Pater sancte … the position of papal nuncio in Outremer according to Pierre de Manso's letter to Pope John XXII

ABSTRACT

Our narrative sources for the history of Cyprus largely fall silent for the period between the death of Pope Clement V in 1314 and the passing of King Hugh IV of Lusignan in 1359. The Vatican Archive helps fill the gaps, notably the papal letters addressed to the apostolic nuncios stationed on Cyprus, who played a particularly important role in the reign of Pope John XXII (1316–34). One of these nuncios, Pierre de Manso, wrote a surviving letter to the pope, dated 1332 and edited here in an appendix, which provides precious information about the nature of this office in the early fourteenth century. With the help of the author's forthcoming edition of the over 600 letters of Pope John concerning the kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, this paper investigates the roles, responsibilities, and problems of papal nuncios on Cyprus, encountering sometimes fierce opposition from the crown and from other members of the Latin clergy, especially in the collection of papal taxes. It offers an in-depth examination regarding sources of papal income from Cyprus – primarily clerical tithes, annates, and spoils from deceased prelates – and the difficulties in raising it, how the money was transported to Avignon, and how funds meant to support Cilician Armenia were diverted to finance papal warfare in Italy. It also looks at Pope John's policy of controlling all episcopal, archiepiscopal, and patriarchal appointments. An appendix highlights the shortcomings of existing calendars of papal letters concerning Cyprus and argues for a southern French origin of Pierre de Manso.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyprus
• papal nuncio
• Pope John XXII
• tithes
• annates
• spoils

Papal legates in the Latin East are rightly famous or infamous for the ecclesio-political policies they implemented, the decisions they made, and the agreements they brokered. Usually already cardinals before their assignment, men such as Adhémar de Monteil, Pelayo Gaitán, Giovanni Colonna, Eudes de Châteauroux and several others are well known to scholars of the crusades and the Latin East. Papal legates had no superiors in their legations, unlike papal nuncios, who merely enjoyed immunity from local prelates, and even this was not always respected. Papal nuncios to Outremer generally had less glamorous financial tasks and thus have not grabbed the headlines in the same way.¹ Yet they had to be ready for anything, as the agents of the Apostolic See, and circumstances could involve them in all sorts of interesting situations. Successful nuncios who survived their adventures were suitably rewarded with high posts in the Church hierarchy, but some perished while on assignment.

A series of papal nuncios on Cyprus during the so-called Babylonian Captivity have justly received attention from specialists. The first nuncio, Raymond de Pins, is famous among historians of Frankish Cyprus for the long and detailed report he sent to Pope Clement V in 1310, preserved in the fonds Instrumenta Miscellanea of the Vatican Archive, in which he described his successful efforts to secure the release of King Henry II from his forced exile in Cilician Armenia.² Although we near the end of the publication program for the Cypriot documents in the Instrumenta Miscellanea,³ there are miscellaneous unpublished documents concerning Cyprus in other collections in the Vatican Archive, for example, stray instrumenta bound at the back of volumes in the Registra Avenionensia (Reg. Aven.) series of papal registers.⁴ One such document, edited below in Appendix II, is found at the end of Reg. Aven. 204, the only register for the (brief) final eighth year of the pontificate of Gregory XI, from 5 January to 27 March 1378. After some of Gregory's letters, the bulk of the volume contains rubrics from letters of Gregory and the previous and subsequent popes, some letters of John XXII, assorted records from the Avignon area, and various other items. One of the latter, a formerly folded sheet of paper bound as folio 385 and measuring roughly 28 cm in width and 23 cm in height, turns out to be an original letter written by the fourth papal nuncio on Cyprus, Pierre de Manso, to Pope John XXII: ‘Written in Nicosia, on the fifth day of the month of September’, a few weeks after the death of Archbishop Giovanni of Nicosia on 1 August, which we know from other sources occurred in 1332.⁵

Although short, the letter is packed with important and useful information about the job of a papal nuncio in Outremer. With the help of my forthcoming edition of the letters of Pope John XXII pertaining to Cyprus – many of them secret letters in volumes 109–117 of the Reg. Vat. series of papal registers that had never even been calendared before the publication of the third volume of the Bullarium Cyprium in 2012 or are still unknown even now⁶ – I propose to unpack this information here, while providing a transcription. In some ways, the letter tells us more about the everyday affairs of a papal nuncio in a distant land than does Raymond de Pins’ long report.

The rise of the office of papal nuncio in Outremer, based on Cyprus

In the summer of 1307, Pope Clement V appointed the first nuncio on Cyprus, Master Raymond de Pins, ad hoc to deal with the crisis of Amaury de Lusignan's coup d’état against his brother, King Henry II. Eventually he was given other responsibilities and even an associate nuncio, Nicolò Correr, archbishop of Thebes and then patriarch of Constantinople, but in the end Raymond arrived on Cyprus alone and not until February 1310. In the meantime, Clement had assigned the bishop of Rodez, Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne, as papal legate to deal with the Templar crisis and crusade planning.⁷ Although after Amaury's assassination on 5 June 1310 Raymond eventually secured King Henry's release from his Cilician captivity, the nuncio did not enjoy his success for long, dying on the following New Year's Day.⁸

Raymond de Pins was not replaced, and it was only under Pope John XXII (1316–34) that the office of papal nuncio in Outremer, based on Cyprus, became a permanent post with the appointment of Master Pierre de Genouillac, canon of Nicosia and experienced in law, first labeled nuncio on 21 May 1317.⁹ Jean Richard surmised that Pierre de Genouillac probably had the financial duties of nuncio on Cyprus from the end of the reign of Pope Clement V (d. 30 April 1314), but Pierre did not go to Cyprus until 1317 [r–21].¹⁰ When Raymond de Pins died in the East at the start of 1311, Master Dominic Leonard, papal scribe, was probably already in Cyprus on papal business regarding the Templars and was assigned pertinent financial tasks at some point well before 13 August 1313, when Pope Clement clarified his earlier instructions.¹¹ Indeed, Pierre de Genouillac did not yet have a prebend to go with his canonry in Nicosia Cathedral when Pope John was elected. The fact that he already possessed the parish church of La Capelle-Bonance, just to the east of Rodez, and Pope John granted him a benefice in Rodez Cathedral on 7 September 1316, suggests that Pierre de Genouillac enjoyed the support of Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne, who had become patriarch of Jerusalem while retaining the administration of Rodez and no doubt secured from Clement the expectancy for Pierre de Genouillac.

On 8 December 1316 [r–8], Pope John assigned Pierre de Genouillac to assist local archbishops in collecting annates in the Latin provinces east of the Adriatic from Durazzo and Crete to Tarsus and Nicosia, including all of Frankish Greece and Rhodes. Yet the pope did not call Pierre his nuncio until 21 May 1317 [r–21], when he granted him a safe conduct to travel to Outremer for the business of the Roman Church, assigning him on 6 June 1317 [r–24] the impressive salary of two florins per day to be taken from money received while carrying out his duties.

Following the death of Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne, Pope John appointed Pierre de Genouillac the new patriarch of Jerusalem on 19 June 1322 [r–134], replacing him as nuncio with Master Géraud de Veyrines, archdeacon of Benevento, and granting Géraud the new patriarch's canonry in Nicosia on 13 February 1323 [r–158].¹² In April and early May, the pope gave Géraud various instructions and rights, such as the power to grant the office of notary to two unmarried clerics [r–203]. Géraud was told to audit the accounts of Pierre de Genouillac and inform the pope with a public instrument [r–198]. Bestowing on Géraud and same very high per diem of two florins and his own safe conduct, and recommending him to the king of Cyprus, the pope sent him on his way [r–188, 190, 211].

After Géraud became bishop of Paphos, the same canonry and prebend in Nicosia was granted to a new nuncio, Pierre de Manso, on 15 May 1327 [r–314]. Pierre is already a familiar figure in Cypriot historiography,¹³ but there is so much confusion surrounding his background that a separate appendix below (Appendix I) is devoted to this issue. Suffice it to say here that he was probably from the diocese of Nîmes or thereabouts, not far from Avignon, and at the time of his assignment he was dean of Badajoz, but he later exchanged this post for the position of cantor of Burgos. Pierre de Manso would not be alone in Cyprus, however, for this time Pope John decided to send two nuncios [r–319], pairing Pierre with Jacques Raymond Sartor, who obtained Bishop Géraud's canonry and prebend in Famagusta [r–315]. Although Jacques retained his canonry in Famagusta until he resigned it in Avignon at some point not long before 19 January 1333 [r–478], when it was given to Master Eudes de Cauquelies, doctor in law, Jacques was unable to go to Cyprus and was replaced by the Dominican Arnaud de Fabrègues on 24 July 1327 [r–338]. After almost six adventurous years as nuncio with Pierre, not long after Pierre's death Arnaud was awarded with the bishopric of Segni near Rome on 30 October 1333, but under Pope Clement VI he switched dioceses with Bishop William of Aleria on Corsica in 1344, dying by 4 May 1351.¹⁴ Had he survived, Pierre de Manso himself would probably have earned a bishopric. As it happened, Eudes de Cauquelies de facto became the new nuncio even while later serving as bishop of Paphos.¹⁵

Six days after Arnaud's appointment as nuncio, on 30 July 1327 the papal camera handed him and Pierre de Manso the sizeable sum of 150 gold florins for the expenses of the long journey, including their entourage (familia),¹⁶ although the per diem previously given to Pierre de Genouillac and Géraud de Veyrines was now cut from two to 1.5 florins each [r–341]. Among the members of their retinue was probably the unnamed nephew of Pierre de Manso mentioned by a witness in a later inquest as being present with the nuncios and three notaries in the Dominican convent in Nicosia in December 1329.¹⁷ The three notaries may have been the unmarried clerics to whom Pierre and Arnaud chose to grant the office of tabellionatus with the papal permission that had been conceded before their departure [r–339]. In May 1327 the pope had given his new nuncios various instructions, notably, as in earlier cases, to audit the accounts of the previous nuncio, Géraud de Veyrines [r–322, 324–327]. On 1 August 1327 the papal chancery composed a letter introducing Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues to King Hugh IV of Cyprus, and they set off on their long journey [r–342].

Financial activities

Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues have received extensive attention for two matters already. First, in order to deal with the accounts of the previous nuncio, Géraud de Veyrines, they had to devote special attention to his handling of a fund of 30,000 florins for the kingdom of Armenia in Cilicia.¹⁸ Second, the imprisonment of Arnaud by the Dominican vicar general of the province of the Holy Land, Peter de Castro, toward the end of 1329, resulted in a fascinating trial.¹⁹ These will only be discussed below insofar as they relate to their typical tasks as nuncios, which were mainly financial.

Communicating with and moving money to Avignon

Although Pierre de Manso's letter to his superior contains a full address on the dorso (‘To the most holy lord father in Christ, Lord John, by divine providence the highest pontiff of the most holy Roman and Universal Church’), the letter itself is addressed simply in the vocative ‘Most holy Father’ without salutation and signed at the very end ‘P. de Manso, servant of your holiness’. After closing, as a postscript before signing, Pierre takes the time to support his colleague: ‘I commend Brother Arnaud de Fabrègues to your customary kindness, holy Father, with all supplication’. Before the dating clause, Pierre inserts a valediction: ‘May divine clemency keep your most blessed person safe and sound for the governance of His holy Church’. Twice in the body of the letter Pierre pauses to address the pope again in the vocative without the superlative (Pater sancte) before adding new clauses [edition in Appendix II below, §§4, 7].

On the whole, then, it is a personal letter in many ways. The first time Pierre pauses, he remarks [§4]:

Holy Father, I have not received a letter from you in almost a year. And if any letters from your camera were sent to me or my associate to be directed to Cyprus, aside from the one that Pierre de Castelnau handed to me and my associate on your behalf, you should know that none was shown to us.

Indeed, before Pierre finished his letter on 5 September 1332, the previous papal letter addressed to the nuncios that is preserved in the papal registers is dated 9 August 1331 [r–461], in which Pope John instructs Pierre and Arnaud to hand over 3000 gold florins to the merchants Pierre de Castelnau and Hugues Adrech, citizens of Avignon, or to one of them, and this letter may not have arrived until October 1331, probably with Pierre de Castelnau.

In fact Pope John sent just fourteen letters to Cyprus in total between that date and the date of Pierre's letter, but Pierre de Manso's concern was justified. Earlier in the letter he reveals how he coped with his great distance from Avignon [§2]:

Because the journey by sea is uncertain and dangerous, I therefore sent to your holiness several letters from the first day of the month of August [1332] until today, first with Guillaume the squire (vayletus) of the treasurer of Nicosia [Eudes de Cauquelies]²⁰ staying with the lord cardinal [Raymond of San Eusebio] the former bishop of Saint-Papoul,²¹ and [then] with a certain merchant, and finally with the nuncio of the Bardi company … 

Even in summer, sailing west from Cyprus to Avignon was unpredictable, so Pierre sent three separate letters to the pope to ensure that he was informed promptly, the one edited below being the fourth. As we shall see later, the news in question had reached the curia in Avignon by 16 November, when the chancery acted on it. Likewise, as we shall see presently, in notifying the pope of the date that a payment would be made in Avignon, Pierre lets us know that he allowed about three months.

Peter opens his letter thus [§1]:

On the first day of the month of September [1332] I exchanged with Jacopo Gherardini of the Bardi company 17,625 white bezants of Cyprus. For which bezants the same company is obliged to pay 3000 florins of pure gold and just weight of Florence to your camera by the next feast of the Lord's Nativity.

The papacy's use of the Bardi bank for its financial affairs in Outremer during the papacy of John XXII is well known. As early as 1298, Bishop Guy of Famagusta and Tortosa borrowed 1200 gold florins from the Bardi company for the expenses of a voyage to and from Rome for his and his churches’ business.²² Just before the Templar saga began, as we learn from later letters of 1309,²³ money from the administration of the church of Nicosia came into the hands of the Bardi and Peruzzi. The latter company had lent Bishop Peter of Limassol 2000 gold florins in 1301.²⁴ On 18 June 1317, when Pope John was sending Pierre de Genouillac to collect the annates ‘in the kingdom of Cyprus, the principality of Achaia, the patriarchate of Constantinople, the provinces of Neopatras, Rhodes, Tarsus, and Crete, or elsewhere’, both the Bardi and the Peruzzi were tasked with getting the money to Avignon [r–25, 94]. It was the Bardi who in late 1322 and early 1323 were charged with moving in instalments the huge sum of 30,000 florins from Avignon to Famagusta or Nicosia via their representatives on Cyprus, money to be used for the fortifications of the kingdom of Armenia and other defensive purposes, and to be overseen by the same Pierre de Genouillac, now patriarch of Jerusalem, and his replacement as nuncio, Géraud de Veyrines [r–163].

Pierre de Manso and his associate would have to deal with this specific Armenian money, as we shall see, but before leaving for Cyprus Pierre and Jacques Raymond Sartor, before he was replaced, were instructed in general to use the agents of the Bardi company in Cyprus to send money and goods from Outremer to the apostolic camera in Avignon, assigning specific deadlines for the payment in Avignon, as was agreed between the camera and the Bardi in a public instrument. Pierre and Jacques were told to have two public instruments drawn up for each transaction, keeping one and sending the other to the camera, but canceling their copy when they learned that the transaction had been completed in Avignon [r–336]. It is this procedure that Pierre followed in the late summer of 1332, according to his letter.

A letter of 9 August 1329 [r–429] seems to suggest that it was arranged that Pierre and Arnaud would send money collected in Cyprus to the apostolic camera in Avignon when the amount reached 1500 florins, although using merchants of Avignon Pierre de Castelnau and Francesc Barall for the exchange from local currency and the transfer to the camera. The procedure described in this case is that the nuncios would give Pierre de Castelnau in Cyprus up to ‘the value of 1500 gold florins according to the common course that merchants observe in exchanging there’, and Francesc would obligate himself to pay the money to the apostolic camera in Avignon as soon as word reached the camera that the nuncios had turned over that sum to Pierre de Castelnau.²⁵ The following 12/13 May 1330, the sum was 3000 florins and Jean Ricavi had replaced Pierre de Castelnau on the Cypriot end [r–444], while on 9 August 1331 it was again 3000 florins and Pierre de Castelnau was again the agent in Cyprus, but joined there by Hugues Adrech [r–461]. In each case public instruments were to be made in duplicate for the initial transaction and the nuncios were conceded the power to give quittance and absolution when the transaction was completed.

Following Pierre de Manso's death, however, on 22 March 1334 Pope John wrote to the Bardi company stating that before his death Pierre had deposited 3000 florins with the Bardi associates in Cyprus. Since the Bardi associate Gerard de Bonenseguhar had paid (the previous day, according to the camera records) this money to the camera, the chancery acknowledged this and absolved the company.²⁶

The above seems to suggest that Pierre de Manso and his Dominican associate regularly sent sums of 3000 florins to Avignon via the Bardi company, but there was no need to record these transactions except for the last payment, since Pierre was dead and Arnaud had departed. By exception, a group of Avignon merchants with agents on Cyprus was employed for the same purpose. Judging from the dates, including Pierre's letter, the money was probably sent to the apostolic camera once or perhaps twice a year during the sailing season.

Exchange rates fluctuated, sometimes quite a bit, but the rate of exchange recorded in Pierre's letter confirms the roughly 6:1 ratio of white bezants of Cyprus to gold florins of Florence that Jean Richard calculated for the year 1329 in connection with these same nuncios and their predecessor Géraud de Veyrines.²⁷ In Pierre's case, in 1332 the exchange of 17,625 bezants for 3000 florins worked out to be 5.875 bezants per florin. Whether this includes the fee of the Bardi company is unknown, however. For the 30,000 florins sent from Avignon to Cyprus the previous decade for the defense of Cicilian Armenia, the Bardi company had charged a fee of 8%, so that to send 30,000 florins the papacy paid 32,400 florins [r–163]. If Pierre's transaction did include a fee, and if that fee was 8%, then the 3000 florins cost only 16,320 bezants at a rate of 5.44 bezants per florin. Perhaps it is best to assume that the fee was paid in Avignon and the exchange rate at that point was 5.875:1.

Annates

What were the sources of this regular transfer of money from Cyprus to Avignon? After informing the pope that he had not heard from him in a while, Pierre de Manso also reminded him briefly that ‘the end of the biennial tithe will be on the next feast of St Andrew’, that is, 30 November 1332 [§5]. Immediately afterwards, Pierre inserts the second longest item of his letter [§6]:

Some brothers of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem showed me certain apostolic letters on the authority of which they sought that 6000 bezants received from the triennial tithe be restored to them. But because on your behalf we had been given orders that, if we owed anything to the aforesaid Hospital because of the tithes received by me and my associate or for other reasons, we would take care to keep up until the corresponding quantity of the fruits of the first year owed to your camera by reason of the death of Brother Maurice, I was unable to carry out what said brothers asked. And Brother Hélie de Casetis will assign to your holy hands the text of said last letter and of the second one as well as the response made by me.

These two items mention the two regular sources of papal income from Cyprus in 1332: ecclesiastical tithes and annates from vacant benefices. As we shall see, these were not the only sources, and new bishops and the abbots of rich monasteries obliged themselves to pay the pope and cardinals something called the ‘common services’ nominally equivalent to one third their annual income. These payments were made directly to the apostolic camera, not via the nuncios. Nevertheless, because the ecclesiastical tithes were linked to episcopal incomes, and in Cyprus the cathedral staff were paid from these incomes and not separately [r–84–85], the records from the common services provide data on the revenue of a diocese and thus tell us how much a tithe or tenth would be. In the following chart, this information is given for our period, along with the income of abbots who also paid common services:²⁸

Table

Prelate	Comm. Serv.	Total income	Tithe amount (10%)
Nicosia archbishop	5000 florins	15,000 florins	1500 florins
Paphos bishop	2000 florins	6000 florins	600 florins
Famagusta bishop	1500 florins	4500 florins	450 florins
Limassol bishop	1000 florins	3000 florins	300 florins
Jerusalem patriarch	2000 florins	6000 florins	600 florins
Stavrovouni abbot OSB	323⅓ florins	970 florins	97 florins
Beaulieu abbot OCist	312 florins	936 florins	93.6 florins
Totals	12,135⅓ florins	36,406 florins	3640.6 florins

The reader will note that the final figure is suspiciously close to the regular 3000 florins sent from Cyprus to Avignon, subtracting the per diem of the nuncio(s).

When Pope John XXII initially involved Pierre de Genouillac with Outremer, according to a letter of 8 December 1316 [r–8], it was to collect the incomes of the first year of all ecclesiastical benefices that were vacant in the Latin East or would become so in the following three years, to cover the urgent needs of the Roman Church. This was a standard letter, however, and the fact that the pope explicitly stated that the move did not apply to cathedrals and abbeys (the main prelates were subject to paying the common services anyway), to benefices worth six silver marks or less annually, or to certain other cases meant that there would be little for Pierre de Genouillac to do, which would explain why he was supposed to cover so much territory. Despite referring to Pierre de Genouillac as his nuncio on occasion, since the post of permanent nuncio on Cyprus had not evolved sufficiently, the pope could even entitle his nuncio merely as ‘collector of the fruits of the first year of vacant benefices in areas of Outremer’, as he did on 13 August 1319.²⁹

When the pope actually sent Pierre de Genouillac, the briefer instructions of 27 June 1317 did not mention these exceptions [r–33], but from what we later learn about the measure's application, the exceptions still held. When this was renewed later for Cyprus, for example on 30 April 1322 for three years [r–200], as Pope John reminded Géraud de Veyrines on 22 September 1325 [r–272] and then told Pierre de Manso and his associate on 25 May 1327 [r–324], it was again with certain benefices excepted, presumably the same ones as before. Although relatively few in Cyprus owed the tax, the 1325 papal letter to Géraud was occasioned by the nuncio's complaint that many of those clerics on the island who were subject to the payment of annates refused to pay, and Pope John ordered Géraud to summon such rebels to appear before him in Avignon.

It is ironic that Pierre de Genouillac was addressed as collector in the letter of 13 August 1319, because that letter was also addressed to Maurice de Pagnac, preceptor of the Hospital in Cyprus and Armenia. Maurice himself had a controversial career in the Hospitaller Order. After a failed bid to become master of the order,³⁰ on 1 March 1319 Maurice had to settle for the Hospitaller holdings in Armenia and half of Cyprus [r–75–76], which would entangle him in peace negotiations between the two kingdoms [r–90, 103, 166, 194].³¹ For our purposes what is important is that he was one of the few people who held a significant ecclesiastical benefice on Cyprus that was not attached to a cathedral or an abbey.

As we shall see, on 24 October 1324 Maurice's request for an exemption from the triennial tithe was granted [r–243], and this is related to Pierre de Manso's letter. Pope John referred to Maurice as ‘the late’ in a letter to the king of Armenia dated 25 September 1328,³² but we can be more precise about his death: on 22 March 1330 [r–438] the pope responded to the letter of Pierre and Arnaud by which they informed him that when Maurice died, the previous nuncio, Géraud de Veyrines, now bishop of Paphos, neglected to collect the fruits of the first year of the vacancy, meaning that Maurice had died by the summer of 1327 and probably significantly before that. Since according to the pope's arrangement from 1319 Maurice's death involved half of the Hospital's extensive property on the island, the first year of the vacancy was worth quite a lot. The pope responded to his nuncios that, if they were obliged to reimburse the Hospitallers for anything, such as tithes from which they were exempt, the nuncios were to keep enough money to cover the fruits of the first year of the vacancy in Maurice's position [r–438].

The following year, on 11 June 1331 [r–457], the pope again wrote to his nuncios on the matter, relating that the master and brothers of the Hospital had informed him that they had gone into great debt because of their efforts for the defense of the Holy Land (the pope spoke of the astronomical sum of 340,000 florins in writing to King Philip V of France around 1320: r–91). According to the master and brothers, the pope wrote a general letter ordering that the Hospitallers be exempted from the tax of the fruits of the first year of vacant benefices and anything that had been exacted for this purpose should be returned. The Hospitallers also maintained that the pope then wrote to Pierre and Arnaud telling them not to collect from the Hospital the triennial tithe that he had ordered them to raise, and if they had taken anything from the Hospitallers, they were to return it [cf. r–351, 418]. Afterwards, the master and brothers continued, the pope wrote again to his nuncios on Cyprus, instructing them that, if they were obliged to return anything to the Hospitallers for the above or any other reason, they should first retain the amount owed for the fruits of the first year of the vacancy of the late Maurice's former position as holder of half of the Hospital's property on the island, which the pope had granted him for his lifetime [cf. r–438]. On this pretext, the Hospitallers continued, Pierre and/or Arnaud received 6000 bezants from the Hospitaller preceptor on Cyprus, Géraud de Pins, which the Hospitallers wanted restored to them, since they felt themselves unduly harmed by this. Following this narratio, however, and contrary to the published summaries, Pope John's orders to the nuncios were brief and vague: carry out the orders he gave them in his other letter or letters, unless there were some other obstacle.

As far as I can tell, the only part of the narratio that is not backed up by a letter that would have reached any nuncio on Cyprus is the Hospitallers’ claim that the pope had specifically exempted them from the exaction of the fruits of the first year of vacant benefices, which is precisely the basis for their complaint. If Pope John had written such a general letter, he did not seem to remember it in sending his final instructions to his nuncios. There is no indication that the pope responded to the Hospitallers, but only to his nuncios. What seems to have happened is that the Hospitallers eventually decided to go straight to the nuncios with whatever papal letters they had in their possession in an attempt to secure the return of the 6000 bezants. Since, however, the pope had told Pierre and Arnaud to carry out his earlier orders, and this led them to keep 6000 bezants to compensate for the first fruits of Maurice's post, Pierre must have determined that he could do nothing but report the episode to the pope and send him copies of the letters the Hospitallers had employed in their support.

Ecclesiastical tithes

The Hospitallers were, however, exempted from the ecclesiastical tithes. At the Council of Vienne Pope Clement V had announced a general six-year or sexennial tithe on ecclesiastical revenues in support of the Holy Land, sending a letter to all provinces, including Nicosia, dated 1 December 1312.³³ As we have seen, for Cyprus this meant that each bishopric would pay 10% of its estimated annual income, totaling roughly 3000 florins or 18,000 bezants, half on 1 April and the other half on 1 October, until 1318. In his letters dated 5 September 1316 announcing his coronation as pope, John XXII emphasized his support for crusaders and the Holy Land [r–1], but he did not impose another ecclesiastical tithe on Cyprus until 1323, when Armenia and Cyprus were in grave danger.

On 6 April 1323, Pope John informed Patriarch-elect Pierre de Genouillac and Géraud de Veyrines that they would supervise the collection of a new tithe and seek advice about how to utilize the funds for defensive purposes [r–165]. Shortly afterwards, on 24 April 1323 [r–197], the pope wrote to the clergy on Cyprus and specified that it would be a three-year or triennial tithe, starting on 1 June 1323, half to be paid on the feast of St Martin, 11 November, and the other half on the moveable Feast of the Ascension in the spring, 39 days after Easter. On 27 April 1323 [r–191] the pope explained to Pierre and Géraud that each deposit they made should be accompanied by a public instrument in duplicate, keeping one copy and sending the other to the apostolic camera. One would otherwise assume that this tithe was duly collected were it not for the fact that we have letters dated 1 July 1328 [r–359–361], addressed to the clergy on the island and to the nuncios Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues, in which the pope remarked that for certain reasons the collection of that tithe had been suspended ‘until now’, but that because of the Church's increasing needs it would have to be collected now, paid once annually on All Saints’ Day, 1 November 1328, 1329, and 1330.

There is considerable uncertainty in the literature about these tithes, on two main points. First, do Pope John XXII's mentions of the sexennial tithe imposed by Clement V imply that John renewed or prolonged it? The pope refers to this tithe in letters dated 6 April 1323, 28 April 1323, and 25 May 1327, none of which was published in any form before the Bullarium Cyprium III of 2012. In the first case Charles Perrat and Jean Richard speak of Patriarch Pierre de Genouillac and Archdeacon Géraud having to ‘raise’ (lever) the sexennial tithe established at the Council of Vienne [r–165]. Then they refer to the pope telling the local episcopal hierarchy that he was going to ‘prolong the duration’ (prolonge la durée) of the tithe, the raising (levée) of which was in the hands of the patriarch and archdeacon of Benevento [r–199]. Finally, for 1327, they remark that this tithe, established by Clement V for the recovery of the Holy Hand, was ‘maintained’ (maintenue) for the defense of Cyprus and Armenia and that the new nuncio Pierre de Manso and his associate would now be in charge and would seek the advice of competent persons on how to utilize these funds, which was formerly Géraud's task alone following the patriarch's death [r–326].

The full edition of these letters suggests another interpretation. In the first letter, to his agents, the pope begins by saying that, considering the situation of the kingdoms of Armenia and Cyprus to be an emergency because of the enemies of the cross [r–165],

With the advice of our brothers [the cardinals], we have seen to it (providimus) that the six-year tithe collected in the kingdom of Cyprus that was imposed a while ago at the Council of Vienne is to be spent (dispensandam) against those enemies and for the rescue of those kingdoms and their Christian population as is expedient for the praise and pleasure of our Redeemer.

The key phrase providimus dispensandam is repeated in the second letter, to the prelates, although the wording differs [r–199]:

With the advice of our brothers, we have seen to it that the six-year tithe collected in the aforesaid kingdom of Cyprus that was imposed a while ago by our predecessor of happy memory Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne for the relief of the Holy Land is to be spent [for the rescue] of those kingdoms and their Christian population as is expedient.

Finally, in the letter of 1327 to his new nuncios, Pope John writes thus [r–326]:

With the advice of our brothers, a while ago we saw to it that the six-year tithe collected in the aforesaid kingdom of Cyprus once imposed by our predecessor of happy memory Pope Clement V at the Council of Vienne for the relief of the Holy Land and otherwise to be converted [to use] against rebels and enemies of the catholic faith is to be spent (dispensandam) for the rescue and protection of the aforesaid kingdoms and their Christian population as is expedient, for the praise and glory of the divine name.

It does not appear that Pope John is thereby renewing the six-year tithe, but rather that in 1323 he is deciding to use the funds already received in Cyprus from that tithe for the kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, which decision he recalls in 1327. When the pope goes on to speak of the need to collect this tithe, rather than a renewal, it seems instead that he is speaking about what has not yet been collected of the tithe imposed at Vienne. As we shall see, much of this tithe had indeed not been paid.

When Pope John imposed the three-year tithe in April 1323, at the same time that he was deciding on how to use the funds from the six-year tithe, it was for the same reason: the dire situation in Armenia and Cyprus. This was in the context of negotiations for a major crusade in response to the sultan's invasion of the kingdom of Armenia in Cilicia. When it was learned that the king of Armenia and the sultan had agreed to a fifteen-year truce, however, the emergency passed. Although funds were sent to repair fortifications in Armenia, as we shall see, the crusade idea was dropped. For this reason, perhaps, and maybe because of the death of Patriarch Pierre and/or the negligence of Géraud de Veyrines, the pope noted on 1 July 1328 [r–359] that the collection of the three-year tithe had been suspended ‘until now’. Pope John now wanted it collected, not for the defense of Cyprus and Armenia, but for the pressing needs of the Roman Church in the West, following the coronation of Louis of Bavaria as emperor, his deposition of John XXII, and his appointment of antipope Nicholas V.³⁴ The deteriorating situation in Italy was no doubt the reason that the pope had already written to his nuncios on 30 March 1328 urging them to send as quickly as possible to the papal camera whatever they had collected for any reason [r–349].

In fact, as we learn from a later letter of 22 March 1330, Géraud de Veyrines had already collected some of the three-year tithe, but only after he had become bishop of Paphos toward the end of 1326.³⁵ It is possible that in mid–1328 the pope did not know the situation, but since the original deadline had passed, de facto anyone who had paid nothing owed the entire sum. Pope John did not ask everyone to pay it all at once, but in three (rather than six) instalments on All Saints’ Day, the first being just four months in the future. Since the letters of 1 July 1328 would have taken some weeks to arrive on Cyprus, those obliged to pay the tithe were probably given less than three months to come up with the first instalment [r–359–361].

The second general question about the ecclesiastical tithes is related to the first: did anyone have to pay more than one papal ecclesiastical tithe at the same time? If the sexennial tithe had in fact been renewed, the answer would be yes, since the triennial tithe would have overlapped with the renewed sexennial tithe. If, as I maintain, they did not overlap, then we have a different picture of the tithe situation. That they did not overlap is also suggested by a letter of 22 March 1330 in which Pope John responded to his nuncios Pierre and Arnaud, who had written him with the following query [r–436]:

The first deadline for the payment of the tithe on ecclesiastical incomes existing in the kingdom of Cyprus imposed by us for certain reasons a while ago for two years (usque ad biennium) coincides with the time for the payment of the other, three-year (triennalis) tithe. So you asked to be made more certain whether it was our intention that the deadline for the payment of said two-year (biennalis) tithe will be put off until after the payment of the aforesaid three-year (triennalis) tithe or whether you will collect both tithes at the same time.

That is, obviously, they were asking Pope John for clarification because it seemed to them unusual to collect two ecclesiastical tithes at once according to their proper deadlines, the third instalment of the triennial tithe being due on 1 November 1330.

The letters imposing this two-year tithe survive [r–402–403], one to the prelates of Cyprus and one to the two nuncios, but they are undated. They make it explicit that the purpose of this tithe is for the pope's struggles against ‘heretics and schismatics’ ‘in parts of Italy’.³⁶ The letter to the prelates states that the two years will begin on the next feast of the Resurrection, or Easter, the first instalment to be paid on the feast of the Archangel Michael on 29 September and the second the following Easter, to be repeated the second year. Since the pope responded to the query of his nuncios on 22 March 1330, it is likely that the biennium was to begin on Easter 1330, which fell on 8 April, and the first payment was to be made on 29 September 1330. Since the final payment of the triennial tithe on Cyprus was not due until 30 November 1330, the two tithes would overlap and be paid at the same time. Pope John's letters calling for the biennial tithe is among those of his thirteenth year, from 5 September 1328 to 4 September 1329, the previous dated letter being from 25 April 1329 and the next dated one from 9 November 1328. Easter in 1329 fell on 23 April, so it is likely that in imposing a tithe of two years beginning the following April Pope John was writing not long after 23 April 1329, perhaps indeed on 25 April.

Pope John's response to his nuncios’ query is instructive in general [r–436]:

Since it was not at all our intention that the deadlines for the payments of the aforesaid tithe coincide at the same time, we order your discretion with apostolic writings that, when the deadlines for said three-year (triennalis) tithe have elapsed, you should exact the other, two-year (biennalis) one, changing its deadlines as you see fit if they have been fixed in advance within the deadlines of the three-year (triennalis) tithe.

Pope John is clear: no two ecclesiastical tithes should be levied at the same time, and only once all of the deadlines for the instalments of the three-year tithe had passed should the nuncios begin to collect the two-year tithe, adjusting its deadlines accordingly. At least for Pope John XXII's reign it is clear: that (a) the one six-year tithe imposed at Vienne for the Holy Land was to be collected until 1318; that (b) the funds from it and from the three-year tithe that Pope John himself imposed in 1323 were to be used for the defense of Armenia and Cyprus; that (c) when the danger passed, the collection of the three-year tithe lapsed; that (d) when John's own troubles in the West increased, he ordered that his three-year tithe be collected on 1 November in 1328, 1329, and 1330; that (e) for the same reason he imposed a new, two-year tithe, for 1330–32, with the first payment on 29 September 1330; but that (f) because of the ongoing collection of the three-year tithe, he had to postpone the collection of the two-year tithe. From Pierre de Manso's letter of 5 September 1332, we know that he and Arnaud had rescheduled the payments for the biennial tithe for 30 November 1331 and 1332, leaving an entire year between the last payment of the previous tithe and the first payment of the next [§5]. In other words, the biennium could not even begin until the triennium had ended. In telling the pope that his two-year tithe was about to end, then, Pierre was perhaps hinting that if the pope wanted to continue to collect ecclesiastical tithes from Cyprus, he would have to impose a new one. That is, there was only one clerical tenth to be paid by Cypriot clerics at any given time during John's reign.

The above is significant for another reason, because it helps illustrate how the collection of ecclesiastical tithes after the Council of Vienne was not simply a matter of receiving money paid promptly by all concerned on the deadlines. Rather it was an ongoing effort that continued over a decade after the final deadline of one tithe had passed, involving frequent appeals for exemptions and extensions. The nuncio's job was clear: get the money and send it to Avignon. Clear, but difficult.

For example, on 22 February 1329 [r–391; cf. r–407 of 4 June 1329] Pope John wrote to his nuncios concerning the tithe debt that the former nuncio Géraud de Veyrines, now bishop of Paphos, had inherited from the previous bishop, Aimery of Nabinaud, whose own predecessor, James, had apparently never paid since the time of the Council of Vienne.³⁷ Géraud claimed that the debt was for the sexennial and triennial tithes alone, for nine years, and came to the sum of 36,000 bezants, or about 6000 florins. Since the diocese had an estimated income of 6000 florins per year, and on that basis it owed a tithe of 600 florins, nine years of tithes amounted to 5400 florins, not far from 6000. This reinforces the conclusion that until that point there had only been a six-year tithe for 1312–18 and a three-year tithe for 1323–26, later extended to 1328–30, and that these deadlines did not necessarily correspond to when the tithe would actually be paid.

Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierre de la Palu made a similar claim around the same time, as we learn from a papal letter of 12 June 1329 [r–409]: he owed debts from his predecessors – Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne, Pierre de Genouillac, and Raymond Bequin – for the six years of tithes imposed by Clement V and the three years of tithes imposed by John himself. The problem was how to pay these tithes ‘or the remainder’. It is possible that his predecessor, Raymond Bequin, had the same problem with the church of Limassol, to which he and then Pierre de la Palu were assigned as administrators, because Raymond claimed that the last bishop of Limassol, Guglielmo, whose election Pope John eventually quashed, had taken away a sum of money collected by the previous bishop, John, for the pope and the apostolic camera, as we learn from a letter of 9 November 1324 [r–244].³⁸ Unlike the patriarchs, the Hospitallers were able to obtain an exemption from the three-year tithe.³⁹

Unpaid tithes were thus a huge problem for the papal nuncios who collected them, and there was little they could do with a sitting prelate. The best way to get the money was to wait for him to die, seize his assets, and apply pressure on the successor, thus exploiting the spoils system. Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues did this to good effect on more than one occasion.

Spoils

In addition to regular payments from ecclesiastical tithes and annates, Cyprus supplied the apostolic camera with other funds and goods on occasion. The bulk of Pierre de Manso's letter, and the reason for his urgency, concerns the death of one of the best-known prelates of Frankish Cyprus, the Dominican Archbishop Giovanni of Nicosia, that is, Giovanni Conti, whose mother was a Colonna.⁴⁰ The position of archbishop of Nicosia was one of the most valuable in Christendom, and there were at least two reasons that Pierre wished to inform the pope quickly. One was the vacancy in the post itself, to be discussed below. The other reason is that the developing spoils system interested the papacy in the legacy of deceased prelates all over the Latin world.⁴¹ ‘Recently, in the dead of the night on 1 August’, Peter writes [§2],

Archbishop Giovanni of Nicosia paid his debt to nature. The bulk of the goods that he possessed were carried off that night by his brothers of the religion of the Preachers, with Friar Benedetto of Borgo Sansepolcro⁴² alleging that said archbishop had surrendered all his goods to be divided up among his familiares. But for the chapter's part it was countered that this donation was not valid because it was immoderate, since by right he was unable to give everything away, especially because he was not really of sound mind, as was said. The same Friar Benedetto sought an agreement with the chapter so that he could distribute among said archbishop's familiares up to 1400 florins. I am unable to indicate the quantity of said goods and the others received by the chapter with certainty, but according to the common opinion they exceeded the value of 3000 florins. For as I learned for certain, in the month of March last [1332], on the order, it is said, of the aforesaid archbishop, Jacopo de Ancona⁴³ had sent to Ancona on his ship 1200 silver marks, precious ornaments, and pontificalia, and some people are now asserting that when nearing death the same archbishop had given the same silver marks and ornaments to his nephew, Nicolò de Conti.

It is unclear whether the main part of the late archbishop's goods, taken away by his familiares, were returned before Friar Benedetto negotiated and implemented the agreement. It was thought that Giovanni's familiares and the cathedral chapter divided up goods worth over 3000 florins, about 18,000 bezants, and Pierre was certain that 1200 silver marks, a bit over 5000 florins or 30,000 bezants, had been shipped to Ancona along with ornaments and vestments of unknown value. Giovanni, a Colonna after all, was a wealthy mendicant. Considering that the respectable salary of a typical cathedral canon in Cyprus was around 100 florins,⁴⁴ the value of what was taken from Giovanni's legacy was enough to pay the salaries of the cathedral chapter for several years. Given that Pierre de Manso regularly sent 3000 florins to Avignon for the entire kingdom of Cyprus, spoils worth more than 8000 florins from a single prelate required prompt action and diligent attention.

In describing the fascinating scene of familiares and members of the chapter arguing over the archbishop's legacy immediately after his nocturnal death, and the pious Dominican archbishop's efforts to care for his poor nephew, Pierre makes no suggestion to the pope about what should be done, presumably assuming that the pope would send instructions. The last clause of his letter is as follows [§7]:

Holy Father, after this letter was begun and not completed, someone who had been one of the main secretaries of the archbishop of Nicosia gave me a certain sedula containing the things found among the goods of the mentioned archbishop, the tenor of which the same Brother Hélie [de Casetis] will also present [to you].

We are not as well informed about what happened next with the spoils of the archbishop of Nicosia as we are about other positions. When Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne died in early 1319, Pope John did not fill the position immediately, and as late as 8 July 1321 [r–113] he was ordering his nuncio Pierre de Genouillac to maintain or recover the possessions and collect the incomes on Cyprus belonging to the patriarchate of Jerusalem until the pope appointed a new patriarch. Since Pierre de Genouillac himself was named the next patriarch, no problems arose concerning the property. Neither had Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne paid the six-year tithe imposed at the Council of Vienne, however, so when Pierre de Genouillac died, the nuncio Géraud de Veyrines seized the property of the patriarch and received its incomes. The next patriarch, Raymond Bequin, who was also administrator of Limassol, complained to the pope that Géraud would not release the property of the patriarch or of the bishop of Limassol and was receiving some of their incomes, although Raymond was in great debt since he had to pay the six-year and three-year tithes as well as other debts of Pierre de Genouillac. On 27 August 1326 the pope wrote vaguely to the archbishop of Nicosia and bishops of Paphos and Famagusta instructing them to have Géraud restore the property and incomes to Raymond or merely retain whatever was necessary to pay Raymond's accumulated tithe debt [r–296].

It is possible that Géraud had seized the property and incomes for two purposes: to take the spoils of the patriarchate and bishopric of Limassol and to cover the ecclesiastical tithe debt for both churches with regard to their Cypriot property. Thus when Raymond died and Géraud was replaced by Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues, the situation was repeated: the new nuncios confiscated the late Raymond's goods and property and the new patriarch, Pierre de la Palu, was saddled with Raymond's accumulated tithe and other debt. Since Géraud was now bishop of Paphos, Pope John could only turn to the archbishop of Nicosia and the bishop of Famagusta, ordering them on 12 June 1329 to have the new nuncios return everything or keep what was necessary to pay the tithe debt [r–409]. A few months later, perhaps having received enough to pay the six-year tithe, the nuncios informed the pope that the three-year tithe, which corresponded to the period when Géraud was nuncio and occupying the property, was still unpaid and asked for instructions. On 22 March 1330 the pope told them to obtain the money from Géraud, bishop of Paphos, and not from Patriarch Pierre de la Palu [r–437].

Getting the money from Bishop Géraud would not be easy, because he faced the same problem. When his predecessor, the Franciscan Aimery, became bishop of Paphos, he complained that his own predecessor, James, had collected the money for the six-year tithe but spent it himself, meaning, perhaps, that he took the money from his subordinates and failed to send it to Avignon. As a result, on 5 May 1323 the pope ordered Patriarch Pierre de Genouillac and Géraud, then nuncio, to give Aimery more time [r–212]. When Aimery died and Géraud succeeded him, not only did the six-year tithe remain unpaid, but now there was the three-year tithe as well, as Géraud complained, as we learn from a letter of 22 February 1329 [r–391]. Because Géraud was himself nuncio when he succeeded Aimery, Aimery's goods were not seized to pay the debts, but taken over by Géraud. Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues argued that Géraud owed both the nine years of tithes and the spoils from Bishop Aimery, not to mention the three-year tithe owed for Limassol and the patriarchate. Indeed, this is what Pope John himself had maintained in an earlier letter to them dated 1 June 1327 [r–329].

In the meantime, Pierre and Arnaud resorted to sentences of excommunication, suspension, and interdict against Géraud to secure repayment, as the pope related in his letter of 22 February 1329 [r–391]. Ultimately, Géraud reached an agreement with the nuncios on a schedule for the repayment of Géraud's debts, dated 15 January 1329,⁴⁵ although it would not have reached Avignon before the chancery wrote the letter of 22 February 1329. Even afterwards, lack of clarity and communication between the nuncios and the pope over the extent and specific nature of Géraud's debts left room for the latter to complain about the nuncios’ highhanded actions [r–407–408, 424]. It was only on 22 March 1330 that the matter was finally settled, it appears, in a compromise: the nuncios were told to use the spoils from Aimery to satisfy Géraud's tithe debt, exacting whatever remained from Géraud [r–434]. In this way, the nuncios succeeded in securing the tithes but at the expense of the spoils, as had happened with the patriarchate and Limassol.

The remaining Cypriot episcopal see is Famagusta, where Bishop Baldwin reigned from before the Council of Vienne until his death, the date of which we can now fix more accurately to between the early spring of 1326 and the early spring of 1327, probably late 1326.⁴⁶ On 13 May 1326 Pope John wrote to his nuncio, Géraud de Veyrines at the time, relating that he had learned that Bishop Baldwin owed the papacy and the Roman Church a considerable amount of money and held goods belonging to the Apostolic See as well. Géraud was told to investigate, have the money and goods kept safe, report to the pope, and await further instructions. The pope wrote a parallel letter to Baldwin himself to the same effect.⁴⁷ The following year, on 25 May 1327 [r–328], the pope wrote to his new nuncios, Pierre de Manso and his first associate, Jacques, telling them that he had heard that Baldwin had died, but that Géraud had not reported back. The nuncios were ordered to investigate: if Géraud had received anything on behalf of the Roman Church they were to keep it safe, report to Avignon, and await the pope's will; if not, they were to obtain the money and goods no matter who held them, using ecclesiastical censure if necessary. When Arnaud became Pierre's associate nuncio, the orders were repeated on 29 July 1327 [r–340], although Pope John added that chalices, crosses, and other vessels and sacred ornaments belonging to the church of Famagusta were not to be touched.

At some point later the pope learned that the chapter of Famagusta had elected a new bishop, Marco (de Salexinis) de Vicenza [r–332–333], a Dominican master of theology [r–380] who was first recorded in Cyprus on 9 July 1322 witnessing a document of the Dominican Archbishop Giovanni in his magna camera, so Marco was likely a member of the archiepiscopal household.⁴⁸ We learn from papal letters to Pierre and Arnaud dated 14 October 1328 [r–377–378] that Marco, who had gone to Avignon, informed the pope that his nuncios had sequestered slaves that Baldwin and Marco had acquired who were needed to work the land of the church of Famagusta; camels, cart horses, and pack horses without which the goods of the church could not be controlled; arms for the defense of the church and city of Famagusta; several books and other property including real estate that belonged to Baldwin; and the following items used in the cathedral itself: seven copes and some ecclesiastical ornaments that Marco had had made out of gold cloth found among Baldwin's goods. Responding to Marco's request, the pope ordered the nuncios to restore all of those items.

Pierre and Arnaud must have obliged, but they seem to have come to an agreement over the spoils, since they reported to the pope the following year that Bishop Marco was obliged to pay the papal camera 19,000 bezants, over 3000 florins, but that he had paid only about 1000 florins. Pope John responded on 5 August 1329 [r–424], asking them to continue to pursue the money, set new deadlines, and keep him informed. It is probably the case, however, that Marco was also obliged to settle the matter of the unpaid ecclesiastical tithes of Famagusta, which is why we hear nothing more of that.

Ecclesiastical management

The second reason for Pierre de Manso's anxiety over the death of Archbishop Giovanni was the vacancy in the post itself. The day after Giovanni's death, 2 August 1332, Pierre hastened to inform the chapter of Nicosia Cathedral that they could not proceed to electing a successor, as he told Pope John [§3]:

On the second day of the death of the same archbishop, I presented the letter of your reservation to the chapter of Nicosia, concerning which some were sorrowful, but it pleased some immensely. And the next day the chapter reported in a letter to the king the death of the archbishop and the tenor of the letter of said reservation. I sent the instrument with this information to your holiness via some members of the abovementioned [Bardi] company.

It might be surprising that King Hugh IV was not informed of Archbishop Giovanni's death for two days, especially since the archbishop was a member of the king's favorite order, the Dominicans, and had crowned Hugh king of Cyprus.⁴⁹ No doubt the king had left Nicosia for the mountains to escape the August heat.

Pope John had effectively reserved all episcopal appointments to himself, de iure eliminating the tradition of local elections in the context of his efforts to centralize the financial and administrative functions of the Church in his own hands. Yet more than two decades had passed since Clement V transferred Giovanni Conti from Pisa to Nicosia on 10 May 1312,⁵⁰ so Pierre de Manso must have feared that the chapter would claim ignorance of the reservation. In fact, three more recent episcopal elections had taken place on Cyprus in which the chapters chose local mendicants, the bishop-elects were consecrated by Archbishop Giovanni, and the chapters and would-be bishops later asserted their ignorance of papal reservations: that of the Franciscan Bishop-elect Aimery (de Nabinaud) of Paphos probably in early 1322 [r–139], that of the Carmelite Bishop-elect Guglielmo of Limassol around the same time [r–135], and that of the Dominican Bishop-elect Marco (de Vicenza) of Famagusta in early 1327 [r–332, 376]. In these cases, the pope ultimately accepted the elections of Aimery and Marco, probably in part because they were close to Kings Henry II and Hugh IV respectively and the pope did not want to antagonize the crown, although he summoned the bishops-elect to Avignon first. Pope John rejected the election of Guglielmo, however, instead awarding the administration of Limassol to a series of resident patriarchs of Jerusalem. In 1324 the pope ‘compensated’ Guglielmo with the extremely poor diocese of Civita Castellana [r–223], although as late as 27 August 1326 Pope John was still trying to undo the acts that Guglielmo had done after his consecration as bishop of Limassol [r–244, 293].⁵¹

After the death of the second of these patriarchs, the Dominican theologian Raymond Bequin, on Cyprus in 1328 and during Pierre de Manso's watch, the chapter of Limassol still proceeded to elect Bartholomew Lambert, canon (and later cantor) of Famagusta since late 1321,⁵² named bishop-elect of Limassol in a local document dated Nicosia, 26 February 1329.⁵³ Pope John clearly quashed this election – perhaps with Pierre de Manso's help – because on 27 March 1329 [r–399] Raymond was replaced as patriarch and administrator of Limassol by another Dominican master of theology at Paris, Pierre de la Palu, and Bartholomew remained canon and cantor of Famagusta until at least 1336 [r–484, 486].

It is interesting that the only recent appointment about which we are uncertain is that of Aimery's successor as bishop of Paphos, Géraud de Veyrines, Pierre de Manso's predecessor as nuncio. We do learn from a papal letter dated 24 February 1327, granting his position of archdeacon of Benevento to someone else, that Géraud's promotion and then his consecration occurred while he was carrying out his duties in Outremer as papal nuncio.⁵⁴ In recommending the new bishop to King Hugh IV on 17 March, John XXII emphasizes that he received the king's letter concerning what Hugh had done with respect to Géraud after his promotion, information omitted in the published summary [r–307]. Had the pope first learned of Aimery's death and then appointed Géraud directly, he would have recommended the bishop to the king in the normal way with a letter accompanying the appointment. The above suggests instead that Géraud, too, may have been elected by the chapter, then confirmed and consecrated by the archbishop, and finally the king informed the pope in such a way that John XXII acquiesced contentedly in the promotion of his nuncio.

Given these recent experiences, perhaps at the news of the election of Bishop Marco of Famagusta, on 20 July 1327 Pope John had specific letters written up reserving the posts of archbishop of Nicosia and the three Latin suffragan bishops – explicitly exempting the Greek bishops – to make sure that no one would ignore the reservation again [r–377]. No doubt copies were given to Pierre de Manso before he left for Cyprus. Thus when Archbishop Giovanni died, the ever zealous nuncio, already in Nicosia, acted very quickly to forestall any election there. Some members of the chapter were upset, but others were pleased at the news of the papal reservation, evidence of an internal rift among the canons and dignitaries. Regarding Pierre's remark about the chapter's informing the king, he may be reminding the pope that, as we shall see, the king had complained about the reservations, as Pope John stated in a letter of 5 August 1329 [r–423], likely because the king wanted a say in the archiepiscopal and episcopal successions. Maybe for this reason Pierre tells the pope in his letter that via Bardi employees he has sent the pope an instrumentum with the gist of the chapter's note to the king.

In the event, the pope appointed another Parisian master of theology, the Francisan Hélie de Nabinaud, archbishop of Nicosia on 16 November 1332 [r–476], three and a half months after Giovanni's death. It would have taken several weeks to journey west to Avignon by sea, an uncertain proposition even in the sailing season, hence the four letters. Adding to that deliberation about appointing a successor, perhaps 100 days is about as fast a turnover as one can expect.

Few ecclesiastical matters did not involve money in some way, but papal nuncios did have to deal with issues that were not primarily financial, even if some of them resulted from their efforts to collect taxes. Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues were empowered to promulgate sentences and grant absolution, for such infractions as trading with the Saracens or visiting the Holy Land without permission. At times they excommunicated clerics, for example for not paying their tithes, and this could have at least three problematic results, as they explained to Pope John in a petition he answered on 22 March 1330 [r–433]. First, if those whom they excommunicated temporarily ignored their sentences and celebrated or were otherwise involved in the divine offices before their absolution, they incurred an irregularity, which required papal absolution. Since the journey from Cyprus to Avignon was so long and dangerous, the pope granted that the nuncios could absolve this irregularity, provided they enjoined a fitting penance on the clerics. Second, if the clerics held their sentences in contempt, the pope allowed his nuncios to appeal to the secular authorities as needed. Third, Pierre and Arnaud worried that they may have been overzealous and exceeded their mandate with sentences of interdict, suspension, and excommunication in trying to carry out their duties, in which case they may have incurred such sentences themselves ipso facto and then the irregularity for celebrating or involving themselves in the divine offices while bound by such sentences. The pope conceded that they could be absolved for these potential infractions by their confessors, as long as they did not repeat such actions in the future.

These issues arose while they were occupied with their typical functions, but Pope John also employed his nuncios ad hoc to investigate and often decide disputes between ecclesiastics. On 26 May 1328 [r–355], the pope asked them to look into the value and legal situation of the church of Our Lady of la Cava near Famagusta, which was de facto occupied but which the bishop and brothers of Mt Sinai ‘of the Order of St Basil’ wanted the pope to grant to them in order to build a monastery dedicated to the Virgin and St Catherine in which their brothers in Cyprus, now living as hermits, could dwell. If those to whom the church's collation belonged agreed, the nuncios were told to grant the church to Mt Sinai with permission to build the monastery, removing anyone else who occupied the church. Shortly afterwards, on 14 June 1328 [r–357], the pope ordered the nuncios to supervise and decide on the potential acquisition of two new sites for convents of Austin Friars in Cyprus. On 1 August 1328 [r–365], they were to investigate the alleged crimes of Abbot Simon of Benedictine Stavrovouni, suspending him if necessary and informing the pope. Still in the same year, on 14 October [r–379], Pierre and Arnaud had to decide the dispute between the Dominican Bishop Marco of Famagusta and the Dominican Archbishop Giovanni of Nicosia over the tithe from the soapworks in the city of Famagusta. A while later, on 1 February 1331 [r–449], they were commanded to put an end to discord over the position of abbot of the Benedictine Dragonaria Abbey near Nicosia.

Papal nuncios in Outremer could not limit themselves to ecclesiastical matters, however. Raymond de Pins had been sent to deal with a political crisis and, in 1310, ended up securing King Henry II's release from captivity in exile at the court of King Oshin of Armenia, the brother-in-law of the usurper Amaury, Henry's brother, who had been assassinated earlier in the year. On 13 August 1319 Pierre de Genouillac along with the Hospitaller Maurice de Pagnac was assigned to negotiate a settlement of the dispute between Henry and Oshin over the terms that Henry had accepted under duress for his release in 1310 [r–90]. Following Oshin's death and Leon IV's succession, Pierre de Genouillac was asked to continue to work for peace in the late summer of 1320 [r–103]. In the spring of 1323, under different circumstances, Patriarch Pierre and his successor as nuncio, Géraud de Veyrines, were put in charge of a fund of 30,000 florins for the fortifications of Armenia⁵⁵ and directed to use the money collected from the six-year tithe for the defense of Armenia and Cyprus [r–165]. Pope John also ordered them both to warn King Henry to obey and have his officials and subjects obey the prohibitions on trading with the Saracens [r–196]. After Pierre's death, Géraud continued to be involved in Armenian affairs, even feudal issues.⁵⁶

When Pierre de Manso took over he had to deal with the aforementioned Armenian fund according to the earlier instructions, as we learn from a letter of 25 May 1327 to the nuncio and his first associate, Jacques Raymond Sartor, rehearsing the background [r–325], and from later letters of 15 October 1328 [r–382] and 22 February 1329 [r–389–390]. On 7 May 1329, however, Pope John wrote to his nuncios with great concern, relating that he had just heard disturbing news about the kingdom of Armenia, no doubt that upon coming of age King Leon IV had killed the former regent Count Oshin of Gorighos and others [r–423, note]. Until it was ascertained whether the king and kingdom remained solid in their Christian faith and devotion to the Church, the nuncios were to freeze the Armenian defense fund. Almost a year later, on 22 March 1330 [r–432], the pope reported to his nuncios the rumors he had heard that King Leon IV had destroyed the churches built for the Latins, so the fund continued to be frozen. By 28 February 1331 [r–451] the pope must have been satisfied with Leon's faith and devotion, so he ordered his nuncios to use the remainder of the Armenian fund for its intended purpose.

A case in point: the imprisonment of Arnaud de Fabrègues

The job of the papal nuncio was not easy, but even worse, it was not always appreciated at the local level. The primary task of Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues was to take money out of Cyprus and send it to Avignon, at first so that it could be used to defend the island against the Muslim threat, but as Pope John XXII's reign wore on the funds were increasingly diverted to his own struggles against rebel Christians in the West.⁵⁷ A letter of 5 August 1329 [r–423] informs us that opposition to the nuncios reached the point that King Hugh IV sent an embassy to Avignon, consisting of Bishop Marco of Famagusta, Pierre de Montolif, and Lambertino of Bologna, a canon of Famagusta and papal chaplain, to make the following requests:

1. To revoke the reservation of the churches in his kingdom, ostensibly because of the long distance between Cyprus and the curia and the dangers that entailed;

2. to give the king the remaining money from the Armenian defense fund for the defense and fortifications of Cyprus;

3. to turn over to the king the tithes collected for the past five years or for some defined period in the future;

4. and to grant the king the spoils of prelates for the construction of the walls of Nicosia.

The pope granted none of these requests, instructing his nuncios to inform the king that (1) he would deal with the churches as was best for them, that (2) the money was earmarked for Armenia and it would not be right to change that, and that (3–4) the Church had serious problems and needed the money from the tithes and the spoils.

While the king merely made these requests, a local cleric went as far as imprisoning one of the nuncios. The nuncios had to be mobile, traveling around Cyprus on a regular basis, so much so that they complained to the pope that it was hard to find decent lodging in many places. They asked the pope to grant that they could stay at religious houses as often as needed, and on 22 March 1330 [r–439] the pope agreed, saying that they could force their hosts to put them up, threatening ecclesiastical censure, provided that they not make them go to much expense. Usually, however, they were in the capital, Nicosia, where most if not all of the Latin prelates on Cyprus had a residence. Pierre de Manso and Arnaud de Fabrègues lived separately, since Arnaud was a Dominican and resided in his order's magnificent convent near the western gate of the city, where the Dominican patriarchs and Parisian masters of theology Raymond Bequin and Pierre de la Palu also lived when they were in Cyprus and where the Dominican Archbishop Giovanni of Nicosia and even King Hugh IV stayed on occasion, and perhaps also the Dominican master of theology and bishop of Famagusta Marco de Vicenza.

One morning in December 1329 the two nuncios descended from Arnaud's room in order to ask the vicar of the Dominican province of the Holy Land, Peter de Castro, to release from prison the former provincial prior James de Farges, who had been found guilty of various infractions. Apparently, Pierre and Arnaud wanted to question James concerning a decretal on forgers.⁵⁸ It is likely that this had to do with instructions the nuncios had been given before leaving Avignon, and even before Arnaud had replaced Jacques, when on 1 June 1327 [r–330] Pierre de Manso and his associate were addressed a papal letter relating that Pope John had received a trustworthy report that ‘a certain canon of Paphos from the kingdom of Armenia’ had been falsely claiming that the pope had granted him the power to absolve people from punishments and sentences incurred by those who had exported prohibited goods to the Saracens or who had aided those who had done so, contrary to the constitutions of the Apostolic See, which, as we have seen, Pope John wanted his nuncios to uphold. As a result, a number of people in the kingdom of Cyprus had received false absolutions that were worthless, paying the man various sums of money and goods. Pope John ordered his new nuncios to investigate and have this canon and any other ‘forgers’ captured and punished according to justice in such a way that they would not dare to repeat the offense and others would be deterred. On the same day the pope wrote to the prelates of Cyprus asking them to assist his nuncios [r–331].

There was good money in forging such absolutions. Writing around 1317, William of Adam had complained that the patriarch of Jerusalem, probably Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne, automatically absolved each pilgrim who had gone to the Holy Land without permission in exchange for the 35 gros Tournois that the sultan demanded for the visit.⁵⁹ Pierre and Arnaud were themselves granted the power to absolve transgressors from the more serious infraction of trading prohibited goods, on 1 July 1328 [r–362–363] and again on 9 March 1329 [r–398], being instructed to have the ill-gotten gains of such trade passed on to the papal camera, along with an account of the nuncios’ actions and the names of the transgressors. In fact, on 5 August 1329 [r–419] we learn that the nuncios informed the pope that many had already consumed their profits out of necessity and were in difficult straits anyway, so they could not return all the money to the nuncios. The pope ordered them to accept half of the money, but also to impose a suitable penance on merchants who did not end up with a profit from their trade with the infidels. There was thus a need for such absolution and it was known that the pope gave the power to absolve.

We later learn that the forger in question was Raynier Constantii, who was then 36 years old, having received an expectancy in Paphos in 1317 because his canonry and prebend in Antioch were of course worthless [r–22]. (But did he really have such a canonry?) Brother of John and James Constantii, who had been an envoy of King Oshin of Armenia, Raynier must have received his post following a letter from the pope in support dated 10 August 1321 [r–117–118]. By early 1323 Raynier was acting as King Henry II's envoy in Avignon, obtaining a dispensation to receive his incomes while at the papal curia [r–162, 207]. Raynier was thus a well-connected man, and by the time he committed his crimes of forging papal letters and letters of the papal penitentiary, the pope lamented on 5 September 1332, the same day as Pierre de Manso's letter to the pope, Raynier was even papal chaplain [r–475], just as his brother John, whose death the pope reported on the same day [r–209, 474]. In a letter of 2 December 1330 [r–445], Pope John informs us that the nuncios deprived Raynier of the treasury of Paphos, which was granted to someone else, and on 5 September 1332 his canonry and prebend were also given away [r–475].

The nuncios thus had cause to interrogate James de Farges that December morning in 1329. We can summarize what happened next, because it has been told in great detail on the basis of a trial record that survives:⁶⁰ Peter de Castro refused to release James from prison; the nuncios obtained the key and liberated James themselves, taking him to Arnaud's room; with armed men Peter de Castro broke into Arnaud's room, in which many items belonging to the pope were kept, and removed and locked up James; Arnaud moved to the house of the Hospitallers; the Dominican Arnaud and the vicar disagreed about whether, as nuncio, Arnaud was subject to or exempt from the order's rules, and Peter de Castro excommunicated Arnaud; on the morning of 26 December 1329 Arnaud returned to the Dominican convent during Mass, while King Hugh was in the choir, begging the king to support him, but the king told him to submit; after Mass the king asked for leniency for Arnaud and departed; Arnaud was absolved of the sentence of excommunication but locked up for his infractions, although the conditions of his confinement were quite comfortable; Arnaud was unable to act on official business with the agent of the king of Armenia or with pilgrims who had gone to the Holy Land without a license and sought absolution from him as nuncio; upon King Hugh's request, Arnaud was eventually released in order to carry out his duties for the pope.

During the later inquisition, in which the nuncios did not participate and many of the witnesses were Dominican residents of the convent, those who testified were vague on the length of Arnaud's imprisonment, with one saying ten days and another saying almost a month. We now know from a later papal letter from 9 May 1332 [r–466] that with armed men Peter de Castro besieged Arnaud in the house of the Hospitallers for three days and nights and then kept him incarcerated for 36 days.

When he first heard the news, the pope was not pleased. On 12 May 1330,⁶¹ about four months after Arnaud's release, Pope John ordered Patriarch Pierre de la Palu and Bishop Marco of Famagusta to investigate Peter de Castro's actions. We now know that the pope wrote a second letter to the patriarch and bishop on the same day, stating that Peter de Castro's actions were contrary to the pope's constitution forbidding any ordinary or inquisitor from proceeding against his nuncio in any way without papal permission, and declaring that the vicar had no power to imprison Arnaud, an act that was in contempt of the pope and the Apostolic See [r–442]. Pope John also addressed a stern letter on the matter to King Hugh IV on the same day, relating that the episode had occurred under his watch in his own capital [r–440]. Finally, the pope quickly wrote to his nuncios telling them that in the future each of them could act alone on papal business, despite what his earlier letters may have said [r–441]. At the Dominican Chapter General that convened in Utrecht on 27 May 1330, William of Cesimano was appointed provincial vicar of the Holy Land, most likely in order to remove Peter de Castro.⁶² Although it is not in the acts, the master and definitors meeting in the Chapter General ‘that was then celebrated’ sentenced Peter de Castro to imprisonment after reading about his infractions, as the pope heard, according to the abovementioned letter of 9 May 1332 [r–466].

An inquisition was held in Nicosia from 27 August to 25 October 1330. The patriarch had to leave in September and on 11 September he assigned Bishop Matthew of Beirut to take his place. Peter de Castro was found guilty of breaking into Arnaud's room and of imprisoning him, and summoned to appear before Pope John within four months. It is possible that both the trial record and Peter de Castro had arrived in Avignon by 28 February 1331, for on that day the pope wrote to King Hugh asking him to allow the papal nuncios to leave and enter the kingdom as often as needed,⁶³ while on the same day he wrote a very short note to Arnaud de Fabrègues summoning him to Avignon to discuss business [r–452]. This letter perhaps arrived in Nicosia in April, and depending on how long it took Arnaud to put his affairs in order, he may have made it to Avignon in June of 1331. Yet Pope John addressed a letter on financial matters to his nuncios in partibus regni Cipri on 11 June 1331 [r–457], and then a similar one without that phrase on 9 August [r–461], so perhaps Arnaud was unable to leave promptly.

Presumably having heard the story straight from his nuncio, on 9 May 1332 [r–466] Pope John wrote to the Dominican prior provincial in the area of Toulouse or his vicar, first reminding him of the constitution against acting contrary to a papal nuncio, then briefly rehearsing the saga of Arnaud, adding that he had heard that Peter de Castro had been sentenced to incarceration at the Chapter General in late May 1330, but explaining that since he was then unaware of this, he summoned Peter de Castro from Cyprus to Avignon and the sentence of the Dominicans could not be carried out. Arnaud himself then asked the pope to have Peter de Castro punished, so the pope ordered the prior provincial or his vicar, if what he heard about the sentence was true, to incarcerate Peter de Castro and to interrogate him about his advisors and accomplices in his offenses, informing the Chapter General that would convene in Dijon on 7 June 1332 so that these associates, if there were Dominicans among them, could be dealt with according to the order's regulations. Presumably Peter de Castro was in Avignon or Toulouse, and even in the latter case it is quite possible that the letter traveled the c. 315 kilometers to Toulouse, that the prior provincial or his vicar locked Peter de Castro up and interrogated him about his associates, and that a letter was then sent the c. 600 kilometers to Dijon all within four weeks. But if the prior provincial or vicar was unable to do so because of a canonical impediment, he was to give a deadline to Peter de Castro to appear before the pope once again and inform the pope immediately.

Apparently there was an impediment, so on 1 December 1332 Pope John wrote to the bishop of Nice, the Dominican Jean Artoud at the time, ordering him to investigate, although without going into much detail.⁶⁴ As we now know, the pope wrote again to Bishop Jean on 9 August 1333,⁶⁵ although this time also to the Dominican Arnaud de Saint-Michel, papal penitentiary. By then Pierre de Manso had died (the chancery still thought he was alive on 18 April 1333⁶⁶) and Arnaud de Fabrègues was back in the West, the pope remarked, before relating that he had ordered Bishop Jean and Archbishop Armand (de Narcès) of Aix-en-Provence to investigate Peter de Castro's horrible acts, ‘both through our letter and oraculo vive vocis’, which explains why Armand was not mentioned in the letter to the bishop of Nice of 1 December 1332. Armand was unable to participate, Pope John continued, so he renewed his orders to Bishop Jean and Arnaud de Saint-Michel. We still do not know the final result, but it seems that Pope John was persistent, and given that he would not die until 4 December 1334, there was time for him to ensure that the case was settled to his satisfaction. Indeed, in the Dominican Chapter General of the spring of 1334 the friars of the provinces of Greece and the Holy Land were stripped of their right to elect their priors provincial, perhaps because of the Peter de Castro affair, and Pope John confirmed the change on 30 January 1334 [r–515].⁶⁷

Conclusion

Our knowledge of the ecclesiastical and political history of Cyprus during the Avignon papacy has grown considerably in recent decades through the discovery and publication of numerous documents in the Vatican Archive, and it will continue to increase. In the index of Bullarium Cyprium III, after Kings Hugh I, Peter I, and Peter II and up there with Prince John of Antioch, the individuals with the most entries are the early papal nuncios Eudes de Canqualies, Géraud de Veyrines, Pierre de Genouillac, Pierre de Manso, and Arnaud de Fabrègues.

Pierre de Manso's letter to the pope provides a glimpse into the everyday affairs of a conscientious papal nuncio, who perhaps wrote letters to his boss on a regular basis, several times a year. It also reveals just how frequent travel from Cyprus to Avignon could be, with four or five people going from Nicosia to the curia in the space of five weeks, on separate vessels, one assumes, given Peter's precaution of informing the pope of the death of the archbishop via four different people. He was the eyes and ears of the pope in Outremer, a thankless job that earned him few friends, carried out on a hot island far away from home. Like Raymond of Pins, within months of writing his report, Pierre was dead, having neither returned to the West nor received the reward of a bishopric.

Acknowledgement

I thank Iris Shagrir, Guillaume Saint-Guillain, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, some of which are included in the abstract.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For the two offices, see e.g. Ian Clifford Kyer, ‘The Papal Legate and the “Solemn” Papal Nuncio, 1243–1378: The Changing Pattern of Papal Representation’ (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1979), and Etleva Lala, ‘The Impact of Medieval Papal Legates and Nuncios on the Albanians’, in Sprache und Kultur der Albaner: zeitliche und räumliche Dimensionen, ed. Bardhyl Demiraj (Wiesbaden, 2015), 120–40. Not all legati a latere were cardinals, a good example being the Franciscan bishop of Rodez Pierre de Pleine-Chassagne, who in 1309 was assigned the office of full legation in the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, and Rhodes: Chris Schabel, Bullarium Cyprium, vol. II: Papal Letters Concerning Cyprus 1261–1314 (Nicosia, 2010), no. q–52.

2 Charles Perrat, ‘Un diplomate gascon au XIV^e siècle: Raymond de Piis, nonce de Clément V en Orient’, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’École française de Rome 44 (1927): 35–90.

3 See the catalogue in Chris Schabel and William O. Duba, ‘Instrumenta Miscellanea Cypria. A Catalogue of Cypriot Documents in the Instrumenta Miscellanea of the Vatican Archives’, in Incorrupta monumenta Ecclesiam defendunt. Studi offerti a mons. Sergio Pagano, prefetto dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano. II. Archivi, Archivistica, Diplomatica, Paleografia, ed. Andreas Gottsmann, Pierantonio Piatti, and Andreas E. Rehberg (Vatican City, 2018), 807–20. Since then the remaining documents down to 1363 have been published.

4 For example, one in Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (henceforth AAV), Reg. Aven. 54, is the basis for Antonio Musarra, Chris Schabel, and Philippe Josserand, ‘Manuele Zaccaria's Report on the Fleet in Outremer after the Fall of Acre (1292–1293): Jacques de Molay, the War of Curzola, and Genoese-Cypriot Conflict’, Crusades 21 (2022): 121–40, and a fragment bound in Reg. Aven. 346 is published in Chris Schabel, ‘The Church of Limassol at the Death of Bishop Francesco, 1351’, Crusades 18 (2019): 129–63.

5 Chronique d’Amadi, ed. René de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1891), 405, and the necrology of Santa Maria Novella in Florence: ‘Necrologio’ di S. Maria Novella, ed. S. Orlandi (Florence, 1955), 432. The latter is cited in Michele Bacci, ‘Tra Pisa e Cipro: la committenza artistica di Giovanni Conti (†1332)’, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia Ser. 4, 5.2 (2000): 343–86, at 358 n. 47, but with an unfortunate typo in his translation on that page, namely ‘1331’ instead of ‘1332’.

6 Only a handful of John XXII's letters to Cyprus have been edited, mainly a number pertaining to the Greeks of the island in Acta Ioannis PP. XXII (1317–1334), ed. Aloysius L. Tăutu (Vatican City, 1952). Pope John's common letters, from other volumes in the registers, were calendared in Jean XXII (1316–1334). Lettres communes, ed. Guillaume Mollat, 16 vols. (Paris, 1904–46), abbreviated below as ‘Mollat’, and his secret letters pertinent to France were calendared in Jean XXII. Lettres secrètes et curiales relatives à la France, ed. Auguste Coulon and Suzanne Clémencet, 3 vols. (Paris, 1900–72), cited below as ‘Coulon-Clémencet’, but the BEFAR project never did the secret letters that do not relate to France. Most of the ones involving Cyprus were first calendared in Charles Perrat and Jean Richard, with Chris Schabel, Bullarium Cyprium, vol. III: Lettres papales relatives à Chypre 1316–1378 (Nicosia, 2012), 33–156 passim, but I have found a couple dozen more by doing a thorough search. The following is based on a full transcription of all the letters pertinent to Cyprus, which will be published in the next two volumes of the Bullarium Cyprium series. For ease of reference and to reduce the number of footnotes, I will cite the Bullarium Cyprium III where applicable in square brackets in the text thus [r–1], even if much of the information is not contained in the summaries (or those of Mollat and Coulon-Clémencet). Where I cite a manuscript alone, the letter has not been calendared, as far as I know.

7 On Pierre, see Girolamo Golubovich, ‘Fr. Pietro da Pleine-Chassaigne, O.F.M. legato apostolico in Oriente e Patriarca di Gerusalemme (1309–1319)’, Archivum franciscanum historicum 9 (1916): 51–90.

8 Besides the documents in Perrat, ‘Un diplomate gascon au XIV^e siècle’, for Raymond's appointment and other sources involving his activities in the East, see Chronique d’Amadi, ed. Mas Latrie, 326–91 passim; Bullarium Cyprium II, nos. q–18, 20, 32–34, 36, 73–75, 78, 106; Chris Schabel, ‘Unpublished Documents from the Cypriot Activities of Papal Nuncio Raymond of Pins (†1311)’, Επϵτηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερϵυνών 35 (2009–10): 53–64, at 60–64, nos. 1–2; idem, ‘Who's in Charge Here? The Administration of Nicosia Cathedral 1299–1319’, Crusades 11 (2012): 199–208, at 207, no. 1; idem, ‘Documents on the Election of Master Henry of Bedford of the Order of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Cyprus, 1310’, Επϵτηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερϵυνών 39 (2016–18): 129–38, at 137–8, no. 2.

9 Mollat generally (e.g. no. 4943) gives the wrong diocese for Canon Pierre de Genouillac (Nidrosiensis, that is, Trondheim).

10 For a brief summary of the succession of papal nuncios on Cyprus, see Jean Richard, ‘The Papacy and Cyprus’, in Chris Schabel, Bullarium Cyprium, vol. I: Papal Letters Concerning Cyprus 1196–1261 (Nicosia, 2010), 1–65, at 28–30. For the in-text references to letters, in the format of [r–1] etc., which correspond to Bullarium Cyprium III, see note 6 above.

11 Bullarium Cyprium II, no. q–105. Dominic was already in Cyprus when Pope Clement addressed him a letter on 13 August 1311: Bullarium Cyprium II, no. q–86. Dominic had received the office of notary in 1285, so he was not young and probably died in Cyprus: Bernard Barbiche, ‘Les “scriptores” de la chancellerie apostolique sous le pontificat de Boniface VIII (1295–1303)’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 128 (1970): 115–87, at 132.

12 On Géraud, see Chris Schabel, ‘Géraud de Veyrines, Bishop of Paphos, and the Defense of the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1320s’, Perspectives on Culture 30 (no. 3 of 2020): 81–103.

13 See especially Jean Richard, ‘Les comptes de l’évêque Géraud de Paphos et les constructions navales en Chypre’, and ‘Comment un nonce du pape Jean XXII fut emprisonné au couvent dominicain de Nicosie’, in idem, Chypre sous les Lusignan. Documents chypriotes des archives du Vatican (XlV^e et XV^e siècles) (Paris, 1961), 33–49 and 51–8 respectively; Christina Kaoulla and Chris Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro, Vicar of the Dominican Province of the Holy Land, in Nicosia, Cyprus, 1330’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 77 (2007): 121–98; and numerous mentions throughout Nicholas Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus 1313–1378 (Nicosia, 2010), which, however, was published before Bullarium Cyprium III.

14 For Segni, see Mollat, no. 61982. Konrad Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi (Regensburg, 1913), 451, dated the trade between William of Aleria and Arnaud of Segni to 1345 on the basis of two letters of 30 July 1345, but these refer to the trade as having happened nuper, and in them Clement merely orders the prelates to proceed to their new dioceses (AAV, Reg. Vat. 169, ff. 70v–71r, no. 61, to Arnaud, and Reg. Vat. 170, f. 21v, no. 13, to William). Yet a document dated January 1344, probably 1345 new style, has William already as bishop of Segni: ‘Liber iste est Michalis Casse, emptus per eum Avinioni a fratre Guillelmo episcopo Signinensi, anno Domini 1344, de mense Januarii’: Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, vol. 2 (Paris, 1886), 207. On 4 May 1351 Arnaud's successor pledged to pay the common services: Hermann Hoberg, Taxae pro communibus servitiis ex libris obligationum ab anno 1295 usque ad annum 1455 confectis (Vatican City, 1949), 7a.

15 On Eudes, see Jean Richard, ‘Un évêque de Paphos, nonce du pape au XIV^e siècle: Eudes de Cauquelies’, in Nea Paphos. Fondation et développement urbanistique d’une ville chypriote de l’antiquité à nos jours. Études archéologiques, historiques et patrimoniales, ed. Claire Balandier (Bordeaux, 2016), 349–54.

16 Karl H. Schäfer, Die Ausgaben der apostolischen Kammer unter Johann XXII. nebst den Jahresbilanzen von 1316–1375 (Paderdorn, 1911), 482.

17 Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’, 131–2 and 181 §170.

18 See Richard, ‘Les comptes de l’évêque Géraud’, and Schabel, ‘Géraud de Veyrines’.

19 See Richard, ‘Comment un nonce du pape Jean XXII fut emprisonné’, and Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’.

20 Eudes was appointed treasurer on 3 September 1331 [r–462] and was promoted to bishop of Paphos on 2 June 1337 [s–29]. Nevertheless, on 19 January 1333 Eudes was in litigation for the position of treasurer [r–478], which would explain why he was in Avignon the previous August.

21 The Benedictine Raymond de Mostuéjouls, near Rodez, was cardinal-priest of San Eusebio from 18 December 1327 until his death on 12 November 1335.

22 Bullarium Cyprium II, no. o–33.

23 Bullarium Cyprium II, nos. q–73–75.

24 Bullarium Cyprium II, no. o–54.

25 The summary in r–429 wrongly has 21,000 florins.

26 AAV, Reg. Vat. 117, f. 314rb, no. 1652; Reg. Aven. 46, f. 648r.

27 Jean Richard, ‘Introduction’, in idem, Chypre sous les Lusignan, 11–21, at 18, and idem, ‘Les comptes de l’évêque Géraud’, 38.

28 Information taken from the entries in Hoberg, Taxae pro communibus servitiis. These amounts are reflected in later records: Jean Richard, ‘Les comptes du collecteur de la Chambre Apostolique dans le royaume de Chypre (1357–1363)’, in Επϵτηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερϵυνών 16 (1984–7): 1–47; idem, ‘La levée des décimes sur l’église latine de Chypre. Documents comptables de 1363–1371’, Επϵτηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερϵυνών 25 (1999): 11–18; Coureas, The Latin Church, 284–90; and Max Ritter, ‘Cyprus and the Great Western Schism: A Re-Evaluation of the Obedience(s) of the Latin Church of Cyprus at the Time of the Great Western Schism (1378–1417) on the Basis of Documents in the Camera Apostolica in the Vatican Archives (ASV)’, Επϵτηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερϵυνών 39 (2016–18), 217–55, at 219–23.

29 Chris Schabel and Constantinos Georgiou, ‘Neither at Peace Nor at War: The Non-Implementation of the Armenia-Cyprus Agreements of 1310’, Επϵτηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερϵυνών 38 (2015): 95–116, at 114–16.

30 See r–39 and the uncalendared AAV, Reg. Vat. 109, ff. 208ra–b, no. 776.

31 See Marie-Anna Chevalier, ‘Le rôle de la Papauté dans la politique arménienne des Hospitaliers au XIV^e siècle’, in La papauté et les croisades, ed. Michel Balard (Farnham, 2011), 229–51, at 233–40, and Chris Schabel, ‘Aimery de Nabinaud, OFM (†1326), Counsellor of Henry II, Bishop of Paphos, Papal Diplomat between Cyprus and Armenia, and Debtor’, Perspectives on Culture 41 (no. 2 of 2023), forthcoming.

32 AAV, Reg. Vat. 115, f. 92rb–va, no. 403.

33 Bullarium Cyprium II, no. q–99.

34 On these see Guillaume Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, 1305–1378, trans. Janet Love (Edinburgh, 1963), 76–110, and especially Norman Housley, The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343 (Oxford, 1982), 25–9, 58–61, 104–6, 170–1, 177–8, and 246–50.

35 No. r–435: for his expenses as collector, Géraud wanted 19,808 bezants deducted from what he was supposed to turn over to the new nuncios, but Pope John replied that, since Géraud possessed the bishopric of Paphos, only expenses outside his diocese should be deducted.

36 On this see Housley, The Italian Crusades, 55–8, 62, and 85–6.

37 For these three bishops, see Schabel, ‘Aimery de Nabinaud’, and idem, ‘Géraud de Veyrines’.

38 On these patriarchs, their tithes, and their finances, see Chris Schabel, ‘The Village of Psimolophou in Cyprus and the Latin Patriarchs of Jerusalem’, Perspectives on Culture 35 (no. 4 of 2021): 29–56.

39 The above does not clear up everything. On 5 August 1329 [r–424] Pope John referred to the claim of his nuncios that ‘that said Bishop Géraud still owed the entire three-year tithe that he once collected, which came to the sum of 60,000 bezants, as well as almost the entire six-year tithe of his church’. Since 60,000 bezants is about 10,000 florins, that amount is close to the entire amount that would have been collected on Cyprus for the three years, yet supposedly the payment of this tithe had been suspended at some point and had to be started up again. Moreover, Géraud himself had earlier stated that he owed for Paphos the entire six-year and three-year tithe. Perhaps the nuncios meant that Géraud had collected from Cypriot clerics 60,000 bezants for both the sexennial and triennial tithes.

40 For Giovanni see Bacci, ‘Tra Pisa e Cipro’, and since then The Synodicum Nicosiense and Other Documents of the Latin Church of Cyprus, 1196–1373, ed. and trans. Chris Schabel (Nicosia, 2001), 226–45; Coureas, The Latin Church, 185–6 and passim; Schabel, ‘Who's in Charge Here?’, 205–6; and Michalis Olympios, Building the Sacred in a Crusader Kingdom. Gothic Church Architecture in Lusignan Cyprus, c. 1209–c. 1373 (Turnhout, 2018), 109a–114b and passim.

41 For this, see Daniel Williman and Karen Corsano, The Right of Spoil of the Popes of Avignon, 1316–1415, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA, 2020). For later Cypriot examples, see especially Jean Richard, ‘Guy d’Ibelin, O.P., évêque de Limassol et l'inventaire de ses biens (1367)’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 74 (1950): 98–133; idem, ‘La succession de l'évêque de Famagouste et la remise en ordre de la collectorie de Chypre (1365–1374)’, Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Âge 113 (2001): 637–62; and Schabel, ‘The Church of Limassol at the Death of Bishop Francesco’.

42 Benedetto was present in Nicosia Cathedral on 7 April 1320, already an associate of Archbishop Giovanni: Synodicum Nicosiense, 234–5.

43 Jacopo, expert in both laws, was also present in Nicosia Cathedral on 7 April 1320: Synodicum Nicosiense, 234–35, and in 1326 he was called a judge: ibid., 355; r–283, 298.

44 Nos. r–65, 85, t–36. For Limassol in 1367 it was 375 bezants before expenses, but exchange rates fluctuated: Jean Richard, ‘La Diocèse de Limassol en 1367’, in idem, Chypre sous les Lusignan, 61–110, at 92.

45 Schabel, ‘Géraud de Veyrines’, 98–101.

46 The previously published summaries only allowed for dates between June 1325 and May 1327 in Chris Schabel, ‘The Church of Famagusta’, in Famagusta. Volume II: History and Society, ed. Gilles Grivaud, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, and Chris Schabel (Turnhout, 2020), 297–362, at 341.

47 AAV, Reg. Vat. 113, ff. 317vb–318ra, nos. 2183–2184.

48 The Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia, ed. Nicholas Coureas and Chris Schabel (Nicosia, 1997), 273, no. 106a.

49 Chronique d’Amadi, ed. Mas Latrie, 402.

50 Bullarium Cyprium II, no. q–98.

51 Guglielmo was transferred to equally poor Isernia on 13 November 1331 (Mollat, no. 55631), but his date of death is unknown.

52 Nos. r–124, 131; Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia, 278, no. 109.

53 Louis de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, vol. 2 (Paris, 1855), 157.

54 AAV, Reg. Aven. 27, f. 70r–v; Reg Vat. 83, ff. 94v–95r, no. 1236 (information lacking in Mollat, no. 27984).

55 Nos. r–163, 191, and notes; AAV, Reg. Vat. 111, ff. 267vb–268rb, nos. 1117–1118.

56 AAV, Reg. Vat. 112, f. 233va–b, no. 987, 9 August 1324.

57 See on this Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, 99–110, and Housley, The Italian Crusades, 77 and 87.

58 Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’, 175, §127.

59 Guillelmus Ade, Tractatus quomodo Sarraceni sunt expugnandi, c. 2, ed. and trans. Giles Constable, William of Adam: How to Defeat the Saracens (Washington, DC, 2012), 38 and 40 (trans. 39 and 41).

60 Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’, analysis on 125–42, edition on 147–98.

61 The letter is included twice in the trial record edited in Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’, 166–7, §§47–51, and 194–5, §§283–287, but it was later found in AAV, Reg. Vat. 115, f. 420ra–b, no. 2257, as well: r–443.

62 Acta capitulorum generalium ordinis Praedicatorum. Vol. II: ab anno 1304 usque ad annum 1378, ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert (Rome, 1899), 197.30–2.

63 AAV, Reg. Vat. 116, f. 90ra–b, no. 307.

64 The letter is edited in Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’, 142–3. Interestingly, Jean's predecessor as bishop of Nice was the Dominican Rostaing, prior of the Marseille convent, appointed on 5 April 1323 (Mollat, no. 17162). This man is probably the Rostaing Alardi of the Dominican province of Provence who was appointed provincial vicar of the Holy Land at the Chapter General of 1311 (Acta capitulorum generalium, 53.27–28) and who as prior of the Famagusta convent played a role in investigating the discord between King Henry II and King Oshin of Armenia from 16 September 1315 until at least 17 April 1318: Schabel and Georgiou, ‘Neither at Peace Nor at War’, 106–13. Rostaing had died by 9 May 1329, when Jean was appointed bishop of Nice (Mollat, no. 45160).

65 No. r–520, misdated 1334 in the Bullarium Cyprium III, although by then Bishop Jean had been transferred to Marseille on 10 January 1334, to be replaced by the Franciscan Raymond: Mollat, nos. 62398 and 62400.

66 Mollat, no. 60095.

67 The decision, renewed in 1337, is discussed in Nickiphoros I. Tsougarakis, The Latin Religious Orders in Medieval Greece, 1204–1500 (Turnhout, 2012), 170, although he attributes the move to ‘the precarious situation of the eastern provinces, and the need for trustworthy and able men to rule them’.

68 AAV, Reg. Vat. 114, f. 94va, no. 490, from 25 May 1327; Reg. Av. 33, f. 478r–v, and Reg. Vat. 91, f. 125r, no. 2356, from 12 June 1329 (Mollat, no. 45362; r–409); and Reg. Aven. 31, f. 42v, and Reg. Vat. 87, f. 249r–v, no. 2656, from 1 August 1328 (Mollat, no. 42057; r–365). Wipertus H. Rudt de Collenberg, ‘État et origine du haut clergé de Chypre avant le Grand Schisme d’après les Registres des Papes du XIII^e et du XIV^e siècle’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Âge, temps modernes 91 (1979): 197–332, at 201 n. 19, noted the confusion and the last two instances. Kaoulla and Schabel, ‘The Inquisition against Peter de Castro’, 126, note without comment that he is ‘described as dean of Paphos’ in one instance. Coureas, The Latin Church, 153, refers to him as ‘the dean of the church of Paphos’, but elsewhere, 399, as ‘a deacon of the church of Paphos’, perhaps rationalizing, since Paphos had no dean. See also Sebastian Zanke, Johannes XXII., Avignon und Europa: Das politische Papsttum im Spiegel der kurialen Register (1316–1334) (Leiden, 2013), 167: ‘ … auf den lokalen Klerus – Petrus de Manso, Dekan aus Paphos … ’.

69 See the confusion in Richard, ‘Les comptes de l’évêque Géraud’, 33: ‘doyen de Burgos’ (also 35 n. 2); Rudt de Collenberg, ‘État et origine’, 201 n. 19 and 325: ‘legatus’; and Coureas, The Latin Church, 398: ‘a cantor of the church of Bourges’, and 376: ‘papal legates’.

70 See Coureas, The Latin Church, 204: ‘permission to receive incomes from Aragon … expectation to a benefice … in the city and diocese of Clermont’, ibid.: ‘made rector of the parish church of Conflantio in the diocese of Troyes’, 217: ‘originating from Aragon’, 224: ‘Aragonese … specifically mentioned as a papal nuncio and as a clerk from Gerona … expectation to a clerical benefice … Barcelona’ (neither the letter nor Mollat's published summary mention a papal nuncio), 232: ‘Aragonese cleric’. The following do not concern our Peter de Manso: Mollat, no. 44461 (21 February 1329): a priest of the diocese of Clermont, on a benefice in Clermont, and the pope had earlier written about a benefice for him in the power of the abbey of Cluny; Mollat, no. 50926 (20 September 1330): a rector of a parish church de Conflantio in diocese of Troyes, who apparently had no other benefice; Coulon-Clémencet, no. 4733 (2 December 1331): a familiar of the count of Flanders; Mollat, no. 55949 (16 December 1331): a cleric of Gerona, on a benefice in Barcelona, who apparently had no other benefice; Coulon-Clémencet, nos. 5229 and 5496 (30 July 1333 and 1 June 1334): a familiar of the pope.

71 AAV, Reg. Aven. 25, f. 161r–v, no. 1871; Reg. Vat. 81, ff. 133v–134r, no. 1871; summary Mollat, no. 25629 (11 June 1326): ‘Dilecto filio Petro de Manso, canonico Burgensi, salutem. Laudabilia tue merita probitatis … Hinc est quod nos, volentes tibi gratiam facere specialem, canonicatum ecclesie Burgensis cum plenitudine iuris canonici apostolica tibi auctoritate conferimus et providemus de illo, prebendam vero ac prestimonia cedentis vel decedentis canonici necnon dignitatem vel personatum cum cura vel sine cura, si qua vel si que aut si qui in ipsa ecclesia vacant ad presens vel cum simul aut successive vacaverint … Non obstantibus … Seu quod in maiori decanatum ac sancti Andree Pacen. et sancte Marie de Turre et sancti Petri de Falconeria quedam prestimonia obtines, et super quodam prestimonio in sancte Marie de Saffra, in quo credis ius habere, licet illud non possideas, Pacensis dyocesis nosceris litigare. Volumus autem quod si prius dignitatem vel personatum huiusmodi dumtaxat assequi te contingat, predictum decanatum, cum vero canonicatus et prebende ac prestimoniorum et dignitatis vel personatus possessionem pacificam fueris assecutus, decanatum ipsum ac prestimonia que obtines necnon prestimonium de quo litigas, ut prefertur, si ipsum interim evincere te contingat, que extunc vacare decernimus, omnino dimittere, alioquin iuri si quod tibi in eodem competit ad que te sponte obtulisti renunciare, libere tenearis’. For pluralism in Spain (and England), see Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, 17.

72 Not the church of Burgos, pace Coureas, The Latin Church, 204, since this was rather wealthy.

73 AAV, Reg. Aven. 32, f. 131r–v, no. 223; Reg. Vat. 89, f. 90r–v, no. 223; summary Mollat, no. 42829 (16 September 1328): ‘Dilecto filio Petro de Manso, precentori ecclesie Burgensis salutem. Grata tue devotionis obsequia … Dudum siquidem … [summarizing letter of 11 June 1326]. Postmodum vero, sicut ex tenore tue nobis exhibite petitionis accepimus, precentoria et prebenda dicte ecclesie Burgensis ac certis prestimoniis per obitum quondam Santii precentoris et canonici prebendati eiusdem ecclesie vacantibus, tu solam precentoriam predictam – de qua tibi per dictos executores provisum extitit – prebendam vero prefatam quidam alius impetrans te prior tempore in expectatione prebende assecuti fuistis. Sed prestimonia antedicta que idem precentor obtinuerat, et ex eo quia in predictis litteris non de prestimoniis dignitatem et personatum in dicta ecclesia obtinentis, sed solum de prestimoniis cedentis vel decedentis canonici mentio habebetur, assequi minime potuisti. Et nichilominus tu, predictum decanatum iuxta formam dictarum litterarum nostrarum per quas dictam precentoriam fuisti, ut predicitur, assecutus, omnimodo dimittere curasti. Cum autem, sicut eadem petitio continebat, secundum consuetudinem dicte Burgensis ecclesie ratione dicte precentorie, quam alias nudam et pauperem asseris, prestimonia vacatura ibidem usque ad quantitatem annuam quadringentorum Marobotinorum antique montete tibi debeant pro tempore assignari, et in ipsa ecclesia certe alie persone huiusmodi prestimonia expectantes existant que secundum suarum receptionum ordinem et predictam ipsius ecclesie consuetudinem tanquam te priores tempore et que magis quam tu in dicta ecclesia serviverunt tibi essent in assecutione prestimoniorum inibi vacantium seu vacaturorum imposterum preferrende, et propter hoc non speres de magno tempore prestimonia posse assequi memorata: Nos, predictorum tuorum meritorum et obsequiorum intuitu, volentes tibi gratiam facere specialem, prestimonia ad collationem vel provisionem seu quamvis aliam dispositionem venerabilis fratris nostri . . episcopi Burgensis spectantia, quorum fructus, redditus, et proventus quadringentorum Marobotinorum dicte antique monte valorem annuum non excedant, si qua per cessum vel decessum dignitatem vel personatum seu officium in dicta Burgensi ecclesia obtinentis vel alterius vel cuiuscumque persone ibidem vacant ad presens vel cum vacaverint … conferrenda tibi … reservamus. Districtius inhibentes … Non obstantibus … Sive quod in Burgensi canonicatum et precentoriam sub expectatione prebende ac prestimoniorum cedentis vel decedentis canonici et in sancti Andree Pacensis et sancte Marie de Turre et sancti Petri de Falconeria ecclesiis antedictis quedam prestimonia obtines, ut prefertur, quamvis prestimoniis ipsis per venerabilem fratrem nostrum . . episcopum Pacensem de facto te asseras spoliatum, necnon super prestimonio prefate ecclesie sancte Marie de Saffra adhuc litiges, ut est dictum’.

74 Schabel, ‘Géraud de Veyrines’, 98 and 101.

75 AAV, Reg. Aven. 36, ff. 466v–467v, no. 1657; Reg. Vat. 94, ff. 201r–202r, no. 669; flawed summary Mollat, no. 48028 (7 January 1330): ‘Dilecto filio Bertrando de Manso decano ecclesie Pacensis, salutem. Laudabile testimonium … Sane, dudum, volentes personam dilecti filii Petri de Manso, precentoris Burgensis tunc decani Pacensis ecclesiarum, meritorum suorum intuitu prerogativa prosequi gratie specialis, canonicatum eiusdem Burgensis ecclesie … [summarizing 1326 letter]. Cum autem postmodum idem Petrus, dicto prestimonio sancte Marie de Saffra, de quo, ut premittitur, litigabat, nondum evicto, canonicatum et prebendam ac precentoriam eiusdem ecclesie Burgensis, que quidem precentoria dignitas seu personatus inibi reputatur, tunc ibidem vacantes sibi cum quibusdam prestimoniis litterarum nostrarum auctoritate collatos fuerit pacifice assecutus, ac propterea prefactus decanatus cum eisdem prestimoniis que in predictis ecclesiis Pacensis civitatis et diocesis idem Petrus, ut premittitur, obtinebat et ius, siquod eidem in prestimonio prefato, de quo litigabat, cui iuxta oblationem suam predictam idem Petrus post assecutionem huiusmodi cedere tenebatur, vacare noscantur ad presens, nullus que … : Nos, volentes premissorum meritorum tuorum intuitu tibi gratiam facere specialem, te in omni iure et ad omne ius quod dicto Petro ante tempus et etiam tempore assecutionis huiusmodi in eodem prestimonio de Saffra quomodolibet competebat auctoritate apostolica subrogantes, ac volentes te in ecclesia Pacensi predicta, cuius existis canonicus, amplius honorare, ius quod eidem Petro in dicto prestimonio de Saffra quomodolibet competebat necnon decanatum predicta cum eisdem prestimoniis sic vacante, etsi eidem decanatui cura immineat animarum, cum omnibus iuribus et pertinentiis suis eadem tibi auctoritate ocnferimus et de illo etiam providemus … Non obstantibus … Et quod canonicatum et prebendam in eadem ecclesia Pacensi et prestimonium de sancto Laurentio dicte Pacensis diocesis nosceris obtinere’.

76 Hoberg, Taxae pro communibus servitiis, 25b and 91b.

77 Coulon-Clémencet, no. 3847 (12 May 1329): AAV, Reg. Vat. 115, f. 109(137)v, no. 620.

78 Mollat, no. 60095 [wrongly writing ‘can(onico)’] (18 April 1333): AAV, Reg. Aven. 43, ff. 660v–661r, no. 1283; Reg. Vat. 104, f. 428r–v, no. 1283: ‘ … indulgemus ut, apud Sedem Apostolicam moram trahens aut ibidem vel alibi nostris insistens obsequiis, sicut impresentiarum insistere dinosceris, aut in altero beneficiorum tuorum ecclesiasticorum residens, fructus, redditus, et proventus … ’.

79 AAV, Reg. Aven. 43, ff. 346r–347r, no. 653; Reg. Vat. 104, f. 278r–v, no. 653: ‘Petrus de Manso, olim eiusdem ecclesie canonicus et cantor, noster et Apostolice Sedis nuncius ad partes regni Cipri pro certis negotiis sedis predicte per nos de Romana Curia destinatus … per ipsius obitum qui nuper in eisdem partibus huiusmodi prosecutione negotiorum durante diem clausit extremum … ’.

80 Rudt de Collenberg, ‘État et origine’, 201 n. 19 and 260. Coureas’ frequent contention (The Latin Church, 204, 217, 224, 232, 544a) that our Pierre de Manso was Aragonese is presumably based on a reference to another Petrus de Manso, who actually seems to have been Catalan.

81 Bernard is probably the Bernard Petri de Manso, cleric of the diocese of Nîmes, to whom Pope Clement V had granted the office of tabellionatus or notary on 2 July 1309: Regestum Clementis papae V, no. 4154; AAV, Reg. Vat. 56, f. 97v.

82 See the note to r–314. On the collations of John XXII, see Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, 24–5; Yves Renouard, The Avignon Papacy 1305–1403, trans. Denis L.T. Bethell (London, 1970), 27–8, 37, and 117–18; Jean Favier, Les Papes d’Avignon (Paris, 2006), 166–74.

83 Schäfer, Die Ausgaben der apostolischen Kammer, 482; AAV, Reg. Aven. 47, f. 723v: ‘Item, eadem die (XXX^a mensis Julii) fuerunt missi ad partes regni Cipri discretus vir magister Petrus de Manso decanus Pascensis (!) et religiosus vir frater Arnaldus de Fabricis de Ordine Predicatorum … ’.

84 Schäfer, Die Ausgaben der apostolischen Kammer, 91, 139, 141, 335, 427, 591, 602, 613, 671, 807. The domicellus is probably the same Petrus de Manso active on papal business near Montpellier on 22 December 1319: ‘Instrum. Viviani de Pradis, publici Montispessulani not., super recognitione calicium a Petro de Manso nomine Joannis Papae XXII pluribus monast. ejusd. loci donatorum’ (Mollat, no. 12255). Deodatus, Johannes, and R. de Manso were also paid by the papal camera under John XXII.

85 AAV, Reg. Vat. 57, ff. 222v–223v, no. 897; Regestum Clementis papae V, no. 6065 (22 February 1310): ‘Actum et datum in monasterio Fontisfrigidi, Cisterciensis ordinis, Narbonensis diocesis, in presentia et testimonio ven. virorum dominorum Bernardi Andree, canonici Narbonensis, Raymundi Malaberte prioris ecclesie castri de Torolla, diocesis Agathensis, Iohannis Rebolli, Iohannis Brunelli, Francisci Anhani clericorum dicti domini episcopi Agathensis, Petri de Manso Dei (pro dicti episcopi?) capellani, Petri Bernardi de Balayvilla militis, Phylippi Golonh domicelli, domini de Cautio, Carcassonensis diocesis, Berengarii de Gogen. domicelli G. Petri de Montebruno, Enrici de Blancaforti Raymundi(?) de Cutsiaco, Pontii Mutonis, G. de Rupefixa, domicellorum dicti domini episcopi Agathensis et mei Aymerici de Carcayrano, notarii publici sepedicti domini episcopi Agathensis, qui requisitus, rogatus et mandatus, hec omnia scripsi et signo meo consueto signavi. Nulli etc., nostre confirmationis et suppletionis, etc.’

86 Regestum Clementis papae V, no. 10125.

87 nicosiensis] mo add. sed exp. V.

88 ut] s.l. V.

89 si] s.l. V.

Appendix I

Pierre de Manso's Origins and Benefices

The identity of Pierre de Manso has been a source of confusion among scholars, some of it stemming from the papal registers themselves, even from errors committed by the chancery. Because of the similarity between Pacensis, or Badajoz, where Pierre was dean and had other benefices, and Paphensis, or Paphos, the Cypriot diocese most associated with papal nuncios, on three occasions the chancery referred to Pierre de Manso as ‘dean of Paphos’, although Paphos did not even have a dean.⁶⁸ In addition, the adjectival form of the Latin name for Burgos in Spain, Burgensis, is easily mistaken for Bourges in France, which is actually Bituricensis.⁶⁹ The published summaries of the pertinent letters are often wholly inadequate as well, sometimes misleading or even erroneous, despite the great efforts of Guillaume Mollat and, following him, Charles Perrat and Jean Richard. Finally, Petrus de Manso turns out to have been a rather common name at the time, such that letters about benefices for at least three other Petri de Manso in France and Catalonia have been understood as meaning our Pierre de Manso.⁷⁰ To separate our Pierre de Manso from the others, one must begin with the benefices about which we are certain.

Pope John XXII appointed Pierre de Manso papal nuncio in Outremer in the spring of 1327, replacing Géraud de Veyrines, who had become bishop of Paphos and whose canonry and prebend in Nicosia Pierre received on 15 May [r–314]. Unusually, in this letter no mention is made of Pierre de Manso's other benefices stipulating whether he could keep any or all of them, but we know from a letter addressed to him the following week, on 22 May [r–319], that he was then dean of Badajoz in Spain. He is described as dean of Badajoz until a papal letter of 22 February 1329 refers to him as cantor of Burgos, also in Spain, a title he held until his death [r–388, 477, 499]. We can identify him with the Pierre de Manso, canon of Burgos, to whom Pope John XXII addressed a letter on 11 June 1326, in which the pope granted Pierre the canonry in Burgos with an expectancy of a prebend and a dignitas or personatus, usually the office of treasurer, cantor, or archdeacon, when one became available through resignation or death. The letter specified that Pierre already had several benefices with incomes, called prestimonia in Spain, in the diocese of Badajoz, including the position of dean of the cathedral and portions in the churches of San Andrés, Santa Maria del Torre, and San Pedro de Falconeria, while he was litigating over a portion in the church of Santa Maria de Saffra, of which he had not come into possession. Pope John stipulated that when Pierre obtained the office in Burgos he would have to resign his post as dean, and that when he received the prebend in Burgos he would have to resign all his posts and give up his legal claim in the diocese of Badajoz, in line with the pope's concern with pluralism in Spain.⁷¹

On 16 September 1328 the pope again wrote to Pierre de Manso concerning the post in Burgos, this time addressing him as precentor of Burgos. The position of precentor varied in importance and meaning from place to place, but precentor seems have been a synonym for cantor in Burgos. After summarizing the letter of 11 June 1326, the pope rehearsed what Pierre had informed him with his petition. When the previous precentor, Sancho, died, and his position of precentor, his prebend, and his prestimonia in Burgos were vacant, Pierre received only the position of precentor, because someone else who was prior to him in line obtained the prebend and the earlier papal letter did not cover the prestimonia. Nevertheless, as he was supposed to do according to that earlier letter, Pierre undertook (curasti) to give up his position as dean of Badajoz. The problem was that the post of precentor itself was rather poor.⁷² Traditionally, the precentor was paid with certain prestimonia worth 400 maravedís, but others were ahead of him in line at Burgos expecting to receive these prestimonia, having served in Burgos longer than Pierre had. The pope therefore granted him an expectancy of prestimonia in that church of that value, notwithstanding the prestimonia in Badajoz that he already possessed or was litigating for, or his expectancy of a canonical prebend in Burgos. Pierre had thus not yet resigned his prestimonia in Badajoz, since he had not yet come into possession of his canonical prebend in Burgos, although he claimed that the bishop of Badajoz had de facto despoiled him of his prestimonia as well.⁷³

As mentioned, it was only on 22 February 1329 that Pierre de Manso is first addressed as cantor of Burgos [r–388], although this is not in a letter about his position. Although Pierre undertook (curasti) to give up the post of dean of Badajoz, according to the letter of 16 September 1328, the chancery still used that title in writing him on 14 October 1328 [r–377], and as late as 15 January and 3 March 1329 documents issued on Cyprus still refer to him as dean of Badajoz.⁷⁴ Perhaps slow communication between branches of the chancery explains the 14 October 1328 letters, and papal confirmation of his actions may not have reached him in Cyprus until after 3 March 1329 because of delays or mishaps during the winter sailing season, unless curasti is interpreted as taking steps to resign his title, in which case he could have dragged his feet in actually renouncing it.

A papal letter of 7 January 1330, which Mollat botched in his summary, sheds a little light on what happened. Pope John writes to Bertrand de Manso, dean of Badajoz, most likely a relative of Pierre. The pope first rehearses the 1326 letter to Pierre again, referring to Pierre as precentor of Burgos and then dean of Badajoz. Then the pope describes what must have occurred after the letter of September 1328: before Pierre's legal case over the prestimonium of Santa Maria de Saffra in the diocese of Badajoz concluded, on the strength of a papal letter he finally obtained in Burgos the canonical prebend along with some prestimonia, as well as the post of precentor, which the chancery specifies was considered a dignitas or personatus in Burgos, after the canonical prebend became vacant. The pope thus granted to Bertrand the position of dean of Badajoz and its accompanying prestimonia and any right Pierre had to the one in Santa Maria de Saffra, since Pierre was now held to resign them, regardless of the fact that Bertrand was already a canon with a prebend and had the prestimonium of San Lorenzo in the diocese of Badajoz.⁷⁵

The reason Pierre was willing to abandon the higher rank of dean and his incomes in three other churches in the diocese of Badajoz in exchange for the post of precentor or cantor of Burgos is probably financial. The income of the bishop of Badajoz at the time was estimated at just 600 florins, whereas the rich bishop of Burgos earned around 7200 florins, a dozen times that much. Although the salaries of the canons and officers would not have had the same 12:1 ratio, Pierre must have earned more as cantor of Burgos than as dean of Badajoz, even with the additional incomes.⁷⁶

Coulon and Clémencet claimed that on 12 May 1329 Pope John XXIII granted that Pierre de Manso could receive his incomes while absent from his benefices for three years, but the folio they cite does not contain this letter sent In eundem modum, meaning in the same way as the previous one, nor have I been able to locate it elsewhere.⁷⁷ Nevertheless, Pope John did issue the same indulgence for Pierre de Manso, cantor of Burgos, on 18 April 1333, remarking that Pierre was away on papal business.⁷⁸ He could not have enjoyed the indulgence long, if at all, for soon the news arrived in Avignon that Pierre had died in Cyprus, probably in the spring, and on 6 August 1333 [r–499]⁷⁹ the pope granted his vacant canonry and chantry of Burgos to someone else, doing the same with his canonry in Nicosia on 15 September [r–507].

One can understand why Wipertus H. Rudt de Collenberg asserted that Peter de Manso was from Badajoz.⁸⁰ After all, our Pierre was well established in Badajoz, in the kingdom of León on the border with Portugal, and when he exchanged his benefices for a post in Burgos in Castille, a couple of those benefices ended up in the hands of someone called ‘Bertrand de Manso’, probably a relative. Nevertheless, the Avignon papacy often gave benefices in far-flung places to several members of the same family, as Cyprus itself attests, so we need not assume that Pierre and Bertrand de Manso were from Badajoz.

A papal letter dated 22 April 1334 and first calendared in the Bullarium Cyprium III remarks that Bernard de Manso, a cleric of the diocese of Nîmes, brother of the late Pierre de Manso, cantor of Burgos, papal nuncio in Cyprus, explained that Pierre had books and other goods in Cyprus when he died, but that these were taken by others. Because of his financial difficulties, Bernard asked the pope to have these books and goods restored to him as Pierre's next of kin, which the pope granted, pending an investigation [r–518].⁸¹ As Jean Richard hinted, our Pierre de Manso was thus probably also from the diocese of Nîmes or the general area, which would align with Pope John's overall preference for clerics close to his person, geographically or otherwise.⁸²

Although we have no document dated prior to 1326 linked securely to our Pierre de Manso, perhaps we can speculate in part based on the fact that, like the three previous nuncios, he is identified as a master in a document of 30 July 1327,⁸³ indicating a university education and in line with his possession of books at his death. The Petrus de Manso noted in the service of Pope John XXII from 1319 to 1325 as domicellus of the pope, perhaps the same as the Petrus de Manso who was in charge of bringing two criminals from Toulouse to Avignon in 1317 and the scutifer named Petrus de Manso on the papal payroll in 1329/1330 and 1334, is most surely not our Pierre de Manso.⁸⁴ It is possible, however, that ours was the Petrus de Manso who seems to have been chaplain of the bishop of Agde on the coast between Narbonne and Montpellier on 22 February 1310,⁸⁵ and/or the Petrus de Manso who appears as an official of the bishop of Le Puy on 5 January 1314.⁸⁶

Appendix II

Pierre de Manso, papal nuncio, letter to Pope John XXII(Reg. Aven. 204, f. 385)

Dorso: Sanctissimo in Christo patri domino, Domino Johanni, divina providentia sacrosancte Romane ac Universalis Ecclesie summo pontifici.

Sanctissime Pater,

• [1] Prima die mensis Septembris feci cambium de decem et septem milibus sex centis viginti quinque bizanciis albis de Cipro cum Jacobo Gerardini de societate Bardorum. Pro quibus quidem bizanciis tenetur eadem societas solvere tria milia florenorum puri auri et iusti ponderis de Florentia camere vestre hinc ad proximum festum Dominice Nativitatis.

• [2] Quoniam via maris est dubia et periculosa, idcirco plures litteras a prima die mensis Augusti usque hodie – primo per Guillelmum vayletum thesaurarii Nicosiensis⁸⁷ morantis cum domino cardinali condam episcopo Sancti Papuli, et per quendam mercatorem, et demum per nuncium societatis Bardorum – vestre sanctitati transmisi, significans qualiter dominus frater Johannes archiepiscopus Nicossiensis nuper prima die Augusti supradicti intempeste noctis silencio debitum nature persolvit, maiori parte bonorum que habebat illa nocte per fratres suos religionis Predicatorum subtracta, fratre Benedicto de Burgo Sancti Sepulcri allegante quod dictus archiepiscopus omnia sua bona dederat dividenda per eum inter familiares ipsius. Sed ex parte capituli Nicossiensis fuit oppositum quod donatio non valebat ut⁸⁸ immoderata, cum omnia dare nequiverit de iure, maxime quia non erat bene compos mentis sue, pro ut dicebatur. Conposicionem querebat idem frater Benedictus cum dicto capitulo quod ipse posset distribuere inter familiares dicti archiepiscopi usque ad mille et quadringentos florenos. Certitudinaliter namque quantitatem dictorum bonorum et aliorum receptorum a capitulo designare non possum, sed iuxta communem opinionem transcendunt valorem trium milium florenorum. Sicut enim pro certo didici, mille ducentas marchas argenti, preciosa ornamenta, pontificalia, et alia miserat Jacobus de Ancona per navem suam de mandato, ut dicitur, predicti archiepiscopi in Anconam in mense Marcii proximo preteriti, quibusdam nunc asserentibus eundem archiepiscopum in extremis laborantem Nicolao de Comite, nepoti suo, easdem marchas argenti et ornamenta donasse.

• [3] Secunda die obitus eiusdem archiepiscopi presentavi litteras reservacionis vestre capitulo Nicossiensi, de quo doluerunt quidam, quibusdam vero placuit in immensum. Et in crastinum idem capitulum significavit litteratorie regi mortem archiepiscopi et tenorem litterarum dicte reservationis. Instrumentum vero intimacionis earum per quosdam supradicte societatis ad vestram sanctitatem deduxi.

• [4] Pater sancte, quasi annus elapsus est quod non recepi litteras vestras. Et si⁸⁹ alique littere de camera vestra emanarunt mihi vel socio meo dirigende in Ciprum, preter illas quas mihi et socio meo ex parte vestra tradidit Petrus de Castro Novo, noveritis nobis exibitas non fuisse.

• [5] Finis erit decime biennalis in proximo festo sancti Andree.

• [6] Aliqui fratres Hospitalis sancti Johannis Jerosolimitani exhibuerunt mihi quasdam litteras apostolicas quarum auctoritate petierunt sibi restitui VI^m bizancios receptos de decima triennali. Quia vero mandabatur nobis ex parte vestra quod, si ratione decimarum per me et socium meum receptarum vel ex aliis causis in aliquo teneremur Hospitali predicto, usque ad concurrentem quantitatem fructuum primi anni ratione obitus fratris Mauricii vestre camere debitorum retinere curaremus, idcirco non potui adimplere quod dicti fratres petebant. Tenorem quoque dictarum litterarum ultimarum et secundarum et responsionis per me facte frater Helias de Casetis vestris sanctis manibus assignabit.

• [7] Pater sancte, postquam fuit incepta ista littera et non perfecta, quidam qui fuerat unus de magis secretariis archiepiscopi Nicossiensis dedit mihi quandam sedulam continentem res repertas in bonis archiepiscopi memorati, cuius tenorem idem frater Helias etiam presentabit.

Divina clemencia beatissimam personam vestram salvam et incolumem custodiat ad gubernacionem Ecclesie sue sancte.

Scriptum Nicossie, V^a die mensis Septembris.

Fratrem Arnaldum de Fabricis cum omni supplicacione vestre, Pater sancte, solite benignitati commendo.

P. de Manso, vestre sanctitatis servus.