Per venerable

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Pope Innocent III In the autumn of 1202 issued the decretals Per Venerabilem , in which he declared that the King of France did not recognize a superior in secular matters - meaning the Roman-German Emperor .

It is not to be confused with that of Innocent III in the same year. published decretals venerable .

background

Around 1200, the southern French gentleman William VIII of Montpellier , mediated by the Archbishop of Arles, made a request to Pope Innocent III. to legitimize his illegitimate children. He argued that the Pope had also legitimized the illegitimate children of King Philip II of France from his illegitimate marriage to Agnes-Maria von Andechs-Meranien .

With the Decretal Per Venerabilem , the Pope rejected this request on the grounds that the King of France, unlike the Lord of Montpellier, had no secular judicial authority over himself that could pass judgment on such a matter. The king also voluntarily asked for the pope's verdict. The Roman pontiff had only exceptionally complied with the request and only exercised secular jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis. The Lord of Montpellier must therefore ask his ordinary liege lord, the King of France, to legitimize his illegitimate children.

Effects

The paragraph that the King of France does not recognize any secular authority over himself became one of their most important principles for the conception of rule of the French kings and in fact remained valid until the end of the monarchy. It was above all an interference with the secular sovereignty of the Roman-German emperors, whose legal power was thereby limited to a territorially limited empire ( Holy Roman Empire ). At the same time, the Pope underpinned the validity of the spiritual jurisdiction over all peoples. The decretals were quickly anchored in the French self-image and were often quoted and further developed by French lawyers, especially in the 13th century. This happened, for example, in 1256 by Jean de Blanot, who granted the king maximum imperial power over his kingdom and sole legislation ( rex est imperator in regno suo ).

Attempts by papal lawyers to give this principle only a limited validity failed as a result. Pope Boniface VIII even recognized it so that the Chancellor of France, Pierre Flote , could use it in the spirit of the papacy in 1302 in the conflict with King Philip IV the Beautiful of France .

literature

  • Brian Tierney : "Tria quippe distinguit iudicia" ... A note on Innocent III's decretal "Per venerabilem" , 1), in: Speculum 37 (1962) 48-59; 2) in: Ders .: Rights, Laws, and Infallibility in Medieval Thought (Variorum Collected Studies Series 578), Aldershot u. a. 1997, pp. 48-59, No. 8.
  • Marguerite Boulet-Sautel : Encore La Bulle "Per Venerabilem". Studia Gratiana 13 (1967), pp. 371-382.
  • Kenneth Pennington : Pope Innocent III's views on church and state: a gloss to "Per Venerabilem" , in: Law. Church and Society. Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner , ed. from dems. / Robert Somerville (The Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia / Pennsylvania 1977, pp. 49-67; ND in: Kenneth Pennington: Popes, Canonists and Texts (Variorum Collected Studies Series 412), Aldershot u. a. 1993, pp. 1-25.
  • Othmar Hageneder : Notes on the decretals "Per Venerabilem" , in: Studies on the history of the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Jürgen Petersohn , ed. by Matthias Thumser / Annegret Wenz-Hauptfleisch / Peter Wiegand , Stuttgart 2000, pp. 159–173.
  • Christoph Flüeler : Eight questions about the Pope's rule. Lupold von Bebenburg and Wilhelm von Ockham in context , in: Political Reflection in the World of the Late Middle Ages / Political Thought in the Age of Scholasticism: Essays in Honor of Jürgen Miethke , ed. by Martin Kaufhold (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions 103), Leiden [u. a.] 2004, pp. 225-246.