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Camera Papae: problems of Papal Finance in the later Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Peter D. Partner
Peter D. Partner
Affiliation:
British School at Rome
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Extract

Boniface VIII probably spent some half a million gold florins on the acquisition of lands for the Caetani. But of that money not a word is said in the Introitus and Exitus volumes, the main account books of the Apostolic Chamber. Where was it accounted for and from whence did it come? The pope had certain special sources of income which would not ordinarily be reckoned in the main account books, and of these, some could properly be termed his fortune as a private person, while others attached to his office as pope. There was the private fortune which he had before he assumed the tiara. There were the incomes of benefices personally reserved to him, gifts made him by prelates and laymen, legacies, sometimes the goods of deceased prelates, and the so-called ‘private visitations’ and ‘secret services’. Later in the fourteenth century many other sources were tapped for the benefit of a secret fund, and all in all the sums which it disposed of were formidable and sometimes enormous. The ends to which the money was directed were as various as the characters and policies of the pontiffs: it was used for nepotistic ends on a princely scale, as a mere convenient subsidiary to the main financial machine, as a war account, as a means of making enormous loans to lay rulers, or simply as a petty cash account. The earliest records of the secret accounts to survive are from the midfifteenth century, but the large sums involved, and its covert but great importance in papal policy in general make the earlier history of this institution as interesting as it is obscure.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , January 1953 , pp. 55 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1953

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References

page 55 note 1 See F. Baethgen, in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archival und Biblioiheken (referred to as Quellen hereafter), xx (1928–9), especially at p. 193, and in Historische Zeitschrift, cxxxviii (1928). On the secret financial administration in general, A. Gottlob, Aus der Camera Apostolica des XV. Jahrhunderts (1889), 49–50, 75–8, 91, 97, 166–7 and App. III. E. Goeller, Die Einnahmen der Apostolischen Kammer unter Johann XXII (Vatikanische Quellen zur Geschihte der päpstlichen Hof- und Finanzverwaltung, Bd. I, 1910), 124* f., and Johanns XXII. Privatkasse und der liber de receptis a d.n. papa, in Römische Quartalschrift, xvi (1902). Tellenbach, G., Beiträge zur kurialen Verwaltungsgeschichte im 14. Jahrh., in Quellen, xxiv (1932–3)Google Scholar.

page 55 note 2 The sources are printed by Ehrle, F., Der Nachlass Clemens' Vund der in Betreff dersselben von Johann XXII (1318–1321) geführte Process, in Archivfür Literalur- und Kirchengeschichte dcs Mittelalters, v (1889)Google Scholar, referred to as Der Nachlass hereafter.

page 56 note 1 Not 9 June 1312, as in Der Nachlass, 122–3.

page 56 note 2 Der Nachlass, 47, 35, 29. ‘Es wurde, wie uns obiger Process zeigt, im 14. Jahrhundert zwischen dem Schatze der römischen Kirche und dem Privatvermögen des Papstes so gut wie kein Unterschied gemacht’ (143). But see below, 62–63.

page 57 note 1 Der Nachlass, 48, 57, 135. Rymer, Foedera, ii1, 52, 28 October 1313. Ehrle, op. cit., 135, n. 6, shows from the archives of Pau that repayments of this loan were being made to the Viscount of Lomagne out of the revenues of Gascony up to 1319–20. Another example of Clement's free behaviour with the revenues of the Church is the gift to his brother not only of the rectorate of a province, but of the income of the province. (Der Nachlass, 141; A. Eitel, Der Kirchenstaat unter Klemens V (1907), 133f.).

page 57 note 2 Der Nachlass 71, 87, 121, 146.

page 57 note 3 Baethgen, F., Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte des päpstlichen Finanzwesens, in Quellen, xxiv (1932–3), 132 f.Google Scholar, prints the notarial act of 26 March 1336. Johannes' evidence in Der Nachlass, 63–71; Pinchebek's, 82. Baethgen is in error in saying that Johannes died in 1314 (ibid., 132, n. 4), he died in 1329: Goeller, Die Einnahmen … unter Johanns XXII, 348, 515.

page 58 note 1 Baethgen, ibid., 138–9. Gottlob, A., Die Servitientaxe im 13. Jahrh. (1903), 144–5Google Scholar. Konig, L., Die päpstliche Kammer unter Clemens V und Johann XXII (1894), 25–6.Google Scholar W. E. Lunt, Financial relations of the papacy with England, 479 ff. Regestum Clementis Papae V … cura … monachorum O.S.B., App., i (1892), 221–2 (no. 96) and 338 (no. 691) which show the secret services paid into the Apostolic Chamber and not the secret account. Boniface VIII's secret services and wardrobe account may have been in the ‘chartularium, in quo sunt scripta aliqua servitia facto domino Bonifatio et expense facte per receptorum ipsorum’ in the catalogue of the papal treasure at Perugia made in 1311. (Ehrle, F., Historia bibliothecae Romanorum pontificum (1890), i. 40, no. 130.Google Scholar)

page 58 note 2 Regestum Clementis V, Anno ix, no. 10341.

page 58 note 3 Der Nachlass, 29–30, 43, 75, 78, 83, 129. The remittance of the secret service for Canterbury may be referred to in Rymer, Foedera, ii1, 73, 19 November 1314.

page 58 note 4 How is ‘secundus thesaurarius’ to be interpreted? Schäfer, K. H., Die Ausgaben der Apostolischen Kammer unter Johann XXII (1911), 7Google Scholar, says that in 1312–14 Johannes acted as locum tenens of the treasurer, but I cannot find where in the Registers he derives authority for saying this. Bertrandus de Bordis (later chamberlain) was in 1306–7 referred to as ‘thesaurarius interioris’, Regestum Clementis V, Prolegomena, (i, p. ex). Something of the kind may be referred to in the ‘papirum in quo continentur ea, que recepit et expendit de bonis thesauri ecclesie Romane custos guardarobe domini Nicolai pp. IIII’. (Inventory of 1311, in Regestum Clementis V, App., i, 492.)

page 59 note 1 Goeller, E., Die Einnahmen… Johann XXII, 126*–129*, in Romische Quart., xv (1901), 281Google Scholar; ibid., xvi (1902), 181. Sägmuller, Der Schatz Johanns XXII, in Historische Jahrbuch xviii (1897). Baumgarten, Ergänzungen zu Sägmuller, ibid., xix, 99. Ehrle, Die 25 Millionen im Schatze Johanns XXII, in Archiv für Lit. u. Kirchengesch., v (1889). The bull of 1335 printed by Sägmuller from Onuphrius Panvinius, that of 1336 in G. Daumet, Lettres closes de Benoît XII, no. 164.

page 59 note 2 I have reduced to cameral florins the various monies given in the bull (Sägmuller, art. cit., 43), using the equivalents in Sägmuller, 48–51, and Schäfer, Die Ausgaben … Johann XXII, 47*–70*.

page 59 note 3 Goeller, E., Die Kubikulare im dienste der päpstlichen Hofverwaltung vom 12. bis 15. Jahrh. in Kehr Festschrift (1926), 622Google Scholar. G. Tellenbach, in Repertorium Germanicum, ii (1933), 42* f. For ‘cambrerius’, Goeller, art. cit., 634 n.; cf. ‘cambrerius sive cubicularius’ in Ehrle, Historia Bibliothecae, 261.

page 60 note 1 Schäfer, K. H., Die Ausgaben der Apostolischen Kammer unter Benedikt XII, Klemens VI, u. Innocenz VI 1914, 510, et passim.Google Scholar

page 60 note 2 Schäfer, K. H., Die Ausgaben der Apostolischen Kammer unter den Päpsien Urban V und Gregor XI (1937), 7, 59, 92, et passimGoogle Scholar.

page 60 note 3 Schäfer, op. cit., 27, 52–4, 219, 294. J.-H. Albanes, Recherches sur la famille de Grimoard et sur ses possessions territoriales au XIVe siècle (1866), 26.

page 60 note 4 Kirsch, J.-P., Die Rückkehr der Päpste Urban Vund Gregor XI nach Rom (1898), 132, 153–7Google Scholar. The pope had a camera secreta (p. 153), a studium, and a wardrobe, all near the audience chamber in the north of the upper palace. See Ehrle, F. and Egger, H., Das Vatikanische Palast in seiner Entwicklung bis zur mitte des XV. Jahrh. (1935), 69, 79Google Scholar. The treasury was some distance away in the west wing of the lower palace, ibid., p. 62.

page 61 note 1 Schäfer, Die Ausgaben … unter… Urban V u. Gregor XI, passim.

page 61 note 2 Der Nachlass, 66. See G. Barraclough, Public Notaries and the Papal Curia (1934).

page 61 note 3 F. Ehrle, Historia Bibliothecae, i. 601, 686, 700. L.-H. Labande, Le Palais des papes et les monuments d'Avignon au XIVe siècle (1925), t. I., p. 41.

page 61 note 4 Ehrle, op. cit., 601, 614, 625.

page 61 note 5 Ehrle, op. cit., 602, 613, 626, 642–50. Labande, op. cit., 98 f. Colombe, La ‘Grande Trisorerie’ au palais apostolique d'Avignon, in Miscellanea F. Ehrle (1924), ii. En l'absence d'Urban V. Le trésor haut dans la tour des anges, in Au palais des papes d'Avignon. Nouvelles recherches. Ser. II. H. Hoberg, Die Inventare des päpstlichen Schatzes in Avignon (1944), especially 62, 64, 147, 160, 524.

page 62 note 1 Mohler, L., Die Einnahmen … unter Kletnens VI (1931), 459.Google Scholar

page 62 note 2 De Loye, Archives de la Chambre Apostolique au XlVème siècle (1899), 81. This loan may be the same as that of 16,000 florins from the Cardinals in 1350: P.-M. Baumgarten, Untersuchungen und Urkunden über die Camera Collegii Cardinalium (1898), 192, no. 290a. No such loans are recorded in the ordinary books of the Apostolic Chamber, so they must have been paid to the secret account.

page 62 note 3 Hoberg, 393. Colombe, En l'absence d'Urban V, where he post-dates this removal by some years. Ehrle, Historia Bibliothecae, 667: in 1379 the lower treasure is said to be ‘ubi spolia prelatorum consueverunt reponi’.

page 62 note 4 Cf. Sägmuller, J. B., Lehrbuch des katholischen Kirchenrechts (1904), 784–92Google Scholar. The Commentary of Innocent IV (Venice, 1577, 159) says alienation is forbidden ‘nisi pro utilitate ecclesie et cum iuris solemnitate’.

page 63 note 1 E. Albe, Quelques tines des dernières volontés de Jean XXII (1903). Goeller, Die Einnahmen … unter Johann XXII, 127* f.

page 63 note 2 Sägmuller, art. cit., in Hist. Jahrb., 43, n. 1. And see Baethgen, art. cit. in Quellen, xxiv; Goeller, loc. cit.; König, Die Päpstliche Kammer etc., 72, n. 4; Ehrle, quoted above, 46, n. 2.

page 63 note 3 E.g. Belluga, Speculum Principum (Venice, 1580), rub. 9, no. 12. I owe this reference to Mr. Peter Riesenberg, of Columbia University.

page 64 note 1 Schäfer, Die Ausgaben … Urban V und Gregor XI, 175.

page 64 note 2 Ibid., 452.

page 64 note 3 Baumgarten, Untersuchungen, etc., 233, no. 326. The record of the division is printed by Tellenbach, art. cit., in Quellen, xxiv. 170–1, no. 13.

page 64 note 4 Baumgarten, P.-M., Aus Kanzlei und Kammer (1907), 251Google Scholar. W. von Hofmann, Forschungen zur Geschichte der kurialen Behörden vom Schisma bis zur Reformation (1914), i., 244 f., ii, 128–30.

page 64 note 5 C. Guasti, Gli Avanzi dell' Archivio di un pratese Vescovo di Volterra, in Archivio Storico Italiano, 4 Ser., xiii (1884). Guasti publishes only part of the accounts, and these do not mention annates or services. But see the bull of quittance of 7 April 1415, Reg. Vat. 345, f. 274, which mentions annates, common services and other payments, in the monies handled by Stefano Geri.

page 65 note 1 Baumgarten, loc. cit. E. von Ottenthal, Die Bullenregister Martin Vund Eugen IV, in Mittheilungen des Instituts für oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung, Erg. Bd. i (1885), 514–16. Von Hofmann, i. 28–9; ii. 31, 129, 209.

page 65 note 2 Von Hofmann, i. 88 n., quoting Reg. Vat. 354, f. 291v. There are slight differences in the amounts in Introitus et Exitus, v. 379, ff. 132, 136, 141, 150, but the payments are obviously the same ones. The church is not St. Peter, as in von Hofmann, loc. cit.

page 65 note 3 Baumgarten, in Römische Quartalschrift, xviii (1905), 168Google Scholar.

page 65 note 4 Vatican Archives, Int. et Exit., v. 387, f. 36V.

page 65 note 5 Baumgarten, Aus Kanzlei und Kammer, 252.

page 65 note 6 Ottenthal, op. cit., 502–503, n.

page 65 note 7 E.g., Vat. Arch., Int. et Exit., v. 379, ff. 38V, 140, 20,000 florins from census of the Malatesta; f. 156, 420 fl. from rector of March of Ancona; f. 178v, 696 fl. from collector in Compostella; f. 212V, 60 fl. from a composition with the Chamber, v. 382; f. 97, 1750 fl. from tenths in Dalmatia; f. 105, 2000 fl. from gabelle at Avignon; f. 114, 100 ducats ‘pro fructibus male perceptis’; v. 383, f. 46, 2150 fl., common service of bishopric of Bath and Wells; f. 75v, 35 fl. from annate of a parish church; v. 385, f. 149, 7000 fl. paid in cash from Apostolic Chamber; f. 157, 1025 fl. from salt monopoly of the March; v. 381, f. 152V, 2000 fl. from treasurer of City of Rome. Rome, Archivio di Stato, Archivio Camerale, Pt. I, v. 825 (Mandati Camerali), f. 142v, 2000 fl. from taxes of Ripa and Ripetta of Rome; v. 826, f. 3, 210 fl. from the dogana of sheep.

page 66 note 1 Rome, Arch, di Stato, Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 1468 (Spese minute di Palazzo). The bull of quittance of 26 April 1438 quoted by von Hofmann, ii. 128, refers to this volume. Other similar bulls of quittance for same period, von Hofmann, ibid.

page 66 note 2 Von Hofmann i. 87 f.

page 66 note 3 Ibid., 162 f.

page 66 note 4 Rome, Arch, di Stato, Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 1471, f. 85, 4400 ducats ‘in a sack’.

page 66 note 5 See the fragmentary accounts for 1464 printed by Gottlob, Aus der Camera Apostolica, App. III. Two complete volumes in Rome, Arch, di Stato, Arch. Cam., Pt. I, vols. 1288, 1299, apparently unknown to Gottlob, belong to the same series, and give the complete secret account from 1460–63.

page 66 note 6 Baumgarten, Oddo Potii de Varris de Genazzano, etc., in Hist.Jahrb., xxxi (1901), 771 f. F. Baix, La Chambre Apostolique et les ‘libri annatarum’ de Martin V (1942), cccxxiv f.

page 66 note 7 Ottenthal, op. cit., 473, 507. Von Hofmann, ii. 81, 110. Silvestrelli, G., Città Castelli e terre della Regime Romano (1940), i. 308Google Scholar. On Domenico Capranica as a cameral clerk, Baix, op. cit., cccxcv-cccxcvi.

page 67 note 1 Rome, Arch, di Stato, Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 824, f. 54V.

page 67 note 2 Cascioli, G., Nuova serie dei Vescovi di Tivoli, in Atti e memorie della Società tiburtina di storia e d'arte, vii (1927), 197 f.Google Scholar Von Hofmann, ii. 186.

page 67 note 3 Stefano Infessura, Diario della Città di Roma, ed. Tommasini (1890), 27. Nicolò di Ceciliano was taken by Stefano Colonna for the same reason: M. Giustiniani, De' Vescovi e de' gouemaloridi Tivoli (1665), 53; Platina, RRIISS, ed. nov., 314.

page 67 note 4 Schäfer, Die Ausgaben … Johann XXII, 14*. But of this sum, 150,000 florins came from the part of Clement V's treasure recovered from the Viscount of Lomagne.

page 67 note 5 Hoberg, op. cit., p. xix, n., and references given there; G. Mollat, Les papes d'Avignon (1950), 86 n.

page 67 note 6 Schäfer, Die Ausgaben … Benedikt XII, Klemens VI und Innocen z VI, 520.

page 67 note 7 This and the following figure calculated after the figures in Schafer, Die Ausgaben … Urban V und Gregor XII and Kirsch, Die Rückkehr der Päpste, etc.

page 68 note 1 Rome, Arch, di Stato, Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 824 passim. Arch. Vat., Int. et Exit., v. 379.

page 68 note 2 Vat. Arch., Int. et Exit., v. 385, 386. Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 825.

page 68 note 3 Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 1468, f. 12v. Figures for other years in Von Hofmann, ii. 128–9.

page 68 note 4 Arch. Cam., Pt. I, v. 1288, 1299. See above, p. 66, n. 5. Very similar accounts for a later period are published by L. Dorez, La Cour du pape Paul III d'après les registres de la Trésorerie secrète (1932).