When to Use the Pope: The Letters of 1219

Above I discussed the two letters sent to James I and Count Sancho in late 1217, which threatened Aragon with invasion if aid was sent to Count Raymond of Toulouse, and the letters of May-July 1219 which confirmed James’, Aragon’s and Montpellier’s papal protection. John Shideler suggested that when Sancho retired as procurator in 1218 this was ‘a sign to Rome of the regency’s new orientation’ and hence the papacy no longer threatened the kingdom but protected it in the letters of 1219.¹⁰⁵ In fact, however, the change was not in Rome’s policy, but in who the petitioners were and for what they were asking. In 1217 it had been cardinal-legate Bertrand who had asked the pope to try to prevent Aragonese aid reaching Toulouse.¹⁰⁶ Hence the pope had threatened James and Sancho. The May-July 1219 letters, however, were

requested by representatives of King James. In November 1218 Prince Louis of France had taken the cross to campaign against the Albigensian heretics in the Languedoc.¹⁰⁷ He came south in May 1219, arriving in early June.¹⁰⁸ The letters confirming papal protection and forbidding molestation of James’ possessions were addressed to James of Aragon himself,¹⁰⁹ but also to Louis,¹¹⁰ Cardinal

105 Shideler, The Montcadas, p. 145.

106 Honorii III opera omnia, ii, col. 561; History of the Albigensian Crusade, p. 272, n. 99.

107 Laurence W. Marvin, The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1218 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 297-9; History of the Albigensian Crusade, pp. 278-9.

108 The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens: The Albigensian Crusade and its Aftermath, (tr.) W. A.

Sibly, M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge, 2003), p. 64, n. 75.

109 Honorii III opera omnia, iii, cols 223-4 (= MDH, p. 171 = Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96^v), 224-5 (= Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, p. 34 = Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96^v = MDH, p. 172).

110 MDH, pp. 178-9; Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, pp. 35-6.

Bertrand,¹¹¹ the count of St-Pol (Crusader),¹¹² Enguerrand de Courcy

(Crusader),¹¹³ Engelbert de Herigue and Otto de Treissinet (Crusaders)¹¹⁴ and the bishops of Cambrai, Chalons and Noyon (Crusaders).¹¹⁵ Looking at the list of addressees it is clear that the issuing of all these letters was a response to fears that Louis and his fellow crusaders coveted James’ lands. The May-July 1219 confirmations of protection for James and his lands are not evidence that the papal court was previously withholding protection and then – after the resignation of Sancho – it was willing to extend protection to Aragon: it is simply evidence that in mid 1219 the Aragonese and Montpelliérains suddenly had a use for papal protection where previously they had not.

The impetus for confirming papal protection was clearly Prince Louis’

crusade, and an embassy from Aragon and Montpellier had decided to try and head off any threat by getting letters addressed to all the leaders of crusade telling them to avoid James’ possessions. They were not the only ones with this idea. In May-June 1219 representatives of the English king also requested a papal mandate to Cardinal Bertrand deploring Louis’ depredations on the lands of King Henry III – ‘a crusader, pupillus and one left to the tutelage of the

Roman church’ – in Gascony and Poitou and ordering the cardinal-legate to warn Louis off trying to transfer any of these lands to his own lordship.¹¹⁶ Two kings – James of Aragon and Henry of England – with different special

relationships with the pope – protection and feudal lordship – and one special

111 MDH, pp. 177-8 = Sanpere y Miquel, Minoría de Jaime I, pp. 114-5, n. 1 = Honorii III opera omnia, iii, cols 275-7.

112 Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, pp. 37-9.

113 Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, pp. 39-41.

114 Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, pp. 41-2.

115 Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, pp. 45-6.

116 Diplomatic Documents, no. 34, p. 38 = Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, xix, p. 687.

A contemporary copy of this letter, probably sent to Henry III’s court by one of his proctors at the papal court, survives from English sources. The copy of this letter in Honorius III’s register (Reg. Vat. 10, ff. 94^v-95^r) is separated from the registrations of the confirmations of papal protection sent to James of Aragon (Reg. Vat. 10, f. 96^v) by only two folios.

relationship in common – the parents of both had asked the pope to look after them – used their connections in exactly the same way: to warn Prince Louis off trying to take their land.

We must also quickly note that – with the exception of those addressed to James himself – it is unlikely any of the letters confirming James’ papal protection were ever received by their addressees. The letters to St-Pol, Enguerrand de Courcy, Engelbert de Herigue, Otto de Treissinet and the

bishops forbidding them to molest Montpellier all survived in their originals in the municipal archive in Montpellier when they were edited in 1914.¹¹⁷ The letters cannot have been delivered to their various recipients if the originals were still together in the archive of the place which asked for them.¹¹⁸ The letters were presumably taken to Montpellier in anticipation of being delivered to their recipients but were never actually handed over. One of the letters to Prince Louis survives in the archive of the crown of Aragon.¹¹⁹ The confirmation of papal protection for the kingdom of Aragon which was addressed to

cardinal-legate Bertrand is known only from early modern editions. One of these – Aguirre’s Concilia – claimed that it was edited from the royal archive in Zaragoza (in Aragon).¹²⁰ The other – that of Jeromino Zurita, the father of

Aragonese history – claimed to be edited from the original (archetypon).¹²¹ Zurita is most likely to have found the original if it was preserved in Aragon and – for

117 Bullaire de l’Église de Maguelone, ii, pp. 39, 41, 42, 46.

118 It is unlikely that the papal chancery would have produced identical double originals of these letters for the same addressees. On this question, see T. K. Nielsen, ‘Struggling for Ecclesiastical Independence in the North’ in Pope Innocent II (1130-43): The World vs the City, (eds) Damian J.

Smith, John Doran (Abingdon, 2016), pp. 205-25, at 220, n. 70; B. Wiedemann, ‘Review Article:

Popes and Jews and Pope Innocent II’, Reviews in History, no. 2027 (online), n. 11; but cf. (from 1330) Calendar of Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ii: A.D. 1305-1342, p. 498: ‘Duplicate of the letter sent in case the former should be lost’.

119 MDH, pp. 178-9 = Regesta de Letras Pontificias del Archivo de la Corona de Aragon: Sección Cancillería Real (Pergaminos), (ed.) Francisco J. Miquel Rosell (Madrid 1948), no. 75, p. 54.

120 Collectio maxima conciliorum omnium Hispaniae, (ed.) Joseph Saenz de Aguirre (6 vols, Rome, 1753-5), v, p. 183: ‘nunc primum edita ex archivo regio Caesar-augustano’.

121 Zurita, Indices rerum ab Aragoniae regibus gestarum, pp. 101-2: ‘Earum litterarum apostolicarum quod apponemus exemplum, exstat archetypon’.

what it is worth – he was born and lived most of his life in Zaragoza.¹²² The original of this letter was therefore – probably – still in the Aragonese archive in Zaragoza in the sixteenth century. It therefore seems unlikely that most of these letters were delivered to their addressees by the Aragonese. The reason is that they were not needed. Prince Louis and his crusade captured Marmande and then besieged Toulouse on the 16/17 June, but the prince raised the siege on 1 August and returned north: ‘his great army accomplished virtually nothing’.¹²³ The letters were not delivered because the crusade did not threaten Montpellier and the crusaders did not stay in the south long enough for the letters to be dispatched to them by the Aragonese and Montpelliérains. This course of events is an excellent illustration of how papal letters could be kept in reserve:

the use of papal authority was entirely at the discretion of the petitioner and when papal orders were no longer needed they could be put aside.