medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

"...behind apparently straightforward pro-papal legal collections may
lurk monasteries attempting to check potentially abusive local
bishops by championing the powers of the pope."


as though there were any other reason for monasteries (and Bishops) to seek
Papal confirmations.

c

------ Original Message ------
Received: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:39:18 AM EST
From: The Medieval Review <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TMR 13.01.02 Stroll, Popes and Antipopes (Howe)

Stroll, Mary. <i>Popes and Antipopes: The Politics of Eleventh
Century Church Reform</i>. Series: Studies in the History of
Christian Traditions. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. Pp. xviii,
266. $136.00. ISBN: 9789004217010.

   Reviewed by John Howe
        Texas Tech University
        [log in to unmask]


Mary Stroll seeks to present a "far more complex" view of papally-
led ecclesiastical reform up to the reign of Gregory VII (1073-
1085), emphasizing its "contradictions and dissonance" (xiii).
Substantively she destabilizes the traditional narrative of popes
vs. emperors by focusing on other players, particularly the Roman
nobility whose factions could even goad the Roman reformers into
seeking the emperor's help against them.  Also featured are
antipopes and southern Italian Normans.  And, Stroll suggests,
behind apparently straightforward pro-papal legal collections may
lurk monasteries attempting to check potentially abusive local
bishops by championing the powers of the pope (89-93).  Against the
stereotypical image of emperors attempting by coup to turn an
independent papacy into just one more imperial bishopric, she
invokes the office of the <i>patricius Romanorum</i>, the "Roman
patrician," originally a Byzantine official responsible for
protecting the papacy and overseeing papal elections: the career of
this office is difficult to trace (it was even held by young prince
Charles well before he became Charlemagne), but it certainly
resurfaced among great Roman families in the early eleventh century
and was conveyed to Henry III (1039-56) and Henry IV (1056-1106).
Undercutting the traditional dichotomy between Roman ecclesiastical
reformers and imperial supporters of the status quo, Stroll
identifies reformers in all camps who were attempting to establish
<i>harmonia</i> between Church and state as well as some who were
seeking a more theocratic <i>libertas ecclesiae</i>.  The attempt
to complicate the narrative can occasionally result in digressions,
such as the inconclusive discussion of the problem of the exact
form of the 1059 papal election decree (95-107).  All Stroll's
complexities have been signaled before, especially by German and
Italian scholars, but here they are brought together and analyzed
in a single brief accessible to an English-speaking audience.

Making a story more complicated does not necessarily make it more
consistent.  Underlying Stroll's narrative is her professed
admiration for the spirituality that reformers "exemplified and
engendered" (xiii) and her disillusionment at "how fluid the
situation was, and how weak the dedication to ecclesiastical
principle" (219).  This tension animates the book, but perhaps
Stroll relishes the scandalous side a little too much.  She
attributes objective reality to reports linking the numerous
premature deaths of popes to poisoning (29, 30-31, 61, 63, 64-65,
116. 239)--historians might do better to use the same skepticism
and Occamist razors against horror stories too bad to be true that
they apply to miracle stories too good to be true.  She accords
evidentiary value to even the most extreme claims, such as the
story relayed by the pro-imperial cardinal Beno of SS Martino e
Silvestro (d. ca. 1100) describing how Archdeacon Hildebrand, the
future Gregory VII, commissioned the beating of Pope Alexander II
(1061-73) and then seized all papal income for his own use except
for five Luccan solidi, a story she admits must be caricature but
still invokes as part of a "pattern of reports by Hildebrand's
critics" (130)--we expect hostile sources to present negative
patterns but we find them credible based upon the strength of the
charges and the supporting evidence.  Nevertheless, it is hard to
fault Stroll greatly here, since a bi-polar narrative is already
present in the conflicting black and white primary sources of the
<i>Libelli de Lite</i>.  Even we today who are "blessed" with well
documented dueling elites are still unable to sort out, for
example, whether a political candidate's economic policy is a
logical, idealistic attempt to correct present disorder or a scheme
to enrich himself and his millionaire friends.

One too consistent theme is the omnipotence of Archdeacon
Hildebrand.  Stroll claims that "the sources...agree that he was
clearly in charge" (130).  Her Hildebrand is "almost surely" the
"architect" of papal coronation (86-89); he can unilaterally choose
popes (124), he sets up the alliance with the Normans of Southern
Italy (117 and 170), and his aspiration "to create a theocracy" was
what destabilized "both the papacy and the Empire" (149 and 231).
All medieval and modern historians agree that Hildebrand was a
powerful figure in the papal curia.  But it is difficult to
envision him as the puppet master pulling all the strings because
even in purely ecclesiastical circles he was, as Stroll indicates
in various places, on the losing side of issues such as his initial
tolerance of Berengar of Tours, his defense of the seditious
Vallombrosan monks against their bishop, and his opposition to
Peter Damian's request in 1064 for an imperially supported council
to examine the previous papal election.  He had even less control
when dealing with powerful allied lay magnates and rulers.  When
Stroll assumes that Hildebrand was responsible for whatever
transpired, she undercuts the attempt to present a "far more
complex" view of ecclesiastical reform.

Stroll is well read in the international literature on the
Gregorian Reform, but there are a few infelicities in detail or
presentation.  She presumes that the international personnel of Leo
IX's reforming circle all arrived in Rome with him (2 and 34),
instead of gradually trickling in as the sources suggest.  Her
claim that in 1054 the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople
"reached an impasse, [and] their solution was to excommunicate one
another" (46) fails to convey accurately either Leo IX's policy or
his role.  Given the carefully crafted restrictions on papal power
over the southern Italian Norman churches, it seems disingenuous to
claim that "Robert Guiscard facilitated the expansion of papal
influence in both the political and religious spheres by
extinguishing Byzantine and Muslim political power" (110, cf. 26).
She is not consistent about the poorly documented <i>obit</i> of
Cadalus of Parma, the anti-pope Honorius II (7, 232, 240).

Institutional history in general is no longer fashionable.  And
studies of the Gregorian Reform as institutional rationalization
have fallen so far out of favor that this past year when Professor
Walter Goffart of Yale had looked over the 256 page <i>Program</i>
of the Forty-Seventh International Congress on Medieval Studies he
was heard to exclaim, "But where is the Gregorian Reform?!"  Here
it is, or at least its early developments, right here in Stroll's
book.  And here also is a hint about how research might move
forward.  <i>Popes and Antipopes</i> is less about an office than
about people.  Its institutional history morphs into social
history.  Its story really concerns reformers--not just the
traditional heroes but also some who were anti-popes and
imperialists and some who were morally compromised--all struggling
with limited success as they tragically attempt to reshape an
unjust and inharmonious world.


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