Papacy and Empire, 955-1356

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Compiled by Dr. Richard Abels 

for HH315: Age of Chivalry and Faith at the United States Naval Academy.

Copyright 2009

(Feel free to use this document for academic purposes, but please provide proper citation)

Link to general chronology c.950-c.1350

 

955-964   Pontificate of John XII.  Octavianus, son of Alberic II, Patrician (secular ruler) of Rome, succeeded his father as Patrician at the age of 17, and was chosen pope by the nobles of Rome in the following year, taking the papal name John, making John both the spiritual and temporal ruler of the Papal States.  Faced with threats by the Lombard King Berengar of Italy to the Papal States (the lands belonging to the papacy, which stretched across Italy from Roman in the west to Ravenna in the east) and political intrigues by the Roman nobility, John XII in 961 turned for protection to King Otto I of Germany, whom he offered to consecrate as “Roman Emperor,” an office that had lain vacant since the death in 887 of the Carolingian King Charles the Fat. Otto came with an army to Rome and was crowned emperor by John XII in 962.  Immediately following the coronation, Otto issued a charter that pledged his and his successors’ protection of papal rule over the Papal States. But John XII soon became uneasy with Otto’s growing power in Italy, and after Otto defeated Berengar, the pope secretly sent emissaries to the Byzantine emperor and the Magyars to form an alliance against Otto. Upon learning of this, Otto returned to Rome (963) and deposed John for gross immorality, replacing him with a new pope of his own choosing, Leo VIII.  The charges against John XII are recorded by Bishop Liudprand of Cremona, a supporter of Otto I:

Then, rising up, the cardinal priest Peter testified that he himself had seen John XII celebrate Mass without taking communion. John, bishop of Narni, and John, a cardinal deacon, professed that they themselves saw that a deacon had been ordained in a horse stable, but were unsure of the time. Benedict, cardinal deacon, with other co-deacons and priests, said they knew that he had been paid for ordaining bishops, specifically that he had ordained a ten-year-old bishop in the city of Todi... They testified about his adultery, which they did not see with their own eyes, but nonetheless knew with certainty: he had fornicated with the widow of Rainier, with Stephana his father's concubine, with the widow Anna, and with his own niece, and he made the sacred palace into a whorehouse. They said that he had gone hunting publicly; that he had blinded his confessor Benedict, and thereafter Benedict had died; that he had killed John, cardinal subdeacon, after castrating him; and that he had set fires, girded on a sword, and put on a helmet and cuirass. All, clerics as well as laymen, declared that he had toasted to the devil with wine. They said when playing at dice, he invoked Jupiter, Venus and other demons. They even said he did not celebrate Matins and the canonical hours nor did he make the sign of the cross.

When Otto and his army departed Rome a few months later, John’s supporters recaptured the city and drove Leo VIII into exile. John’s victory was short-lived. He died soon after under uncertain circumstances. (Rumor had it that he was killed by a jealous husband.)   His pontificate is often cited as the nadir of the early medieval papacy.  The Roman nobility’s control over the papacy evidenced in the pontificate of John XII was replicated in other sees and monasteries through tenth-century Western Europe.  Local counts and nobles often regarded the churches and monasteries on their lands as their property, and accordingly appointed their priests and abbots. The majority of priests were illiterate and often married (or lived with concubines). The majority of popes, mostly sons of powerful Roman families, were worldly and/or incompetent. The German bishops, in contrast, were usually men of considerable ability and education, largely because they rose to the rank of bishop by serving first in the courts of the German kings. (See St. Udalrich, s.a. 973.)

955   King Otto I the Great of Germany (king of Germany 936-973) defeats the Magyars (Hungarians) at the Battle of the Lechfeld, ending their threat to Western Europe. The Battle of the Lechfeld secured Germany against further Magyar raiding and led to the settlement of the Magyars and their incorporation into Christendom as the Kingdom of Hungary. Seal of Otto I.)

962   Otto I the Great is crowned emperor (emperor 962-973) by Pope John XII in Rome, reviving the office of “emperor” in the West, which had lain vacant since 888 (the death of Charles the Fat). Historians date the beginning of the so-called “Medieval Empire” (as distinguished from the Carolingian Empire) to Otto’s coronation. From this point on, the kings of Germany would have a de facto monopoly over the imperial dignity in the West, although the crowning of the emperor would always remain a prerogative of the papacy. 

 

The Ottonian (918-1024) system of royal administration in Germany relied upon dynastic connections between the kings and the dukes, bishops, and counts. Otto and his successors attempted to keep the duchies of Germany and episcopacies in the hands of members of their family. Although German kingship remained technically “elective,” the Ottonian kings and the Salians who succeeded them (see entry for the year 1024) ensured the succession of their sons by having them ‘elected’ and crowned co-rulers with them. The result was a de facto hereditary monarchy. The Ottonians’ control over northern Italy depended upon their physical presence, and Emperor Otto III (r. 983-1002), the son of a Byzantine princess, consciously imitated Roman imperial and Byzantine court customs and made Rome the center of his imperial administration. The Ottonians and their successors the Salians promoted a theocratic ideology of kingship modeled on Byzantium. Otto III seated in majesty receiving tribute from regions of the empire. From Otto III’s gospel book.)

c. 970   Emperor Otto I opens silver mines in Harz Mounta999   Norman mercenaries arrive in southern Italy. (Cf. 1016.) The earliest purported date for the arrival of Norman knights in southern Italy. In that year, according to several sources, Norman pilgrims returning from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem by way of Apulia (southern Italy) stopped at Salerno, which they helped defend against an attack by Saracens from northern Africa.  The Lombard Prince Guaimar III was so impressed that he sent to Normandy for mercenaries to help him against the Saracens, Byzantines, and other Lombard princes. An alternate tradition has the Normans arriving in 1016: Norman pilgrims to the shrine of Michael the Archangel at Monte Gargano in Apulia met the Lombard prince Melus of Bari there and were convinced to join him in an attack on the Byzantine government of Apulia.

999-1003  Pontificate of Pope Sylvester II (born Gerbert d’Aurillac), the greatest scholar of his time, who is important in the history of science and mathematics because of his role in introducing to Christendom Arabic astronomy and mathematics, including the abacus. Gerbert also wrote treatises on the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), and popularizing the teaching of the Seven Lberal Ats.

ins.  Spurs remonetarization--new age of coinage.

973   Death of St. Udalrich (Ulrich), bishop of Augsburg. Udalrich had been bishop of Augsburg since his appointment by King Henry I of Germany in 923. Udalrich is a model of pre-Gregorian piety. He served the German kings not only as a spiritual counselor but as a royal official and military commander. Despite charges of nepotism, he was canonized in 993, the first canonization that followed an established canonical procedure based on evidence of miracles.

1024    Salian dynasty begins in Germany: royal administration based upon use of ministeriales and prelates. Because King Henry II of Germany died without a son, his cousin Conrad II was elected king of Germany.  This marks the end the Saxon dynasty (918-1024) and the beginning of the Salian dynasty (1024-1125) of German kings. The great accomplishment of the Salian kings was the development of an effective royal administrative system based upon the use of ministeriales as royal officials. Ministeriales were a peculiar class of “unfree vassals.” They were serfs who served their lords as knights and admistrators. Although their lords provided them with land and wealth, they remained unfree in terms of personal status and could not claim hereditary right to either offices or property.  In the tenth century, German bishops and abbots employed ministeriales to administer their properties and to fight for them because they were less likely to lose church lands by granting them to serf-knights than to free knights.  The Salians adapted this system to royal government, employing ministeriales as the backbone of royal administration.  Like their Ottonian predecessors, the Salian German kings used prelates (bishops and abbots) for the higher offices of royal administation. They could safely do this because the crown maintained control over the appointment of bishops and abbots. The Salians in particular used the royal household as a preparatory school for bishops.  When a see fell vacant, the king picked the new bishop from among his royal chaplains upon the basis of proven administrative ability and loyalty. The result was that, with the possible exception of the Anglo-Saxon England which maintained a Carolingian-style government, eleventh-century Germany had the most stable and effective central administration in Western Europe. Manuscript portrait of Emperor Conrad II

   The ideological basis for Salian kingship was theocratic: the Salian kings saw themselves as God’s vicars on earth, responsible to Him for the peace and safety of both the church and the state. As Roman emperors, they also saw themselves as having primacy over the other kings in Christendom, although this was a view not shared by other kings. The greatest constitutional check upon the power of the medieval German monarchy remained the elective character of royal succession, but as long as a king had a son, succession in practice was hereditary.  The greatest practical impediment to royal absolutism was the lack of personal ties of loyalty between the local German aristocracy and the Crown.  And although the Ottonians had established the crown’s right to appoint dukes to four of Germany’s six traditional “tribal” duchies, two—Saxony and Lorraine—remained beyond royal control.

1035-1059       Norman conquest of southern Italy. Brothers from the Hauteville family in Normandy assume leadership of the Norman mercenaries in southern Italy and carve out a duchy in Apulia and Calabria.

 

 1046   King Henry III of Germany deposes rival popes; beginning of papal reform. Pope Benedict IX reneges on the sale of the papacy a year earlier to his godfather Pope Gregory VI (a reformer) and reclaims the office. The German King Henry III  (r. 1039-1056) arrives in Italy with an army to be crowned emperor, discovers that there are two men claiming to be pope (a third had been deposed the year before) and calls the council of Sutri to resolve the question. Henry III deposed both popes and appointed his a reform-minded German bishop who had accompanied him to Italy as the new pope. (Miniature portrait of Emperor Henry III, c.1040.)

1049-1054   Pope Leo IX launches a papal reform movement against simony and clerical marriage. After the deaths in quick succession of two German popes (to lead poisoning and malaria), Emperor Henry III appoints his kinsman Bishop Bruno of Toul (in what is now northeastern France) pope. Bruno, an ardent church reformer, asks to be canonically elected by the clergy and people of Rome before being consecrated pope.  He takes the name Pope Leo IX (p. 1049-1054). Pope Leo IX was the first in a series of reforming popes who enacted decrees against the clerical abuses of simony (purchase of holy offices) and clerical marriage. The reform movement that Leo IX began would later be called the Gregorian Reforms after his successor Gregory VII [p.1073-1085). It was long thought that the Gregorian Reform was inspired by the monastery of Cluny’s emphasis upon piety but the impetus for purifying the morals of the secular clergy probably derived more from the spiritual anxiety generated by the growing commercialism and wealth in northern Italy and Flanders.       

Leo IX’s reform of the Papal Curia. From Leo's pontificate marks the development of the cardinals and the Roman Curia (the Pope’s Court) into institutions of papal government. Cardinals were the clergy of the cathedral of Rome (the Lateran). In 1073 there were 7 cardinal bishops, 28 cardinal priests, 18 cardinal deacons and possibly 21 subdeacons. Cardinal-bishops had a similar relationship to the pope as great barons did to a king. They held dual sees, one of the titular (nonresidential) churches of Rome and a see outside of Rome; their chief duty was conducting services in the Lateran church. They didn't take part in the routine government of the church, but they acted as advisors and as a council, and after 1059 elected and consecrated pope. Cardinal-priests and cardinal deacons were the personnel of papal government. These served the popes as legates (ambassadors) and as administrators (e.g., chancellor, chamberlain, etc.). Below the cardinals were the lesser papal officials--notaries--and the papal soldiers. (Portrait of Pope Leo IX.)

1053   The Battle of Civitate in southern Italy: Normans defeat papal led army. A Norman army under Humphrey de Hauteville, count of Apulia, defeats a German-Lombard-Italian coalition army sponsored by Pope Leo IX. Pope Leo IX was captured and held for several months in honorable captivity. He was forced to sign a series of treaties favorable to the Normans before they released him.

1054  East-West Schism/death of Pope Leo IX. In 1154 Pope Leo IX sent Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida as papal legate to Constantinople to complain about the Patriarch Michael I Cerularius’s ‘usurpation’ (in Rome’s view) of dioceses in southern Italy and the patriarch’s condemnation of Latin liturgical practices, and about other issues dividing the Latin and Greek Churches, including a theological dispute about the nature of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea in 325 (the “Filioque Controversy’). At bottom the issue was papal claims to supremacy over the entire Catholic Church, including the Patriarch of Constantinople, which the patriarch vigorously rejected.  Humbert was notoriously hotheaded as was Patriarch Michael, and negotiations quickly broke down, with Humbert delivering a bull excommunicating the Patriarch. Michael responded by excommunicating both Humbert and Pope Leo IX, whom unknown to either Humbert or Michael, had died three months earlier. This began a schism between the Latin and Greek Churches that was to last throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times.  (Portrait of Patriarch Michael Cerularius.)

1056   Death of Emperor Henry III and succession of his six year old son Henry IV to the throne of Germany (r.1056 until his forced abdication in 1105).

1059   Papal Electoral Decree: cardinals elect popes. Pope Nicholas II (p.1059-1061] presiding over the Synod of the Lateran (in Rome) issued a  Papal Electoral Decree which gave the College of Cardinals (the seven cardinal bishops) the sole right of electing popes: “First, the cardinal bishops, with the most diligent consideration, shall elect a successor; then they shall call in the other cardinal clergy [cardinal priests and cardinal deacons to ratify their choice], and finally the rest of the [Roman] clergy and the people shall express their consent to the new election.” The decree did not allow a direct role for the emperor in choosing a pope, but vaguely mandated that “due honor and reverences shall be shown to our beloved son, Henry [IV], king and emperor elect”—not as a right of the imperial office but, significantly, as a papal grant of privilege. The historical background: the traditional pope-makers, the Roman lay aristocracy, opposed the papal reform movement of Pope Leo IX and when the death of Emperor Henry III in 1056 and the succession of a child, Henry IV to be king of Germany, deprived the papacy of a secular protector, the Count of Tusculum, secular ruler of Rome, engineered the election of an antipope “Benedict X” in 1058. (An antipope is someone whose claim to have been pope is not recognized by the Catholic Church.) Led by the cardinal deacon Hildebrand (the future Pope Gregory VII), the cardinals met and elected the reformer Bishop of Florence as Nicholas II. The Papal Electoral Decree was aimed at freeing the papacy from control by the Roman aristocracy. The imperial claim to appoint/ratify popes was not the target of the Decree but collateral damage. The significance of the Decree was that it excluded the laity, the Roman nobility and the emperor, from the selection of popes.

Ban on lay investiture. The Synod also banned for the first time the practice of lay investiture (laymen giving bishops the symbols of their spiritual offices), as part of a package of church reform that included condemnation, once again, of simony and clerical marriage, and a papal endorsement of the Peace and Truce of God.

Papacy allies itself with the Normans of southern Italy: Robert Guiscard de Hauteville (d. 1085), a Norman adventurer and mercenary who with his brothers conquered southern Italy from the Lombards and the Byzantines and who had defeated Pope Leo IX and taken him prisoner in 1053, makes peace with the papacy, submits to Pope Nicholas II as his vassal, and is recognized by him as the legitimate duke of Apulia and Calabria. (Gold coin of Robert Guiscard.)

1061-1091   Norman conquest of Arab Sicily by Robert Guiscard and his younger brother Roger I.

 

 1073   Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085) initiates a new conception of the Church and the role of the papacy within it. According to Gregory, the Church is obligated to create "right order in the world" rather than withdraw from it. Gregory seeks to create a papal monarchy with moral authority over the “temporal sword” (secular state) and rule over the clergy. Gregory’s claims are enunciated in the “Dictates of the Pope” (Dictatus Papae), a list of 27 assertions recorded in Gregory’s papal register under 1075: a) the supremacy of the Roman pontiff over the entire Church, including the eastern branch ('That the Roman pontiff alone can with right be called universal/That his name alone shall be spoken in the churches') and rule over the episcopate, wh entailed the right of deposing and reinstating bishops (a right that could be exercised even by a legate), the power of organizing diocese, the right to be the ultimate judge in ecclesiastical cases, and a claim to be exempt from human judgment); b. The power to issue canon law; c. the sanctity of the pope qua pope (through the merits of St Peter); d. papal supremacy over the princes of the earth ('That he alone may use the imperial insignia/That of the pope all princes shall kiss the feet'), with the practical and revolutionary claim 'that he may absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men.' [There is an indication here of Gregory's view of the pope as the final judge over the entire feudal system; in his treatment of Henry at Canossa there is some indication that he conceived of himself as being the ultimate feudal overlord. The feudal claims of the papacy is a topic that deserves to be explored in more depth.]

King Henry IV of Germany responds with the traditional theocratic claims for German kingship, including the right to appoint bishops within his realm, thereby inaugurating the Investiture Controversy pitting reformer popes supported by pious laity and monks against traditionalist emperors, kings, and bishops.  The conflict ostensibly concerns the papacy’s attempt to ban the practice of lay investiture, i.e. laymen conferring upon newly consecrated bishops the symbols of spiritual office, but it is really a struggle by the papacy against laymen appointing (and controling) bishops and abbots. The papacy claims that bishops and abbots must be freely elected by the clergy of their diocese or the monks of their monastery; emperors and kings maintain their traditional right to appoint bishops and abbots. The Gregorian reform encourages the practice of Christian warfare in the pursuit of providing "right order in the world,” which forms the basis for the Crusades. Gregory VII encouraged Christian princes to recover lands from Muslims in Spain, over which he claimed papal sovereignty on the basis of ancient right. (Portrait of Pope Gregory VII.)

File:Hugo-v-cluny heinrich-iv mathilde-v-tuszien cod-vat-lat-4922 1115ad.jpg  1077   Submission at Canossa. Henry IV of Germany submits to Pope Gregory VII at Canossa in an act of public humiliation. After two years of harmony with the papacy because he needed the pope’s support against rebellious German princes, Henry IV defied Pope Gregory VII’s ban on lay investiture by appointing and investing the archbishop of Milan in Italy (1075). Gregory VII reprimanded Henry IV, and the latter responded by calling a council of German bishops (1076) which declared that Gregory VII had gained the papacy by illegitimate means and had forfeited the office through his unholy actions. Henry IV deposed Gregory VII, who responded by excommunicating the king and absolving his subjects from their oaths of loyalty to him. The German princes took this as a signal to revolt against Henry IV and prepared to elect a new German king. While Pope Gregory VII was on his way to attend the election, Henry intercepted him at Canossa, a fortress in northern Italy at the mouth of the Alps belonging to Countess Mathilda of Tuscany, a fervent papal supporter. Rather than attack, as Gregory expected, the king surprised the pope by presenting himself as a penitent. Gregory kept the king standing in the snow bareheaded for three days before lifting the excommunication. Henry IV, with Pope Gregory VII maintaining neutrality, wages war against the rebel German princes and their “anti-king” Rudolf of Swabia. (Emperor Henry IV enthroned.)

1080    Pope Gregory VII realizes that King Henry IV has no intention of abiding by his submission to the papacy and declares Rudolf the legitimate king of Germany and excommunicates Henry IV for a second time. Henry IV responds by appointing an antipope. (From this point on, the appointment of antipopes became a major weapon used by emperors in their fights with popes, just as popes used the threats of excommunication and deposition against emperors.]

 1084   Henry IV seizes Rome and enthrones his antipope who crowns him emperor. The Norman duke of southern Italy Robert Guiscard, an ally and vassal of Pope Gregory VII, rescues the pope but the Normans pillage Rome in the process. Gregory VII retires to southern Italy with Robert Guiscard. (Miniature of Henry IV driving Gregory VII out of Rome, 12th-century ms. of the “Life of King Henry IV.)

1085   Pope Gregory VII dies in exile in southern Italy. His last words are a bitter parody of a psalm: ‘I have loved justice and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile.” (Cf. Psalm 45:7 “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”) Robert Guiscard dies while fighting the Byzantines in an attempt to seize Thessaly from the Byzantine Empire. (Miniature of Gregory VII dying in exile, 12th-century ms. of the “Life of King Henry IV.)

1095   Council of Clermont. The First Crusade is initiated when Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus requests help in reconquering from the Seljuk Turks the lost territory of Asia Minor. Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont calls upon the princes of Christendom for an armed “pilgrimage” to recover Jerusalem from the Muslims. Among his goals is the strengthening of the Gregorian papacy by bringing the Greek Orthodox Church under papal authority. The response is dramatic with two waves of “crusaders” answering the Pope’s call.  War continues between Pope Urban II and the German Emperor Henry IV, who is forced to flee Italy. (Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont.)

c. 1100-1200   Italian communes seize power from bishops and extend control over countryside (contado). Medieval commune of San Gimignano, freed from bishop 1199.

1122   Concordat of Worms formally ends the Investiture Controversy. A compromise is reached in a meeting at Worms, Germany, between pope and emperor over the issue of investiture: bishops will invest newly consecrated bishops with the religious symbols of their office, while the emperor invests them with the symbols of their temporal rule. This acknowledges the dual office of bishop. Insofar as the bishop is spiritual, he belongs to the clergy alone. Insofar as he is an earthly ruler endowed with jurisdictional rights, he is a subject of the emperor from whom he has received these rights.

 

 c. 1120-1303    Papal Monarchy. The resolution of the Investiture Controversy facilitated the development of the Papal Monarchy, which realized many of the claims to papal supremacy over the Church made by Pope Gregory VII in the Dictatus Papae of 1075. The pope emerged as the head of a hierarchical, institutional Church with a sophisticated administrative system that relied upon written records. In a sense, the twelfth-century Church became the most administratively advanced “state” in Western Europe, with the pope serving as its ruler and the Papal Curia as his central administration.  The Papal Monarch possessed all the attributes of a sovereign state: it legislated, taxed, maintained order within the church, and even raised armies to defend its interests (the crusades). The twelfth century witnessed the development of a codified body of canon law that asserted the papacy’s supremacy over the clergy, from archbishops down to subdeacons; regular use of papal legates to assert the pope’s control over regional churches; a series of ecumenical councils called by the pope; and the extension of papal oversight over canon law courts that head disputes not only between clerics and monastic houses but those involving rights of inheritance, marriage, and the rights of widows and orphans, and the establishment of the pope’s authority to make new canon law. An extensive system of canon law courts developed in which the papal curia serves as a supreme court of appeals.  Because of this, it became necessary for popes to be trained as legal experts, rather than as monks. It also necessitated the papacy’s search for increased revenues. The regular revenues of the papacy in the twelfth century came from a hodgepodge of sources. The most important of these were the feudal revenues the pope drew from the Papal States. This was supplemented by the “census,” annual payments by churches and monasteries directly subject to the papacy; Peter’s Pence, a land tax from England; charitable bequests from pious laymen; occasional income taxes and charitable subsidies taken from the clergy; payment by archbishops for the scarf-like vestment known as a pallium that indicated their rank and which could only be given by the pope; and, increasingly, by servitia, gratuities paid by bishops and abbots installed in their offices by the pope. To defray the cost of the growing judicial business heard by the Papal Court, attorney and chancery fees were charged. Given to great abuse were the fees charged by papal judges and court attendants to hear the suits, which could easily become extortionate.  Finally, the personnel of the Papal Curia, in particular the cardinals, expected and sometimes demanded gifts from those who appealed to the papacy for justice. As a result, criticism of the wealth and greed of the Papal Curia grew in the twelfth century among the lesser clergy outside of Rome, and gave rise to pointed satires and parodies such as “The Gospel according to the Mark of Silver” (a “mark” was a unit of money].

The development of the Papal Monarchy is reflected in the explosion in the number of ecumenical councils and in the number of papal bulls issued annually. Between 650 and 1000 there were only three ecumenical councils, two in Constantinople and one in Nicaea. Between 1123 (1st Lateran) and 1274 (2nd of Lyons) there were six ecumenical councils, all in the west. In addition there was an explosion of local legatine councils during this same period. In England there were 20 such councils between 1050 and 1300. Papal bulls (sealed letters) were the popes’ mechanism for conveying orders, resolving disputes, issuing decisions on doctrine, etc. Annual average of papal letters in first half of eleventh century was 1-10. Under Leo IX it rose to 35 and stayed at this level until 1130. Innocent II (1130-43) issued annually 72; 130 under Hadrian IV (1154-9), 179 under Alexander III (1159-81), 280 under Innocent III (1198-1215), and 730 under Innocent IV (1243-1254). The papal chancery, in which copies of all papal bulls were kept, became the model for record keeping offices instituted by secular rulers in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

1125   Reaffirmation of electoral character of German monarchy. Death of Emperor Henry V brings the Salian dynasty to an end. German princes meet at Mainz and create an electoral college of forty magnates (lay and clerical), ten from each of Germany’s four main tribes (Franconians/Lotharingians, Swabians, Saxons, Bavarians), who disregard hereditary claims and elect Lothar (III) of Supplinburg, duke of Saxony. The German monarchy had always been elective in theory but before this the principal of hereditary succession had largely determined who would be king.

1130   Nephew of Robert Guiscard Roger II the Great crowned king of Sicily with approval of pope, establishing the Norman kingdom of Sicily. Roger rules a kingdom that stretches from Naples to Sicily.

 

 c.1140   Canon law codified. Gratian, a canon lawyer from Bologna, compiles a handbook of canon law from councils and papal decrees, reconciling apparent contradictions by using Abelard’s scholastic method. His Decretum  or Concord of Discordant Canons was incorporated into the official Catholic Church Corpus Juris Canonici and was used as a canon law textbook until 1917. 12th century copy of Gratian’s Decretum; glossed Gratian’s Decretum, early 13th century, Stowe 378, British Library.

1146-1155  Republican commune governs Rome led by Arnold of Brescia. Commune drives Pope Eugenius III from Rome; urban and religious revolution led by Arnold of Brescia, a deposed abbot and a student of Abelard who condemned popes and bishops “for their avarice and their shameful money-grubbing, for leading sin-stained lives and for trying to build God’s Church through the shedding of blood” (John of Salisbury). Ironically, Arnold was in Rome on pilgrimage by order of Pope Eugenius III to do penance for his heterodox teaching when the communal revolt broke out. The communal revolt was political and economic rather than religious. The lay leaders of Rome were intent on reestablishing the rule of the Senate in place of the temporal rule of the Pope. Arnold, however, saw the revolt as a religious movement against the wealth and worldliness of the papacy and the clergy.

 

 1152-1190   Frederick I “Barbarossa” (“Red Beard”), Hohenstaufen emperor and the greatest medieval king of Germany.  Frederick coined the title “Holy Roman Empire” as a response to papal claims to superiority over emperors. Frederick created a firm foundation for a feudal monarchy in Germany and direct imperial rule over Italy. Although he was defeated in the battle of Legnano (1176) by a coalition of Lombard city-states and the papacy, he salvaged a political victory through the negotiated Peace of Constance (1183), in which the Lombard communes agreed to pay him an annual recognition fee in return for their rights of self-rule. Frederick imposed his direct authority over Tuscany (central Italy), maintained tight control over the German episcopacy by controlling appointment of bishops, increased royal authority over the German dukes and princes by asserting feudal overlordship and by encouraging them to increase their own power and the expense of lesser nobles, and fostered the expansion of German political and ecclesiastical power east to the Oder River (at the expense of the Slavs). In 1180 he broke the power of his greatest rival in Germany, the powerful Duke of Saxony and Bavaria Henry the Lion, by calling him to answer charges in a feudal court and confiscating his domains when he refused the summons. There remained, however, two critical flaws in Barbarossa’s German-Italian polity: 1) the kingship remained elective, which meant that candidates for the throne needed to make deals to secure the votes of the dukes and bishops who were the electors; and 2) the hostility of the papacy to German political control over central Italy and, in particular, Rome. His defeat at Legnano forced Frederick to abandon the antipopes he had appointed and to recognize his enemy Pope Alexander III as the legitimate pope. Frederick died in 1190 while leading a large German army during the Third Crusade. He drowned in a river near Antioch before ever engaging Saladin. Portrait of Frederick I Barbarossa. Marriage of Henry the Lion to Matilda, daughter of Henry II, from Gospel Book of Henry the Lion. Frederick Barbarossa with his sons King Henry VI and Duke Frederick of Swabia.

1155   Roman Commune led by Arnold of Brescia overthrown. Emperor Frederick I and Pope Hadrian IV join forces to suppress the commune of Rome. Its leader, the religious reformer Arnold of Brescia, is hanged, his body burned, and his ashes scattered in the Tiber River to prevent his bones becoming popular relics.

1157   Diet of Besançon.  At the Diet of Besançon (a “diet” was an assembly of the German nobility) Frederick Barbarossa’s chancellor Rainald of Dassel read aloud a letter from Pope Hadrian IV letter, translating it from Latin into German as he read. In it Pope Hadrian declared that he as pope had conferred on Frederick the “emblem of the imperial crown,” adding that he would be willing to bestow even greater “benefits” (beneficia) on the emperor in the future. Rainald chose to translate beneficia as dependent tenures (fiefs) rather than the more neutral “benefits.” The German nobility loudly protested the implication that Frederick held the Roman Empire as a fief/benefice from the papacy. It is possible that Frederick engineered the dispute at Bescancon in order to make clear his position that he was emperor by grace of God and not by grace of the pope.  It is also possible that Rainald got it right. Twelfth-century popes had claimed that Western Emperors held their imperial dignity from the papacy, citing for this the so-called “Donation of Constantine,” a forged imperial decree in which the Emperor Constantine before relocating to Constantinople supposedly transferred authority over the entire Western Empire to Pope Sylvester I and his successors. This document was concocted by a papal scribe in the middle of the eighth century to justify the papacy’s claims to the Papal States in Italy. Lorenzo Valla proved it to be a forgery in 1440. A Constantine conveying the Western Empire to Pope Sylvester, painting hung in the Lateran Palace in the thirteenth century.

1159   Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony rebuilds the port city of Lübeck, which quickly becomes a center of German merchant trade in North Sea and Baltic. This is the seed from which the Hanseatic League would grow a century later.

1176   The German troops of Frederick I are defeated decisively by the Italian Lombard League at Legnano. This ends Frederick I’s attempt to impose direct imperial rule over Lombardy and the Papal States. Frederick holds the Welf Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, responsible because of his refusal to provide Frederick military aid for the campaign.

1180-1182   Fall of Henry the Lion (Welf family), duke of Saxony and Bavaria. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held Duke Henry the Lion responsible for his defeat at the hands of the Lombard League at Legnano in 1176. After making peace with the papacy and the Lombard League, Frederick decided in 1180 to break Henry the Lion. He summoned him to the imperial court to answer for his refusal to to fulfill his feudal obligation by sending the troops he owed the emperor as duke. Henry refused the summons and was convicted of insubordination in absentia by a court of bishops and princes. Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court stripped Henry of his lands and declared him an outlaw. Frederick invaded Saxony with an Imperial army. Outmatched militarily, Henry's allies deserted him, and the duke was forced to submit in November 1181. He was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, during which time he was a guest in the Norman court of his father-in-law, Henry II of England.  He returned to Germany in 1185, only to be exiled once again in 1188. After Frederick departed on crusade in the following year, Henry returned to Saxony to wage war against the allies who had deserted him. He was finally defeated by Frederick’s son and successor Henry VI in 1194, who permitted him to retain the duchy of Brunswick (Braunschweig). Marriage of Henry the Lion and Matilda, daughter of King Henry II of England, Gospel Book of Henry the Lion

1182-1184   Joachim of Fiore, Cistercian abbot and mystic from Calabria (southern Italy), devises a new schema for providential history. Joachim, citing the “eternal gospel” mentioned in Revelations 14:6, proposed Three Ages of God’s dispensation, corresponding to the three Persons of the Trinity. The first was the Age the Father, representing God’s rule through power and awe, to which the Old Testament dispensation corresponds; in the second, the Age of the Son, hidden wisdom was revealed in the Son, represented by the New Testament and the Catholic Church; in the third, the Age of the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit will be established on earth based on a new dispensation of universal love, which will proceed from the Gospel of Christ but transcend the letter of it. In this third age there will be no need for the disciplinary institutions of the Church, which will disappear; the “reign of justice” will be replaced with the “reign of freedom.” Joachim held that the second period was drawing to a close, and that the third epoch would actually begin after some great cataclysm which he tentatively calculated as happening in 1260. The Franciscan Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino (see 1257 below) identified the Franciscan Order with Joachim’s “Order of the Just” who were to succeed the Catholic Church. This led Pope Alexander IV to set up a commission to review Joachim’s works, which were condemned as heretical in 1263 at the Synod of Arles 

1183   Emperor Frederick Barbarossa agrees to the Peace of Constance with the Lombard League, granting the cities of northern Italy rights of self government in return for annual payments in recognition of the emperor’s ultimate jurisdiction over them.

1192-1194   Richard the Lionheart in captivity in Germany. Attempting to return to England by sea, Richard was shipwrecked near Aquileia at the shores of the northern Adriatic and was forced to travel overland through the territory of his enemy Duke Leopold of Austria. Richard and his small entourage traveling in disguise were discovered and captured near Vienna. Accusing him of the murder of Conrad of Montferrat (and getting personal revenge as well for the slight to his honor at Acre), Leopold imprisoned Richard despite his the immunity from prosecution he was guaranteed by his status as crusader. A few months later Leopold turned him over to another of Richard’s enemies, King Henry VI of Germany (r.1190-1197), also a cousin of Conrad, who held a political grudge against Richard for his support of the Welfs—Henry the Lion had been Richard’s brother-in-law—and for placing Tancred into the kingship of Sicily against the claims of Henry’s wife. (Pope Celestine III excommunicated both Leopold and Henry for violating Richard’s crusader immunity.) While in captivity Richard wrote a song Ja nus hons pris or Ja nuls om pres ("No man who is imprisoned"), addressed to his half-sister Marie de Champagne, in which he accused his friends and kinsmen of abandoning him. But they hadn’t. Despite a civil war arising from Prince John’s attempt to usurp his brother’s throne, Richard’s mother Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and his supporters managed raise the150,000 marks Henry demanded in ransom (about three times the annual revenues Richard enjoyed as king) by heavily taxing both the clergy and the laity.  Philip Augustus offered Henry VI 80,000 marks more to keep Richard imprisoned for a few months more, but Henry turned the offer down. Philip let John know in a terse message: “The Devil is loose. Look to yourself!”

1194   King Henry VI of Germany obtains the throne of Sicily in right of his wife, the Norman princess Constance. He inherits with it the Norman Sicilian dream of a Mediterranean Crusader kingdom, but the papacy is less than thrilled by the idea of an emperor who controls all the lands to the north and the south of the Papal States.

1197-1215   Political conflict between Hohenstaufens and Welfs in the Medieval Empire. King Henry VI of Germany dies leaving an infant as his heir (Frederick) and no clear successor. Because of his mother, Frederick is made king of Sicily, but in Germany where kings are chosen by election, a dispute breaks out between supporters of Philip of Swabia (Hohenstaufen), Henry VI’s younger brother, and the Welf Otto of Brunswick.

 1198-1216   Pope Innocent III, the apex of the medieval papacy. Lothar de Conti, who was trained in both canon law and theology, was elected pope in 1198 at the age of 37 and took the papal name Innocent III. Innocent III’s agenda was to protect the Church against heresy, promote crusading to recover Jerusalem, improve the morals and behavior of the Catholic clergy, and to protect the political independence of the Papal States against encroachment by the kings of Germany. His primary concern was to unify all Christendom under the papal monarchy, and maintained that as vicar of Christ on earth, he was the ultimate judge of all Christians, including kings. In his view popes had greater authority than kings: “Now just as the moon derives its light from the sun and is indeed lower than it in quantity and quality, in position and in power, so too the royal power derives the splendor of its dignity from the pontifical authority.” This conception of papal authority is sometimes called “Caesaropapism,” pope as world ruler. But Innocent III did not claim to wield the temporal sword himself (except over the Papal States). Rather, he saw himself as responsible to God for the actions and performance of all Christian kings. Pope Innocent III refused to recognize King Philip Augustus of France’s annulment of his marriage to Ingeborg of Denmark and nullified the king’s marriage to Agnes of Meulan and ordered him to separate from her.  When he refused, Innocent placed France under interdict (1199). When King John of England refused to accept Innocent’s choice of Stephen Langton to be archbishop of Canterbury, Innocent placed England under interdict (1207). When John ignored this, Innocent upped the ante by deposing John in 1212 and encouraging Philip Augustus (who had since taken Ingeborg back) to launch a ‘crusade’ against England. This led John to submit to the pope in 1213 and declare himself as a vassal of the Church.  When the English barons revolted John and forced him to issue Magna Carta, Innocent III nullified it on the grounds that John, as a vassal of the pope, could not make such concessions without his lord’s consent. He also interfered in the election of German kings, giving and withdrawing his support for claimants according to how it would affect papal control over the Papal States.  He organized four crusades, two to the East (the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the capture of the Christian city of Constantinople, and the Fifth, which began only after his death), the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heretics of southern France, and a political crusade against a Hohenstaufen loyalist in Sicily. He presided over the Fourth Lateran Council (see under 1215), the most important Church council of the Middle Ages and the culmination of his ecclesiastical agenda.  (Innocent III, fresco portrait, early 13th century.)

1199   Crusade. Pope Innocent III calls a crusade against Markward of Anweiler, Margrave of Ancona and Count of Abruzzo in central Italy and lord of Palermo in the kingdom of Sicily. Markward was a supporter of Innocent’s enemy the Hohenstaufen claimant to the German throne Philip of Swabia, and posed a threat both to the Papal States and to the pope’s claim to supremacy over Sicily. This was the first “political crusade.”

1207-1213   Pope Innocent III and King John of England fight over the archbishopric of Canterbury. In 1207 Pope Innocent III appointed the English cardinal-priest Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury to resolve a disputed election (King John of England forced the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury to “elect” his favorite, John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, while some of the younger monks secretly elected the subprior of Christ Church. Pope Innocent received a delegation of 16 monks from Canterbury, deposed both claimants, and ordered the delegation to elect an archbishop in his presence, suggesting Stephen Langton as an obvious candidate. The monks elected Langton and Pope Innocent III consecrated him as archbishop. A royally pissed King John responded by closing the ports of England to the new archbishop, pronouncing as a public enemy anyone for upheld Stephen Langton’s claim, and expelling the monks of Canterbury, who now unanimously supported Stephen, from Christ Church, taking possession of the lands of the monastery and the archbishopric. Pope Innocent III responded in 1208 by placing England under interdict and excommunicating John in 1209. John ignored the papal pressure placed upon him and simply seized all the revenues from the bishoprics since they were no longer performing sacraments, and Innocent, faced with John’s recalcitrance, allowed in 1212 last rites to performed in England and masses to be held in some churches, as long as the doors remained closed. In early 1213 Pope Innocent III went one step further and formally deposed King John, asking King Philip Augustus to invade in a papal sanctioned war. John responded by submitting to Innocent’s demands. Not only did he accept Stephen Langton as archbishop, he formally gave his kingdom to “St. Peter” and received it back as a papal fief.  In recognition of Pope Innocent III’s lordship, John agreed to pay the papacy 700 marks a year from England and an additional 300 marks a year from Ireland. This was John’s “Canossa” (see above 1077). By becoming the vassal of the papacy, John had insured Pope Innocent III’s and the English church’s support against the threatened invasion from France.

 

 1209-1229   Albigensian Crusade against the ‘Cathar’ heretics of southern France/Cathar heresy. After the murder of the Cistercian monk and papal legate (St) Peter of Castelnau following a stormy meeting with Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (1156-1222) over the count’s supposed protection of heretics, Pope Innocent III calls for the Albigensian Crusade against the dualist Cathar heretics (Albigensians) and their supporters in Languedoc (“land of the language of ‘oc’ [yes]”=southern France, as opposed to ‘Langedoïl,’ northern France where people used “oïl”/oui to say yes).

1212    Pope Innocent III pronounces Frederick, the fifteen year old son of King Henry VI (d. 1197) who was then king of Sicily, to be the legitimate king of Germany. Frederick responds by promising to keep the Crowns of Germany and of Sicily separate, and has his son Henry crowned King of Sicily, with his wife Constance of Aragon ruling as regent in their son’s name. Frederick later reneges.

1213        Frederick II issues the Golden Bull of Eger which acknowledges the pope’s authority over the Papal States, repudiates the traditional imperial claim to revenues from vacant bishoprics, and concedes to the German Church the free election of bishops and the right of clergy to appeal to the papal curia.

1215   As a consequence of the Emperor Otto IV’s defeat by King Philip Augustus of France in the Battle of Bouvines, Innocent III’s candidate for the kingship of Germany, Frederick II (r.1215-1250), son of King Henry VI, is accepted in place of King Otto IV by the princes of Germany. To win the Pope’s support, Frederick promises Innocent that he will give up the Kingdom of Sicily; he reneges on the promise.

Also as a consequence of the Battle of Bouvines, English barons coerce King John to issue Magna Carta. As soon as John signs it, he sends an embassy to Rome to ask that his feudal overlord Pope Innocent III quash it. Innocent III does, declaring it invalid because it is illegitimate for subjects to impose their will upon those who rule them by grace of God.

 1215   Fourth Lateran Council.  The Fourth Lateran Council was the most important ecumenical council of the Central Middle Ages.  Held in the pope’s Lateran palace in Rome, it represents Pope Innocent III's most lasting contribution to ecclesiastical reform.  Attended by over 400 bishops, 800 abbots, thousands of lesser clergy and laity, and representatives of all the great princes. Even Byzantium was represented (because of Latin kingdom created in 1204 [lasted until 1261] result of 4th Crusade). The mass of people in the Lateran was so great that an eyewitness commented that he could hear very little of the sermon over the 'tumult of the people.' As one eyewitness described the pageantry: “The greatest Roman noblemen, swathed in silk and purple, preceded him to the accompaniment of drum and chorus, strings and organ, and the resounding harmonies of trumpets, and an infinite multitude of clerics and people followed. Roman boys, raising olive branches, met the lord pope with shouts and, as is their custom, kept saying Kyrieleyson and Christeleyson without interruption. Right away, at the other end of the bridge across which one approaches the church, uncounted lanterns, suspended on ropes throughout the streets  and alleys, strove to make the brightness of that day succumb to the brilliance of their own light. The number of banners and pieces of purple cloth, which were unfolded on the houses and high towers of the Romans cannot be estimated at all.”   (Miniature of Fourth Lateran Council by Matthew Paris, c.1260.)

          Issues of the Fourth Lateran: The council dealt with a variety of issues, ecclesiastical, doctrinal, and even political. The deposed emperor Otto IV sent ambassadors to seek reconciliation with the pope, the rebel English barons fighting against King John were excommunicated, a Latin patriarch of Constantinople was established, and quarrels among bishops (Compostella and Toledo) over precedence were sorted out. The most important issues were

1. Planning for a new crusade (Innocent III’s most fervent desire)

2. Purification of the morals of the clergy and improved instruction of clergy in matters of faith and religious rites.  The secular clergy were to be sober and celibate. Clergy are to abstain from drunkenness and to be celibate, canon 15; shall not visit taverns or play games of chance, or dress unsuitably, canon 16; and clergy shall not participate in judicial duels or ordeals--a revolutionary canon, no. 18, that altered the whole judicial system of Christian Europe, led increasingly to use of jury trials in England and Inquisitorial procedure on continent; no. 6, that provincial synods are to be held annually to ensure enforcement of canonical enactments for the correction of abuses; no. 27--only those prepared and instructed in the faith are to be elevated to the priesthood: 'it is better to have a few good ministers than many who are no good'; no. 11 all diocese are to have masters to teach gratis priests and poor students),

3. Suppression of heresy (to which end a lengthy profession of orthodox faith was issued, canon 1; and an order that bishops and rulers suppress heresy in their domains, canon 3)

4. Clarification of doctrine on the sacraments (transubstantiation was established as Church doctrine, canon 1; confession and communion to a parish priest at least once a year was ordered for every adult layman, canon 21; priestly monopoly on the sacrament of the mass was reaffirmed)

 5. Separation of Jews and Muslims from Christians. Jews and Muslims were to dress in a manner that would distinguish them from Christians. Jews were forbidden to go out in public during Easter, in particular on Good Friday. Jews were to be punished by secular authorities for blaspheming Christ.

1215   Emperor Frederick II takes the crusader vow (but doesn’t go on crusade until 1228 because of unsettled political conditions in Germany and Italy).

 

    1216   The “Order of Preachers” commonly called the Dominican Order is founded by St. Dominic of Spain (1170-1221) and is authorized by Pope Honorius III. Its purpose is to convert Muslims, Jews, and pagans and to combat heresy. In the thirteenth-century the Dominicans become the main personnel for the papal Inquisition, missionaries to Africa, Asia, and the Baltic, and teachers of theology in universities, where they become associated with Aritotelianism. Death of Pope Innocent III.

1217   With Pope Innocent III safely dead, Frederick II recalls his son Henry to Germany and resumes the title of King of Sicily. His wife Constance now rules Sicily in her husband’s name rather than her son’s. Henry becomes duke of Swabia and, two years later, “rector of Burgundy.”

1220   Pope Honorius III crowns Frederick II as Holy Roman Emperor (Nov. 22) and his eldest son Henry is named King of the Romans (in Germany). Frederick II repeats his vow to go on crusade.  In April of that year German princes at Frederick’s behest elected his eldest son Henry as king of Germany.  (Frederick claimed that he could not fulfill his crusader vow until he had clairfied the question of imperial succession.) To gain the support of the German bishops for Henry’s election, Frederick issued Confoederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis.  The Confoederatio granted German bishops regalian rights to mint coins, levy tolls, build fortifications, and hold courts in their lordships. Frederick promised that the German King or Emperor would not only accept sentences passed in episcopal courts but would assist the bishops in having them carried out.  Condemnation in an episcopal court automatically meant condemnation and punishment by the royal or imperial courts as well, which meant that excommunication by an ecclesiastical court was invariably followed by the sentence of outlawry from the King or the Emperor.

1222   Henry’s election as King of Germany in 1220 had been contested by the pope and several important German nobles. It was not until 1222 that he was actually crowned king of Germany in Aachen by Archbishop Engelbert I of Cologne.

1225   Frederick II marries (by proxy) Yolande (aka Isabella) daughter of John of Brienne, the nominal ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem. By right of his wife, Frederick II claims the kingdom of Jerusalem.

1227   Frederick II set sails from Brindisi to Acre, but is forced to return to Italy when an epidemic breaks out in the fleet. The new pope Gregory IX excommunicates Frederick ostensibly for his persistent failure to fulfill his crusade vow but probably really because of Frederick’s political designs over Italy which threatens the pope’s control over the papal states.

1228-29  Crusade of Emperor Frederick II.  Ignoring his excommunication, Frederick II leads a crusade to Palestine and retakes Jerusalem through negotiations with the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt al-Kamil rather than by force. Because of the excommunication, Frederick’s forces melted away but he retained enough troops to present a threat to al-Kamil, who had just recently emerged from a civil war against his brother, the emir of Syria.  The sultan allowed Frederick control over Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Sidon, and Jaffa. In response, Frederick agreed not to restore the defenses of Jerusalem and to allow the Muslims to retain control over the Temple Mount area of Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock. Frederick II, claiming the throne of Jerusalem by right of his second wife Yolande of Brienne, had himself crowned King of Jerusalem in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, although legally he was only regent for his son by Yolande, Conrad. The pope and much of Christendom are appalled at his willingness to deal with infidels.  The Christians would continue to hold Jerusalem until 1244.

1231   Frederick II issues the “Constitutions of Melfi” (Liber Augustalis), a 253 clause legal code for the Kingdom of Sicily (Italy south of the Papal States and the island of Sicily). The “Constitutions of Melfi” emphasize the theocratic basis of Frederick’s kingship and recalling Roman precedent, strengthened the central power of the king vis-à-vis the powers of the rural feudal baronage, bishops, and the cities of the kingdom. Bearing weapons and building castles without royal permission were banned; cities were forbidden to elect consuls or rulers (since they were to be under the direct rule of royal officials); internal tariffs within the Kingdom were abolished, while royal monopolies were established for the silk, iron, and grain trade; the king and his officials alone were to have rights of justice; established equality of justice under royal law for nobles and commoners alike; abolished ordeals and trial by combat as methods of judicial proof, and insisted upon judicial inquiry based upon evidence. The “Constitutions of Melfi” established the closest thing in the middle ages to an “absolute monarchy.” The great twentieth-century history Ernst Kantorowicz characterized it as “the birth certificate of the modern administrative state.”

   Frederick’s policy toward the German dukes and bishops was very different. In order to secure their support (or non-interference) for his policy of placing northern Italy under direct imperial rule, Frederick offered the German princes virtual autonomy within their territories. In the same year he issued the “Constitutions of Melfi”  (1231) Frederick also issued the “Constitution in Favor of the Princes,” which had the result of making the German magnates practically independent and even placed the towns under their rule. When his son Henry, whom he had appointed King of Germany in 1228, objected to this and revolted, Frederick suppressed his rising, threw him into prison, where he died, and replaced him as king in 1238 with his second son, Conrad. From this time on he made little attempt to exercise any real authority in Germany, whose princes, satisfied with their status, caused him no trouble. (Frederick II with imperial eagle.)

St Peter Martyr by Lawrence OP. 1233   Papal Inquisition established. Because the Albigensian Crusade had failed to root out the Cathar heresy, Pope Gregory IX establishes the Papal Inquisition. The Inquisition is entrusted initially to the Franciscans and Dominicans, but increasingly becomes dominated by the latter. Pairs of inquisitors are sent to regions known for heretical activity with orders to take testimony from all adults. This testimony is systematically recorded, which allows the inquisitors to cross-check testimonies and confessions. Those who confess freely receive light penance; those who resist are punished more harshly, usually through imprisonment. Only Cathar “perfects” (clergy) who refuse to recant are turned over to the secular authorities for punishment (usually burning). No torture is used for the first couple of decades, but the technology of written records proves effective in stamping out the Cathar heresy without it. St. Peter of Verona, Grand Inquisitor in Italy, martyred 1252.

1234-1235   Frederick II outlaws and then arrests and imprisons his son King Henry (VII) of Germany.  King Henry had been at odds with his father’s policies allowing the German princes and bishops virtual autonomy within their lordships. In 1233 he angered Frederick by opposing the fanatical (and possibly crazy) papal Inquisitor Conrad of Magburg, which strained relations between the emperor and the pope at a time when Frederick was courting Pope Gregory IX as an ally against the Lombard cities. Frederick outlawed his son, who responded by rebelling against Frederick in alliance with the Lombards. Henry was forced to submit and was formally dethroned at a diet of the German princes, who elected his brother Conrad in his place. Frederick imprisoned Henry who died in 1242. (Analysis of Henry’s skeleton undertaken in 1998-1999 indicated that the young man was suffering from leprosy.)

1237   Frederick II wins a victory over the Milanese at Cortenuova, and the Lombard League collapses. This is the high point of Frederick’s power in northern Italy.

1238-1250   Frederick II at war in Italy against the papacy and Lombard League. The successors of Pope Innocent III are involved in a political struggle with Emperor Frederick II, who attempts to take control in central Italy. They order a crusade against him, the second time a crusade is called for political reasons. Frederick loses, weakening the power of the king in Germany and of the emperor in Italy. As a consequence neither Germany nor Italy will be united until the 19th century.

1239        Pope Gregory IX excommunicates the Emperor Frederick II (for the second time), which leads to Frederick II invading the Papal States in the following year.

1245        Pope Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons declares Emperor Frederick II deposed and absolves his subjects from their oaths of fidelity, charging him with oath breaking, committing sacrilege by imprisoning cardinals and bishops, violating the peace between himself and the Church, showing contempt for the papacy, sacrilege, heresy, and “joining in odious friendship with the Saracens.” The German princes elect an ‘anti-king’ and Frederick finds himself fighting rebels in Germany and Italy. His control over northern Italy is shattered by the Battle of Parma in 1248.

1250   Emperor Frederick II dies. He assumes the habit of a Cistercian monk on his deathbed.

1252   Inquisitors are allowed to employ torture. The papal bull “Ad extirpanda” allows Inquisitors to order the torture of suspected heretics, almost twenty years after the establishment of the Inquisition and the successful rooting out of the Cathar heresy in southern France and northern Italy. The use of torture reflects the influence and spread of Roman law and Roman legal procedures.

1266-1270   Charles of Anjou, younger brother of King (St) Louis IX of France, having been granted the Hohenstaufen controlled kingdom of Naples and Sicily by the pope, conquers it militarily, signaling the final papal victory over the dynasty of Frederick I and Frederick II.

1273-1291   Rudolph I of Hapsburg, Holy Roman Emperor. Rudolph was the first Hapsburg to be elected King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor. He made little attempt to impose his rule over the dukes and imperial bishops of Germany. His reign was marked by persecution of the Jews.

1274   Second Council of Lyon (France). Ecumenical council of the Catholic Church attended by 500 bishops, 60 abbots, 1000 other clerics including representatives from all the universities, and representatives of the kings of Christendom and a delegation from the Mongol Khan of the Persian Ilkhanate. The Council attempted to resolve the schism between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches. One of the Council’s other major points of business was to deal with complaints about the mendicant orders of friars from secular clerics and Benedictine monks. The attack on the mendicant movement resulted in formal approval of the four major mendicant orders of friars, the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, and suppression of other, lesser mendicant orders. St. Thomas Aquinas died travelling to Lyon to represent the Dominicans.

1282-1302   War of the Sicilian Vespers. Charles of Anjou’s efforts to tax Sicily provokes the "Sicilian Vespers" revolt. The rebels turn to King Peter of Aragon, connected through marriage to the Hohenstaufens.

1285-1314   Philip IV the Fair of France. France becomes the strongest power in Europe under the rule of St. Louis' grandson, Philip the Fair (i.e. handsome). Philip reformed and improve royal administration in France, relying on middle-class officials rather than nobles. He established a royal financial accounting office modeled on the English Exchequer and a high court for royal justice, the Parlement of Paris. To increase his revenues and royal authority, Philip attempts to gain full control over the French Church from Rome, which leads him into conflict with Pope Boniface VIII. (King Edward I of England does homage to King Philip the Fair, Grandes Chroniques de France, 14th century.) (Effigy of Philip the Fair.)

1286   Emperor Rudolph I declares German Jews to be “serfs of the treasury,” negating their political liberties.

1292-1294   Cardinals deadlocked in attempts to elect a pope. They finally turn to a “dark horse,” a pious hermit Pietro da Morrone who was living secluded in a cave. He took the name Pope Celestine V. He reigns for five months and eight days before abdicating to return to his cave. His successor, Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303), orders him imprisoned in the castle of Fumone until his death in 1296. Celestine V favored the Spiritual Franciscans, who sought permission from him to refound the true Franciscan Order. Boniface VIII hated the Spirituals, and the Spirituals returned the sentiment, denouncing him as a worldly pseudo-pope presiding over a carnal church. They expected the imminent appearance of an Angelic Pope and World Emperor (a third Frederick) who would usher in the new Age of the Spirit.

1294   Pope Boniface VIII (p. 1294-1303) opposes the kings of France and England over the taxation of the clergy for support of war. Boniface VIII claimed the full powers of the papal monarchy but would run into political problems with King Philip IV of France.

 

1300   First Christian Jubilee Year. Pope Boniface VIII grants "great remissions and indulgences for sins" for pilgrims "visiting the city of Rome and the venerable basilica of the Prince of the Apostles.” To earn the indulgence pilgrims must be truly penitent, confess their sins, and visit the basilicas of St Peter and St Paul on at least fifteen days. The Jubilee recognizes the renewed importance of pilgrimages to Rome now that Jerusalem was no longer accessible to the West. Boniface VIII by Giotto (c.1300)

1302   Boniface VIII issues the papal bull “Unam Sanctam” which declares papal supremacy over both Church and State. The political reality of the pope’s position, however, is made clear the next year, when King Philip the Fair charges Pope Boniface VIII with heresy and crimes that render him unfit to be pope and sends an army into Italy to seize him.

1303   Boniface VIII is captured in Anagni by an army sent by King Philip IV of France with a warrant for his arrest and dies a month after his release from the mistreatment he had suffered.  (Tomb of Pope Boniface VIII.)

1307-1312   Suppression of the Knights Templar. In 1307 King Philip IV ordered the arrest of all the Knights Templar in France, charging them with heresy (including rites of spitting on the cross and worshipping the head of an idol called “Baphomet”), sodomy, and witchcraft. Under torture, Templars confessed, which King Philip used to pressure the pope to suppress the Order.  Philip’s motivation was probably financial. Threatened with military force by King Philip, Pope Clement VI dissolved the order in 1312. In 1314 the last Grand Master of the order, Jacques de Molay, and Geoffrey de Charny, Preceptor of Normandy, faced with life imprisonment, recanted their confessions and were burnt at the stake.

1309   Avignon Papacy. Because of political disruption in Rome, Pope Clement V, a Frenchman, moves the Papal Curia to the French-speaking city of Avignon (within the borders of the Empire), beginning the so-called "Babylonian Captivity" of the Church (1309-1377) For most of the fourteenth century, the papacy remained subordinate to French authority with the majority of cardinals and popes being French. The French based papacy in Avignon centralizes the Church government and establishes a system of papal finance but weakens the prestige of the papacy.

1309   Crusade. Papacy preaches a crusade against Venice in a dispute over Ferrara.

1314   Election of Louis IV (of Bavaria) as king of Germany. Louis, the duke of Upper Bavaria, was elected king of Germany by a 4-3 vote over his Habsburg cousin Frederick the Handsome, duke of Austria and Styria. Frederick contested the election militarily.

1322-1326   Louis IV defeated Duke Frederick the Handsome near Mühldorf, and Frederick and 1300 nobles from Austria and Salzburg were captured. He was held for three years in captivity until released with the promise that he would persuade his brother and co-ruler of Austria Leopold to acknowledge Louis IV as king. When he failed, he offered to return to captivity. Louis was so impressed with the gesture and remembering his childhood friendship with Frederick, agreed to share rule with him Frederick would rule Germany as King of the Romans while Louis would rule Italy as King of the Romans. This arrangement only lasted a few months. When Leopold died, Frederick abdicated and returned to rule Austria.

1323   Condemnation of apostolic poverty as heretical/Spiritual Franciscans pronounced heretics. Pope John XXII, who in 1296 had condemned the Fraticelli (proponents of a strict interpretation of St. Francis’ doctrine of apostolic poverty), issued the bull “Cum inter nonnullos,” in which he declared it heretical to deny that Christ and the Apostles owned and used property. In the following year he condemned as heretics Spiritual Franciscans who insisted on maintaining the doctrine of apostolic poverty. John XXII’s attack on the Spiritual Franciscans was in part generated by their criticism of the wealth of the Church and their adoption of a Joachimite (see 1182-1184) interpretation of the Franciscan Order in which friars would replace the Church. He was also probably motivated by the Emperor Louis of Bavaria’s championship of the Spiritual Franciscans and their support for him in his war against the papacy. The Spirituals respond by denying that John XXII  papal legitimacy: since a true pope cannot err and the rule of St. Francis cannot be modified, a pope who modifies the Rule must be in error and hence cannot be a true pope.

1324   Defender of the Peace. Marsilius of Padua argues that all earthly authority derives from the consent of the people and for the separation of Church and state.  Marsilius, rector of the University of Paris, wrote Defensor Pacis in support of the Emperor-elect Louis (Ludwig) IV the Bavarian against the Caesaropapal claims of Pope John XXII. The papacy and the clergy in general, he argued, had no authority in temporal matters and no right to property. Marsilius wouldn’t even concede to the pope the right to interpret scripture or define dogma, which he saw as belonging to church councils, the true representative of the body of the faithful. In Defender of the Peace (the name refers to the State) Marsilius turned the medieval political paradigm on its head. He argued that all earthly power and authority, whether political or ecclesiastical, derives from the will and consent of the “people.”  Civil governments received their authority to govern from the citizenry as a whole; the leaders of the Church, similarly, received their authority from the whole body of the faithful, whose representatives are the church councils. The people delegated the power that God gave them to a king to rule their temporal lives, and to a pope to direct their spiritual lives. Sovereignty for both State and Church resides in the people and their representative bodies.  Just as Jesus and the Apostles were subject to Roman authority, all clergy should be subject to political authority. The Church, properly, Marsilius argued, is a spiritual body without any right to property other than that which is delegated to it by a king for its use. “Legislators or rulers,” Marsilius contended, can lawfully, in accordance with divine law, seize and use on their own authority all goods which remain over and above the needs of the gospel ministers. … For with food and clothing the priests should be content.” In other words, kings can tax the clergy at will.

1328   King Louis IV of Germany is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In1327, Louis, having made peace with the Hapsburgs, crossed the Alps into Italy.  He was crowned king of Italy in Milan, but Pope John XXII continued to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of his royal election. This was, in part, a result of Louis IV’s support of the Spiritual Franciscans, and, in part, due to an outbreak of political warfare within Rome between the Guelphs (papal supporters) and the Ghibellines (imperial party). Louis IV marched into Rome and had himself crowned emperor by a distinguished Roman senator, a cardinal, and an archbishop. Louis IV also set up an antipope, who ruled only for the year that Louis IV was actually in Rome.

1338   The Declaration of Rhense (or the Treaty of Rhense) was a decree issued by six of the seven prince-electors of Germany that established the principle that the election by all or the majority of the German electors automatically conferred not only the royal title but also rule over the empire, without papal confirmation. The convened prince-electors decided that "Louis is the rightfully elected King of the Romans, and his legitimate power (in the German kingdom) is not dependent upon the pope's will".

1356   Golden Bull of 1356 issued by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and the Reichstag at the Diet of Nuremberg fixed into constitutional law the basic electoral procedures for the Holy Roman Empire. The Golden Bull explicitly named the seven prince-electors who were to choose the King of the Romans, who would then usually be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope later. The seven prince-electors were, "Three prelates were archchancellors of Germany (Mainz), Gaul and Burgundy (Trier), and Italy (Cologne) respectively : the Bohemia cupbearer, the Palgrave seneschal, Saxony marshal, and Brandenburg chamberlain.” The Bull refers to the rex in imperatorem promovendus, the "king to be promoted emperor. Even though the practice of election had existed earlier and most of the dukes named in the Golden Bull were involved in the election, and although the practice had mostly been written down in an earlier document, the declaration at Rhense from 1338, the Golden Bull was more precise in several ways. For one, the dukedoms of the Electors were declared indivisible, and succession was regulated for them to ensure that the votes would never split. Secondly, the Bull prescribed that four votes would always suffice to elect the new King; as a result, three Electors could no longer block the election, and the principle of majority voting was explicitly stated for the first time in the Empire. Finally, the Bull cemented a number of privileges for the prince-electors to confirm their elevated role in the Empire. It is therefore also a milestone in the establishment of largely independent states in the Empire, a process to be concluded only centuries later, notably with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. (Taken from Wikipedia.)