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Honorius III and the Crusade: Responsive Papal Government Versus the Memory of his Predecessors*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Extract
The medieval papacy was an institution steeped in its own history and traditions, but how far did the popes’ recollection of their predecessors’ ‘blessed memory’ influence their own political decision-making? Through access to earlier letter registers, combined with their memories of experiences at the curia before election to the papal throne, popes could potentially delve into their own institutional history when making contemporary political decisions. In 1977 James Powell suggested that, in negotiations with Emperor Frederick II (1220–50) over his Holy Land crusade vow, Pope Honorius III (1216–27) had reached decisions based on his memory of the negotiations between Pope Clement III (1187–91) and Frederick II’s grandfather, Emperor Frederick I (1155–90).
- Type
- Part I: The Churches’ Use of the Past
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2013
Footnotes
*
I wish to thank Brenda Bolton, Bernard Hamilton, Jonathan Phillips and the editors of Studies in Church History for commenting on this essay, and Barbara Bombi for several references.
References
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10 Innocent III is explicitly cited in over two hundred letters issued throughout Honorius’s reign, and dozens of letters cite Clement III, Celestine III and Honorius’s other predecessors. For a small sample, see Regesta Honorii Papae III, ed. P. Pressutti, 2 vols (Rome, 1888–95; repr. Hildesheim, 1978), nos 336, 428, 549, 661, 866, 1887, 2247, 2296, 2497, 3633, 4223, 4772, 5066, 5178, 5190, 6186.
11 The translation used here is from the reissue dated March 1146: Latin text in Rassow, Peter, ‘Der Text der Kreuzzugsbulle Eugens III. vom 1. März 1146, Trastevere (J.-L. 8796)’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 45 (1924), 300–5;Google Scholar ET in Louise, and Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095–1274 (London, 1981), 57–9 Google Scholar. See Phillips, Jonathan, The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom (New Haven, CT, 2007), 37 and n. 1.Google Scholar
12 Riley-Smith and Riley-Smith, Crusades, 57.
13 Tanner, Norman P., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols (London, 1990), 1: 267.Google Scholar
14 ‘Non ergo propter obitum prefati predecessoris nostri consternatur cor tuum neque formidet, quasi propter hoc Terre Sancte inipediatur succursus’: Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Registra Vaticana [hereafter: Reg. Vat.] 9, fol. 1r; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 1.
15 ‘miramur quam plurimum quod neque bone memorie Innocentium Papam predecessorem nostrum, neque nos ipsos super passagio et apparatu navium requisisti, nee curasti exponere quod super hiis tue sedeat voluntati, cum in generali concilio ad transfretandum determinatum fuerit tempus certum’: Reg. Vat. 9, fol. 2r; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 14.
16 ‘ut cum eis Domino deducente in prefixo tempore perveniatis ad portus in concilio prefinito, ubi ad stabilendum vestrum propositum recipere possitis a nobis consilium et auxilium oportunum’: Reg. Vat. 9, fol. 49v; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 284.
17 ‘Quia licet ad palmam vos precesserit beate memorie Innocentus [sic] Papa predecessor noster huius sancti operis ferventissimus inchoator nos tamen licet indignos uncxit Dominus et pastorem constituit super suam familiam universam qui totis medullis totisque affectibus aspiramus, ad hoc excellentissimum ministerium consumandum’: Reg. Vat. 9, fol. 49; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 284.
18 Powell, James M., Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221 (Philadelphia, PA, 1986), 111.Google Scholar
19 ‘Verum quia sicut tuis nobis litteris intimasti, te pro expeditione regia in remotis agente cum ad bone memorie Innocentium predecessorem nostrum litteras destinasses ut tibi liceret caracterem crucis accipere volenti contra paganos Livonicos proficisci, medio tempore multi de familia tua tuum propositum nescientes pro subventione terre Ierusolimitane crucis signaculum receperunt’: Reg. Vat. 9, fol. 50r; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 276. See also Forte, Angelo, Oram, Richard and Pedersen, Frederik, Viking Empires (Cambridge, 2005), 388.Google Scholar
20 At some time in the mid-thirteenth century, Innocent III’s registers for most of year 3, and the entirety of years 4, 17, 18 and 19 were lost: Andrea, Alfred J., Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade, rev. edn (Leiden, 2008), 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Innocent probably wrote to Albert in 1215, see Usinger, Rudolf, Deutsch-dänische Geschichte, 1189–1227 (Berlin, 1863), 440 (no. 19).Google Scholar Honorius’s reference implies that Innocent’s letter was copied into the now-lost registers at the end of Innocent’s pontificate.
21 Sayers, Government, 194.
22 ‘festina si forte Dominus tanti consummationem negotii tue glorie reservavit, ut in dextera tua perficiat multorum manibus inchoatum. Certe clare memorie avus tuus Fredericus ad id se viribus totis accincxit, et quis scit si et tu Fredericus nepos ipsius illius memoriam non solum presentibus renovabis in nomine, sed etiam ad posteros prorogabis in opere, si quod ille ferventer in affectum assumpserat, tu salubriter produxeris ad effectum’: Reg. Vat. 10, fol. 132v; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 2207. For this passage, Powell relied on the edition in Historia diplomatica Friderici secundi, ed. J.-L.-A. Huillard-Bréholles, 6 vols (Paris, 1852–61), 1: 692–3. Huillard-Bréholles’s edition contains a number of transcriptional errors, although they do not alter the sense greatly.
23 Powell, ‘Leadership’, 528–9.
24 ‘Ecce ipsius inspiratione ut firmiter credimus karissimus in Christo filius noster Fridericus illustris Romanorum Imperator semper augustus et Rex Sicilie omissis multis arduisque negotiis quorum onus honorem Imperialis celsitudinis sequebatur, venit ad nos in Campaniam nobiscum de predicte Terre subsidio tractaturus’: Reg. Vat. 12, fol. 52v; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 4262.
25 ‘Sensit enim quis qualis et quantus ei fuerit illustris memorie Rex Riccardus cuius nomen sic in terrorem hostium fidei creverat quod exclamatio eius in prelio nonnumquam sufficiebat ad stragem’: Reg. Vat. 12, fol. 53v; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 4262. The original letter is preserved: Kew, TNA, SC 7/18/14. See also Lloyd, Simon, English Society and the Crusade, 1216–1307 (Oxford, 1988), 33.Google Scholar
26 Powell, Anatomy, 108–9.
27 ‘In eundem modum aliis regibus quibusdam verbis mutandis competenter mutatis’: Reg. Vat. 12, fol. 53v; Regesta, ed. Pressutti no. 4262.
28 The original letter sent to Erik is now lost. First edited in 1623, it was probably destroyed in the fire of 1697 that gutted the Swedish royal archive: see Vitis Aquilonia, ed. Johannes Vastovius (Cologne, 1623), 172–4; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 4304. For the letter to Flanders and Brabant, see Sacrae antiquitatis monumenta historica, dogmatica, diplomatica, ed. Charles Louis Hugo, 2 vols (Étival, 1725–31), 1: 122–3 (no. 136); Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 4388. The manuscript has since been lost, probably during the French Revolutionary wars: C. R. Cheney, ‘Gervase, Abbot of Prémontré: A Medieval Letter-Writer’, BJRL 33 (1950), 25–56, at 45–6, 46 n. 1. On 27 April 1223 a letter was also despatched calling on Count Thibaut IV of Champagne to crusade – possibly an in eundem modum copy, although this cannot be proven without consulting the manuscript: Histoire des ducs et des comtes de Champagne, ed. Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville, 7 vols (Paris 1859–69), 5: 197 (no. 1528); Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 4332. On the same day Honorius sent a different – although obviously connected – crusade exhortation to Duke Leopold VI of Austria: Reg. Vat. 12, fols 55v-56r; Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 4330.
29 Vincent, Nicholas, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge, 2001), 22.Google Scholar