Stilus—modus—usus. Regeln der Konflikt- und Verhandlungsführung am Papsthof des Mittelalters / Rules of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Papal Court in the Middle Ages ed. by Jessica Nowak, and Georg Strack (review)

This volume is the first of two from a collaboration sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to investigate norms of interaction with the medieval papal curia, informed by the work of Gerd Althoff and Franz Felten on the 'rules of the game' (Spielregeln). The sixteen papers examine primary sources that traverse the meanings of stilus and its cognates modus and usus, from hard legal rules and formulas to unwritten etiquette. The thematic companion volume will cover emotions, gifts, rituals, ceremonies, networks, global history, and gender.

The first five studies analyse ecclesiastical lawsuits heard before the pope in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries: Klaus Hebers on the post-Reconquista primatial claims of Toledo; Daniel Berger on the status of Compostela; Markus Krumm on conflict between Montecassino and Benevento; Claudia Zey on St Peter's in Oudenburg's independence from St Médard's in Soissons; and Harald Muller on the litigation before Innocent III over Evesham Abbey's exemption. The papers illuminate from litigants' records the development of formal legal process and court rules (mos), the variable role of payments and gifts, delaying tactics, and unwritten rules such as brevity in address and good form in social interaction (for example not discussing cases at the pope's table). Legal forms grew more prescriptive, but performative and rhetorical gestures remained important.

Maria Pia Alberzoni puts into historical context, in church disputes from Milan, Innocent III's decretals, which established tests for authenticity of papacy documents. Litigation then gives way to diplomatic. Thomas Smith documents thirteenth-century English bishops' use of the stilus curiae in writing to Rome, occasional exceptions when bishops would presume on their status to address the pope at length, and cultivation of curial networks of influence. Barbara Bombi shows that the fourteenth-century English royal chancery, contrary to earlier scholarly consensus, used the stilus curiae in communication with the papacy. The archives of the Crown of Aragon provide rich insight into the Avignon curia, but Sebastian Roebert cautions that Heinrich Finke's edition in Acta Aragionensia is fragmented and misleading. Privileges, dispensations, benefices, and politics are the principal subjects of these interactions. Andreas Kistner uses fourteenth-century cardinals' wills to explore neglected dimensions of law and custom.

Kerstin Hitzbleck and Claudia Märtl study literary depictions of the curia, Hitzbleck the De squaloribus curiae Romanae of theologian and bishop Matthew of Cracow (d.1410), which denounced worldliness and simony, especially in papal provisions, and Märtl the writings of fifteenth-century humanist historians in the curia. These document curial methods, including Pius II's simplifying of petitioning to reduce fraud. But Pius's attempts to introduce humanistic style into papal documents foundered because it lacked the protections against forgery provided by the established stilus curiae.

Resident ambassadors became fixtures in the fifteenth century. Isabella Lazzarini uses a curialist's diary to illustrate protocol and conflicts over precedence. Gabriele Annas identifies the reports of the resident proctors of the Teutonic Order as sources on conflict management. Duane Henderson analyses the extensive reporting on curial life from Milanese ambassadors, but notes their tendency to play up their own influence. Finally, Claudia Märtl surveys the emergence from 1470 of printed guides to stilus and usus for petitioners and for proctors at the Rota.

The editors do not attempt a synthesis, content to 'cut the first swathes through the thicket of sources' (p. 18). They propose that scholars distinguish between stilus, hard rules of drafting and procedure, and modus, the less formal 'rules of the game'. The fluidity of medieval language may, however, defy neat characterization. The studies are episodic, although there is some cross...