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1 results

  • 5 - The papacy

  • from Part II - The Church in the Thirteenth Century
  • David Abulafia, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    21 October 1999, pp 105-163

  • Summary

    The papacy was a unique sort of monarchy in that it claimed jurisdiction in both spiritual and temporal affairs. This chapter discusses a characteristic feature of thirteenth-century papal government: the use of general councils as a major instrument of policy. There were three of them: Lateran IV (1215); Lyons I (1245); Lyons II (1274). Between the accession of Innocent III in January 1198 and the death of Boniface VIII in October 1303, eighteen popes ruled the Church. Popes were elected to succeed St Peter. They were heirs to all that authority which Christ had assigned to the leader of the Apostles when he appointed him as head of his newly founded Church. Innocent III was no mere theorist of papal leadership. He was also its leading thirteenth-century exponent. Innocent IV was very much Gregory IX's man. He had served in his curia throughout his working life by rising steadily through the ranks of the papal judiciary,.