Guala Bicchieri
Guala Bicchieri (also Bicherius ) (* around 1150; † May 31, 1227 in Rome ) was a cardinal of the Roman Church , who served several times as a papal legate .
Origin and career as a clergyman
Guala came from Vercelli in Piedmont . The details of his exact origin, his training and his early spiritual career are uncertain. He is said to have been a canon at the Church of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia and in the cathedral chapter of Sant'Eusebio in Vercelli. In 1182 he was supposedly elected Bishop of Vercelli , but was replaced as Bishop in 1184, but this is doubtful, since Uberto Crivelli is said to have been Bishop of Vercelli from 1182 to 1185. According to certain information, Guala was first mentioned in 1187. Apparently he had previously studied theology and law, either in France or in Italy. Pope Innocent III appointed him in 1205 cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Portico Octaviae . From 1206 to 1207 he served as the papal legate for northern Italy and then from 1208 to 1209 as a legate for France. In 1211 he was appointed cardinal priest of San Martino in Montibus .
Papal Legate for England
The starting point during the Barons' War
After the Fourth Lateran Council he was appointed papal legate for England on January 14, 1216 . There it came to the first war of the barons against King John Ohneland . King John, who had to offer his kingdom to the Pope as a fiefdom in 1213 , may have asked for the diplomatically experienced Guala to be sent as a legate to support the king in this difficult situation. As a legate, Guala was supposed to reform the church, preach a crusade and negotiate a peace or at least an armistice between England and France. Guala's task was made more difficult by the fact that Stephen Langton , Archbishop of Canterbury and thus the head of the English Church, had been suspended by Pandulf , the previous papal envoy, after which he had gone into exile in September 1215. Guala was well informed about the work of his predecessor Nikolaus von Tusculum , who was papal legate in England from 1213 to 1214. To achieve its goals, allowed the King Guala opponents excommunicated .
Supporter of King Johann
Shortly after February 24, 1216, Guala set out from Rome for England. He was accompanied by a papal commission which, at a council in Melun from April 24 to 25, 1216 , forbade the French King Philip II and his son Louis from accepting the crown offered to them by the English rebels. Guala also forbade the French prince, under threat of excommunication, to invade England in order to enforce his claims to the throne. He forbade his father, Philpp II, to support his son. Despite this threat, Prince Ludwig landed with his army in England on May 21. The French refused Guala a safe passage across the English Channel , whereupon he avoided the Netherlands and from there to England. His first official act was to excommunicate Prince Ludwig there on May 29, 1216 during a council of the English Church in Winchester . As the war of the barons continued, Guala became an important supporter of King John, and the sudden death of John in October 1216 increased the importance of Guala's office. In his last will, the king had entrusted his underage son Henry to the papal legate and appointed him one of his executors. Nine-year-old Henry was now a vassal and protégé of the Pope, and Guala oversaw the boy's provisional coronation on October 28, 1216 in Gloucester , where he immediately accepted the new king's homage as the Pope's representative.
End of the Barons' War
Even after the death of King John, the barons' war continued with great severity. Guala remained lenient towards the offenses of the king's supporters, as he had given their fight against the rebels and their French allies the status of a crusade . On January 17, 1217, the new Pope Honorius III allowed him . To release crusaders from their crusade vows if they actively fought on the side of King Henry, the king's opponents thus became open enemies of the Church. This resulted in the king's followers wearing white crosses over their armor as a recognition symbol during the Battle of Lincoln on May 20th. After the victory of the king's supporters at Lincoln and in the sea battle at Sandwich on August 24, 1217, Prince Ludwig feared that Guala would persuade the City of London , the main base of the rebels, to change sides. He therefore agreed to peace negotiations that led to the Peace of Lambeth in September . At the conclusion of the contract Guala was present, but he gave the rebels and the French, the absolution , but imposed on Ludwig a fine which should be used for a new crusade to the Holy Land. The clergy from France and England, who had supported the rebels and Prince Ludwig, were exempt from Guala's absolution. While the French clergy had to repent, the English clergy were punished with loss of their clerical offices and other church punishments. Several of them had to travel to Rome to receive absolution from the Pope.
Member of the Regency Council
As the papal legate, Guala was officially the leading advisor to the English king. Indeed, he had little part in the government of England and the restoration of royal power after the war of the barons. He witnessed the renewed recognition of the Magna Carta in 1216 and 1217 and the Charter of the Forest in 1217, concluded the Treaty of Worcester with the Welsh Prince Llywelyn from Iorwerth in 1217 and negotiated with the Scottish King Alexander II. In February 1218 he allowed the collection of one Shield money . However, the actual leadership of the Regency Council took over William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and others. Guala took strict action against clergymen who continued to rebel. About one hundred clergymen lost their offices, especially the cathedral chapter of London's St Paul's Cathedral , from which several members were excluded, was punished by him. In doing so, Guala was sometimes overzealous and too strict, which is why his successor as legate, Pandulf, released thirteen clergymen who Guala had thrown into prison and reinstated others in their offices. Since numerous church offices and benefices were now vacant, Guala himself benefited financially from his office, which was probably in line with church law at the time. To this end, he gave a number of benefices to his Italian relatives and to members of his household who came from Italy. He transferred the church patronage of Chesterton in Cambridgeshire to the Augustinian priory of Sant'Andrea in Vercelli in Italy, which he founded .
On September 12, 1218, Pope Honorius III called. Guala back to Rome. Guala is named in November as the first witness to testify to the rules for the use of the new royal seal, then he appears to have resigned from Reading in mid-November 1218 . He left England probably shortly afterwards. Ultimately, his tenure as a legate was successful. Under him, the civil war in England was ended and peace was concluded with France, he was able to implement numerous resolutions of the Fourth Lateran Council in England and promote the Fifth Crusade , to which numerous English barons set out in 1219.
Further work
On his return to Rome, Guala was present on February 12, 1219 at the laying of the foundation stone for the church of his priory Sant'Andrea in Vercelli. Even after his return from England he remained in the service of the Curia , maintaining contact with England. Until 1222 he received a pension from England. In 1225 the Pope appointed him one of the two legates for southern Italy. In this function he negotiated the Treaty of San Germano with Emperor Friedrich II , in which the emperor agreed to a crusade. A few weeks after the election of the new Pope Gregory IX. he died in Rome two days after drawing up his will. He was probably buried in the Lateran Basilica .
literature
- Nicholas Vincent: The letters and charters of Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, papal legate in England, 1216-1218 . Boydell, Woodbridge 1996, ISBN 0-907239-53-6
- CD Fonseca: Bicchieri, Guala. In: Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 10, Istituto Enciclopedia italiana, Rome 1968
- R. Aubert: Guala de Bicchieri (Jacques). In: Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, Vol. 22, Letouzey et Ané, Paris 1988, pp. 492–495 ·
- F. Cazel: The legates Guala and Pandulf. In: PR Coss, SD Lloyd: Thirteenth century England: proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne conference, 2 (Newcastle upon Tyne 1987). Boydell, Woodbridge 1988, ISBN 0-85115-513-8 , pp. 15-21 ·
Web links
- Brenda M. Bolton: Guala (c.1150-1227). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bicchieri, Guala. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website ), accessed July 28, 2016.
- ^ Entry on Archdiocese of Vercelli on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on July 28, 2016.
- ↑ Brenda M. Bolton: Guala (c.1150-1227). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
- ^ David Carpenter: The minority of Henry III . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990. ISBN 0-520-07239-1 , p. 28
- ^ David Carpenter: The minority of Henry III . University of California Press, Berkeley 1990. ISBN 0-520-07239-1 , p. 78
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Guala Bicchieri |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Guala; Guala Bicherius |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Cardinal and papal legate |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1150 |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 31, 1227 |
| Place of death | Rome |