|[ Previous Lecture / Essay ]|[ Medieval Christianity Index ]|[ Next Lecture / Essay]|
The foundations of medieval Papal administration were put in place under Pope Urban II (1088-1099). Its structure was not unlike that of the existing European governments for that day. The basic unit was the curia Romana or Roman governing court. The curia was at first composed of three basic divisions: Chapel, Chancery, and Chamber.
Up
Secular governments since Charlemagne's day had maintained a house of worship, at the palace that was staffed by a churchman called a capellanus, Chaplain. While Charlemagne and his successors had utilized the Chaplain for secretarial purposes, the Papacy in the past had rather assigned his own spiritual duties to a whole corps of capellani presided over by the Chaplain. Different officials had previously handled papal correspondence and records. The bibliothecarius or librarian was custodian of records and acted as the pope's private secretary from as early as the seventh century. The production of written documents of all kinds was under the supervision of a layman who was primicerius scriniariarum, chief of the secretaries. These secretaries were members of the professional guilds of writers and shorthand takers of the city of Rome (collegium scriniariarum et collegium notariarum).
Up
This changed under Urban II. He made one of the Cardinal bishops, John of Gaeta, his cancellarius, chancellor, and thereafter a cardinal regularly held that post. (Later in the pontificate of Honorius III (1216-1227) the post's title was changed from Chancellor to Vice-Chancellor.) Chancellor Cardinal John of Gaeta now organized the capellani to take the added responsibility for the production of documents and discharged the lay secretaries. He also standardized the various documents most often needed by the Pope and introduced a new style of minuscule script.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Chancery, as it was then called, was very busy. One modern historian estimates that in the thirteenth century alone it produced over 50,000 documents. This estimate is based on the fact that every incoming dispatch was copied verbatim into the register as well as every outgoing document. Most of the thirteenth century registers survive and have been edited and published in printed editions. No other European government produced anything like this amount of paper work. The Chancery charged fees for every document.
Up
Several different officials had earlier handled the financial affairs of the Papacy. The arcarius, chest-keeper, was the collector of revenue from all sources for the Church at Rome. The vestararius, treasurer, kept accounts, while officials known as saccularii, bag-keepers, seem to have had custody of the movable wealth. Urban II secured the services a Cluny monk with considerable administrative experience to reorganize the financial machinery of the court. Peter the monk became the first camerarius, chamberlain, at the Papal court, but his responsibilities were limited to the income that came to the Pope personally.
Up
By the middle of the twelfth century the Chamberlain was usually a Cardinal and his responsibilities by that time had been enlarged to at the expense of the traditional officials, replacing the chest-keeper, the treasurer, and the bag-keepers. The name camera Apostolica, Apostolic Chamber, came to be the preferred title for this administrative department of the court. It continued to strive for increasing efficiency in its activities as Papal income soared to unprecedented heights in the thirteenth century. The basic revenues of the papacy are called the census Romanus. Other revenues developed in connection with the papacy's increasing power over the local clerical posts.
The Papacy had for centuries been the landlord of a widely distributed and extensive amount of agricultural real estate, from which regular revenues were drawn. This was responsible for the lion's share of the Pope's income in ancient times. A substantial amount of the productive land in the Papal States and other Italian areas belonged the papacy. A substantial income was drawn from this resource during the eleventh, twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, but in the late thirteenth century these lands became subject to incidental pillage or deliberate plundering by the increasingly lawless warlords loose in Italy.
Other census income during the eleventh century was limited to revenue from the annual tribute from monasteries under papal "protection"--like Cluny-- and countries that were considered papal "fiefs" (southern Italy, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Aragon and England). Bishops and Abbots in the Pope's own Diocese were required to visit Rome periodically and make a gift. In the twelfth century this was expanded by certain additional revenues such as Peter's Pence, which was a tax of one penny collected from the faithful of England, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
The thirteenth century saw enormous increases in the census. The so-called papal tithe was essentially an income tax imposed on the churches. Innocent III had first collected a fortieth in 1199 and set the precedent. Another collection was made in 1215 at a higher rate, and the rate of the 1228 tax was still higher, a tenth. First such collections were made only for crusades, but soon enough other demanding causes offered sufficient reason. By the middle of the thirteenth century they began to be collected annually as the basic source of papal cash flow.
Toward the end of the thirteenth century as the chaos increased in Italy the cost of living seems to have likewise increased. There were evidences with all the income the papacy had it was not enough to meet the demands of the court. On February 22, 1300, Pope Boniface VIII announced the celebration of a Papal Jubilee. Pilgrims coming to Rome must visit the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul every day for at least fifteen days. It is interesting that residents of Rome were expected to visit the two churches every day for thirty days. While the surviving records do not mention the necessity of making an offering, this was the expected behavior if a pilgrim expected to receive an indulgence. While Jubilee celebrations had occurred at several shrines across Europe during the past two centuries, scholars generally consider this the first Papal Jubilee celebration.
Up
Since 1080 it had been recognized that Papal authority could review all elections of bishops and archbishops and intervene in any election whenever some serious breech of canon law occurred in the election procedure or the candidate's qualifications. Moreover, only the pope could officially "translate" a churchman from one post to another. In the pontificate of Eugenius III (1145-1153) it became the rule that all vacancies created by "translation" of the incumbent to another position were reserved to the papacy. Reservation meant that the Papacy had the right to provide a nominee to be elected to that vacancy.
Innocent IV (1243-1254) broadened the practice of Papal reservations. He reserved to the papacy the right to fill any bishopric or archbishopric that became vacant under specific circumstances; namely, if the vacancy occurred while the incumbent bishop was at the papal court and was either because of his death or because of his being translated to another office. Pope Clement V (1265-1268) broadened the reservation still more to include even the posts of minor church officials who happened to die or be translated while the incumbent was in Rome.
Up
Another practice known as postulation seems to have indirectly contributed to the increasing control of the papacy over the clergy. Often the clergy could identify the person who was ideal for a vacant post in the hierarchy if it were not for some canonical impediment that made him ineligible. For example, he might be one year or even a few months too young or he might already be holding another post. No other candidate seemed to the resident clergy either worthy or eligible. In such a case the local clergy would postulate, nominate, their candidate to the papacy with the understanding that the papacy would be able to translate him from his other post or grant him a dispensation from the canon of age. They also understood that the pope might simply ignore their postulant and appoint some other.
Up
Innocent II (1130-1143) adopted the practice of formally requesting that a certain individual be elected to fill a vacancy he had learned about. Later popes carefully followed his precedent of formal requests, especially Hadrian IV (1154-59). Pope Celestine III (1191-1198) decreed that any time the pope nominated somebody for an existing vacancy, that person must without question be duly elected and installed. Thereafter the nomination was a mandate not a formal request. This papal practice of nominating individuals was called a papal provision or preconition. If the pope nominated someone for a vacancy that had not yet occurred it was called an expectancy. Sometimes provisions and expectancies for the highest level church vacancies were issued in consistory, that is, by the pope assisted by the Cardinals. Normally, positions ranking beneath the rank of bishop were provisioned personally by the pope. The practical result was that all the Italian bishoprics and several of the choice ones north of the Alps were regularly provisioned by 1200.
Up
Even in those cases where no papal provision had been made, canonically elected archbishops were already by about 1050 required to come to Rome personally to be confirmed and receive their pallium. By the beginning of the twelfth century archbishops were also taking an oath of allegiance to the papacy at the time of their confirmation, although it was not canonically required until Gregory IX in 1234 issued such a decree. Beginning about 1100 Paschal II added a further responsibility on all archbishops to make a periodic pilgrimage to Rome to report on the conditions in their province. This visit to Rome was called visitatio liminum SS. Apostolorum, visiting the precincts of the Holy Apostles. Moreover on each occasion when an archbishop came to Rome on visitatio liminum, a servitium, honorarium or service charge, was collected.
Up
The financial significance here is that each confirmation and each papal provision or fulfilled expectancy that had been conferred in consistory involving a bishop or an abbot required the recipient to pay a servitium whenever the income of his new post exceeded 100 florins per year. (The annual income of the archbishopric of Salzburg, for example, was equivalent to 30,000 florins.) In such cases the servitium amounted to 1/3 the annual gross income of the anticipated post. Moreover, servitia were also collected in other cases such as when the pope personally presided at the consecration of a new bishop, abbot or archbishop, or when a bishop or abbot received immunity from archiepiscopal jurisdiction.
Additionally, when the newly elected archbishop came to Rome to secure the symbol of his office, the pallium, and swear the oath of allegiance to the papacy he must deliver another servitium. That would be the second one if he had already paid one provision or expectancy. Finally, fees were always to be paid to the papal Chancery for the production of all the necessary documents.
Provisions and expectations conferred by the pope alone normally involved lower ranking ecclesiastical positions. These positions are typically spoken of as incomes (benefices, prebends). In 1265 Pope Clement IV declared that the papacy had the right to fill all ecclesiastical offices and could therefore intervene freely at any level in the church even to the appointment of priests and canons in their benefices. This only gave formal canon to a practice that had already caused complaints as early as 1245 from the English bishops that Italians held too many of the lesser posts in England's dioceses. However, many of these lesser "incomes" did not involve the "care of souls", i.e. pastoral responsibilities, the individuals in these posts engaged in administrative or service tasks.
Up
Readers have already learned about the significance of canon law in connection with the career of Gregory VII. The increasing powers of the papacy paralleled the increasing sophistication and growing precision in the field of canon law. Collections had been attempted in the late eleventh century by several, but all fell short of mastering the mass of data. Churchmen admired the organization of Justinian's law code being studied by Irnerius at Bologna. Ivo, Bishop of Chartres (d. 1117), began to apply Irnerius' glossator method to the study of canon law and attempted to summarize the broad and complex field without much success. The monk Gratian published his Concordia discordantium canonum, A Harmony of Discordant Laws, otherwise known as Decretum Gratiani, Gratian's Decretals, about 1141/2 at Bologna. Here he organized, presented and reconciled Biblical teaching, traditions and the usages of the Church, precedents in Roman and Germanic law and the legislation of Church councils and the papacy.
In the century after Gratian's work the production of new decretals, the works of new councils, and the continued expansion of the study of canon law saw several collections published. The next most important was a private collection published about 1190 by a Bologna teacher and called Compilatio prima. Pope Innocent III issued so many decretals that he published them in organized form in 1210. Again in 1225 the papacy ordered an official collection made to cover the changes of the Fourth Lateran Council and the decretals of Innocent III's last years. Finally in 1234 a Pope Gregory IX commissioned Raymond of Peņafort to publish a complete collection called Liber extra which replaced all collections made since Gratian's day bringing Gratian's work up to date.
Thus the power of the papacy over the Christians of Europe was elaborated, new policies were announced and new administrative machinery was created to promulgate and enforce papal dictates down through the existing Church organization to the local level. Furthermore, strategies were adopted and steps taken to exert moral control over all the secular authorities in Europe. In the period from about 1075 to 1275 the papacy more or less effectively dominated international and domestic policies of European kingdoms to an astounding degree. It is perhaps not surprising that the majority of the popes beginning with Alexander III (1159-1181) were trained as canon lawyers.
It is generally conceded that the pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216), marks the aegis of this period epitomizing the culmination of all the various papal powers that had developed by his time. Born Lothar of Segni and a student of law at Bologna, he became a Cardinal in 1190 and was only 37 years old when he became pope. Innocent III was unquestionably in control of the Church. He based his actions outside the Church on his spiritual authority to interfere wherever sin might be committed, but he did not claim absolute supremacy over secular powers. He justified special papal authority over the Empire because the papacy had "translated" the imperial crown from the Greeks to the Franks. He likewise justified his special powers over Sicily, Aragon, Hungary, Portugal, and England on the basis of secular law: the bonds of vassalage held the princes and governors of those states to the papal office. The only place he claimed complete direct political power as in the Papal States and even there circumstances forced him to find a powerful vassal who could bring law and order in his name.
Up
Papal control over general councils was first announced in the Dictatus Papae of Gregory VII (#16). Emperor Frederick Barbarossa attempted to revive the right of the emperors in 1160, but was not successful. The Eastern Orthodox Church does not recognize the following councils as ecumenical, but they do consider them legitimate regional councils.
Up
The First Lateran Council of 1123 was the first general council after which the Pope, rather than the Emperor, promulgated the decrees of the council. Hence, the Papacy by its own authority was giving the acts of the Council the force of law. The Council confirmed the Concordat of Worms ending the investiture controversy between the papacy and the Germanic Emperor. It also issued a number of disciplinary decrees such as the prohibition of concubinage, and making the sale of ecclesiastical property a sacrilege. Counterfeiters were to be excommunicated if they are identified. Special papal protection was guaranteed to pilgrims and crusaders, and indulgences were offered to all those who would take up the cross to defend Jerusalem from the Muslims.
Up
The Second Lateran Council of 1139 celebrated the end of a disputed election in the papacy itself between Innocent II and Anacletus. More rules were issued against clerical marriage--rules which were not effectively enforced until later in the century. Failure on the part of laymen to pay tithes was declared a sacrilege.
Up
The Third Lateran Council of 1179 came at the end of the Papal conflict with Emperor Frederick I. The most important decree was the one making the College of Cardinals solely responsible for the election of the papacy. The minimum age of bishops was set at 30 years, and candidates for the bishopric must have been legitimately born. Tournaments, i.e. mock battles, among the underemployed warriors were condemned and forbidden.
Up
The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 was the largest general council of the Middle Ages: 71 archbishops and patriarchal bishops, nearly 400 bishops, more than 800 abbots, priors and representatives of monastic and mendicant orders, and a good number of laymen designed to represent their governments. The Council issued 70 decrees of various lengths. Heresy and orthodoxy were legally defined, and procedures set forth for handling heretics. Duels and ordeals were denounced. Marriages between relatives of the fourth degree--formerly the seventh degree--were to be permitted. All Christians are enjoined to confess their sins and receive communion once a year, preferably at Easter. Jews everywhere were required to wear distinctive clothing and limitations were placed on the amount of interest Jewish moneylenders could charge (Christian moneylenders were to charge none!). Indulgences were granted to crusaders. The sale of relics was forbidden and the worship of relics was permissible only if a license was secured for the particular relic from the Pope.
Up
The First Council of Lyons of 1245. The First Council of Lyons of 1245 was an event in the final conflict between the papacy and the Hohenstaufen Emperor, Frederick II. The Council's major act was to excommunicate and depose Frederick II. Other decrees were largely refinements of earlier canons.
Up
The Second Council of Lyons of 1274 had as its major theme the reunion of the Latin Church of Western Europe with the Greek Orthodox Church of the east. It too took opportunity to issue several disciplinary canons.
Up
During this period there was a constant increase in the judicial responsibilities of the Papacy which produced a number of changes in the curia. The consistory was employed as the highest court of the Church. It was understood to consist of the Cardinal clergy together with the Pope. The audientia sacri palatii, court of the sacred palace, had appeared under Pope Innocent II (1130-1143) who made it a court of original jurisdiction in all cases of violent attack against a monk or cleric. Since many of the Cardinal clergy were at that point still occupied with normal ministry duties in their appointed posts, they had to be assembled for short special sessions. Important cases could always be referred to the consistory. Pope Alexander III (1159-1189) transformed the audientia sacri palatii into an appeals court requiring that lower ecclesiastical courts handle all cases first before their being referred to Rome. In major cases the palace court would appoint a local resident judge delegate to hear and rule on the case in the jurisdiction where it arose. In minor cases original jurisdiction fell to the local bishop. This move was likely designed to lessen the load of administrative and judicial work of the court, but it gave only temporary relief.
Up
Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) had taken administrative matters away from the court of the sacred palace and given it to a division of the Chancery called the audientia litterarum contradictarum, court [hearing] dealing with the letters of contending parties. This section took over the responsibility of examining the documentation of the appeals, proposing compromise solutions and appointing judge delegates or a so-called palatine judge--a cardinal available at the papal court. Fees were charged per document necessary.
During the course of the twelfth century the audientia sacri palatii was frequently enlarged and strengthened by the addition of recent legal studies graduates drawn from the Chancery, typically referred to as auditors.
Up
Under Pope Urban IV (1261-1264) a new department called the penetentiaria Apostolica, the Penitentiary, was created. This judicial department was made responsible for all crimes where absolution was reserved to the papacy. Such reservations first appear in twelfth century decretals. This included cases involving belief, cases involving people including all bishops, cardinals and emperors, and eventually cases involving common crimes in the Papal States. Whenever a case involved a disputed ecclesiastical election the Pope, himself, was asked to assist. This court could offer several special types of decrees. Decrees known as "dispensations" release specific individuals from the accepted practice or clear statement of canon law. Dispensations do not change the law; they simply excuse a named individual from its requirements and penalties. Another special type of decree was known as a "privilege". Privileges may change the details of the law to benefit certain individuals or groups, or it may be a completely new law.
Up
Return to the Lecture/Essay Table of Contents for Part II
ht34632e20.html
Most recently edited 3 November 2001