Papacy, Monarchy and Marriage 860–1600 by David d'Avray

Author:David d'Avray [d'Avray, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

(Trier), who had received her into the order (the provincial prior of Germany), and the

convent where she had spent more than a year (St Mark’s in Würzburg), as well as

references to the reports about these events from people from the relevant regions resident

at the papal curia. Urban IV takes care rapidly to rehearse these details and testimonies in

his dispensation bull for Otakar’s subsequent marriage to Kunigunde (*1268, April 20).

So even this locally decided case in the end came within the force field of papal power.

The conclusion follows that the parameters of the politics of the foregoing royal

‘divorces’ were set by a coherent body of canon law, within whose limits – mostly defined

by papal decisions – popes also had to work. Politics, sexual passion and the need for

legitimate heirs supplied the motivation, but does not adequately account for the outcomes

of the cases just discussed, all of which turn out to make sense within the formally rational

system of papal law. Though it would be rash to claim cases discussed in the preceding

chapters account for all royal annulments in the period from Innocent III on, they must

constitute a high proportion of them.

An Achilles heel of sound scholars

It has been possible to identify such a high proportion of relevant cases thanks to a great

reference work, Detlev Schwennicke’s Europäische Stammtafel. 6 Many cases that the casual reader of Schwennicke might take to be annulments or divorces turn out not to be,

once the details are investigated: which is often far from easy to do, since otherwise

scholarly historians often blur the details of such cases. As noted earlier, there has been an

absence of due diligence where royal dissolutions are concerned. Thus, for instance, a

standard and generally admirable history of medieval Spain tells us that after the defeat by

Ferdinand and Isabella of a challenge from Afonso V and Juana (Joana) of Portugal, 7

‘Juana rejected the proposal that she marry a Castilian prince, though she was free to do

so, for her marriage to Afonso V had never been solemnised’8 (whatever that means in a medieval context). The no less valuable history by Hillgarth says that ‘in December 1478,

Sixtus IV revoked the dispensation he had granted, under French pressure, for the

marriage of Afonso and his niece Juana’. 9 Juana’s ‘marriage with Afonso V had never been consummated and had now been declared illegal by the papacy’. 10 Similarly, the volume on Ferdinand and Isabella in the standard history of Spain says that the marriage

had not been consummated and that Sixtus IV revoked his dispensation. 11 According to Schwennicke, the marriage ended in divorce at ‘Alcaçovas 24.IX.1479’. 12 These comments do not make much sense in terms of canon law – a dispensation could not be

revoked once a couple had married, ‘solemnisation’ was not required for the validity of a

marriage in the Middle Ages, and there is no evidence of a ratum non consummatum –

divorce such as Wladislaw and Barbara of Brandenburg obtained. Until recently, therefore,

the Alfonso–Juana case broke all the rules – so far as one could tell from reputable-

looking secondary scholarship.

Finally, a relatively scholarly investigation of this ‘ faux divorce’ was published in

1998. 13 There appears to be no evidence for a revocation of the dispensation, though Sixtus IV stressed that it had not been a political document intended to harm the interests

of King Ferdinand. 14 This is probably the papal letter of 1478 to which the other scholars referred, though it is unclear – the deficiencies of their footnoting mean that one has to

guess. Such murky clouds swirl around many royal marriage cases in the secondary

literature, but when one can dispel the mists, one finds canon legal rationality – as the

Skinner principle that legitimation constrains motivation would lead one to expect.

Unsurprisingly, kings often chose to change partners or acquire a new one without

papal permission. As was illustrated in Chapter 4, polygynous or ‘bigynous’ practice continued throughout the later Middle Ages. If a king wanted to regularise his situation,

however, he had a problem unless the case in canon law was good. Political considerations

could doubtless affect the tempo of the pope’s conduct of a case. John XXII gave top

priority to Charles IV v. Blanche, and Innocent III seems to have dragged his feet when it

suited him in Philip II v. Ingeborg15 and Otakar I v. Adela. 16 Except for tempo, however, from Innocent III to the end of our period the papal law of annulment was remarkably

unsusceptible to instrumentalisation by kings or indeed popes except where the law

happened to be on the side of Realpolitik.

An optical illusion

The handful of high-profile cases create an optical illusion. Until they are examined in

(sometimes excruciating) detail, as above, one can get the impression that any king could

get out of a marriage if he wanted to. We need to remember the Darwinian principle: only

cases where there was a chance of survival in court went to trial, for where there were no

plausible grounds one would expect a king’s lawyers to warn him before he began a

lawsuit. (Admittedly, royal advisers seem to have been optimistic about many of the

arguments they suggested, but with all the successful annulment proceedings studied

above there was at least one argument that held up legally.) We have studied the cases that

were successful, and in actual fact they are not numerous in the four centuries of European

history after Innocent III. In each case, when one looks close up and understands the law,

there seems to be a solid canon legal case. They are exceptions proving the rule that kings

really were subject to marriage law – perhaps especially kings because their cases were

hardly ever decided by more malleable lower ecclesiastical courts. Later medieval or early

modern annulments on grounds of forbidden degrees are rare. With Charles IV and

Blanche, the dispensation had not been obtained with the specificities of their relationship

in mind – it was a general document to be used for an unspecified bride. The dissolved

marriage of Jaume II of Aragon had been contracted at a time when he was at odds with

the papacy and unable to get a dispensation. With Jeanne of France there was the issue of

consummation and her unwillingness to undergo a physical examination (by women).

With Margaret of Scotland forbidden degrees were not the grounds for annulment, but pre-

contract by her husband: so this is one royal case that fits the commonest late medieval

pattern of annulments.

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