Canon Law, Careers and Conquest: Episcopal Elections in Normandy and Greater Anjou, c.1140-c.1230

Abstract

Previous studies of episcopal elections have tended to concentrate either on the influence exerted by secular rulers or on the canon law of election. But in this study of 61 elections to ten sees during a period which saw crucial developments in canon law—from Gratian to the Liber extra—as well as the collapse of Angevin rule over Normandy and Anjou, Dr Peltzer set out to consider all aspects of the subject, both law and practice, both locally and within the wider context of the world of kings and popes. To a remarkable extent he has succeeded in this ambitious task. The book is carefully organised. After a lucid introductory chapter setting out the problems and his approach to them, Chapter Two (pp. 20–72) on electoral theory is particularly notable for his use of manuscript evidence in order to assess the extent of the reception of the latest legal opinions in the churches of Normandy and Anjou. Chapters Three and Four (pp. 73–210) constitute the core of the book, a diocese-by-diocese narrative of all of the elections in Normandy (Rouen, Evreux, Lisieux, Sées, Bayeux, Coutances and Avranches) and in Greater Anjou (Tours, Angers and Le Mans). He shows that in addition to good old-fashioned political games—such as spreading the rumour that a rival candidate is a leper—the parties to disputed elections increasingly used expertise in both the substance and procedures of canon law. There follows a prosopographical chapter (pp. 211–37) on the 58 men elected to the episcopacy in Normandy and Anjou; apart from Sées, where there was a chapter of regular canons, all but three of the bishops were secular clerics. His last thematic chapter (before a brief set of conclusions) assesses the impact of the Capetian conquests of Normandy and Anjou in the light of the hypothesis that Philip Augustus lured the higher clergy away from loyalty to John with a promise, which he then kept, of free canonical election.

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