Excommunication in the Middle Ages

Both Frederick II and King John were excommunicated from the all-powerful church, but why? Dr. Eleanor Janega and Dr. Felicity Hill explore the complex phenomenon of excommunication in the medieval period, from the politics and propaganda behind this spiritual sanction, to its social, legal, and theological implications. They discover how excommunication shaped medieval society as much as it threatened the eternal souls of those cast out. Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega and was edited and produced by Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. All music used is from All3 Media Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 1:59Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 2:31Eleanor Janega?

  Excommunication is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot in discussions of the medieval period. And there's a good reason for that, which is that it got used rather a lot. Except when it didn't. And, well, it got used a lot as a form of punishment when people did something to upset the church. Except that technically, it's not supposed to be a punishment. But even if it technically wasn't a punishment, it was an incredibly serious matter which put an excommunicated person's soul in jeopardy and meant that they were outcasts from society. Except sometimes it was pretty easy to wriggle out of it, and not everyone actually did anything to work against the excommunicated

• 3:16Eleanor Janega?

  all of the time. The point is, excommunication is incredibly complicated. But that's what makes it so incredibly interesting. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, and today on Gone Medieval from History Hit, I am welcoming back my friend, the wonderful Dr. Felicity Hill, a lecturer in medieval history at St. Andrews University, and the author of the upcoming book, Excommunication in 13th Century England: Community, Politics, and Publicity, to talk about the politics and propaganda at play with one of the medieval world's most complex inducements.

• 3:56Eleanor Janega?

  Felicity, welcome back to Gone Medieval.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Yay, thanks for having me back.

• 4:00Eleanor Janega?

  I'm so ready to nerd down today because I've brought you on to talk about one of our favorite subjects, which is excommunication.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  Excommunication is the best.

• 4:10Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, frankly, it is. But I think for the benefit of our listeners, we're going to have to start by defining our terms. So I guess the question is, what exactly is excommunication?

• 4:22Speaker 04

  Okay, right. Well, this is actually not an easy question because it's so many things. But the medieval church is like most severe kind of punishment that it can use. That's kind of the main headline. But it is a lot of things within that. So it's a spiritual sanction, right? So there are implications for the afterlife, but it's also social. So you're meant to be excluded from Christian community. And it's also kind of got legal implications. So it's doing a lot of things, which is one of the reasons why it's complicated.

• 4:53Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so it's doing a lot of things. What things is it designed to do?

• 4:58Speaker 04

  It's complete separation from the community. So that means that actually, no good faithful Christian is allowed to talk to you, to eat with you, drink with you. You can talk to somebody only to make them repent, right? So you can, yes, you know, talk to the hand, but actually, if you're saying, but you should make amends to the church, then you're allowed to. But otherwise, you're meant to like ostracize somebody. And also, excommunication is catching. So if you don't do that, then you get infected by it. This is the spiritual leprosy is how they often talk about it. So it's this contagion, this disease that spreads. You are meant to be completely ostracized and separate from your fellow Christians.

• 5:38Eleanor Janega?

  Who is most likely to be doing excommunication at this point?

• 5:43Speaker 04

  I think one of the main things that is important for people to understand is that I don't want to say it's not a big deal, because it is. But equally, I think often people assume that only the pope can do it, and that it's kind of like kings and emperors and fancy people. But it's really not all these. It is that. It's not just that. Parish priests aren't meant to do it. They're a little bit too junior, too low down the hierarchy. And I guess you can imagine that there would be a lot of... Personal things getting in a way, if we're talking that kind of local. That's not to say that it never happened. I'm sure there were lots of parish priests who broke the rules and actually did. But we're talking kind of, yeah, the level of the bishopric, the diocese, and that might be in a bishop's official or an archdeacon as well, which are kind of ecclesiastical positions that we maybe don't need to go into.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  And, okay, I should also qualify that I'm going to be mainly talking about like the High Middle Ages. So my focus has been on the 13th century. Things are different earlier and later, and I'm sure we'll touch on that. But just by default, if I'm just talking generally, I'm probably talking about that middle period. But it is used routinely, like much lower down. So, you know, if we were hanging out in the Middle Ages, you or I could be excommunicated. So, you know, any old person could be excommunicated, peasants, merchants, men and women, not children, at all levels of society. So it's not something that we just need to be thinking about elites doing. So therefore it's there to punish, but all sorts of different things. And by that, I really mean like a whole load of different things.

• 7:13Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, so as a result of this, and who is supposed to be, quote unquote, doing the excommunicating? Sure, anybody could be excommunicated, but in actuality, you've got to be the sort of person who you either need to be doing something so wild. You know, the local bishop's like, who is doing that over there? Or you need to be kind of higher up, because let's be real, the average peasant isn't going to be wilding out so hard that the bishop is like, whoa, I heard Childrick is, you know, this is going off on one, you know, like you, you have to go pretty hard.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, that's kind of fair. Again, it would depend a bit on the period you're talking about, because I think the earlier you go, the more true that is. But actually, as you go later, I don't know, they've got eyes everywhere. Yeah, so I kind of see your point, but also anything that is deemed like an ecclesiastical right or liberty comes as something that can be a cause for excommunication. And so actually, if you steal some herbs, this is a real example, some herbs from your churchyard, you can be excommunicated for that. So it can be quite small things that result in excommunication and.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  There's also a lot of, you know, if you don't execute a will properly, it's quite a big one. Also, a lot of normal people assault clergy. Because I'm sure a lot of priests were really annoying in a variety. And also, they're just humans, right? But people punching their priests is common and anyone can be up for that. So I don't know, I'm gonna really go with my point of like, it really can be any old person gets excommunicated.

• 8:50Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, okay, so I'm gonna be real with you. I've got some 14th century documents where people in Prague are getting excommunicated and they're like, yeah, I was fist fighting the priest. And they're like, well, why were you fist fighting the priest? And he's like, I don't know, slept with my wife. And everyone's like, hmm. So.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. So this is enough of a thing that, so there are different types of excommunication. And one of them is kind of like, basically, if you do this, you you just are excommunicated. No passing go, no collecting 200 pounds. And one of those is assaulting a priest, all the clergy among, you know, any kind of cleric. But because this is such a thing and it's so broad that there were lots of exceptions to it. So one of them is like, oh, it's not so bad if you don't draw blood. Because you meant to go to Rome, like all the way to Rome to be absolved from this, right? Okay, so they may not have an exception, but one of the exceptions that is clearly enough of an issue is if you catch that guy in bed with your mother, sister, daughter or wife, then if you assault him, it's like, yeah, that's an exception. So this is a thing that happens and it does happen. And I've got cases of that too. And you're like, yeah, fair play.

• 9:52Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, all right. So I guess that brings us on to my next question, which is where are we getting this evidence for excommunication? Because, you know, the way that I find a lot of it is through archdiacinet protocols or just ecclesiastical court cases. What are you having a look at?

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Oh, all of the things. Um, it's actually one of my favorite things about the the topic is like you can use lots of different types of evidence, which is fun. But equally, the earlier you go, obviously you have fewer records. So, you know, if you go earlier, you're maybe a bit more stuck on.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  I mean, obviously canon law and church councils, you know, legislation, but then kind of chronicles. If you go later, you get court records as well. And one of my favorite sources is Episcopal registers. But at least in the early period where they're just like, let's just write down everything. And then I think they get a bit more, they just start, start leaving out all the exciting stuff. But that's where you get all these fascinating cases of like really petty things. Well, not petty, but just things that in my sad little life I find funny. But you also, one of my other favorite documents for this is like miracle stories. So one of the things about excommunication, like I said, is a spiritual sanction and they want to make it scary. And so you get kind of sermon exemplar where it's like, okay, this is a good story to put in your sermon to liven it up and also make, make the point.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  And so like, oh, somebody's excommunicated and then they're struck down in the prime of life, sometimes by death, sometimes by bad luck. There's a good one where it's like, this guy's boasting about being excommunicated. He's like, but look, I'm fine. God, I haven't died. And then the narrator is like, little did he know that God was fattening him up like a pig so that he could suffer eternal damnation. Which is a very interesting image of God.

• 11:35Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, all right, look, I'm obsessed. I love it. Fantastic. I, I guess my next question then is if we're looking in exemplar and they're saying, oh, add this in. Tell this story about how God's fattening you up like a pig to put the fear of God into everybody. Does that mean that people are taking it seriously? If you have to explain why excommunication is bad, does everyone universally understand it to be so?

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, so this is one of the difficult things because I think often if you talk to somebody who's, you know, not one of us medieval geeks. They kind of think, oh, surely excommunication is like this super big deal, you know, a kind of. And they might well be thinking that it's only the pope who can do it and therefore it is this absolutely massive thing. If you talk to one of our colleagues, I mean, if I had a quid for every time I've been told, oh, but excommunication was overused, it was ineffective, no one cared about it. Well, I'd have quite a lot of hands. And as you can probably tell, it irritates me. But it's true. So it was used quite a lot, like I said, for kind of fairly kind of petty reasons. And the later you go, it starts to become used for debt.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  So, you know, you owe a few shillings or whatever and you can get excommunicated, which if we remember, it's kind of possibly this like an eternity in hell, then you're like, oh, that's quite harsh. But there are questions about how seriously it was taken by people. But I think this is one of the central things that is tricky because, like I said, it's the most severe thing that the church has to call upon. If it wants somebody to stop doing something or to make something right, this is what they go for, okay? They can't use capital punishment, they can't use exile, all the stuff that the secular powers are just like, cool, we're just gonna lop off your hand or whatever. But it can't, it can't execute, it can't draw blood. That is kind of a crucial part of what it means to be a cleric.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  So this is all they've got. So you can understand how it then becomes a bit like, well, ah, what else can we do? We'd better just use excommunication. But the problem is that therefore you really want it to be serious, right? So you want to drill into people like, if you are excommunicated, you might, you're gonna go to hell. And there's lots of, there's also like liturgical sources or the solemn ceremony in which they use very strong language, you know, you are anathematized, excommunicated, separated from the community of the faithful with the devil and his angels. And they, they talk about sending to be people to hell and then they have candles and then they chuck them down at the end of the ceremony and this is meant to represent the soul and they ring bells. So that is also like another bad, bad, bad.

• 14:04Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. The drama? Come on.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Such drama. And there's one record from a chronicler of 30th century England where he's like, and then the smoke from the candles kind of really got up everyone's noses and made their eyes water. So is this like solfueic, this is what it's like to be in hell? You know, on the other hand, one of the central things of Christianity is forgiveness. So what you have is this tension between excommunication, very serious, really bad, don't get excommunicated, but also if you are, like, deal with it immediately versus, no, no, no, but it's all okay. We're not sending you to hell automatically if you, you know, you make amends, you say sorry, you repent of your sins, you make satisfaction, which is the kind of official thing for making amends. Of course, you can be absolved, you can be forgiven, and then all is good again.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  But the problem is that it does kind of undermine the whole, it's terrifying, aspect. So there is this very real tension between kind of theology and what we, they want Christianity to be and what it should be according to Jesus's teachings versus the practicalities of, yeah, but if we go on and on and on about how you can just get absolved, it's going to really weaken things.

• 15:11Eleanor Janega?

  So it's kind of like a case by case basis. It's a medium deal. It could be a huge, big deal, or, you know, like, we just need to have our wits about us when we're having a look at these things then.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I think in the stuff I did, I didn't actually find any cases of people saying, I don't believe that this is gonna send me to hell or whatever. There are some cases of heretics that other people have found of that. However, there are people saying, basically, I think me and God are cool and that you're wrong and this judgment was unfair and actually I'm gonna take my chances. So you have that quite a lot, or people just being like, eh, I'll, I'll bide my time. In fact, not that many people die under excommunication, but if you want a nice, quick, you know, if you're a churchman using it and you want someone to make things right, you don't want them to wait until they're on the deathbed and then do it, which is kind of what can happen. But I think, yeah, your point about it really depends.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  It's such an annoying thing that, you know, historians ruin everything by saying, well, it depends. But I'm afraid that is the reality.

• 16:10Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so I guess I've got another question then. We've got evidence from all these incredible places and certainly as the period goes on, we have more and more of it. Do you think that this shows that excommunication is becoming more common? Or is this just coming down to the fact that we have more sources so we can see more? You know, i- is it entirely possible that lots of people Getting excommunicated in the ninth century and we just don't know about it and it's a lack of sources issue.

• 16:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, as you well know, like this is always a problem. Is it more of it records or is there more of it? Ah, I think it's probably a bit of both. We just don't know what's happening on the ground in like the ninth century in the way that we do later. On the other hand, there are a lot of administrative and structural developments within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which just mean, like you said, they don't know what's happening. By the time you get to the fourteenth century, like they do know what's happening. And they're they're writing to their bishop, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot more letter writing and checking up. And you get the information in in England anyway of like visitations of diocese. So you get the bishop being like, I'm just checking, everything's all right. That's something you don't have, you know, before. So, yes, it's a bit of both, I think.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Certainly there is a kind of ramping up, especially as you get into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And like I said, this kind of excommunication for debt, it really does seem to be used a bit more. But you can find contemporaries complaining that excommunication is used too much, like anywhere you want to find it. It's there from like basically the early church right through until the reformation. So now there were different, you know, possible reasons for that. But there's always this sense of, oh, it's being used too much. It's it's undermining the strength of it.

• 17:51Eleanor Janega?

  I think that that's a really good point. And I suppose we also need to keep in mind the fact that the church as a legal juggernaut, takes a while to get off the ground, you know, it just doesn't have the technical capabilities, I guess, earlier on to go around, excommunicating people. So, yeah, then probably when we see excommunications, they're going to be the big showstoppers because that's.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  And that's the records we're going to get as well.

• 18:14Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, exactly. Because it's like, that's what's going to survive to us. And B, that's who knows people. So, you know, it's like, you can't, you can't threaten the peasants quite as much if you don't know, there isn't even a bishop around in the area, you know.

• 18:27Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, you can, but we just don't know. parish priests aren't allowed to do it. But, I mean, probably they were without the bishops say so. But the problem is then to enforce it, what you need is everyone, the community to enforce it. So that's where the kind of power or lack of power goes. So one of the main things about this, and one of the reasons why I find it so fascinating, because it's a kind of a window into social life, is. You need people on side. So if you're excommunicated and I'm talking to you, that's not allowed, that's bad. But that means I need to agree with the decision that you're a badminton and that I don't, I want to shun you, right? So you could do it. Like, if you're a random ninth century parish priest, and if everyone in the village is like, yeah,

• 19:12Speaker 04

  yeah, excommunicate will shun him, then you could do it and it could work and it could all be great. On the other hand, if everyone's like, shut up, Fruity, we hate you, then you're going to be like, oh no, that's undermined my power. Everyone's ignoring me.

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• 22:42Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, I've got one more technical question, which is what's the difference between excommunication and interdict?

• 22:48Speaker 04

  So, okay, one of the things about excommunication that I failed to actually explain is that you also, you cannot receive the sacraments, you cannot be part of church life. Like I said, the wider community, but also like, yeah, you can't be going into church. You can't have the Eucharist, you can't confess, all of that sort of, you can't have ecclesiastical burial, which means that you have to be chucked ignominiously out for somewhere that's not been consecrated. And if you are, you have to be exhumed. Interdict, rather than getting, targeting an individual, basically says this whole area is not allowed to have church services. So they would kind of, you know, hang up the bells or cut down the bells and there were no church services for anybody. And it was normally done to punish somebody a bit higher up and to kind of

• 23:33Speaker 04

  convince the other people to take, it's, it's a bit similar to a strike. It's kind of a clerical strike. And the idea is that everyone will be angry with the ruler who has caused it and kind of rise up against him mostly. And then he'll be, oh no, okay, everyone hates me now because I've deployed them of ecclesiastical services. And you do get records again of people complaining at least, whether there's exaggerations in kind of chronicles and stuff. Of, oh, the bodies are just lying on the street rotting because we can't bury them under an interdict. So it's a kind of serious thing. However, as sometimes happens with strikes, sometimes people turn against the church instead of their ruler. And it could go both ways. So it's linked because it's part of what an excommunication would be, but it's a kind of geographical suspension of services.

• 24:17Eleanor Janega?

  So I suppose we've already touched on this, but I was going to kind of move along to talk about the political problems that these things cause, especially if you excommunicate someone higher up, like a king or an emperor. And so there's interdict, which can then get used if you're excommunicated and you are being like, yes, so what? But what, what else does it do politically for people?

• 24:40Speaker 04

  So, and this is one of the reasons why the ones we hear about are, you know, the excommunication of, you know, Henry the Fourth, Otto, Frederick the Second, all kind of German emperors. King John of England is another big one. And depending on different times and places, obviously the, the, the nature of papal power changes across the period. But it is, it's trying to rein in behaviour that is deemed bad. And the, the repercussions are kind of really variable. And so I think this is, you know, I've already mentioned the community, you kind of need to have their support. So if you're a ruler and everyone loves you and they think you're great and they are loyal to you, then if you get excommunicated. Everyone is like, eh, yeah, okay, well, whatever.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  And also, you're a big ruler, you have a lot of resources. So you can also just be like, if you don't just obey me anyway, I'm going to kill you. So you also get kind of physical threats. On the other hand, if everyone hates you, like, for example, everyone hates King John, and, you know, Henry IV has a lot of internal stuff to deal with. It gives everyone an excuse to kind of be like, well, you're not part of the church, and so rebel, maybe choose an alternative ruler. So there is a kind of, both these guys, or all of these guys, kind of managed to be excommunicated for quite a long time. But equally, mostly have to then eventually say sorry. So there's a kind of delay. But yeah, we talked about why over the whole investiture contest last time I was on.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  John refused to accept an Archbishop who the Pope put in, so that's a very different scenario where the Papacy has got a lot more powerful. I mean, you can tell me about Otto.

• 26:22Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, well, so let's just get into some high-profile excommunications, because, you know, like, whatever, I want to gossip about famous people, okay?

• 26:30Speaker 04

  Sure, I get it.

• 26:31Eleanor Janega?

  So, we've got to shout out my boy, the Emperor Frederick II's excommunication, because he's got such a good one. Can you run us through why, why he gets excommunicated?

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Well, he's excommunicated more than once. There's a lot of political stuff behind this. The Papacy is really freaked out because Frederick has the claim to be King of Sicily, and then he's got Germany, which completely blocks in the Papal lands. So they're like, ah, we don't like this. And they kind of make him promise to not not rule both, basically, and to delegate to his son. But it all kind of doesn't happen because Frederick promises to go on crusade. And if there's anything that the Popes love, it's crusade. So if you want to get in the Pope's good books, you promise to go on crusade. So they're like, okay, cool. Uh, the problem is, there's dissonance going around, and Frederick's like, I fall ill, I can't leave on crusade. And the Pope, Gregory IX, like, just doesn't believe him.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Now, to be fair, having crusade of armies, like, hanging out in Western Europe is, like, really not a good thing. So you can see why Gregory's not happy about this. But the genuinely conflicting accounts, we don't quite know whether Frederick was making it up or if he got ill. It seems like he probably was ill. Anyway, so then he gets excommunicated, which is potentially a bit harsh for not leaving on crusade when he promised he would. But then he gets better and doesn't seek absolution, goes off on crusade, and eventually gets crowned king of Jerusalem while he's excommunicated. So he clearly doesn't give a crap about the excommunication. But then he says sorry, and it's all good again, briefly, until it's not, and then he's excommunicated again.

• 28:08Eleanor Janega?

  I just love him. I just think he's great.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. There's a lot of parallels between the whole Gregory VII and Henry IV in terms of, these are two very powerful personalities. But then Gregory dies eventually, and it still doesn't solve anything. So, but it, it, there's a really big one in 1239 where there's this really big ceremony that is, you know, a lot of people kind of account. And then eventually Frederick gets deposed in 1245, which is another really, really big deal.

• 28:37Eleanor Janega?

  Well, I guess, so how did everybody else react to him being like, yeah, I'm excommunicated, cute, I'm on crusade, I'm the king of Jerusalem, way hey, you know, like, what does this make everyone else? I mean, obviously, it makes Gregory foam at the mouth. What are the other rulers doing at this point?

• 28:52Speaker 04

  There are a couple of things. I think he's betrothed Frederick to somebody, and she's like, I'm not marrying you when you're excommunicated. You also have, but he, in his own lands, he's just like, I will kill you if you publicize this excommunication. And so that really changes things. It does affect diplomacy. If you don't, you can, it's much easier to say, well, I, you're excommunicated, I don't have to treat with you, I don't have to do anything. But there is quite a lot of evidence of other people really not being convinced by the excommunication. Not least because of a load of trumped up charges. You know, by the end, the papacy is like, you're a heretic. They actually decide he's the Antichrist. And then he dies, and there's no end of the world. And it's like, oh, no, he wasn't the Antichrist after all.

• 29:35Eleanor Janega?

  Wait a minute, he did not go to Jerusalem and ascend into heaven using demoniac power on the on Calgartha. That's wild. That's crazy.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  So it gets, it does get a bit mad. And so you have funny stories, which are almost certainly not true, but there's this one where like a French priest is kind of like, okay, so I'm just, I'm announcing to you all that Frederick, you know, has been excommunicated. And he then adds like, I don't know who's really in the right here. And but Frederick also does get annoyed. He sends letters to his brother in law, the King of England, to be like, why are you allowing this to be publicized in your kingdom, mate? You're meant to be my boy. How dare you do this? Which is, he goes on and on about his reputation. But also, you know, the papacy is collecting taxes for crusades eventually against him. And so if you can persuade everyone that he is indeed the Antichrist, then people are, okay, yeah, I can give money for that.

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• 32:05Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so I'm gonna move on to another one. Let's talk about the excommunication of John because I think it's really funny.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Take it away. Why is it so funny?

• 32:15Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, well, I just think it's funny because, so this is, I think, probably the most famous excommunication in England. And it's wild because it's like, you know, his dad is kind of like the kindest you could say is indirectly responsible for the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He's not excommunicated, right? But John is like, yeah, no, I'm going big, right? And, you know, basically just for money, which I think is a, you know, fairly good reason. So basically John's deal, right? So he gets excommunicated, I think, at 1209. And basically he does it because he wants to collect the tithes of the church.

• 32:56Speaker 04

  Well, okay, I mean, we have to go back a little bit here, which is into the actual cause of like the problem. But as you say, so Henry II is responsible for his own Archbishop being murdered in a cathedral, which you've got to think is, you know, if you're ever going to be excommunicated for something, that's pretty valid. But that is a time when the papacy is in a much weaker position because there is again another anti-pope. And so if he, you know, Alexander III, if he annoys Henry too much, then Henry might just be like, ah, I'll support the other guy. By the time we get to Innocent III and John, Innocent III is actually kind of king of the world. And therefore is a lot more able, he's already, you know, really used ecclesiastical sanctions against the French king Louis because he doesn't want, he doesn't like his new wife and repudiates her. And the Pope's just like, you can't do that.

• 33:40Eleanor Janega?

  You can't just go around repudiating wives all the time, Louis.

• 33:43Speaker 04

  He's just like, I don't fancy her, go away. But yeah, so he's already intervened in affairs of, you know, kings, even though that is not a political thing, that is, that was his wife, but the Pope is like, absolutely not. So with this, the Archbishop of Canterbury, there is an idea that the king has some choice in it, but so do the monks that officially elect him. So the monks choose one guy, John chooses another guy, and they're like, oh, Pope, you've got to settle this for us. Which one? And Innocent, instead of choosing- One of them is like, no, I've got my own guy. Um, and John actually quite beat me. He's like, uh, no, he's some random French dude. He's actually English, but he's been in Paris for like his whole adult life. So he's like, it kind of seen as not somebody who John wants in this incredibly powerful position. So John goes mental and then Innocent first puts England under an interdict.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  So he actually goes for the interdict first, and the idea being everyone will get angry with John and and they'll make him give in. But that doesn't happen. And so two years later, John is actually excommunicated individually. But as you say, but that means all the like proper good bishops have to go into exile. And so he's just like, ah, ha, ha, I can take all the revenues from their churches. And actually, John's like, this is great. I love this. So it's all going great. But then, so people often are like, oh, excommunication, clearly. Look at King John, it doesn't work. But then actually, it kind of shows how it does work, which is John is just awful and everyone hates him. And increasingly, his barons are getting angry about

• 35:11Speaker 04

  a whole mess of things that I think is probably a topic for a different thing that you've probably already done. And then the excommunication becomes really dangerous because they can rebel, but they can also, the the next step, and we've seen this with a couple of the others. The next step from excommunication as a ruler is that you then get deposed. So it's not like an automatic thing, but if you stay excommunicated for long enough, that's going to be. If you're deposed, somebody else can come in. So we had anti-kings over in Germany. The barons of England are like, oh, we could, uh, get Louis, the son of the King of France over, that would be good. And obviously, this is really dangerous for John. So in fact, he then does have to deal with the excommunication. And then him and Innocent make up, and then Innocent's like his uber protector and actually then shall, and then excommunicates all the barons

• 35:54Speaker 04

  for revelling against John. So it's, you know, a complete turnaround. But actually, what I think is that it shows the excommunication just like as a thing on its own, fine, it's not always effective. But if you have people supporting it, you really can't function. So it really does depend on how communities, whether that's barons or your local villages, kind of how they respond to it.

• 36:16Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, it's incredibly funny. I like the quick turnaround. Because, you know, Innocent is Mr. Oh, I am inventing the legal apparatus of the church. And he's like, ah, but you, you little scamp. What do you like?

• 36:29Eleanor Janega?

  It's great. Okay. So look, we've just gone through examples of excommunication. And I suppose, is there a difference between the excommunication of an emperor and a king, in your opinion?

• 36:40Speaker 04

  Oh, I mean, I think the main thing is the whole emperors and their very long, tense relationship with the papacy and the whole king of the Romans and being emperor, that that whole, it's just, it adds an added emotional level to the whole thing. And also then, you know, obviously there is a difference between, like geographically, how far away from Rome or Avignon you are. Or Lyon, they hang out in Lyon quite a lot as well. So there's a geographical perspective. And one of the problems with the whole John and Innocent thing is that, you know, it takes a month to get to Rome and get back again. So every time Innocent's like, oh, this is what I decided. This is when we've moved on after John's been absolved by the Barons, you know, doing the whole Magna Carta thing.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Innocent's like two months out of date. So everyone's like, well, yeah, but that's not how things are right now. We don't really, you know. So I think there is a geographical thing, but yeah, the tension of the papal states and the papal lands, I think, comes into the empire in a way that you could explain more than me. So I think there is a difference, but equally, the kind of implications of any ruler are largely the same, probably.

• 37:48Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, I think I would agree with that because the implications are the implications. I think that there is, I suppose, almost an existential issue for for emperors. Because it's like the entire point of an emperor is that you're supposed to be the temporal sword of God, right?

• 38:05Speaker 04

  Exactly, right. And so there is that added. Aspect. On the other hand, nobody other than the emperors or kings of Germany ever create an antipope. So they also are like, they realize how important it is. They're just like, you know what, we can solve this by having our own guy. So they, yeah, that relationship with the papacy is so important that no, no king can do that.

• 38:26Eleanor Janega?

  So yeah, I mean, this is one of these things, right? Because I think that for emperors, you've got this existential issue. It's like, well, you need that papal legitimacy in order to be crowned emperor. But if you have been, and if you've got really popular support, you can twist that power and do kind of like a little judo flip, right? You know, and then say, okay, well, yeah, sure, I'm excommunicated. But now, haha, look, it's my new pope, you know? And with all of these high profile cases that we've been talking about, nothing really happens to them, you know? They die excommunicated and they die with a considerable amount of power that the papacy would love to wield, I would argue.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think the dying excommunicate is interesting because it's not actually that common. I mean, you know, Frederick does in the end, but that's the, you know, it's what been absolved twice beforehand. So earlier on, he's like, oh, okay, I do want to deal with this. And it is a time when like, antipopes are just that the papacy is too strong at that time for that to happen. John's certainly not going to. So it's actually quite rare. And certainly when you look at the bigger picture, that people do die excommunicated, but it's like, it's actually quite rare, which does show that people care most of the time. And this is a famous thing, deathbed confessions and stuff like, suddenly you're dying and you're like, I don't know if I want to take my chances. You know, we do have people kind of rushing to get absolved. And also anyone, so you have to be absolved officially by whoever excommunicated

• 39:51Speaker 04

  you, or somebody more senior to them, or their successor if they've died. But on a deathbed, anyone can do it. I mean, any local priest and in a pinch, like, you could, you could absolve me. So God knows how many, you know, absolutions we have on deathbeds that would absolute no records, because, you know, let's imagine we're both peasants, like, no one's going to record that. But equally, if you're really far down the social scale, there is, there is less at stake, because you haven't got all these followers whose allegiance to you is absolved and all of that kind of stuff. So it's different, depending on who you are and where you are.

• 40:23Eleanor Janega?

  The eternal medieval history answer.

• 40:27Eleanor Janega?

  It's like, well, it really depends. Where are we? Who are you?

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's true. And it's annoying. But I mean, there are lots of really great things. Like, there are some unknown guys who are excommunicated to take it away from like emperors because they've abducted a nun. And it's like, oh, right, we've got to find who these guys are. Obviously, they're excommunicated. And then a while later, there's this like, oh, okay. So it turns out that she ran off with them because she was one of their lovers. So it was not an abduction at all. It was actually her running away from her nunnery. And there's another one who fakes her own death.

• 41:04Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, yeah, Joanne of Leeds? Joan of Leeds.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Joan of Leeds, yeah, yeah. Well, yes, the Latin is Joanne, and I don't really understand.

• 41:10Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, why is everyone saying Joan?

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Joan. I don't know, but it's a thing, apparently. Anyway, yeah, so she fakes her own death, which is just brilliant. And obviously, that's a cause for excommunication because you can't be doing that. You can't run away from your nunnery. So there's all these kind of lower down things, you know, as well. But you need people to help you. So if everyone's going to just turn you in. And we don't know what happened to her. That's the really annoying thing about these records. We know what happens to emperors, but random runaway nuns, the records go quiet and you're like, oh, but.

• 41:39Eleanor Janega?

  I choose to believe that they live happily and hornily ever after. And thank you so, so much for coming along once again. It is a pleasure as always to see you.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  Thank you for letting me talk about my favorite topic.

• 41:53Eleanor Janega?

  Thank you so much to Felicity once again for joining us. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit.

• 42:01Eleanor Janega?

  If you want to know more about some of the subjects we covered in this discussion, you can check out my earlier conversation with Felicity about the investiture controversy, as well as my deep dives on the Emperor Frederick II, Emperor Charles IV, and the Holy Roman Empire generally. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. If you can't bear to be apart from me for a whole week, and who can, there are some fabulous films that we have made to enjoy, including my recent series, Meet the Normans. Remember, you can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 42:44Eleanor Janega?

  And tell all your friends and family about us. If you have a moment, please drop us a review or rate us everywhere you listen to podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find us. As always, Matt Lewis will be back on the Gone Medieval throne on Friday, and I'll battle back for Gone Medieval supremacy on Tuesday. Until next time.