Un trattato trecentesco inedito contro la Pastoralis cura: l’Epistola Henrici

Following the death of emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg on August 24, 1313, a letter was written by an anonymous Ghibelline to rebut the papal claims stated in the decretal Pastoralis cura, published in 1314 by Clement V to invalidate the capital sentence issued by Henry against the king of Naples, Robert of Anjou, on account of the latter’s crimen laesae maiestatis. The sender is Henry VII himself, who affirms to be writing from the otherworld to correct the pope’s wrongdoings: in the form of a juridical treatise with persuasive legal arguments, the letter is harsh on the pope and vitriolic towards Robert of Anjou. The letter has remained almost completely unknown to scholars and this paper provides the first critical edition of its text along with a brief commentary on its most important political arguments. This document also sheds light on the political and propagandistic functions of fictitious epistles in the later middle ages.