Fifty years ago, Bernard Reilly wrote that “[t]he medieval Spanish bishop, like his counterpart elsewhere in Europe, was a figure of almost inestimable importance in society. A spiritual leader, an official of the church, sometimes a counsellor of kings, always a baron of the realm, usually a member of the nobility, inevitably an administrator of wealth and land, his comings and goings in that society are always, therefore, a matter of note and significance for the historian.” [1] Building on Reilly’s work and on the work of other Anglophone scholars such as Peter Linehan and Richard Fletcher as well as Spanish scholars such as Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Kyle C. Lincoln has produced a very readable and well-researched series of case studies involving seven Castilian bishops of the “long” twelfth century. Lincoln argues that “the history of the bishops of medieval Castile is used much too rarely and without careful scrutiny for the long reign of Alfonso VIII (r. 1158-1214)” (4). His book attempts to remedy this situation, but beyond Alfonso VIII’s reign, this study seeks to illuminate medieval Spanish ecclesiastical and political history more broadly. Thus, throughout his case studies, Lincoln emphasizes the triangular nexus involving the episcopal diocese, the monarchy, and the papacy with their sometimes converging and sometimes competing interests. The focus on the seven bishops, on these “singular figures” (16), is intended to provide narrative cohesion; however, as Lincoln repeatedly notes, these biographies should also serve as a “base on which larger, more complex narratives can rest” (16).
Lincoln’s biographical sketches are mainly prosopographical, and they largely confirm conclusions outlined in his previous work. [2] The specific bishops portrayed here include: Celebruno, bishop of Sigüenza and archbishop of Toledo; Ramón II de Minerva of Palencia; Alderico di Palacio of Sigüenza and Palencia; Martín Bazán of Osma; Martín López, archbishop of Toledo; Julián ben Tauro of Cuenca; and Rodrigo de Finojosa, bishop of Sigüenza. Together, these figures represent about one-fifth of the episcopate under Alfonso VIII. This selection understandably reflects the documentary richness of the archives in Toledo, Cuenca, Palencia, and Sigüenza relative to other dioceses in Castile. Lincoln’s portrayals emphasize questions of social class and connections (e.g., Celebruno was the king’s godfather), prior ecclesiastical positions and administrative experience (e.g., Alderico di Palacio was a classic “deacon to bishop” story), and episcopal involvement in larger issues affecting the church and the Castilian monarchy (e.g., Martín López was involved in the military campaign against the Almohad caliphate). In a few instances, notably those of Ramón II de Minerva and Julián ben Tauro, Lincoln attempts to rehabilitate or correct the historical reputation of his subjects through a more robust and more careful engagement with extant documentation. As he notes in regard to Julián ben Tauro, “[t]he contrast between the preserved material and the [subsequent] invented biography says more about seventeenth-century needs than about thirteenth-century realities...” (110). One can applaud Lincoln’s “primary-source-driven approach” to historical study that “privileges the facts” over “mythology” (111), even without adopting a Von Rankean confidence in the archive’s inevitable ability to reveal historical truths.
Following the prosopographical sketches, Lincoln provides a final chapter that addresses palea, comparanda, and conclusions. The palea section considers how these episcopal careers “map onto major historiographical arguments” (130) pertaining to the crusading movement(s), to feudal/manorial models, and to both reform and “renaissance” trends in the twelfth century. As the name suggests, the comparanda section explores how the Castilian episcopate and its concerns compare to the situations in other states, especially, the kingdom of Sicily, the Holy Roman Empire, León, Angevin England, and the Crusader States. Here, Lincoln focuses on three topics--elections, reforms, and renaissance--and concludes that “the church was more or less the same across Europe...” (139). Of course, “church” here refers almost exclusively to the “institutional” and clerical church. Other possible definitions of “church” are not really (and perhaps necessarily so) under consideration in this study.
In addition to arguing persuasively that the medieval Castilian episcopate and, more broadly, the medieval Castilian church were fundamentally similar to counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in the Iberian Peninsula, Lincoln also makes the case for the value of ecclesiastical sources for telling other, not just ecclesiastical, tales. As he puts it, “[f]ar from being simply an element of religious history, the careers of the bishops and canons of the cathedral chapters of Castile are connected to much larger social and cultural phenomena” (130).
A Constellation of Authority ends with a useful appendix that presents “summary profiles of the Castilian episcopate from 1158-1214” (143-152). These profiles list all of the bishops from all of the Castilian bishoprics, and they include information about the prelates’ reign, pre-episcopal position, order, social class, and conciliar attendance. There is also a fine bibliography of works mainly in English and Spanish.
There are a few very minor inaccuracies and typographical errors in the text: at p. 139, Fletcher’s “groundbreaking study” dates from 1978, not 1960; p. 179, n. 42 should read “chapter 7,” not “chapter 9”; p. 86 legatead latere should read a latere; at p. 86 “the early fifteenth century” should probably read “the early sixteenth century,” etc. But of course, such very minor matters in no way detract from the readability of this book nor from the value of its contribution to medieval Spanish ecclesiastical history.
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Notes:
1. Bernard Reilly, “The Court Bishops of Alfonso VII of Léon-Castilla, 1147-1157,” Mediaeval Studies36 (1974): 67-78, at p. 67.
2. See Kyle C. Lincoln, “A Prosopography of the Castilian Episcopate in the Reign of Alfonso VIII,” in King Alfonso VIII of Castile: Government, Family, and War, eds. Miguel Gómez, Damian Smith, and Kyle C. Lincoln (New York: Fordham, 2019), 204-220.