Forty Centuries of Christian Writing

The Tome

Leo the Great · c. 400–461

A letter to the bishop of Constantinople setting out in plain Latin that Christ is one person in whom two natures each act according to their own character.

The Book of the Pontiffs

Liber Pontificalis

Anonymous

Serial biographies of the bishops of Rome from Peter onward, recording each one's origin, building projects, ordinations, and burial place.

The Constitutum

Vigilius · d. 555

A pope, held in Constantinople and pressed by Justinian to condemn three long-dead theologians, issues a ruling that condemns sixty propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia while refusing to condemn the men, since they died in the church's peace. The council ignored it and anathematised him instead.

The Register of Letters

Gregory the Great · c. 540–604

Over eight hundred surviving letters administering the estates of the Roman church, negotiating with Lombards, and instructing the mission he sent to England.

Letter to Sergius

Honorius I · d. 638

Rome's reply to Sergius, agreeing that the question should be dropped and adding the sentence that would cost him: we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ. He appears to have meant that Christ had no divided will, not that he had only one.

The Acts of the Lateran Council of 649

Martin I and the Lateran Synod · Martin I, d. 655

A hundred and five bishops at Rome condemn the Ecthesis, the Typos, and the patriarchs who framed them, and define two natural wills and two natural operations in Christ. The Greek text is the original; Maximus and his circle almost certainly wrote it.

The False Decretals

Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae

Pseudo-Isidore

A vast collection of genuine canons interleaved with forged papal letters of the earliest centuries, designed to protect bishops from metropolitans and lay rulers.

The Bull of Excommunication

Humbert of Silva Candida · c. 1000–1061

The document a papal legate laid on the altar of Hagia Sophia, excommunicating the patriarch and his followers in intemperate terms — its author's authority already lapsed, the pope having died.

The Papal Election Decree

Pope Nicholas II · d. 1061

A ruling that the cardinal bishops shall choose the pope, with the rest of the clergy and people assenting afterwards and the emperor's role reduced to a courtesy.

The Dictatus Papae

Pope Gregory VII · c. 1015–1085

Twenty-seven bald propositions entered in the papal register: the Roman church has never erred, the pope alone may depose emperors, and he may be judged by no one.

The Register

Pope Gregory VII · c. 1015–1085

The letters of the most combative pope of the Middle Ages, including the two depositions of Henry IV and a long defence of the right to depose kings.

On Consideration

De Consideratione

Bernard of Clairvaux · 1090–1153

Advice to a former monk now pope: the litigation will swallow you, you are not the successor of Constantine, and you must keep time for yourself or lose your soul.

Summa on the Decretum

Huguccio of Pisa · d. 1210

The most detailed commentary on Gratian, ranging over marriage, papal power, and whether a pope who falls into heresy may be judged by the church.

On the Sacred Mystery of the Altar

De Sacro Altaris Mysterio

Innocent III · 1160/61–1216

A detailed commentary on the mass, its vestments and gestures, written before its author's election and used as an authority long after.

The Later Rule

Regula Bullata

Francis of Assisi · 1181/82–1226

The rule approved by the pope, shorter and more governable, binding the friars to live without property of any kind, individually or in common.

The Decretals of Gregory IX

Liber Extra

Raymond of Peñafort · c. 1175–1275

Papal decisions since Gratian, edited into five books and promulgated as the exclusive law of the church, with all earlier collections declared superseded.

The Letters

Robert Grosseteste · c. 1168–1253

Correspondence of a reforming bishop, including a refusal to install the pope's nephew in an English benefice on the grounds that the order was contrary to the gospel.

The Profession of Faith of Michael VIII

The Second Council of Lyon

A statement accepting the filioque and papal primacy, submitted by a Byzantine emperor's envoys to secure Western military protection.

On Ecclesiastical Power

Giles of Rome · c. 1243–1316

An argument that all temporal authority and even all lawful property derive from the pope, so that a ruler outside the church holds nothing rightfully.

On Royal and Papal Power

John of Paris · c. 1255–1306

A middle position: kings hold power from the people and not from the pope, church property belongs to the community rather than the pope personally, and a pope may be deposed.

Unam Sanctam

Pope Boniface VIII · c. 1230–1303

A bull declaring that there is one church outside which there is no salvation, that both swords are the church's, and that submission to the Roman pontiff is necessary for salvation.

Monarchy

Monarchia

Dante Alighieri · 1265–1321

Three books arguing that a universal empire is necessary for peace, that Rome held its authority by right, and that the emperor receives it from God directly and not through the pope.

Cum Inter Nonnullos

Pope John XXII · c. 1244–1334

A bull declaring it heretical to assert that Christ and the apostles owned nothing whatever, overturning what the Franciscans had been taught to believe for a century.

The Defender of the Peace

Defensor Pacis

Marsilius of Padua · c. 1275–c. 1342

Authority belongs to the whole body of citizens; the clergy have no coercive power at all; and a general council, not the pope, is the church's highest authority.

The Work of Ninety Days

Opus Nonaginta Dierum

William of Ockham · c. 1287–1347

A line-by-line refutation of the papal bulls on Franciscan poverty, written in three months, arguing that a pope who teaches heresy forfeits his office.

The Letters

Catherine of Siena · 1347–1380

Nearly four hundred letters to popes, queens, mercenaries, and prisoners — including one telling the pope to be a man and come back to Rome.

The Declarations of the Great Schism

The cardinals of Rome and Avignon

The competing manifestos of 1378: one body of cardinals declaring Urban VI validly elected, the same body months later declaring the election void under duress and choosing another.

On the Long Schism

Dietrich of Niem · c. 1345–1418

A curial official's insider history of the schism, naming names and describing the financial machinery of the rival papal courts without much charity.

The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges

The clergy and crown of France

A royal ordinance adopting the Basel reforms in France: elections to bishoprics restored, appeals to Rome limited, papal taxation curtailed.

Laetentur Caeli

The Council of Florence

The decree of union between the Greek and Latin churches, settling the filioque, purgatory, papal primacy, and the eucharistic bread — signed by all the Greek delegates but one.

On the Donation of Constantine

De Falso Credita et Ementita Constantini Donatione

Lorenzo Valla · c. 1407–1457

A demonstration that the document by which Constantine supposedly gave the West to the papacy is a forgery — proved from its Latin, its anachronisms, and its silences.

Summa on the Church

Juan de Torquemada · 1388–1468

A systematic defence of papal authority against conciliarism, arguing that a council's authority derives from the pope and not the reverse.

The General Reform

Reformatio Generalis

Nicholas of Cusa · 1401–1464

A programme handed to the pope proposing that reform begin at Rome and work outward, with visitors sent to every province and no exemptions for anyone.

Sublimis Deus

Pope Paul III · 1468–1549

A bull declaring that the peoples of the Americas are rational beings capable of the faith, must not be enslaved, and are to keep their liberty and property.

The Chinese Rites Decrees

The Holy Office and Pope Clement XI

Rulings forbidding Chinese Christians to take part in rites honouring Confucius and ancestors, and banning the terms the Jesuits had used to translate God.