‘Governing the world by writing’ is the intriguing title of a recent book about the late antique and medieval papacy. The subtitle reveals it to be about relations with Dalmatia only,1 but the concept is applicable to the present work, which tries to explain how the papacy governed the world, in its religious aspects at least, by means of documents. The ‘power’ with which the book is concerned is ‘power to’ more than ‘power over’.2 ‘Protocol’ in the title is understood in a sense transferred from the world of computing as ‘A (usually standardised) set of rules governing the exchange of data’ (Oxford English Dictionary). The implicit analogy with software is not inappropriate, since an argument running through the book will be that cleverly designed systems compensated for the inadequacies of the ‘hardware’ of papal government – for its lack of a properly financed bureaucratic infrastructure.

This chapter traces the complex and tense relationship between Tolstoy and the Russian Orthodox Church. It provides basic background information on the role of the Church in Russian history and in Tolstoy’s time. It reveals that even as Tolstoy rebelled fiercely against the Church, it was the rebellion of a man who was deeply immersed in Orthodox thought and practice; as such, his rebellion itself was colored by the Church. Similarly, representatives of the Orthodox Church found it necessary to publicly respond to Tolstoy’s challenges to Orthodoxy in order to demonstrate the importance of the Church in modern times. Thus, Tolstoy and Church representatives shaped their systems of thought in discussion (and conflict) with each other.

For most people today, in Russia and elsewhere, all they know about Tolstoi’s relationship to the Orthodox Church is the Circular Letter that the Holy Synod issued against him in February 1901, usually referred to as his “excommunication.” The promulgation of this document was perhaps the most egregious miscalculation made by the Russian Church leadership in its struggle against Tolstoi, and repercussions of this “scandal” continue to reverberate even today. The background and intentions underlying this spectacular act have been widely misunderstood, primarily for two reasons. Firstly, Soviet researchers – who for a long time were the only ones with access to Soviet archives – systematically misrepresented their findings, attempting to prove that the initiative to this public announcement had been taken by tsarist state authorities, not by the church leaders. However, the archival documents they referred to and selectively quoted clearly show that the decision was taken in the offices of the Holy Synod itself. Secondly, the Church was trying to do two things at once: to warn the faithful against Tolstoi’s pernicious teachings, and to lure him back into the fold. As a result, they tried to present their Circular as being both an excommunication, and not an excommunication.

investigates the troubled last years of tenth Imam ʿAlī al-Hādī and his son al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī. Hādī faced challenges from esoterist bābs claiming authority, most notably the renegade agent Fāris b. Ḥātim, who posed such a threat that Hādī ordered his assassination. Such challenges were compounded by a bitter succession dispute catalyzed by the unexpected death of Hādī’s designated heir, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad. This created confusion in the community, and doubt about the next Imam, al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī. Ḥasan was accused by his opponents of lacking the requisite knowledge to be an Imam, dogged by his infertility, and opposed by another brother, Jaʿfar. This dispute over Imamic succession generated a feud which was to continue after Ḥasan’s death and create a fundamental flaw between pro-Jaʿfar and anti-Jaʿfar camps that split both the family of the Imams itself, as well as their followers, and defined the development of the Twelver Occultation.

By the twelfth century, excommunication and interdict were the principal spiritual sanctions of the western Church. Excommunication meant exclusion from the sacraments, notably the Eucharist, and in its harshest form separation from the communion of the faithful. Interdicts, on the other hand, did not cut off members from the body of the Church but did suspend the spiritual benefits of membership, notably participation in most sacraments and other religious rites.

A history of ecclesiastical criminal law has yet to be written. In this limited space, we will not attempt to accomplish such an ambitious task. Instead, the aim will be to provide a general overview of how medieval ecclesiastical law contributed to the development of public criminal law.

From a numerical perspective, ecclesiastical court activity in Catalonia aligns well with the Italian evidence. What distinguishes pastoral intervention is the abundance of surviving visitation registers. Beginning soon after 1300, diocesan prelates toured their parishes and had juries of clergy and laymen respond to questionnaires itemizing sinful behavior. Against Northern convention, they did not probe into mere episodes of intercourse and concentrated on sustained sexual partnerships like concubinage. Disciplinary measures were usually of a spiritual kind and depended for implementation on voluntary submission or neighborhood pressure. Two levels of excommunication could be inflicted on those unwilling to adjust their domestic situation to canonical demands. If absolution was granted, the commutation of penances into monetary payment only applied as elsewhere in the South to laity living under the bishop’s secular lordship. Adherence to the injunctions of visiting clerics appears to have been lackluster, unless hearsay about the impediments of consanguinity and affinity triggered judicial scrutiny, created demand for papal dispensations, or necessitated their formal execution.

Chapter 2 analyzes how congregations charged men and women with different sins, defined sins in gendered terms, and created distinctive expectations for male and female confessions. By gendering sins, laymen created a different Puritanism for men than for women. First-generation ministers preached communal obligation and individual piety. As discipline increased through the second and third generations, the focus of sermons changed, emphasizing individual piety for women and communal responsibility for men, which contributed to the formation of different religious identities. By the third generation, women outnumbered men 3 to 2 in the feminized setting of the church, which more frequently focused on an individual’s relationship with God. The Puritan focus on female piety put more of an emphasis on individual spirituality for women, while contributing to the development of a male religiosity that focused on public and civic affairs. While women stayed in the pews and developed a “religious self,” men went out into the secular arena and expressed their religiosity through their sense of duty to their communities, their families, their businesses, and their country.

John Calvin and other Reformed Protestants placed a great deal of emphasis on discipline, and one noted historian has even argued that Calvinist discipline contributed to “the making of the modern mind.”1 Some Reformed leaders, such as Martin Bucer, claimed that discipline was the third mark of the true church, the other two being the pure preaching of the Gospels and the proper administration of the sacraments. There were differences of opinion among Reformed thinkers, however, about how discipline was to be carried out. In Zurich, Ulrich Zwingli asserted that the Christian magistrates had the exclusive authority to discipline the faithful, including the right to excommunicate. By contrast, Bucer maintained that discipline should be under the purview of the pastors who were to be assisted by elders.2 John Calvin, who had gotten to know Bucer during his stay in Strasbourg (1538–1541), reflected the older reformer’s ideas on discipline. Although he never specifically recognized it as the third mark of the church, he placed enormous emphasis on discipline, describing it as the “sinews” of the church, and made the establishment of a new disciplinary institution, the consistory, a condition for his return to Geneva in 1541. Calvin composed the Geneva’s ecclesiastical ordinances that prescribed that the consistory be comprised of the city’s pastors and elders. Consistories became the prime instrument of discipline among the Reformed in sixteenth-century Europe.