Via Ascetica: a Papal Quandary

Abstract

‘Rescue us O Lord Pope from barbaric power and subjugation to laymen’ was the cry of despair from the clerics of Grandmont which reached Pope Innocent III about the year 1215. It indicated the growth of the appeal to Rome which took place in the Cannon Law of the twelfth century. Many other examples of an increase in papal authority occurred at this time. The extension of papal jurisdiction is one of two important developments of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Christendom with which this paper will be concerned.