OUTLINE — SECTION 4

Regnum and Sacerdotium, 11th through 13th Centuries

The Reform Movement and the Investiture Controversy:

Popes	Emperors	Others
Leo IX, 1049–54	Henry III, 1039–56	Humbert of Silva-Candida d. before 1065
(1st generation, simony and celibacy)
Alexander II, 1061–73		Peter Damian, d. 1072
(2d generation, the problem of investiture comes to the fore)
Gregory VII, 1073–85	Henry IV, 1056–1106	74T written before 1073
(Canossa, pope and emperor depose each other)
		Ivo of Chartres, 1040–1116
Urban II, 1088–99		1st Crusade, 1095–1099
Paschal II, 1099–1118	Henry V, 1106–1125	Henry I (England), 1100–27
		Philip I (France), 1060–1108
(Radical reform proposal and compromise: Concordat of Worms 1122)

Empire and Papacy—Alexander III to Boniface VIII:

1159–1181—Pope Alexander III (controversy with Frederick I (Barbarosa) (emperor, 1152–1190; controversy with Henry II of England (1154–1189) leading to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket (archbishop of Canterbury, 1162–1170); Third Lateran Council (1179); development of the institution of papal judges delegate; large number of decretal letters)

1198–1216—Pope Innocent III (high point of temporal power of the papacy; England becomes a papal fief (1213); Fourth Lateran Council (1215))

1227–1241—Pope Gregory IX (relaxes pressure on Frederick II (emperor, 1211–1250); Decretals published (1234))

1243–1254—Pope Innocent IV (deposes Frederick II at Council of Lyons (1245); with Frederick’s death in 1250 northern Italian Guelfs and Angevins (followers of Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX of France (1226–1270), and king of Naples and Sicily, 1268–1282) drive imperial power from Italy)

1294–1303—Pope Boniface VIII (struggle with Philip the Fair of France (1285–1314) ends with the pope’s death; the papacy now becomes subject to the power of France)

Popes, Emperors and Kings:

Popes	Emperors	England	France
Alexander III, 1159–81	Frederick I, Barbarossa, 1152–90	Henry I, 1100–1135
Innocent III, 1198–1216	Henry VI, 1190–97	Henry II, 1154–1189	Louis VII, 1137–80
Gregory IX, 1227–41	Frederick II, 1215–50	John, 1199–1216	Philip II, Augustus, 1180–1223
Innocent IV, 1243–1254	Rudolf of Hapsburg, 1273–91	Henry III, 1216–1272	Louis IX, saint, 1226–70
Boniface VIII, 1294–1303	Adolf of Nassau, 1292–98	Edward I, 1272–1307	Philip IV, the Fair, 1285–1314

Why did Bologna happen?

Review the outlines for Lectures 7 and 8. There’s a lot of detail there, but the question that I want to pose in this class is not what happened or even how did it happen but why did it happen. How would you evaluate the following propositions as “explanations” of the extraordinary revival of legal studies in the twelfth century (you may take the “facts,” some of which are controversial, as true)?

1. The conflict between regnum and sacerdotium. As we have seen, just because the investiture controversy was settled at the beginning of the 12th century that doesn’t mean that the tensions that underlay it disappeared nor does it mean that reformist zeal ceased. The 12th century, after all, was the century of the conflict between Becket and Henry II of England, Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa. It was also the century that saw by its end the development of a new discipline for which they still did not have a name but which we call moral theology.

2. Economics. The twelfth century saw an extraordinary revival of economic activity. Numbers are hard to come by, but some economic historians estimate that the percentage growth of gross domestic product in western Europe in the twelfth century was greater than in the sixteenth century, perhaps even than in the nineteenth century (the other two leading candidates for the centuries of greatest economic growth before the twentieth).

3. The revival of culture. In France, there is an extraordinary flowering of sculpture and architecture in the great Romanesque churches of central France and the very beginnings of Gothic in the north. There is a notable revival of secular literature. In the south of France the Troubadour poets develop a love lyric the likes of which had not been seen in the West certainly since the Romans and perhaps never before. It is the century of Abelard and Heloise, of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Acquitaine, of a transnational Latin culture. It is perhaps the last century in which a man named John could be born in Salisbury in England, write the first original treatise of political thought since the Romans in a Latin as good as Cicero’s, and end his life as bishop of Chartres.

4. The revival of other kinds of disciplines. The twelfth is a century of the study of the Bible and of what today we would call theology and philosophy in the monastic and cathedral schools, particularly in France. Abelard (d. 1148) is a major figure in this tradition, but his work comes too late to have influenced the beginnings of university study of Roman law. The glossators of the Bible, however, certainly are early enough.

5. Increase in judicial activity, particularly in Italy. We know that in the eleventh century and probably before there was a law school at Pavia where Lombard law (a Romanic-Germanic mix) was studied. A recent book (by Charles Radding) has pointed out that the Pavese jurists served as judges, and Radding tries to argue that they were beginning what we might call legal method. There probably isn’t enough material that certainly antedates the revival at Bologna to make that statement with any confidence, though practical concerns at a lower level than the high politics of the reform movement are almost certainly important in the development of the method and of Bologna . All of the first Bolognese jurists are known to have acted as judges. An even more recent book (by Anders Winroth) argues that Irnerius was largely mythical and that the real study of Roman law doesn’t get going at Bologna until the 1130’s, by which time Gratian had already composed the first draft of his Concordance of Discordant Canons.

Reform and the “twelfth century renaissance”