Penitentiary Documents from Outside the Penitentiary

PENITENTIARY DOCUMENTS
FROM OUTSIDE THE PENITENTIARY
Ludwig Schmugge
When Professor Emil Göller1 left the German College Santa Maria del
Campo Santo situated south of Saint Peter’s Square in Rome on November 22,
1913, he was very excited, indeed. Since the fall of 1900 he had had the privilege
of studying, frrst as a borsista of the Görres-Gesellschaft, later on the payroll
of the Preussisches Historisches Institut in Rome, thousands of papal documents
accessible to the public since Pope Leo XIll had opened the Vatican Archives
to historical research. During his researcb Göller’s special interest was
more and more focussed on the Penitentieria Apostolica, the papal office wbicb
in the later Middle Ages was crucial for granting tens of thousands of absolutions,
dispensations, and licenses to men and women, lay persons and clerics
alike, throughout Christendom, who bad fallen into some conflict with the rules
of canon law. Only after he had published bis well-known opus magnum, the
four volumes on the Penitentiary/ did he learn, talking to Cardinal Serafino
Vanutene (since 1899 the Penitenziere Maggiore), who as protector of the
Campo Santo often bad dinner with the members of the College, that the historical
archives of the central papal office for grace, penance, and indulgences
wbere not totally lost after Napoleon bad all Vatican documents transferred to
Paris in 1809. On the contrary, some 4500 volumes were found in three rooms
of the Cortile delle Corazze in the Vatican, wbere they bad remained hidden
since returning from Paris in 1817.4
When be was confronted with the original documents of tbe Penitentiary,
the papal office, ubi morum censura et animarum salus vertitur – as Pope Leo X
1 For concise information about him see RemigillS Bäumer, „Göller, Emil“, in Lexikon for
Theologie und Kirche 4 (1995), col. 829.
2 Emil Göller, Die päpstliche Pönitentiarie von ihrem Ursprung bis zu ihrer Umgestaltung
unter Pius V, 2 vols. in 4 parts, Bibliothek des Kgl. PrellSs. Historischen Instituts in Rom 3,
4, 7, 8 (Rome: Loescher, 1907, 1911).
3 See Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze, /ettere ed arli 34 (1950), 978, and Mario de Camillis,
„Vannutelli, Serafino“, inEncic/opedia cattolica 12 (1954), col. 1026-1027.
4 Emil Göller, „Das alte Archiv der päpstlichen Pönitentiarie“, Römische Quartalschrift, Supplement
vol. 20. Festgabe fiir Anton de Waal, ed. Franz Xaver Seppelt (Rome: Herder,
1913), 1-19.
161
bad formulated in 1 5 1 35 – Göller was about to leave Rome to become professor
of canon law at the University of Freiburg in Germany. As far as I can teil, he
never published any article using the newly discovered documents of the Penitentiary
archive. 6
Only in 1983 did Pope John Paul II give access to the registers of the
Penitentiary for the medieval period. Since then the former archivist of the
Penitentiary, Filippo Tamburini (t 1 999), has published many books and important
articles, and international research has started to exploit the registers that
are officially titled Registra Matrimonialium et Diversorum. 7
The Northem European countries play an important role in the orchestra
of international research. James J. Robertson (Scotland) was among the first to
make use of the penitentiary records but, as far as I am aware, he has not yet
published any study. For the province of Uppsala, that is the area of modern
Sweden and Finland, Kirsi Salonen8 has presented her exhaustive and most informative
Tampere dissertation, and together with Christian Krötzl she is the
editor of a fine volume on The Roman Curia, the Apostolic Penitentiary and the
Partes in the Later Midd/e Ages.9 I would also like to mention Mia Korpiola’s
collection of articles10 with important contributions concerning the topic by Per
Ingesman, Agnes Am6rsd6ttir, and Kirsi Salonen. Torstein Jergensen and Gastone
Saletnich are the authors of a well-illustrated volume, in which the documentation
of cases from the Stavanger diocese is included.1 1 In the meantime,
many other articles making use of Northem European cases from the Penitentiary
sources have been published.
Besides scholars from Northem Europe, historians from the Czech Republic,
Hungary, and Poland have started intensive research into the documents
ofthe Penitentiary. The Bullarium Poloniae, for a long time edited by lrena and
Stanislaus Kura5, includes the Polish supplications from the Penitentiary regiss
In his Bulla Pastarafis euro, ASV, Reg. Vat., 1200, fol. 428r.
6 See the ‚Nachruf‘ by Johann Peter Kirsch and the list of his publications by Kar! August
Fink in Römische Quartalschrift 41 (1933), 1-13.
7 For the publications of the late Filippo Tamburini see his last book Häresie und Luthertum.
Quellen aus dem Archiv der Pönitentiarie in Rom (15. und 16. Jahrhundert), Quellen und
Forschungen aus dem Gebiet der Geschichte, N. F. Heft 19 (Paderbom: Schöningh, 2000),
especially the bibliography on p. 7 ff.
8 Kirsi Salonen, The Penitentiary as a Weil of Grace in the Lote Middle Ages. The Example of
the Province of Uppsa/a 1448-1527, Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia – Armales
Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae 313 (Saarijärvi: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2001)
(hereafter Salonen, The Penitentiary ). Since tben, Salonen has published a series of fi.ne
contnbutions on matters ofthe Penitentiary.
9 Kirsi Salonen and Cbristian Krötzl, ed., The Roman Curia, the Apostolic Penitentiary and
the Partes in the Later Midd/e Ages, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 28 (Rome: Institutum
Romanum Finlandiae, 2003) (hereafter Salonen and Krötzl, ed., The Roman Curia).
10 Mia Korpiola, ed., Nordic Perspectives on Medieval Canon Law, Publications of the Mattbias
Calonius Society 2 (Saarijärvi: Mattbias Calonius Society, 1999). 11 Torstein Jmgensen and Gastone Saletnich, Letters to the Pope. Norwegian Relations to the
Holy See in the Lote Middle Ages (Stavanger: MisjonshJiJgskolens Forlaget, 1999).
162
ters, starring with volume 7 in the pontificate of Pius ll.12 Ale§ Pofizk.a from the
Istituto Storico Ceco in Rome published an important survey in the institute’s
joumal on clerics from Bohemia who were ordained at the Roman curia, which
touches upon the subject of de promotis et promovendis in the Penitentiary registers,
13 and uses the Bohemian cases from the first three volumes of the Repertorium
Poenitentiariae Germanicum.14 He is going to include the respective supplications
to the Penitentiary from the Bohemian territories in the following volumes
of the Monumenta Vaticana res gestas Bohemicas illustrantia. Recently,
Piroska Nagy and Katalin Szende15 have outlined a research project on „Conflicts,
Control and Concessions. The Archives of the Holy Apostolic Penitentiary.
Hungarian Records in East Central European Context“, which intends to
dig mainly into the supplications de diversis formis and de declaratoriis for the
period ofPaul ll and Sixtus IV (1464-1484). Finally, I also would like to mention
the British project of Peter Clarke and Patrick Zutshi for publishing all
English and Welsh petitions. This project is similar to the Repertorium Poenitentiariae
Germanicum published by the German Historical Institute in Rome,
of which my wife and I are in charge.16 The British publications will contain all
supplications from the provinces of York and Canterbury up to the English Reformation
in a calendared form, when the German Repertorium contains Latin
regesta.
Recently Paolo Ostinelli has presented a va1uable volume on the diocese
of Como.17 This book may duly be called a pilot-study, because Ostinelli has for
the first time compared the Vatican documents with the respective material in
partibus of a Mediterranean area. For the northem Italian diocese of Corno he
has collected all the available material, charters, notarial registers and other
documents from the local archives, illustrating the development of the cases before
and after they were taken to the papal office.
What shou1d be done in the near future with or around the supplications of
the papal Penitentiary? As there are many problems to be resolved I shall concentrate
on one item, the documents in partibus coming from the Penitentiary.
12 Bullarium Poloniae litteras apostolicas aliaque monumenta Po/oniae Vaticana continens,
VI 1447-1464, ed. Irena Sulkowska-Kurlcl and Stanislaus K􀃗, (Rome: Ecole Franyaise
de Rome and Lublin: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelsk.i, 1998).
13 Ale§ Pofizka, „Ordinandi delle terre Boeme presso Ia curia pontificia negli anni 1420-
1447“, Bollettino deii’Jstituto Storico Ceco di Roma 3 (2002), 32-55.
14 Ale§ Pofizka, „Repertorium Poenitentiariae Gennanicum. S1fedovi!k.ä papefsk.ä penitenciärie
op i!t v centru pozomosti“, Mediaevalia Historica Bohemica 8 (2001), 97-120.
1165 Annual of Medieva/ Studies at CEU 9 (2003), 333-339.
Repertorium Poenitentiariae Germanicum, ed. by the German Historical lnstitute in Rome:
until today six volumes have been published by Ludwig Schmugge and collaborators, indices
by Hildegard Schneider-Schmugge, covering the period from Eugene IV to Sixtus IV
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996 ff.) (henceforth RPG).
17 Paolo Ostinelli, Penitenzieria Aposto/ica. Le suppliche alla Sacra Penitenzieria Apostolica
provenienti dalla diocesi di Como (1438-1484), Materiali di storia ecclesiastica lombarda 5
(Milano: Ed. Unicopli, 2003) (hereafter Ostinelli, Penitenzieria Aposto/ica).
163
Ostinelli’s valuable contribution to research in the supplications of the Penitentiary
and other findings of documents related to the field of our interest in different
archives of Europe have led me to speak about ‚Penitentiary documents
from outside the Penitentiary‘. This seems to be quite contradictory at first
glance, but in my opinion it opens a wide new field of interesting research possibilities
regarding the ecclesiastical and social history of the later Middle Ages
all over Europe.
I will try to explain my point in more detail. As we know, the Vatican Archives
retain only the registered supplications sent or taken to the papal curia.
We k:now further that the registrations have survived only from the early fifteenth
century onwards18 with many years missing up to 1447. For the time before
the mid-fifteenth century we can find Penitentiary documents only outside
of the Penitentiary, because – as far as we k:now – very few documents have
survived in the Vatican Archives. But, from the thirteenth century onwards an􀃯
also for the time when registered supplications have survived, there is also
plenty of evidence about cases in lccal archives all over Europe. That is why I
propose looking into this kind of important Penitentiary source-material. The
different types of such documents may be roughly divided into four groups: 1 .
original supplications; 2 . litterae ecclesiae ofthe minor penitentiaries; 3 . Jitterae
of the maior penitentiarius; 4. documents related to supplications to the Penitentiary,
as copies, transsumpts, protocols, notarial registration, and so on.
Original supplications
Let us first look into the original supplications. When a petitioner wished
to submit a request for papal grace, he had to take care that a proper supplication
describing his case would be presented to the Roman curia in a written form. In
most cases the petition would have been set up through a proctor,l9 who was
able to write the individual request in a good Latin form according to canon law,
the formularies, and the stilus curia. This piece of paper itself, once it had entered
the administrative process of the Penitentiary, was useless as soon as the
petition was granted and a littera con.firming the positive response of the Penitentiary
had been sent back to the petitioner. Therefore, an original supplication
had a very tiny „Überlieferungs-Chance“ („chance of survival“).20 As far as we
18
From the fust volume (ASV, Penitenzieria .Ap., Reg. Matrim. et Div., vol. 1) Monique
Maillard-Luypaert has recently published the supplications coming from Belgian dioceses:
Les suppliques de Ia Penitencerie Apostolique pour /es dioceses de Cambrai, Liege,
Therouanne et Tournai (141{)-/411). Analeeta Vaticano-Belgica, premiere serie 34 (Brus19
sels and Rome: Institut historique beige de Rome, 2003).
As to proctors, see the forthcoming book by Daniel Rutz on Penitentiary proctors in the
second half of the 15th century. For tbe moment, D. Rutz, „Pönitentiarie-Prolruratoren“,
20 Lizentiatsarbeit, University of Zurich, 2000 (hereafter Rutz, „Pönitentiarie-Prolruratorne „). This expression was launcbed by Arnold Escb, „Überlieferungs-Chance und Überlieferungs-
Zufall als methodisches Problem des Historikers“, Historische Zeitschrift, 240
(1985), 529-570.
164
know, only one original medieval supplication has survived, which Kirsi Salonen
found in the Helsinki University Library in Finland?1 The exceptional reason
why it has survived may be that the petition had been granted so/a signatura,
meaning that the original petition, after having been signed, was taken
back to the supplicant and thus ended up in the local archives.
Litterae ecclesiae of the minor penitentiaries
Almost as rare as the original supplications are the /itterae ecclesiae.
They have to be distinguished from the litterae of the penitentiarius maior (see
below). Besides the tens of thousands of petitions handled by the Penitentiary
office, many pilgrims and other people who went to Rome personally did not
necessarily want their petition to run through the long route of papal administration.
If a „Rome-runner“ could make his confession directly to one of the minor
penitentiaries in the three major Roman basilicas to whom the pope bad delegated
the power to absolve, a penitentiarius minor would confirm the act of confession
with a written document (without, of course, naming the content of the
confession), so that the petitioner could prove his absolution at home with the
help of this document, called /ittera ecc/esiae. The document would have been
written on behalf of or by a minor penitentiary bimself and handed over to the
petitioner immediately. And as in the case ofthe original supplication, the littera
ecc/esiae was ofno use after the death ofthe beneficiary, so that in most cases it
was thrown away. Once again, it is the merit ofKirsi Salonen to have discovered
such a rare /ittera ecclesiae from the pontificate ofPope Niebolas V.22
Litterae of the major penitentiary
Much more frequent than the original supplications and the /itterae ecc/esiae
are litterae of the penitentiarius maior. At the end of each petition process,
a littera had to be issued in the name of the penitentiarius maior on the basis of
the faculties he had received from the pope at the beginning ofhis career as cardinal
penitentiary. These /itterae, written on parchment with the oval seal of red
wax of the Penitentiary, showing the Virgin Mary with the child on a Gothic
throne, affixed at the bottom, 23 were sent to the petitioners or to persons to
whom the Penitentiary bad committed the investigation of the case presented to
21
22 See Salonen, The Penitentiary, 94, with a photo ofthe document.
Swedish National Archives, Or. Perg. (5.8. 1449). Salonen, The Penitentiary, 31 1-312, 402-
405; eadem „Fallet Nanne Kärling. Att kombinera biografiska upgifter ur olika arkiv“ [The
case ofNanne Kärling. To combine biographic information from different archives], in Ny
väg til/ medeltidsbreven. Friin ett medeltidssymposium i Svenska Riksarkivet 26-28 november
1999, Skrifter utgifna av Rik.sarkivet 18 (Stockholm: Rik.sarkivet, 2002), 99-106. This
littera ecclesiae was issued by the German minor penitentiary Johannes Calp. As to his activity
see RPG IV, Index sub voce, and Rutz, „Pönitentiarie-Prokuratoren“.
23 See, for example, the marvelous piece publisbed by Milena Svec, which is used as the
cover of Salonen and Krötzl, ed., The Roman Curia.
165
the curia by the petitioner. In most cases, this person was the bishop as ordinarius
loci or another ecclesiastical person in the petitioner’s diocese. Thus, logically,
local archives are the places where one would expect to find the litterae
today, and we do indeed, with some luckl As the litterae did not fit easily into
the system of medieval documents built up by modern charter-specialists as
Bresslau and others, they were often put aside or overlooked. In rare cases, the
text of a littera was also copied into the first registers of the Penitentiary. The
reason why the scribes did so is not quite clear. For the German-speaking countries
these registered litterae have been edited in the RPG.24
In the meantime, dozens of such litterae have surfaced. For some German-
speaking areas, Brigide Schwari5 inserted them into her Repertorium published
for Niedersachsen, Bremen, and Baden-Württemberg. The „Censimento“
of papal documents unfortunately excludes the letters of the Penitentiary. Thus
Tilmann Schmidt/6 who published two fine volumes of original papal documents
in Germany, did not include any litterae ofthe Penitentiary. The originals
are of special importance for the period before the mid-fifteenth century, because
– as has already been mentioned – no registration of the supplications has
survived. Thus, any documents in partibus from that time are the only testimonies
for the graces granted by the Penitentiary. The Jitterae, mostly written on
good parchment, have frequently been ‚recycled‘ and are to be found in bookbindings
or on cover-leaves of late medieval manuscripts.27 Many examples
have been discovered recently in different archives in Switzerland: by Milena
Svec in the Kantonsarchiv of Frauenfeld and the State Archives of Basel,28 by
24 See, e.g., RPG I, n. 1, a littera from Nicolaus Capranica for a nun from the monastery of
Münstertingen on Lake Constance (February 29, 1438); RPG V, n. 2126 issued by Philip­
25 pus Calandrini for a priest from Utrecht (March 26, 1470).
Brigide Schwan, Regesten der in Niedersachsen und Bremen überlieferten Papstur/amden
IJ98-1503, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Niedersachsens im Mittelalter 15
26 (Hannover: Hahn, 1993).
Tilrnann Schmidt, Die Originale der Papstur/amden in Baden-Württemberg: 1198-1417,
Index Actorum Romanorum Pontificum 6, 2 vols. (Cittä del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, 1993); idem, „Originale Papsturkunden in Baden-Württemberg. Nachtrag“,
Zeitschriftfür die Geschichte des Obe“heins 151 (2003); Miscellanea Bib/iothecae Aposto/
icae Vaticanae 1 0 (2003); idem, Die Originale der Papstur/amden in Norddeutschland:
1199-1415, Index Actorum Romanorum Pontificum 7 (Cittä del Vaticano: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, 2003).
27 University Library of Bonn, S 327 contains a littera from Domenico Capranica (February
13, 1454). Andreas Meyer, Marburg, discovered two letters in the archives ofthe Cistercian
monastery of Zwettl (Austria): Zwettl 337, a littera from Jordanus ep. Sabinen. (Ferrara,
1439) and another one from Jordanus ep. Albanen. (Florence, 1420). See Charlotte Ziegler,
Zisterzienserstift Zwettl. Katalog der Handschriften des Mittelalters, Teil IV: Codex 301-
424 (Vienna: Schroll, 1997), 417, 420. Kirsi Salonen discovered a nice littera from Leonardus
ofSanta Susanna in the Stadtarchiv Köln, HUA 1, a !arge parchment 53.0 x 37.7 cm
(ofwhich 5.7 cm plica), with the seal ofthe Penitentiary (April 6, 1 512).
28 The Frauenfeld /ittera (Staatsarchiv des Kantons Thurgau 7’44’9, dated February 8, 1482)
is directed to the bishop of Constance. He was ordered to Iook into the case of apostasy of
an Augustinian nun, Barbara of Rischach, who bad left her monastery in Diessenhofen. The
166
Barbara Vanotti in the City Archive of Rapperswil/9 and by Silvan Freddi in the
State Archives of Solothurn?0 Paolo Ostinelli found litterae in the ecclesiastical
and state archives ofthe Ticino and in Northem Italy?1 Even in the Vatican Library
such docwnents do exist: Martin Bertram drew my attention to the codex
Vat. Pal. lat. 1018, which on a cover sheet contains a littera confessionalis for
Jacobus Lutifigulus, priest at Trinity Church in Speyer (Germany), dating from
1447. This text is even more important than others, because the registers of confessional
letters from the time ofPope Nicolas V were not registered.
Another way to discover litterae ofthe Penitentiary will be by scrutinising
episcopal and chapter registers. In the archive of the Prague Metropolitan
Chapter, Zdenka Hledikovä, director ofthe Istituto Storico Ceco di Roma, found
the transcription of a littera directed to Wenzel of Crumlau, dean of the chapter,
32 who bad to investigate a matrimonial case which corresponds to the supplication
printed in the RPG (vol. m, n. 1688). Thus, we may rightly assume
that especially in the ecclesiastical archives of various countries plenty of such
litterae will show up as well.
Documents related to a Penitentiary case
The fourth rubric consists of a great variety of documents. As petitions
submitted to the pope often bad a long history in the area where the petitioner
lived before the request arrived in Rome, the cases sometimes have an even
Ionger history after the petitioner received the papal grace. Local ecclesiastical
and lay adrninistrations consequently produced a huge number of sources which
are connected with the decisions of the Penitentiary. This is true especially for
matrimonial dispensations, but also for cases where an investigation bad been
ordered by the papal offi.ce through commission in partibus, which is expressed
especially in the de declaratoriis cases through the words et committatur, followed
by the narne of an ecclesiastical person, mostly the local bishop. Paolo
Ostinelli gives ample evidence showing how episcopal administration and
sometimes even simple parochial priests produced such documents.33 As another
respective supplication, which Barbara directed to the pope, is to be found in ASV PA vol.
31, fol. 162v; RPG Vl, n. 3241. The littera from Basel (Staatsarchiv Basel, Klosterarchiv
K.lingental, Urkunde Nr. 2460) is a transsurnpt. See Milena Svec, „Apostasie und Transitus
in der Registerüberlieferung und in partibus“, in The Roman Curia, ed. Salonen and Krötzl,
183-200.
29 Rapperswil, Stadtarchiv, C 2a I 5, C 2a 11 10.
30 Staatsarchiv Solothwn, charter from March 7, 1425 and June 5, 1489 (I thank Silvan Freddi
for his help ).
31 A littera issued by Domenico Capranica is to be found in the archives of Chiavenna directed
to a canon oftbis church granting him a dispensation to be ordained to the priesthood
at the age of 23 (February 13, 1454; Chiavenna/ltaly, Archivio Capitolare Laurenziano,
Pergamene 784), see Ostinelli, Penitenzieria Apostolica, 88-89. Another littera from Corno,
Archivio diocesano, ex Museo, will be discussed later.
32 Archiv prazske metropolitni kapituly, Cod. Vl-5, fol. 62v.
33 See Ostinelli, Penitenzieria Apostolica, 79-126.
167
example, I mention the many documents in the Staatsarchiv Solothurn resulting
from the action taken by a certain Johannes Umbendom, a priest from Solothurn
in Switzerland, who bad to tackle an impediment to his ordination because he
had lost two fingers of his left hand in a fight and thus bad incurred inhabilitas
for service at the altar.34
The value of all the types of documents mentioned above for our knowledge
of the functioning and the procedure of administration in the Penitentiary,
for the biographies of its personnel, for the form of the /itterae issued by the office,
and for the cost of graces granted to the petitioners cannot be overestimated.
This may be explained in some detail with the help of one document that
has corne to us from the ecclesiastical archives of Corno in Italy.35 The littera,
rescued frorn a sixteenth-century book-binding, issued in the name of the maior
penitentiarius, Julianus della Rovere, Cardinal-bishop of Sabina, was directed to
the bishop of Corno. On March 2, 1481, Giacorno de Zobiis, canon of San
Lorenzo in Lugano (Switzerland), asked Pope Sixtus N for absolution from a
simoniacal action connected with his benefices, for dispensation to keep his
canonry, and to act as a priest in the future?6
Julius, the rnajor Penitentiary, wrote in response to the bishop of Corno
and commissioned the case to him or his vicar. Not only the content, which is
basically the same as in the supplication, is of special interest, but also the information
about the procedure and the personnet involved. First, the name ofthe
procurator is given on the back ofthe document, a certain M. de Castello.37 As a
compositio had been imposed (which was always the fine in cases conceming
simony), this was annotated in the upper right comer of the parchment (concorda
cum datario ). Before getting his littera, the petitioner bad to contact the
datarius, the cleric at the curia who was responsible for administering the personal
income of the pope. In his supplication, the respective passage reads as
componat cum datario. However, Giacorno de Zobiis cleverly avoided paying a
considerable amount of money to the datarius. In the right band corner of the
document, under the plica, one reads: Juravif paupertatem, Stephanus decanus
Matisconensis, datarius. Giacomo had chosen the onl􀂤 way to avoid the payment
of the fine, that is, by swearing the poverty oath. 8 No information can be
garnered from the registered supplication about the taxes the petitioner had to
pay. Only the original littera reveals the amount of rnoney which had to be paid
for the littera. In the Corno case the indication as usual is inserted into the name
34 Daniel Rutz, „‚Hans Umbendorn sin dispensatz der zweyen klinen vingern halb an der
linken hand ‚ Ein Werkstattbericht zur Solothurner Überlieferung einer defectus corporisDispens“,
in Salonen and Krötzl, ed., The Roman Curia, 45-51.
35 Corno, Archivio di Stato, .& Museo 3, n. 108.
36 Paolo Ostinelli has treated this case in Penitenzieria Apostolica, 90-91. The supplication is
published there as n. 490.
37 As to him see Ostinelli, Penitenzieria Aposto/ica, 150-151.
38 Ostinelli, Penitenzieria Apostolica, 91, note 174, mentions the career ofthe papal datarius
Stephanus with further references.
168
of the distributor: W e read on the lower left side of the parchment Je.
Galba/tresdecim Tur./nus. This was the normal way to indicate the tax, writing
the amount in the middle of the name of the taxator, here a certain Je(ronimus)
Galbanus. After the poverty oath, when impediments for his littera no Ionger
existed, we learn from a note above the plica that the document was sent to the
petitioner on May 26, 1481.
This Corno original offers a nice example of another common procedure
in the papal Penitentiary as weil. Before a Ietter was ready to be sent to the person
who had asked for grace or to a commissioner (as in our case the bishop of
Como ), the head of the office ( or his substitute, the regens or the auditor of the
Penitentiary) had to check and sign the littera. This is indicated in the middle of
the docurnent on top of the text, where the following words are visible: Videat
eam reverendus dominus regens. Sometimes the text is more specific and adds
ad quintam lineam. One may see this also from this document. Actually, at the
left and right margin of the text, precisely on the fifth line, the regens, Bisbop
Julius of Bertinoro, added in his own handwriting Visaper me ( on the left margin)
and Jul. eps. Brictonorien. regens (on the right side). Litterae of minor canonical
impact that did not need to be checked show a different kind of procedure.
Instead of the long formula Videat eam with the respective signature ad
quintam lineam by the Major Penitentiary, the regens, or the auditor, one fmds a
simple abbreviation: bn. for bene, with the sigla of an officer at the height of the
fifth line. 39
* * *
Closing my few introductory remarks on the Penitentiary documents from
outside the Penitentiary, I would like to express my strong conviction that many
other examples of sources described in this paper still exist and are waiting to be
discovered in numerous archives all over Europe. It is worthwhile going for
them!
39 E.g., Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe (Germany), B IV 1650, which belongs to the de defectu
natalium supplications in RPG IV, n. 1999.
169
The Long Arm ofPapal Authority
Edited by
Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein J.ergensen. Kirsi Salonen
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XIV
Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Kulturabteilung
des Amtes der Niederösterreichischen Landesregierung
nlederösterreicll kuHur
CEU MEDIEV ALIA 8
TheLongArm
of Papal Authority
Late Medieval Christian Peripheries
and Their Communication
with the Holy See
Edited by
Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein J0rgensen, K.irsi Salonen
Bergen · Budapest · Krems
2004
Copy Editor: Judith Rasson
Cover lliustration: Pope Pius II, Hartmann Scbedel, World Cbronicle (Nuremberg, 1493), fol. 250
Joint Publlcation by:
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T ABLE OF CONTENTS
Abbreviations related to the collections of the Vatican Secret Archives . . ….. … 7
Preface . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …. . . . . . . 8
Piroska Nagy, Peripheries in Question in Late Medieval Christendom . . ….. .. . 11
Kirsi Salonen, The Penitentiary under Pope Pius TI. The Supplications
and Their Provenance . . . . . . … . . . . . . . .. … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Torstein Jergensen, At the Edge ofthe World: The Supplications
from the Norwegian Province of Nidaros . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …. . . … . … 29
K.irsi Salonen, The Supplications from the Province of Uppsala.
Main Trends and Developments . . . .. . .. . . . . . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . . . . . . .. . . . . 42
Irene Fumeaux, Pre-Reformation Scottish Marriage Cases
in the Archives of the Papal Penitentiary . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Jadranka Neralic, Central Europe and the Late Medieval Papal Chancery . . … 71
Etleva Lala, The Papal Curia and Albania in the Later Middle Ages . …. . . . . . . . 89
Piroska N agy and Kirsi Salonen, East-Central Europe
and the Penitentiary (1458-1484) ……………………………………. 102
Lucie Dolezalova, „But if you marry me“: Reflections
on the Hussite Movement in the Penitentiary (1438-1483) ………….. 113
Ana Marinkovic, Socia1 and Territorial Endogamy
in the R.agusan Republic: Matrimonial Dispenses
during the Pontificates ofPaul li and Sixtus IV (1464-1484) ……….. 126
Gastone Saletnich and Wolfgang Müller, Rodolfo Gonzaga (1452-1495):
News on a Celebrity Murder Case . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . 145
5
Blanka Szegbyovä, Church and Secular Courts in Upper Hungary
(Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 151
Ludwig Schmugge, Penitentiary Documents
from Outside the Penitentiary . . . . . . . . . . … . . . . . . .. . .. .. . . .. .. : …………… 161
Gerhard Jaritz, Patternsand Levels ofPeriphery? ………………………….. 170
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. .. . . . . . . 173
6
ABBREVIATIONS RELATED TO TBE COLLECTIONS OF THE
V ATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES
ASV = Archivio Segreto Vaticano
Arm. = Armadio
Congr. Vescovi e Regolari, Visita Ap. = Congrega zione dei Vescovi e Regolari,
Visita Apostolica
Instr. Mise. = Instrumenta Miscellanea
Penitenzieria Ap., Reg. Matrim. et Div. = Penitenzieria Apostolica, Registra
Matrimonialium et Diversorum
Reg. Vat. = Registra Vaticana
Reg. Lat. = Registra Lateranensia
Reg. Suppl. = Registra Supplicationum
Reg. Aven. = Registra Avenionensia
RPG = Repertorium Poenitentiariae Germanicum
7
PREFACE
The present publication contains selected papers from two international
conferences: the first was held at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of
Bergen (Norway), in October, 20031 and the second at the Department of Medieval
Studies, Centrat European University, Budapest (Hungary), in January,
2004.2 The purpose of these meetings was to gather researchers interested in the
history and significance of the papal curia and, in particular, the Apostolic Penitentiary,
in the later Middle Ages. The main emphasis was placed on a comparative
approach and on the role of peripheral areas of Western Christendom in
their communication with the Holy See.
There are various kinds of centre-and-periphery hierarchies.3 There are
geographic, social, economic, and cultural peripheries and centres.“ The generat
textbooks … address materials from the geographical and social peripheries of
privileged cultures only as adjuncts to their central narrative …. The history of
Scandinavia and Eastern Europe become excursus to a central narrative.'“‚
However, conceming the communication of the Holy See with various areas
of Christendom in the Middle Ag es, the irnpact of ‚peripheries‘ has attracted
a new interest in recent years. Since the opening of the archives of the Apostolic
Penitentiary to researchers in 1983 relatively few scholars have exploited the
sources, but recently their number has increased. Most of them have studied the
supplications to the Penitentiary of petitioners from their own home countries
and edited material on a national basis. The German Historical Institute, under
the leadership of Ludwig Schmugge, has already published several volumes of
entries concerning German-speaking territories. Also, the Norwegian and Icelandic
material has recently been released by Torstein Jßi’gensen and Gastone
Saletnich. Sirnilar enterprises are in process in several other countries: Poland,
Denmark, Sweden and Finland, England and Wales. The examination of territo-
1 „The Lote Middle Ages and the Penitentiary Texts: Centre and Periphery in Europe in the
Pre-Refonnation Era.“
2 „Ad Confines. The Papal Curia and the Eastern and Northern Peripheries of Christendom
in the Later Middle Ages(l41h
– 151h c.).“
3 For this and the following, see Teofilo F. Ruiz, „Center and Periphery in the Teaching of
Medieval History,“ in Medieval Cultures in Contact, ed. Richard F. Gyug (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2003), 252.
4 Ibidem, 248.
8
ries on the geographic peripheries in their relation to Rome has been a main focus
in these studies.
The archival material of the Penitentiary and the communication of the
papal curia with the various regions of late medieval Europe should, however,
not be studied only on national Ievels. There is an increasing need for such
studies to be supplemented by comparative searcbes for differences and analogies
in how Christians from different corners of Europc used the papal offices
and were treated by them. It is well known that even though the regulations of
canon law were in theory the same for everyone, regional differences in interpreting
and applying them emerged in the Late Middle Ages. The need to turn to
the papal authority in matters of canon law varied depending on the role of local
bishops and the presence or absence of papal Iegates or collectors, who often
bad the power to deal with similar matters in partibus. Also, people in the
centml territories of Christendom bad different opportunities for turning to the
papal curia with their requests than those living on the peripheries of the
Christian world.
Questions like these played the central role in the discussions of the two
conferences noted above. In this book we will render an overview of the present
status of this new field of research. As an introduction, Piroska Nagy deals with
the question of how to apply centre-periphery models to a comparative analysis
of the sources. Kirsi Salonen uses the Penitentiary registers from the period of
Pope Pius II to analyse the supplications, their provenance, and the role of peripheries.
Two peripheral parts of late medieval Europe and their significance concerning
the communication with the Holy See represent the main part of the
publication: Northem Europe and East Central Europe. Comparative analyses of
Scandinavian and Scottish source material from the Penitentiary Registers are
made by Torstein Jsrgensen, Kirsi Salonen, and lrene Fumeaux. The studies on
East Central Europe are introduced by an inquiry concerning the general importance
of the area for the papal curia (Jadranka Neralic), and an overview of the
communication of the Holy See with Albania (Etleva Lala). Piroska Nagy and
Kirsi Salonen offer a quantitative analysis of East Central Europe and the Penitentiary
(1458-1484), followed by contributions on individual territories, such
as the Czech Iands (Lucie Dolezalova) and Dalmatia (Ana Marinkovic). The
contribution by Gastone Saletnich and Wolfgang Müller indicates that in any
studies of the roJe of peripheries one must not neglect the more central areas.
Blanca Szeghyova and Ludwig Schrnugge show that local archives and their
contents are an indispensable additional source for comparative analyses.
Many friends and colleagues have helped in preparing this book for print.
We are pleased to thank the personnet of the Penitenzieria Apostolica, especially
Padre Ubaldo Todeschini, for reading the manuscript and suggesting useful corrections.
We are also much obliged to the skilled staff of the Sala di Studio in
the Vatican Archives, who patiently brought us volume after volume of the reg-
9
isters and helped with other problems. Judith Rasson from Central European
University deserves our gratitude for copyediting our text.
Finally, we wish to thank the academic institutions which in a more direct
way have promoted this project: the Centre for Medieval Studies at the
University of Bergen, the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central
European University in Budapest, the Institut filr Realienkunde of the Austrian
Academy of Seiences and the Academy of Finland, and the Department of History
at the University ofTampere.
Bergen, Budapest, and Tampere, November 2004
Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein Jergensen, Kirsi Salonen
10