6

Wardship: Theory and Practice of Papal Protection for Underage Rulers in the Thirteenth Century

The early thirteenth century saw a remarkable number of royal minorities in Western Europe: Frederick II in Sicily, Louis IX in France, Henry III in England, James I in Aragon, and the brief reigns of Henry I in Castile and Ladislaus III in Hungary. In three of these minorities—Frederick II, Henry III, and James I—the papacy played a major role (although Innocent III and Honorius III also placed Henry of Castile under papal protection during his short reign).¹

When King John of England died at Newark on 19 October 1216, he left his nine-year-old son, Henry III, under the protection of the pope. John called on the papal legate, Guala Bicchieri, and William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, to protect Henry’s inheritance from the armies of Prince Louis of France, the rebellious barons, and King Alexander II of Scotland, who then held most of the south of England. Over the next five years, Guala, and his successor as legate, Pandulf Verracclo, worked to remove Louis’ army from England, restore peace between Henry, the English barons, and Alexander of Scotland and have the king’s lands, castles, and rights returned to him.²

In Sicily, the three-year-old Frederick II acceded to throne on the death of his mother, Empress Constance, in November 1198. Frederick’s father, Emperor Henry VI, had died in 1197. Constance, as John did, left her son under the protection of the pope, Innocent III. The following ten years saw internecine struggle between the royal familiars (the ruling council) appointed by Constance, and the German military captains who had come to Italy with Henry VI. Innocent found himself responding to a confused and quickly changing situation.³

In Aragon, James I succeeded to the crown on the death of his father, Peter II, in 1213. James’ minority was marked by disputes between different cabals and factions inside the Aragonese and Catalan nobility, as well as conflict with the Albigensian Crusaders against heresy in southern France. The papal letters and mandates of this period were one of the media through which those conflicts were played out. Aragonese and Catalan magnates, and southern French counts and communes, appealed and sent petitions to Rome. The mandates sent to Aragon therefore reflected local concerns and appeals rather than a central and consistent policy imposed from Rome.

This chapter, then, is about both the practical nature of the pope’s role during a royal minority, and also about the theoretical justification. In practice, the pope offered a store of legitimation to petitioners. Magnates, churchmen, and regents in Aragon, England, and Sicily appealed to the pope in the hope (generally fulfilled) that he would grant them what they wanted. There is little evidence that the popes attempted to enforce consistency in their mandates and letters; instead, they granted what petitioners requested. The theory—the justification—for papal authority and solicitude varied. We cannot see, in England, Aragon, and Sicily, the existence of the pope’s absolute right to act as guardian to an underage vassal-king. Instead, the justifications for papal intervention changed quite considerably. Sometimes contradictory justifications were offered in different papal letters issued within a short period of time. Papal authority was situational and variable—the reason given for papal authority was constructed, in every single papal letter, by the interaction between all the parties who contributed to the letter’s production: petitioners, proctors, and popes.

Practice: Petitioning for and Using Papal Authority during a Royal Minority

The king of Aragon, Peter II, was killed at the battle of Muret in September 1213. This defeat, at the hands of Simon de Montfort and the Crusaders against heresy in southern France, perhaps came as a surprise to the king; he had made no arrangements for the succession. Peter had one son, James. James was, at the time of his father’s death, in the keeping of Montfort. Peter II had handed his son over to Count Simon two years before as a gesture of good faith in preparation for a marriage between James and Simon’s daughter. Equally problematically, Peter had spent the preceding few years trying to get his marriage to James’ mother—Marie de Montpellier—annulled by the pope. At the beginning of 1213 Innocent III had declared that the marriage was valid (and hence James was legitimate). Marie had then died in Rome in April 1213 and left her children and her inheritance—the city of Montpellier—under papal protection. Thus, in Aragon in late 1213, James, the new king, was in the hands of the man who killed the previous king, and factions were forming among the Catalan and Aragonese lords. Rumours were abroad that Abbot Ferdinand, Peter II’s younger brother (neatly combining the stereotypes of wicked uncle and wicked abbot) sought the crown for himself.⁴

Some Aragonese nobles decided that force or the threat of force was the only way to secure James’ return and began assembling troops in southern France.⁵ According to James himself—recounting his life much later—these same nobles also sent a mission to Pope Innocent asking him to force Montfort to return the young king to Aragon.⁶ Three other chronicles, however—the Chronicle of San Juan de la Pena; the Deeds of the Counts of Barcelona; and the De rebus Hispanie of Archbishop Rodrigo of Toledo—all claimed that it was Bishop Hispan of Segorbe-Albarracin who went to Rome ‘in his own person and at his own expense’ to appeal to Innocent.⁷ The Chronicle of San Juan throws in the extra detail that Hispan and Peter Fernandez de Azagra—the seventeen-year-old lord of Albarracin—acted together in sending this mission.

Albarracin—lying between Aragon, Castile and the Islamic taifa states (with some Navarrese influences too)—was a semi-independent lordship on the Iberian peninsula. Around 1172, Peter Ruiz—the first lord and Peter Fernandez’s uncle—established the diocese of Segorbe-Albarracin for his lordship.⁸ Segorbe was dependent on the Castilian archbishop of Toledo rather than the Catalan-Aragonese metropolitan of Tarragona.⁹ Bishop Hispan and Peter Fernandez were certainly not peripheral to Aragonese politics—Hispan had represented Peter II at the curia and Peter Fernandez was a regular attendee at the Aragonese court—but they were liminal: they had strong connections to Toledo and to Navarre. The insistence of our three chronicles that Hispan (and Peter) paid for this mission themselves might indicate a concern with their multiple allegiances. At precisely the moment when Hispan must have been preparing his mission to Rome—November 1213—Peter Fernandez mortgaged two of his castles to King Sancho VII of Navarre for 10,000 mazmudinas (a gold coin).¹⁰ The mortgage did not specify why Peter needed the money, just ‘for his necessity’. One option—or at any rate, one possible contemporary perception—is that Peter needed the money to fund Hispan’s mission to Rome, and the expected cost of doing business at the Curia. Even if this was not why Peter borrowed the money, it might well have looked as though Sancho of Navarre—via a bishop and a nobleman of complicated allegiances—had bankrolled the mission which would get James released from Montfort’s custody.

And the mission to Innocent did get James released from Montfort’s custody. In January 1214, Innocent appointed Cardinal Peter of Benevento as legate to Aragon and southern France and directed Montfort to hand James over to the cardinal-legate.¹¹ Cardinal Peter met Montfort at Capestang in April 1214 and received James.¹² Cardinal Peter and James travelled down to Aragon and, around Summer 1214, held a court at Lleida. Here James was acclaimed king and received oaths of fidelity from his subjects. First among them were Peter Fernandez of Albarracin and his cousin and heir, Gil Garcez de Azagra (who had witnessed Peter’s loan from Sancho VII).¹³ It was probably at this court that Count Sancho, James’ great-uncle, was appointed procurator of the realm—essentially guardian and regent for James.¹⁴ James himself was given to the keeping of the Master of the Knights Templar; this had been stipulated in a previous testament made by Marie de Montpellier in 1209. One might have thought that Marie’s later testament rendered the earlier void, but Marie had stated that ‘I desire that all these and others which, in the other testament made before this one in my own country, have not been explicitly altered by this one, to be firm and strengthened in perpetuity.’¹⁵ So the Master of the Templars became James’ personal guardian.

Cardinal Peter left Aragon-Catalonia shortly afterwards. There continued to be tensions among the lords of the realm. In September 1215, Sancho appointed two barons, Peter Ahones and William de Cervera to represent Aragon at the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome. Hispan of Segorbe accompanied them.¹⁶ While Count Sancho committed to pay their expenses, Jerónimo Zurita (d.1580) claimed (although there does not appear to be extant evidence) that another Aragonese magnate, Jimeno Cornel, actually lent them the money for this expedition.¹⁷ What Sancho wanted the envoys to do is unknown; what they did, however, is not. On 23 January 1216, Innocent III—having been requested by ‘some who love the kingdom’s good’—appointed additional counsellors for James and Sancho: the bishop of Tarazona, Peter Ahones, Jimeno Cornel, the archbishop of Tarragona, William de Cervera, William de Cardona, and the Master of the Templars.¹⁸ Bishop Hispan, incidentally, had died while in Rome. Of the seven new counsellors, three—Peter Ahones, William de Cervera, and the archbishop of Tarragona—were in Rome for the Lateran Council; and—if one believes Zurita—a fourth (Jimeno Cornel) had paid for their expedition to Rome.

Why did Sancho’s opponents—it seems reasonable to assume that Sancho did not ask for his authority to be limited by deputies—request the pope to appoint these men?¹⁹ It must have been to force Sancho to accept their legitimacy. The mission and success of Cardinal Peter had established that the pope had authority in Aragon during James’ minority—the justifications for that authority varied and will be examined below. Hispan and Peter Fernandez had requested Cardinal Peter’s legation and it had set a precedent. If the pope appointed new counsellors, then Count Sancho could not simply ignore them. If he did, then he was undermining everything that Cardinal Peter had done, including proclaiming a general peace in James’ lands. Potentially, Sancho was even threatening his own position since Cardinal Peter must have been party to Sancho’s appointment as procurator; the duties of the procurator had been agreed upon by the count and the cardinal and then recorded by Sancho in letters patent, which Cardinal Peter took with him back to Rome.²⁰ The Aragonese and Catalan magnates made use of papal authority to force Count Sancho to accept a break on his power.

Two years later, around September 1218, Sancho resigned his procuratorship, probably prior to another court at Lleida.²¹ Soon afterwards new territorial procurators appeared to manage the king’s affairs: William de Cervera was procurator in Montpellier and William de Montcada in Old Catalonia.²² William de Cervera—who had also been one of the counsellors appointed by Innocent in 1216—described himself in 1219 as:

constituted councillor to King James […] by Pope Innocent III, and constituted procurator by the counsel […] of the magnates of the land of the lord king, to carry out and bear the business of the lord king in Montpellier, with the fullness of royal power conceded and given to me in carrying out the business of the lord king in Montpellier especially in this present matter and certain others […].²³

The new procurators—clearly possessing vice-regal power—had probably been appointed at the court at Lleida where Sancho had resigned, but their appointment had not received, nor was it justified by, papal input.

Why was it the case that in 1216 Innocent III was asked to appoint counsellors, but in 1218 new procurators were appointed with no reference to Rome? Papal approval was needed in 1216 because Sancho had no reason to accept counsellors; therefore, his opponents utilized Roman authority to force him to accept their nomination. When Sancho resigned, however, there was no longer any need for papal approval. It had been sought in 1216 to force Sancho to accept additional counsellors, but now Sancho was gone. The magnates could now appoint new procurators at a court. There was no intrinsic need to get papal approval for changes to James’ government; papal authority was something which petitioners could draw on if they wished.

It has been suggested that Pope Honorius III did, in fact, appoint a new regency council in 1219.²⁴ This argument derives from a comment made by Jerónimo Zurita, the father of Aragonese history. Zurita printed the text of a now-lost letter from Honorius III to Cardinal-legate Bertrand from July 1219. This letter told Bertrand that James and his realm were under papal protection. Underneath the text of this letter Zurita wrote ‘Moreover he [presumably Honorius] placed in command Espareg, archbishop of Tarragona, Jimeno Cornel, William de Cervera and Peter Ahones as primary administrators for the counsel of the king, because of the boy’s age.’²⁵ In the early twentieth century, Salvador Sanpere y Miquel, in his monograph ‘vindicating’ Sancho’s regency, reprinted Zurita’s transcription of Honorius’ missive, including this final sentence as though it were part of the letter.²⁶ It manifestly is not: Zurita began every line of the transcribed letter with double quotation marks; this additional sentence does not have such marks. Further, the sentence comes after the Datum—which always ends the letter. Demetrio Mansilla, in his edition of Honorius’ letters to Spain, knew that this sentence was not part of the letter. It was not included in Mansilla’s edition.²⁷

First, we must recognize that the only evidence for new papally appointed regents in 1219 is Zurita’s uncorroborated claim. It is potentially telling that Zurita seems to have been unaware of the letter of January 1216 appointing seven counsellors for Sancho.²⁸ All four of Zurita’s 1219 ‘primary administrators’ were also named as deputies in 1216. One possibility is that Zurita was poorly informed about the 1216 letter, therefore. Secondly, even if Zurita’s statement were true, it was undoubtedly the case that the new procurators—William de Cervera, William de Montcada—were not appointed by the pope, but by the counsel of the magnates. Third, if Honorius had appointed new counsellors in 1219, then we would expect to see them mentioned when James, in July 1220, appointed two Templars to manage his finances in Aragon and Catalonia.

We do not believe that you are ignorant of how the Lord Pope Innocent of happy memory placed us under the nourishment and custody of the Master of the Knights Templar, whom, with certain other magnates of our land, he assigned to us as counsellors. Now, with the counsel and deliberation of the aforesaid master and aforesaid counsellors […].²⁹

True, the Master of the Templars had not been named in the supposed list of new administrators appointed by Honorius in 1219, so the initial focus on Innocent’s counsellors alone makes sense. But surely, if James was going to draw on the counsel of Innocent’s counsellors, he would have mentioned the counsellors appointed by Honorius the previous year as well.

Papal authority was something which petitioners could draw on when necessary. The pope did not automatically expect to be the person who appointed royal administrators but, if anyone in Aragon or Catalonia had recourse to the papal court, then the pope would respond to their petitions, as Innocent did in January 1216. Papal protection of Aragon did not give the pope particular permanent rights but enabled the Aragonese, Catalans, and Montpelliérians—all James’ subjects—to draw on papal authority should they so desire.

But what of Peter Fernandez de Azagra, whose appeal to Innocent had initiated papal involvement in James’ regency? Although there is not much more to say about Peter, his cousin, Gil Garcez de Azagra, was seemingly inspired by Peter and Bishop Hispan’s successful appeal to Innocent in 1213–14. Gil Garcez appealed twice to Honorius III. In February 1217, Honorius’ chancery dispatched a letter to the bishops of Segorbe-Albarracin and Sigüenza, and the archdeacon of Sigüenza, telling them to exhort Count Sancho, the procurator, to pay Gil Garcez’s expenses for guarding castles on the frontier, committed to him by Peter II. If Sancho did not pay, then Gil was to be allowed to keep possession of the castles.³⁰ We know that the finances of Aragon-Catalonia were pretty dire at this time—hence why Sancho was unable to pay Gil Garcez—but Gil’s decision to appeal to the papacy was an interesting turn of events.³¹

Gil was plainly hoping to use papal authority, the authority on which Sancho partially depended for his office, to force Sancho to pay his wages. Gil was instrumentalizing papal authority against Sancho for his own interests. It seems likely that the possibility of appealing to the pope was suggested to Gil by his cousin, Peter Fernandez, and Bishop Hispan of Segorbe-Albarracin’s successful appeal to Innocent III in 1213–14.

The first serious internal military conflict of James’ minority came in 1220. The factions which formed in Aragon during these years are confused (and confusing). According to the Chronicle of San Juan, Peter Fernandez had been opposed to the schemes of James’ uncle Abbot Ferdinand in 1213–14 (hence why Peter appealed to the pope to get James released from Montfort’s custody). But, according to James himself, after he was committed to the care of the Templars (1214), Peter Fernandez joined Abbot Ferdinand’s faction.³² In late 1216, Peter Fernandez was a member of the faction which took the young James from the custody of the Templars and swore to respect Count Sancho’s regency only ‘as long as he administers well’ (quamdiu bene curaverit).³³ In 1218, Peter Fernandez briefly won himself the position of majordomo of Aragon.³⁴

In 1220, open conflict began. One of James’ magnates (Rodrigo Lizana) imprisoned another of his subjects. James, on the advice of his counsellors, went to war to force Rodrigo to release his captive. After James had reduced Rodrigo’s fortress, Rodrigo persuaded Peter Fernandez to give him sanctuary at Albarracin. Consequently, Peter Fernandez broke with James and James laid siege to Albarracin. The siege was unsuccessful and a few years later we find Peter Fernandez back witnessing James’ charters.³⁵ The rebellion of 1220 might explain the second letter of Honorius III requested by Gil Garcez, Peter Fernandez’s cousin. In November 1222, Honorius wrote to James himself, telling the king to allow Gil Garcez to buy necessary supplies for a private war against the neighbouring Islamic rulers. The archbishop of Toledo and the bishops of Sigüenza and Zaragoza also received letters ordering them to induce James to such an end.³⁶ Perhaps Gil Garcez really did seek to attack the Muslim rulers across the border. On the other hand, since Gil had probably fought alongside his rebellious cousin, Peter Fernandez, in 1220, one can see why James and his counsellors were chary about allowing him to stockpile military supplies.

The noble family of Azagra—Peter Fernandez and Gil Garcez—and Hispan, bishop of their lordship, were clearly effective petitioners at the curia. Between 1213 and 1222, they petitioned for several letters in their favour, as well as initiating the mission of Cardinal Peter in 1214. In late 1215 and early 1216, the internal opponents of Count Sancho were also effective in asking the pope to appoint counsellors for the procurator. What we see from these letters is less papal solicitude for the infant James, and more the factionalism of the Aragonese nobility playing out through petitions to the pope. Papal letters are best understood with reference to events and influences external to the curia, in this case in Aragon, Catalonia and southern France. They were responses to petitions and therefore in the interests of the petitioners, rather than to the pope’s (or even to James’) interests.

A further example comes from October-December 1217. Bertrand, the cardinal-legate accompanying Simon de Montfort and the Albigensian Crusaders, communicated to the pope that the city of Toulouse had rebelled against Montfort and welcomed back the deposed Count Raymond. Apparently, Raymond had received Aragonese and Catalan aid. Honorius, in response, told Bertrand that he had warned James and his subjects not to give aid to the Toulousains. If they ignored this, Bertrand was to compel them through ecclesiastical sanctions (James’ person excepted).³⁷

A few months later, Honorius wrote to James and Sancho, again complaining that their countrymen had aided the Toulousains when the city rebelled. Even if James had forgotten that Cardinal Peter had rescued him from Montfort, he should remember that Aragon ‘pertained to the Roman Church’ (regnum tuum ad Romanam ecclesiam […] pertinere). If James and Sancho did not work to prevent aid reaching Montfort’s enemies then Honorius would ‘curb your kingdom through foreign peoples’ (regnum tuum per extraneas gentes comprimere) or ‘make heavy [our] hand against that kingdom’.³⁸ The threat here was based on the third canon of Lateran IV:

If […] a temporal lord […] neglects to cleanse his territory of this heretical filth, he shall be bound with the bond of excommunication […] If he refuses satisfaction within a year […] the supreme pontiff […] may then declare his vassals absolved from their fidelity to him and make the land available for occupation by Catholics.³⁹

If James and Sancho failed to cease aiding the Toulousains then Honorius could make Aragon available for occupation, thus ‘curbing the kingdom through foreign peoples’. These threatening letters to Aragon were dispatched in response to Cardinal Bertrand’s warnings. Again, we see how papal authority in Aragon was used—this time by Bertrand—for a particular agenda, and certainly not in the interests of James or the procurator, Count Sancho.

If Peter Fernandez, Gil Garcez, Cardinal Bertrand, and others were able to use papal authority, then so too were James’ counsellors. Between 1217 and 1225, James’ proctors at the papal court petitioned for a series of letters asking various recipients to defend James’ rights to the county of Millau, although these letters seem to have had limited efficacy.⁴⁰ In May–June 1219, the proctors of the king petitioned for a batch of letters directed to northern French lay and religious magnates.

On 8 May 1219, Honorius’ chancery confirmed that James, Aragon, Catalonia and Montpellier were all under the protection of St Peter.⁴¹ On 10 May, the chancery confirmed James’ hereditary rights in Montpellier.⁴² Both these letters were explicitly in response to James’ petitions. Between 18 and 21 May, the chancery issued five near-identical letters to Prince Louis of France, the count of St-Pol, Enguerrand de Courcy, Engelbert de Herigue, and Otto de Treissinet, and the bishops of Cambrai, Châlons, and Noyon.⁴³ The letters warned these men—who had all taken the cross and committed to campaign in the Languedoc against the Albigensian heretics—not to molest James’ city of Montpellier. Then, on 26 July 1219, two further letters were issued: one to Cardinal Bertrand confirming that James had been placed under papal protection in May; one to Prince Louis telling him not to molest James’ lands which were free of heretical depravity, probably (though not explicitly) meaning Montpellier.⁴⁴

The difference between Honorius’ letter of December 1217 threatening Aragon with invasion and these letters placing the kingdom under papal protection has given rise to the mistaken assumption that papal policy towards Aragon changed between 1217 and 1219, possibly in response to Count Sancho’s resignation as procurator.⁴⁵ In reality, what we see here is the importance of petitioners. The impetus for the December 1217 letters was Cardinal Bertrand’s warning that the Aragonese were aiding Raymond of Toulouse. But by mid-1219, it was the Aragonese, Catalan, and Montpelliérain courts which were petitioning for the pope’s aid. In November 1218, Prince Louis and other French lords had taken the cross and vowed to campaign in the south.⁴⁶ James’ petitions for papal protection, and the letters to the Crusaders telling them not to attack Montpellier, were clearly a response to Louis’ campaign. King Henry III of England did exactly the same thing: in May–June 1219 proctors for Henry successfully petitioned the pope to send Cardinal Bertrand a mandate ordering him to prevent Louis despoiling English lands in Gascony.⁴⁷

The final point of interest in this cache of letters is that they were probably never delivered to Louis, or to the Crusaders, or to Cardinal Bertrand. When they were edited in 1914, four of the five letters to Louis and the Crusaders from May 1219 survived in their original engrossments in the city archive in Montpellier.⁴⁸ The July 1219 letter to Louis survives in its original in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon.⁴⁹ The July letter to Bertrand is apparently lost, but it was edited by Zurita from the ‘original’ (archetypon) in the sixteenth century.⁵⁰ A seventeenth-century transcription by Cardinal José Sáenz de Aguirre claimed that the letter was in the royal archive in Zaragoza.⁵¹ These are the archives of the places which requested the letters (Aragon and Montpellier), not the archives of the people to whom they were addressed.

It is unlikely that there were multiple identical originals. Although the papal chancery might write, say, twenty identical letters and send one to each Christian monarch, the addressee would always be different. The evidence suggests that the papal chancery rarely produced multiple letters which were completely identical right down to having the same addressee(s). When a letter was sent collectively to the suffragan bishops of the province of Canterbury by Pope Gregory IX, empowering them to visit monastic institutions, the monks of Coventry obstructed the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield because he did not produce the pope’s mandate. But it would be impossible to show them the mandate, the bishop said, ‘as it could not be retained by each bishop’.⁵² Clearly there was only one physical original. Henry III of England, as I said above, petitioned Honorius to warn Prince Louis away from Gascony at this time too. Henry’s chancery kept a copy of the letter the pope sent to Louis, but this copy was not an identical duplicate of the letter sent to Bertrand (written by a papal scribe and sealed). Instead, it was written in an English hand—probably by the Henry’s proctors at the curia—and simply recited the text of the letter.⁵³

This means that most (probably all) of our cache of letters to Louis, Bertrand and the Crusaders were not delivered. Although Louis and his army arrived in the south and laid siege to Toulouse on the 16–17 June 1219, they raised the siege and returned north on 1 August.⁵⁴ The May letters were presumably sent to Montpellier so that the Montpelliérains could deliver them to Louis if he ever came near Montpellier, which he never did. The July letters would have been dead by the time they left the curia. They were therefore left in the royal archive in Aragon; there was no point even sending them to Montpellier, let alone sending them to Louis or Bertrand. The pope had no infrastructure to ensure the enforcement or initiation of his instructions. It was left to the beneficiary or petitioner of the letter to deliver it. In this case, the Aragonese and Montpelliérain governments did not need to. Hence the letters were not delivered, and the papal instructions were simply set aside.

The papal letters and instructions sent to Aragon during James’ minority were responses to petitions from various different parties—noble factions; Cardinal Bertrand; individual lords; James’ counsellors and so on. Without any officials, infrastructure, or reliable sources of information in Aragon—without, say, a permanent representative—all the papal curia could do was issue letters in response to the petitions it received. Hence papal instructions were inconsistent and invariably in the interests of the petitioner. A cynic might suggest that this was the natural state of papal authority outside central Italy, at least with regard to overlordship. Papal authority was a storehouse of legitimation for those with the time, money, and will to go to Rome and deploy it.

Some precise comparisons with England during Henry III’s minority and Sicily during Frederick II’s minority allow us the nuance this picture. There is no need to construct a detailed narrative of papal interventions in these minorities; rather we have to look at what distinguished England and Sicily from the Aragonese minority. The most obvious difference is legates: other than the legation of Peter of Benevento in 1214–15, there were no legates sent to Aragon-Catalonia during the rest of James’ minority, although there were legates in the Languedoc with the Albigensian Crusade. In England, however, Cardinal Guala was present as papal legate from 1216 to 1218 and Pandulf was legate from 1218 to 1221. To Sicily, Innocent III dispatched a series of legates.

In both Aragon and England, legates were requested. In Aragon, Bishop Hispan and Peter Fernandez petitioned for Cardinal Peter’s legation. In England, first, King John requested Innocent III to send a legate in 1213; when Innocent dispatched Cardinal Nicholas de Romanis he explicitly said it was ‘according to the desire of your petition’.⁵⁵ Then, Cardinal Guala also seems to have been sent at John’s request in 1216. Although Innocent’s registers of letters for these years are lost, a later summary of the letters specified that Guala was sent ‘at the petition of his [John’s] nuncios’.⁵⁶ At his death, King John had included Cardinal Guala as one of the executors of his testament, thus binding the legate to support the succession of his son, Henry III.⁵⁷ After John’s death, William Marshal—the rector regni et regis—and the other governors of the kingdom (Hubert Walter, Peter des Roches) seem to have thought it useful to keep a legate in the kingdom. Pandulf was only recalled in 1221 at the urging—it seems—of the archbishop of Canterbury.⁵⁸

There were several advantages to having a resident legate.⁵⁹ Ecclesiastical sanctions could be used as a tool of the royal government, for example. In April 1219, May 1220, and April 1221, the English minority government petitioned the pope for letters ordering them to recover the royal demesne through ecclesiastical censures.⁶⁰ Importantly, the pope could defer petitions which he received from England to the resident legate. For example, in July 1217 Honorius wrote to Guala, telling him that the curia had been petitioned (cum instantia supplicatum) to make the Earl of Chester co-regent to William Marshal.⁶¹ Honorius—rather than making a decision ‘yes’ or ‘no’—deferred the matter to Guala ‘who better knows the truth in this matter’. Guala did not elevate the Earl of Chester. When Innocent had been petitioned to appoint counsellors for James in 1215/16, there had been no legate in Aragon. Innocent therefore had either to approve or reject the petition (he approved it, as the curia tended to do). Honorius, however, could defer the decision to the man on the spot: Guala. When Henry’s regent, William Marshal, and the English bishops petitioned Honorius to cancel the election of a new bishop of Carlisle by that church’s pro-Scottish chapter, the request ended by asking the pope to ‘signify your will to our most beloved friend, the lord legate’. The pope accordingly relinquished the matter to Guala’s prudence.⁶²

Such deferrals were of value to the English governors because they could potentially lend papal decisions more consistency. Letters requested by, say, the Earl of Chester in his own interest could be ignored if a final decision were left to the legate, and if the legate were of one mind with William Marshal. Providing that the legate and the regents were seeing eye to eye, the legate’s authority was useful because it acted to limit the sort of variation and factionalism found in Aragon. In chapter four, we saw that Guala and Pandulf were both part of the group of papal courtiers at the curia with strong links to the English royal house. Their actions, when on legation in England, in support of Henry’s minority government, have frequently been noted before. Broadly, the English governors could rely on them.⁶³ Henry III’s request for a legate in 1230 is a neat proof that kings wanted not just any legate but a reliable legate. The royal nuncios were to ask Pope Gregory IX for Cardinal John Colonna.⁶⁴ Henry wanted a particular person.

Gascony in 1219 offers the most entertaining example of how a legate might interpret a papal mandate creatively in order to protect the interests of the local ruler whom the legate had been sent to help—although in this case that was Count de Montfort rather than Henry III. As we saw above, around May 1219, Henry III’s proctors petitioned the pope to send a mandate to Cardinal Bertrand, the legate accompanying the Albigensian Crusaders, telling him that ‘the rights of the aforesaid king [Henry III] should be preserved unharmed, and none of his lands [in Gascony] should in any way be transferred to the lordship (dominium) of anyone else.’⁶⁵ We can presume that the letter was delivered to Bertrand in late Summer 1219 because, by September–November 1219, the commune of La Réole (in Henry III’s duchy of Gascony) were writing to Hubert de Burgh, the English justiciar, complaining that Bertrand had kept to the specifics of the pope’s letter but totally ignored its spirit. Bertrand had coerced the citizens of Lectoure and the knights of Lomagne (Henry’s subjects) to swear an oath of fidelity to Count Amaury de Montfort ‘even though Count Raymond of Toulouse [whom Amaury and his father Simon had supplanted] had no lordship in Lectoure or Lomagne, and despite the lord cardinal having read the letters which the lord pope wrote to him on behalf of our venerable lord, King Henry’. Bertrand presumably thought he was keeping to the letter of the law because, the commune of La Réole told Hubert, the oath he had made the knights and citizens swear had been ‘saving the lordship of the lord king of England’ (salvo […] dominio domini regis Angliae). Honorius’ letter to Bertrand had told the cardinal not to transfer Henry’s lands to the lordship of anyone else. Technically Bertrand had not; the oaths he had coerced had reserved the king’s lordship. The Gascons, however, were clearly not impressed with such sophistry. The bishop of Lectoure apparently ‘complained greatly’ and promised to go to Rome to straighten things out, if Henry III paid his expenses.⁶⁶

That is perhaps an extreme example of a legate managing to interpret a papal mandate in a way not entirely harmonious with what the petitioner had intended. It illustrates why John and Henry III’s minority administration needed a legate who would be willing to tailor papal mandates to the king’s interest.

Enemies of the king could instrumentalize papal overlordship against him and his counsellors. We saw that, in Aragon in 1217, Honorius—following Cardinal Bertrand’s complaints—cited the kingdom’s relationship with Rome as a reason why it was outrageous for James and Sancho to be aiding the Toulousains. In England too, enemies of the king tried to use his relationship with the pope against the royal interest. In 1215, the barons rebelling against King John appealed to the pope in much the same way: ‘the nuncios say that almost all of the barons of all England petition the lord pope that he should admonish you, because he is lord of England (dominus Anglie) and (if necessary) compel you to conserve the ancient liberties confirmed to them […] undamaged.’ Further the barons’ nuncios claimed that their resistance to John had forced him to surrender England as a fief to the pope, hence the pope should now provide for them, not John.⁶⁷ The barons were using John’s new relationship with the pope against the king, asking to pope to force John to confirm their ancient customs ‘because he is the lord of England’ and because they, not John, were the true allies of the Roman Church. John’s special relationship with the pope—the pope’s additional duty of care for John—was being instrumentalized by the barons against the king.

In August 1224 Honorius III wrote to Louis VIII of France asking why the king had not extended a peace with England and—to the damage of the Crusade—was attacking the lands of Henry III in Poitou.⁶⁸ Louis’ chancery replied to the pope that Henry was sending troops to try and retake the lands lost by his father, King John. In this letter, Louis drew attention to England’s status as a papal fief repeatedly:

Therefore we—who do not believe that you wish that evils should come forth from your fiefs to us and our kingdom—ask and require your paternity that, if the king of England does this through you, you should call him back there [to England], so that no evil comes to us or our kingdom from your fief. And if the king of England does this by his own authority and counsel and not yours, you should not marvel if we hold ourselves in conflicting counsel.⁶⁹

Louis and his advisors were seeking to use Henry’s feudal relationship with the pope against the king, insinuating that either the pope had connived in Henry’s attacks, or that Henry was acting against the pope’s wishes and hence in need of correction. The feudal relationship was a reason why Honorius should act against Henry, in Louis’ account.

There are similarities between Sicily during Frederick II’s minority and England and Aragon during Henry III and James I’s minorities. The effectiveness of any legates sent by Innocent to the Sicilian royal council—the familiares regis—depended on the attitude of the familiares to the legate, and whether the legate had been requested. In general, the council did not want legates. Soon after Constance’s death, in January 1199, Innocent sent Cardinal Gregory of S. Maria in Porticu to Sicily, telling the familiares:

Although we may have granted to you […] that you should execute the custody of the king and care of the kingdom on our behalf until the coming of a legate, in order that our benign intent should be more open to you, we are sending Cardinal Gregory […] into Sicily who […] will exercise both on our behalf.⁷⁰

The Deeds of Pope Innocent—a contemporary biography of the pope written by a curial insider—then explained that ‘because the royal familiares were not well-disposed towards him [Cardinal Gregory], especially the chancellor [Walter of Pagliara] who disdained to have him [as] a superior […] within a short time he returned to the Apostolic See.’⁷¹ Gregory’s legation was a squib; the familiares did not want him and ignored him.

In September 1199 Innocent acknowledged to the familiares that ‘although the regency of the kingdom was left to us by Constance […], we permitted you to exercise the entire administration of it well-nigh freely.’⁷² Of course, he had not had much choice after the familiares ignored Cardinal Gregory. But at the end of the year Innocent tried again. In December he appointed Cardinal Cinthius of San Lorenzo in Lucina as his representative to the kingdom. However, Innocent also ordered that the archbishops of Naples and Taranto, James, the papal marshal, and Otto of Palumbaria were to ‘aid him [Cinthius] concerning the execution of the regency’. These men were to be treated ‘as our vicars’. Further, although Cinthius was also papal legate, the papal chancery phrased this as an additional responsibility:

In order that the temporal power should be aided more effectively through spiritual authority, since we commit the vice-regency jointly to all [of the above], we even concede the office of legate […] to the aforesaid cardinal; wishing and equally ordering that whatever all together or anyone or any group of them should order with him [Cinthius] concerning the temporal administration […] should be received and served by all. Whatever he decrees concerning the temporal administration will obtain complete fixity.⁷³

Innocent was appointing a council to represent him—one of whom happened to be a legate. Perhaps Innocent hoped that, since two of the council were archbishops from the regno, it would be met with some support. Or Innocent might have thought that this executive would be more effective because, according to the Deeds of Pope Innocent, the royal familiares had actually requested papal aid this time: the head of the royal familiares, Walter of Pagliara, bishop of Troia and royal chancellor, fearful of the forces of Markward von Anweiler (a German captain who claimed the Sicilian regency for himself), had apparently petitioned Innocent for a protector.⁷⁴ Innocent therefore sent Cinthius and Marshal James who—along with the royal forces—defeated Markward outside Palermo in mid-1200.⁷⁵ Here again, the initiative appears not to have come from the pope, or at least it was effective because it represented local interests.

While Cinthius was legate in Sicily, Walter of Pagliara apparently took advantage of his presence to get himself promoted to the archbishopric of Palermo. Famously, Innocent decided that Cinthius had overstepped the mark here; a legate did not have the authority to transfer a bishop to an archbishopric without a specific papal mandate.⁷⁶ It is impossible to be certain, but this could be another example of a legate acting more in the interests of royal governors than the pope (although Innocent was able to cancel Pagliara’s translation). Soon after this, Walter of Pagliara seems to have had Cardinal Cinthius recalled to Rome.⁷⁷ Probably at around this time, Innocent, at the request of Walter of Pagliara according the author of the Deeds of Pope Innocent, sent the familiares a list of instructions on how to administer the royal government (e.g. ‘We order that no secretary should attend in a personal way to any of the royal familiares or pay him anything from the fisc without the assent of all’). But Pagliara later apparently felt that he was free to ignore this letter, which he himself had requested.⁷⁸

The final case—indicating both the potential usefulness to local powers but also the relative impotence of legates if not working with those powers—was the legation of Cardinal Gerard of San Adriano. When Markward died in 1202, William Capparone—another German captain—took control of the royal palace and Frederick. Walter of Pagliara schemed against Capparone and petitioned the pope to send a legate to Sicily.⁷⁹ Gerard was sent in 1204. At the same time, Capparone and the royal protonotary petitioned the pope to be released from sentences of excommunication. Innocent announced that he was deferring their petitions to Gerard to act as the legate saw fit.⁸⁰ According to the Deeds of Pope Innocent, Gerard did absolve Capparrone, and Capparone swore to respect the pope’s regency and acknowledged Gerard as vice-regent. Gerard then tried to fix an agreement between Walter of Pagliara and Capparone but failed. Then:

[Gerard] began, as regent, to transact the business of the king and kingdom. But when he ordered Capparone […] to make satisfaction to clerics and churches, he […] did nothing he promised […]. Whence the cardinal […] returned to Messina to await a response from the lord pope.⁸¹

So: another fairly unsuccessful legation, although Gerard did continue to style himself as ‘regent’ and, in 1206, the guardianship of Frederick was surrendered to him and Walter of Pagliara as part of a peace agreed between Capparone and another German captain, Diepold of Acerra.⁸² Here, however, we see again the potential of a papal legate. A legate was desirable when he had something to offer, in this case absolution. When there was a resident legate, Innocent could defer petitions to him, thus potentially limiting the curial tendency to grant inconsistent petitions. But Capparone and Pagliara quickly exhausted the legate’s charms. It was not long before Gerard became unwanted.

Capparone and Pagliara’s suspicion of these papal legates derived mainly, if not completely, from Innocent’s support for Walter of Brienne. Around 1200–1 Count Walter of Brienne petitioned Innocent to confirm his rights to the principality of Taranto and county of Lecce, both in the kingdom of Sicily. Walter claimed these lands in right of his wife, the daughter of Tancred of Lecce, king of Sicily between 1189 and 1194. Innocent—‘lest he deny justice’ to Brienne—granted his petition. Walter of Pagliara and most of the German captains in Sicily were horrified at this, since they were enemies of Tancred’s family. There was even the strong possibility that Brienne would seek the kingship for himself, as heir to Tancred.⁸³ It was Innocent’s support for Brienne that hindered any attempt to work with Pagliara, until Diepold killed Brienne in 1205.

Walter of Pagliara appealed to papal authority when his own power was being challenged by Markward or Capparrone. Papal authority in Sicily during Frederick’s minority—at least as the author of the Deeds of Pope Innocent presents it to us—was fairly responsive: Innocent received requests and petitions and then responded to them; appeals circumscribed the area in which the pope acted. Indeed, alongside Markward von Anweiler and others, the anonymous author of Innocent’s biography blamed Walter of Pagliara for the problems the regency faced. The opprobrium heaped on him, however, was because he did not make proper use of the resources which Innocent could offer. Pagliara petitioned for legates and papal letters, but then ignored them. Legates were accepted when they were petitioned for, and while they were useful to the familiares, but as soon as they ceased to be useful, they became unwelcome.

The ‘natural state’ of papal overlordship in the provinces—in partibus—was probably akin to what we saw in Aragon during James’ minority: papal letters were impetrated in the interests of whoever petitioned for them. Letters and instructions reflected local—rather than papal—concerns and were often inconsistent. The situation on the ground could change quickly and thus render papal instructions dead on arrival. Papal power was a storehouse which could be used, by a petitioner, against his or her enemies.

Such variation could be limited. Honorius III, for example, did not approve all the petitions he received from Henry III or Cardinal Guala or James of Aragon.⁸⁴ In 1224, he apologized to Henry III:

Of those [your petitions], some we have admitted and some we have suspended for now, by the counsel of our brothers, because we deem it expedient; those [petitions] and any others which you proffer to us we will hark to at an opportune time, because we love you with the fullness of affection as a most special son of the Roman Church.⁸⁵

Henry’s petitions were being put on hold—although we should note that the pope did not reject them outright. Additionally—a central theme of this book—the special relationship between the king and pope was conceived in terms of approving petitions: the king was the pope’s most special son; therefore the pope should grant what the king asked. Megan McLaughlin, Stefan Weinfurter, and Ulrich Schludi have all suggested that the popes used paternal authority—the pope as father; the king as son—to buttress their authority and claim a father’s corrective power over secular rulers.⁸⁶ But the paternal relationship went both ways: a king’s status as the pope’s son was equally a reason for the pope to grant royal petitions and accede to royal requests.

Most effective was having a resident legate who was on the same page as the king’s governors. If there was a legate in the kingdom then the pope could defer petitions to the legate. The pope and his cardinals knew perfectly well that a legate on the ground would have a better idea of the situation than they did. How far a legate might push the pope’s orders obviously varied—Cardinal Bertrand was very inventive when dealing with the citizens of Lomagne and Lectoure in 1219.

Perhaps the most effective barrier to total chaos was effort and cost. It took time, money, and nous to pursue business at the curia. In Aragon, we saw considerable concern over who would pay the bills. In 1213, Bishop Hispan allegedly travelled to Rome ‘at his own expense’ (although I have suggested that Navarrese gold might have been behind him). In 1215, Count Sancho guaranteed to pay his envoys’ expenses (although these might actually have been paid by Peter Ahones). In 1219, the bishop of Lectoure offered to go to Rome, provided Henry III paid his expenses. When in Rome, one needed to hire a proctor, a professional agent, in addition to giving gifts and tips to numerous curial officers.⁸⁷ Consequently, the people who could instrumentalize papal power most effectively were those with the most resources: kings and great magnates. This was not an absolute rule; we have seen that Peter Fernandez and Gil Garcez were able to make effective use of the papacy (although they were hardly poor). The cost of doing business at the curia gave kings and their counsellors an inherent advantage and limited who would go to the effort of sending petitions to Rome, at least in the cases we have examined.

The Theory of Papal Wardship

Moving on from the practicalities of papal wardship, we come now to the theory. By what right did the pope claim to act in defence of (or opposition to) an underage king and his counsellors? The lord’s right to undertake the guardianship of an underage vassal is a common feature of the traditional picture of feudo-vassalic relationships.⁸⁸ The aid given to James I, Henry III, and Frederick II by Innocent III and Honorius III has often been seen in terms of feudal wardship: the pope, as overlord of these kingdoms, had an automatic right to act as the king’s guardian. In all of these cases, however, the pope also received a specific request—from either the father or mother of the king—to serve as guardian. Did the pope have a right of wardship, or did he have to be asked to serve as guardian? Also, as we have seen, although England was a papal ‘fief’ (feudum) and, by the 1240s, the papacy also called Sicily a ‘fief’ (feudum), Aragon was under papal protection. Was there a difference in the justifications used for papal wardship of James of Aragon?

From the papal letters sent to these kingdoms we can see that these are, in a way, the wrong questions. Papal letters were not consistent. Some used one justification—the pope’s general duty to care for orphans, for example—and some used a different justification. At times, papal letters even offered different hierarchies of justifications (‘X reason is more important than Y reason’). The justifications in these papal letters were inconsistent because papal letters were the products of a complex process where the petitioner, the petitioner’s proctor, the notary, numerous papal officials, and the pope and cardinals all played a role. All these people might have had different ideas of what the most effective justifications for papal solicitude and authority were, and even individuals might have changed their minds over time. Looking for a single overarching justification—feudal wardship, testamentary bequests—is therefore not a helpful approach in these cases. Papal solicitude and authority were situational and strategic. Under certain circumstances, one particular justification might be emphasized, but if the situation changed—and that justification was thought to be ineffective—the reason for papal aid would shift.

In the mid-thirteenth century, we witness a papal right of wardship make an entrance in the negotiations between the papacy and Charles of Anjou over to whom the kingdom of Sicily should be granted. However, the appearance of an automatic right of papal guardianship for vassal-kings continued to be intermittent until the end of the century. There was no such right in the terms offered to Henry III of England for his son, Edmund, to become king of Sicily. There was no such right in the grant of the kingdom of Aragon to the Valois dynasty in 1283. There was no such right in the grant of Corsica and Sardinia to the royal house of Aragon in 1297. Even where there was such a right—in Angevin Sicily—the testamentary requests of a dying king could continue to be equally important when arranging royal regencies. During the thirteenth century, papal guardianship of underage vassal-kings was only ever formally stipulated for Angevin Sicily, and even there it was, in practice, more an option than a right.

Justifying Papal Letters during the Minorities of Henry III, James I, and Frederick II

When he succeeded to the throne in 1216, Henry III faced serious problems. A child-king, half his kingdom was under the control of Prince Louis of France. Under these circumstances, as we have already seen, Henry’s counsellors used papal power to buttress the regime. But how were such papal mandates and rescripts justified? The commonplace answer is that, as England’s feudal overlord, the pope had an automatic right of guardianship if the king, a papal vassal, was underage. Theo Kölzer considered that the protection given to Henry III (and to Frederick II in Sicily) was specifically feudal protection: a lord taking oversight of his underage vassal’s land.⁸⁹ Kölzer drew an explicit distinction between this feudal wardship and the generic ‘tutela of widows and orphans’, the protection the pope owed to personae miserabiles who (so it was thought) could not defend themselves.⁹⁰

But papal letters to England during Henry’s minority—and papal letters to Sicily during Frederick’s minority—used a range of justifications including, but not limited to, vassalage. Honorius III also pointed to Henry’s status as a Crusader. He drew attention to John’s testament by which Henry had been left to the custody of the Apostolic See. The king’s age was also a potential justification for papal solicitude: Honorius described Henry as pupillus (person under fourteen) and orphanus. Psalm 9.35: ‘thou wilt be a helper to the orphan’ (pupillus/orphanus) mandated the pope to defend orphans.⁹¹ This was the general papal duty of care for all orphans and pupilli. One should note the difference between Henry being a papal ward because John specifically left him to papal custody, and Henry being a papal ward because the pope had a duty to care for all pupilli. These are not the same thing. Finally, the kingdom of England ‘pertained to the Roman Church’—presumably a reference to John’s surrender and the subsequent feudal relationship.

The first year of Honorius III’s reign—mid-1216 to mid-1217—saw many letters sent from Rome to England. John died in October 1216 and, at the request of Guala and the English regents, Honorius dispatched a number of letters advocating support for Henry III. These letters frequently outlined the basis of Honorius’ interest in, and authority over, England. Some letters even constructed a hierarchy of justification. Not all of these letters, however, were on the same page. The justifications for papal solicitude and authority, and the hierarchies of justification, were not always consistent.

Initially Honorius, after his election in mid-1216, wrote to Guala telling him to wait on and strengthen ‘John, Crusader and our vassal’ (vassallus), letting John know that ‘he is not forsaken by the aid of the Apostolic See in as much as the Lord permits and deems it expedient to his needs.’⁹² A simple enough point: John was a Crusader and vassal, so deserved papal help.

In December 1216 and January 1217, after hearing of John’s death in October 1216, Honorius’ chancery dispatched letters in support of the young Henry III across Britain and even to King Philip Augustus in France. These letters did not just list justifications for papal solicitude but constructed hierarchies. In December, the pope ordered the abbots of Citeaux and Clairvaux to warn Philip Augustus and Prince Louis to cease their attacks on England:

And if hitherto (hactenus) we had solicitude for the defence of the Kingdom of England because it pertains to the right and property (ad ius et proprietatem) of the Apostolic See, now however it behoves us to work for this with more strength (nunc tamen ad id intendere fortius nos oportet) for […] King John left his sons [who are] pupils (pupillos) and his kingdom in our hands and tutelage (in […] manibus et tutela)’.⁹³

This letter was unequivocal: King John’s decision to ask the pope to protect his kingdom and children was a more important reason for papal solicitude than the fact that England ‘pertained to the right and property of the Apostolic See’. As I discussed in chapter one, this latter phrase could be used to describe monasteries under direct papal jurisdiction, but here it presumably referred to the relationship established by King John in 1213. That relationship—according to this letter—was now secondary.

The same month, Honorius sent a general letter to the excommunicate rebel barons of England, exhorting them to return to the king’s fidelity:

We—into whose hands and tutelage that king gave his pupils (pupillos) and kingdom—will provide to you concerning security and the complaints you say you received from King [John] […]. Otherwise, since we cannot hide this from the world, we will extend our hands to the defence of those [pupils] and kingdom because, beyond that the kingdom is of the right (iuris) of the Apostolic See, we are held to bear the care of pupils especially (pupillorum curam specialiter) and make judgement and justice to them.⁹⁴

Again, the general relationship between the papacy and kingdom was less important than the pope’s duty of care for pupils. It seems clear that, in both of these letters, Honorius’ duty of care for pupils was seen as coming primarily from John’s request to care for his children and sons.

A third letter of December 1216 did not quite stick to this. In a letter to Guala, telling the legate that the pope had received word of John’s death, Honorius informed him:

Our loins are full of sadness and the anguish as of giving birth possesses us, not only (tum, recte cum) because we loved him [John] with sincere charity in the Lord as a vassal (vassallus) of the Roman Church and a special son of it; but also (tum) because we have the compassion of paternal affection for your labours and agony which we do not doubt are multiplied by this; and even (tum etiam) because the greater necessity to aid the sons of that king [who are] pupils (pupillis) king assails us, of whom we are held to be defenders by the office of the apostle enjoined on us, as scripture says: ‘thou wilt be a helper to the orphan’.⁹⁵

The progression here—explaining the pope’s agonies—was that the general papal duty of care for all orphans and pupils overrode the specific relationship which the pope had with John, his vassal. This was not quite the same as the first two letters examined above, where the pope’s duty of care for Henry III arose from King John’s specific request.

The next month, January 1217, Honorius’ chancery dispatched letters with a very similar justification to most of the lay barons and sheriffs of England, exhorting them to remain faithful to Henry. Here, however, the middle justification—Guala’s increased labours—and the quotation from scripture were removed:

Our loins are full of sadness and the anguish as of giving birth possesses us, not only (tum, recte cum) because we loved him [John] with sincere charity in the Lord as a vassal (vassallus) of the Roman Church and a special son of it; but also (tum) because the greater necessity to aid […] Henry, king of the English, prudently crowned by […] Guala, assails us.⁹⁶

Here the general duty of care for pupils was expunged, and it is actually not entirely clear what superseded Honorius’ love for John as a vassal. A few days later, however, Honorius put the general duty of care for pupils front and centre again, this time consoling Henry himself about the death of his father. Although Honorius was particularly saddened by John’s death because he had subjected his realm especially to the Apostolic See and vowed to go on Crusade, Henry could now depend on the aid of Apostolic See because he could beg the pope: ‘Attend on us, o lord, and see our tribulation, arise and help us, for you were left a helper to the orphans and pupils (tu es relictus adiutor orphanis et pupillis).’⁹⁷ Again, the general papal duty of care to all orphans and pupils was primary. The letter also went on to note that Henry had taken the Cross.

Henceforth the Crusade began to play a more significant role in justifying papal aid to Henry.⁹⁸ Two final letters of January 1217 were sent to the archbishops of Dublin and Bordeaux, both dated 17 January. To Dublin, ordering him to compel those who had left Henry’s fidelity to return to it, Honorius explained that multiplex ratio—a multiple reason—‘induces us to challenge the king’s [Henry III] tribulations, namely because he is a Crusader, orphan, and vassal (vassallus) of the Roman Church, and his father in extremis committed both him and his kingdom to the custody of the Apostolic See’.⁹⁹ No hierarchy here, just a list of apparently equally important reasons, although one should note Honorius drew an explicit distinction between the general duty of care for orphans and pupils, and the specific duty he had to Henry because John had committed him to papal guardianship. They were, however, in this letter, equal.

To Bordeaux, ordering him to use ecclesiastic censure to defend Henry’s lands in France, Honorius began:

Since (Cum) we ought to defend the rights of […] King Henry the more studiously as his kingdom is known more specially to pertain to the Roman Church—and we are even accelerated to this end (incitante nos etiam ad hoc) both by the king’s young age (aetate) and his having taken the Cross—we order […].¹⁰⁰

Henry’s youth and Crusader status were an accelerant here, over and above the kingdom’s normal relationship with the Holy See.

In April 1217 Honorius wrote to Philip Augustus again, complaining about Prince Louis’ invasion. Henry was here a ‘co-heir of Christ, pupil, orphan, one left to the apostolic see and Crusader’.¹⁰¹ No hierarchy there. But a week later, again to the archbishop of Dublin, telling him to execute the office of legate faithfully (and move against rebels against Henry), Honorius explained that he was compelled to succour Henry’s cause:

[…] not only (tum, recte cum) because the aforesaid kingdom pertains to the Roman Church in full right (pleno iure) […]; but also (tum) because we see manifest danger to many souls, the care of which is committed to us; and even (tum etiam) because the succour of the Holy Land […] is enormously impeded by this.¹⁰²

The rebels, Honorius went on to note, were opposed to ‘Henry, pupil and orphan, Crusader and one committed to the care of the Apostolic See’. Here, Honorius put the king’s youth and crusading vow above the pope’s lordship of England.

The point here is that, during Honorius’ first pontifical year, there was considerable variation in the reasons put forward as to why the pope should defend Henry. Papal letters were inconsistent. Some letters explicitly said that the fact that the kingdom pertained to the Holy See was less important than the fact that Henry was a pupil and orphan. The crusading vow also seems to have been of prime importance. It certainly cannot be said that feudal wardship was more important than protection of orphans and pupils, or Henry’s Crusader status.

Feudal lordship did not become any more dominant over the next few years. Between 1219 and 1222, Honorius continued to call Henry a ‘Crusader’, ‘pupil’, ‘orphan’, ‘left to the custody (or tutelage) of the Apostolic See’, and ‘under the special protection of the Apostolic See’.¹⁰³ Importantly, there do not seem to have been any subsequent attempts to establish a hierarchy of justifications for papal solicitude. Instead, multiple—implicitly equal—reasons were adduced.

Justifications for papal authority and solicitude (one should not draw a hard distinction between the two) in England during the minority of Henry III varied considerably. There was, of course, a limitation prescribed by precedent: Henry was a vassal and his kingdom pertained to the Roman Church because of John’s surrender; he was a pupil and orphan because his father had died (although his mother was still alive); he had specifically been left to papal guardianship by his father; he was a Crusader. That was the range of possible relationships which papal letters could draw on. Within that list, however, there was limited consistency about which was most important, which was the best justification for papal action (or even if such a hierarchy was possible). Such inconsistency should not be surprising. The composition of papal letters was a process in which the petitioners, the proctors, the papal notaries and abbreviatores, the pope, the cardinals, and other courtiers all played a role.¹⁰⁴ Different petitioners might suggest different justifications. Different cardinals and notaries might suggest different justifications. As we shall see in the case of Sicily, changing political events might necessitate a change in which justifications were used. All of the people involved in composing a papal letter had an interest in the letter being accepted as legitimate. For this reason, the curial officials doubtless paid close attention to what was suggested by the petitioners. After all, the petitioner would know best which justifications and claims for care and authority were likely to play well back home when the letters were delivered. Equally, the need for legitimacy meant there was a consistent list of possible justifications to draw on. The popes and petitioners were all bound by precedent.

We find a similar state of affairs in Sicily.¹⁰⁵ In 1198, Empress Constance died, leaving her son Frederick to the guardianship of Pope Innocent III in her testament. Frederick’s father, Henry VI, had died the previous year. Prior to Constance’s death—and therefore prior to the papal guardianship of King Frederick—Constance and Innocent had reached a settlement, ending the tumultuous period in the 1190s when Henry VI and Pope Celestine III had been in frequent dispute.¹⁰⁶ Constance swore an oath of fidelity to the papal legates and promised that Frederick would swear similarly. Homage, although offered, was seemingly not performed.

As with Henry III’s England, scholars have tended to assume that Innocent’s guardianship of Frederick was ‘feudal’: Innocent had an automatic right to act as guardian of an underage king because he was the overlord of the kingdom of Sicily, and justified his letters and instructions with reference to that right.¹⁰⁷ The papal–Sicilian relationship was indeed similar to Henry III’s England. The justifications for papal authority and solicitude varied considerably in different letters. In Sicily, however, there was a noticeable change around 1200–7. Initially—in 1198–9—papal letters tended to place Constance’s testamentary request for Innocent to protect Frederick in pole position. But in 1199 Markward von Anweiler—the seneschal of the late Emperor Henry VI—claimed that Henry had left him the guardianship of Frederick. It appears that, probably in response to Markward’s claims, the papal chancery shifted its position and downgraded the importance of Constance’s testament. After all, the pope’s claim to be guardian ‘according to the testament of the empress’ was matched by Markward’s claim to be guardian ‘according to the testament of the emperor’. Better to move on to completely new justifications. Naturally, because of the general variation in how papal letters justified their solicitude towards Sicily, we cannot be certain that this is the correct explanation, but it seems likely.

Papal letters from the brief period between Henry VI’s death in 1197 and Constance’s death in 1198 focused on the love which previous kings had shown to the apostolic see and the special grace and solicitude which the papacy owed to the rulers of Sicily in return. The pope should show special grace to the kingdom because ‘the kingdom pertains to the right and property (ad ius et proprietatem) of the Roman church and persists in its fidelity and remains in its unity.’ ‘We especially love that kingdom amongst all the world as a special patrimony of the Church’ (tanquam Ecclesiae patrimonium speciale).¹⁰⁸

Constance died in November 1198 and asked Innocent to defend her son and his kingdom. This the pope did. For the first year or so the justifications for Innocent’s care of Frederick were fairly consistent: either multiple (implicitly equal) justifications were put forward, or Constance’s testamentary wishes were emphasized. Two examples (out of many) will suffice, both from February 1199. The first to the Sicilian archbishops:

Beyond the general debt of the pastoral office through which we are held to consider solicitously all the faithful of Christ and each province in which the name of Christian is honoured, that token of love and grace (which our predecessors in past times held concerning the kingdom of Sicily) and the sincerity of faith and devotion (which that kingdom and its princes always showed to the apostolic see) induce us to provide especially for that kingdom. [And] now a more powerful and more urgent cause overtakes those (quibus nunc causa potior et urgentior supervenit), because Constance left the tutelage of […] Frederick and the regency of the kingdom (regis […] tutelam et regni balium) to us and she ordered us to be made secure in both by all.¹⁰⁹

The hierarchy here was clear: general debt of the pastoral office; then the special relationship with the Kingdom of Sicily; then Constance’s testamentary wishes.¹¹⁰ An alternative was simply to list equal reasons. The following letter was sent in February 1199 to warn the citizens of Gaeta to remain loyal to Frederick:

A multiple reason (multiplex ratio) induces us to provide for the king and kingdom of Sicily, namely, the general, the special and the singular (generalis videlicet, specialis et singularis). The general, because, from the apostolic office which has been imposed on us, we are held to be debtors to the wise and unwise, according to the apostle [Romans 1.14]. The special, because the kingdom of Sicily is known to pertain to the right and property of the Apostolic See (ad ius et proprietatem apostolice sedis […] pertinere). The singular, because […] King Frederick was especially left to apostolic tutelage (specialiter fuit apostolice tutele relictus) by his mother and father.¹¹¹

Here three reasons were equal, although they were distinguished as general, special, and singular. Incidentally, this letter—or a lost letter very like it—probably served as a model for some papal letters to England during Henry III’s minority. The phrase multiplex ratio (found in Honorius III’s January 1217 letter to the archbishop of Dublin, above) does not seem to have occurred elsewhere in Innocent III’s correspondence. Innocent frequently noted that ‘the tutelage of Frederick’ had been left to him, but less often that Frederick was ‘left to Apostolic tutelage’, as in this letter. Henry III was often said to have been left to papal tutelage or custody.

But Papal letters to Sicily were not consistent. In early 1199 Innocent also wrote to Frederick personally (aged four):

Beyond the duty of the pastoral office by which we are held to be debtors to each and every single pupil and orphan (pupillis et orphanis), we wish to love and favour you both (tam) because your mother, the Empress Constance, committed you to our tutelage and (quam) because the kingdom of Sicily pertains to the patrimony of the church (ad patrimonium Ecclesie).¹¹²

Here the general relationship between papacy and kingdom was explicitly placed on the same level as Constance’s testament. In December 1199, Innocent appointed Cardinal Cinthius of San Lorenzo in Lucina as legate to Sicily, using much the same justification as he had used in the letter to Frederick, above (‘beyond the debt of the pastoral office, the provision of it [the kingdom] is known to pertain specially to us by right of lordship and reason of the regency’ [iure dominii et ratione balii]).¹¹³

By late 1200 we find something different again, in a general letter to all the citizens of Apulia, exhorting them to resist Markward von Anweiler:

We, therefore, knowing the kingdom of Sicily pertains to the right and property of the apostolic see, and attending because […] Constance left the tutelage of […] Frederick and the regency of the kingdom to us by [her] testament, and because in any case (utique) the regency comes to us from the approved custom of the kingdom (ex approbata […] regni consuetudine) which is served through the law […].¹¹⁴

The general relationship and Constance’s testament were equal, but apparently ‘royal custom’ trumped both. Michele Maccarrone suspected that this reference to ‘custom’ was harbinger to a claim that Innocent should be Frederick’s guardian according to feudal law.¹¹⁵ This supposed claim came in letters of January 1207 to Frederick:

It is not to be wondered at that your detention thus saddened us and your liberation pleased us because—beyond the reason of the regency which we undertook to execute not so much from maternal disposition as by right of kingship (non tam ex dispositione materna, quam iure regni)—we cannot abandon your defence and tutelage therefore, because we are especially held to favour you in your right as a pupil (pupillum), since we should not avert [our] ears, with the voice of the prophet saying to us, ‘thou wilt be a helper to the pupil’ (pupillo) [Psalm 9.35].¹¹⁶

Maccarrone believed that the ius regni in this letter signified a feudal right of wardship. Perhaps it did.¹¹⁷ But even so this letter said that Innocent’s regency—whether it came to him by ius regni or ‘maternal disposition’—was secondary to the general papal duty to defend orphans and pupils. Two years later, in a letter we have already seen in chapter four, Innocent told Otto IV of Brunswick that:

Because […] King Frederick was left to apostolic care and tutelage as much by maternal final direction as by paternal, and he holds and recognizes all the kingdom of Sicily from the Roman Church, then as he is to us, so should a vassal be bound to a lord, by reason of fidelity, and as we are to him, so should a lord be to a vassal, by reason of legality. Whence above [super] these [reasons] which are known to pertain to that kingdom, we neither want to nor should we take away our aid or favour from him, because, according to the apostle, we should be debtors in justice to all [Romans 1.14].¹¹⁸

Here Innocent put the general papal duty of care for everyone—not just orphans and pupils—above the justifications that were specific to Sicily.

Finally, in 1210–11, Otto IV invaded the papal patrimony and the kingdom of Sicily, leading Innocent III to excommunicate him and annul oaths of fidelity given to him.¹¹⁹ Otto’s occupation of the kingdom was unjust because—so Innocent wrote in letters to the archbishop of Ravenna and the king of France in early 1211—‘Frederick obtained it [the kingdom] by maternal succession’. In these two letters Innocent called Frederick ‘a pupil and orphan’ (orphanus et pupillus). A few months later, when annulling oaths of fidelity given to Otto, Innocent again called Frederick ‘pupil and orphan’ but also ‘left to apostolic protection’ (presumably by Constance’s testament).¹²⁰ Such a description was probably meant to remind listeners that the pope had a special duty of care towards orphans, but—unlike in his earlier letters—Innocent did not clearly instrumentalize this relationship. Innocent said that Frederick was an orphan, but not that the pope had a duty to aid orphans. This was probably because the description of Frederick as ‘pupil and orphan’ was now filling a double purpose. The pope was not the only person with a general duty to aid orphans; the emperor was supposed to do so too. Frederick I (r.1152-90), on his election in 1152, had certainly committed to ‘make and conserve peace and law to widows and orphans’.¹²¹ It seems likely that Otto did the same upon his election. Thus Frederick’s status as an orphan was not just a reason why Innocent should help him, but also a reason why Otto’s invasion of Frederick’s kingdom was particularly heinous. It took its place alongside Otto’s infidelity and the fact his war was impeding the crusade.

As in England, so in Sicily. There were a set group of justifications for papal solicitude and authority which could be used: the general debt of the pastoral office to all Christians; the general duty of care for pupils and orphans; the special relationship between the kingdom and the papacy (pertaining to the right and property of the Church; being part of the patrimony of the Church; the ius regni); and Constance’s testament. Which justifications were used in any one letter, and the hierarchy of justifications, varied. By comparing letters to Frederick and letters to Henry III, we can see the importance of precedent. Unlike John and Henry III, Frederick had not taken the cross. Therefore, no papal letters called Frederick a Crusader. This was not part of the accepted set of potential justifications.

However, there does appear to have been a noticeable change in which justifications were used in Sicily. Innocent emphasized Constance’s testament in early 1199, but referred to a ‘right of lordship’ as equally important in late 1199. The ‘approved custom of the kingdom’ superseded both in late 1200. In 1207 and 1209 the general duties of care for orphans and for all Christians took precedence over other justifications for papal solicitude. In ten years, there had been a complete reversal. In 1199 papal letters explicitly said that the general duty to all Christians was less important than Constance’s testament; and in 1209 Innocent said the opposite.

This change was probably a response to the claims of Markward von Anweiler. In 1198, Markward had claimed the regency of the kingdom for himself by right of Henry VI’s testament—ex testamento imperatoris.¹²² He certainly called himself, and was called by others, balius regni or procurator regni in 1198–9. Indeed, the author of the Gesta Innocentii—the biography of Pope Innocent—claimed that this was what ‘he was accustomed to call himself in his letters’.¹²³ In 1199, when Markward began negotiations with Innocent III to be reconciled to the Church, Innocent told him to stop calling himself regent (balius).¹²⁴ When the negotiations came to nothing, Markward claimed in letters that Innocent had confirmed the position and title of balius to him.¹²⁵ Thus, by the end of 1199, there must have been considerable confusion over who had received the position of regent from whom.

Perhaps in response to such uncertainty, the papal chancery and those petitioning for papal letters moved away from Constance’s testament and towards other justifications for papal solicitude, such as the ‘custom of the kingdom’. Markward’s claims weakened any justification based on Constance’s testament. Markward died in 1202, yet papal letters continued to shy away from focusing on Constance’s testament. As the regency went on—and an endpoint approached in 1208—it might have been thought more effective to emphasize the general debt of the papal office to all, rather than Innocent’s specific guardianship of Frederick. The overall point, in Sicily as in England, is that justifications for papal solicitude and authority changed according to what those involved in the production of a papal letter thought would be most effective.

In 1213, King Peter II of Aragon was killed at the battle of Muret and his son, James, became king of Aragon. As we have seen, several parties within and without the kingdom of Aragon instrumentalized papal authority for their own aims during James’ minority. James’ mother, Marie, had left him to the ‘protection, defence and tutelage’ of Pope Innocent in her testament of April 1213. Observers have adduced both the pope’s supposed ‘feudal overlordship’ of Aragon—suggesting it gave the pope some sort of intrinsic right to be James’ guardian—and Marie’s testament to explain Innocent and Honorius III’s solicitude for James.¹²⁶ As we should now expect, papal letters tended to vary.

Unlike papal letters for Henry III and Frederick II, letters for James I rarely outlined a hierarchy of solicitude—‘although we love James for such-and-such a reason, we are especially bound to him for a different reason.’ The tendency was rather simply to give one justification or list multiple equal justifications. It does appear, though, that different justifications were used, depending on whether the business at hand related to Montpellier—which James inherited through Marie, his mother—or to the lands James inherited from Peter II, his father.

One papal letter which did outline a short hierarchy of justification was Innocent III’s letter of January 1216 appointing seven counsellors to assist Count Sancho—the procurator and regent for James I—in Aragon and Catalonia:

Although care of any pupils (pupillorum) ought to touch us, however it behoves us to turn our solicitude more principally towards those who look more specially to the Apostolic See and [who] hold the salvation and life of many in their hands because they are even constituted princes of peoples […].¹²⁷

Pupils who were kings needed the pope’s aid more than pupils who were not. James’ higher importance came from the unification of his royal status and his orphanage.

In around May 1216, Innocent was petitioned by James and his counsellors to warn the citizens of Zaragoza, Huesca, and Jaca not to enter into pacts against James. In response, Innocent told the citizens of those cities:

Because, truly, it is not acceptable for you to do this, or for us to tolerate it (since that king is under the protection of the Apostolic See [sub apostolice sedis protectione], and his kingdom is tributary [censuale] to the Roman Church), we order you [to desist from persecution of the king].¹²⁸

The justification here, possibly suggested in James’ complaint (querimonia) to Innocent, was the general relationship between Aragon and the papacy: the kingdom had paid census for more than a century and been under ‘the protection of St Peter’ for at least fifty years. In these two letters of Innocent III, papal interest in James was justified because James was a pupil-king and because Aragon paid tribute to Rome and was under apostolic protection.

In April 1215—at the same time as Innocent issued a letter granting the county of Melgueil to the bishop of Maguelone (see chapter five)—the pope wrote to Prince Louis, son of King Philip Augustus of France, who had taken a vow to crusade in the south against the Albigensian heretics. Innocent counselled Louis to hold off on his vow until the Fourth Lateran Council had met (in November) and warned him:

Because the defence and custody of pupils and even widows and their goods is known to pertain specially to us, we ask and warn your nobility through Apostolic writing that you should studiously have commended to you […] James, whom his mother Marie in extremis left under our protection and tutelage (tutela et protectione), and his lands and goods, especially those which come to him by maternal succession […]. Therefore, because we are not able to allow that pupil to be damaged or offended in our sight [ipsum pupillum in oculis nostris], you should not make, procure or permit the land or other goods of that pupil or the men of Montpellier to be diminished or perturbed […].¹²⁹

Leaving aside the terrible pupill-pun (not allowing the pupil [James] to be damaged ‘in our sight’ [literally ‘in our eyes’] was a play on Zechariah 2.8: ‘for he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye’ [qui enim tetigerit vos, tangit pupillam oculi mei]), this letter focused on the general papal duty to widows and orphans and Marie’s testament. The focus on Montpellier and James’ maternal goods (meaning Montpellier) indicates that this warning was probably inserted into the pope’s letter to Louis in reaction to the concerns of the Montpelliérains themselves. On 10 April, in response to the petitions of the consuls and people of Montpellier, Innocent had taken the city under papal protection.¹³⁰

With the accession of Honorius III, we see more frequent invocations of Marie’s testament. In April 1217, Honorius warned Philip Augustus that:

Concerning the aforesaid lordship [of Montpellier] you should not impede or molest him [James] nor permit him to be molested by your men, especially because that queen [Marie], in extremis, relinquished him and her land and other goods in which he should succeed her, under apostolic protection and tutelage.¹³¹

A few days later, however, in a letter ordering the archbishop of Narbonne to make sure that the inhabitants of Montpellier obeyed Sancho, James’ regent, Honorius justified his instructions ‘because we—who are debtors in justice to all [Romans 1.14]—should not abandon the aforesaid king—who is under the protection of the Apostolic See—in his rights’.¹³² The general office of service here displaced Marie’s testament.

We need to keep those two examples in mind, since they confirm that even letters on the same issue—James’ rights in Montpellier—and written at the same time might not be totally consistent. That said, there is, I think, some consistency to be found in papal letters for James of Aragon during his minority, although it was not totally invariable. Letters for the city of Montpellier tended to be justified with reference to the testament of Marie de Montpellier; letters for Aragon-Catalonia, or any lands which James inherited from his father, were justified with reference to more general relationships between the king and the pope (pertaining to the Apostolic See; being tributary; being under papal protection). We have already seen that Innocent justified his two letters to Aragon-Catalonia—appointing counsellors and warning the citizens of Zaragoza, Jaca, and Huesca to remain loyal—without mention of Marie’s testament, whereas his letter to Prince Louis in favour of Montpellier did use Marie’s final wishes.

In May–July 1219, James’ proctors at the papal court acquired a significant batch of letters. Letters of 8 May and 10 May confirmed James’ possession of Montpellier and placed Aragon, Catalonia and Montpellier under papal protection.¹³³ Letters of 18–21 May told various bishops and nobles who had vowed to crusade in southern France not to molest Montpellier.¹³⁴ Finally, letters of 26 July told Prince Louis and Bertrand, the cardinal-legate accompanying the Albigensian Crusade, not to molest James’ possessions and that James was now under papal protection.¹³⁵

All of the letters warning the Crusaders away from Montpellier justified their solicitude with reference to Marie’s testament and the love which the pope consequently bore for James. The confirmation of papal protection for James and for Aragon, Catalonia, and Montpellier went broader, however:

[…] most beloved son, you have supplicated to us that we should dignify to protect you under the shadow of our wings and strengthen you with the shield of apostolic protection; we, therefore, recalling clearly the purity of faith and devotion which we learned your progenitors had towards God and that Church, [and] attending also that your mother […] commended you with your land and goods to that Church […] do justly open the bosom of our love to you […].

This confirmation did mention Marie’s testament but also the devotion of previous Aragonese kings. Since this protection was—explicitly—for Aragon, Catalonia, and Montpellier, such a mix of justifications made sense. When Honorius rewarned Crusaders not to molest Montpellier in 1224 and 1226, he again put Marie’s testamentary wishes front and centre.¹³⁶

Honorius’ letters which focused on Aragon—or, more accurately, on James’ inheritance from his father—seemed to cleave to other justifications. In December 1217, Honorius wrote to both James and Sancho, the regent, in fury that they might be aiding the excommunicate Count Raymond of Toulouse:

Would that depraved counsel did not seduce your adolescence, nor impel [you] to do anything through which you should seem ungrateful and heedless of the grace and benefits which the Apostolic See strove to show you by ripping you from the hands of those you reputed enemies and returning you to your land and your land to you! The Apostolic See began to show the affection of its love in youth in order that it should justly find devotion in adulthood. And if others should not induce you to this [end], it is sufficient that your kingdom is known to pertain to the Roman Church (regnum tuum ad Romanam ecclesiam noscitur pertinere).¹³⁷

There was no mention of Marie’s testament in this letter which had nothing to do with Montpellier. Instead, the more general relationship—Aragon pertaining to the Roman Church—was emphasized.

In October 1218, Honorius sent a mandate to Bertrand, the cardinal-legate accompanying the Crusaders in southern France, telling him that:

James, illustrious king of Aragon, has told us through his letters that, pitying the poverty of […] his aunt, Eleanor, husband of Raymond, formerly count of Toulouse, he proposed to commend the county of Millau to her temporarily, in order that she should have decent provision from its income; petitioning that, since he holds his kingdom from the Roman Church (cum a Romana ecclesia teneat regnum suum), we should affirm it by apostolic authority.¹³⁸

Honorius therefore did confirm James’ temporary grant. First, we should note that the description of Aragon as ‘held from the Roman Church’ was in the narratio of the letter. Consequently, this formulation almost certainly came from the letters which James sent to the pope asking for the grant to be confirmed. Narrationes tended to be rewritings of the petitions received—as we saw with King Rǫgnvaldr’s grant of the Isle of Man to the pope and the papal document issued in response in chapter four. Secondly, in a matter relating to territory James inherited from his father rather than his mother (the county of Millau), there was no mention of Marie’s testament. Instead, papal approval was requested because of Aragon’s general relationship with Rome. More than a year earlier, when James had asked Honorius to order Millau to be returned to him, the pope’s letter had also contained no mention of Marie’s testament.¹³⁹ In September 1225, James had still not recovered Millau, and so he again petitioned the pope to order Romanus of Sant’Angelo—the latest cardinal-legate accompanying the Albigensian Crusade—to recover it for him. Here, however, apparently ‘[…] he [James]—who is a pupil (pupillus)—[was] committed to the tutelage of the Apostolic See by both parents (utroque parente)’.¹⁴⁰ This was wrong—Peter II had not committed his son to papal tutelage—but it was necessary. A papal intervention relating to Millau had to be justified with reference to Peter, since James inherited his rights to the county from his father. Hence, James’ tutelage was widened to have come from both parents, not just Marie.

There were exceptions, but broadly papal letters for James’ Montpelliérian possessions tended to be justified by Marie’s testament. Letters for Aragon and Catalonia, on the other hand, referred to the pope’s duty of care for pupil-kings, to the devotion of James’ predecessors and to the kingdom’s long-term relationship with Rome (tributary [censuale], held from the Roman Church and pertaining to the Roman Church). Letters which covered both Aragon and Montpellier—such as the confirmation of papal protection in 1219—could use both. This made complete sense. In England and Sicily, Henry III and Frederick II had been left to papal guardianship by the parent from whom they inherited their royal rights. Frederick’s right to Sicily came from his mother, Constance, not his father. Henry III succeeded his father, John. James of Aragon, however, had only been left to papal wardship by his mother, Marie, not by his father. Hence, did the papal wardship of James even apply outside Montpellier? Plainly it was safer to use other justifications.

In all three cases—Frederick II in Sicily; James I in Aragon; Henry III in England—there was inconsistency in how papal solicitude and aid were justified during the minorities. This was because both the curia and the petitioner had a say in how letters were justified; the variation reflects this. Popes, proctors, petitioners, notaries, and intermediaries might all influence the production of a letter. Not all had the same views about which justification for papal intervention was best. Consequently, looking for a single overriding justification for papal authority during these minorities is unhelpful. Reasons for papal solicitude were situational.

There was a limited selection, however. Most obviously, letters to James and Frederick could not be justified by calling either a Crusader since neither had taken the Cross. Henry III had taken the cross, so letters to England could make use of the king’s Crusader status. The justifications used had to be legitimate. There was little point in trying to use an unjustified justification—such as claiming that James of Aragon was under the protection afforded to Crusaders—because a false claim could invalidate the entire papal letter, as well as calling the pope’s authority into question. Both popes and petitioners had an interest in keeping to the commonly accepted reasons for papal solicitude for England, Aragon, and Sicily. There was, of course, one obvious exception: the 1222 letter calling James a vassallus (see chapter four). This was probably not written with the intention of changing James’ status vis-à-vis the pope; more probably the use of the word was accidental, perhaps because the drafters did not see a clear difference between protection and vassalage. This unprecedented claim risked evacuating the letter of any authority, and neither the pope nor the petitioner wanted that.

The Theory of Papal Wardship in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century: Sicily (1252–65), Aragon (1283), and Sardinia (1297)

In 1245, Frederick II was deposed by Pope Innocent IV, as we shall see in detail in chapter seven. When Frederick died in 1250, the papal court began searching for a replacement king of Sicily who could remove the last scions of the Staufen dynasty in the south. Between 1252 and 1265—while negotiations were ongoing with Richard, earl of Cornwall, Charles of Anjou, count of Provence, and Edmund, son of Henry III of England—the suggestion of a formal papal right to act as guardian of an underage king came and went (and came back again). During these negotiations, the kingdom of Sicily was unequivocally described as a ‘fief’. It would be held—whether by Charles of Anjou or Edmund—in feodum from the pope.¹⁴¹

Initially, in 1252–3, the papal notary Albert of Parma was sent to negotiate with Charles of Anjou and with Henry III of England.¹⁴² In June 1253, Innocent IV sent Albert a series of letters, outlining the conditions Charles would have to meet (and what the pope could offer) if he was to be given the kingdom of Sicily. These letters also gave advice on negotiations with Charles. One letter told Albert:

We order that you warn and induce the count of Provence [Charles of Anjou] that it should please him that, when the king [of Sicily] dies, the custody of the kingdom and heir (if he is below legitimate age), or at least the custody of the kingdom, should pertain to the Roman Church; nonetheless if you cannot induce him to this end at all, proceed to grant the kingdom to him.¹⁴³

In the list of conditions for granting the kingdom to Charles—sent by Innocent to Albert on the same day—the pope said:

Heirs, who are not of legitimate age, if the father should die prematurely, should remain in the custody of the Roman Church; once necessary expenses for the heir and the custody of the land are deducted, the remainder should be turned over and conserved for the use of the heir, unless the king should order otherwise concerning the royal income. The custody is not decided because the aforesaid legate will arrange it with the same count.¹⁴⁴

The final sentence—as all the editors of this letter have agreed—was not part of the conditions but a placeholder, reminding the papal notaries that the condition about the guardianship might have to be removed if Albert could not persuade Charles to accept it. These conditions survive from the papal registers, so this comment was probably not in the version sent to Albert but added in the registered version only.

Albert was directed to ask Charles to give the pope an automatic right of guardianship—over the kingdom, if not over the king’s person—if a new king succeeded who was underage. However, as we see from the first letter, this stipulation was not a deal-breaker. If Charles rejected it, Albert could proceed to grant him the kingdom anyway. It is likely that this request stemmed from a memory of the papacy’s problems enforcing Frederick II’s regency—when Henry VI had allegedly granted the guardianship of Frederick to Markward von Anweiler. We saw that in 1200 and 1207 Innocent III seems to have suggested that the pope had some sort of automatic right to the guardianship of Frederick. Innocent IV was trying to formalize that right which, incidentally, suggests that it was not a formalized right during Innocent III’s time, whatever he might have claimed. Automatic guardianship was not a redline for Innocent IV though. Innocent was willing to accept that the pope might not be the guardian for an underage vassal-king of Sicily.

Charles did not, at this stage, accept the offer of the crown of Sicily. So, by December 1253, Albert was in negotiations with Henry III of England for Edmund, Henry’s second son, to receive the kingdom. On 6 March 1254, terms were agreed and Albert granted Sicily to Edmund; Innocent IV confirmed the grant in May.¹⁴⁵ It is not certain what the conditions for holding the kingdom were at this point—indeed it is possible that no final agreement had yet been reached.¹⁴⁶ In April 1255, however, the new pope, Alexander IV, reconfirmed the grant of Sicily to Edmund with specific conditions. There was no mention of an automatic papal right of guardianship if the king was underage, neither over the kingdom nor over the king.¹⁴⁷ The reason why is fairly obvious. Edmund, in 1255, was only ten. The terms of 1255 clearly envisaged that Edmund would come of age at fifteen, when he had to perform homage and swear fidelity to the pope. If the pope had an automatic right of guardianship, then it would already be active. On the other hand, it would be ridiculous for the pope to act as guardian of a boy both of whose parents were living. Further, it was Henry III who would be providing the money for the Sicilian business and so, practically, any decision about regents for Edmund would be his to make. Finally, David Carpenter has suggested that Thomas of Savoy, Edmund’s great-uncle and one of the primary movers in the Sicilian business, envisaged that he would be Edmund’s regent in Sicily.¹⁴⁸ While Charles of Anjou—in his mid-twenties—might have accepted that the pope should be guardian for any of his (hypothetical) heirs, such a clause would have had immediate and uninviting practical consequences for Henry III and Edmund. Hence there was no right of guardianship mentioned in the 1255 grant.

Henry and Edmund never took possession of Sicily. By 1263, the pope was looking again for new candidates. Albert of Parma once again treated with Charles of Anjou and, on 17 June 1263, Pope Urban IV, who had succeeded Alexander IV in 1261, sent new terms to Albert. In these terms—which were accompanied by a series of variations which Albert could offer Charles—there was no mention of papal guardianship of the king or kingdom if any of Charles’ heirs were underage.¹⁴⁹ On 28 June 1265, however, when four cardinals—by permission of the new pope, Clement IV—invested Charles with the kingdom, a right of automatic guardianship had returned:

If the son [of Charles] should accede the throne older than eighteen years, he should administer freely. But while he is younger, both he and his kingdom will remain in the custody of the Roman Church until he reaches the aforesaid age […].¹⁵⁰

Automatic rights of guardianship had been suggested—but not demanded—by Innocent IV from Charles of Anjou. Such rights did not appear in Alexander IV’s negotiations with Henry III and Edmund nor, initially, in Urban IV’s negotiations with Charles of Anjou, but had returned by the time Charles was granted the kingdom by Clement IV. Obviously, therefore, it was not simply assumed that the kingdom’s feudal overlord naturally held a right to the wardship of an underage vassal-king. It was certainly an option, but it was open to negotiation. Not an intrinsic feudal right, but something to be discussed.

In 1282, Charles of Anjou faced revolution in Sicily—the famous Sicilian Vespers. On 20 August 1282, the king of Aragon, Peter III, landed in Sicily in support of the anti-Angevin uprising.¹⁵¹ In response Pope Martin IV, an ally of Charles of Anjou, deposed Peter.¹⁵² Pope Martin then sent a legate to persuade King Philip III of France to choose one of his sons (though not his heir) to be the new ruler of Aragon.¹⁵³ The kingdom was granted as a fief to Charles de Valois, Philip III’s second surviving son.¹⁵⁴ Philip III and Charles failed to make good on this grant—their invasion of Aragon in 1285 was a fiasco—but the grant made by Martin clearly drew on the contract agreed between Charles of Anjou and Clement IV for Sicily in 1265. In this grant, Aragon became a papal ‘fief’ (feudum) when it had not been so before. When it was accepted, in 1295, that the Valois invasion had failed, Aragon ceased to be a fief.

The contract and terms between Charles of Valois and Pope Martin contained no mention of papal rights of guardianship for an underage king.¹⁵⁵ This was a repeat of the Henry III–Edmund situation: when Martin began negotiations with Philip III, it was envisaged that whichever of his sons Philip chose to be king of Aragon might be too young to rule himself—the conditions Martin had sent for negotiation had specifically envisioned this.¹⁵⁶ In fact, when Charles was chosen as the new king, he swore fidelity and performed homage himself ‘because he had arrived at a suitable age for this’.¹⁵⁷ Nonetheless, it was presumably felt that Philip III, not Pope Martin, would be the person who chose guardians or regents if necessary. Again, automatic papal guardianship of a vassal-king was not ‘automatic’ at all. It was not something which the curia necessarily expected or demanded.

Finally, in 1297 Pope Boniface VIII invested King James II of Aragon with the newly created kingdom of Corsica and Sardinia. This was part of the latest effort to end the War of the Sicilian Vespers: Philip III’s invasion of Aragon had failed and various attempts at peace had followed. In order to get Aragon to cease supporting the Sicilian rebels, Boniface had reconfirmed James as king of Aragon (cancelling the 1283 grant of Aragon to Charles of Valois) and gave the king a title to Corsica and Sardinia.¹⁵⁸ The terms of this grant of the kingdom of Corsica and Sardinia were very similar to the contracts of 1265 granting Sicily to Charles of Anjou and 1283 granting Aragon to Charles of Valois. However, there was no mention of papal guardianship of an underage heir. Presumably this was because the grant stipulated that the kingdoms of Aragon and Sardinia should henceforth always be held by the same person. If the king of Sardinia was underage then the king of Aragon was underage too. It is easy to see the potential problem: what if the decisions of the (hypothetical) guardian of a boy-king of Sardinia—either the pope or someone appointed by the pope—clashed with the decisions of the (hypothetical) guardian of a boy-king of Aragon? Ideally, one would want a regent or guardian to be guardian of all the king’s realms. Papal guardianship was not really workable, so it was absent.

Throughout the thirteenth century, guardianship of an underage vassal was not seen as a right automatically to be awarded to the papal overlord. In the early thirteenth century, such a right might have been implied in some of Innocent III’s letters to Sicily, but it competed with other justifications for papal solicitude. In Aragon and England, different (sometimes contradictory) justifications for papal aid can be found. Only in Angevin Sicily was an automatic right of papal guardianship developed in the second half of the thirteenth century, and such a right was not extended to the expectative grants of the kingdoms of Aragon and Sardinia. Even in Angevin Sicily, when there was a practical royal minority between 1285 and 1288 (the heir to the throne was a prisoner of the king of Aragon and his own heir was a young boy), the pope’s regency was combined with the wishes of the dying king, Charles I. Charles named his nephew, Robert of Artois, regent. The pope confirmed this but made the papal legate, Cardinal Gerard, co-regent. Robert had been appointed by Charles but also justified his position as having been ‘constituted regent by the Apostolic See’.¹⁵⁹ Both the testamentary wishes of the king and the pope’s automatic right of guardianship were used to buttress the position of the Angevin regents. In this particular case (Sicily), there may have been an assumption that the pope, as overlord, should be guardian of an underage vassal, but such a justification for papal authority was always merely one weapon in the armoury. In the early thirteenth century, justifications for papal authority and solicitude were situational and strategic: there were various options and their usage varied.

Conclusion

Papal wardship for underage kings was complex. The letters and commands dispatched by the curia during a minority were not—despite the fact they went under the pope’s name—reflective of priorities at the centre. They were rather the medium through which internal and external disputes in the kingdom and court were played out. The factionalism of the Catalan-Aragonese magnates during James I’s minority is visible in the letters sent out by Innocent III and Honorius III. Legates in partibus could lend papal authority more consistency, but this consistency tended to be to the interests of the ruler and his counsellors (or, more accurately, to the interests of whichever local potentate the legate happened to favour).

The papal court, and the petitioners who sought papal letters, did not look to one overarching unchanging justification for papal aid—such as ‘feudal custom’—but to whichever justification they thought would work best at that moment. Precedent limited the available choices—the justification used had to be convincing—but the petitioners and curia could pick and choose from among the available options. There was no single overarching justification for papal authority and solicitude. The Crusade and Crusader status; vassalage; youth; testamentary requests from the king’s parents; protection afforded to orphans; specific protection afforded to a kingdom. All of these and more could legitimize papal orders during a minority. But it was the petitioners who decided what decisions these justifications would legitimize.

Papal Overlordship and European Princes, 1000–1270. Benedict Wiedemann, Oxford University Press. © Benedict Wiedemann 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192855039.003.0007

¹ Haidacher, ‘Beiträge zur Kenntnis der verlorenen Registerbände Innocenz’ III’, p. 59 (18th year of Innocent III [1215], nos. 56–57); Miriam Shadis, Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages (Palgrave MacMillan: New York, NY, 2009), p. 93.

² David Carpenter, Henry III: The Rise to Power and Personal Rule, 1207–1258 (Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, 2020), pp. 7–29; idem, Minority, pp. 1–262; idem, Magna Carta, pp. 405–416; Fred Cazel Jr., ‘The Legates Guala and Pandulf’, Thirteenth Century England II, ed. Peter Coss, Simon Lloyd (Boydell and Brewer: Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 15–21; Vincent, Peter des Roches, pp. 134–215; idem, ‘Election of Pandulph’, pp. 143–163; Acta Guala, ed. idem, passim.

³ Theo Kölzer, ‘Un regno in fase di transizione: la Sicilia durante la minorità de Federico II’, Federico II e la città italiane, ed. Pierre Toubert, Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (Sellerio: Palermo, 1994), pp. 196–211; Friedrich Baethgen, Die Regentschaft Papst Innozenz III. im Königreich Sizilien (Winter: Heidelberg, 1914); Thomas Curtis van Cleve, Markward of Anweiler and the Sicilian Regency (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1937); Elizabeth Kennan, ‘Innocent III and the First Political Crusade: A Comment on the Limitations of Papal Power’, Traditio 27 (1971), pp. 231–249; Jean-Marie Martin, ‘Les affaires du royaume de Sicilie et la famille du pape’, Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, ii, pp. 812–836; Matthew, Norman Kingdom, pp. 298–306; Loud, Latin Church, pp. 178–180; Abulafia, Frederick II, pp. 92–102.

⁴ Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, pp. 26–27; Marvin, Occitan War, pp. 95–96, 175–195; Smith, ‘Innocent and the Minority’, pp. 21–24; David d’Avray, Dissolving Royal Marriages: A Documentary History, 860–1600 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2014), pp. 69–75; idem, Papacy, Monarchy and Marriage, 860–1600 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2015), pp. 84–85.

⁵ Damian Smith, Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition in the Lands of the Crown of Aragon, c.1167–1276 (Brill: Leiden, 2010), pp. 42–43; Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, p. 25.

⁶ Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, p. 25. Ferran Soldevila felt the need to harmonize this account with the three accounts of Bishop Hispan’s embassy, Els primers temps de Jaume I (Institut d’Estudis Catalans: Barcelona, 1962), pp. 55–57.

⁷ The Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña, trans. Nelson, pp. 61–62; Gestes dels comtes de Barcelona i reis d’Aragó, ed. Stefano Maria Cingolani (University of Valencia: Valencia, 2008), p. 127; Roderici Ximenii de Rada historia de rebus hispanie sive historia Gothica, ed. Juan Fernández Valverde (Brepols: Turnhout, 1987), p. 182.

⁸ Andreas Holndonner, Kommunikation—Jurisdiktion—Integration. Das Papsttum und das Erzbistum Toledo im 12. Jahrhundert (ca. 1085–ca. 1185) (de Gruyter: Berlin, 2014), pp. 453–461, 464–465; Angel Canellas López, ‘Cancilleria señorial de Albarracin (1170–1294)’, Landesherrliche Kanzleien im Spätmittelalter. Referate zum VI. Internationalen Kongreß für Diplomatik, München, 1983, ed. Gabriel Silagi, 2 vols. (Arbeo-Gesellschaft: Munich, 1984), ii, pp. 517–557, at 520–525.

⁹ Segorbe is listed as suffragan to Toledo in the early-thirteenth-century manuscripts of the Provinciale Romanum (lists of all the dioceses in Christendom). See, for example: Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, 792, f. 9v (c.1215–19); BnF, Latin 5011, f. 4r (c.1219); BnF, Latin 8874, f. 245r (c.1216); BL, Cotton Nero D I, f. 164v (c.1216).

¹⁰ ‘Colección Diplomática del Rey Don Sancho VIII [sic], el Fuerte, de Navarra’, ed. Carlos Marichalar, Jaime-Bon Campion, José María Lacarra, Boletín de la Comisión de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos de Navarra (1934), pp. 95–119, 153–222, 264–313; (1935), pp. 8–57, 88–131, at no. 61, pp. 276–278.

¹¹ Innocentii III regestorum sive epistolarum liber, 1213, nos. 167, 170–172, PL 216, cols. 955–6, 958–60; Damian Smith, ‘Inocencio III, Pedro Beneventano y la historia de España’, Vergentis 2 (2016), pp. 85–97; Pascal Montaubin, ‘Une tentative pontificale de reprise en main du Midi: la légation du cardinal Pietro Beneventano en 1214–1215’, Innocent III et le Midi, ed. Fournié, Le Blévec, Théry, pp. 391–418.

¹² Smith, ‘Innocent and the Minority’, pp. 26–27.

¹³ Soldevila, Primers temps, p. 83.

¹⁴ Smith, ‘Innocent and the Minority’, pp. 29–30.

¹⁵ José María Lacarra, Luis Gonzalez Anton, ‘Les testaments de la reine Marie de Montpellier’, Annales du Midi 90 (1978), pp. 105–120, at 119; Pedro el Católico, ed. Alvira Cabrer, iv, no. 1499, pp. 1526–1527.

¹⁶ Coleccion de documentos inéditos del archivo general de la corona de Aragon, ed. Próspero de Bofarull y Mascaró et al., 41 vols. (Montfort: Barcelona, 1847–1910), vi, no. 10, pp. 78–79.

¹⁷ Jerónimo Zurita, Anales de la Corona de Aragón, ed. Ángel Canellas López (Institución Fernando el Católico: Zaragoza, 1977); digital edition, ed. José Javier Iso, María Isabel Yagüe y Pilar Rivero: https://ifc.dpz.es/publicaciones/ebooks/id/2448 (accessed 01/05/2020), ii, ch. 67.

¹⁸ Butllari de Catalunya, ed. Schmidt, Roser Sabanés, i, no. 55, pp. 119–120; Soldavila, Primers temps, pp. 100–101.

¹⁹ Smith, ‘Innocent and the Minority’, pp. 45–46; idem, Innocent III and Aragon, pp. 168–170; John Shideler, A Medieval Catalan Noble Family: The Montcadas, 1000–1230 (University of Califonia Press: Berkeley, 1983), p. 141 113n. Although cf. Soldavila, Primers temps, p. 96; Silvia Orvietani-Busch, Medieval Mediterranean Ports: The Catalan and Tuscan Coasts, 1100–1235 (Brill: Leiden, 2001), p. 17.

²⁰ Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium historiam illustrantia, ed. Augustin Theiner, 2 vols. (Ex Typis Vaticanis: Rome, 1863–75), i, p. 70 (no. 211); Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 107, pp. 87–88; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 85, cols. 562–3.

²¹ Shideler, The Montcadas, p. 145; Bisson, Medieval Crown of Aragon, p. 60; Documentos de Jaime I relacionados con Aragón, ed. Maria Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt (Institución Fernando el Católico: Zaragoza, 2009), no. 2, pp. 25–27; Histoire générale de Languedoc, ed. Devic, Vaissète, viii, cols. 714–15.

²² Thomas Bisson, ‘The Finances of the Young James I (1213–1228)’, Medieval France and her Pyrenean Neighbours (Hambledon Press: London, 1989), pp. 351–391, at 360–364; Shideler, The Montcadas, pp. 147–148. James’ authority in Montpellier was limited by the civic government and the bishop of Maguelone, Archibald Lewis, ‘The Development of Town Government in Twelfth Century Montpellier’, Speculum 22 (1947), pp. 51–67.

²³ Bisson, ‘Finances of James I’, no. 3, pp. 379–380.

²⁴ Shideler, The Montcadas, p. 147; Christian Hillen, Frank Wiswall, ‘The Minority of Henry III in the Context of Europe’, The Royal Minorities of Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. Charles Beem (Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke, 2008), pp. 17–66, at 50, 65–66 193n.; Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, pp. 29–30 70n.

²⁵ Jerónimo Zurita, Indices rerum ab Aragoniae regibus gestarum ab initiis regni ad annum MCDX (de Ursinis: Zaragoza, 1578), pp. 101–102.

²⁶ Salvador Sanpere y Miquel, Minoría de Jaime I: Vindicación del procurador conde Sancho, años 1213–1219 (Altés: Barcelona, 1910), pp. 114–115 1n. Cf. Soldavila, Primers temps, pp. 165–166.

²⁷ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 234, pp. 177–178.

²⁸ Zurita, Anales de la Corona de Aragón, ed. Canellas López, ii, ch. 67–72.

²⁹ Coleccion de documentos inéditos, ed. Bofarull y Mascaró, vi, no. 12, pp. 81–83.

³⁰ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 39, p. 34.

³¹ Bisson, ‘Finances of James I’, pp. 351–391; Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, p. 27.

³² The Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña, trans. Nelson, pp. 61–62; Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, p. 27.

³³ Coleccion de documentos inéditos, ed. Bofarull y Mascaró, vi, no. 11, pp. 80–81.

³⁴ Documentos de Jaime, ed. Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, no. 1, p. 25.

³⁵ Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, pp. 31–33; Documentos de Jaime, ed. Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, nos. 10–12, pp. 37–40.

³⁶ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 419, pp. 309–310.

³⁷ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 94, p. 75; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 48, cols. 524–5; History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. Sibly, Sibly, p. 272 99n.

³⁸ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, nos. 84–85, cols. 561–3; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 106, pp. 86–87 (gives per extraneos gratias [sic]).

³⁹ Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner, 2 vols. (Georgetown University Press: Washington DC, 1990), i: Nicaea I to Lateran V, p. 234.

⁴⁰ Smith, Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition, pp. 48–50.

⁴¹ AAV, Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96v; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 224, p. 171; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 214, cols. 223–4.

⁴² Registration: AAV, Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96v; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 226, p. 172. Fourteenth-century copy of the original: Layettes du tresor du chartes, ed. Teulet, i, no. 1345, pp. 480–481; Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ed. Rouquette, Villemagne, ii, no. 240, p. 34; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 215, cols. 224–5.

⁴³ Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ed. Rouquette, Villemagne, ii, nos. 241–244, 246, pp. 35–36, 37–38, 39–40, 41–42, 45–46.

⁴⁴ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, nos. 234–235, pp. 177–179; Sanpere y Miquel, Minoría de Jaime I, pp. 114–115 1n; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 1, cols. 275–7. Butllari de Catalunya, ed. Schmidt, Sabanés i Fernández, i, no. 80, pp. 143–144.

⁴⁵ E.g. Shideler, The Montcadas, p. 145; Orvietani-Busch, Medieval Mediterranean Ports, pp. 17–18.

⁴⁶ Marvin, Occitan War, pp. 297–299; History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. Sibly, Sibly, pp. 278–279.

⁴⁷ AAV, Reg. Vat. 10, ff. 94v–95r.

⁴⁸ Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ed. Rouquette, Villemagne, ii, nos. 242–244, 246, pp. 37–38, 39–40, 41–42, 45–46.

⁴⁹ Butllari de Catalunya, ed. Schmidt, Sabanés i Fernández, i, no. 80, pp. 143–144; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 235, pp. 178–179.

⁵⁰ Zurita, Indices rerum ab Aragoniae regibus gestarum, p. 101.

⁵¹ José Sáenz de Aguirre, Collectio maxima conciliorum omnium Hispaniae et novi orbis, ed. Guiseppe Catalano, 6 vols. (Fulgoni: Rome, 1753–5), v, p. 183.

⁵² The Great Register of Lichfield Cathedral known as Magnum registrum album, ed. Henry Savage (William Salt Archaeological Society: Kendal, 1926), no. 466, p. 224.

⁵³ TNA, SC 1/62/55; Diplomatic Documents, ed. Chaplais, no. 34, p. 38.

⁵⁴ William of Puylaurens, trans. Sibly, Sibly, pp. 64–65; Marvin, Occitan War, pp. 299–301.

⁵⁵ Selected Letters of Innocent III, ed. trans. Cheney, Semple, no. 53, pp. 149–151.

⁵⁶ Monumenta Slavorum, ed. Theiner, i, p. 63 (no. 6). Cf. Diplomatic Documents, ed. Chaplais, no. 21, pp. 30–31 which suggests that Innocent was already planning to send a legate to promote peace between John and Philip Augustus.

⁵⁷ Stephen Church, ‘King John’s Testament and the Last Days of his Reign’, English Historical Review 125 (2010), pp. 505–528, at 516–518 (ordinatores […] et disponitores); Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 149, cols. 183–4 (executores).

⁵⁸ Carpenter, Henry III, p. 25.

⁵⁹ Jane Sayers, Papal Government and England during the Pontificate of Honorius III (1216–1227) (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1984), pp. 162–192.

⁶⁰ Calendar of Papal Registers, ed. Bliss, i, p. 65; Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, nos. 104, 9, pp. 121, 535–536; Sayers, Papal Government, nos. 12–13, 20, p. 222–223, 228–229; Foedera, ed. Clarke et al., i, 1, p. 167. See also Carpenter, Minority, pp. 142, 190, 248; idem, Henry III, pp. 17–19, 25–28; Sayers, Papal Government, pp. 169–170.

⁶¹ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 4, p. 532; Carpenter, Minority, p. 36.

⁶² Foedera, ed. Clarke et al., i, 1, p. 147.

⁶³ Carpenter, Magna Carta, p. 407; Acta Guala, ed. Vincent, pp. xli–xlix; Cazel, ‘Guala and Pandulf’, pp. 15–21.

⁶⁴ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 310, pp. 379–380.

⁶⁵ Diplomatic Documents, ed. Chaplais, no. 34, p. 38.

⁶⁶ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 44, pp. 51–52. See also Diplomatic Documents, ed. Chaplais, nos. 48–49, pp. 45–48.

⁶⁷ Diplomatic Documents, ed. Chaplais, no. 19, pp. 28–30; Vincent, ‘Conference at New Temple’, no. 3.

⁶⁸ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 18, pp. 541–543.

⁶⁹ Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. Delisle, xix, p. 760.

⁷⁰ Die Register Innocenz, i, no. 554, pp. 802–806; Innocentii III regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1198, no. 557, PL 214, cols. 510–13.

⁷¹ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 20; The Deeds of Pope Innocent III, trans. James Powell (Catholic University of America Press: Washington DC, 2004), pp. 22–23.

⁷² Die Register Innocenz, ii, no. 178, pp. 342–343; Innocentii III regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1199, no. 187, PL 214, cols. 736–7.

⁷³ Die Register Innocenz, ii, no. 236, pp. 451–456; Innocentii III regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1199, no. 245, PL 214, cols. 805–7.

⁷⁴ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 26; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, p. 28.

⁷⁵ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, pp. 30–35; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, pp. 31–35.

⁷⁶ X. 1. 30. 3–4, Corpus iuris canonici, ed. Friedberg, ii, cols. 183–4; Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 36; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, p. 36; Robert Figueira, ‘Papal Reserved Powers and the Limitations on Legatine Authority’, Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages, ed. James Sweeney, Stanley Chodorow (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1989), pp. 191–211, at 192–193.

⁷⁷ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 40; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, p. 39.

⁷⁸ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, pp. 38–40; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, pp. 37–39.

⁷⁹ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, pp. 50–51; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, pp. 46–47.

⁸⁰ Die Register Innocenz, vii, nos. 129–131, 135, pp. 210–213, 221–222; Innocentii III regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1204, nos. 129–131, 135, PL 215, cols. 419–20, 425–6.

⁸¹ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 51; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, pp. 47–48.

⁸² Catalogo illustrato del Tabulario di S. Maria Nuova in Monreale, ed. Carlo Garufi (Era nova: Palermo, 1902), pp. 39–40; Werner Maleczek, ‘Die Siegel der Kardinäle. Von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschungen 112 (2004), pp. 177–203, at 196; Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, pp. 54–55; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, pp. 50–51.

⁸³ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, pp. 26–30, 36–37, 41–42; Deeds of Pope Innocent, trans. Powell, pp. 28–31, 36–37, 40.

⁸⁴ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 29, cols. 37–9; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 311, p. 232; Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIII^th Century (Dropsie College: Philadelphia, PA, 1933), no. 42, pp. 154–155.

⁸⁵ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 16, pp. 540–541; Foedera, ed. Clarke et al., i, 1, p. 177.

⁸⁶ Ulrich Schludi, ‘Advocatus sanctae Romanae ecclesiae und specialis filius beati Petri: Der römische Kaiser aus päpstlicher Sicht’, Staufisches Kaisertum im 12. Jahrhundert. Konzepte, Netzwerke, politische Praxis, ed. Stefan Burkhardt, Thomas Metz, Bernd Schneidmüller, Stefan Weinfurter (Schnell & Steiner: Regensburg 2010), pp. 41–73; Megan McLaughlin, Sex, Gender and Episcopal Authority in an Age of Reform (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2010), pp. 200–212; Weinfurter, ‘Die Päpste als “Lehnsherren”’, pp. 24, 33–35, 39.

⁸⁷ Patrick Zutshi, ‘The Roman Curia and Papal Jurisdiction in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Die Ordnung der Kommunikation und die Kommunikation der Ordnungen, ed. Cristina Andenna, Gordon Blennemann, Klaus Herbers, Gert Melville, 2 vols. (Steiner: Stuttgart, 2012–13), ii: Zentralität: Papstum und Orden im Europa des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, pp. 213–227.

⁸⁸ Ganshof, Feudalism, pp. 99–101, 142–143.

⁸⁹ Kölzer, ‘Un regno in fase di transizione’, pp. 199–200. See also Sayers, Papal Government, pp. 165–166; Church, ‘King John’s Testament’, p. 527.

⁹⁰ On personae miserabiles, see Richard Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law, 2nd edn. (University of Georgia Press: Athens, GA, 2010), pp. 116–144.

⁹¹ The Vulgate iuxta Hebraeos and the Roman psalter have pupillus; the Gallican psalter has orphanus.

⁹² Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 4, cols. 6–7.

⁹³ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 85, cols. 112–13; Pressutti 154.

⁹⁴ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 74, cols. 100–2; Pressutti 131.

⁹⁵ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 79, cols. 105–6; Pressutti 142.

⁹⁶ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 152, cols. 188–9; Pressutti 262.

⁹⁷ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 162, cols. 200–1; Pressutti 267. For the sources of this prayer see Psalms 9.35 and 43.26, and the early medieval Liber responsalis, nos. 864–865, PL 78, cols. 837–8.

⁹⁸ On Henry’s crusading vows, see Alan Forey, ‘The Crusading Vows of the English King Henry III’, Durham University Journal 65 (1973), pp. 229–247, at 229–230.

⁹⁹ Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum, ed. Theiner, no. 5, pp. 2–3; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 143, cols. 176–7; Pressutti 246.

¹⁰⁰ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 2, p. 529; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 142, cols. 175–6; Pressutti 247.

¹⁰¹ Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, no. 3, pp. 529–531; Pressutti 524.

¹⁰² Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum, ed. Theiner, no. 7, p. 4; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 313, cols. 383–5; Pressutti 548.

¹⁰³ Diplomatic Documents, ed. Chaplais, no. 34, p. 38; Royal and other Historical Letters, ed. Shirley, i, nos. 9–11, pp. 535–537; Foedera, ed. Clarke et al., i, 1, p. 156, 167; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 143, cols. 440–1; Pressutti 2102, 2453, 2725–6, 2457.

¹⁰⁴ On petitioner-influence in the production of papal letters, see chapters two, four and five; Johrendt, ‘Der Empfängereinfluß auf die Gestaltung der Arenga und Sanctio’, pp. 1–12. On the pope’s role, see Patrick Zutshi, ‘The Personal Role of the Pope in the Production of Papal Letters in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, Vom Nutzen des Schreibens: soziales Gëdachtnis, Herrschaft und Besitz im Mittelalter, ed. Walter Pohl, Paul Herold (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Vienna, 2002), pp. 225–236. For discussion between the pope and a notary, see Zutshi, ‘Pope Honorius III’s Gratiarum omnium and the Beginnings of the Dominican Order’, Omnia Disce: Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P., ed. Anne J. Duggan, Joan Greatrex, Brenda Bolton (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2005), pp. 199–210.

¹⁰⁵ Wiedemann, ‘Papal Authority and Power’, pp. 67–76.

¹⁰⁶ Gerhard Baaken, ‘Unio regni ad imperium: Die Verhandlungen von Verona 1184 und die Eheabredung zwischen König Heinrich VI. und Konstanze von Sizilien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 52 (1972), pp. 219–297.

¹⁰⁷ Kölzer, ‘Un regno in fase di transizione’, pp. 199–200; Michele Maccarrone, ‘Papato e regno di Sicilia nel primo anno di pontificato di Innocenzo III’, Potere, società e popolo tra età normanna et età sveva: Atti delle 5^e giornate normanno-sveve. Bari—Conversano, 26–28 ottobre 1981 (Dedalo: Bari, 1983), pp. 75–108, at 104; Abulafia, Frederick II, p. 93; Matthew, Norman Kingdom, p. 298; Moore, War on Heresy, p. 235.

¹⁰⁸ Die Register Innocenz, i, nos. 410–413, pp. 613–622; Innocentii III regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1198, nos. 410–413, PL 214, cols. 387–91; Paul Kehr, ‘Das Briefbuch des Thomas von Gaeta, Justitiars Friedrichs II’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 8 (1905), pp. 1–76, at nos. 13–14, pp. 57–61; Urkunden Konstanze, ed. Kölzer, no. 65, pp. 203–205.

¹⁰⁹ Die Register Innocenz, i, nos. 570–571, pp. 829–831; Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1198, no. 564, PL 214, cols. 519–20; Potthast 613.

¹¹⁰ For other letters which emphasized Constance’s testament, see Die Register Innocenz, i, nos. 555, 558, pp. 806–809, 814–815; Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1198, nos. 558, 563, PL 214, cols. 513–14, 518–19; Potthast 615, 553.

¹¹¹ Kehr, ‘Das Briefbuch des Thomas’, no. 7, p. 46. For other letters which simply listed multiple (equal) justifications, see Die Register Innocenz, ii, no. 158, pp. 306–311; Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber secundus, pontificatus anno II, Christi 1199, no. 167, PL 214, cols. 716–18; Potthast 818.

¹¹² Die Register Innocenz, i, no. 559, pp. 815–816; Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1198, no. 565, PL 214, cols. 520–1; Potthast 585.

¹¹³ Die Register Innocenz, ii, no. 236, pp. 451–456; Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber, 1199, no. 245, PL 214, cols. 805–7.

¹¹⁴ Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber tertius, pontificatus anno III, Christi 1200, no. 23, PL 214, cols. 901–3; Potthast 1162.

¹¹⁵ Maccarrone, ‘Papato e regno’, p. 104.

¹¹⁶ Die Register Innocenz, ix, nos. 247, 249, pp. 424–425, 427–429; Innocentii regestorum siue epistolarum liber nonus, pontificatus anno IX, Christi 1206, no. 249, PL 215, cols. 1081–2; Potthast 2992. Note mistranslation in Wiedemann, ‘Papal Authority and Power’, p. 73.

¹¹⁷ Although cf. Wiedemann, ‘Papal Authority and Power’, pp. 72–73.

¹¹⁸ Regestum super negotio imperii, ed. Kempf, no. 188, pp. 398–399; Potthast 3688.

¹¹⁹ Paul Oldfield, ‘Otto IV and Southern Italy’, Archivio Normanno-Svevo 1 (2008), pp. 9–30.

¹²⁰ Innocentii Romani pontificis regestorum sive epistolarum liber decimus tertius, pontificatus anno XIII, Christi 1210, no. 210, PL 216, cols. 375–6; Acta Imperii Selecta: Urkunden deutscher Könige und Kaiser mit einem Anhang von Reichssachen, ed. Johann Böhmer, Julius Ficker, 2 vols. (Wagner: Innsbruck, 1870), nos. 920–922, pp. 629–633.

¹²¹ Constitutiones regum Germaniae, ed. Georg Pertz (Hahn: Hanover, 1837), MGH LL II, pp. 89–91.

¹²² Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 20; Deeds, trans. Powell, p. 22.

¹²³ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 25; Deeds, trans. Powell, p. 27. See also Wiedemann, ‘Papal Authority and Power’, pp. 74–75.

¹²⁴ Not all manuscripts of the Gesta include this stipulation in their account of Innocent’s terms: Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 24; Deeds, trans. Powell, p. 26.

¹²⁵ Gesta, ed. Gress-Wright, p. 25; Deeds, trans. Powell, p. 27.

¹²⁶ Orvietani-Busch, Medieval Mediterranean Ports, p. 15; Hillen, Wiswall, ‘The Minority of Henry III’, p. 49.

¹²⁷ Butllari de Catalunya, ed. Schmidt, Sabanés i Fernández, i, no. 55, pp. 119–120; Soldevila, Primers temps, pp. 100–101.

¹²⁸ Bonifacio Palacios Martin, La coronacion de los reyes de Aragon 1204–1410 (Anubar: Valencia, 1975), no. 6, pp. 302–303; see also ibid., no. 5, p. 302.

¹²⁹ Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, i, no. 199, pp. 377–379.

¹³⁰ Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, i, no. 197, pp. 363–364.

¹³¹ Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, ii, no. 225, p. 15 (original engrossment); Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 57, pp. 45–46 (registration).

¹³² Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, ii, no. 229, pp. 19–20.

¹³³ AAV, Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96v; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 214, cols. 223–4; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 224, p. 171. AAV, Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96v; Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, ii, no. 240, p. 34; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 226, p. 172; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 215, cols. 224–5.

¹³⁴ Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, ii, nos. 241–244, 246, pp. 35–36, 37–38, 39–40, 41–42, 45–46.

¹³⁵ Sanpere y Miquel, Minoría de Jaime I, pp. 114–115 1n; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 1, cols. 275–7; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 234, pp. 177–178. Butllari de Catalunya, ed. Schmidt, Sabanés i Fernández, i, no. 80, pp. 143–144; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 235, pp. 178–179.

¹³⁶ Bullaire du Maguelone, ed. Roquette, Villemagne, ii, nos. 272, 288–289, 292, pp. 84–85, 102–103, 104–105, 107–108.

¹³⁷ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, nos. 106–107, pp. 86–88; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 84, cols. 561–2.

¹³⁸ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 194, pp. 153–154; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iii, no. 33, col. 41.

¹³⁹ Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 61, p. 50; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, no. 334, col. 426.

¹⁴⁰ AAV, Reg. Vat. 13, f. 85r; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 572, p. 426; Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, iv, no. 29, cols. 923–4.

¹⁴¹ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, iii, no. 208/X, pp. 178–181; Foedera, ed. Clarke, et al., i, 1, pp. 316–318.

¹⁴² Pascal Montaubin, ‘Royaume de Sicile, Capétiens et Plantagenets: la mission et légation d’Alberto da Parma en 1252–1255’, Legati e delegati papali: profili, ambiti d’azione e tipologie di intervento nei secoli XII–XIII, ed. Maria Pia Alberzoni, Claudia Zey (Vita e Pensiero: Milan, 2012), pp. 159–194; Jean Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-Making in Thirteenth-Century Europe (Longman: London, 1998), pp. 4–5, 129–135; Peter Herde, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 20 (1977), s.n. ‘Carlo I d’Angiò, re di Sicilia’; Björn Weiler, ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Business: A Reinterpretation’, Historical Research 74 (2001), pp. 127–150; Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1958), pp. 56–77; Philippa Mesiano, ‘Pope Alexander IV, King Henry III, and the Imperial Succession: Master Rostand’s Role in the Sicilian Business, 1255–1258’, Authority and Power, ed. Smith, pp. 159–170.

¹⁴³ AAV, Reg. Vat. 22, f. 310v; Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, iii, no. 208/III, p. 174; Les registres d’Innocent IV, ed. Élie Berger, 4 vols. (Thorin: Paris, 1884–1920), iii, no. 6808, p. 275.

¹⁴⁴ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, iii, no. 208/X/14, pp. 178–181, at 179; Registres d’Innocent IV, ed. Berger, iii, no. 6819, pp. 277–280, esp. 279 1n.

¹⁴⁵ Les registres d’Alexandre IV, ed. Auguste Coulon, Joseph de Loye, Charles Bourel de la Roncière, 3 vols. (Fontemoing: Paris, 1895–1953), ii, no. 3036, pp. 89–93.

¹⁴⁶ David Carpenter, ‘King Henry III and the Sicilian Affair’, Fine of the Month (Feb., 2012), Henry III Fine Rolls Project http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/fm-02-2012.pdf (accessed 08/05/2020), p. 5.

¹⁴⁷ Foedera, ed. Clarke, et al., i, 1, pp. 316–318.

¹⁴⁸ Carpenter, ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Affair’, pp. 8–10.

¹⁴⁹ Les registres d’Urbain IV, ed. León Dorez, Jean Guiraud, 4 vols. (Fontemoing: Paris, 1899–1958), ii, nos. 269–270, pp. 118–125.

¹⁵⁰ Codice diplomatico del regno di Carlo I. e II. d’Angio, ed. Giuseppe del Giudice, 3 vols. (Stamperia della R. Università: Naples, 1863–1902), i, no. 4, pp. 6–27.

¹⁵¹ Fabrizio Titone, ‘The Kingdom of Sicily’, The Italian Renaissance State, ed. Andrea Gamberini, Isabella Lazzarini (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2012), pp. 9–29, at 11; Norman Housley, The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1982), pp. 20–23; Runciman, Sicilian Vespers, pp. 242–243; Émile Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples (Presses universitaires de France: Paris, 1954), pp. 154–156, 163–164; Charles Stanton, Roger of Lauria (c.1250–1305): Admiral of Admirals (Boydell and Brewer: Woodbridge, 2019), pp. 177–197; Joseph Strayer, ‘The Crusade against Aragon’, Speculum 28 (1953), pp. 102–113.

¹⁵² Les registres de Martin IV, ed. François Olivier-Martin (Fontemoing: Paris, 1901–35), no. 310, pp. 129–131.

¹⁵³ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 455, pp. 190–192, 185–186.

¹⁵⁴ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 580, pp. 291–295.

¹⁵⁵ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, nos. 455, 580, pp. 190–192, 185–186, 291–295.

¹⁵⁶ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 455, pp. 190–192, 185–186.

¹⁵⁷ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 580, pp. 291–295.

¹⁵⁸ Caesar Baronius, Annales ecclesiastici, ed. Augustin Theiner, 37 vols. (Guérin: Bar-le-Duc, 1864–83), xxiii, sub anno 1297, no. 1, pp. 199–203; Les registres de Boniface VIII, ed. Georges Digard, Maurice Faucon, Antoine Thomas, Robert Fawtier, 4 vols. (Fontemoing: Paris, 1884–1939), i, nos. 184, 2344, pp. 68–71, 929–935; Sanna, ‘Il regnum Sardinie et Corsice’, pp. 503–528; Stanton, Roger of Lauria, pp. 210–222, 236–251; Olivetta Schena, ‘The Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica’, The Italian Renaissance State, ed. Gamberini, Lazzarini, pp. 50–68.

¹⁵⁹ On the regency, see Dunbabin, ‘Cardinal Gerard of Parma’, pp. 167–180; Kiesewetter, ‘Die Regentschaft’, pp. 477–522.