The Two Powers - Brett Edward Whalen The Middle Ages Series

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Among other measures, the council called for a universal one-twentieth tithe in support of the upcoming crusade, direct subsidies from clerical revenues, and personal donations as an act of penance for noncombatants, allowing women, the elderly, and the infirm to enjoy the same forgiveness of sins as those going to battle the unbelievers. After Innocent died in July 1216, Pope Honorius had immediately signaled his own commitment to the crusade, arranging for the systematic preaching of crusade sermons and assigning papal legates and other representatives to collect the crusade-related funds mandated at the recent general council.10

      Two years later the crusade was launched, but it did not go as planned. During the late spring and summer of 1218, a substantial force of crusaders landed in Egypt, overseen in part by Honorius’s legate Pelagius, cardinal bishop of Albano. In November 1219, after a long siege, the Christian army captured the port city of Damietta, apparently positioning them for further conquests. By the time of Frederick’s imperial coronation one year later, however, the crusaders remained stuck in Damietta, undermanned and underfunded, their leaders divided. Rumors about the expedition’s possible collapse spread around Europe, as letters circulated back and forth between the crusaders in Egypt and their friends at home, some telling of strange prophecies that foretold the coming of a mysterious figure known as Prester John, an Eastern Christian king who would rescue the stalled army.11 Most of the crusader leadership pinned their hopes on Frederick’s more likely arrival, which would bring fresh manpower, supplies, and funds. Honorius seemed to realize that the fate of the crusade hinged upon the Hohenstaufen ruler’s timely intervention. In 1219, acknowledging Frederick’s privileged legal status as a sworn crusader, the pope took him under the “special protection” of the Apostolic See, setting several deadlines for his departure, which was finally deferred until March 1221 after his imperial coronation. During the lead-up to Frederick’s crowning in 1220, Honorius stressed the soon-to-be emperor’s utmost responsibility to assist the crusade before it fell apart.12

      Under these circumstances, securing the support of northern Italy’s well-off urban communities for Frederick’s upcoming crusade became a top priority for the pope and his legate. During his meetings with civic officials at places such as Siena, Florence, and Milan, acting by the “prayers of lord Pope Honorius, the highest pontiff, and lord Frederick, the emperor,” Hugolino extracted sworn promises to collect and turn over monies still owed for the expedition, including in some cases the one-twentieth tithe still in arrears. His register includes a detailed list of such obligations, inventorying the troops and funds owed by communes, local lords, and bishops. As Hugolino cautioned in a letter to Berthold, patriarch of Aquileia, if people did not pay what they owed, their failure might embolden others to renege on their promises. Communities like Milan, Lodi, and Brescia agreed to make direct contributions of soldiers or offered to make fixed payments to other fighters taking up the cross. Hugolino also took a hand in directing the flow of funds to specific crusaders, figures such as the marquis of Montferrat, who were ready to depart soon for the holy places.13

      The legate’s public responsibilities for the crusade did not stop with securing financial contributions. They included a more ambitious, elusive goal: the establishment of peace. As evident at the Fourth Lateran Council, which called for a four-year universal truce throughout Christendom, the papacy insisted that crusading required peace among Christians. “Scandal,” “rancor,” and “discord” created the sort of conditions that endangered the church and drained the resources needed for a successful crusade.14 After decades of far-reaching social transformation and changes in communal governance, the urban communities of Lombardy in particular had become sites of near endemic conflict, as powerful families and podestas, bishops, strongmen, and sworn associations vied for control of the region’s cities and the surrounding countryside.15 Responding to this volatility, Hugolino identified peace, public order, and protecting the church’s “liberty” as the other priorities of his legation. He faced all sorts of disruptions that disturbed the tranquility of the region. In Piacenza, for example, he confronted an intractable struggle between two societies: the “popular party” and the “militia,” that was dividing the city. Their fighting, he warned, represented precisely the kind of disruption that hampered a community’s ability to fulfill its crusading commitments. In Milan, the commune had banned the city’s archbishop, Henry, after he excommunicated—wrongly, the Milanese insisted—the neighboring town of Monza. By doing so, the legate declared, the podesta and counselors had violated church canons, as well as the recent constitutions passed by Frederick during his imperial coronation. The citizens of Lucca had likewise assaulted their bishop, expelling him and the cathedral canons. At Ferrara, Hugolino confronted another long-standing dispute over revenues from ecclesiastical estates at nearby Fiscaglia, money unjustly seized by the city. Dealing with a similar problem at Faenza, he accused the commune of assailing the church’s liberty and infringing upon the rights of its neighbors.16

      The cardinal bishop did not rely on goodwill and a shared sense of Christian devotion to end such conflicts and violations of the church. As a legate of the Apostolic See, he wielded forms of ecclesiastical censure, the “spiritual keys” of binding and loosening sinners through excommunication and interdict—cutting off individuals and groups from the body of the church and prohibiting divine services and select sacraments in a given community or the orbit of a certain person. Excommunication could also trigger the temporary suspension of all oaths and sworn obligations owed to the excommunicate party, bonds of fealty, and other associations.17 In Lombardy, Tuscany, and the March of Verona, such forms of ecclesiastical censure worked in concert with the analogous imperial ban: after six weeks, persons subject to one sentence fell under the other, rendering them subject to exile, the loss of public offices, and the seizure of their property.18 Hugolino did not only pass such judgments but also exercised the legal right to hear appeals from excommunicate parties, to confirm or nullify sentences passed by local bishops, and to set the conditions for absolution. Before relaxing a sentence, he sometimes required pledges in cash, money, or goods, including in one case some “scholarly books,” to be deposited with a third party as a guarantee of good behavior while working out the terms for lifting the censure. In some instances, where such spiritual measures fell short, the legate authorized more direct forms of worldly punishment and coercion. At Ferrara, for instance, he revoked all of the city’s ecclesiastical benefices and excommunicated anyone who traded with the commune after hearing about the ban, calling for other Christians to take up arms against its recalcitrant citizens, thereby giving license to “plunder the plunderers of the church.”19

      The issuing of such judgments and the negotiations surrounding them and their resolution created public scenes of give-and-take between the legate and his representatives and the envoys of the censured party. For excommunication and interdict to possess real political and social consequences, they required deliberate publicizing, such as the repeat performance of ritual anathema on Sundays and feast days, with the clergy gathered in church denouncing the sinner and casting down lit candles and extinguishing them. Letters were sent around the diocese, publicizing the ban.20 To meet the conditions for absolution, the podestas of Piacenza, Treviso, and Faenza swore “public oaths” with hands on the Gospels during assemblies in the communal hall or bishop’s palace. During such gatherings, the “lovers of peace and concord” swore to “obey the commands” of the Roman church, to renounce further “rancor” or “quarrels” or “vengeance,” and to release captives, pay fines, and drop any further appeals to the legate, the pope, or the emperor. Notaries on hand recorded these acts, producing and sealing the “public instruments” that memorialized the terms of the agreement.21 But things did not always go as planned. Writing back to Hugolino about the unresolved dispute between the Milanese and their archbishop, the bishops of Bergamo and Lodi described a raucous meeting in which the assembled citizens refused to hear the charges leveled against them, protesting when the two prelates tried to read aloud the legate’s letter detailing their misdeeds. Lasting peace always seemed to be elusive, although any peace remained preferable to scandal, discord, and war.22

      During the course of his legation, Hugolino identified an especially subversive threat to the peace: heretics hiding among the faithful and undermining the church from within, waiting to burst into the open. Who were those supposed deviants? After decades of experimentation in religious

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