[141]The expeditious judgment of the Hospitallers' case against the Sentfores family was one of several indications that royal interest in Vic had revived in the last years of the twelfth century. Especially after the election of Bishop Guillem de Tavertet in 1194, the count-king became again a figure of immediate importance in the affairs of the diocese. This re-emergence was only partly due to the close personal association between Bishop Guillem and King Pere I (1196-1213).⁽¹⁾ The reawakening of royal concern with Vic reflected the growth of the king's power, manifested not only in political expansion but also in fiscal and judicial control over core territories. A measure of this attention is the issuance of royal charters. For the twelfth century, to 1196, only three comital or royal privileges were made to the city or church of Vic; the years 1196 to 1207 offer six.⁽²⁾ The later charters relinquished various exactions that the king customarily made in the diocese or city. They claim to be charters of liberties that relieve the inhabitants and church of arbitrary obligations, but they are in fact fiscal documents designed to raise revenue. The privileges offered future relief in return for large immediate payments, which went to fuel the campaigns of King Pere that would eventually be frustrated on the battlefield of Muret in 1213.⁽³⁾

[142]In addition to judicial intervention and royal charters, the presence since 1188 of a royal vicar for Ausona and the assumption of royal responsibility for enforcing the Peace and Truce exhibited the king's renewed solicitude for one of his oldest territories.⁽⁴⁾ If the only significance of a return to direct royal intervention were the restoration of order after a century or so of neglect, the history of the medieval diocese of Vic would be quite simple: an alliance between the bishop and the count interrupted by a century of isolation. In this case, however, the return of secular government does not represent the reimposition of an earlier order, nor even of order at all. Not only was twelfth-century Catalonia fairly well governed (if on a merely local level), but, more important, the close of the twelfth and the opening of the thirteenth century was a period of upheaval. Royal intervention occurred at the same time as (and probably stimulated) a collapse of local institutions. The problems of the diocese were aggravated by a number of circumstances extraneous to the king: the intransigent personality of Bishop Guillem, conflicts between the bishop and chapter, the jurisdictional quarrel with the Montcada, and a general climate of violence within the diocese. Nevertheless, the resurgent influence of the crown encouraged conflict and instability.

It is therefore a mistake to consider the king's appearance on the scene a solution to difficulties created by previous neglect. If the Hospitallers were rescued in accord with a legal order guaranteed by the state, the cathedral was not. The period 1194 (the accession of Bishop Guillem) to 1213 (the death of King Pere) was disastrous for the church, despite the tempo of royal intervention, if not because of it.⁽⁵⁾ Royal exactions damaged the condition of the diocese, while royal efforts to resolve the jurisdictional fight between the cathedral and the Montcada failed. Even beyond the interests of the cathedral (and it would be wrong to identify the health of the region completely with the fortunes of the church), the years of royal ascendancy were years of disorder in Catalonia, beginning with the most notorious crime of the era, the murder of Archbishop Berenguer de Vilademuls of Tarragona by Guillem Ramon de Montcada.⁽⁶⁾ Locally, bad harvests [143] and nobles' violence plagued the diocese of Vic.⁽⁷⁾ Landowners began to place their property under the protection of the Hospitallers, although it is clear that the order found it hard to protect its own possessions. For the last decade of the twelfth century there are thirteen documents by which property -- land, houses, revenue from mills -- was placed under the protection of the Hospitallers in return for an annual census.⁽⁸⁾ For all the earlier years of the order's existence in the diocese (since 1126), only five documents of protection are known.⁽⁹⁾

It is also at the close of the twelfth century that the tensions between the bishop and his canons exploded. No doubt the cause was as much the hard and irascible temperament of Guillem de Tavertet as the long-term problems within the cathedral. Yet the canons defiance reflects an ancient contradiction between the private eminence of individual canons and the powerlessness of the chapter as a corporate body.⁽¹⁰⁾ The conflicts provoked papal intervention, which, like that of the king, was encouraged by disorder but failed to relieve it. There had been only one papal privilege to the bishop of Vic from 1099 until 1194,⁽¹¹⁾ whereas one bull was issued in 1194 and three in 1196.⁽¹²⁾

In 1196 the disobedience of the canons and their neglect of their duties led the bishop to solicit and obtain from Pope Celestine III a bull allowing Guillem to proceed, in cooperation with the "sanior pars" of the chapter, against those questioning episcopal authority.⁽¹³⁾ In a bull dated the following day, Pope Celestine gave Bishop Guillem the right to deprive disobedient canons of their offices and benefices.⁽¹⁴⁾

These bulls evoke the memory of Bishop Berenguer's reform of 1097, especially in distinguishing a cooperative minority of canons from the disobedient mass, but the efforts of 1196 were not even temporarily successful to the degree that those of a century earlier had been. The conflict between bishop and chapter was exacerbated by the prevalence of violence. A third papal bull allowed the bishop and chapter to use force -- to assume the "material sword," in the document's words -- to repel secular usurpation and violence.⁽¹⁵⁾ The older structure of informal resolution of disputes with laymen was not working, the protection of the [144] royal courts was insufficient, and the church would now enter a battle for which its weapons were inadequate.

Violence, however, was not fostered solely by laymen. The canons quarreled with the bishop in 1199 over the rowdiness and disorder fomented by men compromising the entourages of prominent canons.⁽¹⁶⁾ In a hearing before the sacristan Pere de Tavertet, the bishop claimed a right to collect fines from the canons' men for breaches for his power of command (bannum) and for disturbing the peace of the town (invasio villae). The bishop's jurisdiction over crime -- one of the key issues in the uprising of the townsmen -- was resisted with more success by the canons than by the townsmen. It was agreed that if criminals fleeing the bishop's justice took refuge in houses belonging to the canons, the bishop could not have his men remove them summarily. He would have to ask the canon formally to hand over the malefactor, and only in the event of complete refusal might the bishop enter the house and seize the fugitive.⁽¹⁷⁾

This rule accorded with a traditional immunity for canons' houses, which originated with the comital privilege of 1010, but it provides further evidence of urban disorder and capitular dissension. Not only did this agreement sanction the autonomy of canons from the chapter, but it also demonstrates the status they had achieved as urban magnates and the consequent social disorder.

The close of the twelfth century offers the unedifying spectacle of a choleric bishop and a fractious chapter of canons accompanied by violence-prone followers. In the early years of the next century the bishop and two canons, Gilabert de Muntral and Guillem Gros, would join in a furious struggle.⁽¹⁸⁾ The canons accused the bishop of gross misconduct and appeared before Pope Innocent III in 1206 to denounce him. Guillem refuted the charges, and the rebellious canons were suspended from office until, having observed patience and humility, they were forgiven by the pope and restored to their benefices.

The long pontificate of Bishop Guillem was troubled by factionalism and external threats.⁽¹⁹⁾ This unhappy era ended with [145] Guillem's renunciation and retirement to the monastery of Casserres in 1233. His abdication was compelled by the papal court, before which he was again accused, this time of crimes ranging from bad judgment to extortion.⁽²⁰⁾ Under his successor, the irenic Sant Bernat Calvó (1233-1243), the power and finances of the bishop and chapter continued to decline.⁽²¹⁾

Not all of the activity after 1194 was destructive. The townsmen asserted themselves with some success in 1198, winning some concessions from Bishop Guillem over the construction tax.⁽²²⁾ In the thirteenth century the enterprise of these men would carry their representatives throughout the western Mediterranean, and their wealth would endow institutions like the Hospital of the Cloquer.⁽²³⁾ The effect of all this new energy on the church, whether stemming from townsmen, the pope, the king, or others, was largely negative. As Vic opened up to the world, its comfortable insularity ended. As it became more a part of the Crown of Aragon, the Mediterranean economy, and the Universal Church, it lost an independence symbolized and protected by the cathedral.

The church of Vic underwent two transformations in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The first was the end of its traditional identification with the interests of the count of Barcelona. The alliance ended in the late eleventh century with the change in the count's administration of his domain and the frustrated ambitions of the bishop of Vic. The second transformation, the destruction of ecclesiastical lordship and the return of secular government to Vic, took place at the end of the twelfth and first quarter of the thirteenth century. In the period intervening between the two transformations, Vic remained distant from Barcelona and Rome, the respective centers of secular and spiritual government. This does not mean that the region simply became a backwater or that in the absence of outside support the earlier outlook of the church came to an end. The interesting aspect of these years is the church's resilience despite its relative isolation. The transformations of ca. 1100 and ca. 1200 must be understood in terms of the three questions discussed in the Introduction: the place of the [146] church in society, the connection between the church and the political conditions of the time, and the degree to which the cathedral of Vic is to be considered decadent or innovative.

Vic remained a local church during the twelfth century. Its members were recruited from the elite families of the region, customs such as associating prominent laymen with the chapter were retained, and the cathedral functioned not as a branch of the single Catholic church but as the most prestigious (if not always strongest) spiritual and secular force within the diocese and county. The localism of the twelfth century differed from that of the earlier period in that the church was no longer protected from the outside. The church therefore faced more serious challenges from lay society -- from aristocrats, townsmen, and castellans, and from the overlapping relationships between important families and the chapter. That ecclesiastical lordship survived, albeit diminished, is proof of the strength of the local spirit, but also of adaptability. The cathedral was rooted firmly in a society in which cooperation alternated with confrontation, and attacks on church power failed to destroy it.

In the European context the persistence of such a cathedral church shows the diversity of twelfth-century institutions, despite the well-known growth of papal government and the tendency to standardize ecclesiastical practice. Between the usual dichotomy of a centralized, bureaucratic church versus a church in the grip of feudal society there are a number of dioceses in which the church was an independent spiritual and political presence, closely related to regional society but also guardian of a tradition of spiritual authority separate from Rome and older than the Gregorian movement.

The history of medieval Spain (and of medieval Europe as a whole) is shaped, in modern study, by a concern with the building of states and the expansion of frontiers. During the late eleventh century the diocese of Vic ceased to be of immediate importance to the political ambitions of the count of Barcelona. In the course of the twelfth century it also ceased to be, even in part, a frontier region. Yet the deeds of princes and the movement of the frontier line should not dictate how the significance of a [147] region is to be measured. Throughout the Middle Ages there were places that were neither seats of bureaucratic development nor bases for military expansion. They were often, nevertheless, areas of intense economic activity and social innovation. The growth of a society includes more than the expansion of a central bureaucracy. The independent development of the diocese of Ausona and of places resembling it shows that the formation of cohesive states in the Middle Ages can be examined in more than one way. A stable society existed not only because of government expansion from the center but also because of a series of local and regional phenomena. The periphery was as important as the capital, and the history of Catalonia and other regions is not entirely that of the central administration.

Dynamic, innovative, creative -- all these flattering adjectives are applied to the medieval frontier. There is no question that Tarragona, Lleida, and later Valencia witnessed new institutions and social relations, just as the western frontier of the diocese of Vic had in the early eleventh century. A climate of innovation is not the exclusive property of such frontier regions, however. The pressing necessity to adapt was felt not only where there were few institutions to build upon but also in those areas that had advanced beyond the phase of early settlement. Adaptation behind the frontier was more difficult and gradual because the strength of tradition and the desire for stability were strong. The kinds of changes differed from those on the frontier because they had to fit an already established structure, creating an interplay and tension between conservatism and innovation.

This type of change raises the question of decadence. The waning lordship of the bishop, the relative isolation of the diocese from count, pope, and frontier, and the local orientation of the cathedral do not add up to stagnation. Society and the church lost neither the ability to adapt nor the substance of the earlier political practices. A degree of provincialism coexisted with a willingness to experiment. Isolation did not mean sloth, and, despite decline, there was a degree of innovation.⁽²⁴⁾

That Vic was in the advance guard of many twelfth-century developments is clear. The personality of the community [148] expressed by the market privilege of 1138 is one example of its inventiveness, as are the emergence of a legally defined patriciate in 1174 and the sworn association and Roman legal arguments of ca. 1185. Despite its conservatism, the cathedral was neither inflexible nor decadent. The bishop and chapter reorganized their administration by trying several reforms, including, notably, the system of monthly provosts. The church adjusted to prevailing custom in settling its disputes informally, and it imitated aristocratic patterns of loyalty by entering into convenienciae and requiring oaths from castellans.

After 1100 the church took a more conservative stand in protecting its urban lordship, in the recruitment of the chapter, and in its tenurial arrangements with the peasantry. It absorbed certain changes and resisted others. Roman law and the monthly provost system were imported without difficulty. Adaptation to aristocratic arrangements over castles was more difficult. Other innovations, such as degrading the status of the peasantry, were rejected until the thirteenth century.⁽²⁵⁾ Stability did not preclude novelty; some things changed, especially those privileges subject to intense pressure (such as the monopolies of the cathedral), yet the very flexibility of the bishop and canons allowed them to retain what might appear to be archaic privileges. In both resisting and accepting new developments, the diocese and county acted independently of the count and pope.

One can not equate social dynamism and fruitful change entirely with kings or frontiers, nor can dynamism be called an unalloyed good in itself. Cosmopolitan influences returned in the last years of the twelfth century as Vic re-entered the political and ecclesiastical mainstream. The activity at that time and in the early decades of the thirteenth century included some signs of progressive tendencies, but the region experienced a decline in the level of autonomy, order, and justice. The early thirteenth century must be evaluated not only by the expansion of Catalonia and the economic vitality of Vic but also by the rising level of violence, the dissension within the cathedral, and the beginning of a serious attempt to impose serfdom. The real cataclysm, [149] from the point of view of the church and for the integrity of Vic, came not with the passing of the frontier in 1100 or with the accompanying challenges to ecclesiastical lordship. It came in the era of maximum economic and political energy.

1. Bagué i Garriga, ed., Els primers comtes-reis, p. 111.

2. Privileges before 1196: Jurisdiccions, ed. Junyent, nos. 26, 27, 32. Between 1196 and 1207: ibid., nos. 48, 51, 57, 58, 59, 62. These do not include royal charters to private parties (ibid., nos. 43, 56, 60) or the recognition by King Alfonso of his debts to the cathedral of Vic (ibid., no. 38).

3. For example, the 42,000 sous collected from the bishop and townsmen of Vic in return for confirmation of their rights and renunciation of arbitrary exactions, issued in 1205 (Jurisdiccions, ed. Junyent, no. 57). Also see Bisson, Conservation, pp. 86-104, for the debasement and ransoming of the coinage practiced by Pere I, especially p. 90 for the redemptio monete extorted from Vic in 1197.

4. On royal assumption of the peace, see T. N. Bisson, "The Organized Peace in Southern France and Catalonia, ca. 1140-ca. 1233," American Historical Review 82 (1977), 290-311; Lalinde Abadía, La jurisdicción real, pp. 69-79.

5. An unfavorable estimate of the effects of the resurgent monarchy on the church in Spain is contained in Peter Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 322-329.

6. S. Sobrequés i Vidal, Els barons de Catalunya, 3rd ed. (Barcelona, 1970), p. 63; Shideler, Medieval Catalan Family, chap. 5.

7. Miquel Coll i Alentorn, "Aperçu de l'histoire politique des pays catalans au XII^e siècle," CSMC 4 (1973), 15-17.

8. See chart in Freedman, "Church and Society," p. 285.

9. Ibid.

10. The character of Bishop Guillem is described in Anscari Mundó, "La renúncia del bisbe de Vic, Guillem de Tavertet (1233) segons la correspondència de Bages i els registres vaticans," in VII Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón (Barcelona, 1962), 3:77-95. A more positive evaluation of Guillem, at least in his dealings with the chapter, is given by Linehan, The Spanish Church, pp. 42-44.

11. Issued in 1150 by Eugenius III, confirming and protecting the rights of the bishop and chapter (JL 9386; AME 4, 3; Papsturkunden, ed. Kehr, 1:no. 56).

12. The bull of 1194 was not listed in JL but is Papsturkunden, ed. Kehr,1:no. 252. The others are JL 17439, 17440, 17441.

13. JL 17439; ACV, c. 36, Priv., ap. 2, no. 54; Papsturkunden, ed. Kehr, 1:no. 271.

14. JL 17441; ACV, c. 36, Priv., ap. 2, no. 34; Papsturkunden, ed. Kehr,1:no. 273.

15. JL 17440; AME 4, 2; Papsturkunden, ed. Kehr, 1:no. 272. Engels, "Die weltliche Herrschaft," p. 28, believes this bull simply confirmed the bishop's right to inflict judgments in blood and receive judicial income. Given the conditions of the period, I agree with Mundó, "La renúncia," p. 81, that the letter was intended to allow the church to resist usurpation by violence if necessary.

16. JL 17440; AME 4, 2; Papsturkunden, ed. Kehr, 1:no. 272. Engels, "Die weltliche Herrschaft," p. 28, believes this bull simply confirmed the bishop's right to inflict judgments in blood and receive judicial income. Given the conditions of the period, I agree with Mundó, "La renúncia," p. 81, that the letter was intended to allow the church to resist usurpation by violence if necessary.

17. Ibid.: "Dixit eciam quod si latro aliquo uel predo miserit se in domibus clericorum vel furium siue rapina quod ad episcopum pertineat uel ad homines suos fuerit recaptum debet episcopus interpellare clericos ut ipsi reddant. Et si noluerint reddere vel directum de hominibus suis facere, episcopus potuerit ipsos homines exigere et res illas accipere."

18. Mundó, "La renúncia," pp. 82-95.

19. Ibid., pp. 77-95. On a visit to Vic in 1229, the papal legate, John of Abbeville, found that there were only 23 canons (instead of the regulation 40) and that abuses were numerous. In 1245 the number of canons was fixed at 20, a measure of the poverty of the chapter's endowment. See Linehan, The Spanish Church, pp. 41-45.

20. Mundó, "La renúncia," pp. 82-95.

21. Linehan, The Spanish Church, p. 44. For a more favorable estimate of Sant Bernat's pontificate, see Fort i Cogul, Sant Bernat Calbó, pp. 213-228.

22. ACV, c. 9, PGT, Nov. 16, 1198.

23. See Introduction, note 3; Chapter 2, note 71.

24. Compare the decadence of León; Fletcher, The Episcopate, pp. 1-26, 31-76, 221-228.

25. On the important steps made toward enserfment near the year 1200,see Freedman, "The Enserfment Process."