Debating Papal History, c. 250–c. 1300: Responsive Government and the Medieval Papacy

The papacy is the oldest surviving government in human history, yet the forms and roles of papal authority remain contested in scholarship. Debating Papal History offers a reinterpretation of papal history from the third to the thirteenth century, through an extensive series of case studies with translations of supporting documents. D.L. d'Avray argues against interpretations of the papacy which focus on a top-down imposition of power, suggesting instead that papal authority was primarily responsive, invoked to resolve uncertainty arising from different ecclesiastical subsystems, and interlinked with the roles of other non-ecclesiastical powers. The study brings together late Antique and Medieval history while also transmitting the findings of non-English scholarship in the field. Debating Papal History aims to inspire fresh thinking and discussion, rendering original documents newly accessible and presenting a vivid corrective to conventional understandings of the papacy.

Table of Contents:
1. Constantine and the papacy; 2. The canon of the Bible; 3. A late antique decretal and the Carolingian Church; 4. Gelasius I and the idea of hierarchy; 5. The episcopal and monastic systems; 6. Marriage of priests in the mid-eighth century; 7. An eighth-century questionnaire sent to the apostolic see; 8. The Donation of Constantine and its afterlife; 9. Privilege for Offa of England and his queen; 10. Nicholas I reports on his deposition of two archbishops; 11. Spiritual kinship, marriage and baptism in the late Carolingian era; 12. Bad Latin in the tenth century papal entourage; 13. John XIII raises Magdeburg to metropolitan status, as asked by the emperor Otto I; 14. An early eleventh-century attempt to launch a crusade; 15. The pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, and a man who had killed his son; 16. Encyclical on the papal reform council of 1059; 17. Dictatus papae of Gregory VII; 18. Concordat of Worms; 19. Bastard sons of priests; 20. Reform legislation and the complexity of the social world; 21. Baptism in the second decretal age; 22. Early papal indulgences; 23. Vernacular Bible reading; 24. Templars as victims; 25. Monastic exemption in the thirteenth century; 26. Lay patronage as an ecclesiastical system; 27. Rival metropolitans; 28. Papal provisions; 29. The papacy and lepers; 30. The French monarchy and the papacy in the late thirteenth century; 31. Boniface VIII as 'symphoniste'.

About the Author :
D. L. d'Avray is Emeritus Professor of History at University College London and Supernumerary Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. His previous publications include The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400-c. 1600 (Cambridge, 2023), Papal Jurisprudence, 385-1234: Social Origins and Medieval Reception of Canon Law (Cambridge, 2022), and Dissolving Royal Marriages: A Documentary History, 860-1600 (Cambridge, 2014). He has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2005 and a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America since 2016.