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OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 15/10/2021, SPi
Papal Overlordship and European Princes,

1000–1270
OXFORD STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL

EUROPEAN HISTORY
General Editors
   
       
Papal Overlordship and

European Princes,
1000–1270
BENEDICT WIEDEMANN
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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Acknowledgements
Both St Paul and Pope Innocent III claimed to be debitores omnibus, sapientibus et
insipientibus – ‘debtors to all, both to the wise and to the unwise’. Authors of first
books must say much the same. The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council,
University College London, the Institute of Historical Research, London and
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge were all unwise enough to fund either post-
graduate, doctoral or post-doctoral research. This book would not be possible
without them. I am deeply grateful to all.
The British Library, Institute of Historical Research Library and Cambridge
University Library provided essential space and resources for research, and the
BL’s access to the Registra Vaticana database made a London-based study of
the medieval papacy practical. Audiences at the Ecclesiastical History Society, the
International Medieval Congress in Leeds and the Institute of Historical Research
(twice) provided useful feedback on several parts of this book and the overall
interpretation.
David d’Avray supervised the thesis from which this book originated, read
through the entire typescript, probably suggested the original topic (history does
not recall) and taught, supervised and mentored me from undergraduate to
doctoral student and beyond. He has ever been a supportive teacher who encour-
aged me to my potential. No expression of thanks quite does justice to what is
owed him.
John Sabapathy was the perfect second supervisor – offering up his store of
knowledge whenever asked. To John Watts, thanks are owed both as external
examiner and series editor – two hurdles cleared with his aid. Alice Taylor was
insightful internal examiner and uncomplaining source of unpublished material
on all matters homage-related. At UCL, Antonio Sennis and Sophie Page intro-
duced me to medieval history as an undergraduate; I never looked back. Further
afield, Graham Loud and Barbara Bombi have offered advice, aid and copies of
their publications. Brett Whalen and Björn Weiler read the entire typescript for
Oxford University Press and made many improvements.
In Cambridge, Patrick Zutshi and John Arnold read through chapter five and
provided feedback, as well as support, references and a well-timed drink. Joe
Canning and Rosemary Horrox provided not just historical insight but – more
importantly – tales from the Cambridge History Faculty and Fitzwilliam
College, respectively. The conversation and company (virtual and otherwise) of
Jean-Michel Johnston and Matt Neal were essential in preserving my sanity
during the first UK -19 lockdown, when most of this book was written.
vi 
Again, I offer my apologies for arriving late whenever I had “just found a
fascinating canon law manuscript” online.
The Cambridge medieval crowd – especially Emily Ward, Sam Ottewill-Soulsby,
Lesley Abrams, Mike Humphreys and Felicity Hill (now sadly dispersed) – managed
to combine education, entertainment and (a degree of) wit whenever two or three
gathered together. In London, Agata Zielinska, Alex Lee and the UCL medieval
crowd offered a welcome return to the old stomping ground, not to mention
company at conferences, seminars and pubs. Thanks are owed to James Manton
and Georgina Wilson for their advice on the cover image, and their pretence of
interest. At OUP, Cathryn Steele and Stephanie Ireland shepherded me through the
various stages needed to realize this book.
The greatest thanks go to my family who have supported me through the last
ten years of historical research, in both failure and success.
Finally, Fitzwilliam College provided a wonderful setting to write this book,
despite the limitations on research during 2020. The fellowship, students and staff
made the college a home. To the spouse of one of the college fellows, however, who
said to me on our first meeting: “Oh, I know who you are; you’re Benedict. You’re
quite interesting, but your research is very boring”, I hope this book convinces you
that you were mistaken, one way or another.
Benedict Wiedemann
Cambridge, on the feast of St Majolus of Cluny, being the second year of the
-19 Plague
Contents
Introduction 1
1. Investiture: Papal Investiture of Secular Rulers Prior to and
during the Investiture Contest 21
2. Homage: Popes and Homage in the Twelfth Century 59
3. Protection: Papal Protection of Kings in the Twelfth Century 79
4. Vassalage: The Birth of Feudal Overlordship in Sicily, England,
Man, and Aragon 95
5. State-Making: The Prince-Bishops of Maguelone and Papal
Overlordship in Southern France 119
6. Wardship: Theory and Practice of Papal Protection for
Underage Rulers in the Thirteenth Century 153
7. Confiscation: Deposing Vassal-Kings in the Thirteenth Century 199
Epilogue 219
Bibliography 225
Index 255
Introduction
‘Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over the kingdoms.’
(Jeremiah 1.10)
Between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries, those words were frequently
quoted in papal correspondence. The pope—the successor of St Peter—had been
placed, by God, above peoples and above kings. That the pope saw himself, and
was seen by many, as supreme lord of all Christians is a commonplace in accounts
of the period. In most tellings, this was a source of conflict. Kings and emperors—
effective rulers of their own territories—could never bear the idea that they might
be subject to a distant priest. Hence Emperor Henry IV’s dispute with Pope
Gregory VII; hence King John of England’s battle with Pope Innocent III; hence
Emperor Frederick II’s wars against Gregory IX and Innocent IV. This is the tale
of the so-called ‘papal monarchy’ and its opponents.
But that story can be turned on its head. This book examines specific relation-
ships between popes and kings, points when a king placed himself under the
lordship of the pope, or sought the ‘protection of St Peter’—a formal relationship
whereby a realm received defence from the prince of the Apostles and his
successor. These relationships were not forced on kings, but sought by them.
Secular rulers were not resisting the pretensions and claims of Rome; rather they
desired to receive the pope as guardian or lord.
The reason why is simple: having a special relationship with the pope meant
that kings were able to use papal authority—the pope’s position ‘over the nations,
and over the kingdoms’—for their own purposes. Secular rulers could send
petitions to the pope asking him to grant their requests. Thus, perhaps counter-
intuitively, papal overlordship could actually contribute to the strengthening of
royal power in a kingdom, rather than undermining royal independence.
* * * * *
Relationships between Medieval popes and kings have received plenty of attention
from scholars. Historians well disposed towards the papal monarchy have focused
on the structural relationship between popes and kings—that is, what the pope’s
position was vis-à-vis Christian kingship in general. The importance of specific
relationships between certain kings and the Holy See has also been recognized,
however. Sometimes these specific relationships—the king of England receiving
his realm as a fief in 1213, for example—have been seen as concrete illustrations of
Papal Overlordship and European Princes, 1000–1270. Benedict Wiedemann, Oxford University Press.
© Benedict Wiedemann 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192855039.003.0001
2     , –
the pope’s attempts to enforce a universal world monarchy. The implication is that
the popes would have liked all kings to receive their realms as fiefs.¹
Rather than see these specific relationships as attempts to enact a general
policy—the papacy trying to reduce all rulers to subservience—they have to be
examined on their own terms and comparatively. Over the eleventh, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries, different types of relationship developed. Initially, as we shall
see in chapter one, alliances between popes and kings were ad hoc and did not
conform to set types. Indeed, it is not at all clear what either popes or kings
thought their alliances meant in the eleventh century. Over the course of the
twelfth century, the kingdom of Aragon moved into being ‘under the protection of
St Peter’—a relationship with Rome analogous to that of certain monasteries and
ecclesiastical institutions. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the language
of fiefs and vassals—feudum; vassallus—appears in papal letters. Secular rulers
might be ‘vassals’ of the pope; kingdoms might be papal ‘fiefs’. Over the course of
the thirteenth century, it was established that these new relationships were
fundamentally different from the existing protective relationships: although both
vassal-kings and protected-kings might pay tribute (census) to the pope, a vassal-
king could be deprived of his kingdom for failing to pay. Emphasizing the
variation and development in these relationships moves us away from seeing
them merely as specific instances of a general policy aimed at the subjection of
kingship to the priesthood.
Distinguishing between different sorts of papal–royal relationship is important
for another reason too. The (mainly German and Austrian) historians writing in
the first half of the twentieth century tended to see any special relationship
between a king and the pope as ‘feudal’. Thus the pope become feudal overlord
of (deep breath) Sicily, Aragon, Portugal, England, Hungary, Poland, Croatia,
Denmark, the Rus’, Melgueil (southern France), the Isle of Man, the county of
Besalú, the county of Cerdanya, Brittany, Provence, Barcelona, the entire Iberian
peninsula, Corsica, and Sardinia. Calling all these relationships ‘feudal’ meant that
‘the king [ . . . ] had to surrender his land into full papal ownership [ . . . ] and
receive [ . . . ] it back as a fief, so that he became legally an usufructuary. In
recognition of his usufruct and of the Petrine protection the king [ . . . ] undertook
to render certain services’.²
¹ Walter Ullmann, Medieval Papalism: The Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists (Methuen:
London, 1949), p. 121; Brian Tierney, ‘The Continuity of Papal Political Theory in the Thirteenth
Century: Some Methodological Considerations’, Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965), pp. 227–245, at 239–242;
see also Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological
Relation of Clerical to Lay Power, 3rd edn. (Methuen: London, 1970 [1955]), pp. 331–343; Julien Théry,
‘Le triomphe de la théocratie pontificale, du IIIe concile du Latran au ponticat de Boniface VIII
(1179–1303)’, Structures et dynamiques religieuses dans les sociétés de l’Occident latin (1179–1449),
ed. M. M. de Cevins, J.-M. Matz (Rennes University Press: Rennes, 2010), pp. 17–31, at 24.
² Ullmann, Growth of Papal Government, p. 333; Karl Jordan, ‘Das Eindringen des Lehnswesens
in das Rechtsleben der römischen Kurie’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 12 (1932), pp. 13–110;
 3
The assumptions that all relationships between kings and the pope were
‘feudal’, and that the summary above holds true for all ‘feudal’ relationships,
were challenged in the later twentieth century. Johannes Fried and Alfons
Becker distinguished between different types of relationship.³ Fried advanced
the idea that Aragon, Portugal, and some other counties were under papal
protection rather than feudal lordship; Becker suggested that some kings were
bound to the pope by a (non-vassalic) fidelity. Both, however, took it as read that
some kings—the Norman rulers of Sicily and the thirteenth-century kings of
England—were feudal vassals of the pope in the classic sense suggested above.
Stefan Weinfurter, more recently, has dated the acceptance of ‘feudal bonds’ into
the papacy’s relationship with the Siculo-Normans to around the 1120s, but
emphasized that ‘feudalism’ was one tool amongst many in papal power relations.⁴
The trend in anglophone historiography was different. Elizabeth Brown and Susan
Reynolds asked whether all the relationships which historians have labelled ‘feudal’
were really similar enough for the tag to mean anything.⁵ Relatedly, both asked
whether features which historians have assumed to be characteristic of feudal
relations really came from timeless alliances between tribal chiefs and their followers,
or rather were constructions of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century legal profession,
seeking to codify the relationships between kings and their greatest subjects.
Taking both of these approaches into account, I focus on both terminology and
duties. ‘Feudal’—as I use it here—is nominal: a feudal relationship between the
pope and a king is one where the kingdom is called a feudum. This does not
assume anything further about the relationship. I do not assume what a feudal—or
protective—relationship is, and then apply it; I ask in what a relationship labelled
by the word feudum (or its derivatives) consisted.
* * * * *
The most important prong of this study points towards power and government.
Implicit or explicit in the idea of the papal monarchy is that the pope was an active
ruler who sought to increase his power at the expense of both secular rulers and
provincial bishops. For Walter Ullmann:
Carl Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens, reprint (Kohlhammer: Stuttgart, 1955),
pp. 347–362; idem, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. Marshal Baldwin, Walter Goffart
(Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1977), pp. 128–129, 216–224.
³ Johannes Fried, Der päpstlicher Schutz für Laienfürsten: Die politische Geschichte des päpstlichen
Schutzprivilegs für Laien (11.–13. Jahrhundert) (Winter: Heidelberg, 1980); Alfons Becker, ‘Politique
féodale de la papauté à l’égard des rois et des princes (XIe–XIIe siècles)’, Chiesa e mondo feudale nei
secoli X–XII. Atti della dodicesima Settimana internazionale di studio (Vita e pensiero: Milan, 1995),
pp. 411–446.
⁴ Stefan Weinfurter, ‘Die Päpste als “Lehnsherren” von Königen und Kaisern im 11. und 12.
Jahrhundert?’, Ausbildung und Verbreitung des Lehnswesens im Reich und in Italien im 12. und 13.
Jahrhundert, ed. Karl-Heinz Spieß (Jan Thorbecke: Ostfildern, 2013), pp. 17–40.
⁵ Elizabeth Brown, ‘The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe’,
American Historical Review 79 (1974), pp. 1063–1088; Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval
Evidence Reinterpreted (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1994).
4     , –
the crusades were [ . . . ] a stepping stone in the direction of the eventual

establishment of a fully fledged world government. But we should not [ . . . ]
assume that the crusades served as a model for the setting up of a papal world
monarchy: the employment of brute force was a feature that did not gain much
favour with the canonists. They preferred subtler methods, some of which would
nowadays be termed the method of infiltration.
This ‘method of infiltration’ appeared ‘under the guise of protecting individuals

subject to curial jurisdiction’, beginning in Innocent IV’s reign (1243–54).⁶ Thus,
for Ullmann, and for others too (albeit more subtly), these relationships of
protection or lordship were tools for the papacy to reach towards global domin-
ion. Rudolf Schieffer, more recently, summarizing his papstgeschichtliche Wende
(largely synonymous with ‘papal monarchy’), dated the beginning of an ‘active
feudal policy of the popes, aimed at winning as many [ . . . ] secular lords as
possible for him [the pope] as vassals’ to Innocent III’s pontificate (1198–1216).⁷
Ullmann’s complex and remarkably consistent picture of a self-aggrandizing
papal monarchy was painted mainly in colours drawn from the writings of
canonists; the commentators on canon law. Ullmann, in fact, dismissed the
value of papal letters as ‘too fact-tied and too concrete in their immediate
application’ and (judged by their contents) motivated by ‘aggrandisement, lust
for power, cupidity’.⁸ Ullmann’s student, Brian Tierney, did not always agree with
the master’s picture of the papacy, but his canvases were populated by canonistic
writings too.⁹
Fortunately, over the last few decades, attention has shifted to papal letters and
documents. Ullmann’s complaint that papal letters and mandates give an impres-
sion of an aggressive and power-hungry papacy has been neatly reversed by the
realization that papal letters were the products of a process in which the petitioner
was king. Thus, papal letters and documents are the main sources for this study,
but they have to be handled carefully. It is still the case that non-specialists tend to
take papal letters as disinterested summaries of papal will. They are not.
In the 1970s, Ernst Pitz laid out his what he saw as the fundamental principles
of Reskripttechnik—rescript government, the Medieval practice of ruling.¹⁰ Most
⁶ Ullmann, Medieval Papalism, p. 121.

⁷ Rudolf Schieffer, ‘Die Reichweite päpstlicher Entscheidungen nach der papstgeschichtlichen
Wende’, Das begrenzte Papsttum. Spielräume päpstlichen Handelns: Legaten, delegierte Richter,
Grenzen, ed. Klaus Herbers, Frank Engel, Fernando López Alsina (De Gruyter: Berlin, 2013),
pp. 13–27, at 22–23 (‘Doch von einer aktiven Lehnspolitik der Päpste mit dem Ziel [ . . . ] möglichst
viele [ . . . ] weltliche Gebieter für sich als Vasallen zu gewinnen, kann vor der Zeit Innocenz’ III offenbar
keine Rede sein’).
⁸ Ullmann, Medieval Papalism, pp. 80–81.
⁹ Brian Tierney, Religion, Law and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, 1150–1650 (Cambridge
University Press: Cambridge, 1982), pp. 8–28.
¹⁰ Ernst Pitz, ‘Die römische Kurie als Thema der vergleichenden Sozialgeschichte’, Quellen und
Forschungen aus italienischen Bibliotheken und Archiven 58 (1978), pp. 216–345, esp. 235–237.
 5
papal documents—mandates ordering someone to do something, privileges grant-

ing favours—were issued in response to petitions presented to papal officials.
Large parts of the letters were simply rewritings of the petitions. In general, the
papacy tended simply to approve petitions, although sometimes the request was
only approved in part. Once a papal document left the curia, there was no
certainty that it would be enforced. Local ‘executors’ could be appointed, but
they were not on salary and could hardly be compelled to carry out the task
assigned. If a papal letter was ignored, all the beneficiary could do was to go back
to the pope and ask him to send a command ordering the initial letter to be
enforced. The beneficiary might actually decide not to try to enforce the letter.
Sometimes the papal chancery would issue multiple different letters to a peti-
tioner, so that the petitioner could choose which one to use.¹¹
While Pitz received a fair amount of pushback on parts of his approach, most of
his ideas have now gained at least some foothold.¹² Work on papal letters, the
papal chancery, and even the Crusades have confirmed the dominant role of
petitions and petitioners as the engine of papal government.¹³ Therefore, while
letters issued in the pope’s name are the main body of sources which I focus on,
I interpret them overwhelmingly as indicative of the wishes and requests of
petitioners and supplicants, rather than the pope’s will. In many cases, the specific
wording and phrasing of the pope’s letter was taken directly from the petition or
supplicatory letter.
Analysing letters from this perspective radically changes the traditional view of
papal overlordship of kings. Instead of being a story of papal self-aggrandizement,
the petitions and requests received by the curia limited and defined the scope of
papal action. During the Aragonese succession dispute in 1134–62, the papal court
reacted to supplications from the Knights Templar and the ruler of Aragon; the
pope did not seek to enforce his own claims to authority. During the royal
minorities in Aragon, England, and Sicily at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, supplicants and proctors at the curia decided what involvement the
curia would have. The petitioners set the agenda, for their own ends.
¹¹ e.g., Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. James Robertson,
7 vols. (Longman: London, 1875–85), vii, p. 387.
¹² Ullmann, interestingly, was favourable to Pitz, see Ullmann, ‘Short Notice: Pitz, Papstreskript und
Kaiserreskript im Mittelalter’, English Historical Review 88 (1973), p. 620. Others less so, e.g. Fried,
Päpstlicher Schutz, pp. 340–341.
¹³ Andreas Meyer, ‘Attention, No Pope! New Approaches to Late Medieval Papal Litterae’,
Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. Joseph Goering,
Stephan Dusil, Andreas Thier (Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana: Vatican City, 2016), pp. 865–874;
Patrick Zutshi, ‘Petitioners, Popes, Proctors: The Development of Curial Institutions, c.1150–1250’,
Pensiero e sperimentazioni instituzionali nella Societas Christiana (1046–1250), ed. Giancarlo Andenna
(Vita e pensiero: Milan, 2007), pp. 265–293; Jochen Johrendt, ‘Der Empfängereinfluß auf die
Gestaltung der Arenga und Sanctio in den päpstlichen Privilegien (896–1046)’, Archiv für Diplomatik
50 (2004), pp. 1–12; Thomas Smith, Curia and Crusade: Pope Honorius III and the Recovery of the Holy
Land, 1216–1227 (Brepols: Turnhout, 2017), pp. 10–24.
6     , –
The relationships between popes and kings allowed rulers and their counsellors
to make use of papal authority. Royal proctors presented petitions to the pope
asking for something and the pope approved it by his apostolic authority.
Sometimes other petitioners—including enemies of the king—might petition the
pope, asking him, as the lord or protector of the kingdom, to issue letters in their
interest, but not necessarily in the royal interest. During the minority of King
James I of Aragon, Aragonese and Catalan magnates asked the pope to appoint a
council to ‘assist’ the regent, for example. These petitions were normally approved,
just as the pope would approve the petitions of royal proctors. However, petition-
ing at the curia was expensive, and favourable contacts amongst the papal
courtiers were very useful. Thus, while in theory anyone could instrumentalize
papal authority for their own ends, kings were the most effective petitioners, since
they had the resources.
An increased emphasis on petitioners in pre-modern governance is not limited
to the Medieval papacy. In 1977—at the same moment Ernst Pitz was putting
forward a view of reactive papal government—Fergus Millar published his The
Emperor in the Roman World, which demanded that scholars of imperial Rome
focused more on the petitions and appeals. Millar’s judgement on the emperor—
‘[a] very large proportion of his contacts with his subjects fell into a pattern which
may be called petition-and-response’—would hardly be out of place in this book.¹⁴
Jim Holt and Tim Reuter both saw the importance of petitioners to twelfth-
century Angevin and Staufen government respectively.¹⁵ Outwith Christendom,
Marina Rustow has reassessed the importance of petitions to the governance of
the Fatimid caliphate.¹⁶
The legacy of the modern state has meant that we have tended to assume that
state and government institutions exist primarily (if not exclusively) to instantiate
the wishes and commands of the ruler(s). I do not believe this is the case with pre-
modern government. Recently, in both modern and pre-modern scholarship,
there has been more interest in how subjects are able to ‘work’ central govern-
ments.¹⁷ My insistence on viewing petitions as the driver of government has much
¹⁴ Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC—AD 337), 2nd edn. (Duckworth:
London, 1992 [1977]), p. 6.
¹⁵ James Holt, ‘The Writs of Henry II’, Proceedings of the British Academy 89 (1996), pp. 47–64, at
57–59; idem, ‘Ricardus Rex Anglorum et Dux Normannorum’, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 253
(1981), pp. 17–33, reprinted in idem, Magna Carta and Medieval Government (Hambledon: London,
1985), pp. 67–83, at 72–73; Timothy Reuter, ‘Mandate, Privilege, Court Judgement: Techniques of
Rulership in the Age of Frederick Barbarossa’; idem, Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed.
Janet L. Nelson (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2006), pp. 413–431.
¹⁶ Marina Rustow, The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue (Princeton
University Press: Princeton, 2020), pp. 207–273, esp. 264–265. Even more broadly, see David Zaret,
‘Petition-and-Response and Liminal Petitioning in Comparative/Historical Pespective’, Social Science
History 43 (2019), pp. 431–451.
¹⁷ Michael Szonyi, The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China (Princeton
University Press: Princeton, 2017); Stuart Corbridge, Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava, René Véron,
 7
in common with that. Pre-modern states especially had limited ability to ‘see’ their
subjects—to collect information on the great mass of people in the polity and act
on them all with equal strength. Instead, governments relied on the willingness of
subjects to seek out the king or pope and petition him for redress. It was therefore
crucial for the state to be legible to its subjects—that subjects knew how to
approach and use the government apparatus—given that subjects were hardly
legible to the state.¹⁸
This need for the state—the central governmental apparatus—to be legible to
subjects was surely manifested in the aids to petitioners which we find from the
twelfth century onwards. The ‘little book on the forms of petitions’ written by a
cardinal at the beginning of the thirteenth century was intended (apparently) to
aid humble petitioners pursuing business at the curia.¹⁹ The appearance of curial
proctors around the year 1200 allowed petitioners to hire a professional to guide
their business through the organs of the papal bureaucracy.²⁰ The various detailed
accounts of prelates who conducted litigation before the pope might not have been
intended as guidebooks, but they certainly show a deep interest in how to behave
at the curia.²¹ Finally, the formularies produced by the papal chancery, peniten-
tiary, and chamber for their own use were copied and disseminated by petitioners
and litigants. There are now numerous manuscripts of these texts surviving in
archives across Europe.²² In all of these ways, the pope’s subjects were doing their
best to make the curia legible to them; to know how the pope’s court worked, and
what they needed to do in order to get what they wanted.
Papal lordship or protection allowed rulers, and petitioners more generally, to
make use of papal authority. Supplicants could petition the pope. This is, of
course, why rulers sought papal lordship or protection. Rulers were not reduced
Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge,
2005); Philippa Williams, Bhaskar Vira, Deepta Chopra, ‘Marginality, Agency and Power: Experiencing
the State in Contemporary India’, Pacific Affairs 84 (2011), pp. 7–23.
¹⁸ The language is that of James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the
Human Condition have Failed (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1998).
¹⁹ Rudolf von Heckel, ‘Das päpstliche und sicilische Registerwesen in vergleichender Darstellung
mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Ursprünge’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 1 (1908),
pp. 371–511, at 502.
²⁰ Patrick Zutshi, ‘Innocent III and the Reform of the Papal Chancery’, Innocenzo III: Urbs et Orbis,
ed. Andrea Sommerlechner, 2 vols. (Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo: Rome, 2003), i,
pp. 84–101.
²¹ E.g. Hugh the Chanter, The History of the Church of York, 1066–1127, ed., trans. Charles Johnson,
rev. M. Brett, C. Brooke, M. Winterbottom (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1990), pp. 115–223;
Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, ed., trans. J. Sayers, L. Watkiss (Oxford
University Press: Oxford, 2003), pp. 265–377; Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, ‘Visitor Experiences: Art,
Architecture and Space at the Papal Curia c.1200’, Journal of Medieval History 44 (2018), pp. 294–310,
at 298.
²² Michael Tangl, Die päpstlichen Kanzleiordnungen von 1200–1500 (Wagner: Innsbruck, 1894),
pp. lxii–lxiii; Emil Göller, Der Liber Taxarum der Päpstlichen Kammer: Eine Studie über seine
Entstehung und Anlage (Loescher: Rome, 1905), pp. 41–49; Benedict Wiedemann, ‘The Joy of Lists:
The Provinciale Romanum, Tribute and ad limina visitation to Rome’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique
116 (2021), pp. 61–97.
8     , –
to vassalage by a self-aggrandizing papacy seeking world domination; rulers

sought papal lordship to increase their own power and authority, or to strengthen
and confirm their legitimacy.
One of the broader implications of my approach—emphasizing petitioners as
the driver of papal government—is that the papacy ceases to be the enemy of
monarchy or of the territorial state, and becomes instead a potential resource for
kings and states (and, indeed, their subjects). The traditional narrative of
European politics between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries is that the papacy
and the empire fought over who would be the ultimate suzerain of Europe. The
papacy won, and defeated the empire. But, while the papacy was distracted, it had
ignored the consolidation of territorial monarchies in England and France—the
precursors of modern nation states. By 1300, the universal pretensions of the
papacy had been put down by the territorial monarchs of France and England.²³
The pan-European papacy was thus an opponent of the burgeoning nation state
and, in the end, its victim.
The conceptual approach in this book is that papal authority was placed in the
service of petitioners. Relationships of overlordship and protection were sought out
by rulers because they had the potential to contribute both to kings’ effective
powers and also to their legitimacy. Hand in hand with a new papal–royal
relationship went, implicitly or explicitly, recognition by the pope. It was an
aspiring secular ruler who chose to approach the pope. Other options were
sometimes available. In the mid-twelfth century, Portugal and Aragon-Catalonia
seem to have desired recognition by Alfonso VII, ‘emperor of all Spain’, more than
recognition by the pope.²⁴ The rulers of Bohemia were raised to kingship by the
German emperors, not the pope.²⁵ In some cases, propagandists sought to claim
that kingship was granted by angelic intervention.²⁶ A new ruler sought papal
approval in order to assert his independence from powerful neighbours—although
in other cases, such as Portugal and Aragon-Catalonia in the mid-twelfth century,
recognition from the regional hegemon was preferable to papal approval. Rulers
chose who to approach based on a complex combination of interest; often they
²³ Joseph Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, new edn. (Princeton University
Press: Princeton, NJ, 2005 [1970]), pp. 44–57; Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State,
1050–1300, reprint (University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1988 [1964]), pp. 2–3, 139–143, 150–153,
159–161. See also Brett Whalen, The Two Powers: The Papacy, the Empire, and the Struggle for
Sovereignty in the Thirteenth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA, 2019),
pp. 230–233.
²⁴ Chapter three; Benedict Wiedemann, ‘The Kingdom of Portugal, Homage and Papal “Fiefdom” in
the Second Half of the Twelfth Century’, Journal of Medieval History 41 (2015), pp. 432–445; idem,
‘The Character of Papal Finance at the Turn of the Twelfth Century’, English Historical Review 133
(2018), pp. 503–532, at 503–504.
²⁵ Björn Weiler, ‘Crown-Giving and King-Making in the West, ca. 1000–ca. 1250’, Viator 41 (2010),
pp. 57–87.
²⁶ Weiler, ‘Crown-Giving and King-Making’, p. 62; Philippe Buc, ‘1701 in Medieval Perspective:
Monarchical Rituals between the Middle Ages and Modernity’, Majestas 10 (2002), pp. 91–124, at
107–111.
 9
chose to approach the pope, but this was their decision, not the result of papal
claims and ambition. If, as has been claimed not infrequently, the pope was head of
a sort of Medieval League of Nations/United Nations/European Union (delete
depending on when the author was writing), then it was so because the people of
Christendom saw him as a useful legitimator.²⁷ If, for any reason, the usefulness of
papal approval was in doubt, then the pope’s authority fell through the floor.
On a more prosaic level, the primacy of petitions in papal government meant
that these new relationships were opportunities for kings to instrumentalize papal
authority to strengthen their own regimes. Through petitions, rulers could gain
papal letters and mandates in their favour, thus building up royal power within the
realm. Of course, subjects and enemies of kings who were vassals and protégés of
the pope could also petition Rome—and were likely to get their requests heard and
approved—but kings and their counsellors tended to be the most effective peti-
tioners. As we shall see in chapter five, the count-bishops of Maguelone did use
papal overlordship to stymie the state-building ambitions of the French kings, but
the count-bishops were themselves trying to build a state (albeit a smaller one).
Papal authority was a potential tool for state-building. The usefulness of papal
authority to royal power has been noticed by Pascal Montaubin in another
context: Pope Eugenius III’s protection given to the kingdom of France during
Louis VII’s absence on Crusade allowed Abbot Suger, Louis’ regent, to exercise his
office outside the royal domain, strengthening vestigial royal power over the wider
kingdom.²⁸ Papal protection strengthened regnal authority. The Medieval papacy,
and papal overlordship of kings, were not forms of supranational sovereignty
which incipient nation states needed to destroy before achieving their true destiny,
but potential enablers for developing polities. The two were not in conflict, but
intimately and symbiotically connected.
How should we reconcile this model of the papacy as a service industry with the
ideology of the papal monarchy, with the statements of popes such as Boniface
VIII that ‘it is necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the
Roman pontiff ’? Or of Innocent III that the pope was ‘lower than God but higher
than man’?²⁹ How does it fit with the interpretation, which Ullmann spelled out,
but with which the historiography was impregnated, that papal history is about
the growth (and eventual decline) of ‘an idea’?
²⁷ Christopher Dawson, ‘The Sociological Foundations of Medieval Christendom’; idem, Medieval

Essays (Sheed and Ward: London, 1954), pp. 49–66, at 64–65; Whalen, Two Powers, p. 232; Brent
Nelsen, James Guth, Religion and the Struggle for European Union: Confessional Culture and the Limits
of Integration (Georgetown University Press: Washington DC, 2015), pp. 40–61.
²⁸ Pascal Montaubin, ‘Eugenius III and France: The Protected Protector’, Pope Eugenius III
(1145–1153): The First Cistercian Pope, ed. Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Andrew Jotischky (Amsterdan
University Press: Amsterdam, 2018), pp. 197–217, at 208–209, 216–217.
²⁹ Tierney, Crisis of Church and State, nos. 69, 103, pp. 131–132, 188–189.
10     , –
Monarch and Servant
The traditional picture of papal monarchy is based on the legal edifice of canon
law, constructed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The pope—as ‘vicar of
Christ’ and universal ordinary judge—possessed the plenitude of power. In the
ecclesiastical sphere he was the ultimate judge, and certain matters were always
reserved to him. In the secular world, the pope could act ‘case by case’. There were
many reasons why the pope might have to intervene among the laity—if a dispute
raised the possibility of sin; if a secular judge was neglectful; if one party had no
temporal superior. Canonistic thought placed papal authority over all beings on
(reasonably) secure foundations. The so-called papal monarchy depended on this
structure.³⁰
But while the canonists had justified papal action in various spheres and under
various circumstances, this was not the same as offering a guideline as to how that
authority should be used—how government should operate. Throughout this
book the answer will become clear: papal letters explained that, because the
pope was bound to the beneficiary in some way, the pope had a duty of care
towards them. That duty of care was to be manifested in granting their petitions
and requests. The authority of the pope—outlined in detail by the canonists—was,
according to the papal understanding of their government, to be placed in the
service of petitioners—even kings.
At the most basic level, the popes owed a general duty of service to all
Christians. This duty was mentioned in every single papal letter and privilege: it
was implicit in the pope’s title, ‘servant of the servants of God’ (servus servorum
dei). Pope Innocent III, in a sermon, explained the origin of this title:
Jesus taught the apostles and us to lower ourselves [ . . . ], saying ‘He that is the
greatest among you shall be servant of all’ [Matt. 23.11/Mark 10.44], giving
himself as an example: ‘Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered
unto, but to minister’ [Matt. 20.28]. This is why the greatest in the Church calls
himself ‘servant of the servants of God’.³¹
³⁰ John Watt, ‘The Theory of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: The Contribution of the
Canonists’, Traditio 20 (1964), pp. 179–317; Ullmann, Medieval Papalism. For an overview of the
continuing importance of canon law in ‘papal monarchy’, see Francis Oakley, The Mortgage of the Past:
Reshaping the Ancient Political Inheritance (1050–1300) (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2012),
pp. 183–199; Andreas Meyer, ‘Papal Monarchy’, A Companion to the Medieval World, ed. Carol
Lansing, Edward English (Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester, 2009), pp. 372–396, at 384–386, 390–394. Cf.
the critique in Christof Rolker, ‘Fournier’s Model and its Merits’, New Discourses in Medieval Canon
Law Research: Challenging the Master Narrative, ed. idem (Brill: Leiden, 2019), pp. 4–32; Colin Morris,
The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1989),
pp. 205–210, 568–577.
³¹ Innocent III, I sermoni, ed. Stanislao Fioramonti (Libreria editrice vaticana: Vatican City, 2006),
no. B14, pp. 376–385, at 382. Others have also suggested the origin of the title lies in Mark 10, Léon
Levillain, ‘Servus Servorum Dei’, Le Moyen Âge 40 (1930), pp. 5–7; Leonard Boyle, ‘Innocent III’s View
 11
The passage to which Innocent pointed (Mark 10.42–5) offered a principle of

government:
But Jesus calling them [his disciples], saith to them: You know that they who
seem to rule over the Gentiles, lord it over them: and their princes have power
over them. But it is not so among you: but whosoever will be greater, shall be
your minister. And whosoever will be first among you, shall be the servant of all
(omnium servus). For the Son of man also is not come to be ministered unto, but
to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many.
The pope’s title (servant of the servants of God) was inspired by a biblical
passage—or rather multiple similar passages from each of the synoptic Gospels—
which outlined that a leader should be a servant, and should serve rather than be
served.³² The importance of service ran through Innocent’s sermon on his own
consecration. When Innocent preached on his consecration, he took as his central
theme ‘[w]ho, thinkest thou, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath
appointed over his family, to give them meat in season’ (Matthew 24.45).³³ The
pope, of course, was the faithful and wise servant. When Innocent came to define
‘servant’, he explicitly linked it with Mark 10.42–5 and Luke 22.25–6 (a very
similar passage).³⁴ A further indication of the pope’s position as servant, according
to Innocent, was Romans 1.14: ‘to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise
and to the unwise, I am a debtor’ (Graecis ac barbaris, sapientibus, et insipientibus
debitor sum). Innocent described this as the ‘office of service’ (officium servitutis).
But in what way was the pope supposed to ‘serve’? What did ‘serving’ look like?
Romans 1.14 allows us to tie the pope’s ‘office of service’ to actual papal letters,
because Romans 1.14 was used to justify papal solicitude in many letters.³⁵ It was
the most basic level of the pope’s duty—he was a debtor to both the wise and the
unwise, i.e. to everyone.
of Himself as Pope’, Innocenzo III, ed. Sommerlechner, i, pp. 5–17; Boyle, ‘Diplomatics’, Medieval
Studies: An Introduction, ed. James Powell, 2nd edn. (Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, NY, 1992),
pp. 82–113, at 95; Meyer, ‘Papal Monarchy’, p. 377.
³² On these passages, see also Philippe Buc, ‘Principes gentium dominantur eorum: Princely Power
Between Legitimacy and Illegitimacy in Twelfth-Century Exegesis’, Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status,
and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Thomas Bisson (University of Pennsylvania Press:
Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 310–328.
³³ Innocent, I sermoni, ed. Fioramonti, no. D2, pp. 610–623; Innocent III, Between God and Man:
Six Sermons on the Priestly Office, trans. Corinne J. Vause, Frank Gardiner (Catholic University of
America Press: Washington DC, 2004), pp. 16–27. It is telling that, from this sermon, Tierney
translated only the sentences on the pope as ‘lower than God but higher than man’, rather than the
parts on servanthood (Crisis of Church and State, no. 69, pp. 131–132).
³⁴ Innocent’s quotation was mainly Luke 22.25-6 but replacing ‘let him become as the younger’ (fiat
sicut minor) with ‘shall be the servant of all’ (erit omnium servus), from Mark 10.
³⁵ Noted by Julien Théry, ‘Introduction’, Innocent III et le Midi, ed. idem, Michelle Fournié, Daniel
Le Blévec (Privat: Toulouse, 2015), Cahiers de Fanjeaux L, pp. 11–35, at 20.
Another random document with
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you go to purchase yourself, such exorbitant prices will be
demanded, that you will either come away without the article you
need, or have the unpleasant reflection afterward that you have been
cheated worse than if you had sent your servant and allowed him to
levy his blackmail.
As I had anticipated, the rajah was not loath to show me his
treasures. They were merely half a dozen glass rings, evidently
made by cutting off a piece of a glass rod nine or ten inches long,
and half an inch in diameter. This piece, having been heated, was
bent into a ring and the two ends united by fusion. Instead of
expressing surprise and delight, as all who were looking on seemed
to expect, I coolly began explaining to the rajah what they were and
how they were made. A look of surprise and incredulity appeared on
the faces of all, and the rajah at once, in a most solemn manner,
averred that so far from their being the work of man, they had been
taken out of the heads of snakes and wild boars! Despite the
dignified bearing the occasion was supposed to demand, I could not
refrain from a smile as I remarked that I had seen many heads of
those animals myself, but never before had I heard that they carried
such circular jewels in their brains. “Have you ever seen one of these
taken out yourself?” I asked. “Oh, no! They come from Tana Ceram
(the land or continent of Ceram).” All who were listening, now fearing
that their rajah might be worsted in the discussion, and being ready
on every occasion to show that they were loyal subjects, abruptly
ended the argument by the unqualified assertion that every thing
was exactly as the rajah had said; and, as I was his guest, I changed
the conversation to another topic. When I returned to the city of
Amboina, I looked at once in the “Rariteit Kamer,” confident that
Rumphius would explain this remarkable and, as I afterward found,
common belief; for, though the rajah probably did not believe what
he said, his credulous subjects doubtless never thought before of
calling in question such a generally-accepted notion; such a query
would, in their view, have indicated a weak instead of an inquiring
mind. This is one of the obstacles in the way of advancement among
these people. Rumphius says that many rings were brought by the
Portuguese and sold to the natives, who prize them very highly. This
accounted for their origin; and afterward, when I came to travel over
the empire of China, and noticed how that people value similar rings
of jade (nephrite), and remembered that the coast of Ceram,
opposite Assilulu, was once frequented by the people of that empire,
who came to purchase cloves and nutmegs, it occurred to me that
possibly it was from them that the Amboinese had learned to place
so high a value on such simple objects, and had obtained their first
specimens. Java is perhaps the only island in the archipelago where
such ornaments could have been made by the natives, but I do not
find that they are especially prized there, or that they have been dug
up with other relics of previous ages.
Off this coast lie three islands, the Three Brothers, and on their
shores the natives found a number of rare shells. In the streets of the
village considerable quantities of cloves that had been gathered on
the neighboring hill-sides were exposed to the sun on mats between
the frequent showers, but the culture of that spice has been so
neglected of late years, that this was the only place where I saw the
fruit in all the Moluccas. The clove-tree (Carophyllus aromaticus)
belongs to the order of myrtles, which also includes the
pomegranate, the guava, and the rose-apple. The trunk of the full-
grown tree is from eight to twelve inches in diameter, and
occasionally much more. Its topmost branches are usually forty or
fifty feet from the ground, though I have seen a tree not larger than a
cherry-tree fully loaded with fruit. It was originally confined to the five
islands off the west coast of Gilolo, which then comprised the whole
group known as “the Moluccas,” a name that has since been
extended to Buru, Amboina, and the other islands off the south coast
of Ceram, where the clove has been introduced and cultivated within
a comparatively late period. On those five islands it begins to bear in
its seventh or eighth year, and sometimes continues to yield until it
has reached an age of nearly one hundred and fifty years; the trees,
therefore, are of very different sizes. Here at Amboina it is not
expected to bear fruit before its twelfth or fifteenth year, and to cease
yielding when it is seventy-five years old. Its limited distribution has
always attracted attention, and Rumphius, who describes it as “the
most beautiful, the most elegant, and the most precious of all known
trees,” remarks: “Hence it appears that the Great Disposer of things
in His wisdom, allotting His gifts to the several regions of the world,
placed cloves in the kingdom of the Moluccas, beyond which, by no
human industry, can they be propagated or perfectly cultivated.” In
the last observation, however, he was mistaken, for since his time it
has been successfully introduced into the island of Penang, in the
Strait of Malacca, and Sumatra, Bourbon, Zanzibar, and the coast of
Guiana and the West India Islands. The clove is the flower-bud, and
grows in clusters at the ends of the twigs. The annual yield of a good
tree is about four pounds and a half, and the yearly crop on
Amboina, Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, the only islands where
the tree is now cultivated, is 350,000 Amsterdam pounds.[29] It is,
however, extremely variable and uncertain—for example, in 1846 it
was 869,727 Amsterdam pounds, but in 1849 it was only 89,923, or
little more than one-tenth of what it was three years before. Pigafetta
informs us that, when the Spanish first came to the Moluccas, there
were no restrictions on the culture or sale of the clove. The annual
crop at that time, 1521, according to the same authority, reached the
enormous quantity of 6,000 bahars, 3,540,000 pounds of
“uncleaned,” and 4,000 bahars, 2,360,000 pounds of “cleaned”
cloves, about seventeen times the quantity obtained at the present
time. Though this statement at first appears incredible, it is
strengthened by the fact that the two ships of Magellan’s fleet that
reached Tidore, one of the Spice Islands, were filled with cloves
during a stay of only twenty-four days. When the buds are young
they are nearly white, afterward they change to a light green, and
finally to a bright red, when they must at once be gathered, which is
done by picking them by hand, or beating them off with bamboos on
to cloths spread beneath the trees. They are then simply dried in the
sun, and are ready for the market. In drying, their color is changed
from red to black, the condition in which we see them. They are
gathered twice a year, at about this time, in June, and again in the
last of December. The leaves, bark, and young twigs also have some
peculiar aroma, and at Zanzibar the stems of the buds are also
gathered and find a ready sale. The favorite locations of this tree are
the high hill-sides, and it is said that it does not thrive well on low
lands, where the loam is fine and heavy. The soil best adapted to it
appears to be a loose, sandy loam. In its original habitat it grows
chiefly on volcanic soil, but in Amboina and the other islands, where
it is now cultivated, it has been found to flourish well on loams
formed by the disintegration of recent sandstone and secondary
rocks. The native name for this fruit is chenki, perhaps a corruption
of the Chinese tkeng-ki, “odoriferous nails.”[30] The Dutch name for
clove is kruid-nagel, “herb-nail,” and for the trees nagelen-boomen,
“nail-trees.” Our own name clove comes from the Spanish clavo
(Latin clavus), a nail, which has also been given them on account of
the similarity of these buds to nails.
Although cloves form a favorite condiment among all nations, the
natives of these islands where they grow never eat them in any form,
and we have no reason to suppose they ever did. The only purpose
for which the Amboinese use them, so far as I am aware, is to
prepare neat models of their praus and bamboo huts, by running
small wire through the buds before they are dried. The Dutch
purchase and send to Europe so many of these models, that almost
every ethnological museum contains some specimens of this skilful
workmanship. The clove probably came into use originally by
accident, and I believe the first people who fancied its rich aroma,
and warm, pungent taste, were the Chinese. The similarity of the
native name to that of the Chinese, and its marked difference,
according to De Cauto, from that of the Brahmins or Hindus, lends
probability to this view. When the Portuguese first came to these
islands, the Chinese, Arabs, Malays, Javanese, and Macassars,
were all found here trading in this article. Of the two former nations,
the Chinese were probably the first to reach this region, though the
Arabs sailed up the China Sea and carried on a large trade with the
Chinese at Canpu, a port in Hangchau Bay, south of the present city
of Shanghai, in the thirteenth century, or fully two hundred years
before the Portuguese and Spaniards arrived in these seas.
The first notice of cloves in Europe occurs in a law passed during
the reign of Aurelian the First, between a. d. 175 and 180, where
they are mentioned as forming an article of commerce from India to
Alexandria; for the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea formed at that
time the chief highway of Eastern trade. From these islands the
cloves were first taken by the Malays and Javanese to the peninsula
of Malacca, where they passed into the hands of the Telingas or
Klings, who carried them to Calicut, the old Capital of Malabar.
Thence they were transported to the western shores of India and
shipped across the Arabian Sea, and up the Gulf of Aden and the
Red Sea to Cairo. These frequent transfers so increased the original
price, that in England, before the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope, thirty shillings were paid for them per pound, or one hundred
and sixty-eight pounds sterling per hundred-weight, which was three
hundred and sixty times their original price. It was to make this
immense profit that the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, and
the English, were all so anxious to find a passage to the East by sea,
and why, when these islands had been discovered, each strove to
monopolize the trade itself, and all carried on such a persistent and
piratical warfare for many years. So long as cloves were not
cultivated elsewhere, and there was no competition in the European
markets, the Dutch Government made a handsome profit by means
of its monopoly; but when they were raised in other places, the
consumption of such a luxury not increasing with the supply, the
previous high price began at once to decline, and for many years the
income of the government in these islands has not been equal to its
expenses in the same region. Some have supposed that a further
reduction in the price would be followed with a corresponding greater
demand, until its consumption would become as general and as
large as that of pepper; but this view is opposed by the common
decision of mankind—that pepper is a necessary article of food, and
that the clove is only a luxury. If no attempt had been made to keep
up the price of this commodity to such a high figure in the European
markets, there would have been a less incentive to other nations to
introduce it into their own colonies, and thus the market would not
have been overstocked so soon, and the price would not have fallen
so low as to make the Spice Islands a source of loss instead of
profit, except within a recent date.
All the rajahs I met were strict Mohammedans, and, improving the
privileges of their sect, had more than one wife. Soon after arriving at
each rajah’s house, I was invariably asked whether or not I was
married, and for a long time I could not imagine why I was so closely
quizzed, until the proverbial jealousy of these people occurred to me.
Each wished to know how strict a watch he was to keep over his
fascinating harem; and as I was obliged to answer all such queries in
the negative, I never even saw one of their wives. At meals only the
rajah and myself sat at the table; and as I had two servants, and
each of these princes nearly a score, we were always well served,
considering our fare. Two articles never failed to appear—chickens
and rice—and to these fish was usually added; and for luncheon and
dessert always the richest bananas. One kind, the pisang Ambon, or
“Amboina banana,” is very common in that region, but the one I soon
learned to prefer, and the one that my servants were always ordered
to procure if possible, wherever we chanced to halt, was the pisang
mas, or “golden banana,” a small variety, with a peculiarly rich,
honey-like flavor, and a bright golden skin when it is fully ripe. This
rajah, I noticed, was particular to seat me at the table so that I could
only look out at the front door. The first query he proposed at dinner
was, how we are accustomed to eat in our land, adding that, after all,
no style suited him so well as dispensing with knives and forks
altogether, and adopting the simpler and more natural mode of using
one’s fingers—a style so common, that each rajah usually keeps a
supply of finger-bowls, and frequently these are worth more than all
the crockery and other glassware on the table beside. While I was
most zealously explaining in reply the superiority of our custom,
there arose a suppressed giggle behind me; the secret was out—the
rajah’s wives had been allowed to leave their close prison and look
at me, while I was so placed that I could not, without the greatest
rudeness, turn round so as to steal a glance at them. But as this
noise was evidently not a part of the proposed programme, I
repressed my curiosity, and continued my description. One topic
especially they never seemed weary of hearing about, and that was
my experience as a soldier. There was something strangely
fascinating to their rude imaginations in the scenes of blood through
which I have had to pass. At first I had some difficulty in translating
my stories into good Malay, but one of my servants fortunately spoke
a little Dutch, and supplied me with a word or sentence, as the case
demanded.
From Assilulu I set off, during a heavy rain-storm, over a
neighboring mountain for the southwest shore, and after a long walk
over the rocks, sand, and shingle, we reached Lariki, where there
was once a fort with a garrison, but now the ruins of the fort, and a
few old, rusty guns are all that remain; and the only official stationed
there is an opziener or “overseer.” In two days, at that place, I so
increased my collection, that I had to hire eight coolies to transport it,
each carrying two baskets—one on either end of a pole about four
feet long. The baskets are made of an open framework of bamboo,
covered inside with palm-leaves, and are therefore very light and
durable. The most common shell there is the little cypræa caput-
serpentis, or “serpent’s-head cowry,” which has a close
resemblance, both in form and color, to the head of a snake.
From Lariki the opziener accompanied me to the neighboring
kampong of Wakasihu. Our narrow footpath wound along the side of
a rugged, projecting crag, and the view from the outer point was very
imposing. The stormy monsoon was at its height. The heavy swell
rolling in from the open ocean broke and flung its white spray and
clotted foam far and wide over the black rocks left bare by the ebbing
tide. Thick clouds, heavily freighted with rain, were driven by the
strong wind against the rugged coast and adjoining mountains. The
cocoa-nut palms that grew just above high-water level, and leaned
over toward the sea, twisted and shook their plumy crests in a
continual strife with the angry storm, and above them the branches
of great evergreens moaned and piped as they lashed to and fro in
the fitful gusts of the tempests.
At Wakasihu the old white-bearded rajah, hearing of our approach,
came out to welcome us. The opziener explained to him the object of
my coming, and immediately he ordered a large tifa, that hung under
an adjoining shed, to be beaten, as a warning to his people that their
rajah required them all to assemble at once before his house. The
news quickly spread that a foreigner had come to purchase shells,
and the old men, young men, women, and children all came with the
treasures that had been accumulating for months, and even years, in
their miserable dwellings. Here many perfect specimens of the richly-
colored Cassis flammea appeared, and also that strangely-marked
shell, the Cypræa mappa, or “map cowry,” so named from the
irregular light-colored line over its back where the two edges of the
mantle meet when the animal is fully expanded. They had crawled
into the bubus that had been sunk for fish at a depth of several
fathoms.
The trading was carried on only in Malay, but when I offered a
price, which was higher or lower than they had expected, they
frequently consulted with each other in their own peculiar dialect or
bahasa. This the opziener, who was a native of the city of Amboina,
was as totally unable to understand as I. He also assured me that
even the natives at Lariki, from which we had walked in half an hour,
could only understand an occasional word of the bahasa of this
village, and that the people of neither village could understand a
word of the bahasa of Assilulu, two or three hours’ walk beyond
Lariki. In fact, as a rule, every community that is under one rajah,
and this is generally but one village, has its own peculiar dialect,
which is so different from the dialects of every adjoining village, that
all are obliged to learn Malay in order to carry on any trade or hold
any communication with their nearest neighbors. The bahasa is
never a written language, and appears to be constantly changing,
for, at the city of Amboina, the natives have completely lost their
dialect since the foreigners settled among them, and now can only
speak with each other in Malay. The great diversity in the native
dialects, and the general adoption of Malay, existed at least as early
as when the Spaniards first navigated these waters, for De Barros
says: “Two facts give reason to believe that the inhabitants of these
islands consist of various and diverse nations. The first is the
inconstancy, hatred, and suspicion with which they watch each other;
and the second, the great variety of their languages; for it is not the
same with them and the Bisayans (the inhabitants of Bisaya, one of
the Philippines), where one language prevails with all. The variety,
on the contrary, is so great that no two places understand each
other’s tongue. Even the pronunciation differs widely, for some form
their words in the throat, others at the point of the tongue, others
between the teeth, and others in the palate. If there be any tongue
through which they can understand each other, it is the Malay of
Malacca, to which the nobles” (rajahs and capalas) “have lately
addicted themselves since the Moors” (Arabs) “have resorted to
them for the clove.” The Malays and Javanese probably visited these
regions long before the Arabs; and they, and not the Arabs, were the
people who first taught these natives the Malay language.
From Wakasihu I continued during a violent rain-storm along the
south coast to Laha at the mouth of the bay of Amboina, determined
to cross the bay and reach home that night, if possible. There were a
number of villages along the route, and at each I had to procure a
new relay of coolies. This caused much delay, but a foreigner soon
learns that he must have an inexhaustible stock of patience to draw
on at any unexpected moment if he is going to deal with these
people. At one village they all agreed that a neighboring stream,
which we could not avoid crossing, had become so swollen by the
heavy rains, that it was absolutely impassable; but I simply ordered
them to quietly follow me, and where I could not lead the way they
might turn back. However, when we came to its banks, we found
before us a deep, foaming torrent, far more uninviting and dangerous
than I had anticipated, yet by following up its course for half a mile, I
came to a place where I made my way to the opposite bank; but
here I found myself hemmed in by a precipitous cliff, and there could
be nothing done except to beat an inglorious retreat. The natives
meantime had been trying the stream farther down, and had found a
ford where the strong current was only waist-deep, and here we
safely gained the opposite bank. After this came another stream
even more difficult to cross, and after that, still a third. Each time I
almost expected that the coolies, who were carrying over my shells,
would be swept away, but they were all so lightly clad that they
succeeded in maintaining their footing, even where the current was
perfectly boiling. The streams are changed into rapid torrents in a
few hours in these islands, where the water seems to come down
from the sky in broad sheets whenever it rains. There are few
bridges, and the difficulty of crossing the small rivers is one of the
chief obstacles in travelling here during the rainy season. However,
as a compensation, there is no sultry, scorching sun. Near the
beaches where the streams flow out to the sea, they all widen into
deep, oblong pools, which are made very narrow at high-water level
by the quantities of sand thrown up by the surf. Near the low-water
level they again become broad and shallow, and during ebb-tide the
best place to cross them is on the ocean shore as far down as one
can go and avoid the danger of being swept away by the heavy surf.
It was nearly night when we reached Laha; we were all thoroughly
drenched, and had eaten nothing since morning except some half-
ripe bananas. The storm was unabated, but the rajah said it was
possible to cross the bay against the wind and waves, and three
men were detailed to paddle us six miles to the city. Our boat was a
common leper-leper, that is, a canoe made from the trunk of a large
tree, with pieces of plank placed on the sides to raise them to the
proper height. Both ends are sharp, and curve upward. About four
feet from the bow a pole is laid across, and another the same
distance from the stern. These project outward from the side of the
boat six or eight feet, and to them is fastened a bamboo, the whole
forming what is known as an “outrigger.” The canoes themselves are
so narrow, that without these external supports they would be even
more crank than the birch-bark canoes of our red Indians. When we
launched our leper-leper, and placed on board our cargo of shells,
and got in ourselves, her sides were only about four inches out of
water, but I could not procure a larger boat, so we started. It soon
became so dark that all we could discern on the neighboring shores
were large fires which the natives had made from place to place to
lure the fish by night into their weirs. The wind also increased, and
the waves rose higher and began to sparkle brightly, and
occasionally a strong gust would seem to change the whole surface
of the sea into a sheet of fire. For a time my boatmen felt strong, and
encouraged each other with a wild shouting like an Indian warwhoop,
and in this way we had made more than a mile from the shore, when
the wind became much heavier, and occasionally an ugly wave
broke over us. My men still continued to paddle on until we found
that we were scarcely holding our own against the storm. Then they
became discouraged and proposed to go back, but turning round
such a long, narrow boat in the midst of a rough sea was by no
means an easy matter. The man forward stopped to rest, and just
then a heavy flaw struck the front part of the boat, whirled it round in
an instant, and away we flew off before the tempest like a race-
horse. It had now become so dark and thick that, though the natives
knew every foot of the shore, they could not tell where to steer, and it
was only by paddling with all their might that we escaped running
into a mass of foaming breakers. Finally we once more reached the
shore; the rajah had some rice and fish cooked, and at midnight I
took my second meal that day. My bedroom was so open that the
wind whistled in on every side and so completely chilled me that I
expected to find myself burning with fever the next day, but the
excitement counteracted the cold, and I arrived again at Amboina
safe and well. After such an excursion several days were passed
writing labels, one of which I placed in each individual shell, a
wearying and almost an endless task, but the thought continually
occurred to me that, if I should not be permitted to return to my
native land, such authentic labels in my own handwriting would
enable any one into whose hands my collection might fall to fully
accomplish the object of my long journey.
July 23d.—This morning, at a quarter-past four, I was suddenly
awaked by some cause which, for the moment, I could not
understand, but immediately there began a low, heavy rumbling
down deep in the earth. It was not a roar, but such a rattling or quick
succession of reports as is made when a number of heavily-laden
coaches are rapidly driven down a steep street paved with round
cobble-stones. At the next instant it seemed as if some huge giant
had seized my bed, and had pushed it from him and then pulled it
toward him with the greatest violence. The gentleman and lady with
whom I was residing shouted out to me: “Run out of the house! run
for your life! There is a dreadful earthquake!”
Back of the main house was the dining-room, surrounded by a low
wall, and covered with a light roof. This was our place of refuge. The
gentleman then explained to me that the shock which had just
occurred was the second, and a very severe one, and the first, which
was light, was what had so suddenly aroused me from a deep sleep.
Of course, no one of us knew but another still heavier might come at
the next instant and lay all the buildings near us in a mass of ruins, if
indeed the earth should not open and swallow us all alive. The time
that elapsed between hearing the rumbling noise and feeling the
shock itself was about five seconds. At this time of the year, in the
middle of a monsoon, the wind blows constantly day and night; but
after this earthquake there was not the slightest perceptible motion in
the air. The tree-toads stopped their steady piping, and the nocturnal
insects all ceased their shrill music. It was so absolutely quiet that it
seemed as if all nature was waiting in dread anticipation of some
coming catastrophe. Such an unnatural stillness was certainly more
painful than the howling of the most violent tempest or the roar of the
heaviest thunder. Meantime, lights sprang up here and there in the
neighboring houses, and all the doors were thrown open, that at the
slightest warning everybody might run into the street. The strange
words of the Chinese, Malays, and Arabs, sounded yet stranger in
the dark, still night, as each called in a subdued but most earnest
tone to his or her relatives. The utter helplessness which every one
feels at such a time, where even the solid earth groans and trembles
beneath his feet, makes the solicitude most keenly painful. It was
half an hour—and that half hour seemed an age—before the wind
began to blow as before. Then the nocturnal animals, one after
another, slowly resumed their nightly cries, and our alarm gradually
subsided as the dawn appeared, and once more gave promise of
approaching day. I had long been anxious to witness an earthquake;
but since that dreadful night there is something in the very sound of
the word that makes me almost shudder. There is usually at least
one earthquake—that is, one series of shocks—at Amboina every
year, and when eight or ten months have passed without one, a very
heavy shock is always expected.
On the 17th of February, 1674, according to Valentyn, Amboina
suffered from a heavy earthquake, and Mount Ateti, or Wawanu, on
Hitu, west of the village of Zyt, poured out a great quantity of hot
mud, which flowed down to the sea. In 1822 Dr. S. Müller visited it
and found a considerable quantity of sublimed sulphur, and some
sulphurous acid gas rising from it. Again, in 1815, when the volcano
of Tomboro, or Sumbawa, was suffering its terrible eruption, an
earthquake was felt at several places on this island. Many people
described to me a series of shocks of great violence that began on
the 1st of November, 1835, and continued three weeks. The whole
population of the city were obliged to leave their houses and live for
all that time in tents and bamboo huts in the large common back of
the forts. Up to that date Amboina had been a remarkably healthy
place, but immediately afterward a gastric-bilious fever broke out and
continued until March, 1845. On the 20th of July of that year another
heavy earthquake was experienced, and this disease at once began
again, but had somewhat subsided, when, on the 18th and 20th of
March, 1850, another severe shock occurred, and again for the third
time it commenced anew. This time both the governor and the
assistant resident died. At present Amboina is one of the healthiest
islands in these seas. On the 4th and 5th of November, 1699, a
series of earthquakes occurred among the mountains where the river
that flows through Batavia takes its rise. During these shocks a land-
slide occurred, and the water was so filled with mud that the canals
and ramifications of the river in the city were silted up, and their
currents completely stopped. The immediate consequence was, a
large proportion of the population of that city fell victims to a fever
engendered by the great quantities of stagnant water. No similar
cause could have operated here on the island of Amboina. As the
quantity of rain, the strength and direction of the wind, and all other
meteorological phenomena, appear to have been the same as in
other years, it is evident that the disease was connected in some
way with the earthquakes, and the view has been advanced that it
was caused by quantities of poisonous gases which are supposed to
have risen out of the earth during the violent shocks.
Many fine shells were now brought me from Tulahu, a kampong on
the northeast coast of Hitu, so I determined to go on my next
excursion in that direction. Two miles up the bay from the city of
Amboina a tongue of land projects out from either shore, until a
passage only five hundred yards wide is left between them. Within
this passage the sea again expands into a bay about three miles
long and a mile and a half wide. The depth of the water in the
passage is sufficient for the largest ships, yet inside it is nowhere
more than twenty or twenty-five fathoms. A large navy could anchor
here, and be perfectly sheltered from all winds and seas; but vessels
rarely or never enter it, as the road off the city is so far from the
mouth of the bay that it is very seldom any considerable swell rolls in
from the ocean, and moreover, the shores of this bay are considered
extremely unhealthy on account of fevers, while sickness of that kind
is very rare at the outer anchorage. On the eastern or Laitimur side
of the bay there are several kampongs upon the low land along the
shore. Back from the low land, on the Hitu side, there is a gradual
ascent to mountains a mile or two back. One of them, Salhutu, rises
twelve hundred metres above the sea, and is the highest peak on
the island. In the shallow water around the head of the bay grow
many mangrove-trees (Rhizophoræ). A low isthmus of sand and
alluvium, only some thirteen hundred yards broad, and but a few feet
above high-water level, connects Laitimur with Hitu. Through this a
canal was cut in 1827 to the large bay of Baguala, in order that the
praus bound from Ceram to Amboina might avoid the long route
round the dangerous shores of Laitimur; but in twelve years this
passage became so filled up with sand as to be impassable, except
for small boats, and now they can only go to and fro during high tide,
and thus whatever there is to be transported must be carried on the
backs of coolies. It is very painful to see such valuable
improvements neglected and becoming useless, for it shows that the
whole tendency in this region, instead of being toward progress, is
only toward decay. Crossing this isthmus, we continued along the
sandy shores on the north side of Baguala Bay, for this is the only
highway between the city of Amboina and the populous islands of
Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, to the east. Occasionally the path
passed over a projecting point, but when it is low water the natives
usually prefer to follow along the shore, just as their fathers did for
centuries before them, although it is frequently twice as far as by the
road. In an hour and a half we came to Suli, a pretty Christian
kampong. The road then turned to the north and led us for two or
three miles over low hills of coral rock, covered with a thin layer of
red soil, to Tulahu, a village on the north coast, which contains a
population of about fifteen hundred, and is the largest on the island.
Near its centre is a mosque, for the whole community is composed
of Mohammedans. As I passed up the main street on my way to the
house of the rajah, scores of boys and men kept gathering and
following, to learn from my servants who this strange foreigner that
headed the procession could be, and what was the object of his
coming. The rajah had been notified by the Resident of my proposed
visit, and received me with a profound “salaam.” In the village was a
ruma négri, or “house belonging to the village.” It had been erected
by the villagers, in accordance with orders from the Dutch
Government, for the accommodation of all officials and foreigners
passing that way. It was built in the usual style of foreign houses in
the East, with a broad veranda in front, an admirable place to trade
with the people. A comfortable bedroom was fitted up for me, but I
dined with the rajah. I was always careful to take a good supply of
tea and sugar on such excursions, and my servants purchased
chickens, fish, and whatever else was to be procured; in short, I
bought all the food, and the rajah helped me eat it, so that I fulfilled
to the letter the order of the governor-general that I should prove “no
burden to the native people;” but, on the contrary, as I spent many
guilders for shells in each village, my visits, in their eyes, were
special blessings. Again and again mothers would come with their
children and complain most bitterly that they had so little food and
clothing, and beg me to take the shells they had brought, and name
my own price. The rajah at first could hardly believe I should collect
many shells in his village, but I asked him to beat the tifa for his
capalas, literally “head men,” but really a higher class of servants,
whose duty it is to convey to the people the rajah’s commands, and
see them duly enforced. The capalas were ordered to summon all
those who probably had shells in their houses, that I might invite
them to trade. Meantime supper was prepared. The first object on
the table that attracted my attention was an Octopus, or “inkfish,” an
animal much like the squid of our own shores, which fishermen
sometimes use for bait, and which whalers know is a favorite morsel
for blackfish; but I never heard of men feasting on it before. After this
questionable dish and a chicken were disposed of, the fried fruit of
the Artocarpus incisa, or “bread-fruit tree,” was placed on the table.
After supper I walked through all the principal streets of the village,
supported on either side by a capala, who persistently drove all the
natives out of the street before us, and forced them to take their
proper place behind us. To give the trade more éclat, I took a good
quantity of small copper coins and distributed them freely among the
small children as I passed along. The result of this manœuvre was
most magical; everybody was anxious to make my acquaintance and
sell me shells. Even the good Mohammedan priest laid aside his
feelings of indifference toward the Christian stranger, and invited me
under his roof. He also intimated that he could favor me with a few
species, but, as his prices were five times as high as those of the
common people, I neglected to make a selection from his treasures.
Each evening that I was in this village the rajah insisted on my
passing hour after hour on his veranda, describing to him the foreign
countries he could name. Like many other natives who would like to
be free from all European rule, it afforded him great comfort to hear
that Tana Ollanda (Holland) was much smaller in area than France
or England. When I came to tell him that Tana America was a still
greater country, he listened politely, but a half-incredulous smile
revealed his belief that I only spoke of it in such an enthusiastic
manner because I was an American; yet when I added, that however
much other nations might wish to possess these beautiful islands,
America would never have such a desire, his knowledge of
geography seemed to have become complete at once, and he
explained to all who were listening that Tana America was admitted
by all to be the largest and the most powerful of all nations. He also
had an almost endless series of questions to ask about the
sovereigns of the lands I had described, and, like a good
Mohammedan, expressed his confidence that I should speak well of
the Sultan of Turkey, whom he appeared to regard as the next in
authority to the Prophet himself.
The next day I went westward to Waai, where I obtained many
specimens of the great Trochus marmoratus, which lives in
abundance a little farther toward the northwestern end of the island,
but can only be procured alive during the opposite monsoon. Its
beautifully marbled, sea-green surface, and bright, pearly interior
have always made it a favorite ornament for the parlor in every land.
Many, wishing to improve on Nature, remove the green outer layers
either by hydrochloric or nitric acid, so as to give the exterior also a
bright nacreous iridescence. Hundreds of the heavy opercula of
these animals are found on the neighboring shores, for Nature has
provided each with this thick door, which, after it has withdrawn itself
into the shell, it can close behind it, and thus be free from all harm.
On my return I found my house besieged with more than two
hundred of both sexes and of every age, from infancy to second
childhood. Each had a lot of shells to sell, and therefore the prices
were very low; but I was careful to pay them more than they could
earn in any other way in the same time. The women and children on
all these islands are accustomed to gather mollusks at every low tide
for food, and whenever any particularly rare or beautiful shell is
found, it is always saved; and it was for this reason that I was always
confident that I could obtain some valuable specimens in every
village. Here I secured one shell, the Strombus latissimus, or “thick-
lipped strombus,” that I had long been hoping to see. It lives in the
deep water between these shores and the opposite coast of Ceram,
and I could not hear that it is found in any other locality. Many
species of long “spindle-shells” (Fusi) are found here—some nearly
smooth and some richly ornamented with tubercles.
I had now been on the island four weeks, and it was time for the
monthly mail to arrive, bringing me letters from home. This exciting
thought caused me to forget even my passion for shells, and,
promising the natives I would come again and purchase all the
specimens they could collect, I returned to the city of Amboina.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ULIASSERS AND CERAM.
The arrival of the mail here, at Amboina, causes a general

rejoicing. Indeed, it is the only thing there is to break the dull
monotony of a residence in this enervating climate, unless, as
happened this month, there is an earthquake, which affords a grand
opportunity for the old residents to describe to all newcomers the
fearful shocks they have experienced, and this they invariably do
with that peculiar kind of semi-boasting with which a veteran fights
over his battles in the presence of raw recruits. The last earthquake,
which everybody witnessed, is referred to very much as we at home
speak of some violent gale that has swept along the coast. Those
who would be weather-wise in our land here discuss the various
directions from which the different shocks came—upon which there
seems a considerable variance of opinion, but I notice that generally
each company agrees with the highest dignitary present. This was a
fortunate mail for me. It brought me letters from home, and many
American papers from our consul at Batavia, who never failed to
send me the latest news all the time I was in any part of the
archipelago. Before the next mail my letters were read and re-read.
The pages of the Boston papers seemed like the faces of familiar
friends, and it was difficult not to peruse the advertisements, column
by column, before I could lay them aside. I, in turn, was able to write
my friends that already I possessed a full series of nearly all the
species of shells I had come to seek.
East of Amboina lie three islands, sometimes called the
“Uliassers.” The first and nearest to Amboina is Haruku (in Dutch
Haroekoe); it is also known to the natives as Oma, or Buwang-bessi,
“Ejecting-iron.” The second is Saparua (in Dutch Saparoea); but
according to Mr. Crawfurd it should be Sapurwa, or Sapurba, from
the native numeral Sa standing as an article, and the Sanscrit,
purwa, “source,” a name probably given it by the Malay and
Javanese traders, who came here to buy cloves long before the
Portuguese reached such a remote region, and this is made more
probable by the name of the third island Nusalaut (in Dutch
Noesalaoet), which is compounded of the Javanese word nusa, “an
island,” and the Malay word laut, “the sea.” Nusalaut, therefore,
means Sea Island, and was evidently so named because it is
situated more nearly in the open sea. The Javanese word nusa,
which is applied, like the Malay word pulo, only to small islands,
enables us to trace out the early course of the Javanese traders. At
the southern end of Laitimur is a kampong named Nusaniva (niba),
“Fallen Island,” perhaps because some island, or a part of Amboina
itself, had sunk in that vicinity. Near the Banda group is Nusatelo
(better taluh), “Magic Island.” Saparua is also known to the natives
as Honimoa, and Liaser, whence probably the old name Uliassers,
for this is the most important of the three islands, and would naturally
give its name to the whole group. A merchant from Saparua, the
chief place on the island of that name, was then visiting Amboina,
and kindly invited me to accompany him when he should return—an
invitation I was most happy to accept, for Rumphius received many
shells from these islands, and I anticipated obtaining some species
alive, of which I possessed only shells. A heavy storm delayed us for
a week, a frequent occurrence during the southeast monsoon. From
Amboina we followed my former route to Tulahu, which we reached
at evening, the usual time for commencing a voyage in these seas at
this time of year, because the wind generally moderates after sunset,
and freshens again the next morning soon after sunrise. We
embarked at once on a large prau, manned by eighteen natives of
Saparua, and readily distinguished from the people of Amboina by
the peculiar custom of clipping the hair short all over the head,
except a narrow band along the forehead, which is allowed to hang
down over the face, and gives them a remarkably clownish
appearance. One of these men, who was coxswain or captain,
steered with a large paddle; two others were detailed to keep up the
continual, monotonous din, and which these people consider music,
and the others rowed. Our musical instruments were a huge tifa, that
gave out a dull, heavy sound, such as would be caused by beating a
hollow log, and not the sharp, quick rap of a drum, which, however
monotonous, still has something stirring and lively in it; and two
gongs, imported from China, and just harsh and discordant enough
to please the musical tympanums of the stupid Celestials. The tifa is
beat with a piece of wood of any shape held loosely in the right
hand, while the left hand raises the note by pressing against the
edge of the vibrating skin. There is, therefore, no such thing as a
long roll or a short roll, but one unvaried beating. The two gongs
were of different sizes, and were struck alternately, but this was so
slight a change that it only made the monotony more wearisome.
Each rower had a small wooden box, about a foot long, four inches
high, and six wide, where he carried the all-important betel-nut, siri,
lime, and tobacco. It also served as a chest for his extra clothing.

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OXFORD STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL

Papal Overlordship and

2     , –

4     , –

the crusades were [ . . . ] a stepping stone in the direction of the eventual

This ‘method of inﬁltration’ appeared ‘under the guise of protecting individuals

⁶ Ullmann, Medieval Papalism, p. 121.

papal documents—mandates ordering someone to do something, privileges grant-

6     , –

8     , –

to vassalage by a self-aggrandizing papacy seeking world domination; rulers

²⁷ Christopher Dawson, ‘The Sociological Foundations of Medieval Christendom’; idem, Medieval

10     , –

Monarch and Servant

The passage to which Innocent pointed (Mark 10.42–5) offered a principle of

The arrival of the mail here, at Amboina, causes a general

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