumenta, 1: 65, no. 53 (Potthast, no. 5163); Pressutti, no. 3533, published in Rodenberg Epistolae, 1: 126, no. 179 (September 1221).

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of the recent peace and opening of the Lenten season by initiating a crusade recruiting tour in Liège on Ash Wednesday, instituting processions and appointing masters as under-preachers throughout the diocese.15 The recent peace also meant that Hugues de Pierrepont, the bishop of Liège, took the cross together with Frederick II at Aachen in 1215.16 By 1218, a team of veteran judges delegate including Jacques de Vitry’s compatriot, the crusade preacher Jean de Nevilles, Adam and Pierre de Dinant, canons of Saint Lambert in Liège, and the provost of Louvain had been entrusted with dispensing the vows of unfit crusaders and distributing the money gathered for the crusade in the diocese of Liège. At least one crusader sought access to this money by appealing to Rome with local support. An ally of Hugues de Pierrepont against the duke of Brabant at the battle of the Steppes (1213), the crucesignatus Thierry de Rupefort, openly admitted that after incurring excommunication ‘for many reasons’ he had sought absolution by taking up the cross and desired to aid the Holy Land. However, he claimed that after squandering his youth and possessions he now lacked the resources to fulfill his vow in a fitting fashion, particularly since many crusaders were viewing him as potential leader. He now requested access to crusade funds from the redemptions of the vows of the ‘weak and useless’. Because Honorius III had heard favorable reports of his prowess and considered him a potentially useful leader of a crusade contingent, he commanded Bishop Hugues of Liège to ensure

15

16

Renier of Liège, Annales sancti Jacobi Leodiensis, ed. Ludwig  C. Bethmann, MGHSS, 16: 651–80, here pp.  667–71; Edward  B. Krehbiel, The Interdict: Its History and Its Operation, with Special Attention to the Time of Pope Innocent  III, 1198–1216 (Washington, DC, 1909), pp.  140–41. The duke of Brabant employed many masters in his chancery and was acquainted with others through his sponsorship of local religious houses, including a gift to Aywières witnessed by Jacques de Vitry in 1211. Jacques also witnessed the foundation of Épinlieu by Jeanne, countess of Flanders and Hennegau. See Christine Renardy, Les maîtres universitaires dans le diocèse de Liège: Repertoire biographique (1140–1350) (Paris, 1981); Philipp Funk, Jakob von Vitry: Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 23, 28–29; Ursmer Berlière, ‘Jacques de Vitry. Ses relations avec les abbayes d’Aywières et de Doorezeele’, Revue Bénédictine 25 (1909), 185–93; Ursmer Berlière, ‘La fondation de l’Abbaye d’Épinlieu’, Revue Bénédictine 9 (1892), 381–83. Ennen and Eckertz, Quellen, 2: 58; Renier, Annales, MGHSS, 16: 671; Neininger, Konrad von Urach, pp. 247–49.

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that the dispensators aided Thierry as seemed fitting to all parties from the funds they were collecting for the crusade.17 Thierry’s successful recruitment was a direct consequence of the relative peace in the Liègoise region after the reconciliation of Hugues de Pierrepont and the duke of Brabant. Crusade recruiting and the collection of funds flourished despite the fact that Otto IV was attempting to extend his influence in the region against the alliance of Hugues Pierrepont and Louis, count of Loos. Although Count Ferrand of Flanders had been imprisoned by Philip Augustus after Ferrand’s defeat at Bouvines, Count William of Holland had entered into a temporary truce with Hugues de Pierrepont in 1214. Despite returning in 1215 and accusing preachers active in the region of immoderate remissions and false promises, Oliver of Paderborn successfully sent six preachers to a cancelled tournament who signed many individuals of both sexes. A year later, Oliver returned from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) with news of the crusade arrangements there, for which many had been waiting. He distributed papal letters to executors, commanded the useful to fulfill their vows and the vows of women and noncombatants to be redeemed, deferred or commuted in preparation for departure of those fulfilling their vows in person according to the deadline now set by Ad liberandam ( June 1217). The masters appointed for the region, presumably including Adam de Namur, and Pierre de Dinant, canons of Saint-Lambert of Liège, and Jean de Nevilles, absolved many women from their crusade vows and distributed the redemption money and other funds to crusaders, resulting in fleets departing according to deadline in May of 1217 from the Rhineland and elsewhere.18 The same masters were simultaneously entrusted with cases involving the application in local churches of Fourth Lateran’s recent decrees regarding visitation and correction, and also its decrees against

17

18

Pressutti, no.  1972; Reinhold Röhricht, Studien zur Geschichte des fünften Kreuzzuges (Innsbruck, 1891), p. 124; MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 10, ep. 382, fols 80v–81r. James Powell noted that Oliver’s precise arrival and departure remain unknown (Anatomy, p. 243). For the identity of the provost of Louvain, see note 38 below. Ad liberandam, in Bird, Peters and Powell, Crusade and Christendom, pp. 124–29, at p. 124; Renier of Liège, Annales, MGHSS, 16: 673–75, 678. For the identity of these masters, who frequently served as judges delegate and dispensators, see note 38 below and Renardy, Maîtres, p. 166, no. 3 and pp. 413–14, no. 628; Acta imperii selecta, ed. Johann F. Böhmer and Julius Ficker (Innsbruck, 1870), pp. 638–39, no. 929; Pressutti, no. 1972 (29 March, 1219).

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simony, heresy, and clerical concubinage.19 The program of peace, reform, and crusade Paris-trained masters and Innocent III had envisaged and promoted in preparation for and during the Fourth Lateran Council was being at least partially implemented after the council, despite Innocent’s untimely death in 1216. As preacher for the crusade, Oliver of Paderborn also became embroiled in a long-running conflict between William I, count of Holland, and Louis II, count of Loos. Backed by Heinrich of Brabant and Otto IV, William had gained the county of Holland by seizing his niece Ada. Ada was married to Louis II, count of Loos, who was allied with the bishops of Liège and Utrecht and the count of Flanders.20 Through the arbitration of Philippe, count of Namur (whom Oliver attempted to recruit for the Fifth Crusade), acting as bailli for the count of Flanders, the two parties had sworn to a composition and lasting peace committed to writing in 1206 for the purpose of obtaining papal confirmation and enforcement of it by Innocent III in 1215. Worried that the papal confirmation might expire with Innocent’s death, Louis obtained another confirmation from Honorius III in 1217. The composition’s complex redistribution of lands, guaranteed by pledges surrendered to Philippe de Namur and the bishops of Utrecht and Liège, meant that its provisions impacted much of the nobility in the Flanders-Brabant region, as tenure of these lands implied ‘feudal’ obligations to various parties.21 19

20

21

Master Adam of Saint Lambert, the bishop of Liège, and the dean and master Jean de Nevilles of Saint Jean in Liège were commissioned to investigate allegations of corruption and heresy, simony, and clerical concubinage in a local church in May of 1218 (Pressutti, no. 1276; MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, eps. 1042–43, fol. 247v). For the decrees, see Alberigo, cs. 3, 7–8, 14, 63, pp. 233–35, 237–39, 242, 264. Annales Coloniensis maximi ab O.C.-1237, ed. Karl Pertz, MGHSS, 17: 723–847, at p.  818; Renier of Liège, Annales, MGHSS, 16: 656–57. Renier eloquently describes the shifting confluence of allegiances and rivalries between the duke of Brabant, the bishop of Liège, the count of Namur, the count of Flanders, and the count of Loos (MGHSS, 16: 656–57, 659, 664–67) and note 22 below. Papal letters referred to their agreement as a composition and permanent peace (pacis perpetue) confirmed by the counsel and consent of the nobles of Flanders and willingly entered into by both parties. See Pressutti, nos  452, 605, 900; Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 16–20, nos 21–22 (March 1217); MS Vatican, Archivio segreto, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep.  436, fols  106r–7v. The agreement was also published in Mathias Joseph Wolters, Codex diplomaticus Iossensis ou recueil et analyse de chartes servant de preuves à l’histoire de l’ancien comté de Looz (Gselynck, 1849), no. 144, pp. 73–79.

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Partly in an attempt to control the fate of Ada and lay claim to the county of Holland, both Louis and William had become drawn into the conflict between Otto IV of Brunswick and his supporter John, king of England, on the one hand and Frederick II and Philip Augustus on the other. However, Louis of Loos took the cross together with the bishop of Liège and the duke of Brabant at Frederick II’s imperial coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, while William of Holland similarly switched his allegiance to Frederick after the battle of Bouvines (1214). Soon after their composition’s initial confirmation (1215), Louis and William had both taken the cross, perhaps hoping to benefit from the protection and legal status accorded to crucesignati.22 This put a new urgency on the maintenance of the composition; the stability of the region must be preserved and both men freed to play leading roles in the contingents departing from Flanders-Brabant. However, at the same time he obtained the confirmation from Honorius III, Louis complained that the clergy of the dioceses of Utrecht and Liège were not upholding the sentence of excommunication and interdict laid by Dietrich, archbishop of Trier (1212–42) by papal authority on William of Holland and his accomplices for infringing the composition, thereby undermining the ecclesiastical sanctions designed to protect Louis as a crucesignatus. Honorius  III promptly ordered the abbot of Saint Hubert and the deans of Saint Jean and Saint Martin in Liège, who had been entrusted with ensuring the observation of the composition, to see that local ecclesiastics upheld the excommunication and interdict, procedures newly redefined at the Fourth Lateran Council. Those ecclesiastics who had violated the interdict by celebrating divine offices were to be punished by canonical penalties without right of appeal.23 Appointed by Innocent III to enforce 22

23

On the complicated and shifting allegiances of Louis of Loos and William of Holland, see Renier of Liège, Annales, MGHSS, 16: 656–57, 660, 671; Powell, Anatomy, pp. 74–75; Edmond Martène and Ursinus Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, 5 vols (Paris, 1717), 1: 841; Wolters, Codex diplomaticus, pp. 81–82, 83–84, 91–93, nos  147–48, 151–52, 166–69; Fontes rerum Germanicarum: Geschichtsquellen Deutschlands, ed. Johann Friedrich Böhmer, 4 vols (Stuttgart, 1843–68), 2: 352; Actes des princes-évêques de Liège: Hugues de Pierrepont, 1200–29, ed. Edouard Poncelet (Bruxelles, 1941), p. 1. Louis of Loos and his wife Ada appear to have possessed ties to the abbey of Villers, whose former abbot Konrad von Urach preached the crusade of Frederick II (Wolters, Codex diplomaticus, pp. 106–7, nos 195–97). Pressutti, nos 453, 456–7; Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 17–21, nos 21–24 (21 March 1217); MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, eps. 437–39, fol. 107v; Claverie, Honorius III, pp. 44–45; Alberigo, cs. 47, 49,

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the composition between the two crucesignati, Dietrich had rejected William’s appeals as frivolous, had excommunicated him by name, and had laid an interdict on William’s lands for his violation of the composi­ tion’s provisions. Both William and Louis sent procurators to Rome who were heard by the papal auditors Cardinal Pelayo Gaytán of Albano, who would become legate for the Fifth Crusade, and Rainero Capocci, cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. The auditors upheld the sentences of excommunication and refused to hear or grant letters to William’s procurator because his employer was excommunicate. The procurator in turn supplicated that the case be entrusted to the team of three local judges delegate in Liège.24 Honorius then wrote to the abbot of Saint Laurence in Ostbroch and the provost of Sint-Salvator and the dean of Saint Jean in the diocese of Utrecht. Louis dispatched a procurator to Rome asking for letters executing the sentences, but William sent his own man, whom Cardinal Raniero Capocci refused to admit because of William’s excommunication. Fearing some subterfuge, Honorius entrusted the case to a team of judges delegate in Liège (the abbot of Saint Hubert and deans of Saint Jean and Saint Martin) warning them that William may have obtained papal letters prejudicial to Louis, which ought to be disregarded. William’s procurator meanwhile pled that Innocent  III’s mandate to the archbishop was null and void because it had expired with Innocent’s death. Moreover, the archbishop had summoned William to a place over two day’s journey outside his diocese against the constitution of the general council (Fourth Lateran). The archbishop had refused to admit these and other legitimate exceptions and had commanded the bishop of Utrecht to cause the composition to be observed through ecclesiastical censure despite William’s appeal to Rome. Certainly the ‘legal expert’ (­ iurisperitus) acting on William’s behalf clearly knew and availed himself of the Fourth Lateran Council’s recent statute limiting the distance which parties could be summoned (c. 37). William then petitioned that the pope enforce the papal protection of himself and his lands and possessions as a crucesignatus (c. 71) despite the sentence of excommunication he had incurred in crossing into England with Louis VIII because the pope had absolved him from this.

24

71, pp. 255–56, 257, 270. For the ramifications of the interdict in this period, see Peter Clarke, The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt (Oxford, 2007). MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 462, fol. 111v.

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Willing to provide William with absolution, Honorius had given a mandate to the three judges that if they found William’s allegations to be true, they ought to revoke whatever had been attempted after the appeal, hear the case and bring it to an end. However, the procurator of Count Louis had also recently brought letters to Rome that had been directed to the same team of judges delegate in favor of William. He claimed that these letters had been obtained surreptitiously through outright lying (expressum mendacium) and suppression of the truth (tacitam veritatem). The archbishop of Trier’s mandate had not expired as he had initiated proceedings before Innocent III’s death and he had not violated the Fourth Lateran’s provisions for summonses but adhered to them. Moreover Louis’ procurator noted that William had been excommunicated by Innocent III, a fact which had not been mentioned in the letters mandate to the abbot of St. Laurence and his co-judges, which ought now to be declared null and void. At this point, Honorius  III could no longer tell which side was telling the truth. He ordered the team of judges in Liège to force William’s procurator to prove his allegations about the two appeals William had lodged and his claim that the count of Loos was excommunicate, by which the procurator had obtained previous papal letters in favor of William. Meanwhile, unless the count of Loos proved that William had incurred an excommunication other than that imposed for crossing to England at the time the letter to the judges on William’s behalf had been written, the judges were to proceed according to the form given them. If Louis proved that William had been excommunicated or William’s procurator failed to make his case, the letters William had obtained from the judges were to be quashed and they were to proceed according to the instructions given to them without appeal, and if further letters appeared, the team was to consult Rome regarding their veracity.25 William protested that he had lodged two legitimate appeals with the archbishop before his excommunication. Moreover, Innocent III’s mandate to the archbishop of Trier to enforce the composition had expired with Innocent’s death, and the archbishop had violated the recent statutes of the Fourth Lateran Council by summoning him to appear more than two days journey outside the diocese. The archbishop had rejected his appeal and had ordered the bishop of Utrecht to force the 25

Wolters, Codex diplomaticus, no.  170, pp.  93–97; MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib.  9, ep.  462, fol.  111v. Alberic, archbishop of Reims had previously been commanded by Honorius  III to publish the sentence of excommunication on those who aided Louis VIII in invading England (RHGF, 19: 608).

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composition to be observed with ecclesiastical censure. Afterwards, the count of Loos, by means of deceit and frivolous appeals, keeping silent about his own excommunication, had obtained papal letters addressed to the team of judges delegate in Liège. For his part, William pled that he and his lands and other possessions ought to be under papal protection because he had already begun his journey in aid of the Holy Land (c. 71), despite the excommunication he had incurred for breaking the peace invoked in aid of the crusade by invading England (the domain of the crucesignatus John, king of England) with prince Louis of France, a sentence from which he now sought absolution. Honorius granted this absolution and wrote the team of delegates in Utrecht urging them to quash whatever had been decided after William had lodged his appeal and to hear the case regarding the infringement of the composition. Otherwise they were to force the parties to observe the prior judgement without appeal.26 Coordinated around the projected delayed departure of Frederick II, a Rhenish and Frisian fleet of about three hundred ships left from Vlerdingen in late May 1217. After crossing to Dartmouth, the fleet elected Count George of Wied as commander to replace William, count of Holland, now entrusted with the rear guard. The fleet also established laws for the observance of peace in the army, which appear to have had an ecclesiastical origin and were reconfirmed as additional ships joined the flotilla.27 In Germany, the deadlines set by Fourth Lateran were publicized, particularly in the Cologne region, and Honorius ordered crusaders from the province of Cologne to take ship according to the council’s deadline. Nearly three hundred ships appear to have left from the Cologne region by July 1217.28 Meanwhile, William’s procurators had lodged an appeal in Rome. Exploiting various legal technicalities, they claimed that the archbishop of Trier and the abbot of Saint Hubert favored Louis and ignored his infringements of the composition. As a crucesignatus, William and his lands ought to be under papal protection, particularly since he had already begun his journey to the Holy Land after a papal absolution from the excommunication he had incurred when invading England with Louis  VIII. After absolving William, Honorius appointed an 26

27

28

MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 553, fols 124r–25v. For the situation in England, see note 3 above. In September 1219, William returned after just over a year in the crusader army (Powell, Anatomy, pp. 116, 123–26, 135–36, and p. 246, nn. 13–14, 16; Oliver of Paderborn, Historia Damiatina, ed. Hoogeweg, Schriften, pp. 173, 215). Pressutti, no. 284; Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 9–10; Powell, Anatomy, pp. 123–27.

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additional triumvirate of judges delegate from the diocese of Utrecht, instructing them to consider only legitimate appeals and breaches of the composition, which both parties were commanded to observe.29 By the summer of 1217, it appears that William had successfully shifted the prosecution of the case from Liège to Utrecht, a region more favorable to his interests. However, a month later, Honorius instructed the original team in Liège to quash the letters he had granted to the team in Utrecht and proceed according to their original mandate should William fail to prove the veracity of the exceptions he claimed to have lodged before the archbishop of Trier. The letter was considered significant enough to be included in the Liber extra, a decretal collection commissioned by Gregory IX in 1230.30 By May 1218, Honorius suspended all proceedings until William and Louis returned from the crusade, invoking the crusader privilege of essoin to enable the potential departure of Louis, who had borrowed four hundred marks from the bishop of Liège to fund his departure. As outlined in Ad liberandam (c. 71), the two teams of papal judges delegate in Liège and Utrecht were to annul any letters of excommunication obtained by either party and ensure that neither used the other’s departure as an opportunity to encroach on the missing man’s property or rights.31 Moreover, William was granted the clerical income tax from churches 29

30

31

Pressutti, no.  605 (2 June 1217), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib.  9, ep.  462, fols  111v–12r; MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib.  9, ep.  553, fols  124v–25r; and Pressutti, no. 457 (March 1217), in Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 21, no. 24; Pressutti, no. 670 (23 July 1217), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 507, fol. 124r-v; Pressutti, nos 605 ( June 1217) and 735 (August 1217); Raymond of Penyafort, Liber extra, in Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Emil Friedberg, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879–81), 2: 378 (lib.II. tit.XXV. c.VII). Pressutti, no.  670 ( July 1217) in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 507, fol. 124r-v; Corpus iuris canonici, 2: 378 (lib.II. tit.XXV. c.VII). Pressutti, no.  1326 (13 May 1218), MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 1110, fol. 257r; Pressutti, nos 1365–66 (May 1218) in Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 50, no.  70 and MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 1110, fol. 257r. For letters of excommunication, see Pressutti, no. 457 and MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 1105, fol. 256v. Honorius specifically stated that if anyone laid a sentence of excommunication on William after he initiated his pilgrimage that he would revoke it (Presssutti, no.  1364, in Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 49–50, no. 69, dated 28 May 1218).

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in his lands in Holland, Zeeland, eastern Frisia and other regions and ensured immunity from excommunication once he began his journey. The team of judges delegate in Utrecht were urged to assign to the messengers of the same count the twentieth already collected and if perhaps it were not yet collected, they were to collect it with the messengers, forcing the reluctant to pay with ecclesiastical penalties.32 Louis II of Loos would die prematurely in July 1218 before departing on crusade.33 Anxious to see the Frisian fleet depart under William’s command before leaving himself from Marseille, Oliver of Paderborn had commanded the abbot of Werde to formally lift the episcopal excommunication of William. Oliver’s intervention earned him influence and credibility with the crusaders from Flanders-Brabant, Frisia, and Germany in the East. Excommunicated by the archbishop of Trier for his intervention, the abbot accompanied William on crusade and was absolved by the patriarch of Jerusalem in the Holy Land. On his return journey, he stopped by Rome to obtain a letter for the archbishop of Trier confirming his absolution, which was granted on the technicality that the excommunication had been laid on him when he had already taken the cross and had embarked on his pilgrimage (dudum crucesignatus in sue peregrinationis itinere constitutus).34 This case also illustrates the problems caused by relying on local prelates to serve as protectors of crusaders and their lands, a crusader privilege and ecclesiastical responsibility outlined by Ad liberandam. William of Holland suspected the local clergy of bias, and although papal judges 32

33

34

Pressutti, nos 1359, 1364 (May 1218), in Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 49, no. 69 and MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 9, ep. 1110, fol. 257r. Powell, Anatomy, pp.  74–75, 233; Poncelet, Actes, p.  1; Reinhold Röhricht, Studien zur Geschichte des Fünften Kreuzzuges (Innsbruck, 1891), p. 108; Renier of Liège, Annales, MGHSS, 16: 676; Potthast, no. 2176; Pressutti, nos 735, 1366. Pressutti, no.  1723 (December 1218), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 10, ep. 147, fol. 33r and Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 60–61, no. 81. See also Pressutti no. 1576, in Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 49–50, nos 69–70. Perhaps as a demonstration of his devotion, the abbot of Werde petitioned from Honorius  III the ability, granted to his predecessor by Innocent III, to reform his monastery according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, with the assistance of the abbots of Deutz and Siegberg (MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 10, ep. 148, fol. 33r). For Oliver’s influence among the crusaders, see Gesta crucigerorum Rhenanorum and Oliver’s Historia Damiatina, translated in Bird, Peters, and Powell, Crusade and Christendom, pp. 154–225.

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delegate were appointed, unlike specially appointed defenders of crusaders, what few powers of enforcement they and the local clergy possessed could be vitiated by appeals to Rome. Prior to the Fourth Lateran Council, Robert de Courçon had acted, as legate for the crusade, as the defender of crusaders in France. Yet the normal process by which crusade cases came to papal notice involved the initial trial of a case in the local ecclesiastical court, followed by an appeal to Rome, after which papal judges delegate would be appointed to hear the case. Both judges delegate and local ecclesiastics could wield excommunication in an attempt to enforce their rulings, but their rulings were often appealed (to Rome) and any excommunications imposed could be ignored or not enforced. Moreover, crusaders’ cases often involved competing legal jurisdictions – secular versus ecclesiastic, local versus royal or papal. These conflicting claims to jurisdiction over crusaders added to the confusion. Those who stood the best chance of mustering the privileges, protection and funds necessary to enable their departure were crusaders with direct ties to recruiters or local ecclesiastics appointed as papal judges delegate, or crucesignati possessing the funds necessary to hire the legal experts necessary to successfully forward their case in local courts or to lodge appeals through proctors in Rome. One such crusader who successfully exploited his privileges was Heinrich  I, duke of Brabant (r.  1183/4–1235). Heinrich had taken the cross for a second time with Frederick II at Aachen (1215) together with Louis of Loos, Hugues de Pierrepont, bishop of Liège, and Engelbert, archbishop of Cologne, perhaps as a demonstration of his resolve to make peace with both Frederick and Hugues. A veteran crusader related by marriage to the houses of Loos, Holland, and Flanders, and to Philip Augustus and Otto IV, Heinrich was a potential lynchpin for contingents in Flanders-Brabant and France.35 Acting in response to papal letters urging him to depart with French crusaders according to the deadline set by the Fourth Lateran Council, Heinrich made his first preparations to fulfill his crusade vow in 1217, requesting the Cistercian general chapter’s permission to take with him on crusade Gautier (Walter), the abbot of Villers, a crusade preacher and friend of Jacques de Vitry.36 Heinrich also obtained the grant of the crusading twentieth from the regions within the diocese of Cambrai, in which his lands lay. By 1220, the bishop of Cambrai felt the need to obtain papal letters testimonial to prove that he 35

36

Powell, Anatomy, pp.  39, 81–82, 228; John  W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986), pp. 204–08, 210, 213–18, 269. Pressutti, no. 14; Neininger, Konrad von Urach, pp. 248–49.

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had paid the due portion to the duke of Brabant and rendered account for the remaining twentieth to the pope so that he would not be charged with corruption or forced to contribute again at a later date. The situation facing the bishop was further complicated by the fact that his superior, Guillaume de Joinville, the archbishop of Reims, had been appointed as one of three legates responsible for organizing the Albigensian crusade in France and was collecting a new twentieth instituted for that campaign.37 Heinrich appears to have been working closely with the team of local ordinatores Innocent III had appointed to dispense vows and to collect and disperse crusade funds in the diocese of Liège: canons Adam and Pierre of Liège, Jean de Nevilles, and G[authier], provost of Louvain.38 By March 1222, Heinrich had sent as his procurator master G[authier of Lierre], scholasticus of Saint-Pierre in Louvain, perhaps the same G. previously commissioned as a protector for crusaders, to Rome. G[authier] was to present letters from prelates and other parties urging the pope to grant Heinrich an absolution from his crusade vow, because no general passagium was planned at the moment (news of the crusaders’ defeat had reached the West), and the duke had been ill for a long time. However, Honorius III knew that Heinrich was a big fish and was not going to let him off the hook easily. He explained that he wished to examine whether Heinrich’s illness were a temporary rather than a permanent impediment and wanted to have the duke wait until the next general departure to see if he were then well enough to fulfill his vow in person. At this point, plans were already underway to have Frederick II fulfill his own crusade vow. If the duke were too ill to travel in the next passagium, G[authier] should ensure that the duke sent his own letters and also letters testimonial from 37

38

Pressutti, no.  2892 (December 1220), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 11, ep. 266, fol. 54v. For the twentieth, see MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 11, eps. 385– 87, fols 238r-v. This individual could be identified either with Gauthier de Lierre, scholasticus of Saint-Pierre in Louvain or Gossuin, canon of Sainte Gertrude in Louvain (Renardy, Maîtres, no.  164, p.  229 and no.  251, p.  266; Pressutti, no.  3824). In fact, Renardy identifies the individual commissioned in 1222 as Gossuin. However, as the papal bull mentions a ‘G., scholasticus’, I  am inclined to identify the individual in both instances as Gauthier de Lierre. For Adam and Pierre, see note 18 above. Jean de Nevilles was a trained canon lawyer and good friend of the famed crusade preacher Jacques of Vitry and joined in the reform of religious life in the diocese of Liège as a loyal servant of Hugues de Pierrepont. See Ernst McDonnell, Beguines and Beghards in Mediaeval Culture (New Brunswick, NJ, 1954), pp. 40–45; Renardy, Maîtres, no. 496, pp. 361–63.

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prelates to lay forth a case for a permanent impediment.39 Heinrich clearly felt that his case for dispensation would be more convincing if presented in Rome by an individual previously appointed as a crusade organizer. By May 1225, Giles de Loos, later abbot of Middelburg (O.Praem.), a recruiter trained in civil and canon law, had been preaching long enough to report problems to Honorius III. As the parish priest (plebanus) of Loos, Giles had been instrumental in creating peace between feuding parties in Holland, Zeeland, and Flanders. In one notable instance, he had preached to Flemish noblemen that it was not honorable (honestum) to shed the blood of their neighbors before God, but that if they converted and warred against his enemies, this was just and acceptable and they would earn God’s pardon. He himself pledged to be their war-leader (dux). Giles kept his promise, leading a contingent on the Fifth Crusade composed partly of reformed brigands he had converted. He also served as a penitentiary under the papal legate Pelayo before Damietta.40 Together with other papally appointed preachers, Giles had received detailed instructions in his most recent letter of commission, including the right to absolve those who had committed violence against ecclesiastics, the ability to preach and celebrate in interdicted regions, the details of the liturgy and monthly processions to be organized for the crusade, and procedures for preserving the offerings of the faithful for the crusade (which were to be kept until papal orders arrived regarding their use and the date was set for a general passagium). He was given the right to assure crucesignati that their persons and possessions would be under papal protection once they took the cross and that once they began their pilgrimage, this protection would last until certain news of their death or return. Because Honorius III had heard that many crusaders had removed their crosses or had not completed their pilgrimage, they were to be forced to resume their crosses and complete their journey through ecclesiastical censure.41 39

40

41

Pressutti, no.  3824 (March 1222), MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib.  11, ep.  266, fol.  207v. For the identity of the procurator, see notes 18 and 38 above. For Giles’s career, see Histoire littéraire de la France, 18: 152–62; Testimonia minora de quinto bello sacro, ed. Reinhold Röhricht, Société de l’Orient Latin, série historique, 3 (Genf, 1882), pp.  12–20, nos  8–10; Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, 1: 874–75 (misdated to 1227, the correct date is 1217); Historia monasterii Viconiensis, ed. Johannes Heller, MGHSS, 24: 291–331, at pp. 308–9; Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 194–95, nos 271–72; Pressutti, nos 5482–84. Pressutti, nos 4825–27, 4843 (February-March 1224), in Honorius III, Opera omnia, ed. Horoy, 4: 522–24, 563–65, nos  143, 150; Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1:

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Giles was reassured that he could absolve the poor, infirm, and others useless to the crusade from their vows provided that they commuted their vows’ obligations into funding fitting fighters according to their resources. Those too poor to fund a substitute by themselves could band together in groups of two or three or more to subsidize one poor crusader and thus receive the crusade indulgence granted at the Fourth Lateran Council.42 However, Giles soon encountered individuals who had been excommunicated by Pelayo for carrying back home with them money bequeathed to them in the East for the aid of the Holy Land by individuals who had expired during the crusade campaign. Attempting to balance the spiritual needs of individual crusaders with obtaining funding for Frederick II’s forthcoming crusade, Honorius urged Giles to absolve the hoarders if they restituted the money to the crusade, but also authorized him to use ecclesiastical censure to force detainers of any money intended for the Holy Land to make restitution. The category of detainers was a large one and included Godfrey, bishop of Cambrai, and Duke Heinrich of Brabant. On the pretext of papal letters which allowed them to delay fulfilling their vow until the next general departure, both men claimed that they were allowed to take the crusading money with them and had collected nearly all the money due in their lands. The Templars and Hospitallers and others were holding some of these funds and now did not know what to do with them. Honorius instructed Giles to force the bishop and everyone else to either surrender to him all of the money to convert into aid for the Holy Land, or at a date set by Giles, to produce the papal letters they claimed assigned the money to their use, to be forwarded to Rome. Once the letters were examined, Honorius would know what by law ought to be done. Meanwhile, Giles was to conserve the contested money with the rest of the crusade funds and indicate the amount to the pope in writing.43 As Pierre Claverie has noted, Honorius III had earlier attempted to facilitate the collection and transport of crusade funds from the twentieth, vow redemption money, and the papal census in Germany in response to the legate Pelayo’s pleas for cash for the purchase of materiel for the siege of

42

43

172–73, no. 244; and MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 12, ep. 318, fols 167r-v. For the direct commission to Giles, see MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib.  13, ep.  324, fol. 59v. MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 13, eps. 322, 324, fol. 59r-v. Pressutti, nos 5482–84 (May 1225), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 13, eps. 322–24, fols 59r-v and Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 194–95, 198, nos 271–72.

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Damietta. The bishop of Cambrai had already been nervous about his potential accountability for funds earmarked for the duke of Brabant and had obtained letters testimonial regarding his payment of it. His qualms appear to have been justified, as delays in the fulfillment of both his and the duke’s crusade vows now left them open to suspicion of peculation.44 Heinrich would again attempt to commute his crusade vow in July 1227, just prior to the planned departure of crusaders with Frederick II in August 1227, publicized by imperial letters and a papally-appointed bevy of preachers (including Giles de Loos and Masters Arnold and Solomon, who had preached the crusade with Oliver of Paderborn). The expedition was to include the Frisians and inhabitants of Cologne recruited by Oliver of Paderborn, who were promised imperial subsidy.45 The famed crusade preacher and bishop of Acre Jacques de Vitry may have been involved in the commutation, as he had returned to the Flanders-Brabant and German region from the autumn of 1226 until the autumn of 1227 and was present, as were Heinrich of Brabant and a muster of other prelates and crusaders, at Henry VII’s court at Aachen in March 1227.46 Following the assembly at Aachen, it was Master Baudouin de Barbençon ( Jacques of Vitry’s acquaintance and future prior of Oignies) and Jean de Louvain whom the septuagenarian Heinrich sent as procurators to Rome to petition that he be absolved from his crusade vow due to old age and physical debility. Gregory commissioned the bishop of Tournai and the abbots of Cambron and Vaucelles to examine him. If Heinrich were physically unable to make the journey, he must pay 3000 pounds to the Templar house in Paris within a year; the monies would be used to sustain forty knights (milites) in the Holy Land. Honorius carefully specified that 44

45

46

Pressutti, no.  2892 (December 1220), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 11, ep. 266, fol. 5v; Claverie, Honorius III, p. 240. Pressutti, no. 6157, in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lib. 11, ep. 463, fol. 159 and Honorius III, Opera Omnia, ed. Horoy, 5: 173– 74, nos 41–42 (commission for 1227 preachers); Historica diplomatica Frederici secundi, ed. Jean  L.  A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6  vols in 12 (Paris, 1852–61), 2/1: 540–41, 2/2: 678–80; Hoogeweg, Schriften, ep. 10, p. 306. Catalogi archiepiscoporum Coloniensis, ed. Hermann Cardauns, MGHSS, 24: 336–58, at p. 355; Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Chronica, ed. Paul SchefferBoichorst, MGHSS, 23: 631–950, at p. 919; Regesta imperii, Teil 5: Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Phillipp, Otto IV, Friedrich II, Heinrich (VII), Conrad IV, Heinrich Raspe, Wilhelm und Richard, 1198–1272, ed. Johann Friedrich Böhmer, Julius von Ficker, and Eduard Winkelmann, 3 vols (Innsbruck, 1881), 1: 227, no. 131.

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Heinrich must not be absolved until he paid the entire sum. Heinrich was later allowed to send the forty men with expenses for at least a year in the passagium leaving in March 1228.47 Being a perpetual crucesignatus had its advantages. As late as 1226, Heinrich was still appealing to his status as such in a case which hinged on his alleged failure to keep a contract made with Jeanne, countess of Flanders to pay a sum of money at a set date, to be enforced by the bishops of Liège and Cambrai and the now-deceased archbishop of Cologne. The participation of the counts of Flanders and other nobility from the region in the Third and Fourth Crusades had opened up a window of opportunity for the female family members they left behind to exercise rulership. In 1220, Honorius III had taken under papal protection the orphaned daughter of Baldwin of Constantinople, Jeanne, whose husband Count Ferrand of Flanders was being held prisoner by Philip Augustus.48 After the deadline set for her loan to Heinrich had passed, Jeanne claimed that Heinrich had broken the agreement and the bishops sent Heinrich letters demanding that he pay up by a certain date or be subject to personal excommunication and interdict of his lands. The duke claimed that when he sent procurators to the bishop of Cambrai and chapter of Liège saying that he had fulfilled the compact and would be prepared to provide proof, the bishop of Cambrai violated the statutes of the Fourth Lateran Council (cs. 47, 49, 71) by excommunicating Heinrich by name and interdicting his lands even though he had not been cited or convicted or made a legal confession of guilt. Certain that he would receive no justice from local prelates, Heinrich sent procurators to Rome to lodge an appeal on the basis that the bishops possessed no jurisdiction over this contract (c. 42) and had unjustly excommunicated him. While the case was still before papal auditors, the bishop of Liège similarly invoked ecclesiastical censures against Heinrich, who now petitioned that since the sentences were illicitly promulgated after he had lodged legitimate appeals that Honorius pronounce them null and entrust the case to more objective judges. The countess’s procurator 47

48

Les registres de Grégoire IX, ed. Lucien Auvray, 3 vols (Rome, 1899–1945), 1: 69, 76, nos  132, 136 ( July 1227) in, MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg vat. lat. lib. 14, eps. 132, 135, fols 23r, 25r. For Jeanne and her reign, see RHGF, 19: 706–7; David Nichols, Medieval Flanders (New York, 1992), pp. 151–56; Karen S. Nicholas, ‘Women as Rulers: Countesses Jeanne and Marguerite of Flanders’, in Queens, Regents and Potentates, ed. Theresa  M. Vann (Rochester, NY, 1995), pp.  73–90; Karen  S. Nicholas, ‘Countesses as rulers in Flanders’, in Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, ed. Theodore Evergates (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 111–37.

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argued that Heinrich had incurred the sentences by refusing to uphold a sworn convention and breaking his oath and that his appeals had been unlawful and ought not to be heard because the contract did not come under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and he possessed no right of appeal according to its terms. Her procurator also offered other technicalities as to why Heinrich’s appeals should not be heard, including the fact that Heinrich’s procurator was unsuitable and lacked a fitting mandate to pursue the case. Honorius warned Heinrich that the sentences would be upheld by papal mandate until Heinrich made suitable satisfaction to the countess for the expenses and damages the countess had sustained and made amends for his manifest offense. However, he acceded to Heinrich’s request for objective judges by commanding both parties to present testimony by a set date either in person or through letters to a team of seasoned judges delegate entrusted with the case, including the dean of Soissons, the bishop’s vicar (vice-dominus) in Reims and the precentor of Saint Gereon in Cologne. Honorius also wrote to Cardinal Romanus, then legate for the crusade in the Midi, explaining that ultimate supervision of the case had been entrusted to him rather than local prelates. Romanus was to cite both parties to appear in a neutral place. If they did not want to come because the distance was too great (c.  37), he was to commission the team of judges delegate already cited to proceed with the case.49 In this instance, Honorius, his legate Romanus, and the team of judges delegate were faced with balancing the rights of the countess of Flanders, orphan of the Latin king of Constantinople, with those of Heinrich of Brabant, a still potentially powerful player in the crusade of Frederick II. There is also some evidence for the citizens of towns attempting to organize themselves to obtain papal protection either from local crusade recruiters or directly from Rome. The citizens and clergy of Cologne were clearly nervous about the potential breach of the rights granted to them as crusaders in their absence. In response to their requests, Honorius III granted the municipal officials and populace of Cologne a confirmation of the privileges and immunities granted to them by the princes and Emperor Frederick II and placed the persons, households and possessions of the crucesignati citizens under papal protection from the inception of their sea journey at the next general departure until their return or certain decease. Honorius charged Heinrich, archbishop of Cologne, Konrad, the greater provost, and the dean of the Holy Apostles in Cologne with enforcing this papal protection through ecclesiastical censure if necessary. Similar 49

Pressutti, no.  5959 (May 1226), in MS Città del Vaticano, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. vat. lat. lib. 10, ep. 269, fol. 128v. For Romanus, see Kay, Council of Bourges.

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privileges were granted to crusaders from Lübeck and the Rhineland in instructions sent to the bishops of Schwerin and Ratzeburg, while the bishop of Mecklenberg was charged with protecting crusaders crossing through towns in the Allemagne.50 However, although some evidence survives for lesser crusaders, such as the citizens of Cologne and Lübeck, and the English crucesignati whose fragile status was movingly evoked by the cases from the episcopal registers and royal courts highlighted by Christopher Tyerman, most of the evidence on the protection of crusaders’ rights which survives in detail on the continent comes from those crusaders with access to jurisperiti.51 Because an individual’s choice to take the crusader’s cross was often circumscribed by the needs of their families, their economic circumstances, or ties to a lord, crusade preachers devoted much of their energies to settling disputes which were often of a longstanding and rancorous nature in order to free powerful noblemen to participate in the crusade. These individuals not only set a public example by taking the cross, but formed a moneyed, experienced and powerful leadership which potentially encouraged lesser crusaders hoping for their guidance and subsidy. Preachers also were commissioned to create a peaceful environment to facilitate recruiting and free up men and resources for the crusade: few would join the crusade if their family and possessions might be endangered in their absence. The recruiters’ work on Flanders-Brabant and Germany was further complicated by larger peace-making efforts, including the appointment of multiple crusade legates to form peace between the kings of England and France, the civil war in England and the resolution of the succession crisis to the German throne essential for freeing nobles in France, England, the Lowlands and Germany to take and fulfill crusade vows. In many instances, the men appointed to preach the crusade by the pope, bishops, or other crusader preachers were chosen for their local reputation as judges delegate and arbitrators. As crusade recruiters, they continued to exercise their reforming and peace-making skills, bolstered by their prowess as popular penitential preachers. Yet a preacher’s credibility also depended on his ability to deliver the legal privileges and funding promised in recruiting sermons, papal bulls, and the Fourth Lateran Council. In the end, it was the upper tier crusaders 50

51

Pressutti, nos  6046–48, 6052–53, 6069, in Rodenberg, Epistolae, 1: 237–38, nos  312–16 (November 1226); Claverie, Honorius  III, p.  130; Hoogeweg, Schriften, ep. 10, p. 306. For Lübeck, see Edda Frankot, ‘Of Laws of Ships and Shipmen’: Medieval Maritime Law and its Practice in Urban Northern Europe (Edinburgh, 2012), pp. 62–66. Tyerman, England and the Crusades, pp. 208–28.

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who appear to have been the most successful in appealing to and exploiting their rights as crusaders through their relationships with local clergy and access to legal experts (iurisperiti) as procurators. The enforcement of crusaders’ rights was also largely dependent on the effect of ecclesiastical censure as a penalty. Where this was disregarded, it remained difficult to ensure that crusader rights were upheld. In some instances, aggrieved parties had recourse to local judges delegate or ordinatores or crusade preachers, but those proceedings, once initiated, were often deliberately circumvented by appeals to local prelates’ courts or to Rome. Both those appointed as judges delegate and the legal experts advising crusaders appear to have quickly used and cited the rights and procedures promised to crusaders in crusade bulls such as Quia maior, Pium et sanctum, and the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council. Yet as in France, so too in Flanders-Brabant, Frisia, and Germany, those seeking the enforcement of crusaders’ rights had to navigate a complicated web of jurisdictions, including the courts of local prelates, individuals commissioned as papal judges delegate, ordinatores or preachers, and auditors in Rome. Those best able to navigate these remained crusaders with some financial and legal resources, although there is evidence too, of some cases where more lowly individuals successfully pled for the upholding of their rights as crusaders.

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Chapter Fourteen Dominus papa volens scire – Echoes of the Fourth Lateran Council’s Crusade and Mission Agenda in Thirteenth-Century Manuscripts* Jan Vandeburie

The Fourth Lateran Council and the planning of the Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) were accompanied by an unprecedented call for information. In April 1213, Innocent III made it clear in his letter Quia maior that being well informed was crucial to any decision-making regarding the crusade. Towards the end of the letter he wrote that any decisions concerning the organization of the crusade and its place and time of departure would only be made after the army was signed with the cross and, more importantly, after having obtained counsel from ‘prudent men’ and considering the ‘circumstances’ in which the campaign was to take place.1 One of the prudent men Innocent III and his successor Honorius III relied on for information on the situation in the Latin East was Jacques de Vitry, the crusade and reform preacher trained among the circle of theologians of Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) at Paris and appointed bishop of Acre in 1216. Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Orientalis (completed c. 1224), his encyclopedic treatise on the Holy Land containing extensive information on Islam, a history of the crusades, geographical information, descriptions of the East’s different inhabitants, and even a bestiary, should be regarded *

1

I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for funding my research in Rome, to the Hill Manuscript Museum and Library for funding my work in their collections, to the organisers of the conference celebrating the octocentenary anniversary of the Fourth Lateran Council where this paper was first delivered, and, in particular, to Brenda Bolton, Barbara Bombi, Jessalynn Bird and Damian  J. Smith for their helpful comments and suggestions. PL, 216: 818: ‘Porro super processu et transitu modesto et ordinato, congruo loco et tempore faciendo, nondum oportet aliquid diffinire, donec exercitus Domini cruce signetur; sed tunc pensatis undique circumstantiis, quaecunque viderimus opportuna de prudentum virorum consilio statuemus’.

The Fourth Lateran Council and the Crusade Movement, ed. by Jessalynn L. Bird and Damian J. Smith, Outremer 7 (Turnhout, 2018), pp. 299-320 ©F

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DOI 10.1484/M.OUTREMER-EB.5.115865

Jan Vandeburie

as part of this call for information. It was among the last extensive texts produced which contained up-to-date information on the Latin East until the crusade proposals of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. Three of the oldest extant manuscripts of Jacques’ Historia Orientalis are found bound together with the so-called ‘Third Book’ (Liber tertius), a collection of smaller texts on the recent situation in the Latin East wrongly attributed to Jacques de Vitry.2 This essay will offer new insights into the thirteenth-century manuscript tradition of this Liber tertius and in particular into the different versions of the so-called Relatio tripartita ad Innocentium III and the De statu Terrae Sanctae, two reports on the situation in the Holy Land contained within this collection of texts. Texts such as the Relatio ad Innocentium III, German crusade preacher Oliver of Paderborn’s Historia regum Terrae Sanctae, and Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Orientalis offered new knowledge about Islam, about the political situation in the Near East, and about the different inhabitants of those lands. These authors often explicitly noted how they meant their texts to serve the preaching of the crusade and the organisation of a successful campaign. This paper explores the direct influence of these authors and texts on the planning of the crusade in the first half of the thirteenth century and sheds light on why these texts were copied into Dominican accounts in the later thirteenth century and even remained relevant for the authors of treatises dealing with the ‘recovery of the Holy Land’ (recuperatio Terrae Sanctae) after the Fall of Acre in 1291.

The Liber tertius In no less than thirteen extant manuscripts the so-called ‘Third Book’ was added alongside the Historia Orientalis.3 Early on, however, scholars established that this third part of Jacques de Vitry’s collected work, or the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata (combining the Historia Orientalis 2

3

MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16079; MS Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque municipale, 729 and MS Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg. lat. 504. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16079; MS Paris, Arsenal, 1157; MS Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque municipale, 729; MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 14436; MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 4955; MS London, British Library, add. 25440; MS Oxford, Magdalen College, 43; MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud. 551; MS Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg. lat. 504; MS Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. lat. 10688; MS Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, D.IV.21; MS Naples,

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and Occidentalis), was apocryphal and was not the third book Jacques had announced in his prologue.4 Franciscus Moschus did not include the Liber tertius in his first edition of Jacques’ work,5 but it was published separately by Jacobus Gretser in 1608.6 Jacques Bongars used Gretsers’s edition to include the Liber tertius with his edition of the Historia Orientalis in 1611 but already expressed his doubts about the text’s authorship.7 Modern scholars have indeed established that the text of the Liber tertius found in the manuscripts was not written by Jacques and it has been identified as a compilation from different authors.8 Two main variations of the text are known. In the most common variation, found in Bongars’s edition, the text begins with the words: ‘The lord Pope Innocent III, of good memory, wanting to know the ways of the Turks and the Saracen men, against whom the Christian army was

4 5

6 7

8

Biblioteca Nazionale, VIII.C.8; and MS Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 118. See below. Iacobi de Vitriaco primum Acconensis, deinde Tusculani episcopi, ... libri duo quorum prior Orientalis, sive Hierosolymitanae: alter, Occidentalis Historiae nomine inscribitur, ed. Franciscus Moschus (Douai, 1597). Jacob Gretser, Opera omnia: De Sancta Cruce. Pars altera (Ingolstadt, 1608). Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. Jacques Bongars, 2  vols (Hannover, 1611), 1: xii. Gerard Vossius also pointed out that this third book did not conform to what Jacques described in his prologue. Gerard Vossius, De historicis Latinis (Leiden, 1651), 2: 465–66. See Friedrich Zarncke, ‘Über Olivers Historia Damiatina und das sogenannte dritte Buch der Historia Orientalis des Jacob von Vitry’, Berichte der Sächsischen Akademie, phil.-hist. Kl., 27 (1875), 138–48; Hermann Hoogeweg, Die Schriften des Kölner Domscholasters, späteren Bischofs von Paderborn und Kardinalbischofs von S.  Sabina Oliverus (Tübingen, 1894), pp.  cxl–clxx; Benjamin Z. Kedar, ‘The Tractatus de locis et statu sancta terre ierosolimitane,’ in The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. John France and William G. Zajac (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 111–33; Jean Richard, ‘Pouvoir royal et patriarcat au temps de la Cinquième Croisade, à propos du rapport du patriarche Raoul’, Crusades 2 (2003), 109–19; Histoire orientale de Jacques de Vitry, ed. Marie-Geneviève Grossel (Paris, 2005), ‘Introduction’, pp. 22–44; Barbara Bombi, ‘Innocenzo III e la relazione sulle condizioni del Medio Oriente coevo’, in Fedi a confronto: Ebrei, Cristiani e Musulmani fra X e XIII secolo, ed. Sergio Gensini (Firenze, 2006), pp. 231–42; Barbara Bombi, ‘Introduzione’, I  Cristiani e il favoloso Egitto: Una relazione dall’Oriente e la storia di Damietta di Oliviero da Colonia, ed. Giancarlo Andenna and Barbara Bombi (Genova, 2009), pp. 7–44.

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preparing [itself ]’ (Dominus papa Innocentius bonae memoriae, volens scire mores Turcarum et vires Saracenorum, contra quos Christiani exercitus praeparabant). The following brief lines mention that Innocent III asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem for detailed information and that several pilgrims came back from the Holy Land and provided Innocent with information on the rulers and on the extent of the different territories in the East.9 The subsequent text is what has become known as the Relatio ad Innocentium III.10 It contains detailed information on recent political developments in the Arab world and on the Muslims and Islam. Although scholars have not succeeded in establishing whether or not this text is original, the strong similarities with a part of the anonymous Chronicle of Tours, from around the same time, may suggest a common source.11 Paul Riant identified the author of the Relatio as Haymarus Monachus (Amerigo de Corbizzi or Haymarus Florentinus), patriarch of Jerusalem from 1192 until his death in 1202, and linked the text with Innocent III’s call for information when preparing the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204).12 Although Reinhold Röhricht agreed with Riant,13 Philipp Funk argued that the text found in the third book was different from most other copies of the Relatio.14 Accordingly, Benjamin Kedar and Jean Richard no longer attributed the authorship to Haymarus.15 Richard, noting that the text started with ‘Pope Innocent III, of good memory’, argued that it must have been written after Innocent’s death.16 Richard therefore suggested that the original author of the report must have been Raoul de Mérencourt, patriarch of Jerusalem from 1214 to 1224. Indeed, the first part of the report treated the rule of Saphadin (al-Adil I), who reigned as sultan of Egypt and Syria between 1201 and 1218, and led the Muslim forces in the first stages of the counter campaign against the Fifth Crusade. The text also includes a note that Coradin (or al-Mu’azzam ‘Isa Sharaf ad-Din, the brother of al-Kamil who was sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade) ‘most recently made a truce with the patriarch and the masters of the

9 10 11

12

13 14 15 16

Jacques de Vitry, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. Bongars, Gesta Dei, p. 1125. Richard, ‘Pouvoir royal’, pp. 109–11. This text in the Liber tertius appears to be an extended version of the text known as Ex Chronico Turonensi, RHGF, 18: 293. Paul Riant, De Haymaro monacho (Paris, 1865), pp. 48–49; Richard, ‘Pouvoir royal’, p. 109. Reinhold Röhricht, Bibliotheca geographica Palestinae (Berlin, 1890), pp. 43–45. Philipp Funk, Jakob von Vitry: Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 158–59. Kedar, ‘The Tractatus de locis’, pp. 114–16. Richard, ‘Pouvoir Royal’, pp. 111–12.

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Temple and the Hospital’.17 This is very likely a reference to the truce after the failure of the Fifth Crusade. In the Liber tertius, the Relatio is followed by a description of the Holy Land, starting with the words ‘Jerusalem, that renowned metropolis of the Jews, is situated in the center of the world’ (Hierusalem gloriosa metropolis Iudaeae in medio mundi sita est).18 The largest part of this text agrees with chapters six to eight of De statu Egypti vel Babylonie, written around 1175 by Burchard of Strasbourg, an envoy of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to the East.19 In the Liber tertius, Burchard’s text is supplemented with smaller pieces of information of uncertain origin regarding the Holy Land. It is, however, striking that similar information to that found in these brief insertions is also found in Jacques de Vitry’s letters and in his Historia Orientalis. The description of how chicks in Egypt were hatched by the sun, for instance, is also utilized by Jacques but is not found in other accounts.20 These concurrences suggest that these texts and Jacques’ Historia Orientalis had the same source(s) in common or even that these texts were the sources Jacques drew on. Until this point the contents are largely identical in most extant manuscripts and the early printed editions of the Liber tertius. Found in the earliest copies of the Liber tertius, and printed in Bongars’s edition alongside the Historia Orientalis, the next segment of the Liber tertius appears to be Oliver of Paderborn’s Historia Damiatina, introduced with the words ‘Let Mount Sion rejoice’ (Laetetur mons Syon) and a few short biblical paraphrases. Oliver’s account starts in 1217 and narrates the events of the Fifth Crusade. Where the text of other and later manuscripts of the Historia Damiatina continued, the text of the variation found in this third book ends with the arrival of the Count of Apulia and the words ‘cepit in via maris’.21 Aside from the early ending, Hoogeweg indicated further differences in this version of the Historia Damiatina found alongside the Historia Orientalis and designated it as a separate group within what he called a ‘third redaction’ of Oliver’s text.22 17 18 19

20

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Jacques de Vitry, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. Bongars, Gesta Dei, p. 1125. Jacques de Vitry, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. Bongars, Gesta Dei, p. 1126. Burchard of Strasbourg, ‘De Statu Egypti vel Babylonie’, ed. Sabino de Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana crucesignatorum, 4  vols ( Jerusalem, 1978–84), 2: 406–8. Jacques de Vitry, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. Bongars, Gesta Dei, p.  1129; Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis, ed. Jean Donnadieu (Turnhout, 2008), p. 374. Jacques de Vitry, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. Bongars, Gesta Dei, p. 1145. Hoogeweg, Schriften, pp. cxl–clxx.

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The edition by Martène and Durand made use of other manuscripts and therefore included a different variation of the Liber tertius.23 Instead of the Historia Damiatina, one finds the Tractatus de locis et statu Terrae Sanctae,24 and a lesser known text, the Historia brevis Terrae Sanctae.25 The former text is an abridged description of the Holy Land and its inhabitants and the latter text briefly relates the events taking place after the First Crusade until 1195, with a focus on the last eight years.26 Apart from its inclusion in this branch of manuscripts of the Liber tertius, the Historia brevis is only found in the Chronicon of Burchard of Ursperg (writing around 1215–31), but likely has earlier origins.27 The compilation that forms this third book is undoubtedly worth a further detailed investigation, but an in-depth analysis of these texts cannot be included within the scope of this contribution. However, the stubbornness with which, in the Middle Ages, this apocryphal third book was identified with the third book announced in Jacques de Vitry’s prologue and copied along with the Historia Orientalis, is remarkable.28 Consequently, in the light of this discussion of the early manuscript tradition of the Liber tertius, a few remarks and observations are in order.

The Origins of the Liber tertius Despite Jacques de Vitry’s intentions for a third book, within the earliest manuscript tradition of the Historia Orientalis, the compilation and addition of the apocryphal Liber tertius seems to have been unintended. One of the recensions is characterized by the breaking off of the Historia 23

24 25 26 27

28

Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, ed. Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand (Paris, 1717), 3: 281–87: ‘Ex MS. Codice Bigotiano nunc Bibliothecae Regiae’. This manuscript can be identified as the former MS Bibliotheca Bigotiana, 193, which is now MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 5695 (c. 1350). The text agrees with the edition by Kedar, ‘The Tractatus de locis’, pp. 123–31. Incipit: ‘Terra Ierosolymitana semper variis casibus exposita fuit’. Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, 3: 281–87. Burchardi et Cuonradi Urspergensium Chronicon, ed. Heinrich Friedrich Otto Abel, MGH SS, 23: 332–82, here pp. 359–64. Burchard noted: ‘De dispositione terrae et situ civitatis Hierosolymitanae omittimus interponere ne seriem rerum gestarum videamur interrumpere’. There are even three manuscripts that, despite not containing the prologue, still copy the apocryphal third book along with the Historia Orientalis: MS Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, D.IV.21; MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, VIII.C.8, and MS Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 118.

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Occidentalis ( Jacques’ treatise on the state of the Western Church) in the middle of a sentence in chapter 34 at the words ‘just as the dust’ (Isaiah 17.13) (sicut puluis).29 The text in one of the oldest manuscripts of the Historia Orientalis and Occidentalis held in Paris (Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16079), ends in the middle of a column, abruptly ending the second book, but still contains sicut puluis as catchwords in the bottom margin of the page. This manuscript therefore seems to be a direct copy of an exemplar with missing folios, which is lost or unknown.

MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16079, fols 56v-57r. Ending mid-column, with the catchword included on the verso page, but not agreeing with the added gathering. Reproduced by permission of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16079, a manuscript from the second half of the thirteenth century that can be traced back to the library of the Sorbonne,30 therefore appears to be the progenitor of the Liber tertius tradition. The catchwords at the bottom of folio 56v do not agree with the first words of folio 57r, nor does the catchword on 29

30

The ‘Historia Occidentalis’ of Jacques de Vitry: A  Critical Edition, ed. John Frederick Hinnebusch (Fribourg, 1972), p. 169. Old Sorbonne shelfmark MS 897.

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folio 57r agree with the last words in the text on folio 56v. In addition, a different, yet contemporary hand, as well as the different lay-out of the initial, further indicate the combination of two texts that were originally not found together. Even though Jacques outlined the contents of a third book in his prologue to the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata, he appears to never have written or completed this third book. Some of the scribes copying these earliest manuscripts indeed seem to have realised that the third book announced in the prologue had never materialised.31 There is no older extant manuscript containing the Liber tertius than BnF lat. 16079 and, because of the missing folios of the exemplar used, the scribe was led to believe that not only the rest of the Historia Occidentalis was missing, but also the anticipated Liber tertius. In absence of this third book, it appears that someone sought to complete the compilation as described in the prologue and added texts that suited the prologue’s description of the Liber tertius. Indeed, the Relatio ad Innocentium III, a report of the situation in the Holy Land,32 combined with Oliver of Paderborn’s Historia Damiatina does seem to agree with Jacques’ description of the third book in the prologue which, as he wrote, would focus on the situation in the East and would contain an account of the events witnessed by Jacques from the aftermath of the Fourth Lateran Council up until the capture of Damietta on the Fifth Crusade.33 Parisian scholarly circles would have been the ideal environment in which to find such texts. Moreover, it is not impossible that, in search of the Liber tertius to complete the manuscript, the scribe came across Jacques’ personal library in which he found these texts.34 The latter scenario 31

32 33

34

For instance, MS Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, codex guelf. 30.5 Augusteus, fol. 128v includes a brief note, seemingly contemporary, indicating that it was known that part of the second book as well as the entire third book was missing: ‘deest de secundo libro, et tertius liber totus deest’. See my discussion of the contents of the Liber tertius below. Jacques de Vitry, ‘Prologus’, ed. Jean Donnadieu, in ‘L’historia orientalis de Jacques de Vitry: Tradition manuscrite et histoire du texte’, Sacris erudiri, 45 (2006), 379–456, at p. 455: ‘In tertio libro ab occidente in orientem regrediens, de hiis que post generale concilium Lateranense Dominus in populo suo et in exercitu christianorum usque ad captionem Damiate operari dignatus est, sicut propriis oculis vidi tractare cepi’. Jacques himself and his biographer Thomas of Cantimpré make numerous references to the sizeable library Jacques brought with him to the Holy Land. Presumably, Jacques made use of these books when writing his Historia Orientalis in the East. Upon his death, Jacques bequeathed a large number of

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would also explain the addition of the Relatio David in BnF lat. 16079, a text of which Jacques likely had a copy,35 and why several parts of this compilation forming the third book also have traces in Jacques’ letters and the Historia Orientalis. Following this apocryphal creation of the third book, future copies would regard the third book as belonging with the first two. A manuscript from around 1300,36 held at Saint-Omer (MS Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque municipale, 729), seems to be a descendant of the Parisian manuscript and shows the seamless addition of these texts as the Liber tertius of the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata.37 While there is no evidence to suggest that the Paris manuscript is the direct exemplar of the Saint-Omer manuscript, the latter can be traced back to a northern French Benedictine milieu and cannot have been far removed in the manuscript tradition. A third early manuscript containing the Liber tertius is held at the Vatican Library (MS Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg. lat. 504). Again, the manuscript can be traced to northern France or Paris. Although the text and layout of the prologue and the three books is uniform and was written by the same hand, the small empty space before the start of the Liber tertius may indicate that its exemplar had a clearer distinction between the texts. The case of the Vatican manuscript shows a more conscious and elaborate effort, early on in the manuscript tradition, to incorporate the third book into the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata by adding a table of contents similar to the ones found before the Historia Orientalis and before the Historia Occidentalis.38 This is all the more noteworthy since there are no extant manuscripts of the Relatio ad Innocentium III or the Historia Damiatina that feature such a table of contents.

35

36

37 38

his books to the priory of Saint Nicholas at Oignies, a place frequented by the Parisian masters of Jacques’ circle. I am currently writing an article on Jacques de Vitry’s personal library. Considering the lack of titles or any indication about a different author of the Relatio ad Innocentium III or the Historia Damiatina, one ought to wonder whether the scribe or compiler realised that these texts were not by Jacques. The manuscript has a characteristic northern Gothic ‘textualis’ script. The a, for instance, has a double bow form with the upper bow closed with the corner of the pen. The g, for instance, is an 8-shape with the lower lobe closed with a diagonal hairline. See Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 86, 88. MS Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque municipale, 729, fol. 52v. MS Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg. lat. 504, fol. 33v.

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Thirteenth-Century Legacy Donnadieu doubted whether Jacques actually intended to write a third book, arguing that the combination of the Historia Orientalis and the Historia Occidentalis was a completed entity and an addition that returned to the situation in the East, he argued, would not complement these two books.39 On the contrary, however, both books represented a justification for reform in the East and in the West, with the Fourth Lateran Council as a turning point. The third book, as Jacques noted in the prologue, would start from the council onwards and was clearly intended to provide an account of how the conciliar reforms were put into practice in the East. Despite the incidental origins of what we know as the Liber tertius today, we should not completely discard the possibility of Jacques’ involvement in the compilation of the materials which now constitute the third book. The Relatio, the Historia Damiatina, and the various fragments from descriptions of the Holy Land would have indeed been a suitable collection to use as a basis for the intended third book and Jacques may have gathered these texts himself already. Moreover, Oliver and Jacques were both writing in Damietta during the Fifth Crusade and they may have shared their writings. There are, in fact, several indications in the earliest manuscripts of Jacques’ work that seem to corroborate his involvement in the origins of this Liber tertius compilation. The mere fact that early copies identified the Liber tertius as Jacques’ work already suggests a shared provenance for these texts. Moreover, a strong association between Jacques’ writings, the Relatio, and the Historia Damiatina indicates that the contents of the Liber tertius were no coincidence. One of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Relatio, MS London, British Library, Burney 351 (from the early thirteenth century), also contains the Historia Damiatina as well as Jacques’ sixth and seventh letters. In MS Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg. lat. 504, a manuscript from the second half of the thirteenth century originating from northern France or Paris, the prologue to the Historia Damiatina is introduced as ‘Thus begins the prologue of Master Jacques de Vitry’ (Incipit prologus Magistri Jacobi de Vitriaco).40 This suggests that the scribe had no prior knowledge of Oliver of Paderborn’s Historia Damiatina, and assumed it was a text by Jacques.41 39

40 41

Jean Donnadieu, ‘L’historia orientalis de Jacques de Vitry: Tradition manuscrite et histoire du texte’, Sacris erudiri 45 (2006), 379–456 (here p. 443). MS Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, reg. lat. 504, fol. 35r. While the manuscripts which Hoogeweg identified as Oliver’s second letter start with ‘Incipit historia Damiatena, cui magister Oliverus precedentis et huius operis compilator et sancte crucis predicator interfuisse non dubitatur’,

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Probably the same scribe indicated in a marginal note on the same page that Jacques’ announced third book started at the Historia Damiatina (Incipit lib. iii). It appears that early in the manuscript tradition, at least this particular scribe was aware that the Relatio was not written by Jacques. While it is indeed feasible that Jacques was responsible for collecting these different texts found in the Liber tertius, it is difficult to prove that he actually compiled the Liber tertius himself. The fact that this compilation of unedited sources never materialized into the foreseen third book, suggests that Jacques was no longer involved. The lack of time to edit this information into a new book seems to have been the same reason why also a general correction effort of the Historia Orientalis was not completed,42 and the planned last chapters of the Historia Occidentalis were not added. It remains unclear whether this was because Jacques joined the Curia in 1229 or because of his death in 1240. It is indeed possible that a member of his entourage, perhaps a clerk, or a close acquaintance with access to Jacques’ personal library, found the unedited compilation of texts gathered for the third book and decided to add it to the first two books. It is also worth noting that the presence of Jacques’ letters in manuscripts alongside the Liber tertius may suggest that these letters were originally also part of the texts gathered. As Hoogeweg similarly argued for Oliver of Paderborn’s Historia Damiatina,43 it is possible that Jacques intended his letters to be included in this third book, since they indeed covered its contents as outlined in his prologue. Jacques’ Historia Orientalis and Historia Occidentalis were widely copied and used in the following centuries. While often catalogued under a different title or author, or inserted in different collections of texts, the Liber tertius also had a significant impact. Interestingly, the Liber tertius alongside the Historia Orientalis appears to have been used by subsequent popes as a source of information on the situation in the Latin East. Indeed, the first text in the Liber tertius, the report by patriarch Raoul de Mérencourt, the so-called Relatio ad Innocentium III, seems to have been answering a call for information by Innocent III.44 In the manuscript held at Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16079, which also contains

42

43 44

this identification is omitted from the manuscripts Hoogeweg identified as the first redaction of the Historia Damiatina, explaining why early scribes attributed the text to Jacques. See Hoogeweg, Schriften, pp. lviii–lxiii. When comparing Moschus’ 1597 edition, the closest text to the now lost autograph, with the earliest extant manuscripts, a general correction is noticeable and ends in the middle of the text. Hoogeweg, Schriften, p. lviii. Richard, ‘Pouvoir Royal’, pp. 111–12.

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the Historia Orientalis and a letter from Prester John,45 the line at the beginning of the report reads Dominus papa Innocentius bone memorie volens scire (fol. 59r). A later manuscript, from the early fourteenth century, MS Cambridge, Corpus Christi, Parker Library, 66A, also contains the Relatio in addition to the Historia Orientalis, although, in this case, the first line of the report reads Honorius papa volens scire (fol. 228r). Following Jean Richard’s argument, the omission of bone memorie seems to suggest that Pope Honorius was still alive when this adjustment to the text was made. It is therefore possible that this was a reference to Pope Honorius IV (r. 1285-87) who, despite his short pontificate, indeed considered undertaking a new crusade. To support the missionary efforts to the Muslims and the Mongols, Honorius IV established the teaching of eastern languages at the University of Paris.46 This indeed corroborates with the presence of texts from the same hand relating to the Mongols and Prester John in this manuscript. These texts include, among others, a copy of William of Rubruck’s itinerary to the Tartars or Mongols and a copy of the so-called letters from Prester John describing ‘India’. It is, however, also possible that the Relatio in this codex was merely a copy of an exemplar from the time of Honorius III, whose zeal to continue Innocent III’s crusading agenda is evident. A third example in which the Relatio was adjusted is found in an early fifteenth-century miscellany of fragments held at Paris, MS Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 1750, where the first line reads Dominus papa Innocentius iv bone memorie volens scire (fol. 153r). Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to know the original context of this manuscript. If this is not merely a scribal error, then it is indeed possible that also here the introductory words of the Relatio were adjusted so the text could be linked to Innocent IV, pope from 1243–54 and a strong supporter of the missions to the Mongols.47 In these three instances, the first line of the original report by Raoul de Mérencourt was merely adjusted so that the text could, presumably, have been presented to a different pope alongside other relevant texts. This textual repurposing illustrates the continued 45 46

47

See discussion above. Burkhard Roberg, ‘Honorius IV., Papst (1285–87)’, Lexikon des Mittelalters, 5: 121. See John  H. Lind, ‘Mobilisation of the European Periphery against the Mongols: Innocent  IV’s All-European Policy in its Baltic Context – A Recantation’, in The Reception of Medieval Europe in the Baltic Sea Region, ed. Jörn Staecker (Visby, 2009), pp. 75–92, and Jean du Plan Carpin, Histoire des Mongols: Enquête d’un envoyé d’Innocent IV dans l’empire Tartare (1245–47), ed. Clément Schmitt (Paris, 1961).

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relevance of the information gathered for the Fourth Lateran Council in the later thirteenth century.

Innocent III’s Call for Information The value of this collection of texts – containing recent information on the events and political situation in the Latin East and in the Muslim world, information on the indigenous people and their religion as well as geographical details – for guiding papal decisions regarding mission and crusade in the Holy Land is evident. The interesting part here is the start of this third book with the Relatio ad Innocentium III beginning with the words ‘Innocent III, wanting to know’ about the situation in the East. Although the note in the upper margin of MS BnF, lat. 16079, fol. 59r reads Anno Domini 1203 (a date which caused confusion among scholars in the nineteenth century who identified the author of the Relatio as Haymarus Monachus), Richard of San Germano, who accompanied Stephen of Marsia, abbot of Montecassino, to the Fourth Lateran Council, dated this specific call for information by Innocent to 1214. In his chronicle for 1214, Riccardo wrote that because the pope wanted to know about the lands, behavior and powers of the ‘Agarenes’, against whom the Christian armies by his mandate were preparing themselves, he wrote to the patriarch of Jerusalem and to the masters of the Hospitallers and the Templars. And they, in turn, sent envoys with reports which were brought over on Venetian ships.48 After these lines, Richard of San Germano also included the report on the political situation among the Saracens. While this brief text is largely overlooked by scholarship today, this certainly was not the case in the thirteenth century. In his Speculum historiale, part of his monumental Speculum maius completed in or shortly after 1254, the Dominican Vincent of Beauvais also included a note on this specific call for information from Innocent III.49

48

49

MGHSS, 29: 335–37: ‘Item scire volens ipse papa terras, mores, et vires agarenorum, contra quos de ipsius mandato Christianorum exercitus parabatur, scripsit Patriarchae Jerosolymitano, magistris domorum Hospitalis, et temple, ut super his eum per suas redderent literas certiorem, qui per quasdam naves venetorum inde huc transmeantes, tam detentores, quam terras et mores eorum exposuerunt ei certissime in hunc modum’. MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 11728, fol.  323r (1267): ‘Siquidem innocentius papa hujus nominis tercius scire volens quae apud illos sunt. et nomina satraparum contra quos ad bellum parabatur exercitus

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A similar note again is found with the Brabantine writer, Lodewijk van Velthem (c. 1265/70–1314), who completed Jacob of Maerlant’s Spieghel historiael, the Middle Dutch rhymed adaptation of Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum maius.50 Van Velthem noted that ‘a book about Outremer’ was compiled by the patriarch of Jerusalem at the request of Pope Innocent III. The Brabantine chronicler then included a Middle Dutch adaptation of the Relatio tripartita ad Innocentium III and the De statu Terrae Sanctae. Vincent of Beauvais had already used Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Orientalis as a source for his Speculum maius, and van Velthem’s inclusion of these new texts at this point further indicates that the Liber tertius and, as part of it, the Relatio, should be situated chronologically after the completion of the Historia Orientalis. The many variations and adaptations of the Relatio, or of the Liber tertius as a whole, as well as the various titles given to these texts or the group of texts, has masked the account’s popularity throughout the later Middle Ages and explains why it has largely remained under the radar of modern scholarship. For example, the fourteenth-century manuscript MS London, British Library, Burney 253 contains Innocent III’s De miseria condicionis humane and a version of the Relatio which is identified as ‘Epistola de statu Aegypti et Terrae Sanctae’. The text of this redaction of the Relatio is slightly different from the above-mentioned thirteenth-century manuscripts.51 Similarly, a fifteenth-century manuscript held at the Biblioteca

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christianorum scripsit patriarche hierosolimitano ut inquisita fideliter veritate statum ei nunciaret predictorum’. Lodewijk Van Velthem, Spiegel Historiaal of Rym-Spiegel, ed. Isaac le Long (Amsterdam, 1727), bk. 1, ch. 4.6–7: ‘Hoe die paus sinde anden patriarke van Jherusalem, dat hi hem die heren ende dlant bescrive. / In coninc Willems eerste jaer, / So ward gesent al openbaer / Een boec van over zee bescreven, / […] / .I. paus, hiet Innocentius, / Die [derde] van dere namen dus, / Hi begeerde te weten sere / Hoe menich soudaen, hoe menich here / Die enich lant had beseten, / Ende die hem oec dorste vermeten / Strijd te houden jegen kerstenhede; / […] / Die ontboet hi vriendelijc vord / Toten patriarken van Jherusalem, / Dat hi des berichte hem / Na sijn beste oft hi conde. / Om dese sake die patriarke begonde / Dit te besoeken al over zee, / Van heren, van steden, min no mee. / Gelijc dats hem onse eertsce vader / Die paus hadde gebeden algader, / So dede hijt besocken ende scriven, / Ende en liets niet achter bliven / Waer hijt gevreischen conste, / So dat hi een boec begonste / Hier af te maken, dat hi soude / Den paus senden also houde / Alst gemaect waer, godweet’. MS London, British Library, Burney 253, fols 82–87, Incipit: ‘Innocentius Papa tercius scire volens, que apud Egipcios sunt, et nomina sattraparum contra quos ad bella parabatur exercitus Christianorum, scripsit Patriarche Ierosolymitano

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nazionale Braidense in Milan, MS AD.IX.43 (fols 243r-273r), identifies the Liber tertius as an itinerary describing Saracen life and customs made by the patriarch of Jerusalem at the request of Pope Innocent III, who wanted to defeat the Saracens for the liberation of the Holy Land.52 The same version of the Relatio found in the Milan manuscript is found in another fifteenth-century manuscript held at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, MS Plut. 89. Sup. 17, fols 85v-89v. The book about Outremer explicitly described by Lodewijk van Velthem is therefore most probably not merely the following brief report by the patriarch, but would have included the entire Liber tertius as well as Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Orientalis. Moreover, it would appear that this combination of texts is also the very same account about the East as that mentioned by Matthew of Paris. It has always been assumed that a Dominican vulgate text on the life and doctrine of Muhammad was the source of Matthew’s account of Islam and that this was the text presented to Pope Gregory IX in 1236. Matthew wrote that this text sent to the pope was about the law of Muhammad and about the lands in the East and written by preachers who were traveling in those parts.53 According to him, this text was written by a celebrated preacher who had been sent

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ut, inquisita veritate, statum nunciaret praedictorum. Cui Patriarcha, habita inquisicione, scripsit dicens; duo fuerunt fratres Sarraceni nobiles, nomen primogeniti Salahadinus, et nomen alterius Saphadinus’. MS Milan, Biblioteca nazionale Braidense, AD.IX.43, fol. 243r: ‘Itinerarium factum per patriarcham Ierosolimitanum de mandato domini Innocentii pape tertii tunc volentis expugnare sarracenos pro liberatione terre sancta nec non vita et mores ac civitates saracenorum ipsorum’. Here the beginning of the Relatio reads: ‘Cum [bone memorie] dominus Innocentius papa tertius pro liberation terre sancte orbis terrarium fines sollicitasset monitis et preceptis ut universi et singuli christiani ad subsidium terre sancte intenderent et inimicos crucis Christi qui terram Ierosolimitanam occupaverant comuniter impugnarent, volens scire terras earumque nomina, mores et vires Agaraneorum [sic] contra quos Christi exercitus dimicaturus erat, mandavit patriarche Ierosolimitano ut, inquisita diligenter veritate, tam detentores civitatum, castrorum terrarumque nomina quam etiam nomina civitatum, castrorum et terrarium et eorum consuetudines indagaret. Quibus omnibus studiose redactis, in scriptis apostolice sedis fideliter exponere procuravit sic scribens’. Matthew of Paris, Chronica Maiora, ed. Henry  R. Luard, 7  vols (London, 1872–83), 3: 343–55: ‘De quodam scripto misso ad dominum Papam de lege Machometi  […] de partibus orientalibus, per praedicatores partes illas peragrantes’.

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to the East to preach against the law of Muhammad.54 In his discussion of Matthew’s chapters on Muhammad and Islam, James Powell followed the idea, first noted by Ugo Monneret de Villard,55 that this is a reference to a text by a Dominican preacher. While Berthold Altaner was not convinced of the Dominican origins of these writings,56 Powell saw evidence of this Dominican influence in the two letters of Patriarch Gerold. These letters were used by Matthew in his account of the accusations of heresy leveled against Frederick II in 1238 and 1239. The references to Dominicans contained in these letters led Powell to argue that Matthew of Paris drew on Dominican material as a source for information about Outremer. Here I would like to propose a new theory on this report for Gregory IX and the transmission of this particular cluster of texts. The year 1236 may have been slightly early to already have an extensive report on the situation in the East coming from the Dominicans. Jacques de Vitry’s and Matthew’s accounts show similarities that cannot be explained by a text from 1236 but only by Matthew of Paris either drawing on Jacques or a common source, for instance William of Tyre’s lost De gestis principis Orientalibus. Either way, Jacques de Vitry’s account is either the primary source, or serves as a bridge between Matthew of Paris and another text. It is also unlikely that Matthew would have described William of Tyre as a ‘celebrated preacher’. Moreover, Jacques de Vitry’s extensive experience in the East, his preaching and missionary efforts during his travels throughout Outremer, and his extensive account (based on a variety of both Western and Eastern sources edited to serve his agenda and updated with his personal experiences), would have made his Historia Orientalis the perfect work to present to the pontiff to influence papal policy towards the East. Therefore, the Historia Orientalis combined with the Liber tertius was probably the book written as a result of Innocent’s call for information, and the ‘celebrated preacher’ (celebrem praedicatorem) to whom Matthew of Paris refers in his Chronica was probably Jacques de Vitry.

54

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Matthew of Paris, Chronica Maiora, 3: 355–61: ‘quam per quendam magni nominis celebrem praedicatorem, qui eiusdem Machometh legem praedicando reprobavit, ad hoc specialiter in partes Orientales destinatus’. See James  M. Powell, ‘Matthew Paris, the lives of Muhammad, and the Dominicans’, in Dei Gesta per Francis: Etudes sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard, ed. Michel Balard, Benjamin Kedar and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 65–69; Ugo Monneret de Villard, Lo studio dell’Islam in Europa nel XII e nel XIII secolo (Città del Vaticano, 1944), p. 60. Berthold Altaner, Die Dominikanermissionen des 13. Jahrhunderts (Habelschwerdt, 1924), p. 87, note 90.

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Jacques had given up his episcopal see at Acre in 1228 to accept an appointment to the college of cardinals, which placed him in the ideal position to present his work to the pope. He was also a close friend of Hugolino dei Conti di Segni, the future Gregory IX, when Hugolino was still a cardinal.57 It also seems that Matthew of Paris might have recorded, in his entry for 1236, the exact moment when the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata was put together for the very first time, the result of the fusion of the prologue, the Historia Orientalis, the Historia Occidentalis and the Liber tertius. Indeed, none of the early extant manuscripts of the Relatio occur without the other texts, which further indicates that the Relatio was at that time regarded as an integral part of the Liber tertius and, by extension, of the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata.

Jacques de Vitry’s Prologue In his prologue to the Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata, Jacques, quite fittingly, expresses the wish that his treatise might serve as an example for the crusaders, as confirmation of the readers’ faith and virtue, as a refutation of unbelievers and a rebuke of evil men and, ultimately, as praise for good men and an aid for imitating their deeds.58 Jacques’ intended readers appear to be primarily the clergy and, more specifically, his fellow reformers and crusade preachers, and his message is strikingly similar to the message conveyed by Innocent III in Ad liberandam, the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council that dealt with the organization of the crusade. Innocent decreed that the clergy accompanying the crusading army ought to be diligent in prayer and teach the crusaders by word and example so that they might fear and love God and, strengthened with both spiritual and material arms, fight successfully against the enemies of the faith.59 57

58

59

See Jean Vandeburie, ‘Sancte fidei omnino deiciar – Hugolino dei Conti di Segni’s Doubts and Jacques de Vitry’s Intervention’, Studies in Church History 52 (2015), pp. 87–101. Donnadieu, ‘Prologus’, 455: ‘Quantum autem presens tractatus exemplo prosit sub Christi uexillo militantibus, quantum ualeat ad fidei confirmationem et morum informationem, ad confutationem infidelium et confusionem impiorum hominum et ad laudem et imitationem bonorum, diligens lector manifeste poterit perpendere!’ Constitutiones, pp. 110–11, canon 71: ‘Sacerdotes autem et alii clerici, qui fuerint in exercitu christiano, tam subditi quam prelati, orationi et exhortationi diligenter insistant, docentes eos verbo pariter et exemplo, ut timorem et amorem divinum semper habeant ante oculos, ne quid dicant aut faciant quod

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In the same prologue, Jacques proved his indebtedness to the older traditions of the universal history and the encyclopedia, by explicitly referring to the works of the Church Fathers. In particular Jacques seems to have been influenced by Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, widely considered to be the first universal history,60 Cassiodorus and Epiphanius’s Historia [Ecclesiastica] Tripartita, and the writings of Isidore of Seville.61 Jacques’ didactic agenda, or as Funk called it, Geschichtspragmatik,62 behind his historical writings was evident when he pointed out how the church fathers took great care in their writing to praise God as well as to instruct contemporaries and the generations to come.63 As a preacher, Jacques’ concern to instruct rather than to merely narrate events is evident. Indeed, Jacques appears to have modelled his prologue after the last lines of the prologue of the History of the Martyrs in Palestine of Eusebius of Caesarea, the father of Church history. Testifying to the didactic use of his history, Eusebius wrote that ‘the conflicts, therefore, of these victorious combatants I will proceed to relate, for the common instruction and benefit of all’.64 Although these late antique Christian writings help to contextualise Jacques de Vitry’s intentions, the writings of the Church Fathers, and their rhetorical devices, were widely imitated in Latin literature. More direct sources must therefore be sought in literature closer

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61 62 63

64

divinam maiestatem offendat. Et si aliquando lapsi fuerint in peccatum, per ueram penitentiam mox resurgant, gerentes humilitatem cordis et corporis, et tam in victu quam in vestitu mediocritatem servantes, dissensiones et emulationes omnino vitando, rancore ac livore a se penitus relegatis, ut sic spiritualibus et materialibus armis muniti, adversus hostes fidei securius prelientur, non de sua presumentes potentia, set de divina virtute sperantes’. See Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘Eusebius of Caesarea’s Conceptions of the Persecutions as a Key to Reading his Historia Ecclesiastica’, in The Great Persecution: Proceedings of the Fifth Patristic Conference, Maynooth, 2003 (Dublin, 2009), pp. 91–105; Aryeh Kofsky, ‘Prophecy in the Service of Polemics in Eusebius of Caesarea’, Cristianesimo nella storia 19 (1998), 1–29. Donnadieu, ‘Prologus’, p. 406. Funk, Jakob von Vitry, p. 133. Donnadieu, ‘Prologus’, p. 454: ‘Antiqui autem et Sancti Patres de talento sibi commisso timorem Domini semper ante oculos habentes, cum omni diligentia et circumspectione Domini nostri Iesu Christi opera, tam ea que ipse in propria persona operari dignatus est quam illa que sanctorum suorum operatus est ministerio, ad eius laudem, et tam presentium quam futurorum informationem scribere studuerunt’. Eusebius of Caesarea, The History of the Martyrs in Palestine, trans. William Cureton (Paris, 1861), p. 3.

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to Jacques’ time and environment. Arguably, a more direct influence for his notions of history writing may be found in his Parisian background, in particular the twelfth-century developments in the historical genre within the school of Saint-Victor. Influenced by the works of Hugh of Saint-Victor and other Victorine theologians, as well as didactic works such as Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica65 and Peter Lombard’s Sentences,66 Jacques’ work was part of a broader tradition of encyclopedic works and universal histories.67 This Victorine tradition, which combined historical study with biblical allegory and religious instruction, is where we can trace the origins of such accounts as the Historia Orientalis and the texts in the Liber tertius. Writers including Otto of Freising (d. 1158)68 and Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141)69 strongly influenced the rest of the Historia Orientalis and other works of Jacques and his contemporaries, including Oliver of Paderborn. Similar to the aforementioned last lines of Jacques’ prologue, the contemporary French chronicler Robert of Auxerre (c. 1156–1212), strongly adhering to Victorine ideology,70 noted in the prologue to his Chronicon that his description of the changing world and the growth of Christianity served to understand the present and help with things to come.71 The same didactic approach to history and knowledge is found in the encyclopedic works of 65

66

67

68

69

70

71

See Mark  J. Clark, ‘Stephen Langton and Hugh of St  Cher on Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica: the Lombard’s Sentences and the Problem of Sources Used by Comestor and his Commentators’, Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales 74 (2007), 63–117; James  H. Morey, ‘Peter Comestor, Biblical Paraphrase and the Medieval Popular Bible’, Speculum 68 (1993), 6–35. See Clare Monagle, ‘Theology, Practice, and Policy at the Turn of the Thirteenth Century: The Papacy and Peter Lombard’, Journal of Religious History 37 (2013), 441–56. For a general discussion of the Victorines’ influence on the writings and teachings of the Parisian masters, see Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1978), pp. 196–263. Especially his Chronica de duabus civitatibus (c. 1144). See Ray C. Petry, ‘Three Medieval Chroniclers: Monastic Historiography and Biblical Eschatology in Hugh of St Victor, Otto of Freising, and Ordericus Vitalis’, Church History 34 (1965), 282–93. See, for instance, Robert I. Moore, ‘The Jews in World History According to Hugh of St Victor’, in Medieval Encounters 3 (1997), 1–19. Robert of Auxerre refers to Hugh of Saint-Victor in his prologue: ‘Porro, in prosecutione annorum Domini, magistrum Hugonem de Sancto Victore elegimus imitari’. See Chronicon, MGHSS, 26: 227. Chronicon, MGHSS, 26: 227.

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the Dominicans Vincent of Beauvais and Thomas of Cantimpré, whose works were heavily influenced by Jacques. It is no coincidence that Vincent of Beauvais used Hélinand of Froidmont’s monumental universal history, the Chronicon (1211–23), in combination with Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata.72 One might indeed consider Jacques’ work as a forerunner within the encyclopedic genre. This approach to history explains the pairing of the Relatio and the Historia Orientalis and the value of such a combination for contemporaries. Indeed, in Jacques’ days, the genre of the historia was not necessarily meant to provide the reader with merely an insight into the events of times past. History writing, as Jacques himself pointed out in his prologue, was meant to provide the reader with a testimony of God’s deeds and, perhaps more importantly, with exempla for current and future events; history was an analogy for the reader to draw a lesson from. The words of a contemporary compiler, who added Jacques de Vitry’s Historia Orientalis to his selection and compilation of historical works, are perhaps the most telling about the context in which these texts were used. The manuscript is held in Douai (MS Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 798) and originates from the Benedictine abbey of Marchiennes (roughly 100 km west of Oignies, Jacques’ monastic home). The compiler was a certain R.,73 who was commissioned by Abbot Pierre de Marchiennes (d. 1306).74 The preface to the compilation, in the form of a letter, is an apologia against those who consider chronicles as empty and useless.75 The author quoted Hugh of Fleury, the early twelfth-century Benedictine chronicler, who was skeptical of the truthfulness of historical works which were interspersed

72

73 74

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Marinus Woesthuis, ‘Vincent of Beauvais and Hélinand of Froidmont’, in Lector et Compilator. Vincent de Beauvais, frère prêcheur: Un intellectuel et son milieu au XIIIe siècle, ed. Marie-Christine Duchenne et al. (Grâne, 1997), pp. 233–47, and Monique Paulmier-Foucart, ‘Écrire l’histoire au XIIIe siècle. Vincent de Beauvais et Hélinand de Froidmond’, Annales de l’Est 33 (1981), 49–70. According to the modern note by Dom Charles Godin. Douai, Catalogue des Manuscrits, pp.  494–98: ‘Incipit epistola contra eos qui dicunt cronicas inanes seu inutiles, quoniam ea que in libris cronicorum continentur a multis altiora forte sentientibus tamquam inutilia et superflua reputantur, quia de regnis et bellis etceteris huiusmodi in eis enarrantur’. On this letter and similar prologues, see also Steven Vanderputten, ‘From Sermon to Science: Monastic Prologues from the Southern Netherlands as Witnesses of Historical Consciousness (10th-15th centuries)’, in Narrative Sources: A Gateway into the Medieval Mind (Leuven, 2004), pp. 37–54.

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with tales (fabulas).76 R. goes on to justify his selection of different historical works in the compilation by noting the merit of reading a variety of authors in order to unearth the truth.77 The letter ended by emphasizing the allegorical use of history and its moral value.78

Conclusions When modern historians discuss crusade planning in the thirteenth century they generally focus on late-thirteenth century texts dealing explicitly with the organisation of a new crusade, such as Fidenzio of Padua’s Liber recuperationis Terrae Sanctae (written around the fall of Acre in 1291) which represent the advent, as Sylvia Schein and others have shown, of a new corpus of literature on the recovery of the Holy Land.79 Contemporaries, however, also regarded other genres of text as crucial guides, both militarily and, as Jacques noted, morally, for future endeavors. Within this thirteenth-century context of crusade planning, the Dominican context in which we find the Relatio, as shown above, is not a coincidence. Among the Dominicans who drew extensively from Jacques de Vitry’s writings, the shared purpose of the texts, as outlined in the prologues, is striking. In his prologue, Burchard of Mount Sion, writing

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MS Douai, Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 798, fol. 2r: ‘Nempe ille res geste, ut dicit Hugo Floriacensis, que nulla regum ac temporum certitudine commendantur, nec pro historia recipiuntur, sed inter aniles fabulas deputantur’. MS Douai 798, fol. 2r: ‘Hec moneat lectorem quod ex diversis auctoribus et diversis capitulis quedam ad eundem sensum pertinentibus demerim et in unum capitulum tam mordacius vel brevius attingendi materiam collegerim. Ut, quia dicit Augustinus, in apochriphis libris multa vera inveniuntur, hinc est quod ego de quibusdam cronicis seu historiis, pre antiquitate sua approbatis que ullum auctorem nominabant, ea que huic operi congruere videbantur, collegi mihique idem auctori confidente intitulavi’. MS Douai 798, fol. 2r: ‘Nam quosdam historia, alios allegoria, nonnullos vero edificat moralitas. Nec legenti debent esse honerosa si aliqua utilia que historie minus congruant, reppererint inserta. Et quia nullus, ut credo, delectatur fastidio, dabo pro posse operam ne fastidiosa sit lectio’. See Sylvia Schein, Fideles Crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land 1274–1314 (Oxford, 1998), p.  91; Anthony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot, 2000); Jacques Paviot, Projets de croisade: v. 1290-v. 1330 (Paris, 2008).

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around 1280, sighs ‘over the dull-wittedness of the Christian people of our time, who, having so many and such great examples, delay in delivering from the hands of our enemies the land that Jesus Christ consecrated with His blood’.80 Even more striking is Riccoldo of Monte Croce’s brief prologue, written around 1288, in which he stated: ‘In this book are briefly included the kingdoms, peoples, provinces, laws, rites, sects and heresies and the monsters that I have found in eastern parts so the brothers who wish to take up the task for Christ of extending the faith may know what they require and where and how they can best proceed’.81 Jacques de Vitry certainly was a very celebrated preacher in the thirteenth century and a source and example for numerous authors. Dominican pilgrimage guides, encyclopedias, and, slightly later, crusade proposals like Sanudo’s Liber secretorum (also presented to the pope as information on the East), contain both praise and lengthy paraphrases or quotes of his works. Accounts like the Historia Orientalis, the Relatio and, by extension, the Liber tertius, were not only the result of Innocent III’s call for information, but served as a bridge between the ‘classic’ crusade chronicles of the twelfth century and the corpus of texts from the thirteenth century which were concerned with properly guiding future pilgrims and crusaders. The continued use of these texts, long after their original conception, shows that the increasing difficulty of traveling in the Holy Land because of the crumbling Kingdom of Jerusalem ensured that the information gathered in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council continued to play a crucial role later in the thirteenth century and beyond.

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Burchard of Mount Sion, Description of the Holy Land (1274–85), ed. and trans. Denys Pringle, Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Crusade Texts in Translation, 23 (Farnham, 2012), pp. 241–320, at p. 242. Riccoldo of Monte Croce, Pilgrimage (1288–89), ed. and trans. Denys Pringle, Pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Farnham, 2012), pp. 361–75, at p. 361.

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INDEX

Aachen, city of 277, 281, 290, 294 ‘Abd al-Muʹmin, Almohad caliph 251-52 Abinus of Turee, merchant 255 Abu al-Hasan, Almohad ruler 261 Abu Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahid, Almohad caliph 250 n. 42, 251 n. 51 Acre bishop of 294, 299, 315; see also Jacques de Vitry city of 40, 200, 254 fall of (1291) 300, 319 Ada, countess of Loos 283-84 Adam de Namur, canon of Saint Lambert (Liège) 281, 282, 283 n. 19, 291 Adil, al-, Ayyubid sultan 80, 302 Ad liberandam, papal crusade ordinance (1215) 7-9, 37, 44, 47, 53, 219-39, 241-48, 260, 270, 278-80, 282, 285, 288-89, 293, 315 Afonso II, king of Portugal 211 Africa 8, 244-45, 247, 251-55, 259, 261, 265, 268-69, 271; see also Alexandria, Damietta, Egypt, Tunisia Agarenes 201, 311; see also Islam, Saracens Ai, city of 22 Aimery III, viscount of Narbonne 138 Aix-la-Chapelle, church of 284; see also Aachen Alain de Lille, Cistercian and Paris master 28-29 al-Andalus 197, 199-200, 202, 207, 210, 244, 247, 249, 251 n. 51 Alarcos, battle of (1195) 137 Albarracín, lords of 207-8 Alberic, archbishop of Reims 286 n. 25

Albert von Buxhövden, bishop of Riga 7, 153-62, 169-70, 173, 174-75, 178-80, 182, 184-86 Albigensian Crusade 3, 5-6, 59, 77-91, 93-112, 113-29, 131, 136, 139-42, 147-48, 191, 196, 205, 207, 259, 274, 291; see also Arnaud Amaury, Chanson de la croisade Albigeoise, heresy, Louis VIII, Raymond VI of Toulouse, Raymond VII of Toulouse, Simon de Montfort Alcácer do Sal, 197-99, 201 Alexander III, pope 19, 34, 43, 48, 49-52, 56-57, 134, 136, 242-43, 246 Alexandria city of 254, 262 Melkite patriarch of 2 Alexios III, Byzantine emperor 2, 79 Alfonso I, king of Aragon 149 Alfonso II, king of Aragon 135-36, 137, 150 Alfonso VIII, king of Castile 16, 85 n33, 195-97, 199, 200, 251 Alfonso IX, king of León, 85 n. 33, 202-4, 211-14 Almohads 16, 81, 84, 85 n. 33, 90, 134, 137, 197, 203, 244, 247, 249-54, 257, 259, 261, 267 Almoravids 134, 250 Almsgiving 3, 15-16, 18, 20, 32, 45-46, 53, 133, 145-46, 235-36, 292 Alphonse, count of Poitiers 263 Alphonse II, count of Provence 78 Amalfi 245 Amerigo de Corbizzi see Haymarus Monachus Amouroux, merchant 254 Anales Toledanos 203-5, 207, 209

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Index

Anders Sunesen, archbishop of Lund 7, 156, 159, 160-61, 162 n. 21, 169 Andrew II, king of Hungary 193, 200 Annales ianuenses 249, 254 Anonymous (German) account of Fourth Lateran 4, 13 n. 1, 96 n. 10, 114 n. 14, 125, 222 n. 9, 223, 225-29 Anonymous, Provençal 6, 94-95, 96, 98, 101-2, 104-6, 108-9, 111-12, 113, 116-17, 119-20, 122, 125, 128, 131; see also Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise Antichrist 99, 121 Apocalypse 182 Aragon, kingdom of 6, 78, 84, 85-91, 94-95, 110, 113, 133-38, 140-42, 144, 148-50, 197-99, 207, 243-44, 247-48, 257-60, 263-64, 267, 269 Aribert, chaplain of the count of Toulouse 108 Arles, city of 259 Armenia 7, 35, 164, 170 Arnaud Amaury, abbot of Cîteaux and papal legate 78, 85-88, 90, 115 n. 18, 124, 191 n. 66, 196 Arnaud de Comminges 114, 123 Arnaud Topina, merchant 114 Arnaud de Villemur, lord of Saverdun 114, 120 Arnold Lawrence, coiner 258 Arnold of Lübeck, chronicler Chronica Slavorum 180 n. 31 Arnold, master 294 Arnold, priest of Münster 278 Ascension Day 40 Astorga, bishop of 202 Auch, archbishop of see Garsie, archbishop of Auch Audita tremendi, papal letter (1187/88) 29, 51-52 augustale 268 Aywières, Cistercian nunnery of 281 n. 15 Ayyubids 2, 80, 87, 241, 262, 302; see also Egypt Azagra, clan of 207

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Baldric of Dol, chronicler 169 Baltic Crusade 6, 7, 153-92 Baldwin of Flanders, Latin emperor of Constantinople 60, 64, 67-68, 295 Banu-Hud, 250 Barcelona bishop of 144, 149; see also Berenguer de Palou II, Bernat de Berga city of 147, 257-58 counts of 133 Baudoin de Barbençon, prior of Oignies 294 Beaucaire 96, 106 Beaulieu, abbot of 115 n. 18, 124; see also Hugh, abbot of Beaulieu Behemoth 182, 189-92 Benedict of St Susanna, papal legate 64, 65, 66, 71 Berengar, bishop of Maguelonne 259-60, 263-64 Berenguela, queen of Castile 199, 203 Berenguer de Palou II, bishop of Barcelona 144 Berenguer de Vilademuls, archbishop of Tarragona 6, 131-33, 134-35, 142, 148-50 Bermud Pedrez, crusader 204 Bernard IV de Comminges, 83, 84, 89, 103, 139-41 Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian abbot crusade and 25 Quantum praedecessores and 25 Sententiae 24 Bernard of Pavia, canon lawyer Brevarium extravagantium 43 Bernard of Turribus, minter 267 Bernat Andreu 138 Bernat de Berga, bishop of Barcelona 149 Bernat Desclot, chronicler Crònica 149 Bernat Mallol, Cistercian chronicler Compendium (c. 1430) 149 Berthold, Cistercian bishop of Livonia 157, 175 n. 11

Index

Bertrand, cardinal and papal legate 148 Bertrand de Cavaillon, merchant 254 bezant 249-51, 253-54, 256, 258, 262 Béziers, massacre at (1209) 113 Blachernae palace, church of 64, 70 Bologna city of 47 university of 162 n. 21 Bonaventure, Franciscan master 177 n. 20 Bonn, diocese of 275 n. 5 Bordeaux, archbishop of 202 n. 40 Boso Life of Alexander III 19 Bougie, port of 244, 252, 254-55 Boulbonne, Cistercian monastery of 98 Bouvines, battle of (1214) 282, 284 Bremen archbishop of 164; see also Hartwig II von Uthlede, Waldemar archdiocese of 276, 278 cathedral chapter of 157, 158, 161 city of 161 Brevarium extravagantium 43 Brindisi, port of 230 Brothers of the Knighthood of Christ in Livonia see Sword Brethren of Livonia Brull, castle of 135 Bucoleon palace, church of 64, 70 Bulgaria 7, 164, 170, 191 n. 66 Burchard of Mount Sion, Dominican 319-20 Burchard of Strasbourg De statu Egypti vel Babylonie 303 Burchard of Ursberg Chronicon 304 Burchard von Stumpenhausen, provost and elect of Bremen 161 Burdet, family of 133-34 Burgos, bishop of 202 Byzantium 163; see also Latin Empire of Constantinople

Cáceres, city of 203, 205, 212-13 Calatrava, knights of 212 Calixtus II, pope 47 Cambrai bishop of 290-91, 293, 295; see also Godfrey diocese of 290-91 Cambron, abbot of 294 canon law ecclesiastical elections and 60, 62, 72-73 trade with Muslims and 241-71 see also Bernard of Pavia, Brevarium extravagantium, Compilatio quarta, excommunication, Gratian, indulgences, interdict, Liber Extra, privileges, protection, Raymond de Penyafort Canso see Chanson de la croisade Albigeoise Carcassonne, city of 84, 113, 122 cardinals 3, 6, 29, 35, 64-66, 69, 73, 88, 113, 115 n. 17, 119-21, 141-42, 144-45, 147-48, 223-24, 228, 234, 243, 245, 261-62, 275-76, 278-79, 284-85, 292-94, 296, 309 Cardona, viscount of 135 Cassiodorus 316 Castelnaudary, siege of (1212) 140 Castile, kingdom of 195-97, 199-204, 207-8, 211, 247, 268 Catalans 244-45 Catalonia 134, 143, 148-50, 243, 249, 257 Caupo, Livonian convert 178 n. 23 Celebruno, archbishop of Toledo 207 Celestine III, pope 52, 131-32, 136, 202 Ceuta, port of 244, 249-50, 253-55 Chanson de la croisade Albigeoise 6, 93-112, 114, 116-128, 131 Charles of Anjou, count of Provence and king of Sicily 257, 265-66, 269 Children’s Crusade (1212) 35, 81-82, 84

323

Index

Christ crusade as imitation of 3, 13-14, 22-40, 234; see also cross, imitatio Christi, True Cross crusade as vengeance for 5 Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople 64, 70 Cistercians 25, 78, 85-88, 90, 98, 115 n. 18, 115-16, 124, 132, 137, 139-40, 143, 149, 156-58, 160, 173, 175 n. 11, 191 n. 66, 196, 204, 211 n. 89, 237, 275 n. 5, 280, 281 n. 15, 284 n. 22, 290, 318 clamor for the Holy Land 17, 21, 30, 37, 38 Clement III, pope 17, 52, 150, 246, 270 Clement IV, pope 262-64 Clement of St Stephen, canon of Hagia Sophia 65 Clermont, council of 47, 169 College of Cardinals see cardinals Cologne archbishop of 2, 79, 275, 277, 290, 295-96; see also Engelbert, Heinrich archdiocese of 275, 277-78, 280, 287, 294 cathedral chapter of 275 n. 5 citizens of 296-97 city of 234, 275 Compilatio quarta, canon law collection 243 Compostela, archbishop of 198, 202; see also Pedro Cornelis Claesz Van Wieringen, artist iv confession, penitential 2, 5, 36-39, 43-47, 50-55, 62, 132-33, 144 Conrad, bishop of Würzburg 146 Conrad of Porto see Konrad von Urach Constantinople Bucoleon palace, church of 64, 70 Byzantine emperor of 2, 79 city of 8, 40, 59-60, 63 church of Holy Apostles 64, 70 church of St Paolo 70-72 Greek patriarch of 79

324

Hagia Sophia, chapter of 59, 60-61, 64-70 Latin emperor of 60, 64, 67-68, 295 Latin patriarch of 2, 5, 59-74, 79, 243 podestà of Venice in 63, 68, 74 praepositi in 64, 67, 69, 70-71 Coradin, Ayyubid sultan 302 Córdoba, conquest of 200, 253 Cor nostrum, papal letter (1181) 50 Cor nostrum, papal letter (1184) 51 creed, Fourth Lateran and 5, 57 cross despoliation of 135 devotion to 13, 14, 16, 22, 23-40; see also Christ, imitatio Christi, True Cross curia, papal see Rome, curia at Curonia 177 Damietta, city of iv, 207, 208, 213, 243, 277, 292, 306 Danes 19, 156-57, 159-61, 162 n. 21, 165, 169, 172 n. 4, 178 n. 23, 179-81, 186, 192 Daniel, missionary 166-67 David, biblical king 201 denarius 255-57, 259-60, 265 Denmark, crown of 159-60; see also Valdemar II De statu Terrae Sanctae 300, 312 Deus qui admirabile, prayer 15, 33 Devil 39, 125-26 Dietrich, archbishop of Trier 284-89 dinar 250-52, 262, 267, 268 dirham 8, 245, 249, 251, 253-7, 259, 261-6, 268, 270-71 n. 126; see also millareses Domenico Marengo, patriarch of Grado 62 Dominicans 37, 42, 51, 55-56, 244, 248, 268, 300, 306 n. 34, 310-14, 318 Dorpat 178 Düna, region of 158, 162, 165-67, 170, 175 Dünamünde, Cistercian monastery of 158, 160, 173

Index

Easter 38, 175 Egino, count of Urach 275 Egypt 80, 163, 205, 207, 213, 241, 251, 255 n. 65, 261-62, 302; see also Alexandria, Damietta El Cid 207 Eleonor of Aragon 78, 114 elections, ecclesiastical 5, 59-74 Engelbert, archbishop of Cologne 275, 290, 295 Engelbert, provost of the cathedral chapter of Riga 160 England ecclesiastical reform in 224 Guillem Ramon de Montcauda in 138 peace in 3, 9, 144, 274, 284-87, 297 Enrico Dandalo, doge of Venice 60 Épinlieu, Cistercian nunnery of 281 n. 15 Epiphanius Historia Tripartita 316 Epistola de statu Aegypti et Terrae Sanctae 312; see also Relatio tripartita ad Innocentium III eschatology 82; see also prophecy Esclaramonda of Foix 98 Espareg de la Barca, archbishop of Tarragona 144-45, 147, 199, 207-11, 213 n. 104 Estonia bishop of 7, 153, 159-61 mission to 7, 153-92 region of 7, 153-92 Eucharist 36-39, 57, 135, 187 n. 54; see also Mass Eugenius III, pope 25, 29, 47, 56 Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical History 316 History of the Martyrs in Palestine 316 Evora, bishop of 197 Exaltation of the Cross, feast of 23 excommunication abbot of Werde and 289 Alfonso II of Aragon and 136 archdeacon of Lyons and 104 n. 33

Cistercians and 211 n. 89 crusade taxation and 237 crusaders and 9, 232, 277-81, 285-90, 293 Ferdinand III and 202 Gaston VI of Béarn and 140 Guillem Ramon de Montcauda and 6, 148 Heinrich I, duke of Brabant and 280, 295 Lateran Council IV (1215) 5, 127, 274, 295 Louis count of Loos and 286-89 Otto IV and 173 n. 5 Peter of Aragon’s exemption from 127 Templars and 211 n. 89 Thierry de Rupefort and 281 tithe-detainers and 68 Tommaso Morosini wields 64, 67 trade with Saracens and 246-49, 260-61 William of Holland and 284-89 Ezekiel 34, 35, 127 fasting 3, 15, 16, 18, 20, 30, 35, 145-46 Fellin, castle of 178 n. 23 Ferdinand III, king of Castile 199, 200, 202-3, 212 n. 99 Ferrand, count of Flanders 280, 282-83, 295 Ferrer, notary 133, 137 Fidenzio of Padua Liber recuperationis Terrae Sanctae 319 Fieschi family 255, 262; see also Sinibaldi Fieschi, Innocent IV Fifth Crusade 15-16 campaign in the Holy Land 193, 200 campaign in Egypt 277, 292, 306, 308 campaign in Portugal 197-98 cancellation of Albigensian crusade and Iberian crusade indulgences in favor of 85, 87-89, 195, 197, 198, 206 capture of Damietta 213, 306

325

Index

collection and allocation of twentieth for 205-6, 209-11, 234-37, 239, 288-91, 293-94 departure of crusaders 227, 230-31, 273-74, 276-79, 282, 284, 287-94, 296, 299 events preceding, 80-91 failure of 214, 303 indulgences and 232-34, 293 information gathering for 1-2, 9, 299-320 loss of Damietta 243 preaching of 32-33, 273-78, 300 preliminary planning of 1-2, 9, 32-33, 219-39, 241-42, 299-320 Prester John and 213 n. 104, 310 processions and 2, 15, 16-19, 21-23, 81, 193-95, 231, 281, 292 role of Haarlem in iv see also Ad liberandam, Frederick II, Giles de Loos, Jacques de Vitry, John of Brienne, Lateran Council IV (1215), Oliver of Cologne, Pelayo Gaytán, Quia maior, Raoul de Mérencourt, Savaric de Mauleón, Vineam Domini Finland 159 fish 163-64, 170, 189-90, 192, 291 First Council of Lyon see Lyon I, church council (1245) First Crusade 25, 43, 115, 304 First Lateran Council (1123) see Lateran Council I (1123) Flanders-Brabant 47, 60, 166 n. 37, 273-98 Florence, city of 268, 313 Foix castle of 106, 119 count of see Raymond Roger, Roger-Bernard county of 138-41 Foulque[s], bishop of Toulouse 90, 95-96, 98-100, 102-4, 111, 115, 120-21, 123-24

326

Fourth Crusade 31, 35, 40, 59-60, 62, 63, 69, 79, 163, 295, 302 Fourth Lateran Council (1215) see Lateran Council IV (1215) France 3, 276-78, 287, 290-91, 297-98, 307-9 Francis of Assisi, saint 37 Franciscans 37, 177 n. 20, 244, 247-48, 261-62, 268; see also mendicant orders Frankish Greece see Latin Empire of Constantinople Frederick I Barbarossa, Holy Roman emperor 303 Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor 3, 9, 106, 260, 268, 273-75, 277, 279, 281, 284, 287, 290-91, 293-94, 296, 314 Friedrich, bishop of Halberstadt 276 Frisians 166 n. 37, 197, 234, 275-78, 280, 287, 289, 294, 298 fundacho 244, 250 galleys see ships Garcias, bishop of Comminges 86 n. 41 Garcie, archbishop of Auch, 78, 115, 124, 148 Gascons 143, 202-5 Gascony, church in 143, 147 Gaston V, viscount of Béarn 139 n. 31 Gaston VI, viscount of Béarn 83, 84, 139-41 Gauthier of Lierre, scholasticus and provost of Saint-Pierre in Louvain 281, 282 n17, 291-92 Gautier (Walter), Cistercian abbot of Villers 290 Gelasius II, pope 48, 50, 52 Genoa 250, 255-56, 260-61, 268, 271 Genoese 244, 246-51, 253-57, 266-70 gentes 17 n17, 155 n4, 169-70, 186 George, count of Wied 287 Gerhard, bishop of Osnabrück 161 Germans delegates to Lateran Council IV (1215) and 223

Index

mission to Livonia 153-70, 172-75, 176, 178-92 Germany 158, 160, 164, 168, 172-74, 179 n. 25, 273-75, 277, 279-80, 287, 289, 293, 297-98 Gerold, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem 314 Gervase, abbot of Prémontré 232, 241 n. 2, 276, 278 Gervasio, archbishop of Heracleia, Latin patriarch of Constantinople 69-74 Gerzike, hillfort of 179 Gesta Innocentii Tertii 6, 61-62, 64, 156, 169, 187 Ghana 250, 268 Giles de Loos, Praemonstratensian abbot of Middelberg 292-94 Godfrey, bishop of Cambrai 290-91, 293, 295 gold, 143, 250-51, 253-55, 262, 264, 267-71 Good Friday 23, 38 Gottschalk, Danish emissary 180-81 Grado, patriarchate of 61-63, 68, 74 Gratian, canon lawyer 45 Graves orientalis terrae, papal letter (1199) 47 Greeks 163-64; see also Byzantium, Constantinople, Fourth Crusade Gregory I (the Great), pope 18 Moralia in Job 191 n. 65 Gregory VII, pope 62 Gregory VIII, pope 29, 30, 35, 51-52, 56 Gregory IX, pope 43, 73-4, 245, 247-49, 260, 270, 288, 313; see also Hugolino, Liber Extra Groningen, town of 276 grossi 256-57 Guala Bicchieri, cardinal-priest of S. Martino 274 n. 3 Guasch de la Tor, Gascon moneylender 143 Guiglielmo of Campa 256 Guilhem de Tudela 95 Guillaume (William), archdeacon of Paris 86 n. 41

Guillaume de Joinville, archbishop of Reims 291 Guillaume le Breton, chronicler Gesta Philippi Augusti 125 Guillaume Porcellet 114 Guillem Burdet 134 Guillem Clemens, chaplain 132-33, 137 Guillem de Berguedà, troubadour 135 Guillem de Cervera, provincial master of Templars 142 Guillem de Montcada 139, 148 Guillem de Tavartet, bishop of Vic 144 Guillem Ramon de Montcada, seneschal, 135, 149 Guillem Ramon de Montcada, viscount of Béarn 6, 131-50 Guillermo de Tudela 116-17 Guilleuma de Castellvell, 132, 134, 137-38, 143 Guy de Montfort 114 Guy de Montfort the younger, 147 Haarlem, city of iv Hadrian IV, pope 63 Hafsids 254, 268 n. 120, 270 n. 126 Hagia Sophia, canons of 59-60, 61, 64-65, 66-70 Halberstadt bishop of 276 diocese of 275 n. 5, 276 Hamburg, city of 161 Hartwig II von Uthlede, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen 157, 161, 191-92 Hattin, battle of (1187) 14, 28, 29, 30, 31, 40 Haymarus Florentinus see Haymarus Monachus Haymarus Monachus, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem 302, 311 Heinrich, archbishop of Cologne 296 Heinrich, Cistercian abbot of Heisterbach 275 n. 5, 280 Heinrich I, duke of Brabant 275, 280, 281-82, 283-84, 290-96

327

Index

Heinrich von Schwerin 275 Heisterbach, Cistercian abbot of 275 n. 5; see also Heinrich Hélinand of Froidmont, Cistercian chronicler Chronicon 318 Henri de Marcy, cardinal-bishop of Albano 29, 35 Henry I, duke of Brabant see Heinrich I, duke of Brabant Henry of Livonia, chronicler 7, 153-55, 162, 165-70, 172-92 Henry I, king of Castile, 199, 200 Henry II, king of England 6, 146 Henry III, king of England 204 Henry VI, Holy Roman emperor 161 Henry VII, Holy Roman emperor 294 heresy 5-6, 39, 77-91, 135, 140-41, 196, 314, 320; see also Albigensian crusade, negotium pacis et fidei, schismatics Hermann, dean of Bonn 278 Himmerode, Cistercian monastery of 275 n. 5 Hispan, bishop of Segorbe-Albarracín 142-43 Historia brevis Terrae Sanctae 304 Historia Damiatina see Oliver of Cologne Historia Occidentalis see Jacques de Vitry Historia Orientalis see Jacques de Vitry Holland, county of 198; see also William, count of Holland Holy Land information on 299-304, 306, 308, 311 penitential pilgrimage to 145-46 recovery of 1-4, 6-9, 14, 15, 22, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 50, 52, 53, 90, 145-46, 154-56, 169, 170, 184, 186, 192, 197-98, 205, 215, 220, 222, 224-26, 229-31, 235-38, 242-43, 247-48, 260-61, 264, 269-70, 299-300, 319 Honorius III, pope Baltic and 192 collection and payment of twentieth for crusade 205-6,

328

209-11, 236-37, 276, 281-82, 288-91, 293-94 crusade preachers and 232, 275-76, 281-98 deposition of Gervasio, Latin patriarch of Constantinople 73-74 Fifth Crusade and 273-98 Gervase of Prémontré and 232, 276, 278 Guillem Ramon de Montcada and 148 Iberian crusade and 193-94, 198-206, 208-15 Jacques de Vitry and 299, 310 judges delegate and 275-78, 279-98 papal letters of 73-74, 146 n. 72, 148, 193-94, 198, 200-1, 203, 205-6, 208-15 Peter Corbeil and 146 n. 72 trade with Muslims and 243 Honorius IV, pope 314 Hospitallers 17, 20, 143, 147, 206, 211 n. 89, 236, 293, 303, 311; see also military orders Hug de Cervelló, archbishop of Tarragona 133-34, 136, 150 Hug d’Empúries 148 Hug d’Empúries de Montcada 148 Hugh, abbot of Beaulieu 115 n. 18, 124 Hugh of Fleury, Benedictine chronicler 318-19 Hugh of Saint-Victor 190, 317 Hugolino, cardinal-bishop of Ostia 6, 144-45, 275, 315; see also Gregory IX Huguccio, papal tax collector 209-11 Hugues de Pierrepont, bishop of Liège 277, 280-83, 284, 288, 290, 291 n. 38, 295 Iberian peninsula 5-7, 42, 131-51, 193-218 Ibn Abī Zar’, Muslim chronicler 198 Ibn Hud, taifa emir of Andalusia 249 Idris al-Ma’mun, Almohad caliph 250 n. 42, 251 n. 51 Idumeans 166-70

Index

imitatio Christi 22, 24-27, 30, 36 indulgences absolution and 44, 45, 47, 49-52, 54-56 Ad liberandam (c. 71) and 44, 47, 53-55, 57, 293 Albigensian crusade and 79, 85, 87-89 Alexander III and 43, 48, 49-53, 56-57 canon law and 43 Celestine III and 52 Clement III and 52 confession and 44-5, 50-52, 54-55 contrition and 45-46, 51, 56 criticism of 41, 45 crusade and 2, 3, 41-4, 46, 47-57 Cum exo eo (c. 62) and 53 early development of 42-44 episcopal 42, 43-44, 46, 53 Eugenius III and 47, 56 Fifth Crusade and 229, 282, 293 Gelasius II and 48, 50, 52 Gregory VIII and 51-52, 56 Iberian crusade and 195, 198, 205-6, 212-13 Innocent III and 47-8, 52-53, 55-57, 229 Lateran Council IV (1215) and, 2, 3, 41, 43-44, 46-48, 52-53, 55-57, 293 Lucius III and 51 Paschal II and 47, 56 Peter Abelard and 45 Peter the Chanter and 45 Peter of Poitiers and 46 purgatory and 45, 47-48 remission of penance and 41, 42, 44-57, 145 remission of sin and 41, 42, 44-57, 162, 186, 232-35 Roman Jubilees 43-44 sacraments and 44-57 theologians and 41, 44-46, 51, 55-56 Thomas Aquinas and 42, 51, 55-56 Urban II and 43, 47

William of Auxerre and 44-45 works of satisfaction and 42, 45, 46, 49 Innocent III, pope Ad liberandam and 219-39, 241-48, 260, 270, 278, 315 Baltic mission and 153-56, 162-64, 168-70, 172, 184-92 crown of Aragon and, 142-44 crusade preachers and 275, 276 n. 5, 278 De miseria condicione humane 312 election to bishopric of Bremen and 161 election to patriarchate of Constantinople and 5, 59-73 expansion of the crusade and 13-40 Fifth Crusade and 219-39, 275-79, 283-86, 291, 311-13, 315, 320 Fourth Crusade and 31, 35, 40, 59-60, 62, 63, 69, 79, 163, 295, 302 Guillem Ramon de Montcada and 144-45, 147 heresy and 1, 5-6, 39, 77-91, 96, 98, 100-2, 106, 110, 112-6, 118-20, 125-29, 140-41 Iberian crusades and 195-96, 198 indulgences and 47-48, 52, 55, 56, 229 Las Navas de Tolosa and 16, 20, 22, 23, 30, 38, 81-82, 84, 91, 195, 213, 215 Lateran Council IV (1215) and 1-9, 13-15, 33-40, 43-44, 53-56, 59-74, 77-91, 96-130, 144-45, 154, 184-86, 192, 219-39, 283, 299-300, 311, 320 liturgy and 15-20, 36, 39-40 judges delegate and 275-79 Paris and, 27-28, 36, 39, 162 n. 21, 282-83 peace in Flanders-Brabant and 283-86 Peter II, king of Aragon and 6, 78, 84, 85-91, 95, 140-42 preaching and 4-5, 17, 23, 27, 39-40, 187-92, 224, 226, 228-29, 241-42

329

Index

processions and 15-23 reform and 13-40, 231 Quia maior and 2-3, 6, 15-16, 20-21, 23, 37, 47, 81, 86-87, 213, 219-20, 242 Raymond Roger, count of Foix and 6, 83-84, 97-101, 103, 106, 109, 111-12, 114, 117-21, 127, 141 Raymond VI of Toulouse and 5-6, 83-84, 94 n. 4, 96-97, 102-9, 112-15, 118-19, 123, 125-28, 224 Raymond VII of Toulouse and 95-97, 102-12, 114-15, 118-19, 123, 125, 127-29 Relatio ad Innocentium III 301-2, 309, 311 Innocent IV, pope 260-62, 270, 310 In quantis pressuris, papal letter (1166) 48 interest, on loans to crusaders 237; see also usury interdict 136, 137, 140, 202, 211 n. 89, 232, 274, 280-81, 284-85, 292, 295; see also excommunication Inter omnia, papal letter (1169) 48-9 Invention of the Cross, feast of 23 Isidore of Seville 316 Islam 82, 299-300, 302, 311, 313-14 Israelites 169-70, 189 Italy 274-75 Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre Ad liberandam and 315 cardinalate of 309, 315 Cistercian nunneries and 281 n. 15 crusade preaching and 36, 278, 280, 281, 290, 291 n. 38, 294, 313-15 Gregory IX and 314-15 Historia Hierosolimitana abbreviata 300, 306-7, 315-18 Historia Occidentalis 9, 301, 305-9, 315 Historia Orientalis 9, 299-301, 303-5, 307-10, 312-15, 317-20 Honorius III and 9, 299-300 Innocent III and 299, 301-2 Lateran Council IV (1215) and 306, 308

330

letters of 303, 307-9 Liber tertius and 9, 300-9, 312-15, 317 library of 306-7, 309 Oignies and 294, 307 n. 34 Paris and 299, 305-7 Relatio David and 307 Jacob of Maerlant Spieghel historiael 312 Jacques Guitelme, merchant 254 James I, king of Aragon 91, 141-42, 148, 243-44, 248, 257-60, 263-64, 267, 269 Jean, archdeacon of Châlons 278 Jean de Louvain 294 Jean de Nevilles, canon of St Jean (Liège) 278, 281-82, 291, 291 n. 38 Jean de Xanten, crusade preacher 276-77, 278 Jean X Kamateros see John X Kamateros Jeanne, countess of Flanders 281 n. 15, 294-96 Jebusites 201 Jerusalem city of 4, 22, 23, 25, 28, 29, 33-35, 40, 59, 78, 82, 87, 154, 169, 201, 214-15, 246, 303 Latin Kingdom of 80, 87, 193, 199, 261-62, 320 Latin patriarch of 40, 236, 289, 302, 309-14; see also Gerold, Haymarus Monachus, Raoul de Mérencourt Joan, provost of Tarragona 133 Job 182, 189-92 Johanitsa, Bulgarian tsar 7, 164, 191 n. 66 Johannes Teutonicus, canon lawyer Compilatio quarta 243 John X Kamateros, Greek patriarch of Constantinople 79 John, king of England 3, 9, 87, 115 n. 18, 284, 287 John of Abbeville, cardinal and papal legate 243, 245 John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem 80, 241 n. 2

Index

John the Baptist 177 n. 20 Jordan, river 182, 191 n. 66 Joshua 22 judges delegate 9, 275-90, 295-98 Kalojan see Johanitsa Kamil, al-, Ayyubid sultan of Egypt 2, 302 Konrad, provost of Holy Apostles in Cologne 296 Konrad von Marburg, preacher 276 Konrad von Reifenberg, scholasticus of Mainz and bishop of Hildesheim 275, 279 Konrad von Urach, cardinal-bishop of Porto 275-76, 279, 284 n. 22 Knud V, king of Denmark 161 n. 18 La Forbie, battle of 260 Lateran, basilica of St John, 13-14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 24, 33, 193 Lateran Council I (1123) 2, 47, 56 Lateran Council II (1139) 2 Lateran Council III (1179) 2, 34 against heresy (c. 27), 50, 56, 80 on trade with Muslims (Ita quorundam) 8, 242-43, 246-48, 270 Lateran Council IV (1215) Ad liberandam and 7-9, 53-5, 219-39, 241-8, 260, 270, 278, 282, 293, 295 Albigensian crusade and 77-91, 93-112, 113-29, 131 Baltic mission and 153-56, 162-64, 168-70, 171-92 canon 3 of 127 canons 23 and 24 of 5, 59-74 canon 42 of 295 canon 47 of 295 canon 49 of 295 canon 71 of see Ad liberandam cardinals and 1, 7, 223-24, 278 Chanson de la croisade Albigeoise and 6, 93-129, 131 clerical concubinage and 283

clerical income tax and 3, 7, 274; see also twentieth clerical reform and 14, 231 confession and 5, 36 creed and 3, 5 crown of Aragon and 142-44 crusader rights and 273-98 eastern crusade and 1-8, 59, 77-91, 129, 219-39, 273-78, 282-83, 299 ecclesiastical elections and 5, 59-74 Excommunicamus (c. 3) and 127 excommunication and 5, 127, 274, 295 heresy and 1, 5-6, 39, 77-91, 96, 98, 100-2, 106, 110, 112-16, 118-20, 125-29, 283 Iberian crusade and 195, 199 implementation of 243, 273 indulgences and (cs. 60, 62, 71) 2, 3, 41, 43-44, 46, 47-48, 52-57, 195, 229-31, 293 information gathering and 1-2, 9, 80-81, 223, 273, 299-300, 311, 320 Innocent III and 1-9, 13, 33-40, 53-56, 59-74, 77, 96-130, 144-45, 154, 184-86, 192, 219-39, 283, 299-300, 311, 320 inquests and 5, 282 limitation of distance summoned for legal case (c. 37) 285-86, 296 Omnis utriusque (c. 21) and 36 patriarchs and (c. 5) 61 peace and 1, 5, 8, 84, 109, 129, 201, 237, 273-74, 283 Quia maior and 2-3, 6, 15-16, 20-21, 23, 33, 37, 47, 81, 86, 87, 219-20, 299 Raymond Roger, count of Foix and 6, 83-84, 97-101, 103, 106, 109, 111-12, 114, 117-21, 127 Raymond VI of Toulouse and 5-6, 59, 78, 80, 83-84, 94 n4, 9697, 102-9, 112-15, 118-19, 123, 125-28 Raymond VII of Toulouse and 6, 95-97, 102-12, 114-15, 118-19, 123, 125, 127-29, 224

331

Index

reform and 1, 4, 7, 13-40, 231, 282-83, 306, 308 relic of true cross and 8, 13-14, 39 ritual and 13-14, 33, 39-40 sacraments and 13-14, 32, 36-39 sermons at, 33-40, 224, 226-9, 241-42 simony and 283 theologians and 3, 283 Toledan primacy and 210 trade with Muslims and 7, 8, 237, 241-71 Vineam Domini and 1-2, 32-33, 86, 129 visitation and 282 Latin Empire of Constantinople 7, 59-75, 163-64, 260; see also Byzantium Latvia 166 Lavaur, council of (1213) 85, 87, 89, 140 legates, papal 3, 64-67, 69, 71, 73, 113, 115, 119, 136, 139-40, 142, 144, 148, 164-65, 191 n. 66, 196, 201, 206, 211-13, 223, 231, 243, 261, 276, 285, 290-93, 296-97, León, kingdom of 81, 85 n. 33, 200, 202-5, 211-12 Leopold VI, duke of Austria 193, 200 Le Puy, bishop of 262 Lérida city of 257-8, 267 council of 243 Letts 165-68, 170, 173 n. 6, 175 Liber Extra (1234), 43, 245, 247-48, 288; see also Gregory IX, Raymond de Penyafort Liber tertius see Jacques de Vitry Libre dels reis 149 Liège bishop of 277, 295; see also Hugues de Pierrepont cathedral of Saint Lambert 280-83 cathedral chapter of 295 city of 280-81 diocese of 279, 280-88, 291, 291 n. 38 Lisbon, bishop of 197

332

litanies 16, 18, 19, 21-23, 40; see also liturgy, prayer, processions liturgy 3, 13, 14-23, 36, 39-40, 81, 273, 277 Livonia bishops of 153-92; see also Albert, Meinhart, Berthold mission to 7, 153-92 region of 153-92 Livonian Brothers of the Sword see Sword Brethren of Livonia Livs 162, 164-70 Llibre de les nobleses dels reis 149 Loccum, Cistercian monastery of 157 Lodewijk van Velthem, Brabantine writer 312-13 Lope Fernández de Ain, Franciscan bishop of Morocco 261 Lothar de Segni, 78, 80, 123 n. 55, 126, 128-29; see also Innocent III Louis II, count of Loos 275, 277, 280, 282-90 Louis IV, landgrave of Thuringia see Ludwig IV, landgrave of Thuringia Louis VIII, king of France 86, 207, 285, 286 n. 25, 287 Louis IX, king of France 261-64, 266, 268-69 Lübeck, city of 158, 172, 173, 180-81 n. 33, 297 Lucas of Túy, chronicler Chronicon Mundi 203-5, 212 Lucca, city of 256 Lucius III, pope 51 Ludovico, plebanus of St Paolo in Constantinople 70-72 Ludwig II, count of Loos see Louis II, count of Loos Ludwig IV, landgrave of Thuringia 277 Lund, archbishop of 7, 156, 169 Lyon, archdeacon of 104, 115 n. 18, 124; see also Renaud Lyon I, church council (1245) 9, 260-61, 270 Lyon II, church council (1274) 9

Index

Maccabees 170 Maghreb 244, 247, 253-55, 260, 268, 270 Maguelonne, bishop of 259-60, 263-64; see also Berengar mahona 250, 254 Mainz, archdiocese of 278 Majorca 134, 148, 249, 267 Marchiennes, Benedictine monastery of 318-19 Marie, viscountess of Béarn 139 Marino Sanudo Liber secretorum 320 Marrakesh 249 Marseille, port of 254-55, 257, 259, 264-66, 289 martyrs 23, 27, 35, 132-34, 142, 146, 148-50, 316 Mary Magdalene 27 Mary, Virgin 7, 27, 28, 193 Livonia and 154-55, 169, 172, 177-90 Mass 3-4, 15, 17-18, 21, 30, 33, 36-37, 39, 42; see also liturgy, prayer, Eucharist Master of Espinelves, painter 150 Matteo of Jesolo, Latin patriarch of Constantinople 74 Matthew of Paris, Benedictine monk of Saint Albans 313-14 Chronica maiora 313-14 Maundy Thursday 36, 38 Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris 26 Maximus, papal notary 71-73 Mecklenberg bishop of 297 city of 159 Meinhard, bishop of Livonia 157, 162, 175 n. 11, 180 n. 31 Melgueil, town of 259-60, 263 mendicant orders 37, 248, 270; see also Dominicans, Franciscans mercenaries 128, 140, 244, 249, 250 n. 45 Messina 230 Misericors et miserator, papal letter (1195) 52

military orders 4, 158, 197, 203, 213; see also Calatrava, knights of, Hospitallers, Santiago, order of, Sword Brethren of Livonia, Templars, Teutonic Order millareses 245, 250-1, 253-60, 262-70 mints 245, 252, 255-59, 262-69 Miravete, castle of 204 Mongols 260, 310 Montferrand, castle of 259-60, 263 Montgey (1212), massacre at 98 n. 19 Montpellier city of 257, 259-60, 263-66 council (1162) 246 council (1195) 246 n. 26 council (1215) 113 Montségur, castle of 98 Moors 208-9, 211-13 morabetino 268 Morocco bishop of 261; see also Lope Fernández de Ain city of 254, 261 Mountauban 85 Mount Thabor 80 Muʹazzam, al-, ‘Isa Sharaf ad-Din see Coradin Muhammad, prophet 252, 253, 261, 263-64, 313-14 Münster, diocese of 276, 279 Muret, battle of (1213) 89, 91, 94-95, 110, 113, 123 n. 55, 141 Mustansir, al-, emir of Tunisia 266, 268-69 Narbonne, archbishop of, 191 n. 66, 262; see also Arnaud Amaury Narva 178 Navarra 139, 143 Navas de Tolosa (Las), battle of (1212) 2, 5, 7, 16, 20, 22, 23, 30, 38, 81-82, 84, 91, 194-96, 198, 200, 201, 205, 206, 213-15, 244, 251 negotium pacis et fidei 5, 80, 85, 87, 90, 113, 117, 274; see also Albigensian crusade

333

Index

Nicholas, cardinal-bishop of Tusculum 6, 144-45, 147 Nicholas of Cologne 35 Nile, river iv Nisi nobis, papal letter (1200) 47 Nuno Sanç of Roussillon 142, 147-48 Oberto of Cafaro, merchant 250, 253-54 Odo (Eudes) of Châteauroux, cardinal-bishop of Tusculum and papal legate 261-62 Odo of Cheriton, English cleric 38-39 Oignies, priory of St Nicholas at 307 n. 34, 318 Olerón, island of 263 Oliver of Cologne, cardinal-bishop of Sabina 234 as crusade preacher 234, 276, 278-83, 289, 294, 300 Historia Damiatina 40 n. 124, 287 n. 27, 289 n. 34, 301 n. 8, 303, 306-9, 317 Historia regum Terrae Sanctae 300, 317 letters 308 n. 41, 309 as papal informant 234, 300 Oliver of Paderborn see Oliver of Cologne Oloron, bishop of 140, 142 Omnipotens sempiterne Deus in cuius manu, prayer 17 n. 17 Omnis utriusque (c. 21) 36; see also confession Ordelafo Falier, doge of Venice 63 Orlando Paglia 255-56 Ösel, island of 160, 162, 165, 176 Osnabrück, bishop of see Gerhard Otto of Freising 317 Otto IV of Brunswick, Holy Roman emperor 87, 173 n. 5, 277, 282-84, 290 Pact of March (1204) 59-60, 66 Palencia, bishop of 202 Pamiers

334

town of 98 statutes of (1212) 83 n. 25 Panados, bishop of 65 Paris bishop of 21-22, 26, 278 confession and 36, 38 indulgences and 44-47 sermons from 21-22, 25-26 statutes of Odo of Sully, 21-22 university of 7, 162 n. 21, 261, 299, 306, 311, 317 Paschal II, pope 19, 47, 56 Paul, saint 27, 193 peace Ad liberandam and 3, 8, 237, 273-74 in England 3, 9, 274, 286-87, 297 in Flanders-Brabant 273-4, 276-77, 280-87, 289-97 in France 276-78, 297 in Frisia 275-77, 278-80, 287, 289, 294 in Germany 273-77, 278-80, 287, 289, 294, 296-97 in the Iberian peninsula 199-200, 201, 211-12 in Italy 274-75 in the Midi 84, 109, 274; see also negotium pacis et fidei Peace of God 28 pedagia (tolls) 278-79 Pedro Ahones, ambassador 142 Pedro Andrea, minter 257-58 Pedro, archbishop of Compostela 198 Pedro Vidal, mint master 259, 264, 267 Pelayo Gaytán, cardinal-bishop of Albano 6, 73 as legate for Fifth Crusade 145, 285, 292-93 as papal auditor 285 reconciliation of Guillem Ramon de Montcauda by 6, 144-45 penance 2, 14, 16, 18-20, 26, 29-30, 33-34, 36-37, 39-40, 133, 144-47, 149 public 144-47, 280 see also confession, indulgences Pere Grony, citizen of Barcelona 147

Index

Peter Abelard, Paris theologian 45 Peter, apostle 163-64, 193 Peter Capuano, cardinal and papal legate 64-66, 69 Peter Comestor Historia Scholastica 317 Peter Corbeil, archbishop of Sens 146 n. 72 Peter Lombard, Paris theologian 45 Sentences 317 Peter of Benevento, cardinal of S. Sabina and papal legate 88, 113, 115 n. 17, 119-121, 141-42 Peter of Poitiers, Paris theologian 46 Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay, Cistercian chronicler Historia albigensis 86, 115, 116, 139-40 Peter the Chanter, Paris theologian indulgences and 45 Innocent III and 27, 299 Summa de sacramentis 45 Verbum Adbreviatum 26 Peter, saint 27 Peter II, king of Aragon 6, 78, 84, 85-91, 94, 110, 113, 137, 138, 140-42, 197 Petronille of Bigorre 139, 141-42, 147 Philistines 170 Philip Augustus, king of France 4, 78-79, 85, 86, 125 n. 71, 127, 278, 282, 284, 290, 295 Philip, bishop of Ratzeburg 172, 173, 177, 185 n. 45, 188 Philip, dean of Hagia Sophia 70 Philip the Chancellor, Paris master 22 Philippe de Namur, count and bailli for count of Flanders 276, 279, 283 Pierre, abbot of Marchiennes 318 Pierre de Bénévent see Peter of Benevento Pierre de Castelnau 5-6, 80, 113, 115, 139-40 Pierre de Dinant, canon of Saint Lambert (Liège) 281, 282, 283, 291 Pierre Marc, papal corrector 86 n. 41 Pierre-Raymond, co-lord of Rabastens 114

Pierre Vaux-de-Cernay see Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay Pietro Badoer, patriarch of Grado 63 n. 13 pilgrims 120, 173, 180 n. 33, 186, 227, 229, 230, 302, 320 pirates 160, 176, 237 Pisa, city of 256 Pisans 244, 247-49, 264 Pium et sanctum, papal letter (1213) 279, 298 Plorans ploravit, papal letter (1198) 47 Poblet, Cistercian monastery of 211 n. 89 podestà of Venice, in Constantinople 63, 68, 74 Pomerania 159 Poncio de Aleste 143 Portugal, kingdom of 197, 205, 212 Post miserabile, papal letter (1198) 31, 33, 47 postulation 72, 72 ns. 50-51, 73 praepositi, in Constantinople 64, 67, 69, 70-71 prayer 3, 14-18, 20, 30, 33, 37-38, 40, 45, 177, 179, 193-95, 231, 273, 280, 315; see also liturgy, Mass, processions preaching arengae of papal letters and 31-34, 201 Baltic mission and 162, 164, 166, 173, 186, 188, 192 crusade and 9, 21-23, 25, 28-9, 36, 38-40, 190-91, 241-42, 261, 273, 275-83, 290, 292, 294, 297-98, 300, 315-16, 320 crusade of Frederick II and 9, 273, 275-83, 290, 292, 294, 297-98, 300, 315-16, 320 eastern mission and 313-16, 320 episcopal 26, 173 Fifth Crusade and 9, 273, 275-83, 290-98 Honorius III and 201, 275 Iberian crusade and 201, 248

335

Index

Innocent III and 4-5, 17, 23-24, 27, 31-34, 40, 187-92, 224, 226-27, 229, 275 Lateran Council IV (1215) and 4-5, 17, 224, 226-27, 229, 241-42 monastic 24-25 Paris and 21-23, 26-27, 28-30, 36, 38-40 processions and 17, 23-24 Praemonstratensians 172, 237; see also Gervase of Prémontré, Giles de Loos Prester John, legendary king 213 n. 104, 310 privileges, for crusaders 7-9, 15, 205-6, 231-33, 237-38, 273-74, 278-79 see also Ad liberandam, indulgences, peace, protection for crusaders, Quia maior processions 2, 15, 16-19, 21-23, 81, 193-95, 231, 281, 292; see also liturgy, Mass, prayer as public penance 145-47, 280 prophecy 106 protection for crusaders 273-98 Ad liberandam and 237, 273-74, 278-80, 285, 287, 288 Cologne crusaders and 275, 277-78, 280, 287, 296-97 England and 3, 9, 274, 286-87, 297 Flanders-Brabant and 273-74, 276-77, 280-87, 289-97 France and 276-78, 297 Frederick II and 273, 275 Frisia 275-77, 278-80, 287, 289, 294 Germany 273-77, 278-80, 287, 289, 294, 296-97 Gervase of Prémontré and 277-78 Honorius III and 275-98 Innocent III and 275, 278-79 iurisperiti and 285, 297-98 judges delegate and 9, 275-78, 281-98 Lübeck crusaders and 297 ordinatores and 278, 291, 298 Philip Augustus and 278 Quia maior and 279, 298

336

Robert de Courçon and 278, 290 Sancho VII of Navarre and 206, 211 see also excommunication, interdict, peace, privileges Provence 78, 105-6, 119, 257, 265-66 Prussia 159 Psalm 78 15, 169; see also liturgy, prayer Pseudo-Melito Clavis 189 n. 62 Quantum praedecessores, papal letter (1146/47) 24 Quatro Coronati, Roman church of 17 Quia maior, papal letter (1213) 2-3, 6, 8, 15-16, 20-21, 23, 30, 33, 37, 47, 81, 86-87, 195, 213, 219-20, 223-24, 228-29, 232, 237-38, 242, 279, 298 quirats 257-58 Quod olim, papal letter 246-48, 260, 270 R., monk of Marchiennes 318-19 Rachel suum videns 245 Ranieri Dandalo, vice-doge of Venice 61 Raimond de Roquefeuil see Raymond de Roquefeuil Ramiro II, king of Aragon 149 Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona 134, 149 Ramon de Montcada 148 Ramon de Vilademuls 133 Raoul Ardens (Ralph Ardent), Paris master 26 Raoul de Mérencourt, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem 40, 289, 302, 309-10 Ratzeburg, bishop of 297; see also Philip Raymond Baharin, merchant 254 Raymond de Penyafort, Dominican friar Decretals 43, 245-48; see also Liber Extra Raymond de Roquefeuil 101, 114, 122 Raymond de Saint-Gilles 115

Index

Raymond Roger, count of Foix, 6, 83-84, 97-101, 103, 106, 109, 111-12, 114, 117-21, 127, 140-41 Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne 113, 122-23 Raymond VI, count of Toulouse 5, 78, 80, 83, 84, 94 n. 4, 96-97, 102-9, 112, 113, 114-15, 118-19, 123, 125-28, 139-41, 146, 224 Raymond VII, count of Toulouse 95-97, 102-12, 114-15, 118-19, 123, 125, 127-29, 139 Reconquista 6, 7, 81-85, 87, 193-215, 243-44; see also Iberian peninsula, Navas de Tolosa, Las recruitment see preaching recuperatio 2 reformatio 2 reform administrative 148 and the crusade 2-4, 7, 13-40, 129, 214, 231, 283, 297, 308, 315 in Constantinople 63, 71 of the church 1-4, 7, 13-40, 129, 224, 243, 283, 308, 315 of religious life 289 n. 3, 291 n. 38 Reinero Capocci, cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin 285 Relatio tripartita ad Innocentium III 300, 302-3, 306-13, 315, 318-20 relics, 23, 40, 280; see also True Cross remission of penance 41, 42, 44-57, 145; see also indulgences remission of sin see indulgences Renaud, archdeacon of Lyon 104, 115 n. 18, 124 Renier of Liège, chronicler 279 Requena, fortress of 207-9, 212 Reval 177 Riccardo of San Germano see Richard of San Germano Riccoldo of Monte Croce, Dominican 320 Richard of San Germano, chronicler 96 n. 10, 223, 225-26, 311

Riga bishop of 7, 153-62, 165-66, 169, 173-76, 178-80, 182, 184-86; see also Albert, Meinhard, Berthold city of 155, 159, 160, 165-66, 169, 172, 173, 175, 176 n. 15, 178-80, 182-84, 186, 192 see of 153-58, 160-62, 165-66, 169, 172, 173-75, 178-80, 182-84, 186, 192 Ripoll, monastery of 150 Robert de Courçon, cardinal-priest of S. Stefano in Celiomonte legate in France 3, 69, 115 n. 17, 223, 278 Robert of Auxerre Chronicon 317 Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada archbishop of Toledo, 5, 7, 193, 197, 198-213 De Rebus Hispania, 196, 200 Roger-Bernard, count of Foix 95, 98 Roger of Wendover, English chronicler 8 Flores historiarum, 222-23, 225-31, 233-37, 241-42 Romana fraternitas, 17, 20 Roman law, 245, 270 Romanus, cardinal-deacon of S. Angelo 296 Rome appeals to 60-61, 64-66, 71, 174, 206, 247-48, 281, 285-90, 291-96 city of 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22-23, 60, 81, 108, 114, 120 n. 45, 136-37, 142-43, 149, 153, 173-74, 178 n. 23, 185, 192, 199, 201, 202 n. 40, 227 papal curia in 6, 7, 9, 60-61, 64-65, 66, 71, 73-74, 80, 81, 84, 86-91, 96, 98-100, 117, 120, 136, 156, 173-74, 190, 196, 199, 204, 206-8, 213-14, 228, 247-49 Quatro Coronati, church of 17 Sancta Sanctorum 17

337

Index

St John Lateran, basilica of 13-14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 24, 33, 193 San Bartolomeo, church of 16 Santa Anastasia, Roman church of 16 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Roman church of 17, 22 Santa Maria Maggiore, basilica of 16, 193 Santi Apostoli, Roman church of 17 Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Roman church of 17 Roy Bermudez, crusader 204 Russia 178 n. 23, 181 Saccalia 161, 173, 176 Safadin see Al-Adil Saint Albans, Benedictine monastery 228 Saint-Ayoul, town of 146 n. 72 Saint Gereon in Cologne, precentor of 296 Saint Hilari de Lleida, Cistercian monastery of 211 n. 89 Saint Hubert, abbot of (Utrecht) 285-88 Saint Jean, dean of (Liège) 285-88 Saint Jean, dean of (Utrecht) 285, 287 Saint Lambert of Liège 280 Saint Laurence in Ostbroch, abbot of 285-86 Saint Martin, dean of (Liège) 285-88 Saint-Thibéry, abbot of 119 Saint-Victor (Paris), canonry of 317 Saladin, sultan of Egypt 40, 52 Samland 159 San Bartolomeo, Roman church of 16 Sancha, queen of Castile 136 Sancho, count of Roussillon 142-43, 147-48 Sancho Fernández, brother of Alfonso IX of León 211 Sancho II, king of Portugal 212 n. 102 Sancho VII, king of Navarre 206, 207 Sancta Sanctorum 17 Santa Anastasia, Roman church of 16 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Roman church of 17, 22

338

Santa Maria Maggiore, basilica of 16, 193 Santa Maria de Terrassa, church of 150 Santes Creus, Cistercian monastery of 137, 143, 149 Santiago, order of 211 n. 89 Santi Apostoli, Roman church of 17 Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Roman church of 17 Sant Pere de les Puelles (Barcelona) 143 Saphadin see Al-Adil Saracens 7, 29, 40, 136, 146, 196, 198, 203, 206, 208, 241 n. 2, 242, 245-48, 250, 254, 301, 302, 311, 313 Savaric de Mauléon, Gascon warrior 203-6 Savignone, territory of 255-56, 262 schismatics iv, 2, 6, 164, 170, 196 Schleswig, bishop of; see Waldemar Schwerin, bishop of 297 Second Council of Lyon (1274) see Lyon II, church council (1274) Second Crusade 24-25, 29, 47, 199; see also Bernard of Clairvaux, Eugenius III, Quantum praedecessores Second Lateran Council (1139) see Lateran Council II (1123) Segeberg, Augustinian canonry of 157 Segóbriga, diocese of 207 Senlis, bishop of 278 Sens, archbishop of 146 n. 72; see also Peter Corbeil Sepulcher, of Christ 29, 38, 39 sermons see preaching Seville, archdiocese of 201-2 ships iv, 8, 163, 170, 176-77, 181, 227, 233-35, 242, 243, 246, 248-50, 254, 271, 287, 311 Sicard, bishop of Cremona 69 Sichem, Cistercian monastery of 275 n. 5 Sicily, kingdom of 7, 156, 230, 265-66 siege machines 8, 176 n. 15, 179, 208, 208 n. 75, 294 Sigena, Hospitaller house at 211 n. 89

Index

Simon, archbishop of Tyre, Latin patriarch of Constantinople 74 Simon de Montfort 5-6, 59, 77, 83, 84, 85 n. 34, 87-90, 95, 97, 101 n. 26, 102-6, 109, 113-16, 119, 123, 124-25, 128-29, 140-42, 147-48, 205 Simon of Cyrene 26, 27, 29 Sinibaldo Fieschi see Innocent IV Sint-Salvator, provost of 285 Soissons, dean of 296 solidos 257-59 Solomon, master 294 Spain 5, 7, 42, 131-51, 193-218 Speyer, dean of see Konrad von Reifenberg Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal 224, 228 Stephen, protomartyr 132 Stephen of Bourbon, Dominican 37 Stephen of Marsia, abbot of Montecassino 311 Steppes, battle of (1213) 281 Syria 251, 254, 262, 302 Sweden 161, 172, 178 n23 Sword Brethren of Livonia 158, 161, 169, 173 n. 6, 175, 180 n. 32 Sword Brothers of Livonia see Sword Brethren of Livonia Talmond, Cistercian monastery of 204 Talmud 261 Tarascon, castle of 265-66 Tarragona archbishops of, 131, 133, 135-36, 142, 144-45, 147-50, 199, 207-11, 213 n. 104; see also Berenguer de Vilademuls, Espareg de la Barca, Hug de Cervelló city of 133, 145, 147, 249 church of 131-37, 142, 144-48, 207 Tartars see Mongols Tau 33-36, 39 taxation (crusade) see twentieth Tejada, battle of 212

Templars 142, 143, 147, 158, 206, 211 n. 89, 236, 293, 294, 303, 311 Teutonic Order 167 Thabor, mount 80 Thédise, papal legate and bishop of Agde 86 n. 41, 115, 124 Theoderic, bishop of Estonia 7, 153, 155, 158, 159, 160, 173, 174, 178 n. 23, 184, 185 n. 44 Thierry de Rupefort, crusader 281-82 Third book see Liber tertius Third Crusade 28, 40, 50, 51-52, 56, 199, 295 Third Lateran Council (1179) see Lateran Council III (1179) Thomas Aquinas, Dominican theologian 42, 51 Questiones quodlibetales 55-56 Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury 6, 133, 149-50 Thomas of Cantimpré, Dominican 306 n. 34, 318 Toledo, archbishop of see Celebruno, Rodrigo Tommaso Morosini, Latin patriarch of Constantinople 60-69, 74 Tortosa 134 Toulouse bishop of see Foulque[s], bishop of Toulouse city of 83, 85, 89-90, 96, 106 n. 39, 110, 113, 116 counts of 80, 90, 95-98, 102, 104, 106, 108-9, 112; see also Raymond VI, Raymond VII county of 59, 78, 84, 113, 119, 128, 139 Tournai, bishop of 294 tournaments 237, 282 Tractatus de locis et status Terrae Sanctae 304 trade, with Muslims 7, 8, 237, 241-71 Trencavel family 101 Trier archbishop of see Dietrich archdiocese of 278 Truce of God 28

339

Index

True Cross, relics of 8, 13, 16, 17, 22, 23, 39, 40; see also Hattin Tunis, port of 244, 248, 266, 270-71 Tunisia 254, 266-71 twentieth, crusade tax collection and grant of 205-6, 209-11, 236-37, 276, 281-82, 288-91, 293-94 Lateran Council IV (1215) and 3, 7, 195, 221, 234-37, 239, 274 Ugaunia (Ungannia) 161, 173, 175 Urban II, pope 43, 47, 169 Urban III, pope 29 Urgell bishop of 135 church of 135 count of 135 usury 49 n. 28, 237 n. 75 Utinam Dominus, papal letter (1208) 31-32 Utrecht bishop of 283-89 diocese of 284-89 Üxküll, settlement at 155, 158, 165, 175 Valdemar II, king of Denmark 159, 160, 161, 172 n. 4, 179, 180-81 n. 33, 181-82, 192, 275 Valencia city of 248-49, 258-59 diocese of 207, 210 Vaucelles, abbot of 294 Venaissin 105, 263 Venetians 5, 59-71, 73-74, 244, 245, 255, 261, 270, 311 Venice 5, 59, 61-63, 65, 66-71, 74, 255, 261 Vergentis in senium (1199) 126-27 Vic bishop of 134-35, 143; see also Guillem de Tavartet church of 142 city of 134, 142, 144 Victorines 24, 26 Villers, Cistercian monastery of 275 n. 5, 284 n. 22, 290

340

Vincent of Ascasia, coiner 267 Vincent of Beauvais, Dominican 318 Speculum maius 311 Speculum historiale 311-12 Vineam Domini, papal letter (1213) 1-2, 5, 32-33, 86, 129 virga 189-92 virgo 189-92 Visvaldis, ruler of Gerzike 179 Vlachia 164, 170, 191 n. 66 Vow, crusade 2, 147, 198, 206, 224, 229, 232, 275, 277-79, 281-90, 292-94 Vrysis, archbishop of 65 Waldemar, bishop of Schleswig and elect of Bremen 161 Walter of Courtrai, canon of Hagia Sophia 65 Walter Gray, archbishop of York, 105, 115 n. 18, 124 Wenden, settlement at 166-67, 168, 170 Wends 166-67 Werde, abbot of 289 Wesenberg 178 Wibert, canon of Hagia Sophia 65 William, bishop of Modena and papal legate to Livonia 165 William, count of Holland 197-98, 275, 277, 282-89, 291 William of Auxerre, Paris master and bishop 44 William of Puylaurens, chronicler 114 William of Rubruck, Dominican 310 William, archbishop of Tyre De gestis principis Orientalibus 314 Women Baltic crusade and 175, 179 processions and 15, 16, 17, 21, 194 crusade vows and 282 Würzburg, bishop of see Conrad York, archbishop of 105, 115 n. 18, 124; see also Walter Gray Zamora, bishop of 202 Zaragoza 48