7

Confiscation: Deposing Vassal-Kings in the Thirteenth Century

Who owned a vassal-kingdom, the pope or the king? If the pope could confiscate the fief—deposing the king—then he clearly held the superior right. This chapter examines the presence—or absence—of this right, traditionally associated with classical feudo-vassalic relationships. The supposed right of a lord to take back the land he had granted to his vassal—the fief—if the contract between the two was broken. As we saw in chapter five, the end of the twelfth century saw an increasing interest in the right of lords—mainly kings—to confiscate land: Philip Augustus of France apparently claimed that he could take the lands of King John in France because John had neglected to offer the French king ‘due service’.¹ In our context—relationships between popes and kings—this means we need to turn our attention to thirteenth-century papal depositions of kings. Could the pope depose some kings ‘feudally’—with reference to his special rights over certain kingdoms? It is often assumed that he could. David Abulafia, discussing the conflict between Pope Innocent IV and Frederick II, puts it thus:

The deposition of an emperor: several popes had argued that they possessed the authority to remove the emperor […]. Several kings were papal vassals, and with them business was easier, at least in theory: kings of England, Sicily, Aragon and so on. As king of Sicily Frederick could be said to be subject to the corrective power of the papacy […].²

This chapter shows that special relationships between certain kings and the pope could indeed be weaponized to provide an argument for deposition, but they competed with other justifications for the pope’s authority to depose kings. As with wardship, papal letters chose their justifications strategically. In the course of the thirteenth century, ‘feudal’ deposition was accepted as one option: if a vassal-king failed to perform his stipulated services (most obviously pay an annual census) he lost his fief. In 1213, King John had allowed that, if he or his successors did not keep to the terms of the charter surrendering England to the pope, they would lose the kingdom. In the 1220s and 1240s, during the curia’s disputes with Frederick II, papal propagandists threw around the idea that Frederick might lose his right to the kingdom of Sicily—or even that he had already lost it—for non-payment of his annual census. When Sicily was granted to Charles of Anjou in 1263–5, it was stated that, if the king neglected to pay his census for three years, he would be deprived of the kingdom. The same rule was applied to the grant of Aragon to Charles of Valois in 1283 and the grant of Sardinia to James II of Aragon in 1297. It was implicitly accepted, however, that a pope could not use non-payment of a protection census as a justification for deposition. Deposing a king for failing to pay tribute was specific to fiefs. But papal authority always remained situational. Justifications for papal action—in this case deposition—were constructed by the curia and those external to the curia, taking account of the specific circumstances, in a bid to put forward the most plausible reason for the papal authority. The popes rarely used feudal relationships to justify deposition.

Papal Depositions of Kings to 1245

Popes deposed kings before the thirteenth century. If one believes the Annales regni Francorum (and not all do), then papal depositions of kings go back to the eighth century.³ Gregory VII excommunicated Emperor Henry IV and cancelled his subjects’ oaths of fidelity in the later eleventh century. In the twelfth century, the common form of deposition seems to have been indirect: the pope would not simply declare a king to be deposed but would instead free the king’s subjects from their oaths of fidelity. This Treueidlösung—the loosing of oaths of fidelity—was a de facto deposition. If the king’s subjects were not bound to obey him, how could a king rule? Strictly speaking, of course, one could argue that excommunicating a king should also have resulted in his deposition since true Christians were not supposed to interact with an excommunicate.⁴

It has long been suspected that, prior to John’s surrender to Pope Innocent in 1213, the pope had composed letters ordering the king’s deposition. When John came to terms with the Church, these letters—beginning Expectantes hactenus expectavimus—were ordered to be destroyed.⁵ We cannot know whether Innocent was merely annulling oaths of fidelity to John or whether he was depriving John of his royal office. A letter sent by Pope Honorius III to the excommunicate cities of Toulouse, Avignon, and Nîmes in 1221 may give us a hint, however. In this letter—Expectantes expectavimus ut—the pope threatened to deprive the cities of their episcopal status and divide up the dioceses among their neighbours if the citizens did not return to the unity of the Church within two months.⁶

The threat to these cities was probably influenced by the third canon of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215):

If a temporal lord, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his land of heretical filth, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be reported to the supreme pontiff so that he may then declare his vassals absolved from their fidelity to him and make the land available for occupation by Catholics (terram exponat catholicis occupandam).⁷

Anyone suspected or neglectful of heresy who remained excommunicate for a year was to be treated as a heretic and face confiscation of their property. Essentially, anyone who laboured under the sentence of excommunication for a year without making satisfaction could face loss of their land and property. This idea—that the pope could simply declare the land of rulers who had been excommunicated for a year open to seizure—had been gaining ground in the later twelfth century, but here it was formalized.⁸ The developing legislation against heresy had given the pope a de iure—rather than de facto—right to depose rulers. We have already seen one threat based on that right: in 1217 Honorius told James of Aragon and Count Sancho, the regent, that, if they did not prevent Aragonese and Catalan aid from reaching Toulouse, the pope would ‘curb the kingdom [of Aragon] through foreign peoples’ (per extraneas gentes).⁹ Surely these ‘foreign peoples’ were the Catholics to whom the pope could make land available for occupation.

But, in addition to this right to depose rulers who failed to persecute heretics, another potential avenue for papal depositions of kings was opened in the 1210s. In King John’s 1213 charter surrendering England and Ireland to the papacy and receiving them back ‘as a fief-holder’, the king had stated:

As an indication of our perpetual offering and concession we wish and decree that […] as all the service and payment which we ought to make […], the Roman Church is to receive annually […] one thousand marks sterling […]. Desiring all these terms, exactly as stated, to be forever ratified and valid, we bind ourselves and our successors not to contravene them; and if we or any of our successors shall presume to contravene them, then […] let him lose the right to the kingdom (Et si nos vel aliquis successorum nostrorum hoc attemptare presumpserit […] cadat a iure regni).¹⁰

If John did not keep to the terms of his surrender—including paying an annual census—he would lose his ius regni—his right to the kingdom. Admittedly, the charter did not say what would happen if that occurred—who would choose a new king?—but John had inaugurated a new principle: a king could be deposed by the pope for failing to provide stipulated services. There was no indication that non-payment of the census had led to deposition for the twelfth-century Norman kings of Sicily.¹¹ In Montpellier in 1215 the bishop of Maguelone made a similar point, as we saw in chapter five. Since the Pelet family had not been paying the pope the census from the county of Melgueil for years, they had either deprived themselves of the county, or had not held it at all.

From 1228, the papal curia weaponized this new principle against Emperor Frederick II. Relations between Popes Honorius III and (after 1227) Gregory IX, and Frederick had deteriorated over Frederick’s delayed Crusade. In late 1227, Frederick incurred ipso facto excommunication for failing to leave for the Holy Land by the date he had sworn. Over the next few months, Frederick made it clear that he regarded the excommunication as a technicality and unreasonable, giving no indication that he would respect it or perform the necessary penitence for the sentence to be lifted.¹² Even if the excommunication was a technicality, the Church could never absolve a non-penitent sinner. Consequently, on Maundy Thursday (23 March) 1228, Gregory IX solemnly excommunicated Frederick.

With this excommunication, the papal chancery dispatched a number of near-identical letters, probably to most archbishops in Western Europe and to several kings.¹³ Henry III of England, James I of Aragon, the archbishop and bishops of Canterbury province, and the bishops and ecclesiastics of Apulia certainly received versions of this letter. This letter—Quanto nobilius membrum—told the bishops that they should make sure the sentence of excommunication against Frederick was repeated every Sunday and feast day.¹⁴ The version sent to the kings of England and Aragon told them that the pope did not believe the emperor would ever go to the Holy Land so perhaps they might wish to take up the cause of the Crusade.¹⁵ The rest of the letter was the same for both the kings and the bishops. They were all told:

Truly because the hidden injury, if it should be dismissed untouched, tends more to lead into a scandal of the body; having seen that Frederick, Roman emperor, neglected his own salvation while refusing to complete his vow […]; because, according to the dictum of the wise, ‘when you are dressing a wound, pain is pain’s medicine’;¹⁶ we thrust the medicinal sword of St Peter towards him, in a spirit of gentleness, by publication of sentence of excommunication […]. But […] dreading medicine […] he not only corrected himself with no penitence but even, adding sins to sins, he audaciously incited God against himself, beyond that which it is decent for us to review, lest we—who desire his conversion—should seem to delight in censuring him. Amongst others, not respecting the keys of the Church, by which the lord conferred the power to bind and loose on blessed Peter and his successors, he made divine [services] be celebrated (or rather profaned) for him, in enormous danger of his soul and to the weakening of ecclesiastical discipline. Therefore fearing, lest his plague should become fully desperate if we should allow the scar of the wound to be closed (rendering, where it is incurable, imperceptible), we have studied to apply a curative poultice.

The curative poultice—excommunication—had not yet worked, however. Therefore, the pope went on,

This even we cannot omit that, if henceforth he should be present at the Divine Office, we will proceed against him with due severity as a heretic or one in contempt of the keys of the Church. If he does not desist from oppressions of churches and ecclesiastical persons; and trampling ecclesiastical liberty underfoot; and scorning excommunication; and does not return to the mandate of the Church, all who are bound to him by an oath of fidelity—and especially men of the kingdom [of Sicily]—we will absolve and declare to be absolved from their oath […]. If he should not cease from oppression of pupils, orphans and widows or nobles and other men of the kingdom and from the destruction of the kingdom—which is known to pertain specially to the Roman Church [and] for which he rendered an oath of fidelity and performed homage to our predecessors and to the Roman Church—he should justly fear that he will be deprived of right to [his] fief (merito poterit formidare se iure feudi privandum).

No avenue was left unexplored. The traditional threat—to annul oaths of fidelity—was mentioned as one possible consequence of Frederick’s contumacy. Frederick’s refusal to respect his excommunication might lead to the pope treating him as a heretic—possibly leading to the pope declaring his lands to be open to seizure by true Catholics, as canon three of Lateran IV outlined. And Frederick’s mismanagement of the kingdom of Sicily could lead to the pope depriving him of his ius feudi—his right to the kingdom of Sicily, here described as a papal fief (feudum). This loss of ius feudi is surely comparable to King John’s promise to lose his ius regni if he broke the terms of his feudal agreement with the pope. Three possible justifications for papal deposition were being put forward here.

Later in 1228—a year after Frederick had first been ipso facto excommunicated for failing to leave for the East by the agreed date (15 August 1227)—Gregory did indeed annul oaths of fidelity offered to Frederick, but made no mention of depriving him of his ius feudi.¹⁷ Another year later, in August 1229, Gregory again announced that Frederick’s subjects had been released from their oaths—since the emperor had neither returned to the mandate of the Church nor ceased oppressing orphans and destroying the kingdom. Again, there was no mention of deprivation of fief.¹⁸ Gregory and his chancery seem to have decided to stick with the traditional method of deposition—annulling oaths of fidelity—thus deposing a ruler de facto, but they were also clearly influenced by Lateran IV’s stipulation that loss of land and property followed excommunication by one year.

The next month, however, on 7 September 1229, at the request of the citizens of Furcone and Amiterno, Gregory granted them license to construct what would become the city of l’Aquila (in the kingdom of Sicily).¹⁹ The citizens had apparently

petitioned […] that […] you and your lands are of the right and property of the Roman Church, and that Frederick, a fief-holder, thus misusing the fief, deserves to be deprived of it, although he also ought to be deprived of that right for other causes (F. feudatarius feudo taliter abutendo, eo privari meruerit, quamquam iam sit ex aliis causis ipso iure privatus) […].

This argument—feudal deprivation—was present in the narratio of the letter so might have come from the petition the citizens submitted to the pope (though, if so, it was surely influenced by Quanto nobilius membrum). It testifies that feudal deprivation had some traction in 1228–30, even if it was secondary to deposition via annulling oaths of fidelity.

Frederick and Gregory came to terms in 1230 at the peace of San Germano.²⁰ But by the end of the 1230s, relations had broken down again. In 1239 Frederick was excommunicated by Gregory IX and in July 1245 Pope Innocent IV deposed the emperor at the First Council of Lyon.²¹ In the run-up to, and aftermath of, the Council of Lyon, the papal and imperial administrations fought a propaganda battle—the so-called ‘war of the chanceries’ (der Kampf der Kanzleien).²² Anti-imperial pamphlets were circulated by Cardinal Rainier of Viterbo and his circle of chaplains.²³ The most famous of these were Aspidis ova—probably written around April 1245—Iuxta vaticinium Ysaie—probably written in June 1245—and Eger cui lenia, composed after the council finished.²⁴

These pamphlets are usually characterized as extreme, and certainly all placed considerable emphasis on Frederick as the successor to the profane rulers of the Old Testament, as a heretic and as an instrument of Satan. Aspidis ova—narrating the misdeeds of Frederick up to the 1240s—also made a considerable amount of Frederick’s past broken promises and oaths, including:

He [Frederick] truly confessed that, by the debt of fidelity offered to the Church for the kingdom of Apulia, he was held to serve the Roman Church in its expenses and to return census—which he paid sometimes, but for twelve years and more he ceased to pay—because of which he justly deprived himself of the fief (propter quod ipse feudo merito se privavit).²⁵

Again, the idea of feudal deprivation was present, although here it was specific: Frederick had failed to pay his census and so lost his fief. However, the phrasing here was very reminiscent of the phrasing found in Quanto nobilius membrum in 1228. It could be that one simply influenced the other—parts of Quanto nobilius membrum were re-used by the papal chancery in letters of 1248 and 1253—but it is also possible that they had, in large part, the same author: Cardinal Rainier of Viterbo.²⁶

Rainier is known to have authored both Aspidis ova and Iuxta vaticinium Ysaie. His circle—likely one of his chaplains who was present at Lyon in 1245—also probably wrote Eger cui lenia, another pamphlet composed after Frederick’s deposition at the council.²⁷ Eger cui lenia also made reference to a papal right to deprive Frederick of his fief: ‘[t]o this—if he [Frederick] is silent—he cannot deny that, as a lord who has no superior, we have judicial power over a vassal, by reason of the kingdom of Sicily, which he holds in fief.’²⁸ Here, however, the feudal power over a vassal was general, unlike in Aspidis ova where Rainier had specified that Frederick had lost his kingdom for failing to pay census.

Why might Rainier have included this argument in his pamphlet, and did Rainier also contribute to Gregory IX’s letter, Quanto nobilius membrum, threatening Frederick with loss of his ius feudi? Quanto nobilius membrum began with a comparison of excommunication to medicine, which I quoted at length above. Excommunication was the ‘medicinal sword of St Peter’; Frederick’s offences were said to be an injury; the emperor ‘dreaded medicine’; so Gregory was applying a ‘curative poultice’. Eger cui lenia began ‘[t]he sick person, whom mild medicines have not helped, while being medicinally burned or cut, roars […] at the doctors […] and complains that he is being cruelly killed by the saving cut.’²⁹ Iuxta vaticinium Ysaie—another of Rainier’s pamphlets—had at one point quoted an oft-used line ‘injuries—which healing medicines have not cured—must be cut off with the sword.’³⁰ This medical imagery—Frederick had not been helped by mild medicines (excommunication) so now he had to undergo surgery (deposition)—was a continuation of the medical metaphor in Quanto nobilius membrum, where excommunication was a ‘medicinal sword’ and a ‘curative poultice’. We cannot be certain, but this consistent medical imagery offers a plausible case for Rainier and his advisors as significant contributors to Quanto nobilius membrum, as well as authors of Aspidis ova, Iuxta vaticinium Ysaie and Eger cui lenia.³¹

But why use feudal deposition as a weapon against Frederick, when it seems to have had no precedent in the papal relationship with the kingdom of Sicily? If we accept that Rainier and his circle were pushing feudal deprivation as a possible sanction, then the likely origin of this idea was England. In 1213 King John had allowed that he would lose his ius regni if the contravened the terms of his grant to Pope Innocent. Rainier—as we saw in chapter four—was granted a pension by John in 1215 because he had (so he said) laboured day and night in John’s service when he was a papal notary, and he was a reliable contact for the English kings at the curia in the 1210s and 1220s too. It is interesting—though not conclusive—that the letter, Sicut in archa, sent by Innocent III to John alongside the solemn privilege recognizing John’s surrender, compared John’s excommunication and the interdict placed upon England to medical treatment:

We rejoice in the Lord and in the power of his virtue that our medicines have been so beneficial that we seem through them to have healed your wounds, and you, who were troublesome to the doctor when feeling the harshness of medicine, are now grateful since you received the grace of health.³²

John—unlike Frederick—had responded well to the healing medicines of excommunication and interdict, although he had been troublesome to the doctor, perhaps in the same way that Frederick (according to Eger cui lenia) roared at the doctor while being cut or burned. On its own this similarity in medical imagery could never be more than indicative.³³ Since we know from his own testimony that Rainier, as a papal notary, worked for John’s advantage, Rainier must have played a role in drafting some of Innocent’s letters to John. Sicut in archa seems to be a very likely candidate. Rainier would also have known what the terms of John’s surrender were; he would have known about John’s promise to forfeit his ius regni. Rainier was then well placed to claim that kings who held their realms as fiefs of the Holy See could lose their right—ius. Thus, feudal deprivation appeared alongside the annulling of oaths of fidelity and deposition for heresy in the campaign against Frederick II between 1227 and 1245.

The First Council of Lyon (1245)

Leaving the pamphlets and papal letters to one side, we do have the text of the deposition which Innocent IV pronounced against Frederick at Lyon in July 1245. Prior to pronouncing the sentence, Innocent consulted with the prelates there present for their advice on whether the emperor could be deposed, whether deposition was an appropriate punishment and whether it was expedient. One of these consultations—that of Henry of Susa, the great canon lawyer and later cardinal-bishop of Ostia—has survived.³⁴ What use did these texts make of the feudal bond?

For Henry of Susa—Hostiensis as he would be known—the feudal bond was relevant: the curia held it as a fact that Frederick had imprisoned, despoiled and killed clergy. Canon 45 of Lateran IV had stipulated that:

If patrons, advocates, fief-holders (feudatarii), vice-gerents, or other benefice-holders should presume either themselves or through others to kill or mutilate the rector or cleric of any church, the patrons should lose completely the right of patronage; the advocates, the advocacy; the fief-holders, the fief; the vice-gerents, the vice-gerency; the benefice-holders, the benefice (beneficium).³⁵

Henry of Susa: ‘This penalty should apply to no one more than to the emperor, who receives so many benefits (tot beneficia) from the Roman Church and is its fief-holder’ (feudatarius). Presumably Henry meant this to cover both Frederick’s imperial position—one of the ‘many benefits’—and Sicily, for which Frederick was a fief-holder. Importantly, however, Henry of Susa was not playing in the same key as Cardinal Rainier and his circle: the Lateran IV canon had essentially stated that various types of office- and property-holders should lose their dignities if they abused clerics. One of these types of property was a fief. Frederick held the kingdom of Sicily as a fief. Ergo, if Frederick had abused clerics, he should lose the kingdom. This was not the same as saying, as Rainier did in Aspidis ova, that Frederick should lose his fief because he had not rendered owed service (the census). For Henry of Susa, Frederick’s feudal status was a reason to apply a particular canon—which justified deposition—rather than a potential justification for deprivation of fief through neglect of feudal duties.

The main thrust of Henry’s advice had been that Frederick, as one in contempt of the keys of the Church, could justly face deposition as being tantamount to a heretic. When Innocent came to issue the sentence against Frederick, the pope listed four ‘most grave’ crimes: Frederick had often sworn oaths (and then perjured himself); he broke the peace agreed between the empire and the Church in 1230; he imprisoned the cardinals and other clergy whom he captured in a naval engagement in 1241; and he was suspect of heresy according to clear proofs.³⁶ After going through each of these four in detail, the pope went on:

Beyond these [four reasons] (preter hec), now he has reduced the kingdom of Sicily—which is the special patrimony of St Peter and which that prince held as a fief from the apostolic see—to such emptiness and servitude for both clergy and laity that they have almost nothing […]. He even could be reprimanded justly (merito reprehendi) because for nine years and more he has neglected to pay the annual pension of one thousand schifati, in which [payment] he is bound to the Roman Church for that kingdom.

The actual deposition immediately followed:

We therefore […] mark, denounce and not less by our sentence deprive the said prince, who has made himself so unworthy of all imperial and royal honour and dignity and also, for his crimes, has been cast out by God from ruling and commanding and has been bound by his sins and cast out and deprived by the Lord from all honour and dignity. We absolve from their oath perpetually all those who are bound to him by an oath of fidelity […].

Although the feudal bond was not one of the four most ‘most grave’ justifications for Frederick’s deposition, it was mentioned. More specifically, the non-payment of census—that is, non-performance of feudal duties—was explicitly mentioned, where it had been absent in Henry of Susa’s advice. The sentence of deposition had taken Rainier’s feudal argument into account, although Frederick’s alleged heresy—and the other three crimes—were clearly more important.

Innocent IV (a famous canon lawyer himself) confirmed the potential rather than actual importance of the census in his own commentary on Frederick’s deposition. Of Frederick’s non-payment of the census, Innocent wrote:

Note that although the pope is able to deprive him [Frederick] of the kingdom because he did not pay the owed pension for two years […] however he does not deprive him by a cause which only concerns the Apostolic See, but only ‘reprimands’ him (Nota quod licet papa posset eum privare regno, quia debitam pensionem per biennium non solvit […] tamen ex causa que tantum interesse sedis apostolice tangit, non privat, sed tantum ipsum reprehendit).³⁷

Potentially the pope could have deprived Frederick of Sicily for non-payment of the census, but he did not. Instead, the four reasons given in the sentence of deposition—which affected the whole Church—were the reasons for deposition. The point that non-payment for two years (per biennium) was sufficient to deprive Frederick of the kingdom of Sicily could have come from the principle that prelates and papal fief-holders should come to Rome and pay tribute at set intervals; those from Sicily every two years.³⁸ More probably, however, it was an application of a canon law principle: the Liber extra included a decretal of Gregory IX stating that someone who held an emphyteusis (a form of land contract), who did not pay their rent (canon) for two years, could be expelled from their land.³⁹ In origin, this principle probably stemmed from Roman law.⁴⁰ Innocent thus agreed with Rainier that Frederick could be deprived of Sicily for failing to pay census. Innocent, however, seems to have been thinking of canon law as the origin for this principle, while Rainier’s precedent might have been King John’s 1213 charter. Incidentally, Innocent’s equation of fiefs with emphyteusis would not have met with universal agreement; these were different types of land contract.⁴¹

Innocent’s decision not to depose Frederick for non-payment of census—something which only concerned the Roman Church, rather than the whole world—was probably based on the optics: at a time when the curia faced frequent accusations of corruption, such as the alleged comments of Raymond of Toulouse in 1209 that he had ‘bought’ (emo) his marriage from the Roman Church, ‘a whore’ (meretrix), and was hoping to ‘corrupt’ (corrumpo) the curia with cash, it would not look good to depose the emperor for failing to give the curia money.⁴² Better to emphasize heresy and infidelity.

Two points need to be drawn from the discussions around the feudal deposition of Frederick: first, that non-performance of feudal duties could constitute an argument for deposition. There was not yet, however, consensus on this point. Henry of Susa used the feudal relationship in a very different way to Rainier and Innocent IV. Frederick’s feudal status was relevant, but there was not yet agreement on why it was relevant.

Secondly, feudal deprivation competed with other justifications—and even other methods—for deposing Frederick. Both Gregory IX and Innocent IV annulled the oaths of fidelity which had been made to Frederick, even though Innocent also deprived the emperor of his office.⁴³ For both popes, justifying Frederick’s deposition via his contempt for excommunication and the keys of the Church—and the heretical status that suggested—seemed to be a preferable to his feudal status. Innocent IV, in his commentary, was explicit on this point: he could depose Frederick for not paying census but had not done so. There were a range of possible justifications which could be drawn upon.

A final point about the Council of Lyon: Frederick was not the only ruler to be deposed there. Sancho II of Portugal was also removed from the administration of his realm by Innocent at Lyon, and Sancho’s brother, Afonso of Boulogne, was given ‘general and free care and administration’ of the realm.⁴⁴ Strictly speaking, Sancho was not fully deposed, since Innocent stipulated that he did not intend for the king or his heirs to lose the kingdom. Although Portugal was only under papal protection—it paid a protection census to the papacy—this relationship was nonetheless used in the document stripping Sancho of his royal power. Innocent laid out the iniquities under which Portugal was suffering because of Sancho’s incompetence—oppression of Churches; failure to sustain religion (potentially leading to heresy); alienation of royal regalia; failure to defend the realm—and then:

Desiring that kingdom—weighed down by the adversity of so many tribulations—to be relieved by the industry and diligence of some prudent and provident [man], especially because it pays a census (sit […] censuale) to the Roman Church, we order […] that […].

The census paid by Portugal to the papacy was a reason for the pope to try and relieve the realm’s suffering; it was not an argument for deposition per se, as Rainier and Innocent IV thought the Sicilian feudal relationship was. It was not argued that the Portuguese king ought to be deposed for failing to pay his census. Again, we see that special relationships between kingdoms and the papacy could be used to justify various actions, but the protective relationship—while it encouraged the pope to hark to complaints from Portugal—did not give him the means to deprive the king of the kingdom.

The potential of England’s feudal relationship with the papacy—that the king of England could be deprived of his fief if he broke the agreement with the pope—was probably seen by Cardinal Rainier, and used as a weapon against Frederick II in 1228–9 and 1245–6. The text of King John’s charter of surrender was circulating at the Council of Lyon, and reaffirmed there by the council fathers.⁴⁵ Frederick’s status as a fief-holder was used in different ways, however. In Aspidis ova, Rainier argued that Frederick had been deposed for failing to pay census. At Lyon, Henry of Susa argued that fief-holders who persecuted clerics should lose their fiefs according to the canons of Lateran IV. In Eger cui lenia, Rainier’s circle suggested that the pope held ‘judicial power’ over a vassal. Innocent IV believed that failing to pay the census meant that he could deprive Frederick of the kingdom of Sicily (even though he did not), but was drawing on the canon law of the Liber extra. There was no consistency in how to use the feudal relationship. It was being used strategically as a means to pressure Frederick, alongside other weapons, such as accusations of heresy.

Deprivation of Fief after 1245

As we have already seen in chapter six, in the second half of the thirteenth century there were a series of feudal contracts agreed by the pope and new vassal-kings. First the negotiations with Charles of Anjou, Edmund of England, and Charles of Anjou (again) over the kingdom of Sicily (1252–65). Then, the nominal grant of Aragon to Charles of Valois (1283). Of course, prior to Charles of Valois being named king of Aragon, Peter III—the actual king—had to be deposed as king by Pope Martin IV. These contracts and deposition are the focus for the remainder of this chapter: was potential deposition included in the feudal contracts, and how did Pope Martin depose Peter III?

An annual census from the kingdom of Sicily was included in the conditions offered to Charles of Anjou in 1253. As with the papal desire for automatic wardship of an underage heir, however, Pope Innocent IV was willing to be flexible. The pope told Master Albert, his envoy, that Charles should be asked for an annual census of ‘two thousand, or at least one thousand, marks’. If the count absolutely refused to admit that condition, then Albert could nonetheless proceed to invest him with the kingdom but Charles had to commit to pay the ‘customary census’—presumably the one thousand schifati which Frederick II had been supposed to pay.⁴⁶ As yet, there was no explicit threat of deprivation (or any penalty at all) for non-payment, though it could have been assumed.

Two years later—in Pope Alexander IV’s letter of grace granting Sicily to Edmund of England—the census was set at two thousand ounces of gold, payable at the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul. Again, there were no explicit penalties given for non-payment, although the letter did stipulate that if Edmund or his heirs acceded to the Roman Empire they had to refuse election, otherwise ‘by that, you will lose entirely the right to the aforesaid kingdom and land’ (eo ipso a iure praedictorum regni et terrae cadatis ex toto).⁴⁷ This was a rather similar formulation to John’s promise in 1213 to keep to the terms of his charter of surrender, otherwise he and his heirs ‘will lose the right to the kingdom’ (cadat a iure regni). The absence of any penalties from the census-payment clause (when a penalty was explicitly noted in this other clause) potentially indicates that deprivation was not seen as a penalty for non-payment.

When negotiations with Charles of Anjou resumed in 1263, however, there was a change. Initially Charles was offered the kingdom of Sicily with a number of mainland territories excised from it. These territories were to be held by the papacy, not the king. Charles was to pay an annual census of two thousand ounces of gold. If Charles neglected to pay the census on the stipulated date—the feast of St Peter—then he was to be given two months grace, then excommunicated. If, the next year, he still did not pay the census for that year or for the previous one, then he was to be given another two months, after which the kingdom would be placed under interdict.⁴⁸

But Urban IV also sent a list of possible variations to his nuncio. Charles could, if he wanted, accept the kingdom under these variant terms. If Charles wanted to receive the entire kingdom of Sicily—keeping those lands which the pope wanted to reserve to himself—then he could. But then the annual census would increase to ten thousand ounces of gold. Also, the penalties for non-payment changed. For the first two years the penalties were the same: excommunication followed by interdict. But if Charles or his heirs did not pay the census for a third year (with another two months grace period) then ‘they will lose entirely the kingdom and land and the right to them’ (ab eisdem regno et terra ipsorumque iure cadent ex toto).⁴⁹ Certainly, the phrasing here was influenced by the terms offered to Edmund of England in 1255, and quite possibly also by John’s 1213 charter, where John allowed that if he or his heirs broke their commitments (including paying an annual census) they would lose their right to the kingdom of England (cadat a iure regni).

The decision to offer this variant, this option, shows that, in 1263, the curia was not yet entirely convinced that deprivation was an appropriate automatic sanction for failure to perform stipulated feudal services. The two options offered to Charles—either a larger annual payment with harsher penalties, or letting the papacy take direct ownership of some lands—indicate that deprivation for non-payment was not a norm; rather, the papacy was concerned about its income. If the pope was the direct lord of certain Italian lands, then he could extract income through his own agents. But if the curia was going to be dependent on Charles for its money, then the pope needed some guarantees that the Sicilian kings would actually pay, hence the threat of deprivation.

When, two years later, Charles was actually granted the kingdom, he had evidently gone for option two. The annual census was set at eight thousand ounces of gold, but the penalties were those in Urban’s variant terms of 1263: one year’s non-payment resulted in excommunication (if more than two months late); two years’ non-payment in interdict (if more than two months late). After three years and two months with no census-payments: ‘you should lose entirely the kingdom and land and the right to them (ab ipsis regno et terra ipsorumque iure cadatis ex toto), and that kingdom and land should revert freely and entirely to the Roman Church.’⁵⁰ This formula—non-payment of feudal census resulted in excommunication, then interdict, then deprivation—was carried forward into the papal contracts with Philip III and Charles of Valois for the kingdom of Aragon in 1283, and with James II of Aragon for Sardinia in 1297. The stipulation that three years of non-payment—rather than two—was needed before deprivation suggests that the curia was not thinking here of Innocent IV’s decision, based on a decretal of Gregory IX, that two years of non-payment was sufficient to justify deprivation.

The deposition of Peter III of Aragon, and the elevation to kingship of Charles of Valois by Pope Martin IV in 1283, delineated protection census from feudal census. Aragon had paid a census to Rome from the eleventh century and had been categorized as a ‘protected’ kingdom from the twelfth century. But, as we have seen, by the mid-thirteenth century those kingdoms which paid a census and were described as papal ‘fiefs’ (feuda) could be confiscated by the pope if their kings failed to pay census. When Martin IV gave Aragon to Charles of Valois, the king performed ‘liege vassalage’ (ligium vassallagium) to the pope, and the annual census had to be paid or deprivation would follow (as in Angevin Sicily).⁵¹ A few months earlier, however, when Martin deposed Peter III, the census was only mentioned as a reason why the pope was particularly affected by Peter’s invasion of Sicily. We can be fairly certain that neither Peter III nor his father, James I, had ever paid their census to the pope. Non-payment of census was not weaponized against Peter III, as it had been against Frederick II; probably because there was a conceptual difference between a protection census and a feudal census.

Peter III of Aragon was deposed by Pope Martin because of the aid he was giving the Sicilian rebels against Charles of Anjou during the War of the Sicilian Vespers. When Martin deposed Peter III in 1283, the pope did refer to the existing relationship of protection between the papacy and Aragon. Martin cited the coronation of Peter II by Pope Innocent III in Rome in 1204: Peter II, desiring his kingdom (which was already paying a census to the Roman Church) to be strengthened by the protection of St Peter, reaffirmed its status as tributary to Rome by obliging the realm to pay a new census. Peter II’s intention was that the Aragonese kings would be faithful to the pope. It was therefore outrageous that Peter III was aiding the enemies of Charles of Anjou against the commands of the papacy. So, here, the protective relationship between Aragon and the papacy was being utilized by Martin and his curia, but seemingly just as a justification for general papal solicitude towards Aragon (rather than to justify direct deposition).⁵² This is confirmed by Martin’s grant of Aragon to Charles of Valois a few months later. The previous relationship between Aragon and the Holy See was again mentioned. Peter III had committed manifest injustice by occupying Sicily. Injuries were being inflicted upon King Charles of Sicily (obviously) but also upon the Roman Church ‘to which he [Peter III] is bound by a debt of fidelity because of the kingdom of Aragon, which was offered to that Church by his grandfather Peter [II] and made a census-payer by him [Peter II] and other predecessors’.⁵³ The protective relationship between the pope and the Aragonese king—and the fidelity which the king should owe to Rome—was a reason why Peter III’s aid to the rebellious Sicilians was an injury to the pope. Martin could just as well have pointed out that Sicily was a papal fief and so any attack on it should particularly merit his attention—indeed in some of his letters he did exactly that.⁵⁴ These were simply alternative reasons to justify papal interest in the War of the Vespers. Martin did not suggest that he was deposing Peter III for failing to pay his census.

Martin IV clearly knew that Aragon owed a protection-census to the papacy. We cannot know for certain, but it seems very likely that this census had not been paid since the death of Peter II in 1213. In 1274—nine years before Peter III’s deposition—his father, James I of Aragon, had attended the Second Council of Lyon. According to James’ own reminiscences, at this council the king asked the pope, Gregory X, to crown him, but Gregory refused unless James paid the census of 250 masmudinas promised by Peter II in 1204. According to James, the census had not been paid from his father’s reign up to the present.⁵⁵ James did not pay anything in 1274. It therefore seems very likely that, in 1283, no payments had been received from Aragon for decades. Martin IV did not use this non-payment as a justification for deposing Peter III, even though, when he granted Aragon to Charles of Valois a few months later, the contract between Charles and the pope stipulated that the king would lose his rights to Aragon if the census was not paid. Instead, the justification for Peter III’s deposition was his invasion of Sicily, and the unfaithfulness this invasion showed. The sentence of deposition unequivocally drew on the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council which allowed the pope to declare lands of secular lords open for occupation by Catholics, as well as on the sentence of deposition passed against Frederick II in 1245.⁵⁶

Martin fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between the papacy and Aragon. Previously, Aragon had been under the protection of St Peter and had been obliged to pay a census (which was paid rarely). Non-payment of a protection census, it seems, did not provide grounds for deposition. Now, under Charles of Valois, Aragon was a papal fief, and if the king did not perform his feudal duties—paying the census—he could be deprived of his kingdom.

Charles of Valois never paid the census—payments were supposed to begin when three-quarters of the kingdom had been conquered, and Philip III of France’s invasion of Aragon was a failure. In 1295 James II—the new king of Aragon—Pope Boniface VIII, Philip IV of France, and Charles II of Naples arrived at a new peace agreement. The French resigned their claims to Aragon—given to them by Martin IV—and Boniface confirmed James II as the rightful king.⁵⁷ The pope returned the kingdom and royal honour to James so that he might hold it as his father, Peter III, held it, before he offended the Roman Church. Boniface did not intend, however, ‘that through the restitution, return and concession, any right should be acquired for us or the Roman Church’.⁵⁸ The relationship between Aragon and the papacy had returned to the state before the feudal grant to Charles of Valois. Aragon was no longer a papal fief.

Conclusion

The principle that non-payment of a feudal census (but not a protective census) resulted in deposition after three years had been laid down firmly in the late-thirteenth-century feudal contracts with Angevin Sicily and Valois Aragon.⁵⁹ This principle probably had its origins in King John’s 1213 grant of the kingdoms of England and Ireland, but received support from a decretal of Gregory IX and the learned commentary of Innocent IV. Practically, as we have seen, it was not the preferred justification for papal depositions of kings—Innocent IV took the view that Frederick II could have been deposed for non-payment of his census, but in fact Innocent deposed Frederick for other reasons, and by his authority as Vicar of Christ, not as overlord of Sicily.

Non-payment of a protection census could not justify the deposition of a king. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the papacy might sometimes order legates to collect census payments from protected monasteries with the threat of ecclesiastical censures (excommunication or interdict), but at other times the protection census was said to be voluntary.⁶⁰ Innocent III, when a litigant alleged that an annual payment owed to a bishop from a Church might be simoniacal, responded that it was could not be, since, when the pope granted exemption or protection to a Church, ‘we freely accept a freely-offered census.’⁶¹ It was sometimes argued that non-payment of a protection census threatened the protection or exemption given to a Church, but penalties for non-payment of a protection census went no further than excommunication or loss of privilege.⁶² Deposition for non-payment was unique to feudal relationships with the papacy.

That does not mean that the pope ever actually deposed a vassal-king for failing to pay a feudal census. In fact, the use of the feudal relationship—and relationships of protection—remained strategic: Cardinal Rainier claimed that Frederick II had lost his kingdom for failing to pay the census; Innocent IV agreed that this was technically correct, but the pope and his curia thought it was better to justify Frederick’s deposition through his contempt for the keys of the Church (tantamount to heresy). Papal authority and solicitude were situational. Rather than looking for universal and permanent justifications for papal action, we must recognize that papal solicitude and authority were constructed through a dialogue between popes, petitioners, and audience, taking account of the particular situation, and resulting in (hopefully) the most convincing and appropriate image of papal authority being put forward.

Papal Overlordship and European Princes, 1000–1270. Benedict Wiedemann, Oxford University Press. © Benedict Wiedemann 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192855039.003.0008

¹ See chapter five; Radulphi chronicon Anglicanum, ed. Stevenson, p. 136; Vincent, ‘Rank Insubordination’, pp. 152–159.

² Abulafia, Frederick II, p. 373.

³ Constance Bouchard, ‘Childeric III and the Emperors Drogo Magnus and Pippin the Pious’, Medieval Prosopography 28 (2013), pp. 1–16, at 12–16.

⁴ Othmar Hageneder, ‘Das päpstliche Recht der Fürstenabsetzung: seine kanonistische Grundlegung (1150–1250)’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 1 (1963), pp. 53–95, at 64–72; Italian trans: ‘Il diritto papale di deposizione del principe: i fondamenti canonistici’, Il sole e la luna: papato, impero e regni nella teoria e nella prassi dei secoli XII e XIII, ed. Maria Pia Alberzoni (Vita e Pensiero: Milan, 2000), pp. 165–211; Friedrich Kempf, ‘La deposizione di Federico II alla luce della dottrina canonistica’, Archivio della società Romana di storia patria 21 (1968), pp. 1–16; Cheney, ‘Alleged Deposition’, pp. 101–102.

⁵ Cheney, ‘Alleged Deposition’, pp. 108–113.

⁶ Richard Kay, ‘Brouillons de lettres pontificales dans le Rotulus de negotio albigensi (1221–1225)’, Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 162 (2004), pp. 509–532, at pp. 514, 530; Histoire générale de Languedoc, ed. Devic, Vaissète, viii, no. 211/V, cols. 740–1 (partial transcription of draft; undated).

⁷ Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Tanner, i, p. 234.

⁸ Hageneder, ‘Das päpstliche Recht der Fürstenabsetzung’, pp. 64–72; idem, ‘Il diritto papale di deposizione del principe’, pp. 165–211; John Watt, ‘Mediaeval Deposition Theory: a Neglected Canonist Consultatio from the First Council of Lyons’, Studies in Church History ii, ed. Geoffrey Cuming (Nelson: London, 1965), pp. 197–214, at 212–214.

⁹ Honorii opera omnia, ed. Horoy, ii, nos. 84–85, cols. 561–3; Documentación de Honorio, ed. Mansilla, no. 106, pp. 86–87 (given as per extraneos gratias [sic]).

¹⁰ Feodera, ed. Clarke et al., pp. 111–112; Selected Letters of Innocent III, ed. trans. Cheney, Semple, no. 67, pp. 177–183.

¹¹ The privileges and treaties of 1130, 1139, 1156, and 1192 had stated that the census should be paid unless there was an impediment or the pope did not ask for it. There was no indication of penalties other than a general sentence of excommunication for anyone who broke the agreements.

¹² The letters Quanto nobilius membrum (April 1228) stated that Frederick ‘corrected himself with no penitence’ and ‘made divine [services] be celebrated (or rather profaned) for him’. Frederick’s circular (In admirationem vertitur) of December 1227, intended to proclaim ‘the certainty of our innocence, and the injury inflicted on us and the empire’, did not admit fault on his part, Constitutiones et acta publica, ed. Weiland, ii, no. 116, pp. 148–156. See Abulafia, Frederick II, pp. 164–170, 173–174; Whalen, Two Powers, pp. 19–28; Graham Loud, ‘The Papal “Crusade” against Frederick II in 1228–1230’, La papauté et les croisades—The Papacy and the Crusades, ed. Michel Balard (Ashgate: Farnham, 2011), pp. 91–103.

¹³ Benedict Wiedemann, ‘Quanto nobilius membrum: A Letter of Pope Gregory IX (1228)’, Manuscripta: A Journal for Manuscript Research 64 (2020), pp. 127–141.

¹⁴ TNA, SC 7/46/11; AAV, Reg. Vat. 14, fols. 56v–57r (edited in Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, i, no. 371, pp. 288–289).

¹⁵ AAV, Reg. Vat. 14, fols. 64v–65v; Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Reial Cancelleria, Butlles, lligall 6, núm. 21, my thanks to Alberto Torra for providing me with images of this letter (edited in Butllari de Catalunya, ed. Schmidt, Sabanés i Fernández, i, no. 120, pp. 176–178).

¹⁶ The Distichs of Cato: A Famous Medieval Textbook, trans. Wayland Johnson Chase (University of Wisconsin: Madison, WA, 1922), book IV. 40, pp. 40–41.

¹⁷ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, i, no. 831, pp. 730–731.

¹⁸ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, i, no. 399, pp. 318–320.

¹⁹ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, i, no. 402, pp. 321–322.

²⁰ Whalen, Two Powers, pp. 40–44.

²¹ Whalen, Two Powers, pp. 80–108; Thomas Wetzstein, ‘The Deposition of Frederick II (1245) – A Public Lesson in Procedural Law’, Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. Joseph Goering, Stephan Dusil, Andreas Thier (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Vatican City, 2016), pp. 949–964.

²² Peter Herde, ‘Federico II e il Papato. La lotta delle cancellerie’, Federico II e le nuove culture. Atti del XXXI Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 9–12 ottobre 1994 (Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo: Spoleto, 1995), pp. 69–87. Seemingly a coining of Ernst Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite, 2 vols. (Bondi: Dusseldorf/Munich, 1927–31), i, p. 459, ii, p. 198; English trans: Frederick the Second, 1194–1250, trans. Emily Lorimer (Constable: London, 1931), p. 504.

²³ Matthias Thumser, ‘Kardinal Rainer von Viterbo († 1250) und seine Propaganda gegen Friedrich II.’, Die Kardinäle des Mittelalters und der Frühen Renaissance, ed. Jürgen Dendorfer, Ralf Lützelschwab (SISMEL: Florence, 2013), pp. 187–199; Thumser, ‘Antistaufische Propaganda in einer Prager Handschrift: Der Brief Grande piaculum des Kardinals Rainer von Viterbo (1248)’, Mediaevalia Historica Bohemica 12 (2009), pp. 7–41; Peter Herde, ‘Ein Pamphlet der päpstlichen Kurie gegen Kaiser Friedrich II. von 1245/46 (Eger cui lenia)’, Deutsches Archiv 23 (1967), pp. 468–538; idem, ‘Literary Activities of the Imperial and Papal Chanceries during the Struggle between Frederick II and the Papacy’, Intellectual Life at the Court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, ed. William Tronzo (National Gallery of Art: Washington, 1994), pp. 227–239, at 231–235; Robert Lerner, ‘Frederick II, Alive, Aloft, and Allayed, in Franciscan-Joachite Eschatology’, The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbeke, Daniël Verhulst, Andries Welkenhuysen (Leuven University Press: Leuven, 1988), pp. 359–384, at 360; Abulafia, Frederick II, pp. 356–358, 368.

²⁴ Das Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. Thomas Frenz, Peter Herde (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Munich, 2000), MGH Briefe d. späteren MA, nos. 32, 51, 54, pp. 102–110, 191–212, 215–226; Herde, ‘Ein Pamphlet gegen Friedrich II’, pp. 508–538; Acta imperii inedita seculi XIII. et XIV., ed. Eduard Winkelmann, 2 vols. (Wagner: Innsbruck, 1880–5), ii: Urkunden und Briefe zur Geschichte des Kaiserreichs und des Königreichs Sicilien in den Jahren 1200–1400, no. 1037, pp. 709–721.

²⁵ Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. Frenz, Herde, no. 54, pp. 215–226.

²⁶ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, ii, no. 551, pp. 389–390; Vetera monumenta Poloniae et Lithuaniae, ed. Theiner, i, no. 112, pp. 53–55.

²⁷ The presence of ‘a certain one of our chaplains’ and Bishop Zoen of Avignon (‘formerly our associate and chaplain’) at Lyon is attested by two letters—believed to have been sent to Rainier—telling him about Frederick’s deposition, Fedor Schneider, ‘Toscanische Studien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 13 (1910), pp. 1–72, at K, pp. 59, 69–70.

²⁸ Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. Frenz, Herde, no. 32, pp. 102–110; Herde, ‘Ein Pamphlet gegen Friedrich II’, p. 528.

²⁹ Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. Frenz, Herde, no. 32, pp. 102–110; Herde, ‘Ein Pamphlet gegen Friedrich II’, p. 508. Partial translation: Tierney, Crisis of Church and State, no. 83, pp. 147–149.

³⁰ Brief- und Memorialbuch des Albert Behaim, ed. Frenz, Herde, no. 51, pp. 191–12, esp. 208; cf. Herde, ‘Ein Pamphlet gegen Friedrich II’, pp. 499–500.

³¹ Note that at the First Council of Lyon, where Frederick was deposed in 1245, the papacy and assembled prelates formally defined excommunication as ‘medicine, not death’: Sext. 5. 11. 1., Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, ii, cols. 1093–4; Felicity Hill, ‘Damnatio eternae mortis or Medicinalis non mortalis: The Ambiguities of Excommunication in Thirteenth-Century England’, Thirteenth Century England XVI: Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference, 2015, ed. Andrew Spencer, Carl Watkins (Boydell and Brewer: Woodbridge, 2017), pp. 37–53, at 37–40.

³² Feodera, ed. Clarke et al., p. 116; Selected Letters of Innocent III, ed. trans. Cheney, Semple, no. 63, pp. 168–170.

³³ Cardinal Eudes of Châteauroux—who preached at Lyon when Frederick was deposed—drew a different comparison: bad kings were ‘pestilential’ (from Jeremiah 51.25–26) and hence needed to be deposed, Alexis Charansonnet, ‘L’université, l’Eglise et l’Etat dans les sermons du cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux (1190?–1273)’, 2 vols. (PhD thesis, Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2001), ii, pp. 708–713.

³⁴ Watt, ‘Mediaeval Deposition Theory’, pp. 207–210.

³⁵ X. 5. 37. 12., Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, ii, cols. 883–4.

³⁶ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, ii, no. 124, pp. 88–94; Sext. 2. 14. 2., Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, ii, cols. 1008–12.

³⁷ Commentaria Innocentii quarti pontificis maximi super libros quinque decretalium (Feierabendt Segismundus: Frankfurt, 1570), fol. 317r.

³⁸ Wiedemann, ‘The Joy of Lists’.

³⁹ X. 3. 18. 4., Corpus Iuris Canonici, ii, col. 521. The use of canon to describe the tribute suggests this decretal might also have influenced Clement IV’s 1265 letter to Louis IX on the county of Melgueil, see chapter five. See also Innocent IV’s commentary on the preceding decretal (X. 3. 18. 3.), Commentaria Innocentii super libros decretalium, fol. 393r.

⁴⁰ Frederick Pollock, Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1968), i, p. 353.

⁴¹ Magnus Ryan, ‘Succession to Fiefs: A Ius Commune Feudorum?’, The Creation of the Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula, ed. Paul du Plessis, John Cairns (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 2010), pp. 143–157, at 149–150.

⁴² See chapter five; Cartulaire de Maguelone, ed. Rouquette, Villemagne, ii, no. 300, pp. 58–63. In general, see Patrick Zutshi, ‘The Roman Curia in the Carmina Burana’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 54 (2019), pp. 460–485.

⁴³ Kempf, ‘La deposizione di Federico II’, pp. 1, 3–6.

⁴⁴ Sext. 1. 8. 2., Corpus Iuris Canonici, ii, cols. 971–4; Edward Peters, The Shadow King: Rex Inutilis in Medieval Law and Literature, 751–1327 (Yale University Press: New Haven/London, 1970), p. 156–161.

⁴⁵ Huillard-Bréholles, ‘Examen des chartes’, no. 90, pp. 302–303.

⁴⁶ Epistolae e regestis, ed. Rodenburg, iii, no. 208/X, pp. 180–181; Registres d’Innocent IV, ed. Berger, iii, no. 6819, pp. 277–280.

⁴⁷ Foedera, ed. Clarke, et al., i, 1, pp. 316–318.

⁴⁸ Registres d’Urbain, ed. Dorez, Guiraud, ii, no. 269, pp. 118–124.

⁴⁹ Registres d’Urbain, ed. Dorez, Guiraud, ii, no. 270, pp. 124–125.

⁵⁰ Codice diplomatico, ed. del Giudice, i, no. 4, pp. 6–27.

⁵¹ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 455, pp. 190–192, 185–186.

⁵² Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 310, pp. 129–131, apparently repeating verbatim most of ibid., no. 276, pp. 107–114.

⁵³ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 455, pp. 190–192, 185–186.

⁵⁴ E.g. Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 570, pp. 277–278 (‘[…] the most Holy Church—his [God’s] spouse—is thus gravely offended, thus enormously oppressed, because its [the Church’s] kingdom is invaded, the kingdom—I say—of Sicily, the peculiar land of it […]’).

⁵⁵ The arrears which James owed require further research: Smith and Buffery say the arrears ran to not more than forty thousand masmudinas, which would suggest the census had not been paid for 160 years—a vast overestimate. The Soldevila edition also gives forty thousand masmudinas. John Forster translated this as ‘more than eleven thousand sous’. The fourteenth-century Latin translation of the chronicle also gives ad plus non excederet mazmodinarum undecim milium—‘should not exceed eleven thousand masmudinas’. This would be forty-four years of arrears, which seems too little. The reason for this variation is doubtless a misreading (or multiple misreadings) of XI milia for XL milia or vice versa. Universitat de Barcelona. Biblioteca Àrea de Reserva. Ms. 64, f. 90r; Llibre dels feits del rei En Jaume, ed. Ferran Soldevila, Jordi Bruguera, Maria Teresa Ferrer Mallol (Institut d’Estudis Catalans: Barcelona, 2007), Les quatre grans Cròniques I, pp. 507–508; Book of Deeds, trans. Smith, Buffery, pp. 365–366; The Chronicle of James I, King of Aragon, trans. John Forster, ed. Pascual de Gayangos, 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall: London, 1883), ii, pp. 651–652.

⁵⁶ Registres de Martin, ed. Olivier-Martin, no. 310, pp. 129–131.

⁵⁷ Palacios Martin, La coronacion de los reyes de Aragon, no. 14, pp. 309–310.

⁵⁸ Registres de Boniface, ed. Digard, Faucon, Thomas, Fawtier, i, no. 184, pp. 68–71.

⁵⁹ The contracts with Angevin Sicily, Valois Aragon, and Corsica and Sardinia all made clear that these kings could also lose their rights to the realms for other reasons too: if the kings of Sicily or Corsica and Sardinia were elected Roman emperor and failed to refuse the position, they lost their royal rights. If the Valois king of Aragon acceded to France, England, Castile, or León, he had to resign Aragon.

⁶⁰ Wiedemann, ‘Character of Papal Finance’, pp. 513–516.

⁶¹ X. 3. 36. 6., Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Friedberg, ii, cols. 603–5.

⁶² William Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Columbia University Press: New York, 1934), i, p. 62; idem, Financial Relations to 1327, pp. 104–105 6n., 639.