In this book, Damian J. Smith provides a valuable addition to the scholarship dealing with Innocent III and with the far- flung interests of the crown of Aragon. Since few of the issues dealt with by Peter were limited to the years of Innocent's pontificate, Smith rightly goes beyond those limits to provide the necessary context. A revised doctoral dissertation, the book rests on voluminous sources, both published and unpublished, and it provides a comprehensive and reliable account of its complex subject.
A brief introduction provides a survey of scholarship concerning the authority claimed by Innocent III. It then sets forth the purpose of the book, a summary of its contents, and a brief survey of the kinds of evidence used.
The first five chapters deliver what the title promises: a detailed and comprehensive account of Innocent's involvement in matters concerning the Aragonese crown. Chapter One describes the varied ways in which King Peter II and the pope had common concerns and the interaction between the two. Many of Peter's activities were of great interest to the papacy, especially the crusade against infidels in Iberia and the crusade against heretics in Languedoc, and Innocent was in continual contact with Peter through correspondence and legates. A proposed marriage of Peter's sister to the young king of Sicily and Peter's plan to conquer Majorca brought Aragon to other areas of concern to the pope. Peter found in Innocent a reliable supporter for most of his efforts, with the notable exception of the troublesome matter of a wife. As Smith says, "Peter liked women (excepting his wife) ..." (16), and, one might add, his mother.
The second chapter describes and interprets a central event in the relationship between Innocent and the Aragonese crown: the coronation of Peter in St. Peter's basilica in 1204. The author reminds us that Spanish princes had been making the pilgrimage to Rome for nearly two centuries and that Peter was not the first Aragonese king to promise an annual tribute. Smith rightly notes that the oath taken by Peter contained none of the feudal language that one finds, for example, in the oath of submission of John of England, and he wisely avoids referring to the king as the pope's vassal. Smith speculates about Peter's motives without claiming certitude about any of them. He says first that in view of the planned marriage of his sister with the Hohenstaufen Frederick (II), Peter wanted to enhance his prestige with a papal coronation. Second, he says Peter may have hoped that the coronation would enhance his prestige as a means to gain "international support for the conquest of Majorca" (50). Third, he suggests that Peter sought prestige to impress his rebellious subordinates at home; and fourth, Peter sought prestige to rival that of the emperor in Provence. Innocent may have also sought for his own purposes greater prestige for Peter, namely to rival the Hohenstaufens in general and the imperial office in particular. All that not withstanding, the coronation and the oath of Peter did not play well back at home.
Chapters Three and Four discuss the two major fronts where Peter was engaged, both militarily and diplomatically: Languedoc and the Muslim frontier in Iberia (including the involvement of rival Christian kings). In southern France, the Aragonese crown carried with it rights and aspirations, but it also encountered there the conflicting rights and aspirations of cities as well as those of other princes, secular and ecclesiastical. The resulting history necessarily touches on matters concerning the French and English monarchs, the claimants to the Holy Roman Empire, and the crusaders sent into Languedoc by the pope. Peter tried to cover all bases by courting the pope and by making marriage alliances with the two main rivals in Languedoc, marrying his sister to Count Raymond VI of Toulouse and betrothing his son to Simon de Montfort's daughter.
In Spain, Peter experienced his greatest triumph (with other Spanish kings), defeating the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. In Languedoc, he experienced his greatest--and fatal-- defeat, at Muret in 1213. Smith comments that Peter's death meant that thereafter the Aragonese crown was no longer in competition with the Capetians for dominance in southern France, but he believes that by way of compensation, the lost opportunities there turned the attention of Aragonese monarchs to valuable enterprises in the Mediterranean.
Chapter Five describes the exceedingly complicated political situation in 1214-1216, the years between the death of Peter at Muret and the death of Innocent, a period for which the papal registers are missing. James the heir was eight years old. Although a papal ward, he had for some time been in the care of Simon de Montfort, the man who had defeated his father, and control of the young king became a highly competitive matter. In this case, papal authority played a significant and successful role, as it was more likely to do when exercised by an especially able papal legate, in this case Cardinal Peter of Benevento. The cardinal persuaded Simon to surrender the young heir to papal authority and introduced a modicum of order into the region, at least for a time. Then the dozens of princes and clerics with an interest in Languedoc and northeastern Spain prepared to make their cases and defend their interests at Lateran IV. With limited evidence, Smith presents a persuasive narrative of how all of this unfolded. In doing so, he also illustrates that despite its limitations, papal authority could be very effective at times, a fact the young heir was to recognize with gratitude as an adult king.
The subtitle of Smith's book is "The Limits of Papal Authority," and those limits are apparent in every field of Innocent's endeavors. But Smith may overstate the matter when he concludes, "Never were the limits to papal authority and papal competence more cruelly exposed than at Muret. Five and a half years after the death of Pierre de Castelnau, the pope's major achievement within the crusade was that it had defeated and killed a Christian king [Peter] and Christian knights who had themselves so heroically defeated the infidel" (141). Peter's death at Muret was no doubt a bitter experience for Innocent, as were other events he could not control in the area. But surely, more than defeat of the Aragonese had been achieved. For better or for worse, the crusade had made Languedoc a much more hostile environment for heretics, and that was as least a partial attainment of Innocent's goal in instigating the crusade. Moreover, a new and more militant episcopacy was being installed in the area who could be expected to continue the battle against heretics and their supporters. Smith himself points out that Innocent was sufficiently satisfied with the accomplishments of the crusade that he was redirecting "to the Holy Land pilgrims who had taken the Cross against the heretics" (136).
Another example the author uses to illustrate the limits of papal power is problematic. James II had sworn to maintain his father's coinage unchanged and then petitioned the pope to release him from the oath since he had discovered that some of the coinage had been debased. Innocent's reply in the decretal Quanto personam tuam gave the king what he wanted, but Smith follows Thomas Bisson in saying that the original papal document, now in the archives of the crown of Aragon, has had a word changed to give the king wider leeway than the original word had provided (24-26). But Smith has reversed the words: he says that the word minime was erased and replaced with pariter, which would be odd, since the papal register in Rome has pariter. Actually, Bisson said the opposite: pariter was replaced with minime, and since pariter is in the register, it does seem likely that the change was made after the document left the chancery. But I remain confused by Bisson's interpretation, that minime better served the king's purpose of recalling the valid coins as well as the debased (see references below). It seems to me that pariter would have better served that purpose. In any case, whatever the reason for the change, Smith's point stands: a recipient could change a papal document and the pope might never know it, or know it too late to do much about it.
With Chapters Six through Eight, the author takes up "The Pope and the Bishops," "The Pope as Judge," and "The Reform of Religious Life" ("religious" in the narrow sense of religious orders). Innocent's dealings with the many problems and judicial cases that arose in Aragon and environs are somewhat remote from affairs of the crown, but they do serve to show how papal authority was active everywhere in the area--with more or less efficacy. In that environment, the affairs of the crown would inevitably be considered in the context of a widely acknowledged papal authority. The discussion of the religious also gives Smith the opportunity to mention "Innocent's most valuable contribution to world literature" (252), namely his support for the Trinitarians, two of whose members ransomed Cervantes in Algiers some four hundred years later. With this light-hearted interpretation, Smith opens up vast new fields for Innocentian studies.
On a matter not central to his topic, Smith's account may be somewhat less reliable. Regarding the competition between Otto and Philip for the imperial crown (53), he asserts, perhaps in an inadvertent slip, that Innocent "wished to prolong the dispute for as long as possible for the advantage of the Roman church." That constitutes a very harsh condemnation of the character of Innocent, and as such, it is inconsistent with Smith's otherwise generous assessment of Innocent's intentions. That Innocent wanted the matter settled to his own satisfaction is certainly true, but that he wanted to prolong the bloody civil war in Germany for his own advantage contradicts his stated purpose and his efforts to achieve an acceptable settlement. Similarly, asserting that Innocent "insisted on his right to decide in the imperial conflict" is a slight misstatement of Innocent's real claim, that he should not and would not crown any candidate he deemed unworthy.
Smith concludes that Innocent's interventions in the political affairs of the crown of Aragon "were conventional and unsurprising," but that they nevertheless touched "nearly every matter of major political importance in Aragon" (261). Those interventions had their effects, though not necessarily those intended by the pope, as seen in the death of King Peter II at the hands of the crusaders in Languedoc. In Aragon as in other parts of Europe, Innocent achieved at least nominal success in freeing episcopal elections from lay control, a major goal of his papacy. Generally, Smith offers on the one hand a generous interpretation of Innocent's intentions as being based on broadly conceived pastoral concerns and on the other a restrained but fair estimate of Innocent's successes.
An appendix of documents provides the text of twenty letters, eighteen from Innocent, one from Emperor Frederick II, and one from King Peter II of Aragon. Most of these letters have not been published previously; most of the papal letters edited are originals, though some are from archival cartularies. There are few typographical errors in the book, notes are at the foot of the page, the bibliography is wide-ranging, and the index, while limited mostly to proper names, is well designed (introducing sub-entries with the word "and" makes it easy to find the main entries). Regrettably, there are no maps. This well-written book is a very fine piece of scholarship. The research is thorough and the conclusions well balanced and convincing. The author has provided a valuable tool for students of the papacy and of Spain and for anyone else interested in European history during the early thirteenth century.
REFERENCES
Bisson, Thomas N. Conservation of Coinage: Monetary Exploitation and its Restraint in France, Catalonia, and Aragon (c. A.D. 1000 - c. 1225). Oxford, 1979. Pp. 86-87 and 204, note a.
Idem. Quanto personam tuam (X 2.24.18): its Original Significance. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law edited by Stephan Kuttner. Vatican City, 1976. Pp. 229-249 at 239.