Curia Christi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Curia Christi ("Court of Christ") or Curia Dei ("Court of God") was a diet or court day (Hoftag) of the Holy Roman Empire held in Mainz on 27 March 1188. It was so called because it was notionally under the presidency of Jesus Christ as king of kings. It was the occasion both for the public resolution of the conflict between Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Archbishop Philip of Cologne and for the emperor's "taking of the cross", when he vowed to lead an army on the Third Crusade.
The Curia Christi is a well recorded event. It is mentioned in the Royal Chronicle of Cologne, the Chronicle of Magnus of Reichersberg, the Chronicle of Otto of Sankt Blasien and the Chronicle of the Slavs of Arnold of Lübeck.[1] The History of the Expedition of the Emperor Frederick and the History of the Pilgrims are the source for the names Curia Christi and Curia Dei, respectively.[1][2][3] The History of the Expedition includes the text of a letter sent by Cardinal Henry of Marcy to the nobility of Germany enjoining them to attend the "court of Jesus Christ" (curia Jesu Christi). The same history records that Frederick called the diet on the cardinal's advice and that the name "court of Christ" was Frederick's choice.[4]
Background
The Curia Christi was called to deal with two issues: the conflict, internal to the Empire, between the emperor and the archbishop of Cologne; and the fall of Jerusalem to the Ayyubids. The conflict between emperor and archbishop has been traced to Frederick's privileging the cities of Aachen and Duisburg at the expense of the economy of Cologne. It has also been suggested that the emperor bore a grudge against Philip for engineering the downfall of the emperor's cousin, Henry the Lion, in 1180. Another proposed cause of the conflict was Philip's siding with Pope Urban III over the disputed archbishopric of Trier. Open conflict began when Philip refused to allow an imperial army to cross his territory and Frederick responded by imposing an embargo on Cologne on 25 July 1187.[5]
On 15 August 1187, at a diet in Worms, Frederick began legal proceedings against Philip, who had disobeyed a summons to attend. He was summoned to attend the next diet in Strasbourg, which convened around 1 December 1187. He disobeyed that summons also. At Christmas in Trier, Frederick lamented the fact that he would have to devastate imperial territory to bring Philip to heel. Nevertheless, Philip attended the diet of Nuremberg on 2 February 1188. A final legal decision—and thus Philip's public submission—was postponed to the next diet in Mainz.[5]
The resolution of the conflict was brought about in no small part by the fall of Jerusalem (2 October 1187) and the death of Urban III (20 October). Urban's successor, Gregory VIII, threw himself fully behind a new crusade and moved quickly to resolve his differences with the emperor.[5]