A Source Book for Mediæval History: Selected Documents illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle AgeThatcher, Oliver J. (Oliver Joseph)
History
A Source Book for Mediæval History: Selected Documents illustrating the History of Europe in the Middle Age
Thatcher, Oliver J. (Oliver Joseph)
Europe -- History -- 476-1492 -- Sources; Middle Ages -- Sources
Ever since we were called by the will of God to the government of the
universal church, we have tried to honor you in every way, in order that
your love and reverence for the apostolic seat might daily increase.
Therefore we were greatly astonished to learn that you were incensed at
us and that you had treated with such scant respect the legates ... whom
we had sent to you for the purpose of learning your wishes. We are
informed that you were enraged because we used the word _beneficium_, at
which surely the mind of so great a person as yourself should not have
been disturbed. For although with some that word has come to have a
meaning different from its original sense, yet it ought to be taken in
the sense in which we have used it and which it has had from the
beginning. For _beneficium_ comes from _bonum_ and _factum_, and we used
it to mean not a _feudum_ (fief), but a "good deed," in which sense it
is used throughout the holy Scriptures; as when we are said to be guided
and nourished by the _beneficium_ of God, which means not the "fief,"
but the kindness of God. You surely admit that in placing the imperial
crown upon your head we performed an act that would be regarded by all
men as a "good deed." Moreover, if you misunderstood the phrase "we
conferred the imperial crown upon you," and distorted it from its
ordinary meaning, it could only be because you wished to misunderstand
it or because you accepted the interpretation of persons who wished to
disturb the peace existing between the church and the empire. For we
meant by the words "we conferred" no more than "we placed," as we said
above. In ordering the recall of the ecclesiastics whom we sent to make
a visitation of the churches in Germany according to the right of the
Roman church, you must surely recognize that you acted unwisely, for if
you had any grievance you should have informed us, and we would have
undertaken to satisfy your honor. Now by the advice of our beloved son
Henry, duke of Bavaria and Saxony, we have sent you two legates, our
brothers Henry, cardinal priest of San Nereo and Sant Achilleo, and
Hyacinth, cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, both wise and
honorable men, and we urge you to receive them honorably and kindly, and
to accept the message which they deliver as coming from the sincerity of
our heart; so agreeing with them through the mediation of our son the
duke, that no discord may remain between you and your holy mother, the
Roman church.
103. Definition of Regalia or Crown Rights, Given at the Diet Held on
the Roncalian Plain, 1158.
M. G. LL. folio, II, pp. 111 f; Doeberl, IV, no. 37 a.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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