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The Legate Grants Indulgences: Cusanus in Germany in 1450–​1453

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The Legate Grants Indulgences: Cusanus in Germany in 1450–​1453 Chapter 6 The Legate Grants Indulgences: Cusanus in Germany in 1450– 1453 Thomas M. Izbicki On Christmas Eve of 1450, Pope Nicholas V assigned to Nicholas of Cusa, car­ dinal priest of San Pietro in Vincoli, two missions as legate to Germany, Bo­ hemia, and neighboring lands: reform, and sharing the Jubilee indulgence of that year. The two major bulls conferring legatine powers highlight Cusanus’ power to make reforms.1 However, the references to indulgences deserve atten­ tion. The pope wanted the legate to extend the Jubilee indulgence to those who had been unable to visit Rome to secure that benefit.2 Pope Nicholas said that this involved dispensing from the spiritual treasury administered by him for the Church.3 Only toward the end of one bull did the pope say that his legate only had the power to grant “plenary indulgences to those capable of receiving them for the duration of his legation (legacionis tempore plenaries indulgen- tias capacibus).”4 The legate thus was to act on the pope’s behalf in conferring plenary indulgences, which otherwise belonged only to the Roman pontiff un­ der canon law. Papal conferral of indulgences had begun with the crusade in a 1 AC 1, pt. 2, eds. Erich Meuthen and Hermann Hallauer (Hamburg: 1983), pp. 657–60, no. 952, Multis divinis, December 24, 1450; pp. 660– 62, no. 953, Divina dispositione, December 29, 1450. Pope Nicholas added the mission of making peace between the archbishop of Cologne and the duke of Cleves; see ibid., p. 662, no. 950. Then, the popes added an emphasis on the mis­ sion to Bohemia; see ibid., pp. 662–63, no. 955. Donald Sullivan, “Nicholas of Cusa as Reform­ er: The Papal Legation to the Germanies, 1451– 1452,” Medieval Studies 35 (1974), 382– 428. 2 AC 1, pt. 2, p. 658, “ut sic fideles et devote, qui ex quacunque causa ad hanc apostolicam sedem pro iubileo assequendo non potuerunt, quibus et ‘nos in Christi visceribus’ com­ patimur, absolutionis beneficio omnino non priventur, quin sanctis monitis acquiescentes se tante benedictionis gratia capaces reddiderunt.” 3 Ibid., p. 658, “quod nos thesaurum nobis ad ‘dispensandam creditum’ indigentibus et toto corde poscentibus parce, sed largiter dispergamus … .” 4 Ibid., p. 659. Cusanus’ previous experience of indulgences included petitioning Tommaso Parentucelli and Juan Carvajal, who were papal legates in Germany in 1446, to grant an in­ dulgence to the pastor in St Wendel in the diocese of Metz; see ibid., p. 536, no. 721. Cusanus was not the first legate to grant spiritual favors; see Ludwig Schmugge, “Die Beichtbriefe der Pönitentiarie,” in Ablasskampagnen des Spätmittelalers: Luthers Thesen von 1517 in Kontext, ed. Andreas Rehberg (Berlin: 2017), pp. 169– 90 at 180– 81. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/ 9789004382411_007 82 Izbicki promise of remission of sins made by Pope Urban ii to potential crusaders at the Council of Claremont (1095).5 The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) claimed for the papacy the sole power to issue plenary indulgences, full remission of the punishment due for sin. This was seen as an aspect of papal plenitude of power (plenitudo potestatis).6 Bishops, according to the canonists, could make only more limited grants. For the consecration of a church, they could concede a year. Only 40 days, however, could be granted for the anniversary of the con­ secration. This conciliar canon appeared first in the collected Lateran canons, next in Compilatio quarta, and finally in the Decretals of Gregory ix (1234) as the decree Cum ex eo, which was divided between two different sections of the collection (X 3.45.2 and 5.38.14).7 Canonists, following Pope Alexander iii’s c. Quod autem (X 5.38.4), treated canon law as extending episcopal indulgences to support of bridge building.8 Indulgences were extended more widely with the origination of the Jubi­ lee. The first Jubilee or Holy Year indulgence had been proclaimed by Pope Boniface viii in 1300, granting plenary relief from the punishment for sins to those visiting Rome’s major churches during the designated year. This was to occur only once in a century.9 However, Clement vi, one of the Avignon popes, reduced the waiting time to 50 years, proclaiming a Jubilee for 1350 in the bull Unigenitus.10 The holy years decreed by Urban vi for 1390 and by Martin V for 1423 were overshadowed by the Great Western Schism (1378–1417) and its 5 Robert W. Shaffern, The Penitents’ Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christendom, 1175–1375 (Scranton, Pa.: 2007), pp. 45–56, 79– 80, 85; James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (Madison, Wis.: 1969), pp. 145– 55. Lateran IV affirmed the crusade indul­ gence in the decree Ad liberandam; see Ane L. Bysted, The Crusade Indulgence: Spiritual Rewards and the Theology of the Crusades, c. 1095– 1216 (Leiden: 2015), pp. 132– 35. 6 Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, ed. Anto­ nio García y García (Vatican City: 1981), pp. 101– 03; Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: 1990), 1:264, “hunc quoque dierum nume­ rum, indulgentiarum literas praecipimus moderari, quae pro quibuslibet causis aliquoties conceduntur, cum Romanus pontifex, qui plenitudinem obtinet potestatis, hoc in talibus moderamen consueverit observare.” 7 Quinque compilationes antiquae nec non Collectio canonum Lipsiensis, ed. Emil Friedberg (Leipzig: 1882; repr. Graz: 1955), p. 149; Corpus Iuris Canonici, ed. Emil Friedberg, 2 vols. (Leipzig: 1879; repr. Graz: 1995), 2, 650, 888– 89. 8 Corpus Iuris Canonici, 2, 885. On the canon law of indulgences, see Thomas M. Izbicki, “In­ dulgences in Fifteenth-​Century Polemics and Canon Law,” in Rehberg, Ablasskampagnen des Spätmittelalers, pp. 79– 104 at 83– 88. 9 Boniface viii, Antiquorum habet fida relatio: la bolla del 1o Anno santo, Roma, 22 febbraio 1300 (Modena: 2000). T.S.R. Boase, Boniface the Eighth 1294– 1303 (London: 1933), pp. 229– 66. 10 Diana Wood, Clement VI: The Pontificate and Ideas of an Avignon Pope (Cambridge: 1989), pp. 32– 34..
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