Quanto personam tuam

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Coin with the image of Peter II of Aragon

Quanto personam tuam is a decretal of Pope Innocent III. from April 5, 1199 to King Peter II of Aragon .

prehistory

King Alfonso II († 1196), the father and predecessor of Peter II, had devalued the Jaca currency towards the end of his reign by reducing the silver content. The new King Peter II took an oath to leave this coin value unchanged for a certain period of time. A short time later he asked the Pope to release him from this oath.

The Pope's answer

The Pope replied that no absolution was necessary, but rather an interpretation of the oath (“quod non tam erat absolutio necessaria quam interpretatio requirenda”). Because either the king knew when taking the oath that the coin had been forged. In this case the oath is inadmissible and without any binding ("iuramentum fuisset illicitum et nullatenus obseruandum"). In this case he should confess to the Bishop of Saragossa and repent. Or the king had considered the currency taken over from his father to be fully valid; then the oath is binding (“iuramentum licitum fuit et usquequaque seruandum”). In order to keep the oath, he should disreputable the coin, mint a new coin in the name of his father and bring its value to the highest level reached under Alfonso II.

background

The royal inquiry as well as the papal answer occurred at the time of the Reconquista . The decretals of 1199 is not the first time the Roman Church has dealt with questions of monetary stability. A council of Lerida in 1155, for example, was chaired by the later Pope Celestine III. , Innocent III's predecessor, decided that the prince was required to keep his money stable for life. Before 1187, Alfonso II denounced the Jaca and had an inferior coin minted, which he confirmed by an oath. He later regretted this act and asked Pope Celestine III to release him from this oath and allow a new full-value coin. This corresponded to the request with the letter "Cum utilitas publica" of September 4, 1191, ie 8 years before Quanto personam tuam.

literature

  • Fabian Wittreck : CONSERVARE MONETAM. Stability of monetary value in high medieval Aragon in the light of the decretals ‹Quanto personam tuam›. In: Albrecht Weber (Ed.): Currency and Economy. The money in the right. Festschrift for Prof. Dr. Hugo J. Hahn on his 70th birthday. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1997, ISBN 3-7890-4399-0 , pp. 103-120.
  • Peter Landau : The importance of canon law in the history of monetary debt. In: Gerhard Dilcher , Norbert Horn (Hrsg.): Social sciences in the study of law. Vol. IV Rechtsgeschichte, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-406-06196-6 , pp. 165-172 (168 f.).
  • Thomas Bisson: 'Quanto personam tuam' (X 2.24.18): its Original Significance. In: Stephan Kuttner (Ed.): Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Toronto 21-25 August 1972. (= Monumenta Iuris Canonici. Ser. C: Subsidia. Vol. 5). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City 1976, pp. 229-249.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Liber Extra : Capitulum XVIII . Accessed January 5, 2017.
  2. ↑ The presentation is based essentially on Wittreck's work given in the bibliography.
  3. ↑ Named after the mint in the city of Jaca .