"Blessed Lady Spain"'--Vincentius Hispanus and Spanish National Imperialism in the Thirteenth Century Gaines Post Speculum, Vol. 29, No. 2, Part 1 (Apr., 1954), 198-209. Stable URL: hitp://lnks,jstor-org/sie?sici=0038-7134% 28 195404%2929%3A2%3C 198%3A%221 SHAS %3E2,0.CO%3B2-T Speculum is currently published by Medieval Academy of America, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstororg/about/terms.huml. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/www.jstor.org/journals/medacad. html Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ ‘Sun Jun 19 05:45:03 2005,“BLESSED LADY SPAIN” — VINCENTIUS HISPANUS AND SPANISH NATIONAL IMPERIALISM IN, THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY By GAINES POST Iw the Middle Ages the tradition of the unity and universalism of the Roman Empire was powerful, and it continued in the mediaeval Roman Empire and the Chureh as two aspects of the unity of Christendom. But to which of all the peo- ples of Christian Europe should the empire and the office of emperor belong? Pope Innocent IIT, in the decretal Venerabilem (1202), fully restated the theory of Gregory VIL, that in erowning Charlemagne as emperor, Pope Leo III had trans- ferred the Roman Empire from the Greeks to the Germans.' Ie and contempo- rary canonists generally assumed that the German king who was confirmed by the pope was, at least in temporal affairs, the true emperor and lord of the Latin West. Johannes Teutonicus, for example, the eminent German eanon lawyer who in the first quarter of the thirteenth century taught at Bologna and wrote his own and compiled others’ glosses on the Decretum of Gratian and the Decretals of Innocent ITT? after stating the translatio imperi asserts that the German em peror is above all kings and nations, for he is the prince and lord of the world.* ‘The legists at Bologna, steeped in the classical law of the Empire, were naturally ‘opposed to the idea that kings and kingdoms were independent of the emperor. Nonetheless, the development of the feudal monarchies of England, France, and Spain, which were in fact outside the territories over which the German emperors nominally ruled, and the rise of a feeling of loyalty for native lands (occasionally expressed in the vernacular literatures as early as the twelfth cen- tury), foreshadowed the breakdown of the ideal of universalism. This was bound to happen even in the Empire proper, because of the bitter conflict between the + Soe in general Otto Gierke, Political Theorie of the Midile Age, trans. P. W. Maitland (Cam- bridge, England, 1690), pp. 11-18, 41; C. H, Mellwsi, Growth of Paitieal Though in the West (New York, 1982), ch vi; R.W. and A.J. Cave, History of Medial Political Theory inthe West, 217— 210, v, 215-218, *0n Johannes Teutonicus and his work see Stephan Kuttner, Reprtorium der Kanonstit (1140- 1284), 1 (Cita del Vaticano, 1987), 98-00, 357, 70, 874 1: and the oder treatment by J. F, von Schulte, Genchioke der Qucllen und Literatur des canonichen Rechts won Gratian bs anf de Gepemvart, 10875), 4 the decretal Venerabilem, in hin Apparatus to Compilatio II; I published the text in part in my aticle, “Some Unpublished Glosses (ca. 1210-1214) on the Tranaatio Imperit and the Two Swords,” Archi fur hathlickes Kirchenrelt, xvi (1987), 407. "Sie enim regimen mundi, excepto "egimine hyspanie [exept repimine hyepanie an interpolation —T shall say more of thi tranalatumn est ad teuthonicos jet sie patet quod imperium non est apd grecos, et largo nomine apel leretur imperator«., sieut rex seaccorum dcitur ex, quoniam extra eclesian non ext imperiam st autem imperator super omnes reges «et omnes naciones sub eo sunt... Ipee enim et prin. eps mundi et dominus... Etim ide! subeosunt ... jet omnesprovincie -.» Ttem oro sunt in Potestate imperators .. Jo.” The text was published also by Schule, but with errors, in Sitzungobe- richie der Kois, Akademie der Wiezenschafion in Wien, Philos Histor, Klasse, 1x¥4 (1870), 190 Still other glans by Johannes Teutonicus in the same sense are in his Glosa adinaria to Gratin’ Decretum, eg, to Dist. LXUL, ¢. 22 Advianus and to VIL. QL, ¢. 41 In apilus See below, 1. 8h for the rat of his comment to the Venerable, and for hie gloss to Dist. LXIM, e 2 108“Blessed Lady Spain” 199 Hohenstaufens and the papacy, during which particularism triumphed in Ger- many and Italy. Quite early certain canon lawyers began to state the fact of localism in legal theory. Perhaps, as Sergio Mochi Onory has recently argued, they were eager to belittle the empire in order to exalt the spiritual universalism of the Chureh.t More likely, however, the influence of local loyalty was at work. In the late twelfth and early thirteenth century several canonists argued that some kings have no superior, and are emperors in their own realms Alanus, an English ccanonist at Bologna, clearly asserts that every king who is subject to no one has the same rights in his kingdom as the emperor has in the empire. ‘The division of the world into kingdoms, he continues, was according to the jus gentium and is approved by the pope, although by the ancient jus gentium there ought to be ‘one emperor in the world.* During the thirteenth century the idea of the inde- pendence especially of England, France, the ‘Two Sicilies, and Spain was in- creasingly expressed, particularly by Roman lawyers who entered the service of the kings.? In England, Bracton, trained in both laws and a royal justice, likewise held that the king of England recognized no superior on earth.* Francesco Calasso refuses to believe that rez imperator in regno suo meant independence of the Em- pire, for in a sense every local administrator was king or emperor in his sphere of jurisdiction, just as the pater familias was king in his family and yet subject to a superior.’ But I find this argument weak: some canonists and legists, and theo- logians, held that the king, who had the powers of the emperor in his own realm, recognized no superior.” We find, then, that the lawyers were thus beginning to 4 Font canomitche del? idea moderna dell ato (MElan: SocotaBaitrce “Vita Penser,” 1981). * Onory, op. et; see Indes, .v. rez. He overdrves his thesis, but in genera ti vali ‘EL quod dictum est de imperatre dictum habestar de qvolibet rege el principe, qui mull sub- ‘st Unuagioque enizntantum juris habet in reno suo, quantum inperator in imperio. Divisio enim regnorum de jure gentium introductum(a) papa approbatur, Tice antiqu jure gentium imperator tunus in orbe ese deberet™; published by Schulte, in Wiener Siteungsberiel, 13:1, 90. Alanus ex presses the sae idea stil better in gloss to the Deeretum, Dist. XCVI, . § Deniqu, ad. v.Tuicare et quod dictum eat de imperatore habeatur de quolibet principe, qui supra se dominum non Insbe, Unusquisque tantam habet iursdictionem in regno suo quantam habetimpeeator in impero. Divisio enim regnorum iam fur gentium introductun (i in manuscript) « papa approbatur, Heet sntiquo jure gentium unus imperatorin orbe esse debet”; Apparatus “Tus naturale,” Paris, BN, Ms, lat 15803, fol 70, On the authorship, ee Kuttner, Repertorium,t, 07-74; and above all i clo, “Bernards Compostellanus Antiquuss A Study of the Glosatrs of the Canon Law,” Trait, (194s), 289, 2 S1e F, Ercole, De Barolo all Althuro (Florence, 1082), pp. 157-108; F. Calasso, I glotator eta tworia dala sceranita (Milan: A. Giufle, 1951), ch, i; Walter Ullmann, “The Development of the ‘Medieval Idea of Sovereignty,” Eng. Ht Re, 120 (1040), 1-88 "De legis, fl. 8b: "Pate autezn non abet tex in rn ao "The king is subject only to God and the la. "Igitur non debet maior eo in reno suo in exhibition irs” (ed, Woodbine, 1, $8). ‘The words difer from those used by canonits and egats, but the meaning isthe same, *Op. cits WEE. 0 Besides the examples given by Ercole, Onory, and others, let me add two that soem to be un- lksowa, In the frst place, the eanonst, Johannes de Deo, in his Liber poeitentarius, about 1245 (Gehl, Quelle, az, 102; T quote from the text in the Brit, Mus. Ms, Royal 11.B.V) dicusses the penance of kings in uch a way as to leave no doubt that 2 king who isnot subject tothe emperor is the equal ofthe emperor, and thatthe chief city of his kingdom is the caput repni Gust as Rome ia