During the central Middle Ages the cultural and political boundaries of Latin Christendom were redrawn. In that time, the area nominally adherent to the Latin rite essentially doubled in size. This process of expansion was carried out by an acquisitive martial aristocracy, and encouraged by a militant Latin Church, over which the papacy increasingly sought to assert its control.Footnote 1 Like the episcopal diocese and the chartered town, the kingdom was a cultural and political unit that was exported to the frontier regions which were incorporated into Latin Christendom in this period. The establishment of new kingdoms was one of the most significant outcomes of the reforging of Christendom's frontiers. While modern historians have devoted much attention to the institution of Latin Christian kingship in the central Middle Ages, however, they have invariably focused on attitudes toward the models of kingship practised in Europe's core regions such as France, Germany and England. In contrast, less attention has been paid to investigating how kingship at Europe's frontier was construed in this period. By means of a comparative analysis of the twelfth-century papacy's response to the establishment of the Latin kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, this essay will explore the ideals to which popes expected kings in the newly-settled regions of Christendom to conform.
This essay has two aims. The first is to establish the circumstances in which popes recognised Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal as kingdoms rather than any other type of polity, and the second is to compare the intellectual strategies that they used to justify why they had done so. Of course, these three polities were not the only new Latin Christian kingdoms founded in this period.Footnote 2 However, since all three attained papal recognition as kingdoms in the twelfth century, and were at the periphery of Latin Christendom yet were geographically distant from each other, a comparative investigation using these three states as case studies will permit a meaningful analysis of the twelfth-century papacy's expectations of kings who ruled at Christendom's frontier. This investigation relies chiefly on the evidence provided in letters sent by the papal curia to the three polities in question. The twelfth century was a formative period for the curia; its various offices, including the chancery, underwent significant development at this time. There has been some discussion among modern historians over the extent to which popes of this era were actually involved in the composition of letters issued under their name.Footnote 3 It is not the purpose of this essay to engage with this debate; it is sufficient to note simply that various members of the curia, including notaries and the chancellor, would have assisted in producing a letter. Hence, where this essay refers to, for example, ‘a letter of Innocent ii’, this should be understood as a shorthand term denoting a document issued by the curia under Innocent ii.
The essay consists of three parts. The first examines the political thought of Gregory vii (1073–85) and the ‘reform’ papacy on kingship, showing that Gregory asserted that good Latin Christian kings had to be idoneus (‘suitable’) and utilis (‘useful’) to the papacy and to the Church at large. It then demonstrates that Gregory's political ideas remained influential throughout the twelfth century. The second part explores the circumstances in which the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal were established and granted recognition by the papacy. It is shown that papal acknowledgment of the royal status of a polity did not automatically follow either its establishment or the assumption by its ruler of a royal title. The third part of the essay compares the various stratagems used by the papacy to justify why Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal ought to be regarded as kingdoms. This analysis reveals that similar ideas informed the arguments advanced by the papacy, but that they were used in a different combination in each case. It also shows that the political ideas advanced by Gregory vii were central to those arguments.
The findings of this essay are intended to contribute to a current historiographical discussion on the nature of the medieval papacy. While some historians have seen the papacy as a proactive institution, forming policies based on the initiatives of the pope and his curia, recent scholarship has tended to see the papacy as a responsive institution, whose policies were largely shaped by external and contingent developments.Footnote 4 This essay suggests that, when it came to dealing with the expanding horizons of Latin Christendom, the political decisions of the twelfth-century papacy were informed by circumstances that were for the most part beyond its influence, but that the popes in question couched their decisions in terms of the political ideas espoused by Gregory vii in order to convey the sense that they had retained control.
The influence of Gregory VII and the ‘reform’ papacy on twelfth-century perceptions of kingship
Throughout the Middle Ages, popes often approached kingship as they did secular power in general: through the centuries-old doctrine of the ‘two swords’.Footnote 5 This view of the relationship between the ecclesiastical and secular powers, ultimately derived from Luke xxii.38, was famously articulated in a letter of Pope Gelasius i to Emperor Anastasius i in 494.Footnote 6 In the central Middle Ages, learned thinkers held a range of views on the relationship between the ‘two swords’, and, above all, the question of which of the two was superior. From the mid-eleventh century, and above all during the pontificate of Gregory vii, the ‘reform’ papacy asserted that the secular authority was beholden to the spiritual.Footnote 7 Gregory claimed authority over every type of political unit in Latin Christendom, including kingdoms. At the Lent synod at Rome in 1080, he had it recorded that he and his fellow ecclesiastics had it in their power ‘to take away from and grant to each one according to his merits empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies, marches, counties, and the possessions of all men’.Footnote 8 Henry iv of Germany was unwilling to countenance such ideas. Both Henry and Gregory issued fierce polemics outlining their opposing positions, and in so doing Gregory further gave clearer form to his conception of kingship and its relationship to the spiritual power.Footnote 9 H. E. J. Cowdrey's exhaustive study of Gregory's political thought indicates that he often discussed secular power by making reference to the character of specific rulers, rather than to the institutions over which they ruled. In other words, Gregory was chiefly concerned with the personal relationships that held society together.Footnote 10
Crucially, Gregory believed that Latin Christian kings should fulfil two key criteria; they had to be utilis (‘useful’) and idoneus (‘suitable’). That is, they needed to possess the attributes of utilitas (‘usefulness’) and idoneitas (‘suitability’).Footnote 11 The kings who were utilis were those who faithfully acted in a way that benefitted the papacy and the Church. Gregory referred to this attribute a number of times in his letters.Footnote 12 In his letter of March 1081 to Bishop Herman of Metz, in which he defended his deposition of Henry iv the previous year, Gregory referred to the precedent set when one of his predecessors had deposed a king of Francia. Gregory suggested that the pope in question had taken that action because the king had not been useful (non … utilis) to hold his office.Footnote 13 For Gregory, kings who were idoneus were those who possessed moral rectitude. In another letter written in March 1081, sent to bishops in Germany to advise on the appointment of a new king to rival the deposed Henry iv, Gregory outlined how the concept of idoneitas related to the institution of kingship. In this letter, he set out the attributes which would make Henry iv's putative replacement idoneus to hold the office of king. He asserted that ‘a suitable king [rex … idoneus] should be provided according to God's will to the honour of holy church’, and that unless the candidate ‘be as obedient and as humbly devoted and serviceable to holy Church as beseems a Christian king … without doubt holy church will not only not favour him but will also oppose him’.Footnote 14 It is of particular significance that Gregory originally and more usually referred in his letters to the concept of idoneitas when discussing the ideal attributes of bishops, legates and messengers.Footnote 15 In one sense, then, by transferring this quality from ecclesiastical figures, Gregory conveyed the sense that, like prelates, kings had to serve the Church if they were to be judged worthy of their office. Gregory's letter to the German bishops in March 1081 also indicates that, at this stage in his pontificate, he believed that the attributes of utilitas and idoneitas were connected.Footnote 16 In that letter, he outlined his view that a king had to be idoneus in the eyes of the papacy, and that a king's idoneitas helped to determine his utilitas to the Church. As Cowdrey has put it, for Gregory, idoneitas was the ‘precondition and basis’ of utilitas.Footnote 17
Gregory's twelfth-century successors do not seem to have ascribed great significance to his pontificate.Footnote 18 Nevertheless, the political ideas that he had expressed so forcefully remained influential long after his death in 1085. In his Decretum (c. 1150), the canonist Gratian used the precedent cited by Gregory of a pope deposing an inutilis king. The inclusion of this precedent in the Decretum ensured that it was widely circulated throughout the twelfth century.Footnote 19 I. S. Robinson has suggested that by about 1125 the notion of idoneitas had been widely disseminated. He notes that that a range of twelfth-century authors referred to the concept.Footnote 20 Certainly, idoneitas continued to be a measure by which observers assessed the worth of kings in this era. In his Life of Gregory vii, written more than forty years after the death of its subject, Paul of Bernried outlined the circumstances in which the pope had endorsed the appointment of Duke Rudolf of Swabia as king of Germany in opposition to Henry iv. This author accounted for Gregory's actions by stating that Rudolf had been ‘outstanding for his humility and suitable [idoneum] for the royal honour in age and in morals’.Footnote 21 Similarly, the Monte Cassino chronicler praised Lothar iii of Germany (d.1137), describing him as ‘useful and suitable’ (‘utilem atque idoneum’) to rule the empire.Footnote 22
Furthermore, Gregory's claim that the pope was the ultimate arbiter of Latin Christian kingship was widely acknowledged down to the end of the twelfth century. It was regularly asserted throughout this period that the pope was responsible not only for defining the institution of kingship, but also for determining which individuals merited the status of king. In 1076 one of Gregory's legates installed Demetrius-Zvonimir (d.1089) as king of Croatia and Dalmatia. The latter subsequently described himself as ‘legally provided with the diadem and sceptre of the kingship by the vicar of Peter the keybearer, namely the most blessed Pope Gregory [vii]’.Footnote 23 In the first part of the twelfth century, William of Malmesbury recounted that Alexander ii (1061–73) had conferred a papal banner on William the Conqueror before his invasion of England in 1066. The chronicler described the banner as omen regni, ‘a token of kingship’.Footnote 24 For William of Malmesbury, it was the conferment of this banner – a symbol of papal approbation – that had legitimised William the Conqueror's claims to the English throne. Writing to Eugenius iii shortly after his election in 1143, Bernard of Clairvaux asserted that it was the pope's responsibility ‘to direct princes, to command bishops, to set kingdoms and empires in order’.Footnote 25 Gerald of Wales claimed in his Expugnatio Hibernica (1189) that popes had responsibility through every region of Latin Christendom ‘by reason of their peculiar rights’.Footnote 26 Throughout the twelfth century, then, the papacy was widely regarded as the arbiter of Latin Christian kingship, while Gregory vii's political ideas influenced how the qualities of individual kings were assessed.
The papacy and the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal
The kingdom of Jerusalem was the principal Latin state founded as a result of the First Crusade (1095–9).Footnote 27 Modern historians often date its establishment to 15 July 1099, the day upon which the crusaders captured the Holy City. On 22 July the crusaders appointed one of their leaders, Godfrey of Bouillon, as its ruler. For reasons that will be considered in the third part of this article, Godfrey did not take the title of king of Jerusalem. After Godfrey's death on 18 July 1100, the new polity lacked a secular ruler for about five months until Godfrey was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin. Baldwin had founded the county of Edessa in 1098, but after he was informed of his brother's death, he came to the Holy City in November 1100 to take up the rule of Jerusalem. He compelled the patriarch, Daimbert, to crown him king of Jerusalem in Bethlehem on Christmas Day.Footnote 28 There is no doubt whatsoever that Baldwin regarded himself as a king; in the first years of his reign he issued charters in which he referred to himself with the royal title.Footnote 29 A number of Western observers also regarded Baldwin as king of Jerusalem in this period. One such figure was Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote to Baldwin around spring 1102. Anselm congratulated Baldwin on his appointment to the kingship, and encouraged him ‘to reign not so much for [himself] as for God’.Footnote 30
It seems apparent that from the point that Baldwin was inaugurated king on Christmas Day 1100, Jerusalem's inhabitants regarded the new polity as a kingdom. The evidence that they regarded it as a kingdom before that point, however, is scant and equivocal. The only source from the Latin East dating to the eighteen-month period between Jerusalem's capture and Baldwin's inauguration that contains anything like a reference to Jerusalem as a kingdom is a letter by Daimbert, written in September 1099 (shortly after his appointment as patriarch of Jerusalem), and addressed to the pope and all the faithful in the West. In this letter, the hope is expressed that God would help the crusaders to expand the regnum Christi et ecclesiae (‘Christ's kingdom and Church’).Footnote 31 On balance, this regnum does not seem to be a reference to a newly-created polity based upon the Holy City, but rather, to Latin Christendom as a whole. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the letter also seems to identify the king who ruled this regnum, referring at one point to ‘God who lives and reigns for ever and ever’ (my emphasis).Footnote 32 In the absence of any positive indication that the inhabitants of the Holy City regarded the new polity as a kingdom before Baldwin i's inauguration as king on Christmas Day in 1100, the safest conclusion might be that the ‘kingdom’ of Jerusalem came into existence with that event.Footnote 33
At this point, the focus of this investigation shifts to the attitudes of the papacy on the establishment of the new polity centred upon the Holy City. Participants in the First Crusade were aware that Pope Urban ii (1088–99) had instigated the expedition, and that he had made the capture of Jerusalem one of its central aims. In a letter of 11 September 1098, written while the crusade was in a state of paralysis during the siege of Antioch, the leading crusaders beseeched Urban to come to the East and bring the movement that he had begun to a successful conclusion by leading the expedition to the Holy City.Footnote 34 However, Urban died before he received word that the crusaders had captured Jerusalem. The papacy's early dealings with the nascent state in the East were thus conducted by Urban's successor, Paschal ii (1099–1118).Footnote 35 While the crusade had originated with the papacy, Paschal had no discernible input into the events which transpired on the ground in the Holy City in the eighteen months between its capture and Baldwin i's inauguration on Christmas Day 1100. There is no indication that he ever entertained the prospect, as raised in the crusaders' letter of 1098, of personally going to the East. He thus dealt with the new Latin states established by the crusaders through his correspondence and his representatives. While Paschal's register has not survived, he referred to the new polity based on Jerusalem a number of times in letters that have been preserved. It is therefore possible to examine how his conception of Jerusalem's political status developed over the course of his pontificate.Footnote 36
Paschal referred to the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099 in three letters written in the eighteen-month period between its capture and the inauguration of Baldwin i in December 1100. These documents shed valuable light on his conception of the new polity which the crusaders had founded. It is revealing that not once in these letters did Paschal refer to the new state based on the Holy City or its ruler as possessing royal status. Instead of describing the polity as a regnum, Paschal used a number of terms which left its precise political status vague.Footnote 37 The first extant letter in which Paschal referred to Jerusalem with terminology which indicates that he regarded its ruler as a king dates to 1107.Footnote 38 On 4 December of that year, he sent a letter to ‘King Baldwin’ (‘regi B[alduino]’).Footnote 39 Paschal continued in his letters to greet Baldwin as king after that point.Footnote 40 However, while Paschal recognised Baldwin's status as a king from this time, he never explained why he did so.
While Paschal (from at least 1107) and his two immediate successors, Gelasius ii (1118–19) and Calixtus ii (1119–24), regarded the ruler of Jerusalem as a king, none of them described the polity over which he ruled as a kingdom. For example, in a letter sent by Paschal to Baldwin i in 1111, the pope informed Baldwin that he was writing in relation to the churches ‘in your parts’.Footnote 41 No mention is made of a kingdom in this missive. The closest that Paschal ever came to describing Jerusalem as a kingdom was when he wrote to the patriarch of Jerusalem in 1111 in order to intervene in the organisation of the patriarchate's boundaries. Paschal noted at one point in this letter that ‘the kingdoms of the earth are transformed with the changing times’.Footnote 42 While Paschal's statement may be read on one level as implying that Jerusalem was a kingdom, this seems doubtful given that it was made as part of a more general assertion of the papacy's authority to readjust political arrangements in Latin Christendom. Throughout the early twelfth century, when Paschal, Gelasius and Calixtus communicated with inhabitants of the polity founded in 1099, they generally referred to ecclesiastical organisation in the East rather than secular arrangements. For example, when Calixtus ii wrote to the archbishop of Caesarea on 6 July 1121, he addressed his letter to the prelates ‘throughout the Jerusalem province’ (‘per Jerosolimitanam provinciam’), King Baldwin (ii), the princes and barons, and clergy and people of Jerusalem.Footnote 43 These popes also regularly referred in their letters to the Hierosolymitana Ecclesia: ‘the Jerusalem Church’. A letter of Paschal, dated 19 July 1116, is particularly revealing on this point. The pope addressed this letter to his ‘dear brothers and sons, the suffragan bishops, abbots, priors, clerics, the king, princes and people of the Jerusalem Church’.Footnote 44 The wording of this address clause would seem to suggest that Paschal reckoned Baldwin i to be the ‘king of the Jerusalem Church’.Footnote 45
It was during the pontificate of Honorius ii (1124–30) that the papacy began to refer to Jerusalem as a kingdom. Crucially, when papal recognition of Jerusalem's royal status finally came, it was brought about by political developments in the Holy Land. In 1128 King Baldwin ii sent a delegation to the curia. He had tasked his emissaries with securing Honorius' approval for his plan to marry his daughter, Melisende, to Count Fulk of Anjou, and for the latter to succeed him as king of Jerusalem.Footnote 46 For this to be possible, the pope had first to confirm that Baldwin was a king, and that he ruled over a kingdom. In response to this embassy, and in order to endorse the succession of Fulk, Honorius sent Baldwin the letter Laudes et Gratiarum, dated 29 May 1128. In this letter, the pope confirmed Baldwin as king of Jerusalem, and conceded to him the regnum Jerosolymitanum. Honorius asserted in this letter that he was repeating the same concession that Paschal ii had made to Baldwin i.Footnote 47 However, not only does no document recording such a concession by Paschal survive (if indeed it ever existed) but neither Honorius nor any of his successors ever again confirmed the status of a king of Jerusalem in this way.Footnote 48 Laudes et Gratiarum is therefore of utmost importance. While it does not purport to create the kingdom of Jerusalem de novo – the terms of the letter imply a pre-existing kingdom – it is the first papal document to acknowledge that Jerusalem was indeed a kingdom. The case advanced by Honorius in Laudes et Gratiarum to confirm Baldwin ii in his office and cede to him the kingdom provides the clearest insight into the papacy's case for why Jerusalem and its ruler merited royal status.
A number of considerations must have led the papacy to avoid clarifying Jerusalem's precise political status before 1128. Paschal's initial thinking on the matter may have been influenced by the fact that – as suggested above – Jerusalem's inhabitants themselves do not seem to have regarded it as a kingdom in the eighteen-month period between the capture of the Holy City and Baldwin i's inauguration as king. Paschal's overarching diplomatic strategy may also have led him to demur on Jerusalem's status. During his pontificate, Paschal clashed with Henry v of Germany, and this led the pope in 1112 to explore the possibility of building ties with the Byzantine emperor, Alexius. Since Alexius' relations with the Latin states established as a result of the First Crusade were extremely strained, any attempt by Paschal to recognise Jerusalem's status as a kingdom may well have scuppered his diplomatic efforts with Byzantium.Footnote 49 It may also be the case that these popes prevaricated on the new polity's status out of concern that the Holy City might come to be seen as standing higher than Rome in the Church's ecclesiastical hierarchy.Footnote 50
In contrast to the state founded in Jerusalem in 1099, the papacy had a more decisive role in Sicily's emergence as a Latin Christian kingdom in the twelfth century.Footnote 51 Indeed, the geographical proximity of Rome and Sicily meant that the papacy had the capacity to influence events in Sicily throughout this era.Footnote 52 Since a great deal of modern scholarship has been carried out on Sicily's incorporation into Latin Christendom in the central Middle Ages, only an outline of the key developments need be given here. The establishment of the kingdom of Sicily was the culmination of a long process of conquest and settlement which had begun with the arrival of Norman adventurers in southern Italy around the year 1000.Footnote 53 These Normans established a number of principalities, including that on the island of Sicily and, on the mainland, Calabria and Apulia. In 1059 Pope Nicholas ii (1059–61) invested Robert Guiscard as duke of Apulia and Calabria. After Guiscard's death in 1085, his efforts were taken up by his brother, Roger i, who obtained the office of count of Sicily. It was under Roger i's son, Roger ii, that a kingdom encompassing the island of Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula took shape. After the duke of Apulia died in 1127, Roger ii united the various Norman principalities of southern Italy by force. In 1128 Roger's hegemony in the south was endorsed, with reluctance, by Honorius ii, who invested him as duke of Apulia.Footnote 54
Honorius' death in February 1130 proved to Roger's benefit. The papal election that followed was disputed, and two competing pontiffs, Innocent ii and Anacletus ii, were appointed.Footnote 55 During the ensuing schism, the rival popes sought to win Roger's support. While Innocent eventually overcame Anacletus, and the latter came to be considered an antipope, in the 1130s many regarded Anacletus as the legitimate pope. Roger certainly regarded him as such in the aftermath of the disputed election. In September 1130 Anacletus met with Roger, and on 27 September the former issued a bull creating the kingdom of Sicily, Calabria and Apulia, and investing Roger as its king.Footnote 56 It may be that the prospect of a kingdom of Sicily had not been raised by either party before their meeting in September 1130.Footnote 57 In any event, Roger seized upon Anacletus' grant; on Christmas Day that year he was inaugurated king in Palermo Cathedral. The attendees included Cardinal Comes of St Sabina, a representative of Anacletus.
While modern observers generally date the establishment of the kingdom of Sicily to the issue of Anacletus' bull in 1130, a number of contemporaries – Innocent ii chief among them – refused to acknowledge its terms, and opposed Roger's assumption of the royal style. The acts of the Council of Pisa of June 1135 record that Innocent regarded Roger as a tyrant.Footnote 58 At the Second Lateran Council in April 1139, Innocent excommunicated Roger. Soon after that council, Innocent assembled an army and led it south to face Roger's forces, only to be defeated and taken captive at Galluccio on 22 July. Five days later, having no doubt been coerced by Roger, Innocent issued the bull Quos Dispensatio. Its terms created the kingdom of Sicily and ceded it to Roger as king.Footnote 59 While Quos Dispensatio borrowed a number of ideas from Anacletus' bull of 1130, the terms of the 1139 document convey the sense that Innocent had created the kingdom de novo. It confirmed Roger as king of ‘the kingdom of Sicily, the duchy of Apulia and the principality of Capua’.Footnote 60 The release of Quos Dispensatio made it difficult to challenge Roger's royal status thereafter, though Innocent's successors sometimes attempted to do so.Footnote 61
Portugal's transformation from a tract of Muslim-held al-Andalus at the furthest reaches of Iberia into a Latin Christian kingdom recognised by the papacy was a long and complex process.Footnote 62 The core of the territory that was to become the kingdom of Portugal was captured by King Fernando i of León-Castile in the late eleventh century. Fernando's successor, Alfonso vi, gave the territory as a duchy to his daughter, the Infanta Teresa, and her husband, Count Henry of Burgundy, at the time of their marriage in 1095. In the period following Henry of Burgundy's death in 1112, Teresa ruled Portugal in her own right, without the support of any male relations. Teresa and Henry's son Afonso Henriques was at that time still an infant and so was too young to rule. After 1112 Teresa often styled herself as queen, and this conferred a quasi-royal status upon Portugal. In her charters, she often referred to herself as the daughter of Alfonso vi, signifying that she most probably reckoned her royal status through her father.Footnote 63 None the less, as Stephen Lay has noted, Teresa never clarified the basis upon which she regarded herself a queen. The evidence suggests, however, that she did not need to; her claim to royal status does not appear to have been challenged by the papacy or any other party. Indeed, popes of this period apparently accepted her claim to royal status, often addressing her in correspondence as queen.Footnote 64
Some time after Henry of Burgundy's death, Afonso Henriques began to assert his right to succeed his father as ruler of Portugal, in place of his mother Teresa. In May 1125 his ambition was galvanised when he celebrated his arming ceremony, a moment which signalled an important step in his passage to adulthood. At the battle of Sâo Mamede in July 1128, he defeated his mother and her consort, thereby securing his status as Portugal's ruler. In a charter issued the following year, he claimed authority throughout the whole of Portugal.Footnote 65 For over a decade after his victory at Sâo Mamede, Afonso Henriques styled himself in his charters as infans. On 7 July 1139 he issued a charter under this title for the last time.Footnote 66 In his next extant charter, issued on 10 April 1140, he referred to himself as ‘the excellent King Afonso’, and ‘prince of the whole province of Portugal’.Footnote 67 B. F. Reilly, an authority on medieval Iberia, has suggested that Afonso Henriques's decision to style himself king from this time may have been the result of him realising that his ambition of becoming king of León-Castille was no longer tenable.Footnote 68 The fact that Afonso Henriques referred to the ‘province’ rather than the kingdom of Portugal in this charter suggests that he remained cautious about asserting his royal status too emphatically. It was not until August 1161 that he became sufficiently confident to refer to his lands as regni mei: ‘my kingdom’.Footnote 69
In the period after Afonso Henriques first asserted his royal status in 1140, he was recognised as king by a number of parties with interests in Iberia. At a meeting at Zamora in September 1143, Afonso Henriques and his overlord, Alfonso vii of León-Castile, appear to have acknowledged each other as king and emperor respectively. At that meeting, a charter was drawn up in which Afonso Henriques is described as king of Portugal.Footnote 70 The crusader who took part in Afonso Henriques's assault upon Lisbon in 1147, and who subsequently wrote an account of his experiences, described him as ‘king of the Portuguese’.Footnote 71 The Knights Hospitaller in Portugal also regarded Afonso Henriques as king; in a grant made by the procurator of the Hospital in Portugal on 5 February 1173, he is referred to as ‘lord Afonso, king of Portugal’, and his lands are described as ‘the kingdom of Portugal’.Footnote 72 This is not to suggest that Afonso Henriques's status as king was universally recognised in Iberia; the twelfth-century Galician author of the Historia Compostellana described Afonso Henriques as infans, despite referring at one point to Portugal as a kingdom.Footnote 73
Though Afonso Henriques's royal status was widely acknowledged in Iberia after 1140, he knew that his political ambitions rested firmly upon papal recognition of his claims to kingship. Only that could secure the right for his son and heir to succeed him as king. For almost four decades after his assumption of the royal title, successive popes steadfastly refused to acknowledge him as a king. Popes seem to have harboured the prospect of a single pan-Iberian kingdom, and were also anxious to avoid offending other secular rulers in Iberia.Footnote 74 After 1140 Afonso Henriques sent a number of letters to the curia in which he very deliberately styled himself as king of Portugal. The most notable of these was sent to Innocent ii on 13 December 1143. In this document, written in the aftermath of Alfonso vii of León-Castile's recognition of his royal status at Zamora, Afonso Henriques referred to himself as ‘king of Portugal by the grace of God’, and stated that, in the presence of Cardinal Guido of SS Cosma and Damian, he had done homage and pledged himself and his lands to the pope, declaiming himself to be a ‘miles of St Peter and of the Roman pontiff’.Footnote 75 The letter also records that Afonso Henriques agreed to pay an annual census of four ounces of gold to the curia.Footnote 76 In his reply to this letter Pope Lucius ii (1144–5) confirmed that he had taken Portugal under his protection, but pointedly addressed Afonso Henriques as ‘duke’ (dux).Footnote 77 Lucius’ three successors, Eugenius iii (1145–53), Anastasius iv (1153–4) and Adrian iv (1154–9), also refused to recognise Afonso Henriques as king; letters sent from the curia in the decades after 1140 were invariably addressed to the ‘duke of Portugal’.Footnote 78
Alexander iii (1159–81) took the decision near the end of his pontificate to recognise Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal.Footnote 79 Alexander's election in 1159 was marred by the concurrent election of an antipope, Victor iv, and during the schism that lasted most of his pontificate his access to Rome was severely hampered.Footnote 80 Like most of the other potentates of Europe, Afonso Henriques did not recognise Alexander immediately after his election as pope. It was, however, only a few years before he did so; at some point between March 1162 and August 1163, Afonso Henriques sent Alexander a letter, in which he emphasised his commitment to the papacy, stated that he had conquered land with St Peter's help, and described himself as a miles of St Peter. In this letter, he also described himself as ‘by the grace of God king of the Portuguese’.Footnote 81 Alexander remained unmoved, however, and it was not until the time of the Third Lateran Council (5–19 March 1179) that he finally recognised Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal. Alexander took the decision either at the council or in its immediate aftermath. While it does not seem as though Afonso Henriques was represented at the council by prelates who argued his case to Alexander, Stephen Lay has suggested that the Iberian prelates who attended the council (none of whom was from Portugal) provided first-hand testimony to the curia on how divided the Latin Christian rulers of the peninsula were at this time. This, he asserts, may have helped to persuade Alexander to abandon the papacy's long-held hopes for a politically united Iberia.Footnote 82 As the third part of this essay will show, the financial interests of the papacy also played a role in Alexander's decision to accept Afonso Henriques's status as king.
The papacy's new interpretation of the status of Afonso Henriques is evident in letters despatched from the curia in the aftermath of the council. In a letter sent on 13 April 1179 to the Templars in Portugal, Alexander referred to Afonso Henriques as ‘our most dear son in Christ, the illustrious king of the Portuguese’.Footnote 83 Just over a month later, on 23 May, Alexander issued to Afonso Henriques himself the bull Manifestis Probatum.Footnote 84 The purpose of the document was ostensibly to inform Afonso Henriques that he and his lands had been taken under papal protection. As Alexander put it in the letter, Portugal now belonged to St Peter.Footnote 85 Significantly, in this bull, Alexander described Afonso Henriques as a king, and Portugal as a kingdom. This signalled the end of Afonso Henriques's long campaign to secure papal recognition of his status. As will be demonstrated below, Manifestis Probatum drew extensively on Innocent ii's grant of Quos Dispensatio to Roger ii of Sicily in 1139. While Quos Dispensatio purported to create the kingdom of Sicily de novo, however, Innocent's arguments were reframed by Alexander in Manifestis Probatum to convey the sense that Portugal and its ruler already possessed royal status. (In this respect, Alexander's grant has a parallel in Honorius ii's letter to Baldwin ii of Jerusalem in 1128, Laudes et Gratiarum, whose terms had also inferred that Jerusalem was already a kingdom at the time that the letter was issued.) Nevertheless, the effect of Manifestis Probatum was to confer kingship upon Afonso Henriques. Thus, while the arguments advanced in Manifestis Probatum were in principle intended to explain why the pope had taken Afonso Henriques and Portugal under his protection, in practice they justified Alexander's decision to recognise Afonso Henriques's status as king.
Papal justifications for the royal status of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal
Twelfth-century popes had at their disposal a range of arguments for justifying their decisions to recognise a recently-founded polity as constituting a Latin Christian kingdom. While they used these arguments in three different combinations as regards Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, one idea was expressed in all three cases: the notion that it was the papacy's unique authority that gave popes the right to confer royal status upon a polity. When Honorius ii wrote in respect of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1128, Innocent ii created the kingdom of Sicily in 1139 and Alexander iii took Afonso Henriques and the kingdom of Portugal under his protection in 1179, all three pontiffs asserted that they were acting on the basis of their apostolic authority.Footnote 86 In invoking the unique nature of their power in these three instances, these popes were upholding the papacy's claim to be the arbiter of Latin Christian kingship.
It was demonstrated above that Gregory vii had emphasised the importance of utilitas to kingship. The papacy's decisions to recognise the royal status of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal clearly rested upon the usefulness of those polities, and popes could explicitly refer to this consideration when constructing arguments in order to explain their decisions. To some extent, usefulness meant the ability to render financial support to the curia. This is not entirely surprising, since the papacy was often in dire financial straits in the twelfth century.Footnote 87 In the case of Sicily, financial and political considerations were at stake for both Anacletus ii and Innocent ii. Anacletus and Roger ii recognising each other as pope and king respectively in September 1130 had clear political advantages for both sides. But it also had significant financial benefits for Anacletus; his bull of 1130 records that Roger agreed that he and his heirs would pay Anacletus an annual census of 600 scifati.Footnote 88 This was essentially a subsidy to Anacletus, which he intended to use to maintain himself and his family.Footnote 89 While Innocent would have been mindful of wider political considerations when he issued Quos Dispensatio to Roger ii's benefit in 1139, safeguarding his own wellbeing would surely have been a more immediate concern; as Roger's prisoner, he would have had to have been compliant. None the less, the issue of remuneration to the papacy also formed part of the discussions between Innocent and Roger in 1139. Innocent stipulated in Quos Dispensatio that Roger and his heirs would pay the papacy an annual census of 600 scifati, precisely the same sum that Roger had agreed to pay each year to Anacletus nine years earlier.Footnote 90 As well as attempting to maintain his own wellbeing in 1139, Innocent attempted to act in the papacy's future interests.
The issue of finance was a decisive factor behind Alexander iii's decision to recognise Afonso Henriques as king of Portugal around the time of the Third Lateran Council in March 1179. In the aftermath of a long schism which had sapped his resources, Alexander was in need of funds.Footnote 91 The terms of Manifestis Probatum record that Afonso Henriques and his successors were obliged in future to render an annual census of two gold marks. This quadrupled the annual census of four ounces to which Afonso Henriques had committed in 1143.Footnote 92 Alexander stipulated that this census ‘for the aid of us and our successors’ was to be paid to the archbishop of Braga.Footnote 93 Though it is not recorded in Manifestis Probatum, two letters sent by Innocent iii in 1198 to Afonso Henriques's son and successor, Sancho i (1185–1212), indicate that Afonso Henriques paid Alexander iii a one-off fee of 1,000 gold pieces as part of the agreement in which the pope recognised him as king of Portugal.Footnote 94
That Roger ii and Afonso Henriques and their heirs were obligated to render an annual census to the curia indicates that Innocent ii and Alexander iii had practical as well as ideological concerns in mind when they recognised Sicily and Portugal respectively. In contrast, Honorius ii's letter Laudes et Gratiarum of 1128 does not stipulate that Baldwin ii of Jerusalem or his successors were obligated to send remuneration of any kind to the papal curia.Footnote 95 Nevertheless, the popes of the early twelfth century clearly regarded the establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem as being useful to the papacy and the Church at large, albeit in a less practical way. While Paschal ii only began to address Baldwin i as king in 1107, it is clear that from the moment that the crusaders captured the Holy City in 1099, he regarded the establishment of a Latin polity in Jerusalem as being to the benefit of all Christendom. Jerusalem had been central to Pope Urban ii's plans and recruitment strategy for the First Crusade, and the prospect of visiting the Holy City had stimulated many to respond to his call and join the expedition.Footnote 96 It is also clear that Paschal interpreted the capture of Jerusalem as a critical moment in Christian history. In a letter written a few months after the crusaders seized Jerusalem, he affirmed that God Himself had brought about the expedition's success.Footnote 97 In the same letter, Paschal also demonstrated an awareness that the capture of the Holy City meant that Western pilgrims would have far easier access to the holy sites in and nearby the city, an outcome which would benefit all Latin Christians.Footnote 98 In a subsequent letter, sent to Baldwin i in 1107, Paschal asserted that the establishment of the new state in Jerusalem would mean that its inhabitants could proselytise among the peoples who lived nearby. He asserted that the Latins in Jerusalem had the responsibility to exemplify Christianity to non-Christians, and to demonstrate ‘Latin purity’ to those Christians who did not follow the Latin rite.Footnote 99 Paschal thus believed that the establishment of the new state in Jerusalem was useful to the wider Church in several ways. To the twelfth-century papacy, then, the potential usefulness of a polity was not limited to the ability of its ruler to render financial support to the curia. However, despite the fact that Paschal was clearly aware of the range of benefits that the new state in the East would bring to the Church, the fact that Honorius did not expressly mention Jerusalem's uses in Laudes et Gratiarum suggests that he did not regard this as an essential consideration for justifying its royal status.
Twelfth-century popes were mindful of historical precedent when deliberating whether to recognise new polities as kingdoms, and could invoke this consideration when constructing arguments in favour of doing so. Innocent ii argued that Sicily deserved recognition in the present as a kingdom because it had been a kingdom in the past. In Quos Dispensatio, Innocent related that he had granted to Roger ii the rule of Sicily, which he affirmed ‘has undoubtedly been a kingdom, for it is called this in ancient histories'.Footnote 100 This notion was not confined to the pope; the south Italian chronicler Alexander of Telese (d.1143) also asserted that Roger had not created a new kingdom, but rather had renewed one which had existed in ‘ancient times’ (‘per longum tempus’).Footnote 101 However, neither Innocent nor Alexander of Telese shed any further light on Sicily's former status as a kingdom. This imprecision was necessarily deliberate, since the claim had no historical basis; as Graham Loud has written, the idea that Sicily had formerly been a kingdom was a ‘convenient fiction’.Footnote 102 Nevertheless, Innocent clearly believed that the notion that Sicily had formerly been a kingdom strengthened his argument that it ought to be regarded as one from the time that he issued Quos Dispensatio. But while Innocent asserted in 1139 that Sicily had been a kingdom in ancient times, he very deliberately omitted all mention of the precedent that Anacletus ii had laid down by creating the kingdom of Sicily in 1130. Although Quos Dispensatio clearly drew from Anacletus' bull of 1130, Innocent sought to convey the impression that the kingdom had been created at his own initiative.Footnote 103 Innocent evidently could not acknowledge a precedent set by an antipope. Conversely, for Innocent, a precedent set by a legitimate heir of St Peter could add force to his argument; on this basis, he referred in Quos Dispensatio to the precedent established by Honorius ii's investiture of Roger ii as duke of Apulia in 1128.Footnote 104 The effect of this was to cast himself as the continuator of Honorius' policy toward Roger.
In contrast to the case of Sicily, the popes of the twelfth century possessed an understanding of historical precedent which caused them to act rather differently in respect of Afonso Henriques's efforts to gain papal recognition as king of Portugal. For much of the twelfth century, the papacy appears to have envisaged that Iberia should be governed as a unitary kingdom. Throughout this period, popes believed that a Christian kingdom had earlier existed in Iberia.Footnote 105 Significantly, this notion was not a historical fiction, as it was in the case of Sicily. Until the eighth century, a Visigothic kingdom had spanned Iberia. This interpretation of the past may have led popes to demur for so long with regard to Afonso Henriques's claims to be king of Portugal. It seems that it was only when Alexander iii realised at the time of the Third Lateran Council that the political framework of Iberia was so intractably fragmented that he finally set aside the ambition of resurrecting this pan-Iberian kingdom and began to entertain the prospect of a kingdom of Portugal. This shift in the papacy's aspirations for Iberia might well have helped to pave the way for Alexander iii's release of Manifestis Probatum in 1179. It is, however, noteworthy that the bull did not explicitly mention this consideration. Conversely, when Alexander did decide to recognise Portugal as a kingdom, another historical precedent began to shape his considerations: Innocent ii's grant of Quos Dispensatio to Roger ii of Sicily in 1139. The terms of Manifestis Probatum drew heavily from those in Quos Dispensatio. In 1179, then, Alexander followed the historical precedent laid down by Innocent's dealings with Roger, even if he did not explicitly acknowledge it.Footnote 106
Historical precedent was also an active consideration during the establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem. In this case, however, the issue was relevant not to the papacy, but to those present in the Holy City in the aftermath of its capture. At the time of Godfrey of Bouillon's appointment as ruler of Jerusalem on 22 July 1099, several significant historical precedents were reportedly raised. Godfrey did not take the title of king.Footnote 107 The chronicler Fulcher of Chartres reports that Godfrey avoided being crowned king, and made the connected claim that at the time of his appointment some had disapproved of the prospect of him doing do.Footnote 108 These disapprovers very probably included Raymond of Toulouse, another of the crusade's leaders, who is reported by the chronicler Raymond of Aguilers to have ‘shuddered at the name of king in that city [of Jerusalem]’.Footnote 109 Raymond of Aguilers also states that in advance of Jerusalem's capture, the bishops and clergy present in the crusader army asserted that ‘it would be wrong to elect a king where the Lord suffered and was crowned’.Footnote 110 Albert of Aachen relates that the same theological concern was raised around the time of Baldwin i's inauguration on Christmas Day 1100, adding the further detail that Baldwin quailed at the prospect of wearing a crown of gold in the place where Christ had worn a crown of thorns.Footnote 111 Our sources indicate, then, that on Godfrey's appointment in July 1099 and at Baldwin's accession in December 1100, discussions over appropriate procedure were influenced by the precedent of none other than the King of kings. Raymond of Aguilers makes the further claim that the same prelates who cautioned against the title of king of Jerusalem invoked another historical precedent to buttress their argument that the man appointed to rule the Holy City should not adopt a royal style. According to Raymond, they referred to the career of King David, and warned that anyone who was appointed king in Jerusalem might, like David, lose his faith and accordingly incur God's wrath.Footnote 112 The evidence suggests, then, that the two models of kingship articulated in the Bible – the Old Testament kings of Israel, and the New Testament figure of Christ the King – shaped considerations among the crusaders in the aftermath of the capture of Jerusalem, and created a reluctance to regard the new polity as a kingdom.
It is also of note that several early twelfth-century chroniclers invoked historical precedent to argue in favour of the creation of a king in Jerusalem. Ralph of Caen wrote that Baldwin i was ‘born divinely as one who was to take his seat on David's throne’, while Albert of Aachen justified Godfrey of Bouillon's appointment as ruler of Jerusalem by declaring that he perceived in that man ‘the spirit and gentleness of Moses’.Footnote 113 Historical precedent thus shaped how chroniclers interpreted the establishment of Jerusalem in the years after 1099.
It is striking, however, that when discussing the establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem and communicating with its rulers, no pope of this era made any reference whatsoever to historical precedent established by earlier kings in Jerusalem, whether that be to an Old Testament king of Israel such as David, or to the New Testament King of kings, Christ himself.Footnote 114 Honorius did invoke one precedent in Laudes et Gratiarum, however: Paschal ii's supposed concession of the kingdom of Jerusalem to Baldwin i.Footnote 115 No evidence for such a grant by Paschal has survived, if it ever existed. None the less, Honorius clearly felt that referring to the political decision of his predecessor strengthened his own case for conceding the kingdom to Baldwin ii in 1128. While the experiences of Sicily and Jerusalem indicate that popes regarded historical precedent as an important element in an argument for recognising the royal status of a polity (even if a number of significant precedents were overlooked in the case of Jerusalem), the fact that Alexander iii did not make explicit reference to the past in Manifestis Probatum as part of his case for recognising Portugal as a kingdom suggests that it was not an essential component.
A study of the arguments formulated by the papacy in favour of recognising Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal as kingdoms reveals that these popes concentrated a greater proportion of their discussions on the character and ability of the would-be kings. These personality-driven arguments bore the hallmark of Gregory vii's approach to political discussion.Footnote 116 A line of reasoning pursued in the case of Sicily was that it was proper to promote a ruler who merited royal status. Hence, in his bull of 1130 Anacletus informed Roger ii that it was ‘proper [then] to raise up your person and those of your heirs and to adorn them with permanent titles of grace and honour’.Footnote 117 Innocent, almost certainly borrowing the idea from Anacletus, asserted in Quos Dispensatio that one reason that he had raised Roger up to a king was that it was ‘right and proper … [to] promote [those who merit it] from high rank to even higher position’.Footnote 118
As well as making an argument based on the propriety of promoting a deserving ruler to the position of king, popes could also assert that there was incontrovertible evidence that such a promotion was merited. Innocent ii affirmed in Quos Dispensatio that it had ‘indeed been proven by clear evidence’ (‘Manifestis siquidem probatum est argumentis’) that Roger ii's ancestor Robert Guiscard had acted in the Church's interest.Footnote 119 This formed part of Innocent's rationale for why Roger merited recognition as king in 1139. This phrase was copied almost verbatim into Alexander iii's 1179 bull recognising the kingdom of Portugal. In this document, the pope asserted that Afonso Henriques's achievements had been ‘proven by clear evidence’ (‘Manifestis comprobatum est argumentis’), and it is this phrase that provides the title by which the letter is now known.Footnote 120 Elsewhere in Manifestis Probatum, Alexander stated that he had recognised (‘nos attendentes’) Afonso Henriques's qualities and personal attributes. The effect of this was to further convey the sense that the pope had passed judgement on Afonso Henriques's claims to kingship, and had not found him wanting.Footnote 121
The popes of this period also justified their decisions to recognise all three kingdoms by referring to the dynastic pedigree of the prospective king. When confirming Baldwin ii as king in Laudes et Gratiarum, Honorius ii very pointedly referred to the king's predecessors, ‘the glorious men, Duke Godfrey and King Baldwin [i]’, before briefly mentioning the role that those men had played in establishing the kingdom.Footnote 122 It is also apposite to note in this connection that Honorius commended Fulk of Anjou to be Baldwin ii's successor as king of Jerusalem.Footnote 123 In the case of Sicily, Roger ii's lineage was a significant consideration to both Anacletus ii and Innocent ii. In his bull of 1130 Anacletus recounted that Roger ii's father and mother had both been loyal servants of the Church, implying that this quality been inherited by their son.Footnote 124 Innocent devoted a significant portion of Quos Dispensatio to discussing the character and achievements of Roger ii's forebears. He referred to Robert Guiscard as ‘that valiant and faithful knight of St Peter of distinguished memory’, before describing Roger i as a man who had battled the enemies of the faith and who was ‘an example of probity that should be imitated’.Footnote 125 In contrast, Alexander iii made no reference in Manifestis Probatum to Afonso Henriques's ancestors. Instead, Alexander concentrated his arguments on Afonso Henriques's own accomplishments.
The popes of this era also accounted for their recognition of all three polities by suggesting that their kings had experienced divine assistance, or that they were worthy of experiencing it in the future. Honorius ii opened Laudes et Gratiarum with the assertion that God Himself had by providential ordination appointed Baldwin ii king of Jerusalem.Footnote 126 Honorius also referred to the ‘celestial victories’ (‘de coelo victoria’) that Baldwin had enjoyed in battle.Footnote 127 In his bull of 1130, Anacletus addressed Roger as a ruler ‘whom divine providence has granted greater wisdom and power than the rest of the Italian princes’.Footnote 128 Similarly, in Quos Dispensatio, Innocent ii described Roger ii as ‘chosen from on high by the dispensation of Divine counsel’.Footnote 129 In Manifestis Probatum, Alexander iii expressed his hope that Afonso Henriques would enjoy the benefit of heavenly assistance (‘auxilio coelestis gratiae’) during his efforts to expand the kingdom of Portugal after 1179.Footnote 130
As part of their justifications for recognising the royal status of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, twelfth-century popes devoted particular attention to emphasising the piety of their kings. This quality could be outlined through reference to the king himself or his forebears. In Laudes et Gratiarum Honorius ii praised Baldwin ii for having placed his hope and faith in God, and for humbly serving Him.Footnote 131 The pope also asserted that Baldwin had fought ‘for the name of Christ’ (‘pro Christi nomine’).Footnote 132 Honorius then affirmed that he had been informed by Baldwin's representatives that the king was ‘both a cultivator of justice and a lover of religion’.Footnote 133 A similar theme is present in both documents relating to the creation of the kingdom of Sicily. Anacletus ii asserted in 1130 that Roger ii had ‘tried splendidly to honour our predecessors and to serve them generously’.Footnote 134 In Quos Dispensatio Innocent ii stated that one reason for Honorius ii recognising Roger ii as duke of Apulia in 1128 was because he had known that Roger's forebears were renowned for their piety.Footnote 135 Innocent deliberately cast himself as following in Honorius' footsteps in promoting Roger, and this can be interpreted as Innocent endorsing his predecessor's assessment of the piety of Roger and his ancestors. As part of his justification for why Afonso Henriques merited recognition, Alexander iii in Manifestis Probatum declaimed that the king of Portugal had proved himself to be ‘a diligent supporter of the Christian faith’.Footnote 136
An argument related to the piety of the kings of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal was their ability to defend Christendom by strength of arms. Honorius ii noted in Laudes et Gratiarum in 1128 how Baldwin ii had endured injury and incarceration at the hands of ‘the pagans’ (‘paganorum’).Footnote 137 The pope also praised Baldwin for carrying out ‘warlike endeavours’ (‘sudores bellicos’) in the name of the Church.Footnote 138 It is noteworthy that in order to commend Fulk of Anjou to Baldwin, Honorius made reference to Fulk's military abilities, describing him as ‘a certain strong and wise man (‘strenuum quidem et sapientem virum’).Footnote 139 In Honorius' eyes, then, Baldwin's proposed successor possessed the military attributes that were required to be king of Jerusalem. As regards Sicily, Innocent ii invoked the quality of acting in defence of the faith through Roger ii's forebears. In Quos Dispensatio Innocent attributed military valour to Roger i, with the apparent intention of reflecting that quality onto Roger ii. The pope affirmed that Roger i ‘was through warlike endeavours and pitched battles an undaunted adversary of the enemies of the Christian name’.Footnote 140 In addition to this, Innocent related that Robert Guiscard had ‘fought manfully against the mighty and powerful enemies of the Church’.Footnote 141 Significantly, Alexander iii used Innocent ii's praise for Roger i to laud Afonso Henriques in Manifestis Probatum. Addressing the king of Portugal directly, the pope stated that ‘through warlike endeavours and strenuous effort you have been an undaunted adversary of the enemies of the Christian name’.Footnote 142
These popes could emphasise the ability of the king not only to defend Christendom, but also to conquer more territory in Christ's name. Hence, in Laudes et Gratiarum Honorius ii referred to the many distinguished victories which Baldwin ii had ‘manfully gained through many strenuous efforts’ (‘per plurimas fatigationes viriliter acquisisti’).Footnote 143 Alexander iii very deliberately included in Manifestis Probatum a clause which extended papal protection to whatever land Afonso Henriques was able in future to conquer from Muslims, with the stipulation that this protection did not encompass territory to which another Christian lord had claim.Footnote 144 This passage signifies that Alexander anticipated that Afonso Henriques would be successful in enlarging the kingdom of Portugal.
The foregoing analysis of papal arguments based on the personalities of the kings of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal has shown that the popes of this era made their cases on the basis of qualities including dynastic pedigree, personal piety and the ability to defend Christendom by strength of arms. In ascribing these qualities to kings, the popes might be said to have been outlining in general terms their utilitas and idoneitas, and thus their compliance with the model of Latin Christian kingship articulated by Gregory vii. Significantly, twelfth-century popes also invoked these concepts more directly when building their arguments around the figures of these kings.
The establishment of a new kingdom had the potential to secure a range of benefits to the papacy and the Church, including financial assistance as well as less tangible advantages. A study of the evidence indicates that it was chiefly through the character of the incipient king that the popes of this era articulated the utilitas of a new kingdom. An element of such a consideration can be discerned in Honorius ii's 1128 letter Laudes et Gratiarum to Baldwin ii. In this document, the pope affirmed that ‘we, who sit in the cathedral of the Blessed Peter’ esteemed Baldwin as a man who had love for God.Footnote 145 While this phrasing does not amount to an explicit affirmation of Baldwin ii's usefulness to the papacy, it does appear as though Honorius invoked the authority of the papal office with the intention of buttressing his case for why Baldwin merited the status of king.
The consideration of utilitas is most prevalent in the arguments constructed in favour of the recognition of Sicily. In his bull of 1130, Anacletus affirmed how Roger ii's forebear Robert Guiscard had ‘zealously served the Church in many ways’, no doubt intending to convey the sense that this was a quality that the new king of Sicily shared.Footnote 146 Crucially, the putative usefulness of Roger and his kingdom is the dominant theme of Innocent ii's 1139 bull Quos Dispensatio. Apparently following Anacletus, Innocent made reference to the usefulness of Roger's forebears. Describing Roger i, Innocent noted that ‘as a good and devoted son he rendered service in many ways to his mother, the holy Roman Church’.Footnote 147 Addressing Roger ii directly, Innocent related that he had placed ‘hope and trust in you, as a person who will be valuable and useful [decorum et utilitatem] to the holy Church of God’.Footnote 148 Innocent included in the bull a lengthy passage detailing the reasons why Roger should act in the interests of the papacy and the Church at large:
Dearest son, it is of importance that you show yourself devoted and humble for the honour and service of the holy Roman Church, your mother, and thus behave for its advantage and your own, so that the Apostolic See may rejoice in so devoted and glorious a son, and may be at peace in his love.Footnote 149
The pope also stated that he had invested Roger with authority over Sicily so ‘that [he] may devote [himself] more keenly to the love and service of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of us and our successors’.Footnote 150 While passages such as these imply that Innocent's relations with Roger were cordial, the terms of Quos Dispensatio nevertheless betray the circumstances in which it was issued. The document illustrates the pope's awareness that the new king might prove to be inutilis to him and the Church. Innocent insisted that the agreement was contingent upon Roger and his heirs doing ‘liege homage and swear[ing] fealty’ to the pope.Footnote 151 Moreover, Innocent stipulated in the bull that when Roger and his heirs did homage, it would have to be ‘at a suitable time and a place that is safe and not suspicious’.Footnote 152 It is unsurprising that Innocent devoted so much of Quos Dispensatio to outlining what he expected of Roger and his heirs. The pope knew that he and his successors would have close dealings with the king of Sicily in the years that followed. The document must therefore be read as Innocent expressing the hope, as opposed to the firm conviction, that Roger would prove to be utilis to the Church.
In Manifestis Probatum Alexander iii outlined Afonso Henriques's intended utilitas to the Church using a number of passages culled from Quos Dispensatio. Alexander transferred Innocent ii's description of Roger i to Afonso Henriques, affirming to the king of Portugal that ‘like a good son and Catholic prince you have rendered service in many ways to your mother, the Holy Church’.Footnote 153 Then, drawing upon Innocent's description of Robert Guiscard, Alexander confirmed that Afonso Henriques had established for ‘posterity a praiseworthy name and an example to imitate’.Footnote 154 Moreover, in order to instruct Afonso Henriques in his duty as king, Alexander replicated in Manifestis Probatum the passage from Quos Dispensatio in which Innocent had outlined why he expected Roger ii to act in the interests of the papacy and the Church.Footnote 155 Borrowing yet another phrase from Quos Dispensatio, Alexander informed Afonso Henriques that he had taken him and his heirs under papal protection, in order ‘that you may devote yourself more keenly to Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and to the holy Roman Church’.Footnote 156
The notion of the king's idoneitas featured in the papal arguments in favour of Sicily and Portugal. In Quos Dispensatio, Innocent ii noted that Honorius ii had believed that Roger ii was ‘endowed with prudence, strengthened by justice and suitable [ydoneum] to rule the people’.Footnote 157 The concept of idoneitas also featured in Alexander iii's argument for recognising the kingdom of Portugal. Drawing again from Quos Dispensatio, Alexander asserted in Manifestis Probatum that he himself had perceived that Afonso Henriques was ‘endowed with prudence, a guardian of justice and suitable [idoneam] to rule the people’.Footnote 158 While Honorius ii did not explicitly describe Baldwin ii or any of his predecessors as idoneus in Laudes et Gratiarum, there are nevertheless some indications that the notion of idoneitas shaped twelfth-century conceptions of Jerusalem's ruling dynasty more generally.Footnote 159
This article has investigated the twelfth-century papacy's responses to the establishment of the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, and compared the arguments constructed by popes for recognising their royal status. Certain similarities and differences have emerged between the three cases. Innocent ii purported explicitly to ‘create’ the kingdom of Sicily in 1139. On the other hand, Honorius ii in 1128 and Alexander iii in 1179 implied that Jerusalem and Portugal respectively were already kingdoms. Alexander studiously omitted any mention of his and his predecessors' descriptions of Afonso Henriques as ‘duke’ of Portugal between 1140 and 1179 as part of the agreement which saw the pope recognise the ‘duke’ as king. Several factors probably account for why Honorius implied that Jerusalem was already a kingdom in 1128. These must have included the unique spiritual significance of the Holy City, and the more practical consideration that Baldwin i and Baldwin ii of Jerusalem do not seem to have formally sought recognition from the papacy in the way that the rulers of Sicily and Portugal did.
Of the three cases considered here, the papacy's arguments for the recognition of Sicily (in 1139) and Portugal (in 1179) as kingdoms resemble each other most closely. This can be explained by the fact that in 1179 Alexander iii made extensive use of Innocent ii's 1139 bull Quos Dispensatio. None the less, it has been demonstrated that Honorius ii accounted for Jerusalem's royal status in 1128 using a number of the same arguments that were active in the former two cases. These popes deployed a number of recurrent and overlapping intellectual strategies when endorsing the royal status of all three polities. The interests of the papacy and the Church were clearly important. The usefulness of the incipient kingdom – whether through financial assistance or more abstract benefits, as was the case as regards Jerusalem – could shape both the decisions of popes to recognise kingdoms, as well as the arguments that they put forward to explain those decisions. These popes could make arguments which might be described as appeals to reason, either through asserting the propriety of promoting a ruler to the level of king, or through conveying the sense that there was a need to reward a ruler who had provided clear evidence that he merited promotion. Historical precedent (genuine or otherwise) could also form part of an argument in favour of granting recognition of claims to kingship.
Perhaps the most striking insight uncovered by this investigation is the extent to which the popes of this era justified the royal status of these new polities by making reference to the character and ability of their kings. Gregory vii's twelfth-century successors continued to take a personality-focused approach to political discussion on kingship. Like Gregory, these popes evidently held that their ideals of kingship were better articulated by outlining the qualities and characteristics of the ruler rather than by discussing the polity itself. In constructing their arguments around the kings of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, the popes of the twelfth century advanced a coherent and consistent model of kingship to which they expected rulers at the frontier of Latin Christendom to conform. For these popes, a king needed to have a noble and pious dynastic pedigree. The king himself needed to be a pious warrior; a ruler who was personally devout, and who was able through strength of arms and ‘warlike endeavours’ to defend the Church and conquer new territory in Christ's name. Like Gregory, these popes expected the king to exemplify the qualities of idoneitas to rule and utilitas to the papacy and to the wider Church. In short, a king who ruled at the frontier of Latin Christendom had to be worthy of both the ecclesiastical and the secular swords. This image of kingship, in which spiritual and martial qualities were fused, keenly reflected the belligerent spirituality which underpinned the expansion of Christendom in the central Middle Ages.
As well as identifying the intellectual strategies used by twelfth-century popes to account for the royal status of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, the findings of this article are also relevant to discussions of how the papacy as an institution responded to the establishment of those new polities. In other words, these findings illuminate not only the rhetoric used to justify the papacy's decisions, but also the underlying political reality. While the papacy dealt with Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal in different ways, an overarching pattern does emerge in how popes responded to the establishment of these three polities. In all three cases, the popes in question prevaricated on the exact political status of those polities until their hand was forced, by developments largely beyond their control, to acknowledge that they constituted kingdoms. Honorius ii's need in 1128 to ensure the ongoing stability of the dynasty that was responsible for defending the Holy City on behalf of Latin Christendom, Innocent ii's forced concession to Roger ii in 1139 (after having spent nearly a decade refusing to accept the antipope Anacletus ii's grant of 1130), and Alexander iii's need in 1179 to respond to political divisions in Iberia and to replenish the curia's coffers with funds promised by Afonso Henriques, all convey the sense of an institution that preferred to maintain, as far as it could, the status quo as regards the political status of the new territories incorporated into Latin Christendom at this time. This study of the papacy's dealings with these polities has built a picture of an institution that, instead of revelling in and seizing upon the expanding frontier of Christendom, responded cautiously to it. In short, the popes of the twelfth century acted responsively to Christendom's outwardly expanding frontier. Indeed, in the case of Sicily, Innocent ii was forced to act in a way that he – rightly – suspected would not be in the papacy's interests. Although the twelfth-century papacy actively encouraged military activity aimed at pushing the frontier of Latin Christendom outward, then, the findings offered here suggest that popes were hesitant to recognise that new territory incorporated into Christendom constituted a kingdom. When popes did finally confer recognition on these kingdoms, they couched their arguments in terms that implied that the decisions had been theirs all along.
While the popes of this era had to respond to external and contingent developments in their dealings with Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, however, it would have ill-befitted the authority of their office to acknowledge as much when it came to explaining their actions. It was for this reason that, when they crafted their arguments, they turned to the past. This essay has highlighted the importance of the political ideas advanced by Gregory vii to the papal arguments constructed in favour of recognising Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal. It has also shown how popes invoked historical precedent, both disingenuously (as in Innocent ii's claim that Sicily had formerly been a kingdom) and with sincerity (as in the same pope's invocation of Honorius' appointment of Roger ii as duke of Apulia in 1128). This was no empty rhetoric. The popes of the twelfth century did make considerable recourse to the past, and above all, to the political decisions of their predecessors. Alexander iii's extensive – and unacknowledged – use of Innocent ii's 1139 bull Quos Dispensatio in order to compose Manifestis Probatum represents the clearest example of this. The sequence of events seems to have been this: having decided to accept Afonso Henriques's claims to be king of Portugal, Alexander sought out his predecessor's bull, and concluded that the arguments that Innocent had put forward in relation to the creation of Sicily 1139 were just as relevant in the case of Portugal in 1179.
To obscure the fact that they had taken decisions that were not entirely of their making, and that had involved accommodating the needs and ambitions of secular rulers, these popes took solace in previous instances in which their predecessors had intervened, as Bernard of Clairvaux put it, ‘to set kingdoms in order’.Footnote 160 This helped them to uphold the idea that the papacy was – and had long been – the ultimate arbiter of kingship in Latin Christendom. Gregory vii had articulated this idea in the late eleventh century, but he had attempted to turn theory into practice through his efforts to intervene in secular affairs throughout Christendom. This essay has suggested that Gregory's twelfth-century successors were more cautious in their dealings with secular rulers at Christendom's frontier, but that they retained the rhetoric that he had espoused. While Gregory might have appreciated the intellectual content of the arguments created by twelfth-century popes to justify the royal status of Jerusalem, Sicily and Portugal, he would surely have been troubled by the fact that the initiative for their emergence as kingdoms mainly came not from the popes but from their secular rulers. Gregory's hopes that the papacy would set the political agenda in Latin Christendom were not realised in the twelfth century.
