Appeals

Rich in liturgical solemnity, councils offered a fitting ceremonial occasion to showcase the pope's growing legislative role, as well as his judicial power, since disputes were aired on these occasions (the question of primacy in Spain, for instance, between Toledo and Compostela at Fourth Lateran, or the complaints raised at First Lyon over the flood of Italian providees in England and other perceived abuses inflicted on the English church by Rome22). They were, however, a cumbersome tool for exercising regular jurisdiction, occurring, as they did, only once every decade or two. A more effective means by which the popes of this period functioned as the judges and, by creating precedents, the lawgivers of the Latin West, was by opening the doors of apostolic justice to cases from every corner of Europe. This practice had deep roots. The notion that causae maiores belonged to the Roman see can be traced back to Innocent I, and among the Carolingian popes, Nicholas I stands out as a busy iudex, for example in the case between Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims and Bishop Rothad of Soissons or the dispute between the churches of Hamburg and Cologne over control of the diocese of Bremen.23 These causes were undeniably 'major', involving not only bishops, but metropolitan power as well. But what distinguished the popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries from earlier pontiffs like Nicholas was both the vast increase in the volume of judicial activity at the curia and the extent to which it involved litigants whose ranks and cases were far more humble. Most of these came to the curia on appeal from lower ecclesiastical courts, though some plaintiffs preferred to skip the intermediate jurisdictions available to them and head directly to the papal curia. As jurists asserted, while Roman law demanded that a suit first be heard by the proper lower court before being brought before the prince, canon law had no such restriction; anyone might seek the pope at any time.24

The number of litigants submitting cases to papal jurisdiction increased rapidly in the second half of the twelfth century, when the era of the 'lawyer popes' begins, particularly during the pontificate of Alexander III. Indeed, so overwhelming had the judicial side of papal business become that some popes sought to restrict the number of cases inundating Rome, as when Alexander tried to eliminate fraudulent or frivolous appeals and when Gregory VIII, complaining he was 'unable to endure the shouts and murmurs of those crowding together from all directions' at the curia, attempted to restrain 'trivial business', that is, cases involving fewer than twenty marks.25 Gregory's solution was to hand supervision of lesser disputes over to metropolitan bishops. In other matters, however, the papacy assumed exclusive control of certain 'reserved cases' at the expense of archbishops and regional instances, cases that only added to the overwhelming mass of suits at the Lateran. Cases such as grave violence against clerics, as well as episcopal resignations, translations and depositions were thus arrogated to the papacy.26 Disputed episcopal elections were added to this list by Alexander IV in 1257.27

The growth in papal justice, historians often point out, was largely a passive phenomenon.28 The curia did not so much demand recognition of its claims as litigants chose to seek curial attention. This was particularly true when it came to the use of papal provisions. Responding to the entreaties of petitioners, popes of the twelfth century sometimes requested that local churches install needy clerics in vacant posts. In the thirteenth century, this swelled into an extensive papal right to bestow benefices throughout the Western church. While the abuses of the provision system (its aggravation of the problem of pluralism, for instance) were serious, the incomes of available prebends proved to be a useful means of supporting the growing cadre of clerics needed to staff the papal administration.