Ten years after the publication of Portugalia Pontificia: Materials for the History of Portugal and the Papacy (1198-1417), [1] a new work by Peter Linehan, emeritus professor at Cambridge University, was released in 2023, entitledEspaña Pontificia: Papal Letters to Spain 1198-1303. Published three years after the death of the author, who had prepared it and endorsed its publication to the press of the Catholic University of America, the edition was supervised by André Vitoria and Patrick Zutshi, Peter Linehan’s collaborators on various occasions.

A posthumous work is, in a way, a legacy; and España Pontificia is undoubtedly an excellent legacy of the author, as well as a very suitable corollary for his research career, centered on the study of the Hispanic Church and its relations with the papacy during the Middle Ages, especially in the thirteenth century.

Linehan mentions in the preface the long gestation of this work, which began in the 1960s during his first contacts with the Spanish archives, in search of documentary sources for his doctoral thesis, [2] and continued throughout his life. The result of such intense and prolonged research is this catalogue of almost 2200 bulls related to the territory of present-day Spain, the vast majority of which are originals, dated from 1198 to 1303. It covers only a century, unlike Portugalia Pontificia, which extends to 1417; but the number of bulls gathered is much higher than what is found in the much longer chronology concerning Portugal. Moving forward in time would be an impossible task for one person; as the author states, “for mere mortals time does matter” (1).

In total, the book inventories the letters issued by sixteen popes, from Innocent III to Boniface VIII. The diverse duration of pontificates also corresponds to a disparate number of documents, ranging from the sole one issued by Celestine V (the pope who pontificated for the least amount of time in the Church of Rome during the thirteenth century, for just a few months in 1294) to the 546 granted by Innocent IV, the protagonist of the second longest pontificate of the century, between 1243 and 1254.

The bulls are presented with sequential numbering, in chronological order and by pontificate. A set of essential information is provided for the correct identification of each document: firstly, the date, converted to the modern calendar and including the topographical date; the address as it appears in the bull; a summary in English; the original dating clause, the incipit and the word of the sanctioning clause that defines the category of the written act. Subsequently, the current archival location is indicated, diplomatic elements are presented, such as the existence of the papal seal, the threads that bind it to the parchment, and any annotations from the pontifical chancery it may have. Peter Linehan attached special importance to these annotations, omitted in most catalogues and editions of bulls, as they provide fundamental information about the functioning of the papal bureaucracy. Finally, bibliographical references are presented, limited understandably to the editions of the bull and the inventories that include it.

Therefore, this is not a bullarium, but a catalogue of bulls. Only a very limited number of diplomas were transcribed, in full or in part, when the author considered their content to be of special interest (the transcriptions are presented in notes, a somewhat inconvenient solution for the reader); but these are the exceptions. However, it is an excellent working tool, whose utility can only be doubted by those who have never worked with papal documentation and are therefore not familiar with the very specific problems it poses. One of the main ones is related to how these diplomas were dated, by the year of the pontificate, and the fact that the pope's order number is not indicated in the text, only on the seal; when this was lost, as happened very often, doubts about the attribution of the bull can easily arise. Furthermore, these documents are scattered across numerous funds and archives, especially ecclesiastical ones, which are not always easy to access; Peter Linehan discusses this with his characteristic humour in the introduction.

In addition to the catalogue, which naturally occupies the majority of the pages of this thick volume, the book is made up of an introductory note (ix-x) by the two researchers mentioned who accompanied its edition, a short preface by the author (xi-xiii), the list of abbreviations used (xiii-xv) and then the introduction to the corpus collected (1-27), followed by its presentation (28-532). At the end, there are three appendices: the index of the scribes of the bulls (Index Scriptorum, 533-544), another compiling information about procurators and other interveners (Proctorial and Other Marks, 545-557), a third on additional annotations that appear in some of the diplomas (Additional Annotations, 558-571), which are of particular interest to those studying the organisation of the pontifical chancery. This is followed by the Index Bullarum (573-602), organised alphabetically by the incipit of each bull, also indicating its date, and finally a very useful Index Omnium, onomastic and toponymic (603-665), ending with a list of sources and bibliography (667-681).

It must be said that the volume was not designed for those embarking on papal documentation research for the first time, but rather for experts. The logic behind the organisation of the volume, the criteria for selecting the bulls (including some copies and not others), and the reasons why the data presented for each of them are those and not others are not explained, obvious only to those already familiar with this type of historical sources. Only in the initial note written by the editors do some clues appear on this matter, but they are not entirely clarifying.

The way in which the documents were ordered is also not clear. The last bull referenced is number 2008; however, the volume lists 2171, according to Linehan’s accounts (6). The discrepancy is explained by the catalogue including 191 additions, which instead of receiving a new order number were included in a list that the author had already organised, adding a letter to the number of the chronologically previous document. In addition, there are 28 bulls considered “vacant,” meaning they do not exist, without explanation of why or which they would be; however, their order numbers have not been removed. This results, as easily understood, in a confusing numbering that does not allow for an immediate grasp of the total number of bulls considered, neither for each pontificate nor as a whole, as it is necessary to verify if additions are included or if there are vacant documents. Peter Linehan thought it best not to alter the structure of the documents he defined over time; doing so, he says, “would have been to misrepresent the inevitably unsystematic nature of the exercise as well as its status as unfinished business” (7). Although understanding the author's reasons, I believe it would have been important to redo the entire numbering.

Lastly, a word about the very small size of the font chosen for this edition, which makes reading difficult. I understand that a larger type would imply more pages and therefore higher costs, when it is already an expensive book. However, it deserved a font that would provide greater comfort to researchers studying the papal documentation of the thirteenth century and the medieval history of the Spanish territory, for whom this volume will henceforth be a precious and indispensable resource.

In conclusion, España Pontificia is an impressive and essential work for scholars and researchers interested in the history of the Spanish Church and the papacy during the thirteenth century. Despite some minor issues with numbering and font size, España Pontificia stands as a fitting legacy for a renowned scholar and a very significant contribution to the field of medieval studies.

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Notes:

1.Portugalia Pontificia: Materials for the History of Portugal and the Papacy (1198-1417) (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2013).

2. The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).