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I. The Earlier Growth of Papal Jurisdiction and Leo the Great
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011
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THE PAPACY of Leo the Great gives us a good halting place in papal history; it closes one period and leaves another to begin. The Bishop of Imperial Rome could never be a mere ecclesiastical official of the greatest city; while it had been the home of Emperors he had been often enough a trusted adviser to them; when it ceased to be their dwelling-place fresh responsibilities and new opportunities came to him. There is hardly need even to mention the change due to the foundation of a new Rome in the East, with its fresh magnificence, so largely brought from the Western capital, and with its political outlook on the richest and most important provinces. Moreover the wealth of the Roman Church had long been great and it was matched by its Christian generosity; its influence in this way had passed into a tradition, which grew steadily from the time of St Ignatius onward. In all the cities where a church had been founded there was Christian organisation, and the Roman episcopate could not but profit by the business-like methods of the imperial and civic governments. Roman ecclesiastics were naturally distinguished for the same characteristics as were the civilians. The gravitas Romana could be noted even in the eleventh century, and its mere existence would have given peculiar weight to the decisions of Roman bishops and the decrees of Roman councils. Everywhere throughout the provinces local churches and local municipalities had almost alone stood the shock of the barbarian hordes; these inheritances from the past were naturally much greater in Rome itself than elsewhere, and owing to the turns of history advantage from them fell mainly to the papacy. And for the most part the papacy did not fail the Western world; it faced its dangers and its duties boldly.
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References
1 Duchesne, Histoire [Ancienne de I'Église], 11, 215 seq. (Eng. trans. 171 seq.); Hefele-Leclercq, [Histoire des Conciles], 1, 737.
2 Hefele-Leclercq, 11, 819–20 (note).
3 The date is disputed: some give 380, some 382. See Puller, Primitive Saints [and the See of Rome], p. 510 seq.; Hefele-Leclercq, 11, 55 note.
4 For the territorial extent of this power see Hefele-Leclercq, , 1, 563 seq. and Bright, [Notes on the] Canons [of the first four general Councils] (Oxford, 1882), p. 20.Google Scholar Rufinus, Hist. Bk. I, cvi is the primary authority. For the chief canons and many important extracts, see Kidd, Documents [illustrative of the History of the Church] (1, to A.D. 313; 11, to 461), S.P.C.K.
5 Duchesne, Histoire, III, 463—speaking of the fifth century. The three books of Mgr Batiffol, L'Église naissante, La Paix Constantinienne, La Siège Apostolique, tracing the growth of Catholicism, and also of papal supremacy, are valuable and useful, even if all of his conclusions are not accepted.
6 Camb. Med. Hist. 1,171 (by the late Prof. C. H. Turner); Duchesne, Hist. 11,460, on Damasus; Erich Caspar, [Geschichte] Papsttum[s] (Tübingen, 1930), I, 261, is very good on the Pontificate of Damasus being more important than that of Siricius.
7 Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux de I'ancienne Gaule, 84 seq.
8 For the history, Kidd, History [of the Church to 461], 111, 356 seq.; Duchesne, Hist. 111, 409 seq; the rescript in Mirbt, C., [Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des Römischen Katholizismus] (4th ed. Tübingen, 1924), 76.Google Scholar On 75 we have a letter of Pope Leo about the vicariate at Thessalonica.
9 Chaps, xi and xii in Erich Caspar's new volume Papsttum, 1, deal with Leo. Specially noteworthy is the part 455 seq. on Leo and the unity of the Church.
10 The most typical of his statements are conveniently given in Mirbt, 174 seq.
11 See Mirbt, 62.
12 On this see Caspar, Papsttum, 1, 248 seq. Caspar's massive book is meant to be a history of the idea of the papacy, and it has thus special importance.
13 Greenwood, T., [Cathedra Petri 6 vols. London, 1856 onwards], 1, 291–2.Google Scholar This is an excellent, well-informed and judicious work, by an able scholar and lawyer; it may be classed as sometimes anti-papal, but it is always fair to individual Popes; it uses original authorities copiously and with judgement. It is always useful, if in some respects oldfashioned owing to citations of older editions of works now reprinted with better texts. There is a useful note on the earliest Decretals and their collections in Duchesne, Hist.111, 21.
14 On the text of the Nicaean Canon VI see Hefele-Leclercq, I, 552, also Bright, The Roman See in the Early Church, p. 75 and the long note (utilising C. H. Turner's manuscript studies), 481 seq.; Kidd, History, 11, 46–7 is very clear and instructive.
16 For the Actus Silvestri see Döllinger, Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, 89; Langen, [Geschichte der Römischen Kirche] 11, 194–5. and Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, 1, cxi. The story that the leper Constantine was baptised by Pope Silvester at Rome was Eastern in origin and was inserted in the decretal de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis of Pope Gelasius, probably soon after his time. The most effective forgeries were not of Roman origin any more than were the False Decretals
16 Innocent gave something of the same guidance to Exuperius of Toulouse a year later. The history is given well in Kidd's History, 111 6 seq.; Langen, II, 11 seq. The most important words of Innocent are quoted in Mirbt, 76.
17 See Kidd, History, III, 162 seq.; Langen, I, 760seq., 796 seq.; Greenwood, I, 299 seq.; Puller, F. W., Primitive Saints [and the See of Rome] (a learned and accurate work) (London, 1900), 183Google Scholarseq. For the important Canons of Sardica, Duchesne, Hist. II, 171 seq.; Hefele-Leclercq, 1, 737 seq., and on the ecumenicity of the Council (which must be denied), 819 seq. Also C. H. Turner in Journal of Theological Studies, 1902, 970–97. Prof. Turner's Birkbeck Lectures at Trinity College on Early Western Canon Law are unhappily not yet in print. Fournier, P. and Bras', Le[Histoire des] Collections [Canoniques en occident] 1 and 11, (Paris 1931–1932), covers the ground.Google Scholar
18 Ep. 25, Migne, P.L. XX. Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity [in the first three centuries] does not consider it most active in missions; he questions its claim to have brought Christianity to North Africa, which for myself I should admit; he sees evidence only for a connexion of this kind with Edessa, to which place he holds the story of King Lucius to apply (see Camb. Med. Hist. 11, 496 and 510). But the claim as made by Innocent was later on more or less taken for granted in the West. Harnack does not consider it was as claimed.
19 For the Canons of Nicaea see Hefele-Leclercq (text and commentary), 503 seq., their text 528 seq. There is a discussion of the question whether Sardica was ecumenical or not, 819 seq. For the question of the mingled Canons of Nicaea and Sardica, 1, 464 seq., and for the appeals to Rome, II, 196. The Council of Constantinople (the Second Ecumenical) by its Canon III gave a place of honour next to Rome to Constantinopleas the new Rome. There were many spurious Canons of Nicaea in circulation. There is a slight but useful book [Les Sources du Droit Ecclesiastique] by E. Cimetier (Paris).
20 Fournier and Le Bras, Collections 65–6; Duchesne, L'Église au VIe siècle, 564 seq. Fournier suggests that Martin forged some canons himself, while Duchesne gives a high character to him: an odd contradiction. See also Cimetier, 24.
21 Ep. 25 in Migne, P.L. xx, 551–61; the most important part in Mirbt, 63. See Kidd, History, III, 8 seq. Also Harnack, Mission and Expansion, I, 485, on the primacy of Rome; this he considers it had gained by the end of the first century, being the Church of the metropolis, also of St Peter and St Paul, as the Church which had done most for the catholicity and unity of the Church, and also by its generosity. But see p. 7, note 18 above.
22 Although separation from the East was always growing, Eastern Canons were largely followed and quoted. Thus Zacharias (c. 747) quotes Canon X of Antioch (A.D. 741) at length in a letter to the Franks. See Dümmler, M.G.H. III, 481 (Epistles of St Boniface and Lull). The influence of Eastern Canons, for instance, on the history of chorepiscopi, e.g. in the West, was great. (See C. H. Turner, Studies in Early Church History, chaps, i and ii; Hefele-Leclercq, II, 1107; Frere, Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation (Alcuin Club), I, Introduction, 9 seq.; Thomassinus, Vetus et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina, Pt. I, lib. 1, chap, xxvii (i.e. I, 91 seq. ed. 1691).)
23 See Kidd, History, III, 168.
24 The decretal in Mirbt, 58. See Puller, Primitive Saints, 181 seq.
25 There is an excellent page in Kidd, History, III, 279. Bright, Age of the Fathers (II, 413) aptly applies to him the Aristotelian definition: “a high-spirited man, who thinks himself worthy of great things, and in truth is worthy of them.”
26 The idea is akin to the legal conception of a universal successor, so familiar in the very home of Roman Law. But, of course, it was spiritualised.
27 The late Bishop Gore's Leo the Great seems to me sympathetic and fair. He recognises where controversy impinges on history, and notes this: for controversy and history see N. Baynes's review of Caspar's Papsttum in Eng. Hist. Rev., no. 186, 293.
28 St Césaire par l'Abbé Chaillan (Paris, 1912): Fournier and Le Bras, 27–29: C.H. Turner in J.T.S., XVII, 236 seq.
29 The rescript in Mirbt, 76. Good accounts of the history in Kidd, History, III, 356 seq. and Bright, Age of the Fathers II, 419 seq. Fleury, Histoire du Christianisme. Bk. XXVII, chaps, iv—vi is impartial, concise and sympathetic towards Hilary.
30 Given in Mirbt, 85. For a discussion, Greenwood, 52 seq.
31 See Duchesne, History (Eng. trans.), III, 346 seq.
32 Ep. 14. See Paul Thomas, Le droit de propriétïques sur les églises et le patronage laïque au Moyen Âge, 15. Gelasius told Euphemius (Constantinople) that Popes were not bound like other bishops to notify their election: a new significant claim.
33 See Poole, R. L., Lectures on the History of the Papal Chancery down to the time of Innocent III, Cambridge, 1915Google Scholar; Lecture I, especially the Introduction. Also Bresslau, H., Handbuch der Urkundlehre für Deutschland und Italien, I, 2nd edn. Leipzig, 1912Google Scholar, the earlier chapters. For the constitutional history most useful works are:Werminghoff, A., Verfassungsgeschichte der deutschen Kirche um Mittelalter, latest edn. in Grundriss der Geschichtswissenschaft ed. Aloys, Meister, Tübingen, 1907Google Scholar, and, of course, Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands. For Gaul, P. Tour, Imbart de la, Les Élections Épiscopales [dans I'Église de France du IXe au XIIe siècle] (Paris, 1891)Google Scholar, which looks backward in its earlier chapters. The same writer's book Les Paroisses [rurales du IVe au XIe siècle] (Paris, 1900), covers the ground needed here; there was little organisation, and the election of bishops was the strongest link between the local churches.
For the general Church life, with its social background, we have: Sir Dill, S., Roman Society in Gaul in the Merovingian Age (London, 1926), following his earlier volume, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. Also A. Marignan, Études sur la Civilisation Française: I, La Société Mérovingienne—the chapters on La Socié religieuse, (a) Le. Clergé seculier, (b) Le Clergé rigulier and (c) La Vie religieuse and vol. II on Saints. Also Guizot, History of Civilisation, 3 vols. (trans, in Bohn's Library, 1880), a book old but invaluable.Google Scholar
34 The Church of Spain ran a somewhat isolated course. See Duchesne, L'Église au VIe siècle, 548 seq. But its councils and canons were of importance.
35 These are St Luke, xxii, 31–2; St Matthew, xvi, 15–20; St John, xxi, 15–19.
36 Ep. Greg. Magni, lib. VII, 40, on Pelagius II, v, 18.
37 See Kidd, History VII, 337, for an account of Leo's action at this critical time.
38 English in Puller: Primitive Saints, 400. “A clever prologue”: Hodgkin, Italy and her invaders, III, 483, which summarizes the situation. The Formula: Mirbt, 89. The letters in Migne, P.L. LXVI, 25–26, 43–45.
39 The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, with text, translation and notes, ed. by Bertram, Colgrave (Cambridge University Press, 1927)Google Scholar, chap, xxivseg. Bede, Bk. IV, passim (in Plummer's ed.). Also Eadmer's Vita Wilfridi Episcopi in the Rolls Series (in The Historians of the Church of York, ed. by Raine), I, 161. See Bright, Early English Church History, chap. x.
40 Dr R. L. Poole, St Wilfrid and the See of Ripon, E.H.R., CXXXIII, 1 seq.; the most decisive and clearest discussion of the matter.
41 See Bede's Sermon XVI in Migne, P.L. VI, 94, col. 222. Bede knew what in his day was the “modernist” view; in his work The Six Ages of the World (ed. by Smith) he quotes a statement from Paul the Deacon that the Emperor Phocas, in his strife with the Patriarch Cyriacus, decreed that “the Apostolic See of Rome was the head of all Churches, for that the Church of Constantinople had taken to itself the title of primate of all the churches.” And we should not forget Bede's righteous and right veneration for St Gregory the Great. I owe the reference to the Six Ages to Greenwood, II, 239.
42 Eddius, Vita, chap, iii and Eadmer, Vita, chap, iv seq.
43 We have the edition by Sickel (1889) from the Vatican MS.; but E. de Roziére's edition (Paris, 1869) is very useful owing to its notes.
44 Fr. Puller has calculated that between A.D. 688 and 1050 there were consecrated 376 bishops in England by action of the Chapters, the King and Witan, but without a trace of Papal interferences. I have verified this calculation.
45 Imbart de la Tour, Les Élections Épiscopales.
46 I have discussed this at some length in an essay, Pope Gregory and the Hildebrandine Ideal, in Hildebrandine Essays, 1932, Cambridge University Press, 45 seq.Google Scholar For details above, see Imbart de la Tour, Les Élections Épiscopales, 135, 137, 141.
47 See this Journal, 1, No. 3, 239 seq.
48 London, 1910, 49.
49 The story comes in Paschasius Radbert's Life of Wale, Bk. II, chap, xiv seq. Simson in his Jahrbücher doubted the story, but I should agree with Hauck and other later writers in believing it true. Rodenberg's, C. dissertation Vita Walae ah historische Quelle (Göttingen, 1887)Google Scholar is an excellent monograph and to my mind proves the truth. I give a fuller account of it in my Hildebrandine Essays (1932), 45 seq.
50 I may refer to my account of St Boniface in the Camb. Med. Hist. II, chap, xvi, 536 seq. There are two excellent Lives of him: Boniface of Crediton and his Companions. by the late Bishop G. F. Browne (S.P.C.K., 1910); Saint Boniface, by G. Kurth in the French Series, Les Saints; also Hauck, , Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, I,456 seq. Letters between him and Daniel, Bishop of Winchester (in English) are in The English Correspondence of St Boniface; King's Classics (London, 1911).Google Scholar My chapter, as above, has a full bibliography.
51 Epp. S. Bonefatii, No. 63—of a later date, after A.D. 742.
52 In Levison's excellent edition Vitae Sancti Bonifatii, pp. 29–30. We should notice that Theodore at the Synod of Hertford (A.D. 672) had also laid before the bishops a like collection. See Haddan and Stubbs, in, 118 seq. for the similar council at Hatfield (A.D. 679); at the latter there were also adopted the Lateran Canons of Pope Martin I (October 649). See Bede, H.E. Bk. IV, chap. ii. Haddan and Stubbs, III, 141 seq. For full accounts Bright, Early Eng. Church, for Hertford, 174 seq. and for Hatfield, 357 seq. In the earlier centuries a visit to Rome was described as one to the Limina Apostolorum, i.e. SS. Peter and Paul. But Boniface uses the term Limina S. Patri twice. In the eighth century the usage varies, but later on Limina S. Petri becomes usual, although the other term appears in some forms of the oath taken by bishops to the Pope. See Ducange for limina (of a temple) sub voce. For fuller arithmetical details see Our Place in Christendom (Longmans, 1916), 61–62. I correct the conciliar dates by R. L. Poole, in J.T.S., xx, 27 and 34.
53 Epp.Bonefatii, No.78. Haddan and Stubbs.III, 360 seq.; G. F. Browne,Boniface of Crediton, 247 seq.; Stubbs, Constit. Hist I, chap, viii, gives the best background for the whole period; Hunt, W., The English Church to the Norman Conquest (Macmillan's Series, 1879).Google Scholar
54 For the Canons (in English) see Johnson, , English Canons (Oxford, 1850), 243Google Scholarseq. In original Latin, Haddan and Stubbs, III, 362 seq. For the Archbishop's jurisdiction Canon XXV.
55 St Wilfrid had brought with him to Wearmouth John, Abbot of St Martin's at Rome to interest his monks in psalmody, and he appeared as Papal Commissary at the Council of Hatfield to give teaching about the heresy of the Monothelites and Agatho's action against it. So John took up the musical work of James the Deacon of Paulinus, and Yorkshire owes the beginnings of its musical skill to these early teachers.
56 The reason for the change is doubtful. There was a correspondence between the Pope and Boniface, and the latter's complaint of venality at Rome was resented. All this I leave aside.
57 See Greenwood, II, 137–8; Duchesne, L'Église au VIe Siècle, Paris, 1925, chap, xiii; E. Caspar, Papsttum, 445.
58 The significant passage is Mirbt, Quellen, 85. See Langen, II, 168 seq.
59 See the chapter by Prof. L. Halphen in Camb. Med. Hist. III, 445 seq. This was the episcopal interpretation of the unity I speak of above.
60 Greenwood, II, 138 seq.; Richard, Analyse des Canciles, 1, 524–5; Langen, 325 seq.; also Duchesne, L'Église au VIe Siècle, 540 seq.; Hefele-Leclercq, II, 1136seq., correcting the date 534 usually given; Migne, P.L. LXVI, cols. 25–26 and 43–45.
61 There is auseful passage on the North African Church with its Patriarchate (or quasipatriarchate) and its councils in Puller: Orders and Jurisdiction (London, 1925), 220.Google Scholar