The Papacy, 1073 1198: Continuity and Innovation

Cambridge Medieval Textbooks

by I.S. Robinson

Before the mid-eleventh century the pope was far from being the active leader of the Roman Catholic Church that he is he restricted himself to the local concerns of the diocese of Rome and was virtually ignored by the outside world. This book is a study of the transformation of the role of the pope in the twelfth century, from which he emerged as monarch of the universal Church, dedicated to reform and to making the Church independent of secular control. The most important role in the new model government was given to the cardinals, who hence forward were the principal advisers, agents and electors of the popes. These developments were accelerated by schism and political on three occasions the lawful pope was driven into exile by an antipope supported by a powerful secular ruler. Professor Robinson's text emphasizes the growing importance of the College of Cardinals and the practical aspects of papal government. It offers the most detailed analytical study yet available of this key period in the history of the western Church.

Genres: History, Medieval History, Medieval, Religion, Nonfiction

572 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Professor I. S. Robinson is Lecky Professor of History and Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. His research and publications have focused on Papal and Imperial history in the medieval period.

Reviews

[Katie]

4.5 stars.

Let's start with this: I'm a total pope nerd. When Benedict XVI resigned earlier this year, it blew my mind. When a Jesuit subsequently became pope and chose the name Francis, it blew my mind again. It has been quite a year.

In light of that, it does not take very much for me to find a book about popes fascinating. For a lot of people, this book will probably seem terribly dry - it's nearly all institutional history, it dives head first into lots and lots of details, and at times it can seem frustratingly fixated on the papal curia. There are, I don't know, sixty pages on papal finances.

I love stuff like that! Institutional history has a reputation for stuffiness for a reason, but it's also incredibly important. The papacy reached into absolutely every aspect of medieval life, particularly by the end of this period, and I think it's therefore hugely important to figure out how the papacy viewed itself in the broader context of the world in which it operated, and to learn the nuts and bolts of the curia in order to figure out how (or to what degree) it turned this self-image into a reality. This book does an excellent job of that.

Robinson's work is divided loosely into two sections: in the first, he looks at the papacy as an institution. Robinson provides a lovely amount of detail that's not easily summarized, but the general sense that one gets is one of gradual solidification and self-definition. Getting off to a quick start with the 11th century reformers, the papacy became increasingly keen to define itself as an entity - especially in relation to secular powers and the episcopate - and responded by developing a curia and a modus operandi that allowed it to be involved in both secular and spiritual affairs at the highest levels.

Robinson traces the rocky relationship with the Roman people that had the papacy enduring long periods of exile throughout the 12th century and the growing importance - financial and political - of the papal lands surrounding Rome. Papal councils and legations also proved to be key tools of papal influence - the latter became far more numerous and influential, and councils gradually emerged less as a judicial body centered on Rome and more as as reforming tool that highlighted the power of the pope and curia. Perhaps the most dependably influential function of the papacy, though, was judicial: by the mid-12th century the papal court was flooded with legal appeals from all corners of Europe, spurring on the rising efficiency of the Roman curia and chancery. But perhaps most important of all, for Robinson, were the cardinals. The cardinals appear all over this book, to the extent that it's rather easy to imagine them as the real powers: they elect the pope, they are his chief advisers, they tend to be the ones sent to broker deals with the secular powers. And maybe most importantly, they're the ones who remain, running the curia, as individual popes come and go. There's an aspect of institutional memory in the College that's fascinating, and I wish Robinson had been able to explore it a bit more.

The second half of the work explores the relationship of the papacy to the outside world. It's necessarily limited - relations with England and France are mentioned only in passing, Becket is mentioned only in relation to the conflict with Frederick Barbarossa. But it's a good overview of the most pressing political issues of the 12th century for the papacy: crusades, Normans, and the Empire. Despite the necessary exclusions, Robinson does a nice job covering the period, and a particularly nice job of working in his discoveries from the work's first half. Cardinals, especially in their role as legates, were crucial for Innocent II and Alexander III when they were attempting to assert themselves to the wider Christian world against the anti-popes who were challenging them. The importance of the papal lands becomes immediately clear as soon as a pope is exiled from Rome and thus divorced from the revenue of the lands associated with it. The pendulum swing of alliances with the Normans and the Empire is traced back to the factions that repeatedly developed within the College of Cardinals.

The term "papal monarchy" pops up a lot in regards to this period and the one right after it. It's an understandable one - the papal curia frequently looks remarkably similar to the courts of contemporary secular monarchs. But at the same time, Robinson's work does a good job of showing how the pope, even at the height of his influence, was working within a huge, complex, and multifaceted set of power structures.

[鹏程 潘]

Excellent!!

[Joshua]

It is well researched and exhaustive, but extremely dull in so many places. It is mind-numbing at times.

[Victoria]

Dry institutional history of the medieval papacy. Argues that it was during this period that the papacy ceased to concern itself solely with its dimensions as the bishopric of Rome, and began actively to lay claim to its so-called inheritance as the centre of Christendom. The popes of this period began to articulate the forms of administration that would last into the modern era.