Council of Pisa (1135)

Last updated

The Council of Pisa, was convened by Pope Innocent II in May 1135. An extraordinary number of prelates, archbishops, bishops, monks, and abbots attended the council, including a large number of Italian clergy. The council addressed simony, schismatic clerics, heresy, as well as donations to the Templar Order. Pisa would be the third council Innocent would convene to address issues within the Catholic Church.

Contents

Background

In February 1130, following the death of Pope Honorius II, Innocent II had been hastily elected pope by six cardinals led by papal chancellor Haimeric. [1] This was contested by the Roman Pierleoni family that chose Anacletus II. Without any Roman support Innocent fled to France, [2] where he gained the support of Louis VI of France, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Peter the Venerable. [3] While in France he held two Councils, Clermont(November 1130) and Rheims(October 1131). [2] In June 1133, Innocent returned to Rome to quickly crown Lothair of Saxony emperor, but following Lothair's hurried exit from Rome he fled to Pisa. [4]

Innocent II B Innozenz II1 (cropped).jpg
Innocent II

The council was initially planned for November 1135, but Bernard who attended the diet of Bamberg(March 1135), learned that Emperor Lothair was planning an invasion of Italy. [3] Reinforced by this news, Innocent chose May 1135 for the synod. [3]

Council

One hundred twenty-six archbishops and bishops, and numerous abbots from Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain and Hungary attended. [5] Bernard used this council to rally support for Innocent II in northern Italy. [6]

Excommunication and Condemnation

The first order of business was the excommunication of antipope Anacletus II and his supporters, including Roger II of Sicily. [5] This was followed by the removal of the bishops of Halberstadt, Liege, Valence, Arezzo, Acera, and Moderna, and the archbishop of Milan all on the charges of simony or giving support to Anacletus II. [5] All schismatic ordinations were condemned. [7]

Henry the Monk was brought before the council and condemned on the charge of maintaining heretical views. [8] [9] He was ordered to cease his preaching and return to a monastery. [9]

Templars

The Templar Order met the clergy of north-west Italy for the first time at Pisa. [10] Bernard of Clairvaux called on the assembled clergy to allow the Knights Templar commanderies in their own jurisdictions. [6] Innocent set the precedent by giving a mark of gold each year to the Templar order. [11] This donation was matched by the bishops who all gave a silver mark apiece. [11]

Seal of the Knights Templar Seal of Templars.jpg
Seal of the Knights Templar

Clerical marriage

All marriages involving clerics, monks, and cloistered nuns were annulled. [12] It was agreed by all participants of the council that such unions were not regarded as marriage. [13] This judgment established celibacy as a major theme in Innocentian politics. [13]

Bernard of Clairvaux San Bernardo, de Juan Correa de Vivar (Museo del Prado).jpg
Bernard of Clairvaux

Regulate religious orders

Restricted the placement of adolescents into religious orders, unless they show prudence and merit for that type of life. [14]

Aftermath

Held during the pinnacle of the papal schism, the Council of Pisa has been described as the end of the reform papacy by H.W. Klewitz. [lower-alpha 1]

Antipope Anacletus II died on 25 January 1138, [11] ending the schism within the Catholic Church. [16] Gregorio de Conti, who was elected Antipope Victor IV in March 1138, quickly abdicated by May 1138 and recognized Innocent II as head of the Catholic church. [16]

Innocent returned to Rome and at the Second Council of the Lateran held on 29 March 1139, he issued the papal bull, Omne datum optimum . [11] This gave the Templar Order an official sanction as defenders of the Catholic Church. [17] In the following years, thanks to the persuasive effort by Bernard, the Templars founded commanderies at Piacenza and Reggio Emilia. [6]

Notes

  1. ↑ H.W. Klewitz, "Das Ende des Reformpapsttums," Deutsches Archiv für Geschichte des Mittelalters, in (1939), 871-41 [15]

Related Research Articles

Bernard of Clairvaux Burgundian saint, abbot and theologian (1090–1153)

Bernard of Clairvaux, venerated as Saint Bernard, was a Burgundian abbot and a major leader in the revitalization of Benedictine monasticism through the nascent Cistercian Order.

Pope Anastasius IV, born Corrado Demetri della Suburra, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 July 1153 to his death. He is the most recent pope to take the name "Anastasius" upon his election.

Pope Innocent II Head of the Catholic Church from 1130 to 1143

Pope Innocent II, born Gregorio Papareschi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 14 February 1130 to his death in 1143. His election as pope was controversial and the first eight years of his reign were marked by a struggle for recognition against the supporters of Anacletus II. He reached an understanding with King Lothair III of Germany who supported him against Anacletus and whom he crowned as Holy Roman emperor. Innocent went on to preside over the Second Lateran council.

1133 Calendar year

Year 1133 (MCXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.

Lothair III, Holy Roman Emperor 12th century Holy Roman Emperor of the Supplinburg dynasty

Lothair III, sometimes numbered Lothair II and also known as Lothair of Supplinburg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before being crowned emperor in Rome. The son of the Saxon count Gebhard of Supplinburg, his reign was troubled by the constant intriguing of the Hohenstaufens, Duke Frederick II of Swabia and Duke Conrad of Franconia. He died while returning from a successful campaign against the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.

Pope Lucius II, born Gherardo Caccianemici dal Orso, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1144 to his death in 1145. His pontificate was notable for the unrest in Rome associated with the Commune of Rome and its attempts to wrest control of the city from the papacy. He supported Empress Matilda's claim to England in the Anarchy, and had a tense relationship with King Roger II of Sicily.

Roger II of Sicily King of Sicily from 1130 to 1154

Roger II was King of Sicily and Africa, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, then King of Sicily in 1130 and King of Africa in 1148. By the time of his death at the age of 58, Roger had succeeded in uniting all the Norman conquests in Italy into one kingdom with a strong centralized government.

Second Council of the Lateran 12th-century Christian church council

The Second Council of the Lateran was the tenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convened by Pope Innocent II in April 1139 and attended by close to a thousand clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralise the after-effects of the schism which had arisen after the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130 and the papal election that year that established Pietro Pierleoni as the antipope Anacletus II.

Anacletus II, born Pietro Pierleoni, was an antipope who ruled in opposition to Pope Innocent II from 1130 until his death in 1138. After the death of Pope Honorius II, the college of cardinals was divided over his successor. Unusually, the election was entrusted to eight cardinals, who elected Papareschi. A larger body of cardinals then elected Pierleoni, which led to a major schism in the Roman Catholic Church. Anacletus had the support of most Romans, including the Frangipani family, and Innocent was forced to flee to France. North of the Alps, Innocent gained the crucial support of the major religious orders, in particular Bernard of Clairvaux's Cistercians, the Abbot of Cluny Peter the Venerable; and Norbert of Xanten, the Archbishop of Magdeburg who established the Premonstratensians and held a high rank in the Court of the German Emperor Lothar III.

Victor IV was an antipope for a short time, from March to 29 May 1138.

Uberto Lanfranchi was the Cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Via Lata, then the Cardinal-priest of San Clemente, and finally the Archbishop of Pisa.

<i>Bull of Gniezno</i> Bull issued by Pope Innocent II in 1136

Ex commisso nobis, more commonly known as the Bull of Gniezno, was a papal bull issued on July 7, 1136 by Pope Innocent II. The bull split off the Bishopric of Gniezno from the Archbishop of Magdeburg. From a historical perspective, the bull is especially important as it contains the earliest written record of the Polish language. Slavic language scholar Aleksander Brückner called the document "złota bulla języka polskiego".

Engelbert III, a member of the Rhenish Franconian House of Sponheim, was Margrave of Istria from 1124 until his death.

Pandulf of Pisa was a twelfth-century Italian cardinal, and biographer of several contemporary popes. He was a native of Rome. He was a nephew of Cardinal Hugo of Alatri. Under Pope Paschal II, and probably with the patronage of his uncle, Pandulf held the post of ostiarius at the papal court. It is deduced from his detailed description of the election of Pope Gelasius II on 24 January 1118 that he was present. On his coronation day, 10 March 1118, Pope Gelasius II elevated him to the rank of Lector and Exorcist. Pope Calixtus II ordained him a subdeacon.

Catholic ecumenical councils Ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church

According to the Catholic Church, a Church Council is ecumenical ("world-wide"), if it is "a solemn congregation of the Catholic bishops of the world at the invitation of the Pope to decide on matters of the Church with him".

1130 papal election 1130 election of the Catholic pope

The 1130 papal election was convoked after the death of Pope Honorius II and resulted in a double election. Part of the cardinals, led by Cardinal-Chancellor Aymeric de la Chatre, elected Gregorio Papareschi as Pope Innocent II, but the rest of them refused to recognize him and elected Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni, who took the name of Anacletus II. Although Anacletus had the support of the majority of the cardinals, the Catholic Church considers Innocent II as the legitimate Pope, and Anacletus II as Antipope.

Gilo of Toucy, also called Gilo of Paris or Gilo of Tusculum, was a French poet and cleric. A priest before he became a monk at Cluny, he was appointed cardinal-bishop of Tusculum sometime between 1121 and 1123. He served as a papal legate on four occasions: to Poland and Hungary around 1124, to Carinthia in 1126, to the Crusader states in 1128 or 1129 and to Aquitaine from 1131 until 1137. He took the side of the Antipope Anacletus II in the papal schism of 1130 and was deposed as cardinal-bishop by the Second Lateran Council in 1139.

The 1143 papal election followed the death of Pope Innocent II and resulted in the election of Pope Celestine II.

An incomplete list of events in 1139 in Italy:

Desiderius was a Roman Catholic Cardinal, and Cardinal-priest of the titulus of S. Prassede in Rome.

References

  1. ↑ Robinson 1990, p. 75.
  2. 1 2 Robinson 1995, p. 361.
  3. 1 2 3 Somerville 1970, p. 101.
  4. ↑ Somerville 1970, p. 100-101.
  5. 1 2 3 Robinson 1990, p. 138.
  6. 1 2 3 Bagni 2020, p. 97.
  7. ↑ Somerville 1970, p. 111.
  8. ↑ Freeburn 2011, p. 183.
  9. 1 2 Walker 2014, p. 298.
  10. ↑ Bellomo 2008, p. 20.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Barber 1994, p. 56.
  12. ↑ Longere 2005, p. 883.
  13. 1 2 Dusil 2019, p. 148.
  14. ↑ Somerville 1970, p. 103.
  15. ↑ Somerville 1970, p. 100.
  16. 1 2 Jedin & Dolan 1980, p. 9.
  17. ↑ Barber 1994, p. 56-57.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.