The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt (review)

Bishop Stubbs once described the interdict as the medieval Church's most suicidal weapon (p. 171)—suicidal because it all but invited the laity to turn its back on the Church. An interdict was a penal sanction in the medieval canon law barring everyone subjected to it from participation in most of the Church's sacraments. It could be imposed on an individual, but more typically it fell upon a locality, even (as in the famous case of the English King John) upon an entire kingdom. Its design was to put pressure on a person responsible for an offense against the Church by depriving those who were connected with that person of access to the services of the Church. This book is a useful study of the subject, although it is a limited one. Its author sticks resolutely to evidence from the thirteenth century. The curious reader will probably want to know more about the origins of the interdict, its relation to the Roman law interdict, and its history in later centuries.

The book deals with the subject in two parts. The first is the interdict's place in the canon law of the thirteenth century. The initial task of the jurists was classification: fixing the different forms of the sanction, distinguishing it from excommunication, clarifying its consequences, and listing the exceptions that were being carved out to soften its effect. For example, crusaders, charitable workers, and noblemen were often given freedom to hear religious offices in interdicted locations (pp. 136–38). The subsequent task of bringing interdicts within principles of divine and natural law proved harder. Interdicts touched the innocent, thus violating the established rule that punishment should be reserved for the guilty, and they were often imposed by aggrieved parties, thus posing a conflict in acting as judge in their own cause that was contrary to principles of natural law. Could any reason but practical advance of the Church's material interests be given for allowing interdicts? Yes, as it turns out, reasons were found. Biblical example and exploration of the nature of collective guilt provided answers of a sort. Indeed, interdicts led the canonists into some fruitful discussions of the right relation between kings and their subjects.

The book's second part consists of an examination of the interdict in action. Those placed on San Gemignano, Dax, and Béziers are examined in detail. Others are noted more briefly. Countermeasures taken by secular rulers are explored, and reactions common within the laity are discussed. There is enough evidence to show that the laity resented the imposition of these interdicts. Why should they continue to pay tithes to a clergy that had gone out on strike? Why should a mortuary payment be due when burial in consecrated ground was forbidden? All the ingenuity of the canonists fell short of providing convincing answers to such questions, although they certainly tried. It must have been at least in part the result of such resentment that territorial interdicts were imposed less frequently as time went on. The thirteenth century seems to have been the high watermark.

The question remains: Did the interdict work? The book faces it squarely and gives a qualified but affirmative answer. Medieval men thought the interdict "worth being free from" (p. 218). They were willing to give up their own interests in favor of those of the Church to escape it. It thus turned out to be less than suicidal in practice. Longer term results are harder to assess, and Clarke wisely avoids speculating about them. The result is a balanced presentation of a controversial subject.