The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt »

The interdict was an important and frequent event in medieval society. It was an ecclesiastical sanction which had the effect of closing churches and suspending religious services. Often imposed on an entire community because its leaders had violated the rights and laws of the Church, popes exploited it as a political weapon in their conflicts with secular rulers during the thirteenth century. In this book, Peter Clarke examines this significant but neglected subject, presenting a wealth of new evidence drawn from manuscripts and archival sources. He begins by exploring the basic legal and moral problem raised by the interdict: how could a sanction that punished many for the sins of the few be justified? From the twelfth-century, jurists and theologians argued that those who consented to the crimes of others shared in the responsibility and punishment for them. Hence important questions are raised about medieval ideas of community, especially about the relationship between its head and members.

The book goes on to explore how the interdict was meant to work according to the medieval canonists, and how it actually worked in practice. In particular it examines princely and popular reactions to interdicts and how these encouraged the papacy to reform the sanction in order to make it more effective. Evidence including detailed case-studies of the interdict in action, is drawn from across thirteenth-century Europe—a time when the papacy's legislative activity and interference in the affairs of secular rulers were at their height.

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

1 The Justification of the Interdict in Medieval Thought 14

1.1 Punishment of the Innocent 14

1.2 Collective Guilt and Punishment 21

1.3 Consent to Another's Sin 29

1.4 Sin in Another's Name 50

1.5 Conclusion 57

2 Kinds of Interdict 59

2.1 The General Local Interdict 59

2.2 The Particular Local Interdict 68

2.3 Personal Interdicts 75

2.4 Mixed Sentences 82

3 Laying of Interdicts 86

3.1 The Power to Interdict 86

3.2 The Canonical Procedure 103

3.3 Interdicts a iure 126

4 The Terms of an Interdict 130

4.1 Divine Offices 133

4.2 Sacraments 145

4.3 Ecclesiastical Burial 160

5 The Interdict in Action 169

5.1 Popular and Princely Responses to Interdicts 169

5.2 The Enforcement of Interdicts 187

5.3 The Interdict on San Gimignano: A Clerical Strike and Its Consequences 204

5.4 A Tale of Two Cities: The Interdicts on Dax and Béziers 218

6 The Lifting of Interdicts 235

Conclusion 260

Bibliography 266

Index 283