The Donatio Constantini in the Conflict between the Pope and the Emperor in the 14th Century
Abstract
During the conflict between pope Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair, King of France, the so called “Donation of Constantine” was used as an authoritative text concerning the legal relationship of pope and emperor, of church and state. Treatises of both sides felt corroborated by this falsification, which was not identified as such, but read as a legal source of high authority. Snice the juristic debates of the 12th and 13th century at the universities the fake gave them a rick backing for very different positions. The reading of pope Innocent IV had taken an extreme interpretation of the text and had changed successfully the meaning of the whole story for all supporters of the pope’s pretensions: this explanation succeeded in combining the transfer of power over all mankind to the pope immediately by God himself with the imperial donation of the early 4th century. Innocent declared that the emperor had not had a legitimate rulership before this act and before his baptism, but winning legitimacy only by giving back his usurpated rulership to the pope after his conversion to Christianity and receiving then a new and legitimated lordship from the pope as from the mediator of God’s gifts. This ingenious interpretation was to become a main argument for all the adherents of papalism in the future. The article is showing this in several cases, especially with Giles of Rome, James of Viterbo, Tolomeo of Lucca, Augustinus of Ancona, and Alvarus Pelagius. On the side off the opponents to papalism in the 14th century the positions especially of the court of Philip the Fair, of John Quidort of Paris, Dante, Marsilius of Padua, Lupold of Bebenburg, and of William of Ockham are delinated. The wide focus of interpretations of the so called “donation” presented in the article is suited to show how the art of scholastic explanation could interpret a text for very different aims.Downloads
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