Pope Gregory I

Lore & Background

Ugolino (Hugh) was born in Anagni near Rome. The date of his birth varies in sources between c. 1145 and 1170. He is said to have been 'in his nineties, if not nearly one hundred years old' at his death. He received his education at the Universities of Paris and Bologna. He was created Cardinal-Deacon of the church of Sant'Eustachio by his cousin Innocent III in December 1198. In 1206, he was promoted to the rank of Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri. He became Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1218 or 1219. Upon the special request of Saint Francis, in 1220, Pope Honorius III appointed him Cardinal Protector of the order of the Franciscans. As Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, he cultivated a wide range of acquaintances, among them the Queen of England, Isabella of Angoulême.

Reader's Guide

Gregory IX was elevated to the papacy in the papal election of 1227. He took the name 'Gregory' because he formally assumed the papal office at the monastery of Saint Gregory ad Septem Solia. That same year, in one of his earliest acts as pope, he expanded the Inquisition powers already assigned to Konrad von Marburg to encompass the investigation of heresy throughout the whole of Germany. Gregory's bull Parens scientiarum of 1231, after the University of Paris strike of 1229, resolved differences between the unruly university scholars of Paris and the local authorities. His solution was in the manner of a true follower of Innocent III: he issued what in retrospect has been viewed as the magna carta of the university, assuming direct control by extending papal patronage: his bull allowed future suspension of lectures over a flexible range of provocations, from 'monstrous injury or offense' to squabbles over 'the right to assess the rents of lodgings'. In October 1232, after an investigation by legates, Gregory proclaimed a crusade against the Stedinger to be preached in northern Germany. In June 1233, he granted a plenary indulgence to those who took part. In 1233, Gregory IX established the Papal Inquisition to regularize the prosecution of heresy. According to Thomas Madden, a defender of the Inquisition, the Papal Inquisition was intended to bring order to the haphazard episcopal inquisitions which had been established by Lucius III in 1184. Gregory's aim allegedly was to bring order and legality to the process of dealing with heresy, since there had been tendencies by mobs of townspeople to burn alleged heretics without much of a trial. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX appointed a number of Papal Inquisitors (Inquisitores haereticae pravitatis), mostly Dominicans and Franciscans, for the various regions of France, Italy and parts of Germany. Contrary to popular belief, says Madden, the aim was to introduce due process and objective investigation into the beliefs of those accused to the often erratic and unjust persecution of heresy on the part of local ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions. However, to Walter Ullmann, 'there is hardly one item in the whole Inquisitorial procedure that could be squared with the demands of justice; on the contrary, every one of its items is the denial of justice or a hideous caricature of it [...] its principles are the very denial of the demands made by the most primitive concepts of natural justice [...] This kind of proceeding has no longer any semblance to a judicial trial but is rather its systematic and methodical perversion.' Gregory was a remarkably skillful and learned lawyer. He caused to be prepared Nova Compilatio decretalium, which was promulgated in numerous copies in 1234 (first printed at Mainz in 1473). This New Compilation of Decretals was the culmination of a long process of systematising the mass of pronouncements that had accumulated since the Early Middle Ages, a process that had been under way since the first half of the 12th century and had come to fruition in the Decretum, compiled and edited by the papally commissioned legist Gratian and published in 1140. The supplement completed the work, which provided the foundation for papal legal theory. In the 1234 Decretals, he invested the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, the followers of the Talmud would have to remain in a condition of political servitude until Judgment Day. The doctrine then found its way into the doctrine of servitus camerae imperialis, or servitude immediately subject to the Emperor's authority, promulgated by Frederick II. The Jews were thus suppressed from having direct influence over the political process and the life of Christian states into the 19th century and the rise of liberalism. In 1234, Gregory issued the papal bull Rachel suum videns calling for a new crusade to the Holy Land, leading to the Crusade of 1239. In 1239, under the influence of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity, Gregory ordered that all copies of the Jewish Talmud be confiscated. Following a public disputation between Christians and Jewish theologians, this culminated in a mass burning of some 12,000 handwritten Talmudic manuscripts on 12 June 1242, in Paris. Gregory was a supporter of the mendicant orders which he saw as an excellent means for counteracting by voluntary poverty the love of luxury and splendour which was possessing many ecclesiastics. He was a friend of Saint Dominic as well as Clare of Assisi. On 17 January 1235, he approved the Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives. He appointed ten cardinals and canonized Saints Elisabeth of Hungary, Dominic, Anthony of Padua, and Francis of Assisi, of whom he had been a personal friend and early patron. He transformed a chapel to Our Lady in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. Gregory IX endorsed the Northern Crusades and attempts to bring Orthodox Russians, particularly in the Pskov Republic and the Novgorod Republic, under the Papacy's fold. In 1229, he declared that Finlandia (Finland) had passed under his protection. In 1232, Gregory IX asked the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to send troops to protect Finland, whose semi-pagan people were fighting against the Novgorod Republic in the Finnish-Novgorodian wars; however, there is no known information if any ever arrived to assist. Gregory received news in 1237 that the Tavastians rejected Christianity and he called on all Christians to join him in a crusade. The pope struggled with a revolt in Rome in 1234. At the coronation of Frederick II in Rome, 22 November 1220, the emperor made a vow to embark for the Holy Land in August 1221. Gregory IX began his pontificate by suspending the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, for dilatoriness in carrying out the promised Sixth Crusade. Frederick II appealed to the sovereigns of Europe complaining of his treatment. The suspension was followed by excommunication and threats of deposition, as deeper rifts appeared. Frederick II went to the Holy Land and in fact managed to take possession of Jerusalem. Gregory IX distrusted the emperor, since Rainald, the imperial Governor of Spoleto, had invaded the Pontifical States during the emperor's absence. In June 1229, Frederick II returned from the Holy Land, routed the papal army which Gregory IX had sent to invade Sicily, and made new overtures of peace to the pope. The war of 1228–1230 is known as the War of the Keys. Gregory IX and Frederick came to a truce, but when Frederick defeated the Lombard League in 1239, the possibility that he might dominate all of Italy, surrounding the Papal States, became a very real threat. A new outbreak of hostilities led to a fresh excommunication of the emperor in 1239 and to a prolonged war. Gregory denounced Frederick II as a heretic and summoned a council at Rome to give point to his anathema. Frederick responded by trying to capture or sink as many ships carrying prelates to the synod as he could. The pope died before events could reach their climax; it was his successor, Innocent IV, who in 1245 declared a crusade that would finish the Hohenstaufen threat.

Did You Know?

• Gregory IX was born Ugolino di Conti and was a cousin of Pope Innocent III.
• He was created Cardinal-Deacon of Sant'Eustachio by his cousin Innocent III in December 1198.
• He caused the Nova Compilatio decretalium to be prepared, promulgated in 1234, which provided the foundation for papal legal theory.
• In 1239, he ordered the confiscation of all copies of the Jewish Talmud, leading to the burning of some 12,000 manuscripts in Paris on 12 June 1242.
• He canonized Saints Elisabeth of Hungary, Dominic, Anthony of Padua, and Francis of Assisi, of whom he had been a personal friend and early patron.

From Cardinal to Pontiff: A Career Built on Lineage and Learning

Ugolino di Conti entered the world in Anagni, a town near Rome, though scholars disagree on whether his birth fell closer to 1145 or 1170. He pursued higher education at the Universities of Paris and Bologna before stepping into the cardinalate. His cousin, Innocent III, saw to it that he was made Cardinal-Deacon of Sant'Eustachio in December 1198. The trajectory continued upward: by 1206 he held the rank of Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri, and by 1218 or 1219 he stood as Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals. In 1220, at the particular request of Saint Francis, Honorius III designated him Cardinal Protector of the Franciscan order. In that capacity as Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, he cultivated a wide circle of acquaintances that stretched as far as Queen Isabella of Angoulême of England. When Honorius III passed, Ugolino was elected pope in 1227 and chose the name Gregory, having formally taken up office at the monastery of Saint Gregory ad Septem Solia. He inherited in full the traditions of Gregory VII and his own cousin Innocent III, and pressed forward with their policy of papal supremacy with unrelenting zeal.

The Papal Inquisition: Due Process or Systematic Perversion?

In 1233, Gregory IX formalized the Papal Inquisition as a mechanism to regularize the prosecution of heresy across Christendom. The move was a direct response to the shortcomings of the earlier episcopal inquisitions that Lucius III had established in 1184 through the bull Ad abolendam. Thomas Madden, a defender of the institution, argued that Gregory's true intention was to introduce due process and objective investigation into the beliefs of the accused, replacing the chaotic and often violent persecution carried out by local ecclesiastical and secular authorities, where mobs of townspeople would burn alleged heretics with virtually no trial. In 1231, Gregory appointed a cohort of Papal Inquisitors, drawn mostly from the Dominican and Franciscan orders, to cover regions of France, Italy, and parts of Germany. Yet the historian Walter Ullmann offered a diametrically opposed reading, contending that virtually every element of the Inquisitorial procedure denied justice and amounted to a methodical perversion of judicial trial rather than its preservation. In one of his earliest acts as pope in 1227, Gregory had already broadened the Inquisition powers previously granted to Konrad von Marburg to encompass heresy investigations throughout the entirety of Germany.

The Decretales and the Architecture of Papal Law

Gregory IX brought to the papal throne the mind of a remarkably skillful and learned lawyer. His crowning legal achievement was the Nova Compilatio decretalium, promulgated in numerous manuscript copies in 1234 and not first printed until Mainz in 1473. This New Compilation of Decretals represented the culmination of a long, multi-generational effort to systematize the vast mass of pronouncements that had accumulated since the Early Middle Ages. That effort had been underway since the first half of the twelfth century and had reached a first major milestone in the Decretum, compiled and edited by the papally commissioned legist Gratian and published in 1140. Gregory's supplement brought the project to completion and supplied the foundational text for papal legal theory. Within those same 1234 Decretals, he gave canonical force to the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum, the perpetual servitude of the Jews, stipulating that followers of the Talmud would remain in a condition of political subjugation until Judgment Day. This doctrine subsequently influenced Frederick II's concept of servitus camerae imperialis, effectively barring Jews from direct political influence in Christian states well into the nineteenth century and the rise of liberalism.

Patron of Mendicants, Saint-Maker, and Crusade Proclaimer

Gregory IX regarded the mendicant orders as a powerful antidote to the love of luxury and splendour that he believed was consuming many within the clergy, championing their embrace of voluntary poverty. He counted Saint Dominic and Clare of Assisi among his friends and had served as an early personal patron of Saint Francis of Assisi. On 17 January 1235, he approved the Order of Our Lady of Mercy, dedicated to the redemption of captives. Over the course of his pontificate he appointed ten cardinals and canonized Saints Elisabeth of Hungary, Dominic, Anthony of Padua, and Francis of Assisi. His engagement with the broader religious landscape was not limited to the West. In 1239, swayed by Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity, Gregory ordered the confiscation of all copies of the Jewish Talmud. After a public disputation pitting Christian and Jewish theologians against one another, the order culminated in the mass burning of roughly 12,000 handwritten Talmudic manuscripts in Paris on 12 June 1242. He also endorsed the Northern Crusades, proclaimed a crusade against the Stedinger in October 1232, and in 1234 issued the bull Rachel suum videns, calling for a new expedition to the Holy Land.