The Pope, the Roman Curia and the World: Research Tools for History and History of Law

The Pope, the Roman Curia and the World: Research Tools for History and History of Law

Organisatoren
Benedetta Albani, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main; Olivier Poncet, École nationale des chartes, Paris
Ort
Frankfurt am Main
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
16.06.2014 - 18.06.2014
Url der Konferenzwebsite
Von
Claudia Curcuruto / Brandan Röder, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main

The workshop “The Pope, the Roman Curia and the World. Research Tools for History and History of Law” took place from the 16th to the 18th of June 2014 at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main, after the workshop in 2011 the second event of this kind taking place at the Institute focusing on the sources of the central institutions of the Roman Church in the early modern and contemporary eras. It was part of the training programme of “Study Sessions” at the Institute which were and are regularly held and specifically aimed at helping young researchers in the formative phase of their projects. The purpose of this year’s workshop was to offer participants insights into the basic tools for beginning research in the archives of the Roman Curia dicasteries and of other Roman ecclesiastical institutions as well as to provide elements for a critical interpretation of the sources and their contextualization through the most current literature. Its focus aligns with several of the host institution’s special research fields, in particular the Max Planck Research Group on the Congregation of the Council and Church Governance, the expertise relating the legal history of the church between the Late Middle Ages and the modern period and the focus on sources as an important part of the Institute’s research activities.

The director of the Max-Planck-Institute, THOMAS DUVE (Frankfurt am Main) welcomed the participants and expressed the interest of the Institute as a whole in interdisciplinary and potentially transnational or global approaches in legal history. Following this, the organizers BENEDETTA ALBANI (MPI for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main) and OLIVIER PONCET (École nationale des chartes, Paris) gave an introduction to the workshop by outlining the programme and laying down some guiding questions. As the chosen title of the event shows one important leading thread involves the relations between Rome and the World. Apart from the missionary activity, a lot of research fields dealing with the Roman Curia have been little affected by the frequently invoked “global turn”. One of the underlying issues is the difference in approaches of various disciplines: The examination of phenomena from a global perspective within recent historiography does not correspond automatically with the perspectives chosen by Church history and other disciplines, even in the research on mission mentioned before. One of the aims of the workshop was thus to bring these various views on the Roman Curia and the World into a productive dialogue.

Three work sessions were held: 1. Legacies: the long duration of the Roman Curia; 2. Modernity: Reformation and Reforms of the Roman Curia; 3. Toward the Modern Era: New Forms of Relation with the World. The contributions of each session were held by researchers and archivists specialized in several disciplines and with long experience in the Roman archive and library research (see the participants and conference titles below).

In this line of thought, the first lecture of the workshop by ORAZIO CONDORELLI (Catania) focused on canon law, namely its relationship to the Papacy. Condorelli started his inquiry with the question if these two things were in fact an "indivisible pair”. He then gave an overview of the steps in the process of codification of canon law. In conclusion, Condorelli drew attention to two points that were consequences of the law produced by the Pope and the Curia. On the one hand, other sources of positive law (Councils, Synods, customs) were reduced. On the other, the legislative and dispensatory powers of the Pope always met the limits set by a “non-dispensable law”, that is divine and natural law. The relationship between Pope and law has to be interpreted within these coordinates.

In her presentation on petitions to the Roman Curia, IRENE FOSI (Chieti) turned the participants’ attention to one of the majorly important types of sources for the history of the papacy, if not every Old Regime society. This importance stems from their status as the most common means of communication between subjects and rulers. They offered people from various social groups the opportunity for obtaining justice (the meaning obviously depending on their own understanding of it) as well as for self-representation. The latter point often leads to them being particularly fascinating sources to read but also involves risks: Petitions are less likely than other documents to tell us “the truth”. A further point that deserves being emphasized was that Fosi showed how narratives by women and men differed in their self-representation, corresponding to differences in societal values attached to gender roles.

The first session entitled “Legacies: the long duration of the Roman Curia” began with a presentation by THOMAS FRENZ (Passau) on papal documents, their itinerary and typology from the Medieval Period up to Modernity. The mere quantity of the documents processed by the Curia is remarkable (Frenz estimated their number at about 30 million up to this day). Very instructive for any reader of papal litterae were Frenz’ following remarks on handwriting and abbreviation, a field increasingly difficult starting after the 16th century. At the end of his presentation, Frenz emphasized the necessary reliance on both central and complementary local documents for a researcher.

WOLFGANG MÜLLER (New York) talked about the Medieval Sacra Poenitentiaria Apostolica. The eight-volume source collection represents one of the major historiographical efforts to catalogue and organize – in this case regionally – the contents of the Registers of this institution (covering the period from its beginnings up to the year 1569). Interestingly, the foundational study of Emil Göller (1907-11) worked without knowledge of these Registers. For Müller the latter perspective would for instance involve sensitivity to the fact that pardons were handed out to petitioners against fees (rising sharply from the 1470s) and that offices at the Penitentiary were venial. It is hence clear that the Penitentiary played an important part in the fiscal schemes of the Renaissance papacy.

Appropriately, ARMAND JAMME (Lyon / Rome) followed with a discussion of the structures of financing that lay behind papal policy. He chose a long term perspective from the 12th to the 17th century in order to show both continuities and changes over time that took place in that field. From this categorization, Jamme moved on to a description of diachronic trends in the development of papal fiscal policy from the High Middle Ages to the early modern times. In this long period of time, various attempts were made to reorganize the modes of financing. After Avignon, the system shows a tendency towards relying on the income of the papal state. While venal offices could not solve the curia’s debt problems, new forms of institutionalized taxation in the early modern era brought definite changes to the papal system of finance.

The last presentation of the first session by BENJAMIN WEBER (Toulouse) focused on the relationship between the Papacy and the non-Christian World in the Middle Ages. Naturally, long before the establishment of such an office as the Propaganda Fide, the sources in the papal archives pertaining to the interaction with the non-Christian world are more scattered. Weber clearly emphasized the often not just or not so much instrumental but rather symbolic character of documents of the last type, making them a valuable source for research on the papal self-representation. The typology of sources was followed by some practical advice for dealing with the materials at hand. Weber then touched upon fascinating questions regarding the principles that governed the registration into the Vatican Registers. Information on these principles of collection is certainly highly relevant to anyone looking to gather information from these types of source material.

The second session „Modernity: Reformation and Reforms at the Roman Curia“ opened with a talk delivered by OLIVIER PONCET (Paris). He presented the historical development of the secretaries and the various forms of secretary's office in the course of four hundred years (16th-19th century), even tracing these offices back to the Medieval period.

Drawing on some of the facts of first presentation of the session, SILVANO GIORDANO (Rome) delivered a presentation on the Nunciatures and the papal legates from the 16th to the 19th century. He gave an overview over the history of the system of papal envoys in this period and laid out a comprehensive typology of legates and nuntii. As early as the mid-15th century, permanent diplomatic representations evolved at certain princely courts.

Following this, BENEDETTA ALBANI (Frankfurt am Main) presented a dicastery that was often overlooked by historians of the Curia but was in fact one of the central institutions in the dissemination of Roman normativity within the Catholic world. The researcher from the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History offered a concise introduction to the history, competence and activity of the Congregation of the Council from the 16th to the 20th century.

The last presentation of the second session by CECILIA CRISTELLON (Frankfurt am Main) covered the history, character, competence and activity of two further Roman dicasteries, the Congregations of the Inquisition (since 1908 named the Congregation of the Holy Office, today for the Doctrine of the Faith) and of the Index (established in 1572). The researcher offered an insightful overview over both offices, stemming first and foremost from a thorough knowledge of the archive.

The third session of the workshop, entitled “Toward the Modern Era: New Forms of Relation with the World”, was opened by ROBERTO REGOLI (Rome) with a presentation on the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs (Congregazione degli Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari), describing this 19th and 20th century congregation starting with its history and historiography, moving to the discussion of its activities and the remaining archival sources.

GIOVANNI PIZZORUSSO (Chieti) discussed the Congregation De Propaganda Fide (Congregatio super negotiis sanctae fidei et religionis catholicae), instituted by Gregory XV. in 1622 in the midst of the Thirty Years War. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated and from its institution by Gregory it was meant to serve a dual purpose: To organize the missionary activity carried out among Non-Christians on the one hand and to negotiate and potentially reach unions with the churches of orthodox and protestant denomination on the other. Pizzorusso highlighted several important points in approaching this dicastery and its archival remainders in particular.

The conclusion of the third session and the last presentation of the workshop was delivered by HERVÉ YANNOU (Paris) and turned the focus of attention to the social communication of the Curia from the mid-19th century until today. As a historian and journalist, Yannou dealt with media landscape and the Papacy since Vatican I. The relevance of today’s media coverage for historians was described in the striking image of journalists of our times writing the history of the Pope on a daily basis. The Curia for its part understandably shows great interest in the way it is represented in the media.

The presentations and lectures of the workshop proved the fruitfulness of the chosen format and topics that tried to cover various groups of documents from different time periods, demonstrate ways of their interpretation and put them into their (institutional etc.) context. Through this its aim was reached, namely to convey elementary methodological knowledge useful for the participants' owns research in the Roman archives, a transfer made possible by the lecturers' historical, systematic and archival expertise relating to "the Pope, the Roman Curia and the World".

Conference Overview:

Thomas Duve (Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main), Welcome and Introduction

Olivier Poncet (École nationale des chartes, Paris) / Benedetta Albani (Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main), Written Sources, the Papacy and the Catholic World / Fontiscritte, il papato e il mondo cattolico

Orazio Condorelli (Università di Catania), Papato e diritto canonico

Irene Fosi (Università di Chieti-Pescara), The Pope as a Source of Justice and Grace: Papal Tribunals and Subjects’ Supplications

I Session - Legacies: the long duration of the Roman Curia

Thomas Frenz (Universität Passau), I documenti pontifici tra Medioevo ed età moderna

Wolfgang Müller (Fordham University, New York), The Papal Court of Penance, 13th to 16th Centuries

Armand Jamme (Histoire, Archéologie, Littératures des mondes chrétiens et musulmans médiévaux, Lyon / École française de Rome), Financing papal politics: from census to taxation (12th-17th Centuries)

Benjamin Weber (Université de Toulouse 2-Le Mirail), The Papacy and non-Christian World in the Middle Ages

II Session - Modernity: Reformation and Reforms at the Roman Curia

Olivier Poncet (École nationale des chartes, Paris), Segretari e segreterie (XVI-XIX secolo)

Silvano Giordano (Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Roma), Nunziature e legazioni pontificie (XVI-XIX secolo)

Benedetta Albani (Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main), The Congregation of the Council (XVI-XX Centuries)

Cecilia Cristellon (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main), Le congregazioni dell’Inquisizione e dell’Indice (XVI-XX secolo)

III Session - Toward the Modern Era: New Forms of Relation with the World

Roberto Regoli (Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Roma), Il Gran Consiglio della Chiesa. La Congregazione degli Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari (XIX-XX secolo)

Giovanni Pizzorusso (Università di Chieti-Pescara), Una giurisdizione globale per la Chiesa missionaria: la Congregazione de Propaganda Fide (XVIIXX secolo)

Hervé Yannou (Centre des monuments nationaux, Paris), Comunicare e diffondere (XIX-XXI secolo): stampa, radio, televisione e internet

Group workshops

Concluding remarks and discussion

Note:
[1] For a longer version of this report see: <http://141.5.24.150/de/qualifikation/trainingsprogramm/studientage.cfm> (20.11.2014).


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