PeaceDocs | Bibliography | Papal Peacemaking
CHAPTER 8: The Papacy As Peacemaker 1100-1500.
Arbitration, Canon Law, and the Rights of Conscience
Papal Diplomacy and Arbitration
575. Archivum Historiae Pontificae.
There is no general history of papal diplomacy in English. For specific studies see the yearly bibliographies in this journal devoted to the papacy and all aspects of its life.
576. Bainton, Roland. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace. Knoxville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1960.
Pages 116-17 discuss medieval Catholic attempts to settle war by arbitration. While the discussion is largely based on Novacovitch (601), Bainton interprets his source to conclude that the medieval church’s record on arbitration was poor. He does not cite Novacovitch’s ample documentation for this, and omits all papal arbitrations before the Hundred Years War, and most during it.
577. Barraclough, Geoffrey. The Medieval Papacy. New York: W.W. Norton, 1979.
A popular introduction to general papal history. Includes discussion of the diplomatic activity of Gregory I and Benedict XII.
578. Barry, Colman J., O.S.B. Readings in Church History. Vol. 1, From Pentecost to the Protestant Revolt. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1966.
Pages 621-25 present the text of the papal bull Inter caetera and of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which settled the dispute between Spain and Portugal over the extent of their colonial empires and helped set a precedent for arbitration in the early modern period.
579. Beales, Arthur C.F. The Catholic Church and International Order. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1941.
Where Bainton (576), from a Protestant point of view, attempts to downplay the peacemaking role of the medieval church hierarchy, Beales uses the same raw material, the evidence provided by Novacovitch (601), to paint a far more positive picture. Beales’ main concern is with the twentieth century, but he does include material from the Middle Ages. Pages 28 to 35 deal with papal arbitrations, and he sees the number of these in the period from 1150 to 1450 as “enormous,” with 100 cases in Italy alone.
580. Blet, P. “La répresentation pontificale de Gregoire I à Gregoire XIII,” Divinitas 19 (1975): 335-52.
Not seen.
581. Chaplais, P. “Le règlement des conflits internationaux franco-anglais au xive siècle.” Le Moyen Age 57 (1951): 269-302.
Not seen.
582. Duval, Frederic Victor. De la paix de Dieu a la paix de fer. Paris: Paillard, 1923, 64-98 et. passim.
Contains excellent material on papal peacemaking through moral persuasion, the development of concepts of international law, the Peace and Truce of God, Third Orders, the just-war theory, and arbitration and other diplomatic work. Duval’s scope is the entire Middle Ages and Renaissance. His discussion of papal diplomacy begins in detail with Nicholas I, but it concentrates on the period from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. His approach is chronological, detailing the arbitrations, treaties, bulls, diplomatic and personal correspondence, interdicts and excommunications and other means used by individual popes to curb war. At least two dozen popes are discussed, concluding with Alexander VI (1492-1503). At times Duval tends to grasp at straws, equating genuine, and disinterested, papal attempts to settle international disputes with their political alliances with the Italian city-states and European monarchies. Duval is also led to explain papal plans in preparing crusades against the Turks as acts of peacemaking.
583. Fernessole, Pierre. La papauté et la paix du monde de Gregoire XVI à Pie XI. Paris, Beauchesne, 1948.
This is a survey from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Fernessole notes that Catholic peace is only indirectly the product of justice. Ultimately it is the work of charity. Pages 7-50 review the diplomatic activities of the medieval papacy.
584. Fliche, A. “Le rôle international de la papauté au Moyen Age,” Bulletin du comité internationale des sciences historiques 1 (1928): 584-97.
Not seen.
585. Fowler, Linda. “Forms of Arbitration.” See 617, 133-47.
On the mechanisms and nature of arbitration in medieval society, with some attention to papal efforts.
586. Ganshof, F.L. The Middle Ages. Remy I. Hall, trans. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. From his Histoire des relations internationales I: Le Moyen Age. Paris: Hachette, 1953.
Though similar to Duval’s (582), Ganshof’s emphasis is the general history of diplomacy, not that of Christian peacemaking per se. In many ways this makes Ganshof’s work less apologetic and more selective, but his treatment less unified. There is still a large storehouse of information on papal peacemaking here, but one must assemble it from the comprehensive, and chronological, treatment of the material. Papal diplomatic work begins in earnest with Gregory I (590-604) in his attempts to bring peace among contending barbarian peoples and to keep them from devouring the papal protectorate around Rome. With the creation of the Papal State by the Carolingians, the papacy bolstered its moral calls for peace with a physical base and the beginnings of a diplomatic apparatus. From the eight century popes are actively negotiating treaties of peace and alliance, a role eclipsed in the ninth and tenth centuries by internal Roman disputes, but fully resumed during the Investiture Conflict.
In the high Middle Ages the pope became the arbiter par excellence, using a variety of means already in place for its own administrative needs to international disputes. These included papal legates, bulls and other diplomatic letters, legal appeal to Rome’s powers of arbitration and final decision, the summoning of councils, the codification and dissemination of canon law as an international standard, and the foundation of the new monastic and mendicant orders, which often acted as an international corps of papal agents. From the time of Innocent II, the papacy’s role as the supreme judge with unmatched spiritual, and considerable temporal, powers made it the arbiter of choice or of necessity among European rulers.
With the removal of the papacy to Avignon, however, and the diminution of papal prestige in the fourteenth century came a new emphasis on real diplomacy, with the papacy acting very often as a disinterested third party, a truly honest broker. Ganshof details the institutions and methods of papal diplomacy during the late Middle Ages, it legates and nuncios, its peace conferences and diplomatic missions, and its role in developing such modern practices as diplomatic immunity and permanent missions. By the fifteenth century, however, the rise of the nation-states pushed the papacy from the center of active arbitration. Rulers now insisted that the popes carry on diplomacy only as private persons with no overriding authority to compel. By 1450 the papacy’s modern role in international affairs was largely set.
587. Gaudemet, Jean. “Le rôle de la papauté dans le réglement des conflits entre états aux xiiie et xive siècles.” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 79-106; reprinted in his La société ecclésiastique dans l’occident médiéval. London: Variorum Reprints, 1980, 79-106.
This is an important article, dense with useful information. Surveys the period from the Investiture Conflict, but concentrates on the important era of the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453). Papal diplomacy had three purposes: the humanitarian, to allay and avoid the horrors of war; the evangelical, to spread the peace of the Gospels; and the practical, to forge a Christian unity to reduce the threat of external aggression or to preach and launch crusades. On the whole, papal diplomacy changed in effectiveness and forms from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. These forms ranged from outright intervention, to exercise of the pope’s good offices, mediation, arbitration, and judgments, all ultimately sanctioned by the papal powers of interdict and excommunication. In the earlier period, that of the monarchical papacy of Innocent II and his successors, the papacy was able to intervene forcefully into the affairs of princes, claiming its place as the supreme judge of all Christendom, imposing settlements or arbitrations in conflicts, often through papal legates acting with full papal powers.
The reign of Boniface VIII and of the succeeding Avignon Papacy (1305-1378) marked a drastic shift. The rising power of the new nation-states and the decline of papal prestige through its overuse of spiritual sanctions for secular ends brought princes to regard the papacy with suspicion and to insist that it carry on diplomacy as a private person with no powers of compulsion. Yet during the Avignon period papal diplomacy reached new levels of sophistication precisely because of these new restrictions. Diplomacy was now carried out through a wide variety of personnel: curial officials, chaplains, apostolic notaries, penitentiaries, and, sometimes, high ranking clergy. Gives dozens of examples of papal efforts at peacemaking, treaties, arbitrations, and diplomatic missions and negotiations, arranged by papal reign. Offers a good review of scholarship up to 1961.
588. Giocchi, Orio. “L’opera di pace del pontificato romano nel Trecento.” In La pace nel pensiero, nella politica, negli ideali del Trecento. Convegni del Centro di Studi sulla Spiritualità medievale 15. Todi, 1975, 69-89.
Surveys the theory underlying the papacy’s activities as arbiter in the fourteenth century. This theory was quite different from that of Pius XII, Benedict XV, Paul VI, and other modern popes, since medieval popes based their notions of peacemaking on the Gelasian theory of the two swords, which stated that the spiritual sphere, or sword, was superior to the temporal, and that the papacy had a jurisdictional authority over all secular states as members of Christendom. Thus papal efforts at peacemaking were actually those of a supreme judge who could impose settlements.
This is the theory presented in works by Egidio Romano, Giacomo di Viterbo, Agostino Trionfo, and Alvaro Pelajo on behalf of papal claims. Marsiglio of Padua, on the other hand, followed the Aristotelian notion of the natural autonomy of human society and declared that the secular authority was supreme in it.
Giocchi concludes by contrasting the high-flown claims of fourteenth-century papal theory with its rather unsuccessful attempts at imposing peace settlements.
589. Gruber, John. “Peace Negotiations of the Avignonese Popes,” Catholic Historical Review 19 (1933-34): 190-99.
On the whole the partiality and ineffectiveness of the Avignon popes in bringing peace to Christendom have been exaggerated. Analyzes the diplomatic activity of each of the Avignon popes: Clement V Benedict XII, Clement VI, Innocent VI, Urban V, and Gregory XI, who all tried to bring an end to the Hundred Years War. Papal efforts had three purposes: to alleviate the suffering of Europe’s peasants, who were the chief victims of the war, to protect the property of the church and the unarmed, and to organize Christian resistance to the Turks. Gruber concludes that all through the Avignon papacy, “the Crusades were still at the heart of papal politics.”
590. Hallenbeck, Jan T. “Instances of Peace in Eighth-Century Lombard-Papal Relations.” Archivum Historiae Pontificae 18 (1980): 41-56.
A general survey of these relations. Concludes that, even in this dark age, the relations between papacy and barbarians were “at once more pacific and less hostile than is commonly supposed.”
591. Hill, David J. A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe. 3 vols. New York: Longman, 1905-1914.
Volume one treats the period from the fall of Rome to Boniface VIII, volume two the fourteenth century to 1648, volume three to the modern period. Hill believes that the papacy acted largely out of self-interest and through cynical pronouncements of Christian goals. During the Hundred Years War it secretly served the interests of the French against the English, or generally of any “papist” party. Even such a pacifist pope as Benedict XII acted out of cynical motives of papal supremacy when he avoided all alliances with secular princes. His work for peace was actually an attempt to paralyze the initiatives of princes in the name of papal interests. John XXII’s calls for a crusade to bring peace among warring princes was no more that a cynical ploy. Out of date, decidedly slanted toward the nation-state, especially the Anglo-Saxon variety, generally anti-papal, and subtly anti-Catholic.
592. Jenkins, Helen. “Papal Efforts for Peace Under Benedict XII, 1334-1342.” Ph.D. dissertation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1933.
This is a detailed analytic study of an individual’s work for peace. Introduces the personality of this pope, the former inquisitor and staunch opponent of heresy, Jacques Fournier. This rigid, honest monk had been an abbot and bishop, an authoritarian man devoted to justice, not especially suited to diplomacy and its compromises. While Benedict was no absolute pacifist — he favored war against heretics and infidels when necessary — peace among Christians was an absolute moral imperative, both for its own sake and as an example to non-Christians.
Jenkins emphasizes that Benedict retained his authoritarian rigidity even when dealing with princes. He disdained secular mediation and insisted on papal arbitration. Nevertheless, his reign was devoted to preventing, and then to ending, the Hundred Years War. His methods ranged from the promise of a crusade to unite the West, threats of excommunication and interdict, and the granting of dispensations. But the most frequent tool was his use of papal legates and nuncios, letters, and the influence of local clergy.
Benedict’s policies were seldom successful. The reasons ranged from the belligerence and suspicions of the warring parties and his insistence that war could be used against heretics and infidels, which was exploited by secular princes to undermine his entire anti-war message. Benedict was also naive as to what made for lasting peace. Nevertheless, this study details the pope’s continuing efforts to bring about a settlement of the war between England and France and his many arbitrations elsewhere in Western Europe.
593. Kyer, Clifford Ian. “Legatus and nuntius As Used to Denote Papal Envoys: 1245-1378,” Mediaeval Studies 40 (1978): 473-77.
The shift from the papacy’s use of legates with full powers to bind and loose to nuncios with limited missions and authority was a result of the new powers of the princes and their emerging nation-states. The papacy could also control nuncios far more effectively, and could use them to collect revenues. A useful, if limited, study. Kyer also lists all papal legates dispatched between 1243 and 1378 on peace and other diplomatic missions.
594. —. “The Papal Legate and the “Solemn” Papal Nuncio, 1243-1378: The Changing Pattern of Papal Representation.” Ph.D. dissertation. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1979.
A more comprehensive and detailed treatment of the materials outlined in 593.
595. Lange, M. “Benoît XII, Pape Conciliateur.” Ph.D. thesis. Paris: La Sorbonne, 1955.
Not seen.
596. Mattingly, Garrett. Renaissance Diplomacy. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1964.
This is the classic work in English on the origins of modern diplomacy and its institutions. Discusses papal diplomacy only in the larger context of European trends. Pages 30-38 discuss papal practices in some detail. Useful account of the activities of Nicholas V (1447-55) and his work in making Rome the center of European diplomacy in the late fifteenth century.
597. McHardy, A.K. “The English Clergy and the Hundred Years War.” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, 171-78.
Focuses on the “immense” clerical contribution to the English war effort. While there was some criticism of the war — Thomas Hoccleve and William Langland, for example, “show signs of pure pacifism” — “their anti-establishment and hence anti-war, attitude could be attributed to disappointed ambition,” as both were disappointed office seekers. There were also some heretical Lollards who were against the war.
McHardy adopts outmoded historical assumptions about the un-”orthodoxy” of peacemaking in the Middle Ages and appears to reveal more about late twentieth-century British attitudes to war and peace than about fourteenth-century ones. His assertion that opposition from war stems from anti-establishment views and not, perhaps, vice-versa reveals dangerously unexamined assumptions about the past and the present, about what the “establishment” represents and what the nature of dissent is. One might as well ask whether disappointed office seeking is the result of pacifism and not vice-versa, as he asserts.
598. Mollat, Guillaume. “La diplomatie pontificale au xive siècle,” Mélanges...Louis Halphen. Paris: Press Universitaire, 1951, 507-12.
A brief, and general, account of the methods of papal diplomacy during the period. A good supplement to the scattered material on personalities, institutions, and events found in 599.
599 .—. The Popes at Avignon. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1963.
Mollat’s primary purpose here is an account of the papacy’s development during the Avignon period. Papal diplomacy is treated at various points in his discussions of individual reigns, institutions, finances, and politics. In general the Avignon popes had a three-fold foreign policy: to bring peace back to Europe, to recapture the Holy Land, and to bring the papal states back under papal control. At times these interests coincided, at times papal interests in each sphere conflicted with those in others. Good background for individual popes.
600. Muldoon, James M. Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels: The Church and the Non-Christian World 1250-1550. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979.
Briefly discusses the significance and consequences of the papal bulls Inter caetera and Eximinae devotionis, which settled conflicting claims between Spain and Portugal over New World settlements and conquests. While these bulls laid the foundations for later just-war claims to colonial conquests, they rested on the precedents of Romanus Pontifex, which actually ended the threat of war between the two nations over the Canary Islands. Papal arbitration was thus used as both a plowshare and a sword.
601. Novacovitch, Mileta. Les compromis et les arbitrages internationaux du xiie au xve siècle. Paris: A. Pedone, 1905.
Treats all arbitrations during the period, both secular and religious. Part I details the essential traits of medieval arbitration, individual cases, and the legal issues involved. Part II provides a chronological list of arbitrations. This gives few details of the cases themselves, but it does name the parties involved and the arbiters. Most arbiters listed are lay, but there are dozens of instances of clerical and papal arbitrations.
602. Perroy, Edouard. The Hundred Years War. New York: Capricorn, 1965.
Perroy wrote this classic history of the English invasion and occupation of his country while memories of the Nazi occupation were still fresh in French minds. His work is thus unabashedly pro-French, but also decidedly anti-negotiation, concession, what anyone brought up in the era of World War II would call “appeasement.” For such history, then, any papal attempts to find a negotiated settlement to the Hundred Years War could only be seen as playing into the hands of the English, either out of clerical naiveté of the ways of the world, or through some form of active malice. Thus Benedict XII fares as poorly in Perroy’s French version of his peacemaking as he does in Hill’s Anglo-Saxon version. See 589. Nevertheless, this work provides very useful background and detailed accounts of the peace negotiations that halted or finally ended the various phases of this war.
603. Schmutz, Richard. “Medieval Papal Representatives: Legates, Nuncios, and Judges,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972): 443-63.
Not seen.
604. Seward, Desmond. The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453. New York: Athenaeum, 1982.
A general narrative of events and personalities, with adequate bibliography and index. One must beware of Seward’s viewpoint, however. He sees the systematic plunder of the French countryside and the massacre of its countryfolk as a business venture for the English nobility. He states that “it is arguable that the Hundred Years War was medieval England’s greatest achievement.”
605. Swanson, R.N. “The Way of Action: Pierre D’Ailly and the Military Solution to the Great Schism.” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 1983, 191-200.
Focuses on D’Ailly’s thoughts on the ending of the schism between rival papal lines and his consideration of the use of force to bring one side or the other to terms. After giving all the pros and cons in good scholastic fashion, D’Ailly rejects the military option as both too risky logistically and as morally unacceptable.
606. Thomson, John A.F. Popes and Princes 1417-1517. London: Allen & Unwin, 1980.
Pages 98 to 103 briefly trace the evolution of papal diplomatic methods and institutions during the period, including the secretarius domesticus, the papal diplomatic secretariat, the development of the papal Curia as a center of international diplomacy, and the papacy’s gradual shift from the use of ad hoc legates to more permanent nuncios and permanently based missions.
607. Ullmann, Walter. The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. London: Methuen, 1970.
Pages 204-11 discuss the diplomatic activities of Nicholas I and Hadrian II and their role in making the papacy a peacemaker for Europe.
608. —. “The Medieval Papal Court as an International Tribunal,” Virginia Journal for International Law 11 (1971): 356-71.
Since the papal court possessed compulsory jurisdiction, at least during the high Middle Ages, it had the authority to lay down, interpret, and develop international standards that had a reasonable likelihood of enforcement. It could, and did, use both spiritual and secular power to impose treaties, end hostilities, eliminate barriers to trade and free travel, and depose unjust rulers.
609. Wood, Diana. “Omnino Partialitate Cessante: Clement VI and the Hundred Years War.” In W.J. Shiels, ed. The Church and War. Papers of the Twenty-First and Twenty-Second Meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, New York: Harper & Row, 198, 179-89.
Here is the British equivalent of Perroy’s thesis (602): the papacy, in this case Clement VI, lost all credibility as a peacemaker both because of the pope’s desire to avoid war at all costs (appeasement) and because of his total partiality to France (betrayal). National divisions made all the papacy’s international efforts hopelessly futile.
610. Wynen, A. Die päpstliche Diplomatie. Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1922.
Not seen.
The Just War and the Rights of Conscience
611. See 266 to 284.
612. Hehir, J. Bryan. “The Just-War Ethic and Catholic Theology: Dynamics of Change and Continuity.” In Shannon, Thomas A., ed. War or Peace? The Search for New Answers. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982, 4-24.
Thomas Aquinas systematized the thought of St. Augustine on the just war. His theory was an attempt to limit the scope of violence and to submit the warrior to the ethic of charity and the ideal of the common good. Just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention are the three foundations of Aquinas’ theory.
613. Hubrecht, George. “La juste guerre dans la doctrine chrétienne, des origines au milieu du xvie siècle.” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 15 (1961): 107-25.
Traces the theory from the New Testament to the period just before Vitoria and Grotius in the sixteenth century. Patristic thought, including Augustine, Isidore of Seville, Anselm of Lucca, Gratian, and Thomas Aquinas are among the chief formulators of the evolving theory. Luther and Erasmus are also examined. Relies heavily on Lebreton and Zeiller (171) for earlier sections.
614. Johnson, James T. “Historical Tradition and Moral Judgment: The Case of the Just War Tradition,” Journal of Religion 64 (July 1984): 299-317.
Examines the role of the moralist in society, more specifically that of moral reflection in the just-war tradition. To discuss war we must admit not only the strong tradition of pacifism, but also the role of the just-war tradition in limiting war. This article is a startling reversal of roles, reflecting the new strength of “pacifism” and the growing disrepute of the just-war among both activists and, apparently, scholars.
615. —. Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts 1200-1740. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
While Russell (619) is cited by most medievalists as the best available reference on the just-war theory, Johnson proves far more useful and comprehensive. He covers not only the canon-law sources found in Russell, but also scholastic theory, the literature of chivalry, and the tradition of ius gentium inherited from the Romans. Each, according to Johnson, appealed to a different class in medieval society. The first two to the clergy, the last two to the laity. In itself, Johnson stresses, the just-war theory is in no way Christian in the sense of biblical, theological, or canonical. It is the product of forces from both within and without the church, both secular and religious. Neither is it particularly Christian in its expression or application. Nor, Johnson asserts, can the full-blown just-war theory be read back into the Middle Ages, as Vanderpol (620) would assert.
Johnson clearly distinguishes the ius ad bellum, the just-war criteria for entering a war, to the ius in bello, the laws governing the conduct of a war. Both these concepts, he indicates, are really only fully developed in the modern era. Excellent summary of all four strains of the just-war tradition, with useful analysis of other major historians of the theory. In one respect, however, Johnson might be faulted for too literal acceptance of the chivalric literature concerning the proper conduct and rules of war, in part derived from his reliance on Keen (616).
616. Keen, M.H. The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965.
Uses contemporary literary sources to examine the nobility’s attitude toward war and its proper conduct. Concludes that medieval warfare was, in fact, waged according to the chivalric standards that the romances and epics extol. Keen’s chief sources, however, are aristocratic accounts like Froissart’s Chronicles, a deliberate attempt to put the early events and personalities of the Hundred Years War into as heroic a framework as possible, concentrating on the deeds of the “noble,” and ignoring the lives and sufferings of the poor. To realize the unreliability of Keen’s interpretation, one need only compare Froissart’s stories of noble knights to the dry accounts of slaughter and destruction found in other chronicles or in such documents as papal letters and in contemporary satiric or moral literature. See 560 to 574.
617. Kuttner, Stephan, ed. Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law. Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1976.
Includes 585 and 618.
618. Russell, Frederick H. “Innocent IV’s Proposal to Limit Warfare.” See 617, 383-99.
Innocent was the foremost canonist of his day, a shrewd and subtle legal reasoner. His analysis of the just war focuses here on the the issue of the lord’s right, and prudent decision, to wage war. Drawing on the previous tradition of legal interpretation in Gratian, the Decretists, and the Decretalists, Innocent focused his discussion of obedience to a lord’s commands by applying the Roman law criteria of mandate to feudal relationships. For Innocent concern over a vassal’s property rights stemming from either just or unjust war provided the check of prudence over a vassal’s — and thus a lord’s — willingness to begin a war. Self-interest seems Innocent’s criterion. Russell concludes that Innocent “discarded as unrealistic an attempt to halt all recourse to wars and violence between feudal lords” and that his theory had little practical effect.
619. —. The Just War in the Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975, 4-30.
The examination of a particular theory, intellectual tradition, social or political institution through the provisions of canon law has been a highly popular and often successful means of research since the 1960s. Church law applied both to clerics and laypeople, and thus collections of canon law have much to say about contemporary attitudes and intellectual positions. Russell’s approach to the just-war theory was one of the first and most influential of this school, and his findings were taken by many to speak fully not only for the just-war tradition but for the medieval church’s entire attitude toward war and peace. His range is both far more restricted and more flexible than that, however; and this book provides much useful discussion and material on both the legal traditions and the real political and moral dilemmas that gave rise to the church canons.
Russell’s account shows the gradual evolution of just-war criteria as applied in the writings of Gratian, the Decretists, and the Decretalists, commentators on the various collections of canon law. Their attitudes ranged from Gratian’s unequivocal call on subjects and vassals to obey their lords, even in unjust wars; to his successors’, the Decretists’, insistence that just wars need just authority to declare them and that the prince’s orders cannot be obeyed if they contradict divine law; to the Decretalists’ insistence on the Golden Rule, forbidding war among Christians. Russell traces the evolution of this and other elements of the just-war theory, including the problem of what constitutes just authority, how is the individual’s conscience informed, how is consensus concerning the justness of a war derived. While most of his scholarship is devoted to canon law, Russell does include some material from the theological discussion of the thirteenth century, which was generally more pacifist than the legal one.
620. Vanderpol, Alfred. La doctrine scholastique du droit de guerre. Paris: A. Pedone, 1919.
Remains a useful account on the development of the just war theory among Aquinas and his fellow scholastics.
Liberty, Conscience and Dissent
621. Baylor, Michael George. Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1971.
A scholarly treatment of the subject, at times difficult and dense, but even for the general reader it offers an excellent account of the development of the medieval, and Catholic, theory of conscience. Baylor’s approach is both historical and topical. Concepts are introduced briefly, but fully explored within their historical development. Explores the Pauline notion of syneidesis and its later, broader, Vulgate translation as conscientia and the transmission of the idea of fear and shame from Jerome to Peter Lombard. Traces the notion of synteresis, as an innate sense of moral order among the scholastics from Peter Lombard to Abelard, Aquinas, and Bonaventure, and then proceeds on to Ockham and the late Scholastics, such as Gabriel Biel. Important background to what medieval political and religious thinkers meant when they discussed such notions as individual conscience, its education, its conformity to — and conflict with — human reason and law, moral commands, and divine revelation.
622. Bainton, Roland. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace. Knoxville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1960.
Briefly discusses, on page 107, the developing theory of conscience from Abelard to Bonaventure. This finds its roots in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Contrasts Abelard’s notion that the individual conscience can be objectively wrong, but still subjectively right, with Bonaventure’s notion that synteresis, our inner moral capacity, will — or should — always bring individual conscience into line with the revealed teachings of the church. While Bainton’s discussion is brief, his influence has been great. His assertion that Bonaventure represents all of medieval Catholic doctrine on this matter is far too simplistic.
623. Callahan, E.R., C. Williams, and W. Dupré. “Conscience,” NCE 4: 198-202.
A good introduction to Catholic teaching.
624. Chenu, Marie-Dominique. L’eveil de la conscience dans la civilisation médiévale. Montréal: Institute of Medieval Studies, 1969.
An impressionistic tracing of the development of the concept.
625. Congar, Yves M.-J. “Incidence ecclésiologique d’un thème de dévotion mariale,” Mélanges de Science Religieuse 7 (1950): 277-92.
On obedience and authority within the church. Examines the theme, popular among Franciscan Spiritual dissidents, that at the time of the crucifixion, when all the Apostles and disciples had abandoned Christ, the church remained faithful in one person alone, the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross. A vivid example of how Catholic tradition formulated the rights of individual conscience set against the power and authority of institutions and majorities.
626. —. “Les positions ecclésiologiques de Pierre Jean Olivi,” in Franciscains d’Oc. Les Spirituels ca. 1280-1324. Cahiers de Fanjeaux 10. Toulouse: Privat, 1975, 155-65.
Explores the Franciscan’s ideas of church government, authority, and the rights of individual dissent. While Olivi’s notions of authority followed the traditional hierarchical model established by Dionysius the Areopagite, and while he considered the papacy as the natural head of the body of Christ on earth, despite the lives of individual popes who occupy the office; he stressed that the church is made up of all the faithful. The church bases the authenticity of its teachings on the Gospels; but the laws of Christ are also written in the hearts of the faithful by the Holy Spirit. When the pope or hierarchy fall into error, therefore, these truly faithful can constitute the true church. Should the truly faithful ever come into conflict with authority, and that authority should be in error, then they must follow their duty to disobey, relying on the light of their own consciences informed by revelation. Important analysis of an early exposition of the rights of conscientious objection.
627. Douie, Decima L. The Nature and the Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli. Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1932; reprint, New York: AMS, 1978.
Good introduction to the issues and personalities in the struggle between the Spiritual Franciscans and the papacy, including discussions of Peter John Olivi and Angelo Clareno, and the conflict between the Franciscans and the papacy.
628. Paul, Jacques. “Les Spirituels, l’église et la papauté,” in Chi erano gli Spirituali? Atti del III Convegno Internazionale. Assisi: Società Internazionale di Studi Francescani, 1976, 221-62.
The essential dilemma of the Franciscan Spiritual position — that the pope had no right to make any regulations altering the Franciscan Rule against the explicit wishes of St. Francis — forced them to develop an ecclesiology of dissent and the rights of individual conscience against the dictates of supposedly unjust authority. Such Spiritual thinkers as Peter John Olivi developed a theory to explain the suffering and deaths of the Spirituals at the hands of the hierarchy: like Christ condemned by the leaders of the synagogue, the Spirituals are the vanguard of a new age of the church. They retain the truth of Christian revelation, while any pope who alters the Rule of St. Francis is no longer the true pope, but a heretic who loses his jurisdictional powers. Thus, even while the papacy may be infallible, the individual person of the pope may err. Individual Christians must, therefore, follow the dictates of their own conscience, informed by the Holy Spirit, even if this brings them into conflict with authority.
629. Potts, Timothy C. Conscience in Medieval Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Traces the development of such notions as synderesis (innate moral criteria), scientia (knowledge of temporal and changeable things), sapientia (the intellectual perception of divine truths), and conscientia (the human faculty that applies knowledge and innate criteria to individual cases). Analyzes the thought of Augustine, Peter Lombard, Aquinas, and Peter the Chancellor. Good background for a understanding of medieval perceptions of the rights and duties of the individual conscience.
630. Tierney, Brian. Foundations of the Conciliar Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
One strain of influence on the Conciliarists’ theory was the Franciscan Spirituals’ assertion that the church’s authority was diffused throughout the Mystical Body in both head and members, and that the individual had the right to dissent from papal authority if that authority were compromised. One method of expressing this was the story, popular among the Spirituals, that at the time of the crucifixion, when all the apostles and disciples had abandoned Christ, the true church lived on in one person alone, the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross. Valuable study of how a theory of individual conscience can affect political structures. See 625.
631. —. Ockham, the Conciliar Theory, and the Canonists. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.
Examines Ockham’s analysis of the problem of individual conscience and its rights vis-à-vis the authority of institutions. Tierney traces Ockham’s argument to its logical conclusions: that the individual following the dictates of conscience has the right and duty to disobey the church if it has strayed from the faith. While the pope may be infallible, it was up to the individual Christian to decide what pronouncements were in fact infallible and which deserving of obedience. Tierney pinpoints the danger in such a radical view of conscience: in the end it could be “utterly destructive” of consensus, tradition, and unity. This provides useful evidence that the medieval debate over conscience and duty was lively and open.
632. —. Origins of Papal Infallibility 1150-1350. Leiden: Brill, 1972.
Tierney considers the debate over the Franciscan Rule as one of the primary sources for this theory, and focuses on the writings of Peter John Olivi. While Olivi stressed the infallibility of the papal institution, for precisely this reason he put special emphasis on the suitability of the individual occupying the office. For although the papacy was always worthy of obedience to its magisterium, its teaching authority, should the commands of an individual pope be contrary to the law of Christ, they must be disobeyed. This, he held, was the case in the pope’s attempts to alter the Franciscan Rule. Those true adherents of the Rule, who defied the power of a heretical pope, were themselves the true church who maintained the light of revelation. It is thus up to the individual Christian to uncover the “keys of knowledge” hidden in Scripture and to judge papal decrees according to these.
633. Truhlar, K.V. “Obedience,” NCE 10: 602-6.
Generally strongly authoritarian in tone, in keeping with the encyclopedia’s Constantinian viewpoint. In his selection of biblical texts on obedience, Truhlar omits Peter’s injunction in Acts 5:30 to obey God above man. Nevertheless, he does caution that obedience to human laws must be moderated by the degree to which human laws are informed by divine law.
634. Von Auw, Lydia. “La vraie église d’après les lettres d’Angelo Clareno,” in L’attesa dell’età nuova nella spiritualità della fine del medioevo. Todi: Centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale, 1962, 433-42.
Clareno was one of the leading Franciscan Spirituals, and his letters offer a rich source for their ecclesiology. In general, while Clareno stressed the duty of obedience to authority, and even the faithful’s suffering under unjust authority, he argued that where the pope or hierarchy teaches anything that actively contradicts the laws of Christ as taught in the Gospels and revealed again in the Rule of St. Francis, the faithful must renounce their obedience, even if this means suffering and death in imitation of Christ and the Apostles. While not as radical as Olivi or Ockham, Clareno still clearly emphasizes the rights of individual conscience.
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