The Two Powers. Brett Edward Whalen

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      The Two Powers

      THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES

      Ruth Mazo Karras, Series Editor

      Edward Peters, Founding Editor

      A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

      The TWO POWERS

      The Papacy, the Empire, and the Struggle for Sovereignty in the Thirteenth Century

      Brett Edward Whalen

      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Copyright © 2019 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Whalen, Brett Edward, author.

      Title: The two powers: the papacy, the empire, and the struggle for sovereignty in the thirteenth century / Brett Edward Whalen.

      Other titles: Middle Ages series.

      Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019] | Series: The Middle Ages series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018044569 | ISBN 9780812250862 (hardcover)

      Subjects: LCSH: Gregory IX, Pope, approximately 1170–1241. | Innocent IV, Pope, approximately 1200–1254. | Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, 1194–1250. | Popes—Temporal power—History—To 1500. | Church and state—Holy Roman Empire—History—To 1500. | Papacy—History—To 1309. | Holy Roman Empire—History—Frederick II, 1215–1250. | Church history—Middle Ages, 600–1500. | Sovereignty—History—To 1500. Classification: LCC BX1238.W47 2019 | DDC 943/.025—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018044569

       For Jack and Amelia

      Contents

       Introduction

       Prelude. The Legate

       PART I. GREGORY IX

       Chapter 1. A Contested Vow

       Chapter 2. Reforming the Peace

       Chapter 3. The Widening Gyre

       Chapter 4. Christendom in Crisis

       Interlude. The Vacancy

       PART II. INNOCENT IV

       Chapter 5. A New Hope

       Chapter 6. The Council

       Chapter 7. Christendom at War

       Chapter 8. The Price of Victory

       Postlude. The Afterworld

       Epilogue

       List of Abbreviations

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      Map 1. Italy in the thirteenth century.

      Map 2. Europe in the thirteenth century.

      Introduction

      Entering the chapel of Saint Sylvester in the basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome, one encounters a sequence of frescoes from the year 1246 that speaks to the dual nature of Christian sovereignty in the Middle Ages. The images present a meeting over nine hundred years earlier between Pope Sylvester, the bishop of Rome, and Constantine, the Roman emperor. Although this encounter never actually happened, medieval Europeans generally believed that that it did. The paintings commence with scenes of the pagan ruler’s leprosy and refusal to bathe in the blood of slaughtered infants, a cure recommended to him by pagan priests, followed by his vision of the apostles Peter and Paul. The two saints instruct him to seek out Sylvester, who was hiding on the outskirts of Rome due to the imperial persecution of the Christian church at the time. The pope meets and baptizes the stricken ruler, healing him of his affliction. Out of gratitude, the emperor hands over his tiara to Sylvester, denoting his surrender of the Western empire to the Roman pontiff. A concluding scene shows Sylvester on horseback while Constantine humbly acts as his groom. By visualizing the past in this manner, the frescoes communicate a message about the proper relationship between the “two powers,” that is, between the spiritual authority of priests and the temporal might of secular rulers, embodied above all by popes and emperors. As the example of Constantine and Sylvester revealed, emperors should ultimately defer to popes, recognizing their superior form of sacerdotal sovereignty.¹

      Outside the walls of the chapel, when its frescoes were new, Christians faced a far more turbulent relationship between the chief representatives of the two powers: a violent division between Pope Innocent IV and the Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II. Contention between the papacy and the imperial ruler had begun under Innocent’s predecessor, Gregory IX, who excommunicated Frederick not once, but twice: for the first time in 1227, when the emperor failed to depart on crusade by an agreed-upon deadline, and again in 1239 (nine years after their previous reconciliation), when he was accused of various