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England and the Roman Curia under Innocent III1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

C. R. Cheney
C. R. Cheney
Affiliation:
Professor of Medieval History, University of Cambridge
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Extract

The relations of England with the Curia in the thirteenth century is hardly a subject neglected by historians. From A. L. Smith to C. H. Lawrence stretches a long line of scholars who have been concerned during the last sixty years or so with the impact of papal authority on this country in that century. Meanwhile, on the continent, the vast output of studies on papal doctrine and curial machinery elucidate the particular question of England's links with Rome. When so much has been written, and where so many experts are in the room, it is temerarious to say more. I do not intend to present a startling new view of Anglo-papal relations in the time of Innocent III. My object is much more modest. For the last few years Mrs. Cheney and I have been tracing as much as possible of the correspondence between the Roman Curia and England during that pontificate, 1198–1216. All I want to do is to offer a few facts and figures and reflexions which come from our search.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , October 1967 , pp. 173 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

page 173 note 2 The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages, ed. Lawrence, C. H., London 1965, 68–9Google Scholar.

page 174 note 1 The term is also used by Professor Raymonde Foreville in the preceding volume of Fliche and Martin's Histoire de l'Église, in describing the generation before Innocent III.

page 174 note 2 English Church and the Papacy, ed. Lawrence, 198. Cf. recent remarks by Brentano, Robert in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed Kuttner, Stephan and Ryan, J. Joseph, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C, Vatican 1965, i. 311–12.Google Scholar

page 175 note 1 The Letters of Pope Innocent III concerning England and Wales, a Calendar with an Appendix of Texts, ed. C. R. and Mary G. Cheney (forthcoming from the Clarendon Press), no. 329.

page 175 note 2 Ibid., nos. 205–6.

page 175 note 3 Ibid., nos. 103, 973.

page 175 note 4 Ibid., nos. 687, 761.

page 175 note 5 British Museum, MS. Harley 1965 fol. 45v.

page 175 note 6 Letters of Innocent III, nos. 425, 620.

page 176 note 1 Relazioni of the Tenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, Rome 1955, i. 456.

page 177 note 1 Letters of Innocent III, nos. 67–9, 207.

page 177 note 2 Ibid., no. 220.

page 177 note 3 Ibid., nos. 243, 244, 253; Potthast, Regesta Pontificum, nos. 1077, 1093, and Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. 598, p. 156, were all issued between 27 May and 15 July 1200 in the form Non absque dolore, on behalf of Cistercian houses.

page 178 note 1 Letters of Innocent III, no. 36.

page 178 note 2 Ibid., nos. 127–30.

page 178 note 3 See Barraclough, G., ‘Audientia litterarum contradictarum’, Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, ed. Naz, R., Paris 1935, i. 1387–99Google Scholar; P. Herde, in Proceedings of Second Intern. Congress, ed. Kuttner and Ryan, 323–5; Sayers, Jane, ‘Canterbury proctors at the court of “audientia litterarum contradictarum”’, Traditio, xxii (1966), 311–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 178 note 4 Letters of Innocent III, no. 987.

page 178 note 5 Ibid., no. 149.

page 178 note 6 Sayers, J., ‘The judicial Activities of the General Chapters’, in this Journal, xv (1964), 18–32, 168–85Google Scholar and ‘English Cistercian Cases and their Delegation in the first half of the Thirteenth Century’, Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis, xx (1964), 85–102Google Scholar.

page 179 note 1 Letters of Innocent III, no. 619; cf. a closely similar commission on behalf of the ‘militia Christi de Livonia’, 11 October 1213. P.L., ccxvi. 918. For other examples see Cheney, C. R., From Becket to Langton, 1956, 71–2.Google Scholar

page 179 note 2 Letters of Innocent III, no. 876.

page 179 note 3 Ibid., nos. 525, 545, 563.

page 179 note 4 The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, ed. C. D. Ross, 1964, i. 317, no. 352.

page 180 note 1 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera (RS), i. 119.

page 180 note 2 P.L., ccxiv. 232 (lib. 1 ep. 277), and Die Register Innozenz' III: 1 Pontifikatsjahr, Texte, ed. Hageneder, O. and Haidacher, A., 1964, 382Google Scholar.

page 180 note 3 Letters of Innocent III, nos. 256, 458, 535, 547; Amesbury's debt was fifty marks. Cf. Cheney, From Becket to Langton, 67–9.

page 181 note 1 The Chronicle of jocelin of Brakelond, ed. Butler, H. E., 1949, 33–4Google Scholar, where the translation of the first sentence is faulty.

page 181 note 2 Letters of Innocent III, no. 670.

page 181 note 3 Ibid., no. 885 and Chronica monasterii de Melsa (RS), i. 320.

page 181 note 4 ‘etsi locum Dei tenemus in terris, non tamen de ocultis possumus divinare’: P.L., ccxiv. 350 and Die Register, p. 559.

page 181 note 5 P.L., ccxiv. 386 and Die Register, p. 613; P.L., ccxv, 542; P.L., cxvii, 311.

page 181 note 6 See the title De rescriptis, in the Decretals of Gregory IX (i. 3).

page 182 note 1 English Church and the Papacy, ed. Lawrence, 68. Cf. Powicke, F. M., on the situation in 1215, ‘In the eyes of the great Pope Innocent, looking from afar, England was a sort of madhouse’: Medieval England 1066–1485, Home University Library, 1931, 239–40Google Scholar. In 1198 the pope said sympathetic words to the prior of Canterbury, in dispute with the archbishop, ‘Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake…. We are sorry for your losses, but we are more disturbed at the way in which we are flouted’: quoted, Cheney, From Becket to Langton, 75.

page 182 note 2 Letters of Innocent III, no. 879.

page 182 note 3 Ibid., nos. 901, 870, 896, 897.

page 182 note 4 Ibid., no. 179. For the prescriptions of the canon law on forgery (and Innocent III had a large part in the making of the rules) see Herde, P., ‘Römisches und kanonisches Recht bei der Verfolgung des Falschungsdelikts im Mittelalter’, Traditio, xxi (1965), 291–362Google Scholar.

page 183 note 1 Letters of Innocent III, no. 587A, note, from Canterbury, Dean and Chapter Muniments, Ch. Ch. letters, ii. 12.

page 183 note 2 Ibid., no. 999.

page 183 note 3 Ibid., nos. 185, 201, 216, 300, 322, 469, 571.

page 183 note 4 Ibid., no. 587B, and a similar case in no. 588A. Cf. the commotion and violence at the reading of a papal mandate by judges delegate in the bishop's synod of Poitiers, P.L., ccxvi. 762 (31 October 1212).

page 183 note 5 See the case of H., nephew of John cardinal bishop of Albano, and the church of Woodhorn: Letters, nos. 429, 451, 457–61, 534–5, 547, 611, 623–5 a nd Cheney, From Becket to Langton, 179–80.

page 183 note 6 Letters, no. 891.

page 184 note 1 Cartulary of Cirencester, ed. Ross, i. 160, no. 160 note.

page 184 note 2 Knowles, David, The Monastic Order in England, 1940, 344Google Scholar, cf. ibid., 326–7.

page 185 note 1 Dr. Duggan pointed out in discussion that the series of five short pontificates before 1198 meant that privileges and indults, sought from successive popes, might lead to a disporportionate number of survivals from that period. This should be borne in mind. Holtzmann, in Papsturkunden in England, gives about 350 bulls for the period 1181–98; documents of Urban III to Celestine III which renew, wholly or in part, documents issued after 1181 number 48.