[181] Towards the end of the thirteenth century an inmate of the monastery of Villanueva de Lorenzana in the diocese of Mondoñedo put together a cartulary out of the muniments of his house. Certain features of the early documents puzzled him: why for instance had the tenth-century founders not sought papal confirmation of the privileges which they had lavished upon their monastery? In an aside to the reader he tried to explain; in those days people did not go to Rome.⁽¹⁾ About 150 years earlier one of the authors of the Historia Compostellana said much the same thing. Writing of the period before the reign of Alfonso VI (1065-1109) he said that no Spanish bishop was accustomed to render duty and obedience to the Roman church.⁽²⁾

As far as concerns the kingdom of León there is every likelihood that these observations were correct. We have hardly any flickerings of papal interest in the ecclesiastical affairs of western Spain before the pontificate of Urban II (1088-99). Pelayo of Oviedo concocted two letters of Pope John VIII to Alfonso III (866-911) which he inserted into the tenth-century chronicle of Sampiro.⁽³⁾ They are easily detected as forgeries on diplomatic grounds; still, it was a cruel mischance which led him to pick on the only ninth-century pope whose register has survived. No genuine documents lay behind these spurious bulls. At some point before the abolition of the Mozarabic rite a cardinal-legate seems to have visited Santiago de Compostela where, so the story went in the twelfth century, he was insulted by the bishop.⁽⁴⁾ In 1084 Jarenton, abbot of Dijon, visited Coimbra in the course [181] of a legatine journey undertaken on the orders of Gregory VII.⁽⁵⁾ The imposition of the Roman rite did indeed bring the Leonese bishops into sudden and painful contact with the wishes of Rome; but the new liturgy did not conquer the far north-west until the latter part of the 1080s. We have no papal privileges indicating contact between Leonese churchmen and the papacy, no record of Leonese attendance at papal councils, no hint of any pilgrimages to Rome. Important decisions about the government of the church were taken locally; for example, the decision to restore the sees of Braga, Tuy and Orense in 1070-1.

By the time of the pontificate of Innocent III the scene had completely changed. Relations between Leonese churchmen and the papal curia were frequent and close. The popes were receiving visits from churchmen and despatching legates and fund-raisers. They issued privileges, heard appeals, appointed judges-delegate, answered questions, listened to complaints. Their registers are full of letters rebuking, scolding, chiding, warning, informing, advising, and sometimes even praising the men who made up the Leonese episcopate.⁽⁶⁾ The change is remarkable, but it can hardly be called surprising. It fits snugly into a pattern which has already been made familiar by those historians who have studied the relations between the popes and the churches of the outlying European kingdoms over the same period. In particular, it corresponds to what we know of the relations between the popes and the other kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula.⁽⁷⁾ Papal 'influence' was not felt outside Catalonia in the first half of the eleventh century. Between about 1050 and 1080 it began [183] to be felt in Aragon, Navarre and Castile. After about 1080 it crept slowly westward into León and Portugal. The evidence by which we may plot its course consists in the main of surviving papal bulls directed to Leonese churchmen or concerned with ecclesiastical affairs. In what follows I shall attempt to characterize its nature and impact.

The change may be familiar, but we cannot take it for granted. It will be as well to examine with some care the early manifestations of contact between Leonese churchmen and the popes. They occurred during the pontificate of Urban II.

In 1088 the bishop of Santiago de Compostela, Diego Peláez, was bullied by Alfonso VI into resigning his see at the council of Husillos in the presence of the ex-legate Richard of Marseilles. The king's anger against him had probably been provoked by his complicity in the Galician revolt of Count Rodrigo Ovéquiz in 1087-8. Alfonso flung him into prison and replaced him as bishop of Compostela by a loyal and reliable Castilian monk, Pedro de Cardeña. This occasioned an outburst of rage from the pope, which found expression in three bulls dated 15 October 1088: the diocese was laid under an interdict until Diego should be released, and its clergy and people were rebuked for allowing the intrusion of Pedro; Alfonso VI was ordered to set Diego free, and Pedro was deposed and summoned to Rome.⁽⁸⁾ This sudden intervention in the affairs of the most distant of all the Spanish dioceses is the earliest manifestation of direct and forceful papal activity of which we have record in the kingdom of León. Now the bulls of 15 October 1088 were issued at the same time as two others which were, directly or indirectly, in favour of Bernardo, archbishop of Toledo, and which, above all, designated him as primate of all Spain.⁽⁹⁾ It is not unlikely that those which concerned the recent struggle over the church of Compostela were sought at the instance of Bernardo, and should be seen as an earnest of his determination to make his primacy an active force rather than a theoretical distinction. At the same time, it is clear that Urban II [184] was angry at the presumption of Richard of Marseilles in exercising legatine powers when in fact his legatine office had already lapsed, and was happy to be able to take advantage of the presence of Archbishop Bernardo at the curia to arrange for issuing a sharp rebuke to Richard.⁽¹⁰⁾

This early intrusion into Leonese ecclesiastical affairs was soon followed by others. In 1089 Pedro bishop of León appeared at the curia to confess that he was not of legitimate birth and to seek a dispensation.⁽¹¹⁾ In 1095 the bishop of Santiago de Compostela, Dalmatius, attended the council of Clermont cum quibusdam comprovincialium episcoporum: among these was certainly Amor, the bishop of Lugo, in whose favour Urban II issued a bull dated 28 November 1095, by which the bishops of León, Oviedo and Mondoñedo were ordered to restore certain lands which rightfully belonged to the bishopric of Lugo; an order which was repeated a little later, between 1096 and 1099, since the three offending bishops refused to act.⁽¹²⁾ Dalmatius himself got a confirmation of the transfer of the seat of his bishopric from Iria to Compostela, and the valuable privilege of exemption.⁽¹³⁾ A few years later, at the end of Urban II's pontificate, Bishop Martín of Oviedo sought and received a solemn privilege confirming the property of his church.⁽¹⁴⁾

This evidence is important not merely as the first indication of the opening-up of relations between the Leonese church and the papal curia, but also as the foreshadowing of the ways in which such relations would become closer as the twelfth century advanced. During Urban II's pontificate we see bishops looking to the pope as the fount from which privileges might flow; as an arbiter in disputes and the defender of the weak in adversity; and as the guardian of what is loosely called 'reform'. These spurs to episcopal initiative in seeking the papal curia did not alter as such during the twelfth century, as will become clear from a more detailed examination of the surviving evidence.

[185] Papal Privileges

Papal privileges were of two kinds, those which confirmed archbishops and bishops in the possession of rights or properties, and those which granted them new rights, distinctions or immunities. We possess forty-six such documents despatched between 1095 and 1215 to the bishoprics of the kingdom of León. As usual, the evidence has survived unevenly; seventeen privileges to the church of Compostela have come down to us; none has come down from the sees of Salamanca and Tuy -- which does not mean that their bishops did not acquire any.⁽¹⁵⁾

Such privileges were always sought by the beneficiary, never granted on papal initiative, and there is reason to suppose that they were expensive. Frequently, we know nothing of the reasons which led bishops to acquire them. Such is the case, for example, with those granted to the churches of Zamora and Astorga in 1151 and 1162 respectively.⁽¹⁶⁾ When we do know something of the background we often find that they were sought in the course of disputes; they were a stage in litigation, so to say, rather than a casual form of insurance. The best example of this is furnished by the series of privileges granted to the see of Lugo in 1123, 1131, 1156, 1161, 1172, 1179 and 1185, which was connected with the dispute over diocesan boundaries between the bishoprics of Lugo and León. In the same way the privileges granted to Compostela in 1103 and 1110 were related to the dispute with the see of Mondoñedo over certain archipresbyterates, while that granted to Orense in 1203 was occasioned by the dispute between the bishops of Orense and the monastery of Celanova.⁽¹⁷⁾

Bishops also sought distinctions from the papacy, to mark them out, if their ambition or their piety so led them, from [186] their fellows. Diego Gelmírez acquired a number of such distinctions -- the institution of cardinals at Compostela, the pallium, permission for the dignitaries of the chapter to wear mitres adorned with gems for the greater feasts, permission for Diego himself to wear the tunicle and stole.⁽¹⁸⁾ Like his adoption of the use of the rota, discussed in a preceding chapter, these distinctions were intended to enhance the dignity of Diego's see and to make it, to outward appearance, similar in certain ways to the papacy. The policy was continued by his successors. Pedro Helias acquired from Eugenius III in 1145 the privilege of carrying his cross raised before him throughout his province, even in the presence of papal legates,⁽¹⁹⁾and Pedro Suárez may have acquired the privilege of Jubilee from Alexander III in 1181.⁽²⁰⁾

More important were the grants of ecclesiastical authority, or status, or immunity. Here the most far-reaching concessions were those of Calixtus II to Diego Gelmírez in 1120 and 1124, when he raised the see of Santiago de Compostela to metropolitan status.⁽²¹⁾ Three sees were exempted from the authority of their metropolitans during our period; Compostela in 1095, León in 1104 and Oviedo in 1105.⁽²²⁾ The see of Compostela was also, for a very brief time, exempted from recognizing the primatial authority of the archbishop of Toledo.⁽²³⁾

We have detailed knowledge on no more than two occasions of how these privileges were acquired. Both concern the church of Compostela. The first is the account of how Diego Gelmírez got his pallium in 1104, and the second is the account of the lengthy series of negotiations which led up to his greatest triumph, Calixtus II's raising of his see to metropolitan status in 1120. The stories are well-known and there is no need to go over them again here.⁽²⁴⁾ It will be sufficient to make some comments.

[187] The history of these transactions sheds a vivid light upon the ways in which relations between a particular church and the papacy actually worked. Three points call for comment. The first is obvious: such negotiations did make for very frequent contact with the papal curia. There was coming and going on these pieces of business, lovingly chronicled by the authors of the Historia Compostellana, almost continually between 1095 and 1120, and indeed beyond, since the transfer of the metropolitanate of Mérida to Santiago de Compostela was not made permanent until 1124. Second, it is clear that it was impossible to get valuable privileges without extensive, and costly, intrigue. This was, notoriously, one of the criticisms levelled at the papacy throughout the twelfth century, so this Spanish evidence shows us nothing new; but it does offer us some choice illustrations of how these things were managed. Gelasius II was offered 100 gold pieces as a benedictio in 1118.⁽²⁵⁾ Calixtus II seems to have received much more.⁽²⁶⁾ Cardinal Deusdedit was bought with a prebend at Compostela while on a legatine visit in 1118.⁽²⁷⁾ Not for nothing does the author of the Historia Compostellana offer us a long narrative of the quarrel and subsequent reconciliation between Abbot Pons of Cluny and Pope Calixtus; for perhaps Diego would never have secured his prize without the powerful advocacy of Cluny.⁽²⁸⁾ In the third place, it is clear that these privileges were granted where possible only in return for a quid pro quo not necessarily to be reckoned in hard cash -- a point to which we shall have to return shortly.

Diego's negotiations are unusually well-chronicled. But similar journeyings and intrigues, pleadings and bribes, hopes and fears, must have lain behind similar privileges about the background to which we know nothing. How did Archbishop Pelayo of Compostela contrive to get for himself in 1154 a privilege exempting him from recognition of Toledan primacy? To what intrigues did this give rise during the legatine visit of Cardinal Hyacinth in 1154 and 1155? How was it [188] that Archbishop Juan of Toledo managed to get it reversed in 1156? We do not know the answers to these questions, but we may be sure that the negotiations which lay behind these bald and silent documents were not a whit less complex than those in which Diego Gelmírez had engaged at an earlier date. The same may be said of the acquisition and defence of their privileges of exemption by the sees of Oviedo and León, of which something has been said in an earlier chapter.

One of the most significant features of Diego's success in acquiring the pallium in 1104 was that Paschal II exacted a solemn undertaking in return. This was embodied in an oath by which Diego swore loyalty to the pope and his successors, promised to attend papal councils and to receive papal legates dutifully, and undertook to journey to Rome once in every three years either in person or by sending representatives.⁽²⁹⁾ The bishops of Compostela were already bound by the terms of their privilege of exemption of 1095 to go to the pope for consecration. These additional requirements indicate that papal privileges were more than just a simple sale of honours: they were also a means by which the apparatus of papal authority was extended over areas of the catholic church which had not known it before. A little before copying the oath which Diego swore, his biographer wrote,⁽³⁰⁾ 'quia nullus episcoporum huius ecclesie Rome sponte fuerat, tanto affectu precordialissime dilectionis dominus papa hunc suscepit... paucissimos ita suscepisse arbitramur'. But Paschal II was not merely, as his biographer would have us believe, doing honour to Diego; he was also welcoming back a lost sheep into the fold.

Recourse to Rome -- The Early Stages

It is only very mildly surprising to find Leonese bishops seeking privileges from the papacy after about 1100. It is much more so to find them appealing to the pope as to an arbiter in their disputes and their shield against oppression. The course upon which they entered here rapidly 'snowballed'. Appeals, notoriously, generated more appeals, and [189] they still more. The process once begun quickly gathered a momentum of its own. But why did it start in the first place? This question can easily be overlooked, for the practice of appealing to the pope seems, to the historian with his hindsight, natural and normal. But Leonese and Castilian bishops had never done it before the end of the eleventh century. It was extraordinary, and by no means natural. A number of answers, rather than any single one, may be suggested to the question here posed.

The influx of French clergy towards the end of the eleventh century, and above all the arrival in Spain of Bernardo of Toledo, was perhaps the first important factor.⁽³¹⁾ These men, however open they may have been to the charges of ecclesiastical empire-building or of feathering their own nests, were carrying out needful ecclesiastical reorganization, frequently if not invariably in the face of powerful vested interests which were bitterly opposed to them. They needed, therefore, support from outside. This was the more so in that some of their constitutional reforms were such as could be sanctioned only by the pope. In addition, Bernardo had himself been a monk at Cluny with Eudes of Châtillon, later Pope Urban II. Both left Cluny at about the same time (1078-80), both made their mark in different ways during the succeeding few years, and they came together again after their respective promotions, Eudes's to the papacy in March 1088, and Bernardo's to the see of Toledo in December 1086. The first and most important evidence of their renewed contact came in the five bulls of 15 October 1088, to which we have already had occasion to refer; among them was a papal ruling on the vital question of the primacy of the Spains, giving it unequivocally to Toledo and ordering other metropolitans to submit. This was the first instance of a decision on an important and disputed question of ecclesiastical organization which the pope and the pope alone had the right to decide. The enforcement of the decision was a different matter; and in fact it turned out to be the prelude [190] to over a century of dispute. But that in no wise affects the present argument. Bernardo had turned to the pope in 1088, and he continued to do so during the rest of Urban's pontificate, down to 1099.

A second instance of the way in which it was the French clergy who started to turn towards the papacy may be given from the career of St. Geraldo of Braga. Geraldo, one of Bernardo's young men, brought from France to join his household in Toledo, had been given the church of Braga in 1095 or 1096, and had soon afterwards -- it is not known exactly when -- restored it with papal sanction to metropolitan rank. His predecessor in the see, Pedro, had been active in the work of restoration, but had fallen under a cloud owing to his dubious negotiations with the imperial antipope, and had been deposed in 1093. There was thus a short vacancy before Geraldo received the see, during which some of Pedro's work was undone. Geraldo was faced with the task of renewed reconstruction, and it was to the pope that he looked for assistance, especially in the work of recovering the lost temporalities of his see. This emerges clearly in the five bulls issued by Paschal II on 1 April 1103:⁽³²⁾ to give but one example, Pelayo bishop of Astorga was ordered by the pope to restore certain territories round Bragança to the church of Braga. Here again we have a newcomer turning to the pope for a ruling on a question of ecclesiastical property and administration which he himself was powerless to settle.

There were certain obvious lessons to be learnt from the course of action pursued by Bernardo of Toledo, Geraldo of Braga, and other French bishops. Within the kingdom of León the bishop who learnt them most thoroughly and practised what he had learnt with the most marked success was of course Diego Gelmírez. The lesson was simple: if he were to survive, as between Toledo and Braga, he would have to have similar recourse to the highest ecclesiastical authority. And this, as we have already seen, he triumphantly did.

It would be otiose to follow him again through the tortuous diplomacy by which he was enabled to elude both the Scylla of Braga and the Charybdis of Toledo. But we may profitably [191] turn instead to another dispute in which Diego was engaged, for an illustration of a further important factor impelling Leonese ecciesiastics to look towards Rome. And this was the intractable nature of the disputes which arose. It was virtually impossible to solve them in Spain, partly because passions so quickly became inflamed, partly because clear documentary evidence which would serve to settle them did not exist, partly because the higher ranks of the hierarchy were so riven with jealousies that there was no generally recognized authority within Spain whose decisions would be binding.

There are plenty of illustrations of these points in the history of the dispute between the dioceses of Santiago de Compostela and Mondoñedo over the archipresbyterates of Bezoucos, Trasancos and Seaya which took place between 1102 and 1122.⁽³³⁾ Diego Gelmírez first made the claim that these properly belonged to his diocese in 1102. Gonzalo of Mondoñedo refused to give them up to him. Diego replied by bringing the matter up at the council of Carrión in 1103. Shortly after the council, on 4 February 1103, Bernardo of Toledo wrote to Gonzalo ordering him to restore the areas to Compostela. But Bernardo was later accused of being lukewarm in the dispute -- which is all too likely, seeing that he was being called on to help his enemy Diego Gelmírez -- and certainly the letter he wrote to Gonzalo was chiding rather then severe. Gonzalo took no notice of Bernardo's letter. Diego's next step was to turn to Rome. On 1 May 1103 Paschal II ordered Gonzalo to give back the disputed areas.⁽³⁴⁾ Of course he did not do so: but he did go to the curia, to put his own version of the case. And this in turn led Paschal II to summon representatives from both sides for a hearing in his presence in 1104. We need not follow the case any further on its tortuous path, which ended in a victory for Compostela in circumstances which are somewhat obscure, beyond observing that one of the reasons why the path was so tortuous was the lack of documentary evidence. Paschal clearly wanted this, since some written matter was sent to him at his [191] request in 1105. But this seems to have been no more than the testimony of those who were alive at the time, memoriae suae testimonium.⁽³⁵⁾ This was not enough, and each side resorted to forgery or interpolation of early documents.

Such contacts with the papal curia were made closer by the way in which lesser disputes would creep in for consideration when greater matters were under discussion. For whatever reason, recourse was had to Rome by a bishop; we do not know what passed between the pope and the bishop (or his representatives) when they met at the curia; but clearly far more than the single problem which had occasioned their meeting. A good instance of this occurs in the course of the archipresbyterates dispute. It concerned the abbey of Cines.⁽³⁶⁾ This appears to have been the proprietary monastery of Count Pedro Froílaz de Traba, the greatest nobleman in Galicia and the brother of Bishop Gonzalo of Mondoñedo. It had originally been a house of nuns, but at some time and by some process lost to us had become a house of monks. Count Pedro seems to have wished to turn it once more into a nunnery. At this point, in 1103, when Diego Gelmírez was appealing to the pope in the archipresbyterates dispute, he also sought a ruling in the Cines case. Paschal II told him to restore the abbot and have the nuns moved elsewhere. The upshot was that the abbot was finally reinstated, though perhaps not until 1107 or 1108. He was again expelled, violenter, by the count, and the failure of the Galician bishops to do anything about this brought a rebuke from the pope. Soon afterwards, in all probability, Pedro Froílaz himself visited the curia and demonstrated to the pope's satisfaction that Cines had originally been a nunnery. Paschal II therefore changed his tune. Cines was to become a nunnery once more, and only if it should prove impossible to effect this was it to become a house for monks.

A still smaller dispute which was brought before the pope when a greater matter was being discussed concerned a subdeacon, [193] otherwise unknown to history, named Suero.⁽³⁷⁾ Not only was Suero of illegitimate birth, but his manner of life was more secular than befitted one of his ecclesiastical rank, and, above all, he had deprived one of Diego Gelmírez's clerks, Pedro capellanus, of the third part of the church of San Miguel in Santiago de Compostela. Now this Pedro was one of Diego's envoys to the pope in 1110.⁽³⁸⁾ Having failed to get redress from Suero at home, he turned to the pope 'ad domini papae celsitudinem confugium fecit, cernendo Suarium iniustitiae nebula esse obductum' before whom he stated his case, in Latin, says the author of the Historia Compostellana not without a trace of pride (querimoniam latine ventilavit). Paschal II ordered Diego to restore Pedro's rights to him.

Finally, there were special reasons why the popes should have been particularly concerned with the civil war within the kingdom of León-Castile which succeeded the death of Alfonso VI in 1109, and why it should have been the largest question upon which they were called to arbitrate in the early twelfth century. Alfonso VI 's plan to marry his daughter Urraca to Alfonso el Batallador, king of Aragon, raised in the most acute form the problem of the relation between practical politics and the still only hazily defined canon law of marriage. It may be doubted indeed whether Alfonso's scheme was ever feasible: the Aragonese were the hereditary enemies of the Leonese and Castilians; no woman had ever reigned over León-Castile before. It was virtually certain that civil war would break out, as indeed it quickly did. War among the Christians gave the Almoravides, recently victorious at the battle of Uclés in 1108, their opportunity to regain lost ground, and the Christians found that they were vulnerable. This also was a matter of deep concern to the popes, impelling them to do all that they could to bring about a settlement of the civil war, so that the Christians might turn together against the Moslems.⁽³⁹⁾ The civil war, moreover, led to attacks on the property and persons of ecclesiastics. In such instances, again, the popes were swift [194] to intervene when called upon to do so: Alfonso el Batallador imprisoned the bishop of Orense and expelled the bishop of León from his see for opposing the marriage, and he may have encouraged the rebels against abbatial authority at the monastery of Sahagún;⁽⁴⁰⁾ Urraca imprisoned Diego Gelmírez in 1121;⁽⁴¹⁾ Teresa of Portugal imprisoned the archbishop of Braga in 1122.⁽⁴²⁾ Finally, Calixtus II had a personal interest in the outcome of the civil war, for, as we have seen, Urraca was his sister-in-law and her son Alfonso Raimúndez was his nephew.⁽⁴³⁾

These, then; the influx of French clergy and their reforming programme; the example they gave to Leonese ecclesiastics, notably to Diego Gelmírez; the intractable nature of ecclesiastical problems in Spain; the tendency for lesser disputes to be carried along in the wake of greater; and direct papal interest in Spanish politics -- these are the causes to which we must look if we would seek to explain why it was that Leonese bishops began to look towards the papal curia for a solution of their problems in the crucial early period from 1088 to 1124. There do not appear to have been any obstacles to the free flow of papal authority apart from the hazards of distance or of circumstances. The secular rulers did not forbid intercourse with the papacy on principle, though they tried to impede it now and again for special reasons -- as for example when Alfonso el Batallador tried to prevent communication between Diego Gelmírez and popes Paschal II and Calixtus II, or when Urraca stopped Diego from attending the council of Rheims.⁽⁴⁴⁾

Such contact with the papacy as an arbitrator once established in this early period would, as we have said, increase with a momentum of its own as time went on, unless some special series of events were to halt it (which did not happen). The disputes involving bishops which arose and which were referred to the papacy during the remainder of our period were of five different kinds. The most famous of these was [195] the claim of the archbishops of Toledo to ecclesiastical primacy within Spain and their insistence that the other archbishops and bishops of Spain should give formal recognition thereof. Only a little less acrimonious and certainly more complicated were disputes among metropolitans as to their respective suffragans. On a diocesan, as opposed to a provincial level, were boundary disputes between neighbouring bishops. Within the diocese itself, bishops might find themselves at loggerheads with their chapters, with monasteries, with the military Orders, with the lay nobility or with the towns. Finally, bishops might fall out with the king.

The well-charted ground of the primary dispute has recently been mapped again by Father Rivera, and we need not go over it once more here.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Let us instead consider a representative example of one of the other two categories of dispute.

The Zamora Imbroglio

The thorniest of all disputes over suffragans was that which concerned the metropolitan allegiance of the bishop of Zamora. Was the bishop of Zamora a suffragan of Toledo, or of Braga, or of Compostela? This question, raised soon after the creation of the see early in the twelfth century, gave rise to about a century of controversy before it was finally settled, more by the weariness of the parties than by formal judgement, in favour of Compostela. Though the story has been discussed fairly recently by the bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo,⁽⁴⁶⁾ a little more material has since then come to light which makes it worth summarizing again.

Down to the year 1120, as we have seen, Zamora formed part of the bishopric of Salamanca,⁽⁴⁷⁾ which when Santiago de Compostela became an archbishopric was included within her province. When the diocese of Zamora was formally established in 1121, it was given rights over lands hitherto in the diocese of Astorga, which was a suffragan of Braga.⁽⁴⁸⁾ But [196] the first bishop of Zamora, Bernardo, was a creature of the archbishop of Toledo; besides which, the church of Toledo claimed metropolitan rights over all bishops who, for whatever reason, did not have a metropolitan, and it could be argued that Zamora's bishop was one of these. Thus, early in its history, the church of Zamora was subjected to the claims of three different and rival archbishops.

It was Alo, bishop of Astorga, who first took the dispute to a higher authority, during the second legatine visit of Cardinal Deusdedit. At the council of Valladolid in 1123, Deusdedit ruled that Bernardo should continue to be bishop of Zamora, administering the territories he already held, for the rest of his life or until he should be translated to another see; after which time the territories were to revert to the church of Astorga and the bishopric of Zamora was to be abolished.⁽⁴⁹⁾ But this decision was very rapidly reversed:⁽⁵⁰⁾

Cum autem in eodem loco multitudo populi excrevisset, dictus Toletanus et princeps terre nepos bone memorie Calixti pape predecessoris nostri... rogaverunt eum, ut sepedictum episcopum in Zemorensem presulem confirmaret; quorum precibus acquievit, dans eidem episcopo in mandatis, ut interim nulli professionem faceret nec ecclesiam sibi commissam permitteret alii subiugari donec instrueretur ab ipso quid eum facere oporteret.

So matters remained for the rest of the episcopate of Bernardo of Zamora. A number of solemn privileges was granted by the popes to the church of Braga during these years, but in none of them was Zamora mentioned as a suffragan of Braga.⁽⁵¹⁾ However, Braga was later to claim that some sort of de facto subjection of Zamora to herself did exist: three clerks could be produced at a much later date who remembered the time⁽⁵²⁾ 'quando Zamorensis episcopus [197] bone memorie B. erat subditus Bracarensi ecclesie tempore archiepiscopi domni Pelagii'. Yet a fourth recalled that he⁽⁵³⁾ 'fuit loco Zamore ubi archiepiscopus Bracarensis Pelagius receptus est cum processione in ecclesia Zamorensi ab episcopo et clero illius ecclesie, et tunc audivit quod publice dicebatur quod erat suus dominus et archiepiscopus, et... vidit ipsum archiepiscopum consecrantem ecclesiam unam in Zamorensi episcopatu ad Zinellas inter Zamoram et Scemam et ibi predicavit'. The references are of course to Paio Mendes, archbishop of Braga from 1118 to 1137. They cannot be regarded as entirely reliable -- the evidence produced by Braga was rejected more or less in toto by her opponents -- but there is no reason why we should reject them out of hand.

But if Braga was active, so also was Toledo. And her efforts were crowned with success. Lucius II declared Zamora to be among the suffragans of Toledo. The bull containing this decision has been lost, but it was referred to by Eugenius III in 1153;⁽⁵⁴⁾ 'papa Lucius Bernardo bone recordationis episcopo Zamorensi fecerat (mandatum) ut Toletano archiepiscopo obediret'. Innocent III was also to refer to it in 1199.⁽⁵⁵⁾ Bernardo of Zamora died a few years later, in 1149. His successor, Esteban, was consecrated by Raimundo, archbishop of Toledo. However, Deusdedit's ruling of 1124 had never been rescinded, so in consecrating a new bishop for Zamora Raimundo was flouting it. The Braga party, it seems, did not hesitate to point this out, and lodged an appeal to the pope, which Raimundo imprudently disregarded.⁽⁵⁶⁾

The consecration of Esteban must have occurred late in 1149 or early in 1150. On 16 May 1150 the archbishop of Braga made a sensible move; he did his obedience to the archbishop of Toledo as primate: it must have been intended to mollify the pope, and it probably did so. A little later, on 22 January 1151, the issue of a solemn privilege for the church of Zamora suggests that Bishop Esteban, or his representative, was at the papal curia for a discussion of Zamoran [198] ecclesiastical affairs.⁽⁵⁷⁾ On 6 June of the same year, Eugenius III sent Raimundo of Toledo a sharp rebuke for consecrating the new bishop and summoned him to the curia for an investigation.⁽⁵⁸⁾ We do not know whether or not he went, and he died on 20 August 1152.

The ensuing months were a time of frenzied activity. In February 1153 Juan, the archbishop-elect of Toledo, went to the curia for consecration. But João Peculiar, the archbishop of Braga, was also there, and the two disputed the case in the pope's presence. Eugenius III reversed the decision of his predecessor Lucius II, and declared Zamora a suffragan of Braga.⁽⁵⁹⁾ This was confirmed by Adrian IV in 1157 and by Alexander III in 1163,⁽⁶⁰⁾ and was, effectively, the end of Toledo's serious claims over Zamora.⁽⁶¹⁾

However, for Braga it was by no means the end of the struggle. In the first place, Bishop Esteban of Zamora would not submit to her. He was later said to have repented of this on his deathbed in 1175.⁽⁶²⁾ And he was certainly the victim of punitive measures during his lifetime:⁽⁶³⁾ 'Et omnes isti et alii sciunt quod bone memorie Stephanus fuit suspensus ab episcopalibus officiis longo tempore quia nolebat debitam obedientiam prestare Bracarensi archiepiscopo secundum mandatum curie Romane'. Although, as Innocent III realized, Esteban evidently relished the de facto independence which he and his church experienced while metropolitans wrangled distantly over him, he did have some grounds for contumacy towards Braga. Much water had flowed under the bridges since João had done obedience to Raimundo of Toledo in 1150, and João was refusing to do it to Juan, Raimurido's successor as archbishop of Toledo from 1153 to 1166. For this he was suspended from his office and his suffragans were [199] absolved from their obedience to him by Cardinal Hyacinth in 1155,⁽⁶⁴⁾ and again by Alexander III in 1161.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Esteban seems to have used these rulings as a pretext for never returning to the Braga fold, and for this he suffered further at the hands of Cardinal Hyacinth, on the latter's second visit to Spain in 1172-3.⁽⁶⁶⁾

The second reason why Braga's hold on Zamora was so insecure was owing to the claims of the church of Santiago de Compostela to be the metropolitan of Zamora. The chronology of this part of the dispute is obscure, but an outline of events can be dimly discerned. At some point Alexander III,⁽⁶⁷⁾ 'de consilio fratrum suorum invenit quod Compostellanus archiepiscopus convenire posset episcopum Zamorensem et episcopus deberet ei secundum iuris ordinem respondere'. This must have taken place after 1163, when Alexander III last confirmed the rights of Braga over Zamora. It is unlikely to have happened before 1168, since the see of Compostela under Archbishop Martín was in no position to entertain such elaborate ambitions. If we are correct in surmising that Cardinal Hyacinth's actions referred to above are to be placed in 1172-3 it can hardly have happened before then. On the other hand, the claims of Compostela were sufficiently frightening -- at the least; they may already have received papal recognition -- in 1175 to cause the archbishop of Braga to take special precautions over the consecration of Esteban's successor Guillermo:⁽⁶⁸⁾

ex mandato Bracarensis... episcopus Lucensis consecravit episcopum Zamorensem Willelmum qui nunc sedet et timuit eum consecrare in Salamantica neque in Zamora ne ibi aliquis episcoporum Compostellane ecclesie obedientium (MS. illegible here) sed apud Legionem convocatis Legionensi et Ovetensi episcopis qui sunt speciales domni pape eum consecravit.

Alexander III was a scrupulous but also a busy man. Heedful of, though perhaps unconvinced by Compostela's argument, he commissioned three bishops as judges-delegate to look into the affair: these were the bishops of Porto, of Avila and of Tarazona, who were suffragans respectively of Braga, Compostela and Toledo. Braga was later to refer to this action of Alexander's, rather tactlessly, as commissionem cui similis alia ab hac curia numquam emanavit.⁽⁷⁰⁾We do not know precisely when this occurred, but there are indications that it was late in 1180 or early in 1181.⁽⁷¹⁾

The delegates were slow to act, it seems that nothing was done during 1181, and Lucius III renewed the commission in September 1181, soon after he became pope.⁽⁷²⁾ Sancho II of Avila died between December 1181 and May 1182, and his place among the delegates was taken by Vidal bishop of Salamanca. The delegates gave their judgement on 16 January 1184, at Coria.⁽⁷³⁾ Since the bishop of Porto could not attend, the bishops of Tarazona and Salamanca acted without him. The archbishop of Braga failed to appear, and sent to representative, but the delegates and the parties were prepared to proceed without him. Compostela stated her case; it was accepted; and Zamora was declared a suffragan of Compostela.

The Braga party was later to tell a rather different story. According to this, it had been arranged that the delegates [201] were to hold their court at Alcañices, a place utrique parti conveniens. But this was suddenly changed, without any consultation of Braga's wishes, to Coria, a place which was 'fere inaccessibilem... cum esset in Sarracenorum faucibus constitutus et per decem dietas distaret ab ecclesia Bracarensi', and, 'propter regum discordias et alia multa impedimenta illuc ire non potuit archiepiscopus Bracarensis'. It is implied moreover that the exclusion of the bishop of Porto, Braga's suffragan, from the counsels of the other two delegates was deliberate.⁽⁷⁴⁾

It is impossible to tell how much truth there may have been in these assertions. Coria was certainly a singular place to hold such a hearing. The regum discordias are a little puzzling, since there was peace between León and Portugal, albeit uneasy peace, between 1180 and 1188. At some point, claimed Braga, Fernando II of León had ordered those suffragans of Braga within his kingdom not to obey their archbishop,⁽⁷⁵⁾ and it may be that the reference is to this.

Eagerly, Compostela sought a papal confirmation of this ruling: but Urban III, who had succeeded Lucius in 1185, was curiously reluctant to give this. Instead he appointed John, vidame of Brescia, and Master John of Bergamo to visit Spain to look into the matter, but with a limited brief,⁽⁷⁶⁾ 'super sola sententia confirmanda vel infirmanda in ea si quid existeret infirmandum'. But Braga disregarded the terms of reference and re-opened the whole question, while Compostela simply continued to press for a confirmation of the sentence already given, as might have been predicted. John of Brescia made his report to the pope.⁽⁷⁷⁾ And the popes simply sat on it: Clement III and Celestine III took no further action that we know of.

And so at long last the whole question came before Innocent III in 1199. His handling of it was masterly. First of all, [202] the archbishop of Braga requested a confirmation of Eugenius III's sentence of 1153 in favour of Braga. Innocent confirmed the authenticity of the bull, but not the binding force of its contents.⁽⁷⁸⁾ But this was clearly not enough. On 5 July 1199 Innocent issued a bull in which, after a long and characteristically incisive review of the whole dispute, he merely declared that John of Brescia's ruling in favour of maintaining the earlier sentence in favour of the claims of Compostela was not to constitute any impediment to the church of Braga; he did not confirm the rights of Compostela over Zamora; but neither did he deny them.⁽⁷⁹⁾ A few days later, as a further sop to Braga, he appointed three more delegates -- the bishops of Osma, Porto, and Plasencia -- to hear the whole suit, should Braga wish to pursue it.⁽⁸⁰⁾ Nothing further is known of it, so it is to be presumed that Braga gave up the struggle at this point. During the thirteenth century Zamora was incorporated de facto among the suffragans of Compostela.

At this, the end of the story, a few reflections upon it may be permissible. First, then, the issue was one of fundamental importance. However wearisome the details may seem to us now, this is something which we cannot and should not shirk. We can attempt to make it more comprehensible to ourselves by saying that the issue was in part a political one -- Fernando II's action is eloquent proof of that. But in part only, for it is more important to realize that this was a great constitutional issue in the life of the church, not merely in Spain but all over twelfth-century Europe; for the dispute over Zamora can be closely matched by similar disputes elsewhere. It was moreover an issue with far-reaching consequences: Zamora is still in the province of Santiago de Compostela.

But, secondly, it was a dispute which could not be settled within Spain. Feeling ran far too high between the three metropolitans concerned, and, more importantly, the 'proofs' [203] upon which a judgement might rest did not exist. By the accident of preservation it so happens that we have in our hands today far more material from the Braga party than from either of the others: the dossiers of Compostela and of Toledo, which must have existed, have been lost, perhaps irretrievably. But there is no indication in Innocent III's bull of 5 July 1199 -- the fullest, most serious, and most perceptive account of the quarrel -- that they differed in kind from that prepared by Braga. Essentially, the historian is in the same position as Innocent III. And we can appreciate, as clearly as he did, the intractable nature of the problem, which arose from the lack of early and authoritative documents.

Finally, and especially relevant to our purpose, we should note the significance of the decision taken by Bishop Alo of Astorga in 1123 -- to lay his grievance before Cardinal Deusdedit. There is an irrevocability about the course of action thus entered upon which deserves special emphasis. What a legate had done, only a pope could undo. What one pope had decided could be reversed only by another. The lessons of this are obvious.

Councils, Legates And Decretals

Our concern so far in this chapter has been with ecclesiastical organization and administration. Important as these matters are, they form only a part of our story. Bishops looked also to Rome for guidance in the task of what is loosely and unsatisfactorily called 'reform'. The word is used here to denote concern with issues of a moral, pastoral, spiritual or intellectual nature, in distinction (though sharp dividing lines cannot be drawn) from matters of an institutional kind. Did the Leonese bishops strive to be au fait with papal legislation? Did they actively seek papal guidance? As usual our answers to these questions can be only hesitant.

The record of Leonese attendance at papal councils will tell us something. Ecclesiastics who attended councils would have heard the discussions which took place, received copies of the conciliar acta, had the opportunity to meet bishops from other parts of Christendom and, by the mere fact of travel, have been enabled to see for themselves something of the life of the church in other and different places. Sometimes [204] we have direct evidence of attendance, for instance in the acta of the council itself, or in a chronicle such as the Historia Compostellana. Sometimes the evidence is indirect: where we have papal bulls issued to a Leonese beneficiary and dated during or very close to the period of time in which a council sat it may be regarded as reasonably certain that that ecclesiastic, or his representatives, attended the council in question.

We have no hint of Leonese attendance at any papal council before the year 1095. In that year Bishop Dalmatius of Compostela attended the council of Clermont cum quibusdam comprovincialium episcoporum, among them the bishop of Lugo.⁽⁸¹⁾ The abbot of Sahagún may also have attended.⁽⁸²⁾ Paschal II summoned the archbishops of Toledo and Braga, and the bishop of Compostela, to the Lenten council in 1102; a bull issued on 15 March 1102 suggests that some Leonese ecclesiastics did attend.⁽⁸³⁾ Representatives from the church of Compostela and the Castilian bishopric of Burgos seem to have attended the council of Benevento in 1108.⁽⁸⁴⁾ A letter of summons to the council held at Benevento in 1113 was carried to north-western Spain, possibly by the abbot of Cluny, but there is no certain evidence that any ecclesiastics from the area did attend it.⁽⁸⁵⁾ Another such summons, to the Lateran council of 1116, has survived; the council was attended by Bishop Hugo of Porto, and perhaps by the abbot of Sahagún.⁽⁸⁶⁾ Representatives of the bishop of Compostela attended the council of Toulouse in 1119, but just missed that of Rheims in the same year.⁽⁸⁷⁾ At the general council of 1123, Lateran I, Spanish business was discussed; representatives of the bishop of Lugo, but not the bishop in person, were at the curia shortly before the council opened and may have stayed on to attend it. There is no certain evidence of [205] attendance from León; from Castile, the bishop of Segovia may have been present.⁽⁸⁸⁾ Diego Gelmírez was summoned to attend the council of Rheims in 1131 but did not do so; the bishop of Lugo or his agents may have attended; Alfonso Pérez of Salamanca certainly did.⁽⁸⁹⁾ Three Castilian bishops attended Lateran II in 1139, from the sees of Osma, Avila and Segovia. The only possible Leonese attender was the abbot of Carracedo in the diocese of Astorga.⁽⁹⁰⁾ Summonses to the council held at Rheims by Eugenius III in 1148 certainly reached western Spain, for they were discussed at meetings held at Braga and at Palencia, as we have already seen; the bishop of Coria attended, and perhaps the bishop of León.⁽⁹¹⁾ The same bishop of León, Juan, would seem to have attended, or sent representatives to, the council of Tours in 1163.⁽⁹²⁾ Someone from the church of Salamanca attended the council of Venice in 1177.⁽⁹³⁾ At Lateran III, in 1179, the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela was present, with two of his suffragans, Sancho of Avila and Pedro of Ciudad Rodrigo; from the province of Braga, Bishop Juan of Lugo and apparently Guillermo of Zamora attended.⁽⁹⁴⁾ Lateran IV in 1215, was attended by the archbishop of Compostela, and the bishops of Oviedo, Astorga, Orense, Ciudad Rodrigo and perhaps Mondoñedo.⁽⁹⁵⁾

Our record is doubtless incomplete. Even so, no-one could describe the Leonese bishops as assiduous attenders at papal councils. The brute obstacle of distance must surely have been one of the main reasons for this. The limited attendance that we can trace did bear some fruit; a decretal letter of 1206 addressed to the bishop of Orense shows us that he did at least know what canons had been passed at Lateran III in [206] 1179 and that he was trying to put them into effect in his diocese.⁽⁹⁶⁾ But there was clearly a need for local councils to be held, which might diffuse papal legislation. This need was met by a series of ecclesiastical councils presided over by legates a latere.

The first such council was that held at Burgos in 1080, presided over by Cardinal Richard of Marseilles. Its acta are lost, and all we know for certain about it is that it decreed the abolition of the so-called Mozarabic Rite, but it has seemed to the most acute modern investigator that 'les décrets habituels de la réforme grégorienne y furent certainement promulgués, contre le simonie et le mariage des clercs'. It was attended by all the Leonese bishops.⁽⁹⁷⁾ Richard of Marseilles held a further council at Husillos in 1088 -- strictly speaking, not a legatine council, for his legation had lapsed -- and Cardinal Rainerius, later Pope Paschal II, held one at León in 1090. No acta have survived and we know only that the councils were concerned with matters of ecclesiastical organization, for example the delimitation of diocesan boundaries between the sees of Osma and Burgos at the council of Husillos.⁽⁹⁸⁾ Here again, however, it is hard to believe that 'reforming' legislation was not promulgated at these two councils. The first legatine council of which the acta have been preserved was that held by Cardinal Boso at Burgos in 1117. Decrees were passed, among others, forbidding lay investiture (c.8), clerical marriage (c.2), nepotism (c.16), the alienation of church lands in feodum, quod in Ispania prestimonium vocant (c.5) and the taking of disputes between ecclesiastics to secular tribunals (c.10). It was attended by four Leonese bishops, Jerónimo of Salamanca, Pelayo of Oviedo, Diego of León and Nuño of Mondoñedo.⁽⁹⁹⁾ Boso held another council at Sahagún, on his second legatine visit in 1121. The familiar decrees against simony, lay investiture and [207] clerical marriage were passed (cc. 1, 10), and other matters received attention -- the problem of sacrilege and lay usurpation of church property (c.6), episcopal connivance at adultery (c.5), penitents (c.12), apostates (c.9), rebellious monks (c.8) and the protection of the persons of ecclesiastics and pilgrims (c.11). Six Leonese bishops attended, Geraldo of Salamanca, Diego of León, Nuño of Mondoñedo, Pelayo of Oviedo, Diego of Orense and Alfonso of Tuy.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

No acta have been preserved from the succeeding four councils held by visiting legates. The first of these was celebrated by Cardinal Deusdedit at Valladolid in 1123. It is possible that initiatives taken there were copied by Diego Gelmírez in the council which he held shortly afterwards at Santiago de Compostela -- a council in which he boldly proclaimed the Pax Dei... in toto Hispaniae regno.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ At Carrión de los Condes in 1130 Cardinal Humbert together with three archbishops, at least twelve bishops of whom six were Leonese, and an unknown number of abbots, decreed multa ad honorem et utilitatem sanctae ecclesiae et Hispani regni pertinentia, but we do not know what they were.⁽¹⁰²⁾ A council appears to have been held by Cardinal Guido at León in 1133, but it is completely obscure.⁽¹⁰³⁾ He certainly presided over one at Burgos in 1136; we know something of its business -- the confirmation of the cofradía of Belchite, the settlement of a boundary dispute between the sees of Sigüenza, Osma and Tarazona -- but no formal decrees have come down to us.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾

Guido returned to Spain in 1143 and held a council at Valladolid. The acta, which have survived, are patterned on the canons passed at Lateran II in 1139, which, as we have seen, was attended by no bishops from the kingdom of León. A full complement of ten bishops was present at Valladolid, and an eleventh was elected there, a new bishop [208] for the see of Oviedo.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ Twelve years later, the decrees promulgated once more at Valladolid, this time by Cardinal Hyacinth, later Pope Celestine III, were again modelled on those passed at Lateran II. Eight Leonese bishops attended; a ninth was deposed (whether in his absence or not we do not know); and a tenth, who was not among his attenders, Pelayo Menéndez of Tuy, certainly received the text of the decrees, for they have survived copied in a crabbed little hand on the dorse of a private charter of 1154 in his archives.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾

This completes our evidence for the holding of councils by papal legates. It is possible that Hyacinth held a council during his second legatine visit to Spain, for he was in the peninsula for nearly two extremely active years, but there is no certain evidence of it.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

There is, then, a fair amount of evidence for the reception of papal legislation in the kingdom of León during the first half of the twelfth century. There was perhaps less need for legates to transmit such legislation to Spain in the course of its second half, seeing that papal councils like Lateran III and IV were reasonably well-attended by the Spaniards. Obviously, the foregoing discussion contains nothing like a complete list of papal legates, of one sort or another, to the kingdom of León in the course of the century. It would be a laborious and perhaps not very rewarding task to compile such a list.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ What it would show is that there were few years in the course of the century when papal agents were not to be found in the kingdom of León, or León-Castile, engaged on some piece of business, great or small. Diego Gelmírez believed that a secret legate had been sent to spy on him by Pope Honorius II.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ Bishop Guy of Lescar was sent to [209] summon the Spanish bishops to Lateran II -- and as we have seen they paid him scant attention.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ Alexander III sent fund-raisers during his struggle with Barbarossa.⁽¹¹¹⁾ We have already met the two Italian experts who were sent out by Urban III to look into the Zamora dispute.⁽¹¹²⁾ Celestine III sent his nephew Cardinal Gregory in the 1190s with the difficult and delicate task of bringing about peace between the warring kings of Christian Spain.⁽¹¹³⁾ Dozens of further instances could be cited, but this is not the place to do so.

Bishops sometimes took the initiative, seeking papal advice about particular problems as they encountered them, when the custom of the church spoke dubiously or ambiguously or not at all. Few such occasions are recorded. This does not necessarily mean that the bishops did not meet problems, nor that when they did they were well-informed, or indifferent. It is more likely to reflect the fact that there were few decretalists at work in Spain, to collect the letters and so to preserve them for us.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ Early in the century Geraldo of Braga had asked Paschal II whether ordinations carried out according to the so-called Mozarabic-Rite were valid. The pope's answer, that they were, has come down to us because it was copied into the cathedral cartulary of Braga; the Liber Fidei, in the thirteenth century.⁽¹¹⁵⁾ Much later on, Bishop Juan of Lugo received two decretal letters from Alexander III, while Manrique of León received one from Urban III and a bishop of Astorga, either Fernando II or Lope, got one from Clement III.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ The evidence is fuller from the pontificate of Innocent III, with the beginning of a complete series of papal registers. We have already encountered a decretal letter sent [210] to the bishop of Orense in 1206.⁽¹¹⁷⁾ Two years earlier, Innocent had replied to a query of bishop Martín of Zamora; a young man who had accidentally been the cause of another's death might receive holy orders.⁽¹¹⁸⁾ He tells the archbishop of Compostela that canons regular may not act as advocates in secular lawsuits. He even finds time to write him a long letter about the names of the divine Persons, in reply to a question.⁽¹¹⁹⁾ To his successor he replies that the church of the Apostle need not be reconsecrated after the brawling of pilgrims near the shrine -- purification by water, wine, and ashes will do.⁽¹²⁰⁾

The issue about which we hear most concerned the law of marriage. This was an area of canon law where much was vague, at least until towards the end of the century; one therefore, which generated controversy. There were special reasons why it should have raised difficulties in Spain. The earliest in time of these issues -- according to our surviving sources -- arose, predictably, from the change in the liturgy. Were children born of marriages celebrated according to the Mozarabic liturgy legitimate or not? The question was put to Paschal II by Diego Gelmírez in 1101, and the pope decided that they were.⁽¹²¹⁾ It is possible that this issue lay behind the case of Bishop Pedro of León in 1089, referred to at the beginning of this chapter.

The second problem was that of , marriages within the prohibited degrees. This issue, keenly debated throughout Europe, was of no particular moment in Spain for political reasons. Queen Urraca's marriage to Alfonso el Batallador was incestuous according to the canon law; Aflonso VII's to Berenguela probably was; Fernando II's to Urraca of Portugal certainly was; both Alfonso IX's marriages flagrantly were -- that is to say five marriages of reigning monarchs of León out of a total of eight such marriages in fewer than ninety years. Marriages with neighbouring royal families were highly desirable in the conduct of diplomacy. And if they had to be eschewed, rulers had [211] either to marry outside royal houses, as Fernando II was compelled to do after his first marriage had been dissolved by a papal legate, or to look very far afield indeed -- Alfonso VII's second wife was the daughter of a duke of Poland. It was extremely trying. Sometimes the ecclesiastical authorities were prepared to connive: Alfonso VII and Berenguela got away with it -- though at a heavy price⁽¹²²⁾ -- and it was whispered that Celestine III was willing to say nothing about Alfonso IX's second incestuous marriage.⁽¹²³⁾ But this, apart from being probably humiliating and certainly expensive, could never be relied on. Paschall II stood out against Urraca's marriage, backed up by most (it would seem) of the bishops of León-Castile.⁽¹²⁴⁾ Alexander III stood out against Fernando II's first marriage,⁽¹²⁵⁾ and Innocent III against Alfonso IX's second marriage (when to do so was against his own immediate interests).⁽¹²⁶⁾ Humbler people were concerned in this sort of trouble too. Diego Gelmírez consulted Calixtus II in 1121 over the case of one Geraldo, who had married a wife who was related to the woman who had previously been his mistress.⁽¹²⁷⁾ There is also some evidence of concern with the issue in Spanish conciliar decrees.⁽¹²⁸⁾

The third reason why the law of marriage was a specially contentious matter in Spain was the presence there of different religious groups. The diverse nature of Christian, Jewish and Moslem matrimonial customs must have caused grave difficulties for churchmen whose dioceses included settlements of infidels, especially if intermarriage between Christian and Jew, or Christian and Moslem, took place. [212] (How frequent was this in twelfth-century Spain? We still do not know). Clement III replied to a query on the problem, sent either by the bishop of Segovia or the chapter of Ciudad Rodrigo.⁽¹²⁹⁾ In his decretal he spoke in a sensible and tolerant way. But it is to be regretted that we know no more of this important question.

The Reciprocal Process

If bishops sought privileges, assistance and advice from the curia, the popes in their turn wanted certain things from the bishops; and it is impossible to understand the closer links that were forged during the twelfth century between episcopate and papacy without saying something of these. Most prominently, the popes wanted cash. The period from the middle of the eleventh century onwards was one of mounting expenditure for the papacy. This expenditure could not be supplied from the patrimonial lands in Italy, over which papal control was intermittent and which in any case were of no great economic value. Money had therefore to be raised elsewhere. But no systematic papal taxation was devised before the thirteenth century. The twelfth witnessed a variety of expedients used by the popes, some of which proved lucrative and some of which did not.

Kings could be exploited. The king of Aragon became a tributary of the papacy in 1089, the king of Portugal in 1143-4. The payments made by these rulers were small, but attempts were made to exact them with regularity.⁽¹³⁰⁾ No tribute was exacted from the king-emperors of Leon-Castile by the popes, presumably because Cluny had got in first; even so late as 1142 the abbot of Cluny was still insisting upon payment either of the annual census promised by Alfonso VI or of some commutation in lieu of it.⁽¹³¹⁾ Monasteries which sought papal privileges commonly had to agree to pay a small annual tribute. Thus, for example, the canons of San Isidoro de León had to agree to pay one gold piece [213] (aureus) every year in return for their privilege of 1163.⁽¹³²⁾ An interesting document has survived from the priory of Sta. Crux de Coimbra in which were jotted down notes on when and where the payments that it owed to the papacy were made, and copies of the receipts given by the papal camerarii. It shows, significantly, that such payments of tribute were nearly always accompanied by payments of equivalent size pro benedictione -- a warning that documents do not always allow us to glimpse the realities of papal finance.⁽¹³³⁾

No such tributes were demanded of any of the bishoprics in the kingdom of León, but in two ways the bishops also were mulcted. First, privileges themselves cost money, and profited not only the pope himself but also the whole phalanx of officials, courtiers and servants about him who had to be bribed. We have seen evidence that Diego Gelmírez had to spend enormous sums of money for the prize of the archbishopric, and the pages of the Historia Compostellana are studded with references to the ending of money to the popes pro benevolentia. We even have a letter of Cardinal Deusdedit asking in pointed terms for a chasuble he had seen at Compostela and which had caught his fancy.⁽¹³⁴⁾ It is only reasonable to assume that comparable privileges cost comparable amounts. How much did Oviedo and León have to pay for their privileges of exemption? We shall never know, but we may be sure that it was no small sum. As with privileges, so with justice. What did the contending parties have to spend in the Zamora dispute? Again we shall never know, but again we may be sure that it was not a little.

Intimately linked with the popes' need for cash was their need for loyalty and moral support -- so intimately that it is perhaps unrealistic to try to untangle the web that resulted. A good instance of these interlocking needs is furnished during the early years of Alexander III's pontificate. Fernando II and his bishops appear to have recognized Alexander [214] as the rightful pope without too much hesitation.⁽¹³⁵⁾ On 13 March 1161 the pope addressed the bull Illa devotionis to Archbishop Martín of Santiago de Compostela, exposing the needs of the papacy, threatened by Frederick Barbarossa, and urging him to be loyal. He then asked for financial help from him and from his suffragans; the proceeds of the appeal were to be given to the bearers of the letter, Theodinus and Leo.⁽¹³⁶⁾ The request is given added interest because we happen to know that it was successful. A document survives at Compostela which shows us the chapter selling land to the priory of Sar in order to raise some of the money which they intended to send to the pope in signum obedientie et sincere devotionis.⁽¹³⁷⁾

Earlier instances of the same anxiety to retain a hold on the loyalties of the Leonese bishops can be found. When Maurice Bourdin, archbishop of Braga, became antipope in 1118 he turned immediately to his old suffragans. The first letter of his that we possess is dated 22 March 1118, a mere fourteen days after his election, and is an appeal to Gonzalo bishop of Coimbra for support.⁽¹³⁸⁾ But the rightful pope, Gelasius II, was almost as quick to warn Spanish bishops against the new antipope, in two letters of 25 March 1118.⁽¹³⁹⁾ We learn too of his solemn warning against the antipope delivered to the two clerici of Diego Gelmírez, Pedro Díaz and Pedro Anáyaz, when they visited the curia early in June.⁽¹⁴⁰⁾ And in the letter which they carried back to Diego the pope besought him, rogantes et monentes... caritate sub venias.⁽¹⁴¹⁾ The request was scarcely veiled, and Diego obediently set himself to answer it. Gelasius II died on 29 January 1119, and the antipope remained at large until April 1121. This [215] helps to explain the urgency of Calixtus II's early appeals for help addressed to Diego Gelmírez in 1119 and 1120.⁽¹⁴²⁾

A similar situation arose at the time of the schism between Innocent II and Anacletus II. Diego Gelmírez was courted early on by Anacletus, within two months of the latter's election.⁽¹⁴³⁾ Innocent did not write until rather later, until 2 August 1130 -- but when he did write, how much that Diego most wanted was he prepared to give!⁽¹⁴⁴⁾ But Anacletus had by no means given up hope: he was still writing to Diego in the spring of 1134.⁽¹⁴⁵⁾ How near Alfonso VII, or Raimundo of Toledo, or Diego Gelmírez himself, ever were to throwing themselves behind Anacletus we shall never know. But it is not without significance that Diego troubled to keep the bulls that came from him. Innocent II, for his part, seems to have been by no means sure of his friends; at any rate, his surviving letters show him acting warily. He kept Diego informed of his progress in long bulletins.⁽¹⁴⁶⁾ He thanked him and the bishops of Lugo and León for their support of him.⁽¹⁴⁷⁾ He fretted that he might lose that support.⁽¹⁴⁸⁾ He was deferential to Alfonso VII.⁽¹⁴⁹⁾ He did not ask any favour of Diego until the threat of Anacletus was declining.⁽¹⁵⁰⁾

This assiduous wooing seems, over the century, to have been fruitful. By the end of Innocent III's pontificate the Leonese churches were well under the thumb of the pope. One indication of this may be found in the history of papal provisions in León in our period. The first of them happens to be the earliest papal provision of which we have knowledge. In March 1137, Innocent II wrote to Diego Gelmírez requesting that he should grant an ecclesiasticum beneficium cum prebenda in Compostellana ecclesia to Arias, filius noster et clericus.⁽¹⁵¹⁾ This begging letter was accompanied and [216] reinforced by two others, from the papal chancellor Aimeric, an old correspondent of Diego's, and from Cardinal Guido, whom Diego had met in the recent past, during his two legatine visits to Spain in 1133 and 1136.⁽¹⁵²⁾ These letters make clear, what the pope's does not, that Arias was returning (redeuntem) to Compostela, and that he had in fact been in vestra enutritus ecclesia. So Innocent was not asking a favour for a complete stranger; nonetheless he was asking for more than a pope had, to our knowledge, asked for before.

Our second provision comes from a generation later. In 1173 or 1174 Alexander III wrote to the members of the chapter of Salamanca requesting them to give the first vacant canonry to a certain clerk R.⁽¹⁵³⁾ At some point towards the end of the century we hear of a man provided by the pope to a prebend at Astorga.⁽¹⁵⁴⁾ Innocent III provided a relative of his to a prebend at Compostela, which had previously been held, it may be noted, by the papal Chancellor.⁽¹⁵⁵⁾ He also provided to Toledo, and possibly to Zamora.⁽¹⁵⁶⁾

Favours of this sort, papal provisions, are not asked by those who expect to see their requests denied or flouted. It is for this reason that they may be seen as evidence of the confidence of the popes in their hold over the church in León by the end of the twelfth century. But it would be more than unjust to suggest that the popes were interested only in material things. They were also moved by idealistic considerations. Only a cynic would deny that their desires to reform the organization of the Spanish church, to stamp out the last traces of the so-called Mozarabic liturgy, to bring about peace between monasteries and bishops, and so forth, were not so motivated, at the least in part. Of these matters enough has already been said. But one further topic remains, [217] the desire of the popes to ensure the safeguarding and expansion of Christendom by encouraging the war against the Moslems.

Papal thinking in these matters followed four lines. In the first place, it became quickly necessary in the years after 1096 to prevent able-bodied fighting men from going crusading in the Holy Land, or at least to discourage them from doing so. This action was first taken early in Paschal II's pontificate.⁽¹⁵⁷⁾ A necessary corollary soon appeared: those who fight in Spain must enjoy the same privileges as those who fight in the Holy Land. Such a doctrine was accepted formally at the first Lateran council in 1123.⁽¹⁵⁸⁾

In the third place the popes encouraged the foundation of confraternities and orders devoted to fighting the infidels. The institution of the cofradía de Belchite was confirmed by the papal legate Cardinal Guido at the council of Burgos in 1136.⁽¹⁵⁹⁾ The origins of the Order of Calatrava are to be sought in 1158, and in 1164 its foundation was confirmed by Alexander III. The Order of San Julián del Pereiro, later of Alcántara, started in about 1163 or 1164, and received papal recognition in 1177. In 1170 the 'Friars of Cáceres' were founded, becoming the Order of Santiago in 1171; they were received as sons of the Roman church by Cardinal Hyacinth in 1173, and their institution was confirmed by Alexander III in 1175.

The kind of papal activity concerned with the Reconquista which has left most trace upon our records is that concerned with the effort to bring about peace among the Christian kingdoms. This can first be seen between the years 1109 and 1126, when it was with papal encouragement that the Leonese and Castilian bishops held their series of councils which was concerned, perhaps primarily concerned, to prevent the warfare between Castilians and Aragonese which was tearing Christian Spain apart and leaving the southern frontiers almost undefended. To give but one example, the [218] council of Burgos in 1113 was held at the instance of Paschal II.⁽¹⁶⁰⁾ A generation later, one of the concerns of the legate cardinal Guido in 1143 was to bring about peace between Alfonso VII of León-Castile and Afonso Henriques of Portugal.⁽¹⁶¹⁾ A few years afterwards, we find Eugenius III insisting upon the maintenance of peace with Portugal when writing to Alfonso VII in 1148.⁽¹⁶²⁾ Cardinal Hyacinth's second legatine visit in 1172-4 was also, among much else, concerned to ensure political peace.

Papal peace-making activity was at its most intense in the years from 1188 to 1209. This was owing, first of all, to the loss of Jerusalem in October 1187. Christendom was threatened, and a new urgency entered into papal entreaties for peace. This can be most vividly sensed in two bulls despatched to Spain by Clement III in 1188, especially when they are contrasted with the more leisured plea for peace contained in the last bull concerned with this subject sent before the fall of Jerusalem, that of Urban III dated 27 August 1186 or 1187.⁽¹⁶³⁾ The mounting Almohade attack on Spain which culminated in the disastrous defeat of Alarcos in 1195 only served as fuel to urge the popes on to efforts yet more intense.

As far as the kingdom of León was concerned, the problem was twofold. In the first place, the popes had to reckon with the inveterate hostility between Alfonso IX of León who came to the throne in 1188, and Alfonso VIII of Castile. There is some indication that the Leonese bishops shared the feelings of their king, or were too frightened to oppose his will, or were simply not interested in fighting the Moslems. One or more or all of these possibilities is suggested by their reply to Archbishop Gonzalo of Toledo's attempt to [219] carry out Clement III's suggestions.⁽¹⁶⁴⁾ This letter, which must be dated late in 1188 or early in 1189, effectively halted any attempt that might have been made during the remainder of Clement III's pontificate to turn the uneasy truce between León and Castile into a permanent peace.

Cardinal Hyacinth, aged nearly ninety, ascended the papal throne as Celestine III at the end of March 1191, and among the earliest letters he despatched was one to the archbishop of Toledo scolding him for his feeble response to Clement's scheme for peace and urging him to greater efforts.⁽¹⁶⁵⁾ But this bull must have arrived just as the uneasy truce fell to pieces. In May 1191 the kings of Aragon, León and Portugal agreed on common military action against Castile, and in July or August Alfonso IX entered into alliance with the Almohades to protect his southern frontier. He was excommunicated, and his kingdom interdicted, soon afterwards -- it is not known exactly when -- and Gregory, cardinal-deacon of Sant' Angelo, was sent to impose a peace upon the kings. This is precisely what he did. Neither of the kings wanted the treaty of Tordehumos (April 1194), and it lasted only a short time. The Castilian forces were shattered at Alarcos, and a new rupture between León and Castile took place. Alfonso IX renewed his alliance with the Almohades, and was condemned for this in the strongest terms by Celestine III in October 1196.⁽¹⁶⁶⁾ War between León and Castile dragged on through 1196 and 1197, until finally a peace was arranged through the mediation, once more, of cardinal Gregory. To strengthen it, Alfonso IX was married to the Castilian Berenguela, daughter of Alfonso VIII, in the autumn of 1197.

There is every indication that the magnitude of the Almohade threat, the Leonese defeats at the hands of Castile, and general war-weariness, had combined to persuade the kings to accept the peace of 1197 as definitive. But it was at this point that the second problem arose. Berenguela was related to Alfonso IX within the prohibited degrees. It appears that [220] cardinal Gregory -- and even Celestine III himself -- were prepared to connive at this.⁽¹⁶⁷⁾ But Innocent III, who succeeded as pope a few months after the marriage, was not.⁽¹⁶⁸⁾ His insistence that the marriage be dissolved only gained its end in the spring of 1204. And the separation at once brought on further quarrels between León and Castile, this time over the issue of the restitution of Berenguela's dowry. The upshot was that a full, final and definitive peace -- between the kingdoms did not come until 1209, and after insistent papal pressure. It was only then that Innocent III could turn to the great crusade he had in mind, which at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 was so strikingly successful.

1. AHN cód. 1044B, fol. 30^r.

2. HC p. 253.

3. J. Pérez de Urbel, Sampiro, su Crónica y la monarquia leonesa en el siglo X (Madrid, 1952), pp. 285-9.

4. HC p. 253. Paul Kehr suggested that the legate may have been Hugh Candidus and the date about 1067.

5. J. Mattoso, Le Monachisme ibérique et Cluny (Louvain, 1968), p. 121; cf. also The 'Epistolae Vagantes' of Gregory VII, ed. H.E.J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), no. 54.

6. The enregistered material relating to Spain and Portugal from the pontificates of Innocent III and Honorius III is most easily accessible in MHV I and II.

7. On this topic see, in general, P. Kehr, Das Papsttum und der Katalanische Prinzipät bis zur Vereinigung mit Aragon (Berlin, 1926), and his 'El Papado y los reinos de Navarra y Argaón hasta mediados de! siglo XII' in EEMCA ii (1946), 74-186; A. Durán Gudiol, La Iglesia de Aragón durante los reinados de Sancho Ramírez y Pedro I (Rome, 1962); P. David, Études historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal (Lisbon-Paris, 1947); L. de la Caizada, 'La proyección del pensamiento de Gregorio VII en los reinos de Castilla y de León', Studi Gregoriani iii (1948), 1-87; C. Erdmann, O Papado e Portugal no primeiro século da história portuguesa (Coimbra, 1935).

8. JL. 5367-5369.

9. JL 5366, 5370.

10. J.F. Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo en el siglo XII (Rome-Madrid, 1966), p. 137.

11. JL 5390.

12. HC p. 20; AHN cód. 1043B, fol. 38^v, 39^r.

13. JL 5601.

14. JL 5785.

15. The surviving privileges are proportioned as follows: Santiago de Compostela 17, Lugo 7, Oviedo 6, León 6, Coria 3, Mondoñedo 1, Astorga 1, Zamora 1, Ciudad Rodrigo 1, Salamanca and Tuy 0. I use the word privilege here to refer to their content, not to their form. Not all were cast in the diplomatic form of a 'solemn privilege', e.g., that granted to the bishop of Oviedo on 27 April 1157, a photograph of the original of which may be seen in Docs. Oviedo, lam. 8.

16. AC Zamora, Libro Blanco, first (unnumbered) folio; JL 10802.

17. JL 5942, 6264; MHV I, no. 266.

18. JL 5881, 5986, 6042, 6466.

19. LFH IV, ap. xiv, pp. 39-41.

20. LFH IV, ap. liv, pp. 138-42; but this bull may not be genuine.

21. JL 6823, 7160.

22. JL 5601; AC León no. 6328; JL 6039.

23. JL 9808 (not earlier than 16 May 1154) and 10141 (9 February 1156). For the dating of the earlier of these two bulls, see Fita in BRAH xiv (1889), 550-1.

24. HC pp. 42-50, 255-94: see also A.G. Biggs, Diego Gelmírez, pp. 47-51, 140-56.

25. HC p. 265.

26. HC p. 274 (272).

27. HC p. 268.

28. HC pp. 284-5: and see also C.J. Bishko, 'The Spanish journey of Abbot Ponce of Cluny', Ricerche di Storia Religiosa i (1957), 311-19.

29. HC p.50.

30. HC p.47.

31. See, in general, M. Défourneaux, Les Français en Espagne aux XIe et XIIe sièc1es (Paris, 1949), ch. i, and J.F. Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo en el siglo XII (Rome-Madrid, 1966), ch. iii.

32. PUP nos. 3-7.

33. HC pp. 74-84, 374-8.

34. JL 5943.

35. JL 6043.

36. JL 5944, 6001, 6027. These bulls cannot be dated accurately; the dates suggested by Jaffé are perhaps a little too early. The house lay in the diocese of Compostela. Its early history is exceedingly obscure; see AHN 494/10, 11, and AHN cód. 259B, fols. 5^v-7^r.

37. HC pp. 87-8.

38. HC p. 84.

39. E.g., JL 6397.

40. HC p. 141; Escalona, Sahagún, pp. 308-14.

41. HC pp. 327-35.

42. JL 6987, 6988.

43. This comes out strongly in JL 6828.

44. HC p. 279 (277).

45. La Iglesia de Toledo, chs. vii and viii.

46. D. Mansilla, 'Disputes diocesanas entre Toledo, Braga y Compostela en los siglos XII al XIV', Anthologica Annua iii (1955), 89-143. See also Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, pp. 306-13.

47. See above, ch. 2, p. 38 and PUP no. 99.

48. PUP nos. 12, 25.

49. PUP no. 25.

50. MHV I no. 199, at p. 221.

51. PUP nos. 30, 41, 47.

52. AD Braga, Liber Fidei, fol. 196^v.

53. ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporações Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, no. 2, at lines 52-5.

54. PUP no. 51.

55. MHV I, no. 199, at p. 221.

56. JL 9487.

57. AC Zamora, Libro Blanco, first (unnumbered) folio.

58. JL 9487.

59. PUP nos. 51, 52. The original letter close announcing the decision to Alfonso VII is in AC Toledo X.2.F.l.1.a., and is edited in part by Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, p. 311, n. 54.

60. PUP nos. 57, 63.

61. Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada made a final claim in 1217, but it does not appear to have been taken at all seriously.

62. ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporações Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, no. 2, at lines 30-35.

63. AD Braga, Liber Fidei, fol. 196^v.

64. MHV I, no. 96.

65. Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, p. 312, n. 55. Innocent III's comments are in MHV I, no. 199, at pp. 224-5.

66. JL 14160, which is to be dated to Hyacinth's second legatine visit.

67. MHV I, no. 199, at p. 222.

68. ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporaçbes Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, no. 2, at lines 19-22.

69. MHV I no. 199, at p. 223: 'Suggesserat enim Compostellanus archiepiscopus quod non habueras possessionem ecclesie Zamorensis', This explains why all Braga's arguments were designed to prove that she had had such possession.

70. ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporações Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, no. 1, at line 21.

71. Presumably at the same time as the other commissions to the same bishops, PUP nos. 78, 82. Erdmann incorrectly gave the bishop of Avila's name as Diego: it was Sancho II, still traceable as bishop in early December 1181, over three months after Alexander III's death.

72. PUP no. 86.

73. PUP no. 99, dated 24 January 1184.

74. ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporações Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, nos. l and 2.

75. ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporações Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, no. 2, at lines 70-74; note in particular that it was said that Fernando II 'persuasisse Zamorensi episcopo ut pocius obediret Compostelano quam Bracarensi archiepiscopo'.

76. PUP no. 104; MHV I, no. 199, at p. 225.

77. PUP no. 110.

78. PUP no. 52.

79. MHV I no. 199, at p. 226. Mansilla suggested that because Innocent III had recently declared the bishoprics of Lisbon, Evora, Lamego and Idanha to lie within the province of Compostela, he did not wish to appear 'excesivamente duro a Brago' by giving 'una rotunda negativa en la cuestión de Zamora'.

80. MHV I no. 216.

81. HC p. 20; AHN cód. 1043B, fol. 38^v.

82. JL 5597.

83. JL 5882, 5901.

84. JL 6208, 6209. It may be noted here that the G. Legionensis who attended papal councils in 1106 and 1112 was the bishop of St.-Pol-de-Léon in Brittany: Mansi, Concilia, XX, col. 1212; XXI, col. 67.

85. HC pp. 139-40; cf. also C.J. Bishko 'The Spanish journey of abbot Ponce of Cluny' Ricerche di Storia Religiosa i (1957), 311-19.

86. JL 6462, 6513, 6515; Mansi, Concilia, XXI, col. 150.

87. HC pp. 276 (274), 278-83.

88. Mansi, Concilia, XXI, col. 284; JL 7020; AC Lugo, Leg. 3, no. 2; AC Segovia, D/3/8 (=JL 7061, where incorrectly dated).

89. JL 7475; AC Lugo, Libro de Bulas Apostólicas, no. 1; above, p. 39.

90. AHD Astorga, Cartulario de Carracedo, fol. 74.

91. JL 9255; AC León no. 1267; cf. above, ch. 4, p. 138.

92. JL 10859; AC León, nos. 1269, 1271.

93. AC Salamanca, nos. 45, 49, 50.

94. Mansi, Concilia, XXII, coll. 216, 465.

95. J.F. Rivera, 'Personajes hispanos asistentes en 1215 al IV Concilio de Letrán', Hispania Sacra iv (1951), 335-55.

96. MHV I, no. 334.

97. F.Fita, 'El Concilio Nacional de Burgos en 1080. Nuevas ilustraciones', BRAH xlix (1906), 337-84; P. David, Études historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal, p. 418. The exact date of the council is uncertain; it may have met early in 1081; see J.F. Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, pp. 131-2.

98. F.Fita, 'Texto correcto del Concilio de Husillos', BRAH li (1907), 410-13.

99. F.Fita, 'Concilio Nacional de Burgos', ibid., xlviii (1906), 387-407.

100. PUP no.22.

101. HC pp. 416-19; PUP no. 25.

102. HC p. 498; AHN 1326B/24; AC Segovia A/3/9.

103. HC pp. 557, 564-5.

104. HC p. 578; P. Rassow, 'La Cofradía de Belchite', AHDE iii (1926), 200-26; Minguella, Historia de Sigüenza, I, p. 358; AHN cód. 1044B fols. 78^r-79^r; JL 7952.

105. PUP no. 40; BN MS. 1358, fol. 4^v: F.Fita, 'El Concilio Nacional de Valladolid en 1143', BRAH lxi (1912), 166-74; cf. also the dating-clause of AHN 3548/11.

106. This testimony to the scarcity of parchment in the far north-west, or to the poverty of the see of Tuy (or both), is now AC Tuy 10/24. The decrees were published by Carl Erdmann, O Papado e Portugal, ap. v.

107. Aguirre believed that Hyacinth held a council at Salamanca, but Mansi showed long ago that the evidence had been misinterpreted: Concha, XXII. coIl. 145-6, 320; cf. JL 14160, which is misleading.

108. Perhaps it has been done. I have been unable to track down a copy of G. Säbekow, Die pästlichen Legationen nach Spanien und Portugal bis zum Ausgang des XII Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1931).

109. HC pp. 489-90.

110. HC pp. 597-8. He was at Compostela in October 1138, when he executed the very splendid autograph subscription which adorns AHN 526/7.

111. AC Lugo leg. 3, no. 9.

112. Above, p. 201.

113. Below, p. 219.

114. Some collections have come to light recently, and more may be expected to follow when Spanish libraries have been systematically explored. See A. García y García, 'Una Colección de Decretales en Salamanca', Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. S. Kuttner and J. J. Ryan (Vatican City, 1965), pp. 71-92; F. Marcos Rodríguez, 'Tres manuscritos del siglo XII con colecciones canónicas', Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia xxxii (1960), 35-54.

115. PUP no.8.

116. JL 14005, 14006, 15735, 16558.

117. Above, p. 205.

118. MHV I no. 298.

119. MHV I nos. 237, 332.

120. MHV I no. 369.

121. JL 5881.

122. The grant of Cacebelos to the church of Compostela, dated 22 February 1130: LFH IV, ap. vii, pp. 19-21. This was almost certainly part of the bargain made between Alfonso VII and Diego Gelmírez before the council of Carrión: HC p. 497.

123. Innocent III had to issue a vigorous denial of this: MHV I, no. 196.

124. JL 5987, if it really is of 1104, as Jaffé held, shows that concern for the subject was lively in the years before Urraca's marriage took place. But it could be of 1109 or 1110, and thus perhaps the most discreet of references to that marriage itself.

125. GRF pp. 111-12.

126. The most recent discussion of this is that of Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, pp. 237-41.

127. JL 6912. Note the 'quem ad nos misisti'.

128. Councils of Compostela 1114, c.5; Sahagún 1121, c.6; Valladolid 1155, c.19.

129. JL 16595.

130. E.g., MHV I, no. 170, for a Portuguese payment of arrears in 1198.

131. C.J. Bishko, 'Peter the Venerable's journey to Spain', Studia Anselmiana xl (1956), 163-75.

132. León, Archivo de San Isidoro, no. 1.

133. PUP no. 159.

134. HC pp. 422-3.

135. See the letter in S. Tengnagel, Vetera Monumenta contra Schismaticos (Ingoldstadt, 1612), p. 412, ep. LIX, a reference which I owe to Mrs. C.R. Cheney. It is undated, but unlikely to be later than the earliest weeks of 1161. JL 10629, of 4 April 1160, might imply that the province of Toledo had already by that date recognized Alexander III.

136. AC Lugo, leg. 3, no. 9.

137. LFH IV, ap. xxxiii, pp. 84-6.

138. PUP no. 20.

139. JL 6637, 6638.

140. HC pp. 258-9.

141. JL 6645.

142. JL 6711, 6877.

143. JL 8374.

144. JL 7415-7419.

145. JL 8426.

146. JL 7449, 7653.

147. JL 7610.

148. JL 7665 (not necessarily of 1134, as Jaffé suggested).

149. AC Orense, Privilegios 1/8; T. Minguella, Historia de la diócesis de Sigüenza y de sus obispos (Sigüenza, 1910), I, p. 361.

150. JL 7831.

151. JL 7831.

152. HC pp. 584-585.

153. AC Salamanca, no. 54. R. cannot be identified with certainty.

154. Referred to in a bull of 31 May 1188, summarized in A. Quintana Prieto, 'Registro de documentos pontificios de la diócesis de Astorga (1139-1413)', Anthologica Annua xi (1963), 189-226.

155. MHV I no. 506.

156. MHV I nos. 134, 420. It should be pointed out here that AC Salamanca no. 124, an interesting bull dealing with the nefarious activities of unscrupulous provisors, is incorrectly entered in the printed catalogue; it belongs to the pontificate of Innocent IV, not to that of Innocent III.

157. JL 5889, 5840, 5863.

158. Mansi, XXI col. 284; JL 7111 (which appears to be spurious) and 7116, which is explicit, and perhaps also of 1123.

159. P. Rassow, 'La cofradía de Belchite', AHDE iii (1926), 200-26.

160. HC 167; JL 6350.

161. A. Herculano, História de Portugal (9th ed., Lisbon, n.d.), II, p. 188; C. Erdmann, O Papado e Portugal, p. 47.

162. JL 9255.

163. These documents are to be found in Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, p. 220, n. 71; pp. 222-3, n. 74, and p. 225, n. 75. Rivera's discussion of this facet of papal diplomacy is excellent; see especially pp. 219-37.

164. AC Toledo, A.6.F.I.8. I have to thank Father Rivera for sending me a summary of this document, which was not to be found when I worked in the Toledo archives in September 1967.

165. Non sine causa of 25 April 1191: Rivera, La Iglesia de Toledo, p. 228, n. 79.

166. JL 17433.

167. This is indeed implied by Rodrigo, De Rebus Hispaniae, VII, 31; cf. also above, p. 211, n.2.

168. A lucid guide to Innocent's relations with the Spanish kingdoms is given by A. Luchaire, Innocent III: les royautés vassales du Saint-Siege (Paris, 1908), pp. 1-58: some detail is added by D. Mansilla, 'Inocencio III y los reinos hispanos', Anthologica Annua ii (1954), 9-49.