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PRELUDE

The Legate

On 22 November 1220, before a crowd in the Church of Saint Peter at Rome, Pope Honorius III crowned Frederick II—already king of the Germans, of Lombardy, and of the Regno, the combined regions of Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily—emperor of the Romans. This event marked the beginning of Frederick’s imperial reign as well as the culmination of years-long cooperation between the young Hohenstaufen ruler and the papacy, which had supported his rights in Sicily during his minority and backed his claim to the contested German throne. As part of the coronation ceremony, Frederick issued a number of constitutions, swearing among other things to recognize the territorial possessions, honors, and rights of the Roman church, to maintain a formal separation between the Regno and the empire, and to assure that his officials would take action against heretics of all kinds.¹ On that solemn occasion, he also renewed his crusading vow, first sworn during his royal coronation at Aachen in 1215. Richard of San Germano, a chronicler with ties to the imperial court, described how the emperor “publicly renewed his vow” at the hands of Hugolino dei Conti, the cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri and the future pope Gregory IX.²

A few months later, Honorius appointed Hugolino to the office of full legation in Lombardy and Tuscany to promote Frederick’s promised crusade to the holy places. The elderly cleric, probably about seventy years old, had a long history of service at the papal curia and experience acting as a legate for Honorius and his predecessor, Innocent III, including a previous tour of duty in Lombardy.³ When Frederick heard the news about Hugolino’s assignment to the region, as he later wrote to the cardinal bishop, he was overjoyed to hear that the pope had assigned his “father in Christ and friend” to carry out the “business of the cross.” Addressing the communities of northern Italy, the emperor signaled his support for Hugolino, authorizing him to absolve anyone subject to imperial banishment as long as they agreed to join the crusade and telling his subjects to honor the cardinal “like our own person.”⁴

Papal legates like Hugolino dei Conti embodied the judicial and sacramental authority of the Apostolic See for those who might never lay eyes on the bishop of Rome. They gave a public face and voice to the pope’s fullness of power, conveying his sovereign rights over the faithful into the communities of Europe and beyond. The Roman pontiff, after all, could not be everywhere. But legally empowered legates sent “from the side” (a latere) of the pope came fairly close. Hugolino’s legation represented only one such iteration of papal authority in this regard. Undertaking his duties, the cardinal participated in a wide-reaching network of envoys who represented the Roman curia, conveying and presenting documents from the papal chancery, passing along word-of-mouth instructions from the pope, and working to assure that local bishops, abbots, and other churchmen realized the directives of the Apostolic See. Without such means of communication and display, the impressive political and judicial prerogatives claimed by the Vicars of Christ would have meant little beyond their immediate orbit.⁵

Hugolino’s particular legation to Lombardy in 1221 has a special significance for the subject of this book. Although the cardinal bishop did not know it at the time, his activities on Honorius’s behalf anticipated the overriding concerns that would later shape his own papacy after he became Pope Gregory IX. These included the launching of a successful crusade to free the holy places from the “infidels,” the effort to create conditions of peace that would enable such a crusade, and the commitment to eradicating heresy, which was perceived as a dire threat that endangered the faithful, threatened the peace, and undermined the crusades. In addition, Hugolino’s legation made clear an inescapable fact of thirteenth-century politics: that the Apostolic See’s ability to mobilize Christians for such goals remained linked, publicly and behind the scenes, to the reputation, fortunes, and decisions of the Hohenstaufen emperor.

An unusual amount of information about Hugolino’s legation in 1221 survives thanks to the written register that remains of his activities: copies of various documents that the cardinal bishop or members of his traveling “household”—including his chaplains, treasurer, and notaries—judged important enough to archive. This invaluable collection of documents represents just a portion of the written artefacts that his legation must have produced, preserving one version of the letters, forms, receipts, and “public instruments” (instrumenta publica) that would have been copied, amended, and distributed to various recipients, signed and affixed with the legate’s and other witnesses’ seals.⁶ Its texts often describe the scenes of their own inception, when they were drafted by notaries “before the legate” or “in the legate’s presence” during or just after assemblies held in piazzas and other open spaces, communal halls, or the local bishop’s palace, which doubled as a center for urban governance.⁷ Hugolino staged or participated in many such gatherings that brought together notable citizens and officials, podestas and town councilors, bishops, abbots, and clerics of various rank, along with members of city militias and various urban societies. When the cardinal could not be present himself, he employed his own envoys, usually local prelates and abbots, “worthy” and “reliable” men sent with instructions to be delivered “aloud” (viva voce) and written documents to be read on his behalf. Such traffic went both ways, as “ambassadors” from various communes traveled to meet with Hugolino, sometimes ordered to appear before him by a fixed deadline, conveying their own oral instructions, letters, and documents.⁸

Hugolino’s register makes plain his concern with launching the next crusade. The letter appointing him as legate highlighted this “burden,” which was incumbent upon the pope and shared by his helpers, like the cardinal bishop.⁹ That particular burden possessed an unmistakable urgency in 1221. Eight years earlier, Pope Innocent III had set plans in motion for what is now called the Fifth Crusade by issuing a number of bulls that called for a new expedition to liberate Jerusalem. As part of its deliberations in 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council had followed with the most elaborate formulation of papal crusading policy yet, laying down precise guidelines for the financing, moral comportment, and organization of the upcoming campaign. 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 life among the laity, especially among women and men living in urban areas, the line between orthodoxy and heresy could be sometimes hard to discern. Some new groups, like the recently formed mendicant orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, secured legitimacy through formal recognition by the church. Hugolino knew this better than most, serving as the first cardinal protector of the Franciscan order starting in 1218.²³ Others, like the Waldensians, whose commitment to poverty and apostolic living did not look all that different from that of the mendicants on the face of things, fell on the wrong side of the church’s determination between right and wrong behavior and belief. Scholars still debate over the identity—or, according to some, even the existence—of so-called Cathars, loosely defined as subscribers to a dualist cosmology with a pronounced streak of anticlericalism. In other instances, refusing to obey the commands of the Roman church could shade from a question of discipline into heresy, such as when excommunicate persons refused to acknowledge their status and thereby became “despisers of the keys,” rejecting the clergy’s power to loosen and bind sinners.²⁴

By the time of Hugolino’s legation to Lombardy in 1221, the fight against heresy had emerged as a prominent area of convergence between the interests of popes and emperors. The third canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, modeled after earlier legislation, had instructed bishops to investigate accusations of heresy in their dioceses with the help of secular authorities, calling up upon officials to brand heretics as infamous, to confiscate their goods, to bar them from public office, and when necessary to carry out capital punishment against them.²⁵ As seen above, at his coronation Frederick II affirmed his own commitment to battling “Cathars, Patarenes, Leonistas, Speronistas, Arnaldistas, Circumcisers, and all heretics of either sex, by whatever name they are called.” As part of his legate’s duties, Honorius expected him to ensure that the schoolmasters at Bologna add Frederick’s constitutions to the law books, including his statutes against heresy of all kinds. Hugolino likewise insisted that communes in the region enter those same constitutions into their civil law codes along with the anti-heretical measures promulgated at the Fourth Lateran Council. At Piacenza, as part of the newly established peace, he specifically called upon both the popular party and militia to expel all heretics from the city and confiscate their property. During a public gathering at Mantua, summoned by ringing bells and trumpets at the legate’s request, the civil authorities agreed to ban all heretics, giving them eight days to leave the city or face a penalty of one hundred imperial pounds. A herald proclaimed this policy on a bridge over the river Mincio in the middle of the city.²⁶

Crusading, peace, and the fight against heresy: this trifecta that gave shape to Hugolino’s legation in 1221 would continue to define the public commitments of his papacy years later. His time as a legate demonstrated the visible and audible ways that the authority of the Apostolic See reached communities beyond the orbit of the papal curia, through the travel and presence of the pope’s representatives (or even the representatives of the pope’s representatives), through the circulation of letters and other documents, through the convocation of crowds and assemblies, through face-to-face meetings, and through the ritual proclamation of excommunications, sentences of interdict, and scenes of absolution. As a papal legate, Hugolino enjoyed the open support of the newly crowned Roman emperor, who had been signed with the cross by the cardinal’s own hand. As he began his return journey to Rome in October, the bishop of Ostia and Velletri had no way of knowing that the crusade to free the holy places, envisioned and publicized as a common enterprise for the papacy and the empire, would become a source of tension, distrust, and eventual antagonism between the emperor and himself after his own elevation to the highest office in the church.