Taxing Eternity: by Elizabeth Eager The Roman Catholic Church is one of the most powerful organizations in history, and was the dominant force in the medieval period. Its influence touched every aspect of life, from politics, to religion, and to economic issues, to the family. The Church was perhaps the most efficient international organization of this period, and understanding the cause and effects of conflicts involving the Church is key to understanding the period. “The type of contemporary organization that the medieval Church most resembled is the multidivisional or “M-form” firm…characterized by a central office that controls overall financial allocations and conducts strategic, long-range planning, but allows divisions (usually regional) a high degree of autonomy in day-to-day operations." (1) In this system, duties are delegated in a direct, hierarchical structure of command. For example, a local office answers to the regional office and the regional office answers to the home office. Problems can be dealt with locally, but cases that might cross regional boundaries are remanded to higher authorities. Because local and regional offices operate autonomously, the central office focuses on developing the corporation’s long-term objectives and defining the “big-picture” goals and the strategy to achieve them. As a result, the short-term goals of a regional office and the long-term goals of the central office may conflict. While both are working for the same firm, they have very different objectives. This M-form model can be easily applied to the medieval Catholic Church. The firm’s “headquarters” was located in Rome; the Pope acted as “CEO”, and the College of Cardinals as his “Board of Directors.” Throughout the Christian world, archbishops, bishops, and deacons headed up regional offices, and priests and monks worked at the local level. For example, all clergy within a diocese would be responsible to the archbishop, who was in turn responsible to the Pope. There were also officers sent out from the central office, who answered directly to the Pope. For example, in many countries an official papal collector carried the papal revenues back to Rome. Although this officer resided within a region, he was not part of the hierarchy of that region. As a delegate of Rome, he was only accountable to Rome. The initial objective of this research was to examine the ways in which the medieval Catholic Church functioned similarly to a multi-national corporation and to use this approach to understand its relationship to the secular powers of the day. I utilized the model of the modern Multidivisional firm, or M-form firm, to gain a better understanding of the Church in this arena. While this model helps elucidate the administrative structure of the Church, it fails to adequately highlight the goals and motivations for Church policies. Unlike the modern corporation, the Church was not primarily driven by profit, but rather by a religious ideology and the desire to secure its position as the undisputed religious and political authority in Western Europe and to expand its influence into other regions of the world, such as the Holy Land. However, achieving these objectives required financial support, which the popes often acquired by taxing secular authorities. This was usually not well received. First, it drained funds from secular coffers. Also, it implied a great deal of power and authority belonged to popes, because they were able to tax anyone they saw fit. Although economic matters underlay church/state conflicts, more often the larger, ideological objectives of the Church caused conflict with state powers. The right to collect taxes or receive tithes, which symbolized the authority of the king or pope, was often more significant than the actual amount of revenue collected. Therefore, even when conflicts did occur over money, they were often merely representative of a larger power struggle. In particular, I compared two incidents involving financial transactions between papal and secular authorities to test the limits of the applicability of the corporate model. This project focused on a single case study between Pope Innocent III and King John of England, whose reigns were nearly coterminous, lasting from 1198-1216 and 1199-1216 respectively. These two did clash over economic issues; the two conflicts examined here are the extraction of Peter’s pence and the payment of tribute from King John. However, their greatest conflict concerned the right of investiture. Although the cause of this conflict was not related to finances, its resolution did have economic consequences. Innocent III was the youngest pope ever elected. He very well educated, highly ambitious, and vigorously exercised the powers of his office. He believed that he had authority over all aspects of Church business and a final say in secular affairs. Innocent III is widely credited with bringing the Church to the apogee of its secular influence. Conversely, King John had possibly the most disastrous reign in English history. As the fourth son of King Henry II, he had been educated, but not groomed for the throne as his brothers had been. He was neither politically savvy nor militarily successful. The first conflict involved Peter’s pence, and although very little is known about the exact origins of Peter’s pence, the “denarius sancti Petri,” was by far the oldest of the revenues the papacy received from England, the country in which it originated.(2) This annual tax, also referred to as the hearth penny, is mentioned as early as 787 AD.(3) Peter’s pence literally meant a pence, or penny, collected by the king of England for Saint Peter. One penny was to be collected per household, and sent to Rome.(4) There is no clear statement as to whether the early payments of Peter’s pence came directly from royal funds, or whether they had always been collected from the people. In the earliest days of Peter’s pence, it was not papal collectors who gathered the money, but rather a royal officer, who collected and carried the money to Rome. Also, royal, not canon law, mandated this penny be paid.(5) There were sanctions against not paying, both ecclesiastical and secular. Under Anglo-Saxon law, if a man refused three times to pay, he could lose all he had.(6) However, under the Normans, papal legates could use the threat of interdict to force local collectors to turn over the money.(7) There was also a charge for late payments, both to the king and to the bishops, although the fines for the king were usually twice that which was to be paid to the bishops.(8) The English kings considered it an obligation to pay Peter’s pence because of ancient custom. It was initiated by kings, and was paid out of respect for the papacy and a desire for good relations, but not out of need for papal support.(9) But the papal camera labeled Peter’s pence a census, implying a dependency on papacy and a need for its protection. The traditional annual sum of Peter’s pence was about £200.(10) For the English kings, the sum was customary, and therefore £200 was paid each year, regardless of the actual amount collected. However, in the eyes of the Pope, Peter’s pence was collected in St. Peter’s name, one penny per household, and each penny collected belonged to the Roman church. Therefore, when the actual amount collected greatly exceeded £200, there was bound to be conflict between the kings and popes. The collection procedure for Peter’s pence fits well with the M-form model of the Church. Priests in the various English towns collected the pennies locally. Once a priest had collected this money, he then passed it on to his superior, a bishop or archbishop in his region. This bishop collected money from several local priests, and then passed the money on to his superior as well. Once the money was collected from all of the subordinates at each level, it was finally given to the papal collector in England, who then carried the money to Rome. However, not all of the money was turned over each time. Local priests kept a portion of the money they collected, and passed the rest to their bishop, who kept a portion and passed the money to an archbishop, who kept a portion and passed it on. (11) Several popes, including Innocent III, sent explicit orders to both kings and clergy that the full sum of the money collected was to be given over to the church officials at each level and then given to the papal collector to be sent to Rome.(12) In January of 1214, Innocent sent a letter to the Bishop of Tusculum and demanded the full amount of money collected for Peter’s pence.
Innocent adamantly argued that since the money was collected in the name of St. Peter, only the church of St. Peter in Rome had a right to the money. Neither Innocent nor his successors were ever successful in collecting the full sums of Peter’s pence.(14) There are several reasons why popes met so much resistance. Primarily, everyone (except the pope) benefited from the customary collection methods. Local priests, as well as higher churchmen, profited from the excesses of Peter’s pence. More importantly, the king profited. From Innocent’s letter is it clear that while he received only 300 marks (roughly equivalent to £200) the excess money was nearly three times that amount, so there was a great deal of money to be had. Therefore, when Pope Innocent III issued a decree that the full sum of Peter’s pence be paid to Rome, King John issued a decree in response to the effect that Innocent’s order was to be ignored, and that no more than the traditional amount be paid. The king and English clergy had the weight of the custom of the realm on their side. Since the traditional sum had been £200, the king felt that he had fulfilled his obligation in paying that amount, regardless of how much was collected each year. Because the king commanded that the money not be paid, and the pope commanded that is should be paid, the English clergy were faced with a decision. They could obey their “boss,” the pope, who was not only their employer of sorts, but also their spiritual sovereign and the holder of the keys to heaven. However, to do so would be to disobey their king, who, for many of them, was also their liege lord, their secular sovereign, and the commander of an army. The English clergy chose to obey their king. Perhaps it was because they were also profiting from the excesses of Peter’s pence, or that the Pope was so far away and the King was so near. Perhaps it was that the Church could not spill blood, and the King had few reservations about doing so. This example shows not only how the Church’s organization was used to collect money, but also how the ecclesiastical hierarchy could be disrupted by the conflicts of interests between Church and State. Innocent attempted to exercise his papal authority over the English clergy and failed. (It is, however, important to note that Innocent was not the first, nor the last, pope to attempt to collect the full amount of Peter’s pence, and his predecessors and successors failed as he did.) Although it was a matter of principle that his commands be obeyed, and Innocent continued to maintain that he was in the right on this issue, it was not worth blowing up into open conflict. In some ways, there was not really a sovereignty issue at stake, because it was a matter of royal law, not cannon law, that this money be paid. A more revealing example concerning conflicts between Innocent III and John involved the payment of tribute. Here, the real issue was investiture, which is choosing who will fill the vacancy of an Episcopal see. Tribute was the fixed sum of 1,000 marks to be paid to be the pope annually by the king of England.(15) It began when King John surrendered England and Ireland as a papal fief and held these kingdoms as a vassal of the Pope. Therefore the 1,000 marks constituted the rent, so to speak, for the kingdoms. These payments of tribute were rarely made on time, and ceased all together in little more than a century.(16) From early on John displayed irreverence for the authority of the Pope. When he sent the Bishop of Bath to Innocent III with certain requests, which the pope denied, the king persecuted the bishop upon his return and took over his property.(17) King John also sought to impede the election of new bishops to fill vacancies at various times, since during a vacancy the revenues of a bishopric went to the king. It is probably for this reason that he sought to delay the election of a new Archbishop of Canterbury; Archbishop Hubert Walter died in July of 1206, and John requested that the suffragan bishops and monks delay the election until St Andrew’s day, which was November 30.(18) During this interlude, ecclesiastical officials in England covertly elected a man by the name of Reginald, and sent him to Rome. He was received by the pope with skepticism, and recognized only briefly.(19) The king’s choice, John de Gray, was elected by the bishops and monks and subsequently sent to Rome for the Pope’s confirmation. However, Innocent rejected de Gray’s election on the grounds that the same men who had elected Reginald had elected Gray. Innocent therefore called for a new election, and with the Pope’s encouragement, the monks elected Stephen Langton, the cardinal priest of S. Cristogono.(20)
The pope immediately recognized Langton, but John subsequently rejected him, and did not even permit the new archbishop to enter England.(22) He confiscated the properties of the church of Canterbury, as well as those of Langton and Langton’s family. The pope and king were now in an open standoff. John’s tactics, however, were not effective. “John’s weapons in the struggle were confiscation of lands and revenue, taxation, and violence. Without the sympathy of his people he could not mobilize the latent antipathy to Rome which was undoubtedly present in England.”(23) Innocent was armed with the threat of interdict, which affected the entire kingdom. It forbade any religious acts (other than baptism and last rites) to be preformed in the country. England was placed under interdict in 1208 and it lasted for the next five years, though it is likely that the interdict was not strictly enforced. Innocent also wielded the much more personal threat of excommunication, and while it is likely that John did not fear the eternal damnation of his soul, there was a political aspect of the act to be feared, for some interpreted the excommunication of a lord as releasing them from their feudal obligation to that lord. In the end, John was excommunicated in 1210. One year later, Innocent deposed the English king and offered his throne to his arch-rival, Philip Augustus, King of France. “This is the clearest possible example of the supremacy in secular affairs of the ecclesiastical ruler of Europe.”(24) Although it may have been unlikely that Phillip Augustus would be crowned king of England, the Pope’s strategy worked. When the French King raised an army, John faced certain defeat on the battlefield, and in 1213 he submitted to the Pope’s authority.
This was the establishment of the payment of tribute. The political ramifications of this concession were much more significant than the economic ones. The payment of a thousand marks was more a symbol of the feudal bond between the king and the pope than a major source of income for the Pope. However, when compared to the amount collected for Peter’s pence and census from various places, this was a much more substantial sum. Also, John’s pledge was not a single payment, but an annual payment to be made by the king and his descendants. It was ultimately paid only for a short time, and payments were delayed and ended entirely in a little more than a century.(26) There were benefits for John in submitting to the protection of the Papacy. Because the Pope called for Philip Augustas’ invasion of England as a kind of holy war against the excommunicated John, the French king was acting with papal endorsement. When John was restored to the Pope’s good favor, Philip had already spent a great deal of money raising an army and was ready to invade. John was still in a very weak position, and Philip may have intended to continue with the attack. By surrendering England to the Pope, John made England papal lands. Thus, had Philip attacked England, he would have been attacking the pope as well. So John’s surrender undermined Philip’s justification for invasion. The conflict over investiture between John and Innocent is an example of the struggle for sovereignty over the clergy of England. Although there was an exchange of money between the king and pope as part of the resolution, the cause for the conflict was not financial. Therefore, this case demonstrates that the biggest problems between the monarchy and the papacy were not financial; the issues at stake were political and religious authority. While the corporate model provides a means for understanding the medieval Catholic Church, in many ways it falls short. This model helps us to understand the structure and organization of the Church, and the ways in which the interests of this multi-national entity lead to conflicts within the organization and with external secular forces. However, defining the Church as merely a corporation suggests that its actions were largely profit driven, and that the ultimate goals of the Church were to make money. Although increasing its revenues was certainly on the agenda, the Church’s goals were not limited to the economic arena. The pope wanted to expand his political power and influence in Western Europe and to conquer new regions, such as the Holy Land. Therefore, while income was important to the Church, the purpose of these revenues was to finance the broader goals of the Church, rather than to merely increase personal incomes of employees of the Church, at least during this period. In conclusion, it appears that the initial hypothesis of this research, that the Catholic Church during the medieval period could be described as a multi-national corporation, is inaccurate, or at the very least, incomplete. The study of the conflict between King John and Innocent III provides an example of this. While economic factors played a role in the problems between the English king and the pope, it was a much smaller role than expected. Peter’s Pence is an example of royal and papal commands that are in direct opposition, and the clergy’s reacted to such a situation. Yet when this conflict is compared to that of the investiture controversy, its importance is minimized. For the most part, it was less about collecting the money and more about whose command was sovereign over church matters in England: the highest secular authority or the highest religious authority. Again, at the heart of the issue of the investiture controversy was whose command was to be obeyed. There were certainly economic ramifications for each side, but the political power that was at stake was much greater for both parties.
End Notes 1) Robert B. Ekelund, et al., Sacred Trust; The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) pg. 20 2) William E. Lunt, Accounts Rendered by Papal Collectors in England 1317-1378. (Philadelphia; The American Philosophical Society, 1968) xli 3) Ole Jensen, “The ‘denarius sancti Petri’ in England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 174 4) William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages: Volume II. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964) 63 5) Ibid, 58 6) Ibid, 56 7) Ibid, 61 8) Ibid, 57 9) Ole Jensen, “The ‘denarius sancti Petri’ in England.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 178 10) William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages: Volume II. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964) 69 11) William E. Lunt, Accounts Rendered by Papal Collectors in England. Introduction, pg. xli 12) William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues In The Middle Ages: Volume I. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964) 69 13) Christopher R. Cheney and W. H. Sempl, Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III. (London; Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1953) 173 14) William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues In the Middle Ages: Volume. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964) 68 15) William E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England to 1327-1534. (Cambridge; The Medieval Academy of America, 1962) 141-142 16) William E. Lunt, Financial Relations of the Papacy with England 1327-1534. (Cambridge; The Medieval Academy of America, 1962) 172 17) Charles Edward Smith, Innocent III, Church Defender. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951) 17 18) Christopher R. Cheney, Pope Innocent III and England (Germany; Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 1976) 147 19) Ibid, 148 20) Ibid, 150 21) Ibid, 152 22) Ibid, 298 23) Sidney R. Packard, Europe and the Church under Innocent III. (New York; Henry Holt and Company, 1927) 64 24) Ibid, 66 25) Ibid, 66-67 26) William E. Lunt, Papal Revenues In Middle Ages, Volume I. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964) 64 Bibliography Barraclough, Geoffrey. The Medieval Papacy. Great Britain: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968. Brooke, Z.N. “Pope Gregory VII’s Demand for Fealty from William the Conqueror.” The English Historical Review, Volume 26, Issue 102. April 1911, pgs. 225-238. Cheney, Christopher R. Pope Innocent III and England. Germany: Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 1976. Cheney, Christopher R. and W. H. Semple. Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III. London; Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1953. Ekelund, Robert B., et al. Sacred Trust; The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Jensen, Old. “The ‘denarius sancti Petri’ in England.” Liebermann, F. “Peter’s Pence and the Population of England about 1164.” The English Historical Review, Volume 11, Issue 44. October 1896, pgs. 744-747 Lunt, William E. Accounts Rendered by Papal Collectors in England 1317-1378. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1968. Lunt, William E. Financial Relations of the Papacy with England 1327-1534. Cambridge: The Medieval Academy of America, 1962. Lunt, William E. Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages: Volume I. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Lunt, William E. Papal Revenues in the Middle Ages: Volume 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Lunt, William E. “William Testa and the Parliament of Carlisle.” The English Historical Review, Volume 41, Issue 163. July 1926, pgs. 332-357. Packard, Sidney R. Europe and the Church Under Innocent III. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. Potthast, Augustus. ed. Regesta Pontificum Romanorum. Berlin: Akademische Druck- U. Verlagsanstalt, 1957. Powell, James M. ed. Innocent III; Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World? Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1963. Sayers, Jane E. Original Papal Documents in England and Wales (1198-1304). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Smith, Charles Edward. Innocent III: Church Defender. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951. Tierney, Brian. Origins of papal infallibility, 1150-1350: A study on the concepts of infallibility, sovereignty, and tradition in the Middle Ages. Lieden: E.J. Brill, 1988. Tierney, Brian. The Crisis of Church and State, 1050-1300. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. Walsh, Michael. An Illustrated History of the Popes, Saint Peter to John Paul II. New York: Marshall Cavendish Limited, 1980.
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