Peripheries in Question in Late Medieval Christendom

PERIPHERIES IN QUESTION
IN LATE MEDIEVAL CHRISTENDOM
Piroska Nagy
Some time ago, the Hungarian medievalist Jenö Szücs put the important
question, „Where do the intemal borders of Europe run?“1 Seeking an answer to
this question, one can work with a large number of criteria in order to determine
Europe‘ s centers and peripheries. Conceming the inner structure of Europe, one
may ask, for instance, how far the geographical situation of an area on the periphery
of the centers of civilisation influenced, at any given moment, its cultural
and political position and role; or how far the evolution of two peripheries
can be seen as parallel or similar.2 Were the countries on the geographical periphery
considered as such in the different kinds of networks of the medieval
West? How far did geographical structures determine historical structures?
In this article, I will reflect on the notion of periphery in such perspectives.
A frequently used concept, it now has a long history and its use necessitates
clarifying the pre-suppositions relating to its choice. I shall be concemed
mainly with East Central Europe, 3 and somewhat less with Northem Europe, in
posing the problems of peripherality in a concrete way.
1 Jenö Szücs, „The Three Historical Regions of Europe. An Outline“, Acta Historica Academiae
Scientiarum Hungaricae 29 (1983), 131-184; also published in: John Keane, ed., Civil
Society and the State: New Europeon Perspectives (London: Verso, 1988), 291-332 (hereafter
Szücs, „The Three Historical Regions“). See also Gabor Klaniczay, „The Birth of a
New Europe about A.D. 1000. Conversion, Transfer of Institutional Models, New Dynamics“
(in press) (hereafter Klaniczay, „The Birth“).
2 See Klaniczay, „The Birth“. Concerning the Central European and Scandinavian evolution
in the context of ecclesiastical history, seeAndre Vauchez, L’Eglise et Je peuple chretien
dans/es pays de I’Europe du Centre-Est et du Nord (XIY‘-XV“ siecles), Actes du colloque
organise par I‘ Ecole Fran9aise de Rome (27-29 Janvier 1986) (Rome: Ecole Fran99ise de
Rome, 1990); Gäbor Klaniczay, ed., Proces de canonisation au Moyen Age – Aspects juridiques
et religieux, Medieva/ Canonization Processes – Legal and Religious Aspects
(Rome: Ecole Fran98ise de Rome, 2004); Märta Kondor, „Case Studies on the Problem of
Center and Periphery in Western Christendom: Uppsala and Spalato in the Time of Pope
Alexander ill (1159-1181)“, MA thesis (Budapest: Central European University, 2004).
3 On this notion, see Oscar Halecki, The Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History of
East Centra/ Europe (New York: Ronald, 1952); Francis Dvornik, TheMaking ofCentra/
arid Eastem Europe (London: The Polish Research Centre, 1949). Concerning the progressive
emergence of the idea of Central Europe, see Gerard Beaupretre, ed., L ‚Europe Centra/
e. Rea/ite, mythes, enjeu XVIIf-XX‘ siecles (Warsaw: Universite de Varsovie, 1991)
11
Medieval Christendom and its peripheries
While Christendom is a clearly defined notion for the later Middle Ages,
and the papal curia a well-known institution, peripheries are far less defined;
Firstly, because the notion of periphery itself needs to be discussed; secondly,
because the peripheries of Christendom have bad fluctuating detinitions and
geographical Iimits throughout history, especially in the late medieval period.
Thirdly, one may certainly pose the question if, and how far, the East Central
European regions we are interested in – from the Baltic to Albania – formed a
unity in the Iate Middle Ages wbich could be compared to the northem
peripheries or to the central regions of Christendom.
Medieval Europe put in the context of Christianitas/Christendom 4 may be
defined as a religious entity composed of countries of Roman obedience and
rite. As such, it was also a cultural unit. lts unity came from a cultural heritage,
from the linguistic unity of its literate elite and its written tradition. Finally, tbis
religious and cultural framework defined the whole form of society, with its inner
structures and principles that could take different sbapes but showed some
(hereafter Beaupr􀂶, L ‚Europe Centrale); a historiographical overview in Jerzy Kloczowski,
L ‚Europe du Centre-Est dans I ‚historiographie des pays de Ia region (Lublin: Institute
of East Central Europe, 1995), and, recently, Klaniczay, „The Birth“.
4 See Dominique Iogna-Prat, Ordonner et exclure. Cluny et Ia societe chretienne face a
l’heresie, aujudafsme et a l’islam 1000-JJ50 (Paris: Seuil, 1998), 11; „Christianitas“, in
Lexikon des Mittelalters 2, col. 1915-1916; „Chn!tiente“ and „Cb.retientes nouvelles“, in:
Andre Vauchez, ed., Dictionnaire Encyclopedique du Moyen Age Chretien (Paris: Cerf,
1997), 319-320; Andre Vauchez, ed., Histoire du chri.stianisme (Paris: Desclee, 1993), vo1s.
4-5 (hereafter Vauchez, ed., Histoire du chri.stianisme); Piroska Nagy, „Les notions de
chri.stianitas et chretiente et leur sens spatial. Abbon de Saint-Germain et Ja spatialisation
de Ja christianitas“, in: Dominique Jogna-Prat and Andräs Zemplenyi, ed., Frontieres, espaces
et identites en Europe (Paris: CNRS, in press). A few older studies on the notion are:
Maurice Helin, „Christianitas“, Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 29 (1959), 229-237; F.
Kernpf, „Das Problem der Chri.stianitas im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert“, Historisches Jahrbuch
79 (1960), 104-123; Bernard Landry, L ‚idee de chretiente chez /es scolastiques du
Xlff siecle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1929); Gerhart B. Ladner, ‚The Concepts
of ‚Ecclesia‘ and ‚Christianitas‘ and their relation to the idea ofpapal ‚plenitudo po­
testatis‘ from Gregory VII to Boniface Vlll“, in: idem, Images and ldea.s in the Middle
Ages. Selected Studies in History and Art (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1983),
vol. 2, 487-515; Raoul Manselli, „ll medioevo come ‚Christianitas‘: una scoperta romantica“
and „La Christianitas medioevale di fronte all’eresia“, in: V. Branca, ed., Concetto,
storia, miti e immagini del Medio evo (Venice: Sansoni, 1973), 51-135; P. Rousset, „La
notion de Chretiente aux Xle et Xlle siecles“, Le Moyen Age, 69 (1963), 191-203; Jean
Rupp, L ‚idee de Chretiente dans Ia Pensee pontificale des origines a 1nnocent 111 (Paris:
Les Presses modernes, 1939); Jan van Laarhoven, „‚Christianitas‘ et rt!forme grt!gorienne“,
Studi gregoriani 6 (1959-1961), 1-98. Two excellent definitions of the notion are: Robert
Bartlett, ‚The concept of Christendom“, in: idem, TheMaking of Europe. Conquest, Colonization
and Cu/tural Change 950-1350 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993),
250-255, and Nora Berend, At the Gate of Chri.stendom. Jews, Muslims and ‚Pagans‘ in
Medieval Hungary c. 1000- c. 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 42-
43.
12
structural similarities. Such a definition of Christendom includes, most of the
time, the western part of the medieval Christian world, excluding the Orthodox
sphere. s In the Middle Ages, people meant the whole of the Christian world by
Christianitas only when they opposed it to the pagan world or Islam.
Western Christendom was gradually fonned from the early Middle Ages
on, especially through Carolingian and Roman ecclesiastical construction, which
can be described in three steps: the Christianization of peoples and their rulers
(fifth􀂟leventh centuries), the construction of an ecclesiastical system (eighththirteenth
centuries), and fmally the domination of the Roman curia over the
whole of the Western Christian world (eleventh-fifteenth centuries). In this way
Christendom attained its full development: a huge territory with a church-network
of Latin rite, obedient to, and more and more controlled by, Rome. The
papal curia became the center.6
Despite the growing uniformity of ever-increasing papal administration
and justice, and the consequent uniformity of the framework of relations with
the partes, the individual churches, the various parts of Christendom had quite
different relations with the curia. The structure and the framework of these relations
were the same: from the center, communication was passed down by papal
letters and bulls and by Iegates; from the partes towards the curia there was a
constant tlow of embassies, pilgrims, different kinds of supplications and of
supplicants themselves. However, the density and the nature of the relations
varied. The reasons for this were both political and geographical. In the centrat
regions of Christendom (ltaly, France, and the Empire), their relations with the
curia were both strong and frequent. Popes frequently came from Italy, France,
or the Empire; the circulation of clergymen, of knowledge and of wealth (benefices
and taxes) was intense. Moving away towards the East, North, or West,
relations weakened and their nature changed. One can see the difference between
the central regions of Christendom and its remote parts in tenns of core
and periphery, in degrees of development, in terms of dependence, and in the
density of relations.
Periphery, what is it goodfor?
The tenn ‚periphery‘, derived from the Greek peripheria, is used in its
first, geometric, sense to describe perimeter and arc; its broader use, in a
geographical sense, is widespread. It means, then, either the Iimit itself, the
boundary or edge of an area or surface, the outer edge of an area, or what is
s See Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1987), 8, 12; Vaucbez, ed., Histoire du christianisme.
6 Ludwig Scbmugge bas also addressed the question ofthe curia and the partes in the fifteenth
century in the direction of ‚centro e periferia‘; see idem., „Centro e periferia attraverso le
dispense pontificie nel secolo XV“, in: Sergio Gensini, ed., Vita religiosa e identita politiche.
Universalita e particolarismi nell’Europa de/ tardo Medio Evo (Ospedaletto (Pisa):
Pacini, 1998), 33-58.
13
beyond its Iimits. Defined in this way, periphery assumes a whole to which it
belongs, and a center to which it is contrasted.
The ‚center-periphery‘ model is now a well-known conceptual framework
for studies in geography and economics. In recent decades, center and periphery
have become fundamental categories used to characterize the status of places in
a spatial system, 7 and the idea of studying cultures or human societies as spatial
systems according to this scheme has been widely diffused. The conceptual
framework was first popularized by Femand Braudei in his work The Mediter-
·ranean,8 where he defined the notion of world economy (‚economie-monde‘,
‚Weltwirtschaft‘) and analyzed the nature of relations inside such a world economy.
In the 1970s, it was taken up both by lmmanuel Wallerstein, who described
the economy of the modern world system in terms of core, semi-periphery
and periphery,9 and again by Braudei himself, in the third volume of his
Civilization and capitalism, The Time of the World, 10 in which he discussed the
notion of world economy enriched by the reading of W allerstein, whom he also
criticized. Braudei extended the spatial system description to phenomena other
than economic: political systems, social systems (slavery, serfdom) and to cultural
structures.
The model, as best developed by Wallerstein and his followers who have
used his approach, describes the relation between center and peripheries in terms
of domination and dependence, frequently including a Marxist analysis. In this
scheme, the center or core is defined as dominant, and as such having an influence
on its environment. Degrees of periphery are defined according to the intensity
of the influence of the core and according to the strength of dependence
on it. Semi-peripheries are described as highly dependent on the core but dominating
peripheries themselves; the ambivalence of their features suggests that
they are „changing state“: they are either attempting to improve their relative
position in the system or they are core regions in decline. This model, based on
changing relations between zones, challenged social scientists and is still highly
7 See Christian Grata1oup, „Centre/Peripberie“, http://193.55.107.45/hptlhpt_c9.htm (accessed
September 2004). This conceptual pair goes back at least to Wemer Sombart, Der moderne
Kapitalismus (1902) and was frequently used in Marxist socia1 analysis. In economics, see
Samir Amin, Le dtveloppement inegal (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1973) and in geography
Alain Reynaud, Societe, espace etjustice (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1981).
8 Femand Braude1, La Mediterranee et Je monde mediterraneen a /’epoque de Philippe 11.
(Paris: Armand Colin, 1949), 325, 328. ( English translation: The Mediterranean and the
Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip ll [London: Harper Collins, 1992]); see also
idem, Civilisation materielle, Economie et Capitalisme XVe-XVIIJe siecle (Paris: Armand
Colin, 1979), vol. 3. Le temps du monde, 11-12. (English translation: Civilization and
Capitalism, 151h-18’h century. [Berke1ey: University ofCa1ifornia Press, 1992]) (hereafter
Braudel, Civilisation materielle).
9 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of
the Europeon World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
10 Braude1, Civi/isation materielle, vol. 3, 11-12.
14
popular in geography, sociology, and political science.11 Its concepts remain
helpful for historians who wish to establish the model of a spatial system that
evaluates places at a given moment from a given point of view whicb can be
economic, political, or cultural. However, before considering medieval Christendom
with its center, Rome, and its peripheries as a spatial system, let us consider
the dangers of the model.
Besides its main advantage of conceiving worlds and networlcs as spatial
systems, tbe center-peripbery model poses problems by its scbematism. Relations
among the participants of the model are described according to a rigid
dominant/dominated scbeme, while reality is generally more complex. Tbe
model does not take into account the fact that with growing distance, peripberality
cannot only increase dependence, but can also belp to maintain or develop
independence. Contrasting core and peripbery suggests that all equally distant
peripberies of a world system are uniform in terms of the consequent disadvantages
in excbange. lt assumes that any country or region in a peripberal situation
will respond and bebave in a similar or comparable way. However, a more thorougb
study of any spatial system sbows the great variety of situations at the
same distance from the ‚core‘, wbere geographical, geopolitical, cultural, and
bistorical determinants may play important roles. Tbe same region can represent
different situations, independent of the distance from the center; mountain areas,
for instance, frequently produce a kind of local micro-peripberality, whicb contrasts
with nearby valleys or plains. One bas to be aware that many factors
(proximity to the sea. position in an excbange system, etc.) frequently modify
the scbeme to the extent that they in fact invalidate it.
In the present volume, we are dealing with center-peripbery relationship
in the domain of religious institutions and social life. While economic relations
between center and peripbery are at least partly spontaneous, in the case of the
medieval Cburcb, Rome gradually became the explicit center, for bistorical,
cultural, and political reasons, among whicb tradition bad a strong symbolic
weigbt. In the Jater Middle Ages, Rome maintained or even strengthened its
status, wbile other cultural, political, and economic structures of Europe were in
constant cbange and new types of dynamics appeared. In spite of the cbanges in
different :fields, once Rome and tbe curia bad become the institutional center of
Western Christendom and bad a well-functioning network as a tool, they also
exercised a growing impact on various fields of social life: not only on ecclesiastical
structures, taxes, and careers, but also on matrimonial babits and structures
and in the field of everyday life and mores.
11 On the world-system theory, see the rich bibliography at http://www.zmk.uni- freiburg.del
Wallerstein/seclit.htm (accessed September 2004).
15
East Central Europe as a periphery ofChristendom
in the later Middle Ages
I do not think that one may consider all of the partes equally, from
France to the Empire, from Finland to Croatia, as peripheries of the Western
Christian world-system. One has to refine one’s vocabulary after a thorough
study of relations to Rome, which may allow finding Ievels and degrees of the
spatial system of late medieval Western Christendom. To what extent did being
geographically peripheral mean being culturally or religiously peripheral at the
same time? How far did the one involve the other- and ü not, why?
For the present, I have uniformly called all of the East Central European
area belonging to the Roman Church and lying eastwards of Italy and the German-
speaking countries ‚Eastern peripheries‘ of Christendom, and Scandinavia
and the British Isles ‚Northern peripheries‘. However, for the curia, ail these different
regions, institutions and operating spheres did not have the same importance;
they did not represent the periphery in the same way. One realizes that
‚peripherality‘ was far from uniform. Cultural and religious situations varied, as
weil as political importance and integration in economic flows. Areas having
borders with other Christian regions, like the countries of the Balkans with Orthodox
neighbours, were in a different situation than those which also bad pagan
neighbours, like Poland, or only natural frontiers on one or more sides, like
Scandinavia and the British Isles. The major lines of contact such as the Mediterranean
determined a better integration in ail k.inds of exchange. The eastern
shore of the Adriatic, for instance, belonged to Italy throughout the Middle Ages
more than to the Balkans. From a geographical and cultural point of view, East
Centrat Europe bad a specific position. Unlike Northwestern Europe, a natural
frontier area of the continent, East Central Europe lies in the middle; the religious
and cultural borders that cross it are also major contact lines.12 This region
was not perceived as a well-defined area until the nineteenth century; the birth
of an intense reflection about its shape, borders, and characteristics was linked to
the specific political context created at the time around the two World Wars. It
may be considered as having ‚moving limits‘.13 An „oscillation des confins“, as
Evelyne Patlagean put it, characterized East Centrat Europe from Late Antiquity
to our days. In the Middle Ages, great areas of it were under the double influence
of the Roman Church and Orthodox Christianity, as weil as being in contact
with pagans and Muslims. The features of both were present in monasticism,
in architecture, and in liturgy. The two Christian worlds interpenetrated
each other – even though the great lines of division went back as far as the late
12
See also KrzysztofPomian, „L’Europe centrale: essais de definition“, in: Europe centra/eMitte/
europa, Revue Germanique Internationale 1 (1994), 11-24; Beaupretre, L’Europe
Centra/e, 7-15; Bemard Barbier, „L’Europe centrale: une defmition gc!ographique“, in:
Beaupretre, L ‚Europe Centrale, 21-35.
13 See Evelyne Patlagean, „Les Etats d’Europe centrale et Byzance, ou 1’oscillation des confins“,
Revue hislorique 302, n. 4 (2000), 827-868.
16
Roman division of the empire. In such circumstances, the research problems of
the East Central European „peripheries“ of Western Christendom may be expected
to be, at least, partly different from those ofNorthem Europe.
After the Mongoi conquest in the middle of the thirteenth century, Hungary
and Poland also bad pagan neighbours and communicated with them for
centuries. In the later Middle Ages, East Central Europe was the point of departure
for Catholic missions towards the East. These are specific data of the context
that we have to consider when speaking of comparing the ‚peripherality‘ of
Northem and East Central Europe. In the latter, not only the distance from the
curia, but also from Constantinople, the center of Byzantium, counted toward
the definition of the position of a region or a diocese. The strength of Orthodox
networks in an area could influence the integration in the concurrent Latin
Church. All these features make East Central Europe a somewhat specific part
of the Christian world/4 difficult to compare to the ‚pure‘ Western or ‚pure‘
Eastem model. That is why historians since the nineteenth century have chosen
to speak about a third region ofEurope between the other two:15 a Mitteleuropa
which has changing shapes according to the schemes describing it.16 Seeking the
traces of this particularity in the Penitentiary registers also constitutes a test of
how far such a feature is mirrored in the supplications addressed to the curia.
The questions are twofold: on the one band, can we distinguish different features
of ‚peripherality‘ comparing, for instance, Eastem Central and Northem
Europe? On the other band, were there specificities in one area, for example
Eastem Central Europe as such, which allow it to be described as a late medieval
unity?
Peripheries and peripherality in the Penitentiary Archives
Because of the uniformity of registration in the curial office, the material
of the Penitentiary archives of the Holy See may well serve to concentrate on the
criteria that define peripherality. lt allows dealing with the question of the extent
to which it was the geographical situation on the edges ofWestem Christendom
that created peripherality mirrored in the cases and their contents, especially in
contrast to other, more ‚central‘, areas. How far are we able to perceive different
kinds of periphery? Certainly, the findings of the Penitentiary registers alone do
not allow answering these questions; rather they need to be placed side by side
with other types of evidence that they can usefully complete. The most importaßt
aspect in this context is, first, to define what can be recognised as a characteristic
of peripherality in the Penitentiary archives. One may interpret a high
nurober of petitions as a sign of numerous relations and strong contacts with the
14 See Läszl6 Makkai, „Les caracteres originaux de l’histoire economique et sociale de
l’Europe orientale pendant Je Moyen Age“, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarom Hungaricae
16 (1970), 261-287.
15 16 See note 3.
See also Szücs, „The Three Historical Regions“.
17
center. In any case, one has to examine the quantity of findings and registered
cases in order to analyze what such quantities depended on; however, nuroeric
data alone do not teil us a great deal. Certainly, geographic peripherality was
mirrored by fewer cases; proximity to the center meant that relations with the
curia were easier to establish and use frequently; geographic proximity lessened
the cost and the difficulties of the application procedure. Certainly proximity
influenced the nurober of supplications and perhaps also the local application of
canon law. One may ask if it was more respected nearer to Rome than in remoter
parts of Christendom, which might have been difficult to control. If there was
not a greater acknowledgment of church law related to other cultural features,
what determined a high nurober of cases arriving at the curia? This would also
mean that, contrary to the Wallerste in model, greater peripherality might have
accompanied less dependence on the center.
Other factors complicate the equation connecting distance with the nurober
of cases and the degree of relations with the center. The Ievel of urbanisation
and the wealth of a diocese, expressed in the taxes expected from there, may
also be reflected in the Penitentiary entries. Local situations, customs, and laws
and their relation to canon law, the diffusion of literacy, and political relations
with the Holy See may have influenced the number of cases and produced
variations from one region or one period to the other which bad nothing to do
with geographical peripherality. Wars and religious troubles also created different
backgrounds for the application procedures that may be reflected in the
nurober as well as the content of the findings.
It seems clear that one cannot link, in a linear way, geographic and cultural
peripherality. One always has to work with distinct kinds, Ievels and degrees
of it, influenced by different components. Such an approach may Iead to a
better characterisation and understanding of local situations also ernerging from
comparisons with other dioceses or areas.
18
The Long Arm ofPapal Authority
Edited by
Gerhard Jaritz, Torstein J.ergensen. Kirsi Salonen
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
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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
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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