Frederick and the Papacy

• Accursius


  Italian jurist notable for his organization of the glosses, the medieval comments on Justinian's codification of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis. He was not proficient in the classics, but he was called "the Idol of the Jurisconsults"
• Promulgate


  Put (a law or decree) into effect by official proclamation
• Curia


  Court of the medieval king OR the body of congregations, tribunals, and offices through which the pope governs the Roman Catholic Church
• Unam sanctam


  Papal bull issued by Pope Boniface VIII on 18 November 1302 that laid down dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Catholic Church
• Decretals of Gregory IX


  Source of medieval Catholic canon law
• Per venerabilem


  Papal decretal that nominally dealt with the pope's power to legitimize illegitimate children, not so that they could enter holy orders (which was established precedent), but so that they could inherit property
• Melchizedek acted as both king and priest
• Reign of Frederick II

  23 November 1220 – 13 December 1250
• Frederick II seen as a spokesman/representative of the christian commonwealth with the Curia claiming the 'papal, sacerdotal leadership' of it
• Frederick raises his protest against the system as a spokesman of the commonwealth
• The Popes opposing him also did this, using the idea that the Christian republic was nothing else but a congregatio fidelium
• Thus the leadership was in their hands not those of the laymen
• Dante Alighieri saw fit to place Frederick in the sixth circle of Hell among the heretics in the Inferno
• Salimbene marked Frederick's court as a safe haven for rebellious churchmen and others who were in disfavour of the papacy
• In reality Frederick possessed the resources, geographical isolation, and the ambition to fulfill his own interests, and this led to his great conflict with Pope Gregory IX
• Frederick: '"the august Frederick II, Emperor of the Romans, King of Jerusalem and of Sicily, is a lover of wisdom with a philosophical and speculative mind"'
• Kantorowicz's other book, The Kings Two Bodies, is a complex study of the theory of divine kingship. According to Kantorowicz, Frederick's use of reason as the basis for legislation and justice qualified him as a modem ruler
• The Art of Falconry by Emperor Frederick II can be seen as an example of his logic and reasoning within ruling, identifying strategies on how to catch certain birds
• Frederick even attempted to separate the union of church and state in constitution of Melfi
• Frederick used Justinian's sixth century Corpus furis Civilis as a template for his own law codes
• Title XXXI of the Constitution of Melfi presents Frederick as an impartial ruler stating, "it is our concern to administer justice among them [the people] with ready zeal for each and all without favouritism"
• During the 13th cent. some canonists were trying to defend the sovereignty/autonomy of secular powers
• Innocent IV was just a follower of theocratic doctrine
• First Council of Lyon, presided over by Innocent IV


  1245
• Rome was being sieged by Frederick II, thus the Council was used to excommunicate him and depose him
• Ad Apostolicae Dignitatis Apicem


  Apostolic letter used to excommunicate and depose Frederick II
• Frederick agreed to terms of peace, which he swore to observe, but which he at once violated
• Innocent III coined the title of 'Rex in imperatorem Romanorum electus'
• Innocent III never referred to the king as Rex Romanorum, why?
• Reign of Gregory IX


  1227-1241
• Reign of Innocent IV

  1243-1254
• Innocent IV spoke in Lyon using the authority bestowed upon him by Jesus through St. Peter
• Innocent IV's idea originated from the Augustinian idea of a universal church
• Gregory IX's charges of blasphemy and heresy received little support from his successor, Innocent IV. In detailing the reasons for Frederick's excommunication in 1245 at the Council of Lyons, Innocent emphasized violations of canon law. The strongest argument that he could find to support a charge of heresy was that Frederick had maintained close relations with Moslems scarcely convincing in light of the correspondence the pope himself had had with the Sultan of Egypt
• If we assume that the views of Innocent IV were more theocratic than Innocent II then, given the extreme peril to the Roman Church from the activities of Frederick II in the 1240s, it becomes relatively easy to dismiss all claims of the medieval papacy to universal temporal power as a mere passing aberration induced by a very abnormal political situation
• We largely see that Innocent III and Innocent IV had the same views concerning the church and state
• Papal Authority


  Pope Innocent III believed he had authority that was under God but above man, also claiming to have power not just over the universal church but the whole world
• Christmas day 1200, read out a Deliberato that the empire was translated to the west from Constantinople by the papacy and that the emperor was "anointed, crowned and invested with the empire by the pope"
• In Per Venerabilem he said the pope was a supreme judge and anyone could bring any problem to him, whether ecclesiastical or secular
• Included it in a collection of papal decretals which he promulgated in 1210