“Cum Essem in Constantie . . .” Medieval Law and Its Practice
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“Cum essem in Constantie . .” Medieval Law and Its Practice Edited by John Hudson (St. Andrews) Editorial Board Paul Brand (All Souls College, Oxford) Emanuele Conte (Università Roma Tre/ehess, Paris) Dirk Heirbaut (University of Ghent) Richard Helmholz (University of Chicago) Caroline Humfress (Birkbeck, London) Magnus Ryan (Peterhouse, Cambridge) Robin Chapman Stacey (University of Washington) Volume 19 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mlip “Cum essem in Constantie . .” Raffaele Fulgosio and the Council of Constance 1414–1415 By Martin John Cable LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: The cover of Francesco Alvarotti’s Consilia et allegationes, MS. Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna, 450 c. 2r. Reproduced by kind permission of the Istituzione Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cable, Martin John, author. “Cum essem in Constantie . .” : Raffaele Fulgosio and the Council of Constance 1414–1415 / by Martin John Cable. pages cm. — (Medieval law and its practice ; volume 19) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-30481-9 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-30585-4 (e-book) 1. Fulgosio, Raffaele, 1367–1427. 2. Lawyers—Italy—Padua—Biography. 3. Law teachers—Italy—Padua— Biography. 4. Law, Medieval. 5. Council of Constance Konstanz, Germany (1414–1418) : 6. Constitutum Constantini. 7. Università di Padova. Facoltà di giurisprudenza—History—To 1500. I. Title. KJA1790.C33 2015 262’.52—dc23 2015032043 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1873-8176 isbn 978-90-04-30481-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30585-4 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Preface and Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xii Introduction 1 1 Texts and Contexts 3 2 Historical Overview: The Schism until the Council of Constance 6 3 Biography: Payoffs and Pitfalls 11 1 Podcasts from the Past 19 1.a The Print Tradition of the Commentaries 20 1.b Manuscript Sources for the Commentaries 25 1.c Dating the Sources of the Printed Commentaries 29 2.a Fulgosio’s Life and Career 47 2.b Fulgosio’s Education 52 2.c From Pavia to Padua 61 2.d Fulgosio’s Married Life 76 2 Fulgosio’s Teaching Style and Professional Work 87 1.a Teacher and Lecturer 87 1.b Extraordinary and Ordinary Lectures 106 2.a Working Lawyer 109 2.b Due Process: Abuses and Exceptions 115 2.c Legal Fictions and the Imperial Prerogative 119 2.d Successive Procedural Contributions 134 2.e Diplomatic Activity and Advice: The Treaty of 1412/1413 137 2.f Other Legal and Professional Work 144 3 Fulgosio’s Arrival at the General Council 147 1 Conciliar Advocate 151 2 The Marche Case and the Question of Obedience 155 4 The Arrival of the Emperor Sigismund at Constance, Part One: Fulgosio and the Christmas Day Controversy of 1414 162 1 Status and Rank: The Besançon Case 164 2.a A New Source for Sigismund’s Arrival at Constance 166 2.b Fulgosio’s Recollection of Sigismund’s Arrival 167 vi contents 2.c Fulgosio’s Later Recollection of Sigismund’s Arrival 173 2.d Fulgosio’s Opponent in the Debate 177 2.e Dating the Debate 179 3 Aragon and the Empire 180 5 Fulgosio and the Question of Suffrage and Representation at the Council of Constance 185 1.a Voting by Nation at Constance 185 1.b Fulgosio and the Debate on Suffrage 190 1.c Fulgosio’s Consilium on Voting by Proxy 194 1.d Fulgosio’s Private View 197 1.e Dating Fulgosio’s Contribution 198 2 Sub-Sub-Delegation 201 6 Fulgosio, the Case of the Anonymous Archbishop and the Legal Legacy of the Great Schism at Constance 207 1.a Identifying the Litigants 208 1.b Fulgosio’s Consilium 212 2.a The Impact of Pisa and the Great Schism 216 2.b Guaranteeing Property Rights in the Settlement of the Schism 220 2.c Dating Fulgosio’s Contribution 223 7 Fulgosio and the Defence of Pope John XXIII at Constance 226 1 Papal Simony 226 2 Fulgosio’s Defence of John XXIII 228 8 Sigismund’s Arrival at Constance, Part Two: Fulgosio and the Donation of Constantine 236 1.a Re-Examining Fulgosio’s Comments on the Donation 238 1.b Fulgosio’s Intervention 245 1.c Conclusion 250 9 Return from Constance to Padua 254 10 Fulgosio and Constance after Constance 268 1.a The Jean Petit Tyrannicide Case 268 1.b Fulgosio’s Consilium 273 2 The Defence of the Jews of Ferrara 278 Contents vii 11 Fulgosio’s Final Years in Padua 285 1 Succession Disputes: Canosa and Straubing/Holland 286 2 Fulgosio’s Death 288 3 Beccaria’s Death 295 12 Conclusions 300 1 Dissimulation and Identity 300 2 The Donation of Constantine 303 3 The History of the Council of Constance 304 4 University Teaching Practice 306 5 Legal History and Humanism 307 Appendices 1 The Last Will and Testament of Raffaele Fulgosio Padua, 11 September, 1427 317 2 The Last Will and Testament of Giovanina Fulgosio Padua, 1 September, 1437 324 3 The Inventory of Giovanina Fulgosio’s Possessions Padua, July 1439 330 4 Data Table for Graphs 339 Bibliography 350 Index 382 Preface and Acknowledgements This book developed from my earlier study of the early fifteenth century law- yer Gimignano Inghirami of Prato. Inghirami was a judge on the bench of the church’s highest court, the rota romana, both before and during the Council of Constance when the court together with the rest of the machinery of papal gov- ernment transferred to the southern German city for four years beginning in 1414. An archive closely connected to Inghirami and his work is preserved in his native city and provided the source material for my study of his and the rota’s activities while at Constance. I was particularly interested in any cases which involved litigants who had belonged to opposing ‘obedience’ communities dur- ing the Great Schism which divided the church from 1378 to 1417. Furthermore, I was keen to locate any case papers which referred to the decrees which were issued at Constance to address the legal legacy of the schism and its obedi- ence divide. How, for example, were benefice rights which the members of one obedience community had obtained from ‘their’ pope reconciled with the title claims over the same rights which members of an opposing obedience had similarly obtained from ‘their’ claimant to the papal office? To answer such questions some recognition of the legal validity of actions taken within the boundaries of each obedience was necessary; however to achieve that meant determining what those boundaries were and where they lay. For a fundamen- tally intangible matter like ‘obedience to a particular pope’ this posed yet more profound questions about the extent to which a community’s existence could be mapped on to the physical contours of the world. An obedience was, in a certain sense, an association of like-minded people who shared the joint rec- ognition of a single pope. To map that community to specific cities, kingdoms or regions always represented an approximation for where that community began and ended, however this ‘territorial’ solution was one which the council proposed and which courts like those presided over by Inghirami had some- times to consider in the aftermath of the schism. Where a particular town, city or kingdom had recognised a particular papal contender as pope, his actions were valid there and the position of those who recognised his opponent that of a (largely unprotected) minority. Such a territorial treatment of the issue seemed to me to be a very early (and completely unintentional) experiment in how religious divisions and opposed religious communities might be rec- onciled. Nothing less, in fact, than a very early example of the secularisation of such issues which emerged as a solution to confessional division from the early modern onwards and in which religious affiliation increasingly became relegated to a matter of purely private concern. x preface and acknowledgements Evidence of several cases which were before the courts emerged from my research, however Inghirami’s position as a judge naturally meant that the court records preserved in his archive were often not written by him but by the procurators, advocates and others who represented litigating parties. It occurred to me that advocates in particular presented a more promising research object than the judges before whom they pleaded a case. Among pos- sible candidates for advocates working at the council of Constance, Raffaele Fulgosio seemed the most promising individual to pursue. He was first and foremost a professor and jurist, chiefly at Padua university, yet had served as an advocate at the council. Printed editions of his commentaria and consilia also survived whilst it was also known that he had referred in his commentar- ies to having witnessed a discussion about the Donation of Constantine at the council.