«Sermo» in Briefform, Reliquienkult und Klosterpolitik

Als der Mönch Garsias, Angehöriger des Benediktinerklosters Saint-Michel de Cuxa (Sant Miquel de Cuixà), zwischen 1043 und 1046 sein umfangreiches, an die Form einer Predigt angelehntes Schreiben, als Brief, Brief-Predigt oder gar Traktat gekennzeichnet, «une œuvre composite, qui tient à la fois de la lettre, de la liste de reliques et du sermon», in demütiger Haltung als bonorum monachorum ultimus, sanctitatis autem vestrae servus, gratiae vel potestati quoad vivam famulus an seinen Abt und ..

Restoration or disruption? The reconstitution of diocesan spaces in the Iberian Peninsula during the Early Middle Ages

After the turbulence caused by the Islamic occupation, the restoration of the so-called primate power of the former Visigothic metropolis of Toledo on October 15, 1088 by Pope Urban II had important legal and political consequences thus destabilising the ecclesiastical network. The restoration of ecclesiastical provinces, diocesan structures and parish boundaries, as wall as the formation of dioceses from parish districts, posed almost insurmountable problems for the churches. The reasons were multiple. It is, therefore, not surprising that efforts were made to obtain the necessary legal cover to maintain established positions, while facing a possible radical change in the Hispanic Church constitution received in the Late antiquity but lost in the time of the Visigoths. Canon law did not have many effective instruments to consolidate a status obtained by Hispanic bishoprics in the late eleventh century, without the express permission of a specific authority. To fill these gaps in the legal bases, or even to compensate for their total absence, some dioceses have resorted to the production of instruments such as the History of Compostela, the Divisio Wambae or the Divisio Theodemiri, or to the worship of saints or their relics, which would justify, in this way, often obscure claims

Sede vacante ? Church Robbery and Expulsion of the Archbishop of Narbonne during the 11th Century

In the 11th century the legal bases for the administration of a diocese and the protection of its property during a vacancy were not yet well defined in pre-Gratian canon law, especially in regions far distant from Rome and the Papacy, until the emergence of the normative compilation of the Decretum Gratiani and its post-Gratian interpretations in the course of the 12th century. After a general overview of the development of canon law until the end of the High Middle Ages, the factual background of vacancies with their canonical and political implications and excesses is shown, using as an example the state of affairs and conflicts in the Metropolitan See of Narbonne, where the complaint of the viscount against the archbishop, the Querimonia Berengarii, provides us with a first-quality contemporary source