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The Papacy as an Institution of Government in the Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Walter Ullmann*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Extract

After reading the title of my paper, you may well have wondered whether anything worth while or useful can still be said about the mediaeval papacy. Your apprehension would certainly be justified, if I were concerned merely with its history, but of recent years the institution has not been so much the subject of purely narrative treatment as of the underlying principles and aims. And here so great a variety of views has been set forth that an outsider might well feel somewhat perplexed by the contradictory views propounded. Why does the mediaeval papacy evoke such divergent interpretations?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1965

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References

page 81 note 1 This spurious kind of conservatism should not, however, be evaluated by our modern somewhat refined standards: the spurious document, the forged or falsified statement, and the like, had, as often as not, a non-papal provenance, though in course of time the papacy itself adopted and incorporated it in its own statements. There are very few instances in which an entirely new point of view or principle was propounded: what was done was to project a statement back into the distant past, whilst perfectly genuine models of a more recent date might have been available. For instance, in the Symmachan forgeries of the early sixth century we find a statement made at a spurious council that the pope cannot be judged by anyone. In actual fact, there would have been perfectly genuine statements about the same matter in the pontificates of Felix III and Gelasius I, and there would have been the statement of Zosimus in the early fifth century, cf. PL 20, col. 677 = Avellana (in CSEL, xxxv, 116).

page 82 note 1 Cod. Theod. XVI, i, 2=Coi. Just. I, i, 1.

page 83 note 1 I am of course well aware that Latin translations of some parts of the Bible began to appear from the late second century onwards, but the historically decisive translation was that of St Jerome. According to Mohrmann, Christine, Études sur le Latin des Chrétiens (in Storia e Letteratura, LXV, 1 (1958), 357 Google Scholar) Jerome was ‘a clever and thoughtful artist in language ... we can have nothing but the greatest admiration for Jerome’s feeling for language and style.’

page 83 note 2 Cf.Klauser, Th., ‘Der Uebergang der römischen Kirche von der griechischen zur lateinischen Sprache,Miscellanea G. Mercati (in Studi e Testi, LXXXI, 1 (1946), 4679 Google Scholar) (possibly suggested by St Ambrose); Mohrmann, Christine, ‘Les origines de la latinité chrétienne à Rome,Vigiliae Christianac, III (1949), 4750, 163-80Google Scholar; ead., Études sur le Latin des Chrétiens, loc. cit. 11 (1961), 40-58; cf. ako Eisenhofer, L., Grundriss der Liturgik des römischen Ritus, 5th ed. by Lechner, J., Freiburg 1950, 214.Google Scholar

page 83 note 3 ‘. . . quam divum Petrum apostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque adhuc ab ipso insinuata deciarat.’

page 83 note 4 For this cf.Ullmann, W., ‘The significance of the Epistola Clementis in the Pseudo-Clementines,JTS, XI (1960), 295320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 84 note 1 The infiltration of Roman jurisprudential ideas and terms into the Latin Bible and the echoes they were bound to evoke, would indeed be worthy of a special study. For some remarks cf.Ullmann, W., ‘The Bible and Principles of Government in the Middle Ages,Settimana Spoleto 1962, Spoleto 1963, 1846 Google Scholar. Christine Mohrmann touches on the juristic Latin vocabulary in connection with liturgical questions, cf. Études sur le Latin, loc. cit. II (1961), 105.

page 85 note 1 Cf.Ulimann, W., The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (P.G.), 2nd ed. 1962, additional c.4, p. 8 (p. 462)Google Scholar, and idem, ‘Leo I and the theme of papal primacy,’ JTS, XI (1960), 44, n.4.

page 85 note 2 Cf. the Didaskalia and Innocent III, cited in Ullmann, W., Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (P.G.P.), 1961, 924.Google Scholar

page 85 note 3 Ep. 2, c. 6; see Ullmann, W. in Settimana Spoleto, loc. cit. 221, at n. 170.Google Scholar

page 86 note 1 On the subject itself cf.Caspar, E., Geschichte des Papsttums, Tübingen 1930, I. 307.Google Scholar

page 86 note 2 For some remarks cf. W. Ulimann, P.G. ed. cit., 8-12, and for some of the semantic problems raised in the Latin Bible, id., Settimana, loc. cit. 188-9 and 225-7, and especially Chr. Mohrmann, loc. cit. il (1961), 18-25. Cf. also Stein, A., ‘Das Fortleben des römischen Prinzipatsgedankens,’ Bulletin of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, x (1938), 191.Google Scholar

page 86 note 3 In Rev. historique de droit français et étranger, XXVII (1949), 398-90.

page 86 note 4 Cf.Jolowicz, H. F., Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 2nd ed. 1952, 482 Google Scholar, and for purposes of orientation cf.Pringsheim, F. in Studia et Documenta Historias et Iuris, XXVII (1961-2), 235.Google Scholar

page 87 note 1 For the legalism in the Western Church, beginning in fact with the jurist Tertullian (and also Cyprian), see Harnack, A., Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 4th ed., Tübingen 1909, II, 179-80, III, 350-69.Google Scholar

page 87 note 2 Sextus V, vii, 21; cf. also Innocent III in Reg. I, 320.

page 88 note 1 See now on this specifically Wilks, M.J., The Problem of Sovereignty in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge 1963, 470, n.2.Google Scholar

page 89 note 1 For the pope as ‘living evangelical oracle’ see Wilks, op. cit. 372.

page 92 note 1 Cf. e.g. Koschaker, P., Europa und das römische Recht, Munich 1947, 4850 Google Scholar; Kirn, P., Das Bild des Menschen in der Geschichtsschreibung von Polybios bis Ranke, Göttingen 1955; etc.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 For some observations on this cf. Settimana, cit. 180-3 with further literature.

page 93 note 2 Albertinus, Arnoldus, in Tractatus Universi Iuris, Venice 1584, XI, 98vb-99rbGoogle Scholar, qu. 28, nos. 34-5.

page 94 note 1 See on this M. J. Wilks, op. cit. 156 with n.4, where further literature will be found.

page 94 note 2 Gregory, VII, Reg. II, 76.Google Scholar

page 94 note 3 Cf. Alexander, IV in Sextus: V, ii, 2 Google Scholar, where the gl. ord. cannot refrain from asking: ‘Quid enim est dicere, quod ruralis clericus disputando de fide non incidat in hanc poenam (i.e. excommunication) et doctor decretorum laicus incidat?’ The glossator is obviously afraid of arguing his own case, as he continues: ‘Tamen sufficit ita esse scriptum, et solum duo sunt christianorum genera, clerici et laici.’

page 95 note 1 About the juristic meaning of the notion cf.Ullmann, W., ‘Romanus pontifex indubitanter efficitur sanctus: D.P. 23 in retrospect and prospect’, Studi Gregoriani, vi (1959), 22964 Google Scholar.

page 95 note 2 Cf.Innocent, III in his Reg. i, 320 Google Scholar; hence also the application of ‘All power is given unto me . . .’ to the pope; cf.Ullmann, W., Mediaeval Patalism, 1949, 1528.Google Scholar

page 96 note 1 Cf. also P.G.P., 53, with the full quotation from Urban IV; see also Ps. viii, 8.

page 96 note 2 Cf. P.G., 444 n1; (Innocent IV).

page 96 note 3 Cf. P.G.P., 48-52; also Ullmann, W., ‘Eugenius IV, Cardinal Kemp and Archbishop Chichele’, Studies in Mediaeval History presented to A. Gwynn, Dublin 1961, 374, n54Google Scholar. Cf. also Jer. ii, 13.

page 96 note 4 In proximity to this stands the appellation of the pope as apostolicus himself, cf. W. Ullmann in JTS, loc. cit. 43, n.2; also M. J. Wilks, ‘The apostolicus and the bishop of Rome,’ ibid, XIII (1962), 290-317; xiv (1963), 311-43; see also Dewailly, L. M. in Mélanges de science religieuse, v (1948), 14152 Google Scholar.

page 96 note 5 For this cf. also Ullmann, W. in Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae, XVIII (1954), 10727 Google Scholar; idem in Cambridge Historical Journal, xi (1955), 233-52.

page 96 note 6 On this cf. P.G.P., 95-8.

page 96 note 7 About the juristic construction of these themes cf. art. cit. above, p. 95, n1.

page 97 note 1 See P.G. 20, n1.

page 97 note 2 See P.G.P. 51.

page 97 note 3 It may be apposite to quote what P. E. Schramm once said: ‘The papal court had always been the unsurpassable master in the art of justifying each of its steps by reference to the divine order, morals, law and tradition,’ cit. in P.C., 225, n.1.

page 99 note 1 Reg. II, 31. Erdmann, C., Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens, Stuttgart 1936, 252 Google Scholar, commented: ‘Wir dürfen es ihm aufs Wort glauben, dass dieser Plan, eine Union... und den römischen Primat dort zur Geltung zu bringen, sein Hauptmotiv gewesen ist.’

page 99 note 2 MGH, Constitutiones, II, 9, no. 8, § 7Google Scholar: ‘Si omnipotens Deus regnum Graecorum mihi vel leviro meo subdiderit, ecclesiam Constantinopolitanam Romanae ecclesiae bona fide et sine fraude faciam fore subiectam.’ For the whole question see Frolow, A., Recherches sur la déviation de la IV6 Croisade vers Constantinople, Paris 1955.Google Scholar

page 100 note 1 Regestum de negotio Romani Imperii, no. 113, of 29 October 1204; see further Reg., VII, 203; VIII, 19, 24, 26, 153; etc.