Papacy (Medieval Church History)

The period 550 to 750 was one in which monastic culture became more firmly entrenched in Western Europe. The role of monasteries and their relationship to the social world around them was transformed during this period as monastic institutions became more integrated in social and political power networks. This collected volume of essays focuses on one of the central figures in this process, the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder, Columbanus (c. 550-615), his travels on the Continent, and the monastic network he and his Frankish disciples established in Merovingian Gaul and Lombard Italy.

The post-Roman kingdoms through which Columbanus travelled and established his monastic foundations were made up of many different communities of peoples. As an outsider and immigrant, how did Columbanus and his communities interact with these peoples? How did they negotiate differences and what emerged from these encounters? How societies interact with outsiders can reveal the inner workings and social norms of that culture. This volume aims to explore further the strands of this vibrant contact and to consider all of the geographical spheres in which Columbanus and his monastic communities operated (Ireland, Merovingian Gaul, Alamannia, Lombard Italy) and the varieties of communities he and his successors came in contact with — whether they were royal, ecclesiastic, aristocratic, or grass-roots.

Table of Contents

Preface
List of Abbreviations
Maps
Contributors
Foreword Walter Pohl
Part I: Columbanus in Context
Chapter 1: Introduction: Columbanus and Europe Alexander O'Hara
Chapter 2: Columbanus and the Language of Concord Damian Bracken
Part II: The Insular Background
Chapter 3: The Political Background to Columbanus's Irish Career Dáibhí Ó Cróinín
Chapter 4: Movers and Shakers? How Women Shaped the Career of Columbanus Elva Johnston
Chapter 5: Columbanus's Ulster Education Alex Woolf
Part III: The Frankish World
Chapter 6: Columbanus in Brittany Ian Wood
Chapter 7: Columbanus and Shunning: The Irish peregrinus between Gildas, Gaul, and Gregory Clare Stancliffe
Chapter 8: Orthodoxy and Authority: Jonas, Eustasius, and the Agrestius Affair Andreas Fischer
Chapter 9: Columbanus and the Mission to the Bavarians and the Slavs in the Seventh Century Herwig Wolfram
Part IV: On the Fringe: Columbanus and Gallus in Alamannia
Chapter 10: Between the Devil and the deep Lake Constance: Jonas of Bobbio, interpretatio Christiana, and the Pagan Religion of the Alamanni Bernhard Maier
Chapter 11: Drinking with Woden: A Re-Examination of Jonas's Vita Columbani I. 27 Francesco Borri
Chapter 12: Between Metz and Überlingen: Columbanus and Gallus in Alamannia Yaniv Fox
Chapter 13: Quicumque sunt rebelles, foras exeant! Columbanus's Rebellious Disciple Gallus Philipp Dörler
Part V: Lombard Italy and Columbanus's Legacy
Chapter 14: Columbanus, Bobbio, and the Lombards Stefano Gasparri
Chapter 15: Disputing Columbanus's Heritage: The Regula cuiusdam patris (with a translation of the Rule) Albrecht Diem

The legation sent by Pope Eugenius IV to Constantinople in 1437 played a critical role in the long diplomatic efforts towards a reunification of the Latin and Greek Churches, and paved the way for the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439). With some exceptions, such as the later Cardinal Nicholas Cusanus, the members of the delegation have not received wide attention. This paper presents a biographical analysis of all those involved – the nuncios, the financiers and the galley commanders – and their relationship to the Pope. The findings provide new insight into Eugenius IV’s diplomacy towards the Byzantines, as well as Cusanus’s place in it. Cusanus’s presence added conciliar legitimacy, but the key functions were in the hands of a core team of Venetians – including non-patricians – who had prior experience in Constantinople and a personal connection to the Pope.

Rome and Constantinople were the main Christian centers of the first millennium. In spite of the many tensions only temporarily they broke the relations. In 1054 the clash was more serious (with reciprocal excommunications), although the schism became real only after the sack of Constantinople in 1204. The attempts of reunion in 1274 and 1439 (Council of Florence) did not have success, because the Easterners were compelled to dialogue by the historical dramatic situation of the Eastern Empire.

The Codex Buranus, compiled, in all likelihood, in South Tyrol in the first half of the thirteenth century, has fascinated modern scholars and performers ever since its rediscovery in 1803. Its diverse range of texts (some famously featuring in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana) and music gives testimony to the intensely vibrant, plurilingual, and multicultural milieu in which the Codex Buranus was compiled, but poses a challenge to modern users. Perhaps more so than many other medieval manuscripts, it is an artefact which demands, and benefits from, an interdisciplinary approach.

This essay explores some of the papal symbols which assumed particular prominence during the pontificate of Pope Innocent III (1198–1216). These symbols belong to different modes of expression: metaphoric speech and writing (vicarius Christi, the pope's body); clothing (pallium, tiara); objects (the Golden Rose); and visual art (the mosaic in Old St Peter's). It is argued that the pope – and his curia – employed these symbols to represent the special position of authority which the pope held within the Church and society at large, and that several of them played a role in ritual enactments of papal authority. It is furthermore argued that they should be seen as part of a coherent system of symbols and that many of them serve to emphasise the relationship between the pope and Christ, and thus represent Pope Innocent III's ecclesiological programme in which the pope as God's representative on earth plays a pivotal role.

O capítulo apresenta uma leitura das linhas gerais da historiografia das primeiras décadas do século XXI sobre o Papado Medieval. A cronologia adotada abrange das décadas de 460 a 1300; a síntese histórica elaborada está fundamentada sobre a hipótese de que o Papado fora uma instituição multifacetada, cuja trajetória medieval compreendera ao menos três grandes períodos acentuados por dinâmicas institucionais distintas e cujo apogeu fora caracterizado por lógicas políticas, jurídicas e eclesiológicas corporativas.

Confronted with the need for scholarly criteria in properly defining the ad hoc papal institution existent under Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), this paper seeks to clarify the title, office, and jurisdiction of the eleventh-century reforming legate. Discussing the Roman origins of this office through to the twelfth century – taking into account the political, ecclesiastical and legal constraints of the period – questions are raised concerning the extent and nature of legatine authority (especially as the reformers understood it). Contemporary criteria are unclear, but modern scholars can infer some regularities from Gregory VII's Register and other contemporary sources as to how this office operated in the last quarter of the eleventh century, and ultimately, to understand more clearly how reform was being implemented in the provinces.

SPECIALE UMANESIMO – VI Centenario Bartolomeo Platina (1421-1481)
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https://bibliotecadiviasenato.it/wp-content/uploads/BVS_N11_NEW_NOVEMBRE_2021_web.pdf
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Pope Joan and the Persistence of Myths:
Pietro Ratto’s book "Le pagine strappate" (Torn-Out Pages, 2020) argues that the Catholic Church destroyed evidence which shed light on the existence of Pope Joan, a woman who many believe ascended the papal throne in the ninth century, duping the Roman establishment by dressing as a man, and who then tragically died in childbirth during a procession. This article reviews the arguments of humanist critics, notably Bartolomeo Platina, who discussed the myth of Joan during the Renaissance period. In addition, the article looks at Platina’s sixteenth-century successor Onofrio Panvinio and the authors of the Protestant Church history known as the Magdeburg Centuries. I conclude that Ratto does not consider the important lessons of humanist source criticism; instead, he revives the medieval traditions of myth-making.

Rimska tradicija i kršćanstvo dominantna su obilježja ranosrednjovjekovne Europe do nastanka Karolinškog Carstva. Istodobno su Crkva, koja nije imala jasno definiranu hijerarhiju, te pape uživali pomoć i zaštitu Cara, a uopćeno govoreći, s vremenom su Rimsko Carstvo i kršćanski svijet (ekumena) postali sinonimi ...

This article offers the first analysis of Anglo-Scottish tension at the general ecclesiastical council of Pavia-Siena (1423-4), where Thomas Murray, Abbot of Paisley, spearheaded attacks on the English delegation in the name of the French and Scottish kingdoms with Castilian and Italian allies. Murray's attacks illustrate how the council formed a frontline in the ongoing Anglo-French conflict and that the tensions between the kingdoms of Scotland and England played out on a European stage wider than usually recognised. Often dismissed as a non-event, the article establishes that Pavia-Siena formed a more significant centre for international diplomacy than historians have allowed.
Accessible online: https://academic.oup.com/histres/article-abstract/93/261/420/5879244?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Con la predicazione dei Mendicanti nel corso dell'Alleluia (1233) si ha la prima affermazione pubblica dei frati entro il mondo comunale italiano. Essi seppero modellare la loro comunicazione pubblica sui modelli elaborati dalla retorica comunale, in particolare la concio e ottennero un insperato successo presso la popolazione. La loro predicazione in favore della pacificazione e del rinnovamento dei costumi fu alla base del successo politico di alcuni esponenti di entrambi gli Ordini (Giovanni da Vicenza e Gherardo da Modena, soprattutto), che furono proclamati 'rettori' rispettivamente di Bologna, di Vicenza e di Parma.
Il modello inaugurato in questa occasione dai Mendicanti ottenne un duraturo successo e rivelò al papato le potenzialità insite nella predicazione dei frati.

Conventional understandings of Catholicism, especially the claim that the pope held temporal power over all civil rulers, presented a signal challenge to early American Catholics’ civil and religious liberty. Yet reform-minded Catholics in the North Atlantic world asserted their independence from the temporal powers of external authorities, including the pope. Catholics who participated in the American founding, such as Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Carroll, drew from an intellectual tradition of conciliarism that was rooted in Catholic thought yet compatible with republicanism. The Carrolls’ public support of the nation’s foundational documents and their development of the American Catholic Church presented to the broader political and religious public a Catholic tradition that advocated not only a republican view of temporal independence but also a juridical, nonhierarchical understanding of church and state. Catholics of this sort were not a foil to American religious and political arrangements; instead, they fit their beliefs within the ideologies of the American founding and thereby answered Protestant charges that Catholics should be legally penalized. These conclusions offer compelling reasons to include the conciliarist tradition within the “multiple traditions approach” of American founding historiography.

A draft translation of three interconnected documents - two charters and a letter - regarding a donation made by Matilda of Tuscany and Canossa (r.1076-1115). The first charter, issued in May 1095, records Matilda's granting of the estate of 'Standalmont' to found a new house of regular canons in Briey, and her placing of this foundation under the protection of the Holy See. Probably also in May 1095 Matilda wrote a letter to Albert of Briey, asking him to ensure that the donated property was conveyed to the canons. In the second charter, issued in May 1106, Matilda confirmed her earlier grant to the house of canons at Saint-Pierremont.

This chapter examines those men who operated in close proximity to Pope Eugenius IV (1431-1447). As Eugenius' papacy developed, so too did the origins and talents of the men this troubled pope chose to surround himself with.

The volume is aimed at all scholars interested in reformation studies and early modern reform, as well as Nicholas of Cusa studies and early modern studies.

This article analyses the debates about mixed marriages held within the Roman Curia (and especially the Roman Inquisition) between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, integrating these debates with the normative and prescriptive literature. These authorities generally considered mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics valid and even sacramental in virtue of the shared sacrament of the baptism, but at the same time constructed such unions as ‘carnal crimes’ to ‘abhor’. They believed that the most harmful effect of these polluting unions was that the Catholic partner might become tolerant of Protestantism, rendering the ‘heretic’ dangerously, contagiously familiar and abandoning future generations to heresy. Women were a particular concern for these authorities. Drawing upon traditional and somewhat contradictory ideas about women, they saw the wives in these marriages on one hand as particularly likely to be seduced by the ‘false faith’ because of their presumed weakness, but on the other hand they recognised women as a group with a special talent for beguiling men and so entrusted them with a missionary function towards their ‘heretical’ husbands. The role women could assume in mixed marriages therefore dynamised gender relations, but also caused social tension because of the challenge to patriarchal society, especially if they continued to practice their own faith and were entrusted with the religious education of the children.

The pontificate of Innocent III has often been presented as a turning point in the history of the rise of medieval anti-Judaism: through his virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric and his attempts to restrict Christian-Jewish contact, the pope ushered in an age of growing interreligious tension.  This paper reexamines the anti-Jewish policies and rhetoric of Innocent III through a close analysis of three bulls sent to France between 1205 and 1208.  Through these missives, the pope seeks to enforce the proper hierarchy of Christian superiority over Jews and limit what he sees as the results of Jewish “insolence”: the widespread practice of usury, the employ of Christian servants in Jewish homes, the selling to Christians of products (in particular meat, milk and wine) which Jews deem of insufficient quality for their own use.  Through these three bulls we perceive the first expressions of a fear which will become widespread in the later Middle Ages: contact with Jews (their food, their wine, their milk) represents a danger of pollution or impurity.

I am very excited to announce the publication of a Special issue on “The Uses of History in Religious Controversies from Erasmus to Baronio” (Renaissance Studies, 35, 2021, no. 1).

The journal can be accessed by clicking here (FREE ACCESS for a limited time only): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14774658/2021/35/1 .



Special Issue Articles:

Stefan BAUER:
The uses of history in religious controversies from Erasmus to Baronio;

Stefan BAUER:
Pontianus Polman re-imagined: how (not) to write a history of religious polemics;

Marie BARRAL-BARON:
A Church without history? Luther and historical argument in the context of humanist polemics;

Sam KENNERLEY:
Students of history, masters of tradition: Josse Clichtove,
Noël Beda and the limits of historical criticism;

David V. N. BAGCHI:
The historical argument in early Reformation controversy revisited: the Council of Constance in the writings of Eck and Cochlaeus;

Harald BOLLBUCK:
Searching for the true religion: the Church History of the
Magdeburg Centuries between critical methods and confessional polemics;

Thomas S. FREEMAN:
1077 and all that: Gregory VII in Reformation historical writing;

Gianmarco GIULIANI:
Reformatio or restauratio? The rehabilitation of Pope Gregory VII in Catholic historiography after Trent

The article presents a network of clerics from Germany and Italy who studied in Paris and made career in the German church and in the Roman curia. The main protagonist is Albrecht II. von Käfernburg-Schwarzburg, the archbishop of Magdeburg (1205-1232). He originated from a noble German family. His granduncle Adalbert II. von Saarbrücken was archbishop of Mainz in 1138-1141. Albrecht benefited from the nepotistic promotion of his relative Konrad von Querfurt who was bishop of Hildesheim and Würzburg (1194-1202). He studied in Hildesheim and Paris and finally became archbishop in 1205. Albrecht´s and Konrad´s careers were connected with the German throne conflict between Staufians and Guelfs (1198-1218) and with the politics of Pope Innocent III. who was the most important representative of the Parisian “old boys network” which is presented here. The article shows typical career strategies and underlines the importance of personal relations in a face-to-face society which can be explored and analysed by means of prosopography and network analytical approaches.

Na segunda metade do século XI, um áspero conflito entre a igreja romana e a
corte germânica levou o papa Gregório VII a decretar a deposição e excomunhão do
sucessor imperial. Tido pelos historiadores como o capítulo central da chamada
“Reforma Gregoriana”, este evento é usualmente encarado como um importante
marco de ascensão política do papado na História Ocidental e da instauração de um
amplo processo de institucionalização da igreja romana. O maior emblema desta via
de “estatização” pela qual teria enveredado o poder pontifício foi, afirmam os historiadores, a expansão do direito canônico, cujo avanço teria assentado as bases do trato legal que nos séculos seguinte se apoderaria do Ocidente. Portanto, um império da lei e das normas escritas teria sido ruidosamente anunciado através das ações gregorianas.

The paper discusses a special aspect of the papal-Hungarian relations, namely the operation of the delegated jurisdiction in the second half of the 13th century, from the Mongol invasion of 1241–42 to the death of the last Árpádian king, Andrew III in 1301. The focus of the study is on the cases, in which the judges-delegate appointed by the pontiffs had to face questions of ecclesiastical hierarchy or church-discipline. It is to be determined, when (and partially: why) members of the Hungarian Church turned to the Holy See to make use of the delegation of papal judges. Furthermore, it is to be examined, what was the effect of the authorizations, and if so, under which circumstances did the popes want to intervene in Hungarian matters by using one of their universal tool to shape the regions of Western Christianity, their delegated jurisdiction. The issue of the Bosnian bishopric, the quarrel over the borders between the dioceses of Kalocsa and Pécs, or the allegations and the procedure against Bishop Job of Pécs are all helping to find answers to those questions.

In 1333, Pope John XXII wrote a letter to the Great Khan of the Yuan Dynasty, appointing a new archbishop of Beijing. In addition to the letter to the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, the Pope wrote several more letters. The recipients of those letters were Öz Beg Khan of the Kipchak Khanate, King Leo of Armenia, Archbishop Jacopo, all Mongolian monarchs and their people, and Rex Corum. Unlike all the other recipients, controversies still remain over the identity of this last person. There were people who considered Rex Corum to be the King of Goryeo. But the term referring to Goryeo during the Mongol Empire period was not Corea but Caoli. In addition, the Goryeo King was not a key Khan of the Mongols. In consideration of the historical context and the journey of the new archbishop, the most likely candidate for Rex Corum is the Chagatai Khan.

Un día como hoy hace 1220 años, durante la Nochebuena del 800 anno domini, Charlemagne, Charles The Great o The Magnus (Carlomagno) Rey de los Francos, Alamanos y Lombardos, vencedor de los vascones, vándalos, sajones, burgundios, eslavos y musulmanes de Hispania, se preparaba para ser coronado Imperator Augustus por el Papa León III en el Vaticano, ya siendo rey del Imperio Carolingio con la intención de recuperar en algo la grandeza que un día tuviera el Imperio Romano de Occidente, difuminado en el 476 A.D.