The Right of Spoil of the Popes of Avignon, 1316 –1415
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THE AMES FOUNDATION FOUNDED IN 1910 BY CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE FRIENDS OF JAMES BARR AMES FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONTINUING THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEGAL KNOWLEDGE AND AIDING THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE LAW PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMES FOUNDATION (The more recent print publications of the Ames Foundation follow. All the print publications of the Foundation are available, and it has a number of publications online. A complete list can be found at http://amesfoundation.law.harvard.edu/.) VOLUMES PUBLISHED UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF SAMUEL E. THORNE. 1989. YEAR BOOKS OF RICHARD 11: 7 RICHARD II. Edited by Maurice J. Holland, Dean of the Oregon University School of Law. (Cambridge, Mass.: The Ames Foundation, Harvard Law School.) VOLUMES PUBLISHED UNDER THE LITERARY DIRECTORSHIP OF CHARLES DONAHUE, JR. 1996. YEAR BOOKS OF RICHARD II: 6 RICHARD II. Edited by the late Samuel E. Thorne, Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Legal History Emeritus in Harvard University, in collaboration with Michael E. 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(Cambridge, Mass: The Ames Foundation, Harvard Law School.) (Published in conjunction with the Southampton Records Se- ries.) 2013. THE SPOILS OF THE POPE AND THE PIRATES, 1357: THE COM- PLETE LEGAL DOSSIER FROM THE VATICAN ARCHIVES. Edited by Daniel Williman, Professor of Latin and History Emeritus, Binghamton University, and Karen Ann Corsano, private scholar of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts. (Cambridge, Mass.: The Ames Foundation, Harvard Law School.) VOLUMES PUBLISHED UNDER THE LITERARY DIRECTORSHIP OF MARY SARAH BILDER. 2014. APPEALS TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL FROM THE AMERICAN COLO- NIES: AN ANNOTATED DIGITAL CATALOGUE. Compiled by Sharon Hamby O’Connor, Professor Emerita in Boston College Law School, and Mary Sarah Bilder, Professor of Law in Boston College Law School, with the assistance of Charles Donahue, Jr., Paul A. Freund Professor of Law in Harvard University. (Cambridge, Mass.: The Ames Foundation, Harvard Law School.) 2020. THE RIGHT OF SPOIL OF THE POPES OF AVIGNON, 1316 –1415. Second edition revised and augmented by Daniel Williman, L.M.S., Ph.D, and Karen Corsano, L.M.S., edited for the Ames Foundation by Charles Don ahue, Jr., LL.B., Docteur (h.c.) (Cambridge, Mass.: The Ames Founda- tion, Harvard Law School.) Harvard Law School Literary Director: Mary Sarah Bilder THE RIGHT OF SPOIL OF THE POPES OF AVIGNON 1316 – 1415 SECOND EDITION REVISED AND AUGMENTED BY DANIEL WILLIMAN, L.M.S., Ph.D. AND KAREN CORSANO, L.M.S. EDITED FOR THE AMES FOUNDATION BY CHARLES DONAHUE, Jr, LL.B., Docteur (h.c.) CAMBRIDGE THE AMES FOUNDATION 2020 Copyright © The Ames Foundation 2020 Publishers’ Cataloging in Publication Names: Williman, Daniel, author. | Corsano, Karen, author. | Donahue, Charles, 1941- editor. | Ames Foundation. Title: The right of spoil of the popes of Avignon, 1316-1415 / by Daniel Williman and Karen Ann Corsano ; edited for the Ames Foundation by Charles Donahue, Jr. Description: Second edition, revised and augmented. | Cambridge : The Ames Foundation, 2020. | Series: Publications of the Ames Foundation. | Revision of the 1988 first edition, published by the American Philosophical Society. | Includes bibliographical references and indexes. | Text in Latin; preface, introduction and summaries in English. Identifiers: ISBN: 978-1-941232-03-3 (hardcover) | 978-1-941232-02-6 (electronic) | LCCN: 2020945098 Subjects: LCSH: Catholic Church--Europe--Clergy--History. | Church history--Middle Ages, 600-1500. | Church property--Europe--History. | Papacy--History--1309-1378. | Papacy--History--1309- 1378--Sources. | Catholic Church--Government--History-- 14th century. | Catholic Church-- Finance--History--14th century. | Civilization, Medieval--Economic aspects. Classification: LCC: BX1490 .W54 2020 | DDC: 282/.4--dc23 This volume is printed on acid-free paper by William S. Hein & Co., Inc. Getzville, New York AMES FOUNDATION FOREWORD �� This volume continues the Ames Foundation’s series of volumes indepen- dent of the Year Books of Richard II. We have recently converted this series into an “eseries,” in which an online electronic book in PDF format accom- panies the publication in traditional paper format. The first volume in the eseries was Daniel Williman’s and Karen Cor- sano’s The Spoils of the Pope and the Pirates, 1357: The Complete Legal Dossier from the Vatican Archives, an edition in extenso of documents from the Vatican Archives. They tell the remarkable story of what happened in one of the exercises of the papal right of spoil (Case no. 1310 in this book).1 Williman began in the 1970s to make a note of every document relating to spoils that he found in the Vatican Archives, and in 1977 this collection was published as work in progress. Further research resulted in a larger collection of documents and a study of the institution of Spoils (the first edition of the present work), published by the American Philosophical Society in 1988. Williman and Corsano continued to work on the list. They discovered many more examples of exercises of the papal right of spoil in the Vatican Archives and made numerous corrections and additions to the “cases” (defined as all the documents associated with the spoliation of a particular person) in the original list. They now believe that they have all the instances in which the Avignonese papacy exercised this right, and a second edition of the list was clearly called for. The first edition was published only in paper. It contained numerous tables that reflected what the editor thought might be useful for users of the list, but no index of persons. When the current authors asked the Foundation to pub- lish the second edition, the first consideration was what could be done with 1 Much of the Introduction is devoted to de- Avignonese papacy to seize the money and fining the papal right of spoil. We oversimpli- movable ecclesiastical goods of a deceased fy here by saying that it is the practice of the holder of an ecclesiastical benefice. v vi AMES FOREWORD the technology that is now available. It made no sense not to use that technol- ogy to improve the accessibility of the material, but not everyone has access to the Internet at all times, and many people remain uncomfortable with using it. Hence, we decided to publish the second edition both online and in paper. The first edition contained a very large amount of data; the second edi- tion contains even more. Some of this data is specific to the cases: who was despoiled, when did this happen, where did it happen. Rather than making up tables that arranged this data in ways that we imagined might be useful to the user, it seemed to make more sense to create one massive table in the form of an Excel spreadsheet that the user could download and arrange in any way that suited his or her purposes. This spreadsheet is freely download- able from the online edition (URL: http://amesfoundation.law.harvard.edu/ papal_spoils/Statistical_Table.xlsx). A somewhat different problem was presented by the very large number of personal names that appear in the cases (approximately 2,700). The archival material tells us a great deal about some of these people, particularly about those who were despoiled. The authors have also searched the standard refer- ence works, e.g., Eubel and Gallia Christiana, for those who were despoiled and have included some such material for those people who are mentioned just in passing. What seemed to be called for here was a quite elaborate Index of Persons in the Cases. The Foundation created a database of all the personal names that are in the second edition with all the information about them that is in the edition, with occasional expansion from standard reference works, and the modern spelling of the place-names with which the persons are as- sociated. From this database the Foundation produced an Index of Persons in the Cases. This index is included in the printed edition. The online edition also hyperlinks the references to the cases in the Index to the cases them- selves, and includes a number of search engines that allow the user to find all the persons of a given type, e.g., collectors for the papal Camera. The authors have prepared an Introduction that is much fuller than that in the first edition and have supplied an Index of Proper Names in the Intro- duction. The Introduction is completed with an Appendix that gives illustra- tive Latin documents. The Statistical Table is accompanied with instructions for using it. The book also contains a Table of Abbreviations, Moneys, and Weights and Measures, and a Bibliography. * * * There are many possible uses of this product of the authors’ long labors; we can mention only a few here. For those who are interested in the Avignon- ese papacy it is obviously of critical importance. Many have written about AMES FOREWORD vii the papal right of spoil in this period, but no one until now has put together a complete list of all the instances in which it was exercised.