Folia Canonica 5. (2002)

STUDIES - Kenneth Pennington: Bishops and their Dioceses

BISHOPS AND THEIR DIOCESES

II

Innocent’s extraordinary claim did not go unnoticed. Johannes Teutonicus excoriated Innocent by pointing out that the pope had scorned the traditional papal titles of Servant of the servants of God and the vicar of Peter in Quanto personam and claimed more exalted titles.10 Laurentius Hispanus, on the other hand, was intrigued by Innocent’s rhetoric and commented on Innocent’s claim that the pope exercised the office of God on earth by breathlessly expanding upon Innocent’s words:

Hence the pope is said to have a divine will... O, how great is the power of the Prince. He changes the nature of things by applying the essences of one thing to another... he can make iniquity from justice by correcting any canon or law; for in these things that he wishes, his will is held to be reason (est pro ratione voluntas)

... and these is no one in this world who would say to him, why do you do this?11

Innocent changed the relationship of the pope to his bishops forever. Since the early church a bishop’s relationship to his church was based on a close bond that was described as a marriage. Consequently a bishop could not, according to canon law, leave his church without good and serious reasons. Bishops did leave their bishoprics but transfers were not regular and were not a part of an episcopal cursus honorum. In the thirteenth century there was an explosion of translations that continues until modern times. Bishops were no longer wedded to their churches; they were wedded to their careers. The pope appointed his pastors to new offices with little attention to the feelings of the bishop’s spouses.

The small central Italian diocese of Rieti is a good example of the practice and of the change that took place after Innocent III. Until the middle of the thirteenth century, although information is scarce, almost all the bishops of Rieti were local clerics who were elected by the cathedral chapter. This changed in 1252 when Pope Innocent IV appointed a curial official, Tommaso, to the bishopric. Tommaso was not a cleric from Rieti; he had no connections to Rieti. Innocent appointed him to the bishopric and bypassed the niceties of canonical electoral doctrine. Seven of the next eight bishops of Rieti were appointed by the pope. Six of these used Rieti as a temporary station in their cursus honorum. They were appointed to other bishoprics. Of the seven bishops who were translated to Rieti, six had been bishops at other places before they were translated.12

10 Johannes’ criticism was unique: „Licet hic te appelles senium seniorum dei, altius tamen intonas, cum dedignaris dici uicarius Petri,” Apparatus glossarum in Compilationem tertiam, ed. K. PENNINGTON (Monumenta iuris canonici, Series A, 3), Città del Vaticano 1981, 1. On papal titles, see S. Kuttner, Universal Pope or Servant of God's Servants: The Canonists, Papal titles, and Innocent III, in Revue de droit canonique 32 (1981) 109-149.

"Pennington, Pope and Bishops (nt. 8), 17-20.

12R. Brentano, A New World in a Small Place: Church and Religion in the Diocese of Rieti 1188-1378, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1994, 146-147. R. Kay, Dante's