Bull of Alexander VI

A Bull of Pope Alexander VI Author(s): Nicholas Pocock Source: The English Historical Review, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Jan., 1887), pp. 112-114 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/546836 Accessed: 10-11-2017 23:59 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

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112 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS Jan. There yet remains one poinit to be taken into consideration. It does

not ainount to an argument, and yet it appears to add some weight to the preceding pages. While the Laon priests were in England they seem to

have met with the most hospitable treatment wherever they went, except in one place. But this one place-where they were received with the most

flagrant insolence and outrage, and where, according to the later version of the story, the wrath of heaven descended at once upon the heads of the perpetrators of the insult-was no other than Christchurch, namely, Twinham, a foundation of which Ranulf Flambard had once been dean,

and with whose previous head he had quarrelled some years before owing to his conduct in retaining the prebends as they fell vacant in his own hands. (Dugdale, vi. 303.)

On the other hand it must not be forgotten that there is much to be

said in favour of the claims of Ranulf II. (1) The passage would seem most naturally to refer to him. (2) As he was Gaudric's immediate

successor in the English chancellorship, it is not unlikely that he should send his children to be educated in the house of a prelate with whom he must have been acquainted. Still, there is no proof that he had more than one son; nor that this one son was destined for the church. That Gaudric was in the habit of visiting England after his elevation to the see of Laon is evident from Guibert's narrative; and we know from the same authority that, on one occasion, Anselm accompanied him (iii. cc. 4, 7). (3) If, for these reasons, we prefer the claims of Ranulf II, the wordjamdtdum, on which so much depends, may perhaps be explained as not forming part of the verbal narrative that Hermann (to judge from his use of the first person plural all through his account of the English

visit) seems to have taken down from the lips of one of the survivors of the expedition, but as being his own interpolation derived from an im-

perfect acquaintance with the chronological order of the events he is narrating.

On the whole the balance of evidence is perhaps in favour of Ranulf

Flambard. Could the filii Radulphi be proved to be his sons beyond a doubt, it would be interesting as showing that an unscrupulous statesman, who nevertheless somewhat later took so princely a view of his obligations towards his own cathedral church and city, had a little earlier determined that his children should be fitted for the lofty offices for which his paternal ambition destined them by receiving from Anselm of Laon the finest ecclesiastical education that Western Europe could then afford.

T. A. ARCHER.

A BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI.

THERE is preserved at Lambeth amongst other documents, entitled ' Fragments,' a broadside which is marked No. 7. Its size is about 16 inches by 10. It is an important document which has escaped the notice

of all historians, being a copy of a bull issued by Pope Alexander VI confirming a previous bull of Innocent VIII's, which decreed the succession

of the English crown to the descendants of Henry VII whether born from

his present queen, Elizabeth of York, or by his marriage with any sub-

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1887 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS 113 sequent wife if she should happen to die without issue or should leave no surviving children.

The bull begins as follows: ' ALEXANDER episcopus servus servorum dei ad futuram Rei memo-

riam; licet ea que per sedem apostolicam prEesertim in pacem et quietem ac tranquillitatem, Catholicorum Regum et principum illorumque status conservationem et manutencionem et a scandalis bellis ac discensionibus preservationem proinde concessa fuerunt plenam obtineant roboris firmitatem, non nunquam tamen Romanus pontifex illa libenter de novo approbat; et etiam innovat ut eo firmius illibata persistant quo magis suo fuerint presidio communita. Dudum siquidem a felicis Recordationis Innocentio papa octavo prmedecessore nostro emanarunt litterme tenoris subsequentis.

'INNOCENTIUS &C.'

This preliminary matter occupies five lines, which are immediately followed by the well-known bull of Innocent, ' super successione in Regno Anglime approbatoria Et conitra Rebelles excommunicatoria,' which the present document is intended to confirm. This bull may be seen in Rymer's ' Fcedera.' It is contained in 73 lines of the broadside, wlich ends with the date 1486, 6 kal. Aprilis, Pont. 2. After which follows the remainder of the bull of Pope Alexander VI, which is as follows, occupying seven more lines:

' Nos igitur cupientes non minus prospicere et consulere quieti prefati regis ac Regni sui quam fecerit ipse Innocentius predecessor, motu proprio non ab ipsius regis vel alterius pro eo nobis super hoc oblate petitionis Instantia sed de nostra liberalitate, literas predictas ac omnia et singula in eis contenta auctoritate apostolica thenore presentium approbamus ac plenum firmitatis robur obtinere decernimus illasque in omnibus et per omnia de nouo innouamus et concedimus, non obstantibas constitutionibus et ordinationibus apostolicis necnon omnibus illis que prefatus Innocentius in literis predictis voluit non obstare ceterisque contrariis quibuscunque. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hane paginam nostre approbationis constitutionis innouationis et concessionis infringere vel ei ausu themerario contravenire. Siquis autem hoc attemptare presumpserit indignationem omnipotentis dei ac beatorum Petri et Pauli apostolorum ejus se nouerit incursurum.

'Dat. Rome apud Sanctum Petrum Anno Incarnationis dominice M.CCCC. lxxxxiiij. Non. Octobris Pontificatus nostri Anno iij.'

It is curious that no historian has recorded any such application on the part of Henry VII to the pope, for there can of course be no doubt that the bull is the result of an application made by the king for the sake of strengthening his position on the throne. The wording of the document

must not be pressed to its exact letter as if the pope had decided to promulgate the bull without any petition having been previously made to him. The expression motu proprio is only a form which has since been in common use, but which had been, I believe, first introduced by his predecessor, Innocent VIII. And the date of the document coincides too nearly with that of the recent failure of Perkin Warbeck's first attempt

8 Vol. 2

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114 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS Jan. at raising the country in his favour, to leave any doubt as to the king's having made suit to the pope to confirm the bull of his predecessor, which is inserted at length.

That the king thought it of the utmost importance is evidenced from the

fact that it was copied and issued in the form of a proclamation. Probably the Lambeth copy is the only one that has survived; but up to the present

time there has been no evidence of the existence of any such bull, excepting in a few lines of a document first printed by Mr. James Gairdner in

1858 in the volume of the Rolls' Series which contains the life of Henry VII by Bernard Andre. In the appendix to that volume, pp. 393-399, there appears the appeal of -Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, to the pope on behalf of Perkin Warbeck, extracted from a document in the Lambeth Library. The appeal asserts amongst other allegations that there are others of the house of Lancaster who have a better claim to the crown of England than Henry, who, it says, was sprung ex adulterinis amplexibus utriusque parentis, but that the house of York possessed the right of inheritance to which Elizabeth of York his wife could have no right whilst Richard the lawful son and heir of Edward V existed.

But the special point to be noticed in the appeal is the insertion of the fact, which does not appear anywhere else, of Alexander VI having actually endorsed the bull of his predecessor. The words in the appeal

of the duchess are: EtpraedictaomniaperAlexandrumPapam modernurn licet nulliter et de facto dicitur obtinuisse, his quorum interest minime ad hiec vocatis seu auditis, &c.

The existence of the bull is an additional evidence of the uneasy feeling of Henry VII as to the tenure of his throne, which was as yet scarcely thought safe enough for Ferdinand and Isabella to consent to the espousals of Prince Arthur and the Infanta Catalina.

It only remains to say that the document is very closely printed, with an immense number of the ordinary contractions, which are not, however, uniformly observed. NICHOLAS POCOCK.

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE JESUITS.

IT was not until the end of September that I had an opportunity of seeing the July number of this Review. Upon reading the notice of my ' Chapters in European History' which it contained, I was grieved to find that my critic, doubtless quite unintentionally, had gravely misapprehended and misrepresented me in several important matters. If so well read a scholar as he evidently is has so seriously misunderstood me, no doubt many others of less trained and cultivated intellect have fallen into the like errors. I avail myself gladly, therefore, of the opportunity afforded to me by the courtesy of the editor to rectify some of the more important misconceptions of which I complain.

I should like much, if time permitted, to vindicate against my critic my view of the formation and development of Christendom; of the work done by Gregory VII for the preservation of religious liberty -the most sacred attribute of human personality; of our huge debt to other heroic souls of those middle ages ' in which,' as Mr. Carlyle

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