Stephen Langton

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Stone sculpture of Archbishop Stephan Langton on the outside of Canterbury Cathedral

Stephen Langton , also Stephan Langton , (* around 1150 probably in Langton near Wragby , England ; † July 9, 1228 in Slindon , Sussex ) was an English theologian ( Doctor nominatissimus ), cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207 to 1228 . His election as archbishop led to a perennial conflict between the English king and the pope, and as archbishop Langton had a significant role in the creation of the Magna Carta . In addition to this political importance, Langton is also considered one of the most important theologians of the Middle Ages.

Origin, youth and activity as a university professor

Youth and Studies

Stephen Langton was one of three sons, perhaps the eldest, of little country nobleman Henry Langton of Langton-by-Wragby in Lincolnshire . There is no evidence of Stephen Langton's youth or education, his first recorded mention only being made in 1206, when he was made cardinal . Langton probably attended a school in Lincoln , where there was a cathedral school as early as the 12th century and which is less than 20 km from his birthplace. At the age of 15 he went to Paris, where he studied the seven liberal arts and then theology . Such training lasted about 15 years, after which he taught as a master of theology in Paris from the 1180s . The University of Paris did not come into existence until around 1200, but by 1165 there were an estimated 3000 students in Paris, making up about a tenth of the population at the time. Langton's teachers in the Seven Arts are unknown, the most important theology teacher in Paris at the time was Peter Cantor . Whether Langton was ever a formal student of Peter Cantor is controversial, but this undoubtedly influenced him in the choice of theological questions and in the interpretation of the Bible. His brother Simon Langton followed him to Paris. Langton was initially supported by his family until he received ecclesiastical benefices in York and later to Notre Dame in Paris for his living . Between 1191 and 1205 he lived temporarily in York, where he is named as Master Stephen Langton as a witness in Archbishop Geoffrey's documents . As an old man, he remembered his good time in York in 1226. He probably received his benefice in Paris from King Philip II of France and his benefice in York from Archbishop Geoffrey. With this, Langton came into association with two men who were later bitter opponents of the English king Johann Ohneland , even if Geoffrey was his half-brother.

Depiction of Langtons in Langton-by-Wragby Church

Starting work as a university lecturer

Like Peter Cantor, Langton later surrounded himself as a teacher with capable students. Of these, at least two, if not six, made notable careers, including the future Bishop of Chichester Richard Poore , Thomas of Marlborough , who was Abbot of Evesham Abbey from 1229 to 1236 , Henry of Sandford , who later became Bishop of Rochester, Alexander Stavensby , later Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield , Anders Sunesen , later Archbishop of Lund, and also Bernardo II, later Archbishop of Santiago , who owned a large collection of Langton's writings. Langton wrote mostly theological writings, his focus was on the biblical exegesis of the New and, with the exception of the Psalms, the Old Testament. Presumably he began to write his writings as lectures for his teaching activities. However, since hardly any of his own writings have survived, only adaptations and copies of his students or notes of his sermons, the extent of his activity is difficult to assess. When he was unable to exercise his offices between 1207 and 1213 and from 1216 to 1218, he presumably revised his writings. Langton built his typefaces into three levels, following Cantor's model. First he discussed a theological question, followed by commentary on a passage from the Bible, and finally a sermon. He used older works from the Glossa ordinaria and newer authors such as Andreas von Sankt Viktor and Petrus Lombardus . Langton emphasized the spiritual meaning of the texts in his work.

Chapter division of the Bible

In his exegetical work, Stephan Langton was exposed to the difficulty that the Bible texts had previously been arranged and subdivided differently in the various manuscripts. He therefore arranged the individual books of the Bible in a fixed order and divided the individual books into individual chapters.

This division of chapters, which replaced various, inconsistently used older systems, was then also adopted in the Orthodox churches and in Jewish editions of the Bible in the era of book printing because of its practical usefulness. Together with the chapter numbering, the division of the books Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Ezra (-Nehemia) into two parts was also included in the Hebrew Bible prints for the first time.

The Protestant Bible translations also used Langton's book and chapter division, so that it is practically universal today. The uniform division into verses, on the other hand, is, at least in the Old Testament, much older; it was already fixed in writing by the Masoretes with a special accent ( Sof Pasuk ). The numbering of the verses, on the other hand, did not gain acceptance until the 16th century; it was especially helpful for comparing different language editions of the Bible. Today's citation standard - e.g. B. Lev 19,33-34  EU - thus connects Langton's Latin chapter counting with the traditional Hebrew division of verses. The versification in the New Testament, on the other hand, goes back to Robert Estienne .

Explanation of the Hebrew names

Langton's part in the creation of the Interpretationes nominum Hebraicorum , a handbook that explained the Hebrew names mentioned in the Bible, is controversial. According to some writings it is ascribed to him, others, however, date it back to the eighth century, so that Langton perhaps only revised it and spread it further. He also wrote a commentary on the then most common textbook in church history, the Historia Scholastica by Petrus Comestor . Within Langton's comments are sections in which he explains a quaestio . He collected some of these into individual, related groups. In addition, over 600 sermons have come down to us, most of which come from his time in Paris and which were mostly addressed to a spiritual audience. Even if his texts and sermons are all written in Latin, he gave his lay sermons in the vernacular vernacular. In his own sermons, he may have been influenced by the charismatic preacher Fulko von Neuilly , who worked in the 1190s. He also frequently referred to Jewish interpretations, although the extent to which he understood Hebrew is disputed. In any case, he occasionally spoke to Jews without engaging in controversial disputes with them.

Appreciation

Langton's work is generally characterized by self-confidence and liveliness. He acquired his self-confidence through his thorough way of thinking and his extensive knowledge of earlier literature, from which he also knew the writings of the Church Fathers Jerome , Augustine and Gregory . His vivacity is shown by the many illustrations and comparisons that he used. In doing so, he not only referred to biblical parables, but also included contemporary circumstances, including life in school at that time, in his texts. Biblical exegesis served as a model for medieval society, and he taught that God did not want kings who did not obey the law. He demonstrated this with examples from the Old Testament. Nevertheless, he also taught that it was right for the individual to obey kings in principle and that it was only right in exceptional cases to refuse to obey them.

Elected Archbishop of Canterbury

In 1206, Langton's life as a successful university professor ended abruptly. When Pope Innocent III. learned of the death of Archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury in the summer of 1205 , he soon afterwards called Langton to Rome and appointed him cardinal priest of San Crisogono . The Pope, who was about the same age as Langton, had known him long since he had studied in Paris before 1187. Like Langton, he admired Thomas Becket , the martyr Archbishop of Canterbury. Over the election of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, there was a dispute between King John Ohneland and the monks of the Cathedral Chapter of Canterbury. The two parties could not agree on a candidate, and Langton watched the Canterbury monks, the English bishops, and the king send their envoys to Rome to present their view of the conflict. The Pope was aware of the monks' dissatisfaction with the two previous archbishops, Baldwin of Exeter and Hubert Walter, who had been confidants of the English kings. In December 1206, he turned down the monks 'and king's candidates and rejected the English bishops' right to have a say. He urged the monks' envoys to elect Langton as the new archbishop. The monks were divided about it, as it was clear to them that Langton, whom the king did not know and who had lived for many years in Paris with the French king who was an enemy of him, was unacceptable to Johann. Despite these concerns, they finally elected him as the new Archbishop of Canterbury in late 1206.

Like his predecessors, King John expected to be able to influence the election of the Archbishop and Primate of the English Church so that he could reward loyal servants with this office and ensure that this important office would be fulfilled by one of his confidants. The Pope responded to his king's objections with praise for Langton's qualities, who was not only a doctor of the liberal arts but also a teacher of theology, and that he was found worthy of benefices both in Paris and in York. Perhaps the Pope was unaware of how much he was snubbering the king, and he seems to have believed that the king would ultimately approve, as in other controversial episcopal elections before. According to canon law, the pope was also right, since the king's approval was not required for an episcopal election if the election had taken place in the presence of the pope. However, the king saw the election of bishops from a completely different point of view, which led to a rift between him and the Pope and a conflict between them that lasted over six years.

On June 17, 1207, the Pope consecrated Langton in Viterbo as the new archbishop. Shortly afterwards, Langton wrote a detailed letter to be published in England to explain his acceptance of the office. This letter illustrates Langton's theological view. It shows how much he saw the ecclesiastical positions primarily over the secular considerations of the king, but at the same time the letter shows that Langton had recognized that he had the almost insoluble task of putting his theology, which had previously only been taught theoretically, into practice. In the letter he expressed his deep concern for the spiritual well-being of England and indicated that the Pope had ordered him to accept the office of Archbishop. Langton referred to the fate of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, who fought against the church and eventually drowned in a small river, which Langton interpreted as a sign of God. He further ominously stated that the church could release the subjects of rebels who opposed their decisions from their duty of loyalty because the rebels had withdrawn their loyalty to God. At the end of the letter, Langton declared that he was succeeding Thomas Becket, who fought and died for the freedom of the Church.

Fight between church and king

When the king found out about his episcopal ordination, he drove the monks from Canterbury on July 11, 1207 and stuck to his confrontation course with the Pope, who then imposed the interdict on England on March 24, 1208 and excommunicated the king in November 1209 . Langton moved to France, where he mostly lived in the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny , where Thomas Becket had already spent parts of his exile. In 1222 he bequeathed an annual payment of 50 marks to the monastery , which was raised by the church in Romney . As a result of the interdict, almost all of the bishops left England and joined Langton in exile. King John took revenge on Langton's family. His father had to flee to St Andrews in Scotland, where he died. His brother Walter probably also had to go abroad, because in 1211 he took part in the Albigensian Crusade in southern France. In October 1209 Langton traveled to Melun , where he consecrated Hugh of Wells as Bishop of Lincoln . The next year he mediated in Cambrai in a dispute between the city and Bishop Jean de Béthune . In 1211 he directed the funeral of William de Braose , who died in exile in Paris and who had fled England before King John. Langton spent the winter of 1212 to 1213 in Rome, and between 1210 and 1213 he and Robert von Courson went on a preaching tour of Flanders during which they had preached against usury.

Negotiations with King John to accept Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury were unsuccessful until 1211. Until 1209, Langton's brother Simon Langton negotiated for him with the king's envoys, and in October 1209 Langton believed the negotiations were going well, which is why he translated to Dover himself . But all negotiations failed for two reasons: on the one hand, the king wanted the Pope to officially recognize his right to participate in bishopric elections, and on the other, because of Langton's demand that the king compensate the bishops financially for the losses incurred during their exile, since the king confiscated income from church property during the interdict. Langton twice criticized the provisions according to which he had received safe conduct and therefore refused in 1208 and 1211 to take part in the negotiations himself. In the autumn of 1211, the king was finally forced to give in because of pressure from his barons. King John sent a delegation to Rome, which at the beginning of 1213 agreed to an agreement based on the conditions offered two years earlier. Langton was probably also in Rome with other English bishops to witness this surrender of the king. King John had to promise to obey the Pope and to give safe conduct to the Archbishop, the other exiled prelates, and the Canterbury monks. Langton would receive the holdings of the Archdiocese of Canterbury after swearing allegiance to the king. The bishops in exile should be compensated for their losses. On May 13, 1213, the king personally submitted to the papal envoy Pandulf , and on July 9, 1213, Langton reached England. On July 20, he released the King from his excommunication at Winchester . This seemed to resolve the dispute over the election of the archbishop, but in fact the dispute between the king and archbishop turned into a much larger conflict.

Langton as Archbishop

Power struggle between king, pope and archbishop

Langton tried for the next two years as archbishop to solve the problems caused by the multi-year interdict. At the same time he tried to mediate between the king and his disaffected barons. As early as 1212 in France, Langton met the barons Robert FitzWalter and Eustace de Vesci, who had fled into exile from Johann . The now around 60-year-old Langton had spent 40 years of his life almost exclusively outside England and was therefore little familiar with the political situation in England. He sympathized with the concerns of the barons, who revolted against the financial demands and the arbitrary rule of the king, and distrusted the king despite his nominal submission to the pope. King Johann also remained suspicious of Langton, especially since Langton's brother Simon was still part of the retinue of the French Prince Ludwig , who was an enemy of Johann . The relationship was further complicated by the fact that King John offered his kingdom to the Pope as a fief, and the Pope was represented in England by his legate Pandulf. The Pope wanted peace and the king's participation in a crusade to the Holy Land . He commissioned Langton in July 1213 to do everything for the peace of the king and the kingdom, while also protecting the interests of the Holy See. Langton, however, continued to defend the claims of the English bishops who wanted to have their income lost by the interdict reimbursed, while the king naturally endeavored to have to reimburse the bishops as little as possible. To this end, Langton campaigned for church candidates instead of confidants of the king when electing new bishops. This not only brought him into conflict with the king, but soon pursued a different policy than the pope. This development was exacerbated by the fact that the papal envoy Pandulf first had to contact the Pope in Rome for important decisions and was therefore unable to react promptly. Langton himself received instructions from the Pope, the content of which was already obsolete due to the spatial distance, and because he did not implement them, he lost the Pope's trust and was finally suspended by the Pope. This complicated relationship confused many people in England, which is why Langton tried to explain it on August 25, 1213 in a long sermon in St Paul's Cathedral in London.

The new papal legate Nicholas of Tusculum finally accused the bishops of preventing a compromise on the compensation. When the king finally accepted a compromise on June 17, 1214, almost none of the bishops were satisfied with the result. The question of the reoccupation of vacant dioceses and abbeys also remained controversial. At first, King John simply tried to maintain the previous practice, according to which the king called the canons or monks to a meeting in the royal chapel in order to elect a new bishop or abbot. Langton and the other bishops rejected this form of election because they could easily be influenced by the king. They hoped for a freer choice, but realized that the king firmly refused. On October 31, 1213, the Pope instructed his legate, Cardinal Nicholas, to ensure that new bishops were elected according to Nicholas' recommendations. They should be suitable clergymen, but they should also serve the kingdom loyally and advise the king. When King John set out on a campaign in Poitou in February 1214 , he entrusted the supervision of the ecclesiastical elections to a five-member committee to which the barons William Brewer and William de Cantilupe and the abbots of Beaulieu , Selby and St Mary's in York belonged. In doing so, he had ensured that most of the new bishops belonged to the king's party. Langton had been outmaneuvered by the king and he had little chance of carrying out the planned church reforms he had called for as a teacher.

At Bury St Edmunds, Langton and the Barons demand that King John respect their privileges. Historicizing representation from 1787

Participation in the Magna Carta

Shortly after his reconciliation with the king, Langton stood up for those barons who had refused to participate in the planned campaign to France in 1212. After that he was almost constantly engaged in negotiations with the king, making him a key figure in the creation of the Magna Carta . Langton strictly rejected an open rebellion against the king, instead he tried to resolve the conflict through negotiations. As a teacher in Paris, he had already taken the view that a king must also act according to the law. He was probably responsible for writing down the barons' demands in a letter to the king, and he had initially hoped that the renewal of the coronation oath that the king had to take to resolve his excommunication would be sufficient for the king to make concessions to his Move barons. After the king's defeat at the Battle of Bouvines in July 1214, the problems became even more difficult. Langton had lost the Pope's trust because he suspected that the growing discontent in England had something to do with Langton's work. In turn, the hope that Langton and other bishops would settle unresolved issues with the king showed the barons' confidence in Langton. After a brief civil war in May 1215, the king had to recognize the Magna Carta in June. The first article of the Magna Carta, affirming the freedom of the Church, corresponded to Langton's call for free bishops, although this was restricted by the fact that the Magna Carta should not curtail any rights of the king. Although Langton continued to advocate a peaceful settlement, the peace achieved through the recognition of the Magna Carta was short-lived, and the conflict escalated into the War of the Barons . Together with other bishops, Langton tried in vain to bring the warring parties back to the negotiating table. When at the beginning of September a letter from the Pope arrived on July 7th, which the Pope had written in ignorance of the Magna Carta and the renewed hostilities, but excommunicated all enemies of the king and occupied their lands with the interdict, the Archbishop and his suffragan bishops were supposed to write this letter proclaim or be removed from office. By this time Langton had completely lost the king's trust after refusing to surrender Rochester Castle . The king therefore regarded him as a traitor, while Langton found the surrender demanded to be unlawful. When the Archbishop now refused to excommunicate the rebels, he was removed from office by Peter des Roches , Bishop of Winchester and the first addressee of the papal letter. He then left England in mid-September to travel to Rome for the council.

Suspension and return to England

In Rome, Pope Innocent confirmed Langton's impeachment on November 4, 1215. Shortly afterwards the Lateran Council began , in which Langton had little part. The successor of Innocent, who died in July 1216, Pope Honorius III. , finally allowed Langton to return to England. When he arrived there in May 1218, he found a completely different political situation from 1215. After the death of King John, his underage son Heinrich was crowned king, for whom a Regency Council consisting of the regent William Marshal , Bishop Peter des Roches and the legate Pandulf ruled. Langton supported the new government trying to overcome the aftermath of the civil war. In 1219 Langton took part in the investigation into alleged miracles of Bishop Hugo von Lincoln , and in 1220 he presided over two large celebrations, on May 17, 1220 the second, solemn coronation of Henry III. in Westminster and two months later the transfer of the relics of Thomas Becket to the new shrine in Canterbury. In the autumn of 1220 he traveled to Rome to give the Pope a relic of Becket and to ask him to recall Legate Pandulf. In July 1221 he returned with the order to recall Pandulf. From then on he played an important political role again until his death.

Epitaph for Stephan Langton at the place of his death in the parish church of Slindon

Magna Carta advocate and church reformer

Since the king was still a minor, the power of government after Marshal's death was now with the legal counsel Hubert de Burgh . This and Bishop des Roches tried to increase their influence and power, while Langton played a moderating role. He became an advocate of the Magna Carta in order to work with loyal officials to restore peace and order to the country. In January 1223, Langton was able to convince the king to confirm the Carta orally, and two years later he was instrumental in it when the king confirmed the Magna Carta in writing in its final form. Langton threatened everyone, whether king, officials or barons, with excommunication if the Carta was disregarded. When the Magna Carta was re-confirmed by the kings in later years, Langton's successors as archbishops renewed the threat of excommunication, which contributed significantly to the recognition and continued existence of the Magna Carta. Langton also applied the Magna Carta in favor of the king, so in 1224 he approved the execution of the rebel garrison of Bedford Castle , as a royal court had legitimately ordered the surrender of the castle.

In order to carry out his ecclesiastical reforms, Langton convened a synod of his ecclesiastical province in Oxford in 1222 . The importance of the 60 rules adopted there is made clear by the fact that they are still preserved in 60 manuscripts. Nine of these regulations cite the resolutions of the Fourth Lateran Council, and 16 others reflect the results of the council. Others repeat rules adopted at a Synod of the Archdiocese of Canterbury convened by Langton in 1213 and 1214. These include provisions such as the prohibition of clerics from judging assault or murder in court, the prohibition of celebrating Mass more than twice with the exception of Christmas and Easter, the provision that no person has more than one benefice where they are was responsible for the salvation of the population, and the attempt that each vicar should receive a minimum income of five marks a year. The rules affected both the spiritual and secular life of the clergy and had a great influence on the medieval church. Other bishops quickly incorporated the rules adopted in Oxford into the canon law of their dioceses.

In 1227 Langton, well over seventy years old, withdrew from the royal court. But both the king and legal counsel Hubert de Burgh stayed in contact with him. At the beginning of July 1228 he met the king and the lawyer again in Canterbury. After that, however, he was carried sick in a litter to his country estate near Slindon, where he died around July 9th. He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral.

Stephen Langton, a copy of the Magna Carta in hand. Depiction in St Mary's Church in Staines

Aftermath

The character Stephen Langton appears in William Shakespeare's drama King John .

In the 19th century, historians were primarily interested in Langton's political work and his contribution to the conclusion of the Magna Carta. With increasing research into the complex reign of King John and a more differentiated view of his rule, the theological importance of Langton came to the fore. This process began in the 1920s when Powicke published his biography on Langton. In the period that followed, many of Langton's writings were historically reevaluated, but numerous manuscripts by and about him have not yet been researched. Langton is still regarded as one of the key figures who led to the creation of the Magna Carta, but he is undoubtedly one of the greatest clergy of the Middle Ages. As a church politician, he helped ensure that the conflict between King John and the barons did not become any more violent than it already was, and that the king started negotiations. It is thanks to Langton as a statesman that the Magna Carta was finally confirmed again by the king after the war of the barons and was subsequently recognized.

Compared to Baldwin or Hubert Walter, his predecessors as archbishop and primate, he left few files, but he enforced important decisions on canon law. In addition, after Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, he is considered one of the most important theologians among the medieval archbishops.

Works

  • Commentaria in libros Regum I-IV MS-B-131 . Cistercian Abbey, Altenberg 13th century, 1st half ( digitized version )
  • The Pentecost sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come, O Spirit of Holiness) is attributed to him
  • The sentence commentary. Aschendorff, Münster 1952 (reprint 1995, ISBN 3-402-03167-1 )

literature

  • John W. Baldwin: Master Stephen Langton, Future Archbishop of Canterbury: The Paris Schools and Magna Carta. In: English Historical Review (CXXIII / 503), pp. 811-846.
  • Stephan Ernst: Stephan Langton. In: Lexicon for Theology and Church. 9, Freiburg / Basel / Rome / Vienna ³2000, 965f.
  • G. Lacombe: The Questions of Cardinal Stephen Langton . In: The Scholasticism . Vol. 3, 1929, pp. 1–18, 113–158 (the second article is produced and drawn jointly by G. Lacombe and A. Landgraf)
  • Frederick M. Powicke: Stephen Langton. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1928
  • Klaus Reinhardt:  Langton, Stephan. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 1127-1130.

Web links

Commons : Stephen Langton  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Wilfred L. Warren: King John . University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978. ISBN 0-520-03610-7 , p. 202
  2. Magna Carta 800th: Stephen Langton. Retrieved November 3, 2015 .
predecessor Office successor
John de Gray Archbishop of Canterbury
1207–1228
Richard Grant