Unceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacques de Therines and the Freedom of the Church in the Age of the Last Capetians

169 Pages·2004·0.89 MB·English

by  William Chester Jordan

UNCEASING STRIFE, UNENDING FEAR
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UNCEASING STRIFE,
UNENDING FEAR
JACQUES DE THE´ RINES AND THE
FREEDOM OF THE CHURCH IN THE
AGE OF THE LAST CAPETIANS
William Chester Jordan
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD
COPYRIGHT©2005BYPRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS
PUBLISHEDBYPRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS,
41WILLIAMSTREET,PRINCETON,NEWJERSEY08540
INTHEUNITEDKINGDOM:PRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS,
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ALLRIGHTSRESERVED
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
JORDAN,WILLIAMC.,1948–
UNCEASINGSTRIFE,UNENDINGFEAR:
JACQUESDETHE´RINESANDTHEFREEDOMOFTHECHURCH
INTHEAGEOFTHELAST
CAPETIANS/WILLIAMCHESTERJORDAN.
P. CM.
INCLUDESBIBLIOGRAPHICALREFERENCESANDINDEX.
ISBN:0-691-12120-6(ALK.PAPER)
1.DETHE´RINES,JACQUES.2.FRANCE—CHURCHHISTORY.
3.CHURCHHISTORY—MIDDLEAGES,600–1500.I.TITLE.
BX4705.D4285J672005
282'.44'09022—DC22 2004053455
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For Mom, . . . , Urban, Vicky, John, Clare, Lorna
and
to the memory of John Bell Henneman and Charles T. Wood,
good friends and fine scholars
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CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii
CHAPTER1
EncroachmentsonEcclesiasticalAuthority:
Taxation,ClericalImmunity,andtheJews 1
CHAPTER2
ThePopeinAvignonandtheCrisisoftheTemplars 18
CHAPTER3
TheExemptionControversyattheCouncilofVienne 37
CHAPTER4
AnUneasyRelationship:ChurchandStateatthe
CistercianAbbeyofSainte-MarieofChaalis 56
CHAPTER5
OldFightsandNew:
FromExemptiontoUsuspauper 73
EPILOGUE
UnceasingStrife,UnendingFear 98
NOTES 105
BIBLIOGRAPHY 137
INDEX 151
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PREFACE
U
SING THE CAREER of the French churchman Jacques de
The´rines,thisbookretellssomeofthemostdramaticepisodesin
thehistoryofFrenchecclesiasticalpoliticsintheearlyfourteenth
century.Theperiodexperiencedthenotoriousandultimatelyviolentcon-
frontation of Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV the Fair over the
limitsofroyalandpapalpower,whatBrianTierneyinawidelyreadbook
called “the Struggle of Church and State.” It was also the era when the
French crown moved savagely but efficiently in expelling its Jews and,
withgreatersavageryandequalefficiency,indestroyingtheOrderofthe
KnightsTemplars.Withcomparabledeterminationandviolence,ecclesi-
asticalprincesoftheperiod,especiallyPopeJohnXXII,imposedpunish-
mentsonradicalcriticsofthechurch’swealth.Theagealsowitnessedthe
papacy’srelocationtoAvignon(anactthatwouldlaterbelikenedtothe
Babylonian Captivity of the ancient Jews), revolutionary aristocratic
movementsinoppositiontotheFrenchcrown’sauthoritarianism,andthe
crisis of the Great Famine, when both crown and ecclesiastical resources
werestretchedtothelimitintheattempttosuccorthepoorandforestall
socialrevolution.JacquesdeThe´rinesplayedasignificantandoftencritical
roleinnearlyeveryoneoftheseevents,oftenatconsiderablepersonalrisk.
Yet he diedpeacefully, having lived, sohis epitaph insists, the“model of
apiouslife.”
Despite his importance, very few scholarly studies give much space to
Jacques.ThebestbiographicalsketchisthatofNoe¨lValois,publishedin
1914 in the thirty-fourth volume of the Histoire litte´raire de la France.
No one knew as much about Jacques de The´rines as Valois or had more
closely studied his works. His masterful summaries of these writings in
thatpublicationandhiseditionofoneoftheworkssomeyearsbeforein
thegreat archivaland historicaljournal Bibliothe`quede l’Ecolede Chartes
haveinlargepartprovidedtherawmaterialforsubsequentscholars,even
thoughtwoofJacquesdeThe´rines’streatiseswerealreadypartlyavailable
in early modern editions. One major source, Jacques’s scholastic writ-
ings—summarized briefly by Valois but at the time still unpublished—
received an edition in 1958, a fruit of Pale´mon Glorieux’s extraordinary
projecttoprinttheworksofthemedievalfacultyoftheologyattheUni-
versity of Paris, where Jacques studied and taught for many years. The
resultwasaneditionofthreehundredpagesincloselypackedtype.Atleast
two more of Jacques’s treatises, more polemical than scholastic, remain
unpublished.IhavebeenhelpedbyValois’ssummariesoftheseandofall
theworks(itisfrighteninglyhardnottomimichisprose,sinceheusually