Pope Gregory IX (Latin:Gregorius IX; bornUgolino di Conti; 1145 – 22 August 1241)[1] was head of theCatholic Church and the ruler of thePapal States from 19 March 1227 until his death in 1241. He is known for issuing theDecretales and instituting thePapal Inquisition, in response to the failures of the episcopal inquisitions established during the time ofPope Lucius III, by means of thepapal bullAd abolendam, issued in 1184.
Ugolino (Hugh) was born inAnagni near Rome. The date of his birth varies in sources betweenc. 1145[1] and 1170.[2] He is said to have been "in his nineties, if not nearly one hundred years old" at his death.[3] He received his education at the Universities ofParis andBologna.
Gregory IX was elevated to the papacy in thepapal election of 1227.[1] He took the name "Gregory" because he formally assumed the papal office at the monastery of Saint Gregory ad Septem Solia.[6] That same year, in one of his earliest acts as pope, he expanded theInquisition powers already assigned toKonrad von Marburg to encompass the investigation of heresy throughout the whole of Germany.
Gregory's bullParens scientiarum of 1231, after theUniversity of Paris strike of 1229, resolved differences between the unrulyuniversity 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 themagna 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 acrusade against the Stedinger to be preached in northern Germany. In June 1233, he granted a plenary indulgence to those who took part.[7]
In 1233, Gregory IX established thePapal Inquisition to regularize the prosecution ofheresy.[8] According toThomas Madden, a defender of the Inquisition, the Papal Inquisition was intended to bring order to the haphazard episcopal inquisitions which had been established byLucius 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), mostlyDominicans andFranciscans, 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.[9] However , toWalter 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."[10]
Gregory was a remarkably skillful and learned lawyer. He caused to be preparedNova Compilatio decretalium, which was promulgated in numerous copies in 1234 (first printed atMainz in 1473). ThisNew Compilation of Decretals was the culmination of a long process of systematising the mass of pronouncements that had accumulated since theEarly Middle Ages, a process that had been under way since the first half of the 12th century and had come to fruition in theDecretum, compiled and edited by the papally commissioned legistGratian and published in 1140. The supplement completed the work, which provided the foundation for papal legal theory.
In the1234 Decretals, he invested the doctrine ofperpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, the followers of theTalmud would have to remain in a condition of political servitude untilJudgment Day. The doctrine then found its way into the doctrine ofservitus camerae imperialis, or servitude immediately subject to the Emperor's authority, promulgated byFrederick II. The Jews were thus suppressed from having direct influence over the political process and the life ofChristian states into the 19th century and the rise ofliberalism.[11] In 1234, Gregory issued the papal bullRachel suum videns calling for a new crusade to the Holy Land, leading to theCrusade of 1239.
In 1239, under the influence ofNicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity, Gregory ordered that all copies of the Jewish Talmud be confiscated. Following apublic 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 ofSaint Dominic as well asClare of Assisi. On 17 January 1235, he approved theOrder of Our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives. He appointed ten cardinals[12] andcanonized SaintsElisabeth of Hungary,Dominic,Anthony of Padua, andFrancis of Assisi, of whom he had been a personal friend and early patron. He transformed a chapel to Our Lady in the church ofSanta Maria del Popolo in Rome.
Fanciful 16th c. fresco depicting Gregory excommunicatingFrederick II in theSala Regia, byGiorgio Vasari. Since few details where provided to the artist, the excommunication scene is given generically. Fredrick is shown pointing to a book with the word "Concilium" shown, possibly a reference to the general council that the emperor attempted to call to depose Gregory.[17]
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 theHoly Roman EmperorFrederick II, for dilatoriness in carrying out the promisedSixth Crusade. Frederick II appealed to the sovereigns of Europe complaining of his treatment. The suspension was followed byexcommunication and threats of deposition, as deeper rifts appeared. Frederick II went to theHoly Land and in fact managed to take possession ofJerusalem. Gregory IX distrusted the emperor, since Rainald, the imperial Governor of Spoleto, had invaded the Pontifical States during the emperor's absence.[1] 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 theWar of the Keys.
Gregory IX and Frederick came to a truce, but when Frederick defeated theLombard League in 1239, the possibility that he might dominate all of Italy, surrounding thePapal 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 aheretic and summoned a council at Rome to give point to hisanathema. Frederick responded bytrying to capture or sink as many ships carrying prelates to the synod as he could. Eberhard II von Truchsees,Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, in 1241 at the Council ofRegensburg declared that Gregory IX was "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his extravagant boasting says, 'I am God, I cannot err'."[18] He argued that the Pope was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:[19]
A little horn has grown up with eyes and mouth speaking great things, which is reducing three of these kingdoms – i.e. Sicily, Italy, and Germany – to subserviency, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with intolerable opposition, is confounding things human and divine, and is attempting things unutterable, execrable.[20]
The struggle only ended with Gregory IX's death on 22 August 1241. The pope died before events could reach their climax; it was his successor,Innocent IV, who in 1245 declared acrusade that would finish the Hohenstaufen threat.
^Brett Edward Whalen (2019),The Two Powers: The Papacy, the Empire, and the Struggle for Sovereignty in the Thirteenth Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 122.
^Werner Maleczek,Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216, (Vienna: Verlag der Oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984), 126–133.
^David Abulafia,Frederick II: a Medieval Emperor 1992. 480 pages. Oxford University Press,ISBN0-19-508040-8
^Carsten Selch Jensen, "Stedinger Crusades (1233–1234)", in Alan V. Murray (ed.),The Crusades: An Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (ABC-CLIO, 2017), vol. 4, pp. 1121–1122.
^Saraiva, António José (2001).The Marrano Factory: The Portuguese Inquisition and Its New Christians. Brill. pp. 61–62.
^Dietmar Preissler,Frühantisemitismus in der Freien Stadt Frankfurt und im Großherzogtum Hessen (1810 bis 1860), p. 30, Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1989,ISBN3-533-04129-8(in German). The doctrine's Vatican indexing isliber extra – c. 13, X, 5.6, De Iudaeis: Iudaeos, quos propria culpa submisit perpetua servituti; theDecretum online(in Latin)
^Agostino Paravicini Bagliani,Cardinali di Curia e "Familiae" cardinalizie dal 1227 al 1254 2 vols. (series "Italia Sacra", Padua: Antenori) 1972(in Italian). Aprosopography that includes Gregory's ten cardinals and theirfamiliae or official households, both clerical and lay.
^Jong, Jan L. de (2012).The power and the glorification : papal pretensions and the art of propaganda in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 140−141.ISBN9780271062372.
Joseph Felten,Papst Gregor IX. (Freiburg i.B. 1886).
Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt,The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147–1254 (Leiden, Brill. 2007) (The Northern World, 26).
Guido Levi,Registri dei Cardinali Ugolino d' Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (Roma 1890).
Damian J. Smith, ed.Pope Gregory IX (1227–1241): Power and Authority (Amsterdam University Press, 2023).
Spence, Richard (1979). "Gregory IX's attempted expeditions to the Latin Empire of Constantinople: the crusade for the union of the Latin and Greek churches".Journal of Medieval History.5 (3): 163–176.
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