The Apostolic Penitentiary

137 Pages·2007·1.17 MB·English

by  Gerhard Jaritz

… ET USQUE AD ULTIMUM TERRAE
THE APOSTOLIC PENITENTIARY IN LOCAL CONTEXTS
CEU MEDIEVALIA 10

Series Editor: József Laszlovszky
Series Technical Editor: Annabella Pál
… et usque ad ultimum terrae
The Apostolic Penitentiary
in Local Contexts

Edited by
Gerhard Jaritz
Torstein Jørgensen
Kirsi Salonen

Central European University
Department of Medieval Studies
&
Central European University Press
Budapest · New York
&
Hungarian Academy, Rome

Budapest, 2007
© Editors and Contributors 2007
1st edition

Technical Editor: Gerhard Jaritz
Copy Editor: Jennifer R. McDonald and Judith Rasson
Cover design for the series by Péter Tóth

Cover Illustration:
Pope Pius II (1458-1464) and members of the apostolic curia
Hartmann Schedel, World Chronicle (Nuremberg, 1493), fol. 268v (detail)

Joint publication by:

Central European University
Department of Medieval Studies
Nádor u. 9, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary
Telephone: [phone], Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected], Website: http://medstud.ceu.hu

Central European University Press
An imprint of the Central European University Share Company
Nádor u. 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary
Telephone: [phone], Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected], Website: http://www.ceupress.com

400 West 59th Street, New York NY 10019, USA
Telephone [phone], Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]

Hungarian Academy, Rome
Via Giulia 1, 00186 Roma, Italy
Telephone: [phone], Fax [phone]
E-mail: [email protected], Website: http://www.magyarintezet/roma

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system,
or transmittes, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publishers.

ISSN 1587-6470 CEU MEDIEVALIA
ISBN 978-963-7326-83-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Et usque ad ultimum terrae : the Apostolic Penitentiary in local contexts / edited by Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein
Jørgensen, Kirsi Salonen. -- 1st ed.
p. cm. -- (CEU medievalia ; 10)
ISBN 978-9637326837 (pbk.)
1. Catholic Church. Poenitentiaria Apostolica. I. Jaritz, Gerhard. II. Jørgensen, Torstein, 1951- III. Salonen,
Kirsi. IV. Title.

BX1862.E8 2007
262'.136--dc22

2007019402

Printed in Hungary by Akaprint Nyomda
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ………..……………….……………………………………….…. 1

LOCAL NEEDS IN GLOBAL CONTEXTS

Paolo Ostinelli, Penitentiary Evidence and Local Archive Material:
The Case of Upper Italy, 1438-1484 ……..…...……………………..…… 7
Torstein Jørgensen, Canon Law in Norway Illustrated by the Penitentiary
Texts: An Example of a European Centre–Periphery Perspective …..…..... 19

MARRIAGE AND SEXUAL CONDUCT

Jennifer R. McDonald, Illegitimate Scots in the Registers of Supplications
and the Registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary during the Pontificate
of Sixtus IV (1471–1484) ………………………………………..………. 33
Kirsi Salonen, Diemunda and Heinrich – Married or Not?
About a Marriage Litigation in the Consistorial Court of Freising
in the Late Middle Ages …………………………………………..……… 43
Ana Marinković, Si et in quantum. The Role of Papal Dispensations
in Matrimonial Contracts of Fifteenth-Century Ragusa ………………….. 61
Ludwig Schmugge, Matrimonial Dispensation: How the Penitentiary
Handled Cases of Impotence …………………………………………….. 71

VAGRANTS AND APOSTATES

Gerhard Jaritz, … monasterium ipsum (sine licentia) exivit: A Familiar Image
for the Fifteenth-Century Dioceses of Passau and Salzburg? …...……..… 85
Milena Svec Goetschi, Thief and Arsonist: The Adventurous Fate
of a Runaway Monk ………………………………………………. .…… 95
LOCAL NEEDS IN THREATENED LANDS
Etleva Lala, The Survival of the Catholic Church in Albania during the Period
of Direct Contact with the Ottomans (1458–1484) …………………….. 115
Antonín Kalous, The Official Papal Policy towards Bohemia and Moravia
in the 1460s and Its Relation to the Penitentiary Office:
the Case of Olomouc …………………………….…………………...… 123

List of Contributors ……………….. .……………………………………….. 131
INTRODUCTION

The Apostolic Penitentiary and its role in, and for, late medieval society may be seen as
one of the best examples of how specific local needs of clerics and laity of all social
origins, and global authority, in this case the pope, was connected and interdependent.
For a variety of reasons, individual Christians requested grace from the Papal Curia, the
Penitentiary in particular, which could not be given by others, neither by representatives
of secular authority nor by any other members of the Church hierarchy. The central
authority of the papacy determined and influenced not only matters of faith, but also
the life of any late medieval Christian – to judge, punish, and absolve.
The present volume is a continuation of the international studies of the late
medieval registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary. In particular, it may be seen as a coop-
erative initiative of researchers from the Centre of Medieval Studies at the University of
Bergen, the Department of Medieval Studies at Central European University (Buda-
pest), and the Department of History of the University of Tampere.1 In the course of
this initiative, a workshop entitled “The Apostolic Penitentiary in Local Contexts” was
organised in June, 2005, at the Hungarian Academy in Rome. This book is one of the
outcomes of this meeting. It aims at investigating the fifteenth-century registers of sup-
plications to the Apostolic Penitentiary, and analysing examples out of the multiplicity
of issues in which this context of local needs and universal power occurred.
Most of the following articles concentrate on aspects of “global” and “local”
interaction with regard to the institutions and archives offering information about the
individual cases and their handling. This can be seen in the case for Upper Italy in the
contribution by Paolo Ostinelli, who highlights cases from this region and addresses
their occurrence in the Penitentiary registers as well as in the source evidence found in
local archives. Torstein Jørgensen shows the intensive connection of the global Church
authority and local issues on the basis of a model of centre and periphery that he applies

1 For previous results of this cooperation, see The Long Arm of Papal Authority. Late Medieval Christian Peri-
pheries and Their Communication with the Holy See, ed. Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jørgensen and Kirsi Salonen,
2nd ed. (Budapest:: CEU Press, 2005).
2 INTRODUCTION
to Scandinavian cases. He demonstrates that ecclesiastical law codes touching the lives
of individuals also reached the peripheral and northernmost province of the Roman
church, that is, the archdiocese of Nidaros (= Trondheim), which included Norway,
Iceland and North Atlantic islands.
The global and local contexts that the registers of the Penitentiary point to are
approached particularly with reference to three areas: ‘marriage and sexual conduct’,
‘vagrants and apostates’, and problems that the church policy was confronted with in
certain territories. In all of them a variety of interconnections and dependencies can be
shown.
Jennifer McDonald studies illegitimate Scots who were seeking assistance from
the Papal Curia during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus IV. She demonstrates a number of
varieties concerning their treatment in the respective different register series preserved
in the Vatican Archives and connects them with the social origin of the petitioners.
Kirsi Salonen offers a case study about a particular case of marriage litigation in the
Consistorial Court of the diocese of Freising. She demonstrates to what extent the in-
formation that local source material offers about an individual case may add to the
surviving records in the Penitentiary registers. Meanwhile, Ana Marinković analyses the
references to papal dispensations in the notarial registers of matrimonial contracts
which survive in the archives of Dubrovnik. The matrimonial dispensations and their
reference to impotence is the topic of Ludwig Schmugge’s contribution. Concentrating
on an Italian and a German case, he compares the appearance of impotence in canon
law with its occurrence in the registers of the Penitentiary.
The articles of Gerhard Jaritz and Milena Svec Goetschi concentrate on the sup-
plications from vagrant monks and apostates in the Penitentiary registers. Gerhard Jaritz
addresses the source evidence from the dioceses of Salzburg and Passau. He compares
the quality and quantity of the discourse about vagrants in the Penitentiary registers with
the sources of the Orders and evidence originating from individual monastic houses.
Milena Svec Goetschi, on the other hand, studies the supplications of a Premonstraten-
sian canon who had escaped from his monastery in the diocese of Constance and joined
mercenary troops.
‘Local needs in threatened lands’ and their contexts within the evidence con-
tained in the registers of the Apostolic Penitentiary are analysed by two contributions
concerning Central Europe. Etleva Lala deals with the variety of problems that the
Catholic Church in Albania was confronted with during the period of direct contact
with the Ottomans in the second half of the fifteenth century. She illustrates that the
records from the Penitentiary demonstrate to some extent the conditions under which
the Catholic religion survived in Albania during the first years of the Turkish occupa-
tion, and how the clergy of the region was supported by the Holy See. Antonín Kalous
treats the situation in the Czech lands during the post-Hussite period of the reign of
INTRODUCTION 3
King George of Poděbrady and the revolt against him. There, an alternative opened up,
particularly for the nobles and the royal towns: either to stay faithful to the lawful king,
or reject him and be faithful to the pope and the Roman Church, which directly op-
posed the king. Analysing the case of the town of Olomouc, the author questions to
what extent the decisions of the Penitentiary were coordinated with the official papal
policy of the fight against the heretic Hussites.
Altogether, the contributions in this volume illustrate that local and individual
factors, as well as the practice of Christian faith and religion, must not be seen as sepa-
rated from the universal and central authority of the Holy See. The latter’s influence
could become directly important for any individuals in any local space, and also … usque
ad ultimum terrae (Acts 1:8), on the utmost peripheries of the Christian world. The assis-
tance by the Apostolic Penitentiary was indispensable in a variety of cases.
The editors would like to thank a number of institutions for their support of-
fered for the workshop and the publication of this volume; in particular, the Hungarian
Academy at Rome for their hospitality in offering the possibility to organise the meeting
in the Palazzo Falconieri. Moreover, we are grateful to the Centre of Medieval Studies at
the University of Bergen, the Department of Medieval Studies of Central European
University and the Department of History at the University of Tampere for their inter-
est in our research and cooperation. We are also especially grateful to the Apostolic
Penitentiary at the Holy See and the Major Penitentiary, His Eminence, James Francis
Cardinal Stafford, who showed his interest in our research by attending the workshop.
His positive and very encouraging remarks have not only confirmed to us the impor-
tance of our studies, and the necessity to continue research, but also to do this with
great joy.

Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jørgensen and Kirsi Salonen May 2007