Henry Bartolomei of Susa (Lat. Henricus de Segusio) was one of the foremost canonists of the thirteenth century and an influential writer on legal aspects of crusading. He was known in later life and to posterity as Hostiensis from his title of cardinal bishop of Ostia.
Probably born around 1200, Henry of Susa seems to have taught canon law in Paris before 1240. After becoming a papal chaplain and bishop of Sister on in 1243/1244, he probably attended a crusade planning council at Lyons (1245). As archbishop of Embrun (1250-1261), he replaced Philip Fontana as papal legate to northern Italy in 1259 during the denouement of the political crusade against Ezzelino of Romano and his supporters. Appointed cardinal of Ostia in 1262, he participated in the conclave that eventually elected Pope Gregory X (1271-1276) before ill health ended his career.
Hostiensis composed two influential commentaries on the decretals of Gregory IX, known as the Summa aurea (c. 1253) and the Lectura in quinque libros Decretalium (c. 1271). These and his Lectura (1245/1246-1253) on the Novellae of Pope Innocent IV (whom Hostiensis met while studying canon and Roman law in Bologna in the 1220s) illuminate how extensively the legal obligations and privileges of the crusading vow had been defined by the mid-thirteenth century.
-Jessalynn Bird
See also: Indulgences and Penance
Bibliography
Brundage, James A., “The Votive Obligations of Crusaders:
The Development of a Canonistic Doctrine,” Traditio 24 (1968), 77-118.
-, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1969).
Pennington, Kenneth, Popes, Canonists and Texts, 1150-1550 (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1993).
World History
