The Legate

      On 22 November 1220, before a crowd in the Church of Saint Peter at Rome, Pope Honorius III crowned Frederick II—already king of the Germans, of Lombardy, and of the Regno, the combined regions of Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily—emperor of the Romans. This event marked the beginning of Frederick’s imperial reign as well as the culmination of years-long cooperation between the young Hohenstaufen ruler and the papacy, which had supported his rights in Sicily during his minority and backed his claim to the contested German throne. As part of the coronation ceremony, Frederick issued a number of constitutions, swearing among other things to recognize the territorial possessions, honors, and rights of the Roman church, to maintain a formal separation between the Regno and the empire, and to assure that his officials would take action against heretics of all kinds.¹ On that solemn occasion, he also renewed his crusading vow, first sworn during his royal coronation at Aachen in 1215. Richard of San Germano, a chronicler with ties to the imperial court, described how the emperor “publicly renewed his vow” at the hands of Hugolino dei Conti, the cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri and the future pope Gregory IX.²

      A few months later, Honorius appointed Hugolino to the office of full legation in Lombardy and Tuscany to promote Frederick’s promised crusade to the holy places. The elderly cleric, probably about seventy years old, had a long history of service at the papal curia and experience acting as a legate for Honorius and his predecessor, Innocent III, including a previous tour of duty in Lombardy.³ When Frederick heard the news about Hugolino’s assignment to the region, as he later wrote to the cardinal bishop, he was overjoyed to hear that the pope had assigned his “father in Christ and friend” to carry out the “business of the cross.” Addressing the communities of northern Italy, the emperor signaled his support for Hugolino, authorizing him to absolve anyone subject to imperial banishment as long as they agreed to join the crusade and telling his subjects to honor the cardinal “like our own person.”⁴

      Papal legates like Hugolino dei Conti embodied the judicial and sacramental authority of the Apostolic See for those who might never lay eyes on the bishop of Rome. They gave a public face and voice to the pope’s fullness of power, conveying his sovereign rights over the faithful into the communities of Europe and beyond. The Roman pontiff, after all, could not be everywhere. But legally empowered legates sent “from the side” (a latere) of the pope came fairly close. Hugolino’s legation represented only one such iteration of papal authority in this regard. Undertaking his duties, the cardinal participated in a wide-reaching network of envoys who represented the Roman curia, conveying and presenting documents from the papal chancery, passing along word-of-mouth instructions from the pope, and working to assure that local bishops, abbots, and other churchmen realized the directives of the Apostolic See. Without such means of communication and display, the impressive political and judicial prerogatives claimed by the Vicars of Christ would have meant little beyond their immediate orbit.⁵

      Hugolino’s particular legation to Lombardy in 1221 has a special significance for the subject of this book. Although the cardinal bishop did not know it at the time, his activities on Honorius’s behalf anticipated the overriding concerns that would later shape his own papacy after he became Pope Gregory IX. These included the launching of a successful crusade to free the holy places from the “infidels,” the effort to create conditions of peace that would enable such a crusade, and the commitment to eradicating heresy, which was perceived as a dire threat that endangered the faithful, threatened the peace, and undermined the crusades. In addition, Hugolino’s legation made clear an inescapable fact of thirteenth-century politics: that the Apostolic See’s ability to mobilize Christians for such goals remained linked, publicly and behind the scenes, to the reputation, fortunes, and decisions of the Hohenstaufen emperor.

      An unusual amount of information about Hugolino’s legation in 1221 survives thanks to the written register that remains of his activities: copies of various documents that the cardinal bishop or members of his traveling “household”—including his chaplains, treasurer, and notaries—judged important enough to archive. This invaluable collection of documents represents just a portion of the written artefacts that his legation must have produced, preserving one version of the letters, forms, receipts, and “public instruments” (instrumenta publica) that would have been copied, amended, and distributed to various recipients, signed and affixed with the legate’s and other witnesses’ seals.⁶ Its texts often describe the scenes of their own inception, when they were drafted by notaries “before the legate” or “in the legate’s presence” during or just after assemblies held in piazzas and other open spaces, communal halls, or the local bishop’s palace, which doubled as a center for urban governance.⁷ Hugolino staged or participated in many such gatherings that brought together notable citizens and officials, podestas and town councilors, bishops, abbots, and clerics of various rank, along with members of city militias and various urban societies. When the cardinal could not be present himself, he employed his own envoys, usually local prelates and abbots, “worthy” and “reliable” men sent with instructions to be delivered “aloud” (viva voce) and written documents to be read on his behalf. Such traffic went both ways, as “ambassadors” from various communes traveled to meet with Hugolino, sometimes ordered to appear before him by a fixed deadline, conveying their own oral instructions, letters, and documents.⁸

      Hugolino’s register makes plain his concern with launching the next crusade. The letter appointing him as legate highlighted this “burden,” which was incumbent upon the pope and shared by his helpers, like the cardinal bishop.⁹ That particular burden possessed an unmistakable urgency in 1221. Eight years earlier, Pope Innocent III had set plans in motion for what is now called the Fifth Crusade by issuing a number of bulls that called for a new expedition to liberate Jerusalem. As part of its deliberations in 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council had followed with the most elaborate formulation of papal crusading