Debating Imperial Authority: Luke 2:1-2 in Late Medieval Juridical and Political Texts

The above examples do not, however, directly tackle political subjection, nor can they account for the symbolic conflict that arose around the liturgical read­ing of Luke's Gospel made by Charles ιv as he brandished the imperial sword on Christmas night. It is when we turn to the readings of Luke's words given by authors who support the limitation of imperial authority or conversely - and to an even greater extent - those who assert the superiority of imperial authority that these questions emerge with real clarity.

Consider the canonist Ricardus Anglicus (c. 1160-1242), who offers a good example of the claims to independence from all international authority made by local kingdoms. Earlier legal thinkers had - at least in principle - acknowledged the authority of the emperor, even at times when no universal temporal government was actually in place. During the thirteenth century, however, the growth of new national kingdoms changed the scenario: it posed a more effective challenge to the papacy than the medieval empire had ever done and created the space for new opinions about imperial authority to be argued.3⁶ Indeed, Richard voices the claims for exemptions of national king­doms from the imperial jurisdiction asserted over all Christian rulers and ech­oes the position that Innocent Ill had expressed in the decretal Per Venerabilem in his attempt to undermine imperial independence^⁷ Richard's interpretation of the pericope in his Gloss to the Compilatio I seems to be on the same tack: he starts by observing, through analogy, that �?just as all are subject to the pope as regards the spiritual sword, so they are subject to the emperor as regards the secular one', as �?it is written in the Gospel, “A decree went forth from Caesar Augustus that a census of the whole world should be taken”'.

Richard's position was buttressed by previous exegetical tradition on Luke, which had developed similar, factual arguments to mark the boundaries of the secular Roman empire - whose rule was far from universal - and argue the superiority of the spiritual and truly universal authority of Christ, and of his vicar on earth, the pope^[643] As might be expected, the Avignon papacy also echoed this tradition. The observations of John xxιι, who reigned in Avignon between 1316 and 1334, are in fact in the same vein and deserve a brief mention here since we will later be examining the arguments of his fierce opponent, William of Ockham. In a sermon entitled De dignitate pueri ∕esu,John xxιι quotes the passage to highlight that �?the power of the emperor extends only to those who are under his power'. Luke's words �?all the world' - concludes the pope, implicitly contrasting the universality of the Church and the non­universality of the empire - must be understood to mean that �?all the world who was subject to him'.^[644]

Another significant reading of Luke's words from the perspective of the lim­itation of imperial authority in the face of papal authority had been provided a few years earlier by Ptolemy of Lucca (c. 1236-1327), in his continuation of Thomas Aquinas' De regimine principum, published in the first years of the fourteenth century, and which was to go on to circulate widely under the lat­ter's name.^[645] A well-known chapter of the third book elaborates on Daniel's vision of the four world monarchies, going on to say that the fourth monarchy, i.e.

[Christ] sustained the lordship of Augustus so that the whole globe might be counted at the time of the birth of the Lord, as the Evangelist Luke testifies. A poll or tax was levied based on this count [...] in recognition of the servitude that was owed. There is a mystery in this, since he who was born was true Lord and Monarch of the world, and Augustus stood in his place, although he did not this through his understanding but through the motion of God.

Christ, the theologian avers, chose an abject life to teach earthly princes hu­mility and to show how different his lordship - �?ordained to the salvation of the spirit and to spiritual goods' - was from that of the monarchs who had preceded him^[647] The Roman emperor, in contrast, acted as Christ's unwitting vicar and not as a legitimate ruler in his own right. Ptolemy believed that the political import of Luke's words had to be reduced and nuanced: the analogy between the spiritual and earthly kingdoms, and between their rulers - an analogy which, as we have seen, was a topos in the interpretation of these lines from Ambrose onwards - is so thoroughly reinterpreted that Christ is iden­tified as the true and only dominus mundi, and strengthened by reference to the detail (echoing Eusebius) of the vicariate of the earthly emperor. The author's intention to stress the contrast between such an unwitting vicariate and that of the pope - the true vicar of Christ on earth - is thereby effectively communicated.

Although challenged both by supporters of national kingdoms and by the papacy, the dream of a universal empire was still far from dead at the begin­ning of the fourteenth century.

since someone who issues an edict legitimately must logically have the jurisdiction to do so, it necessarily follows that someone who acknowledges that an edict is legitimate is also acknowledging that the jurisdiction of the authority which promulgated it is legitimate.^[649]

In approving a just edict, in other words, Christ is also approving the jurisdic­tion of its issuer, namely, the emperor Augustus. The point, as Dante remarks a few lines later, is fundamental from the theological point of view, for if Christ had not been sentenced to death by a legitimate authority, he could not have redeemed Adam's sin or guaranteed salvation of fallen mankind^{[650] [651] At the same time, a clearly political issue is addressed: the use of this biblical passage also allows Dante to support his argument that the power of the keys Christ con­ferred on Peter was not directly political, since this is reserved to the emperor - in both ancient and contemporary times.}

Bartolus of Saxoferratus (1313/14-1357) - who was familiar with Dante's Mo- narchla4¹ - interpreted the passage in a similar fashion, claiming likewise that it is a requirement of Christian doctrine for Christians to recognise the em­peror's authority. In his commentary on the Digest, written in the first half of the fourteenth century, the eminent jurist delves into the �?law of enemies' [lex Hostes] (D. 49.15.24), minutely scrutinising fundamental questions of interpol­ity law - and, primarily, the distinction between �?Roman' and �?foreign people [populiextranei]’, to define a public war^[652] Referring to the European situation in his own day, Bartolus compares the various statuses of European polities - the Tuscan cities, Venice, France, the Roman Church - and their various degree of independence from the Roman empire, to infer that they belong to the same people (populus Romanus). In his view, they were only independent because the emperor has conceded this status to them. Even those who reigned inde­pendently de iure accepted that their independence was based on this conces­sion and therefore had to recognise the emperor as lord. Not to do so, he con­tinues, would be contrary to the Gospel and the example of Christ:

If someone argues that the emperor is not the lord and the monarch of all the world, they are heretics, as they speak against the decisions of the Church, against the holy Gospel which says: “a decree went out from emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered” [...] In this way, even Christ acknowledged the emperor as lord.^[653]

Populi extranei, then, are precisely those heretics, outside the Western church, who do not recognise the emperor as de iure lord of all the worlds. This in­cluded the Graeci, Judaei, Saraceni, and Tartari. Unwittingly or not, this dis­tinction was perfectly fabricated to maintain the conception of western Eu­rope as a single political community, conterminous with Christendom itself, and even allowed for the independent exercise of authority within it. For this reason, this passage of Bartolus, itself hinging on the pericope, was a signifi­cant element of his political thought, and was therefore destined to be echoed widely. Exactly the same remark was made by Bartolomeus of Novara (1320/30­1408) in his commentary on the Institutiones (ι. 1.12.5), which was published later in the fourteenth century (under the better-known name of Baldus de Ubaldis, Bartolus' most eminent pupil).^[654] Other authors were to follow.^[655] Baldus himself (1327-1400), too, deserves a role in our cast. On a number of oc­casions he defends the emperor's position as dominus mundi on scriptural grounds. Luke's narrative predictably makes an appearance in his commentary on the proem of the Code, where it is used as one of the proofs to demonstrate that the emperor - like the sun - is perpetual, not so much because it will en­dure forever, but because it is universal and rules over the whole earth.^{[656] [657] [658]}

The complexity of the issues at the heart of the political and doctrinal dia­lectics between secular and ecclesiastical authority can be seen more clearly through the lens of the exegesis of Luke when the last piece of our mosaic is added: William of Ockham. Embroiled in a notorious doctrinal and political dispute with John xxιι, as an open supporter of the imperial power's inde­pendence from ecclesiastical authority, the Franciscan philosopher inevitably made the legitimacy of the empire, and its ability to avoid subservience to the papacy, a key element in his thought. In his opinion, the heretical Avignon papacy had injured the empire by claiming that the latter's power derived from the former. Far from endorsing any theocratic descending theory of political authority, he held the power of the emperor to derive solely from God, mani­fest in the choice of the Roman people^³ In his attempts to establish the inde­pendence of the imperial power, Ockham invoked several passages from the Bible in which legitimatejurisdiction among non-Christians is recognised.5⁴ The Breviloquium de principatu tyrannico, one of his later works, particularly emphasises the contribution of the scriptures to the imperial cause. Book iv fully addresses the issue of the independence of imperial authority, within the framework of a general discussion of the institution of legitimate govern­ments. The first argument that the author introduces to show that �?the empire was not from the pope' and, therefore, the pope did not possess full temporal authority, refers to our pericope: �?Octavian was true Augustus before Christ was born of his mother, as is clear from Luke, Chapter 2^,.^[659] It is remarkable that Ockham was familiar with John xxii's sermons, although he seems never to have referred directly to the abovementioned sermon De dignitate pueri Iesu, against which this interpretation could appear as implicitly polemical.^{[660] [661] The direct continuity between the empire of Ockham's days and the pre-Christian Roman empire is thoroughly investigated and defended in the Breviloquium. Any doubts about the illegitimacy or tyrannical nature of Roman power over others must be dispelled, because such power has been legitimated by Christ, who has claimed no superiority over the Roman empire even when the emper­ors were not believers. It is clear, observes Book iii, that evangelical and apos­tolical texts mentioning Caesar - Luke 2 is quoted among others - �?do not call Caesar one who was so called by mere title and through usurpation of the name, but one who was really and truly Caesar, with true jurisdiction and tem­poral power and true temporal lordship'.57}

The Breviloquium is not Ockham's only work of relevance to us. In the Octo quaestiones de potestate papae, probably composed around 1340, the Oxford philosopher insists that the emperors of his day owe their possession of �?stability and vigour' more to their succession from the first emperors, and those of Christ's time in particular, than to their succession from Charlemagne. The Roman emperors - although pagans - were �?true emperors and kings of the Romans' and had �?true empire or kingship': this is even more certain than Charlemagne’s status as a true emperor and king, since it has a �?greater testimony', i.e. the Holy Scripture. Tiberius’ legitimacy is testified by Jesus’ an­swer �?Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s’, Augustus’ legitimacy is confirmed by Christ’s participation in the universal census at the time of his birth.^{[662] [663] This paragraph was later included in the Somnium Viridarii, a key text in the debate on the rights and limits of temporal and spiritual authority, commissioned by Charles v in 1376 and written by an author identified as Evrard de Tremau- gon.59 All the traditional arguments advanced by the partisans of theocracy, on the one hand, and the defenders of the independence of temporal power, on the other, find their way into the chapters of this political vision, which ever so subtly advocates the politics and prerogatives of the king. At this moment in history, there could be no doubting the relevance of Luke’s pericope.}

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