‘Qui totum sibi vendicat quod scripserat esse suum’: The Limits of Papal dominium from a Fictitious Letter of 1307

In 1307, during a session of the Parliament of Carlisle, a Latin letter purportedly fell from the sky. Its aim was to reproach the attempts of the pope to interfere in English economic and politic affairs through the appointment of his candidates to English benefices, the so-called provisores. The letter develops its opposition to the pontiff’s policy by delving into a key contept of Medieval thought: the limitations to the pope’s political and economic dominium. The aim of this paper is to assess this fictitious epistle’s contribution to a debate that had deep roots in medieval legal thought. The paper traces the evolution of the theory of papal dominium from Augustine to Gilles of Rome and assesses the ways in which this letter developed some interesting aspects of the reflexion on the nature of papal dominium that would later be used by leading intellectuals such as William of Ockham and Marsilius of Padua to limit the pontiff’s prerogatives during the debate over apostolic poverty. The paper concludes with an investigation of the fortune of the letter in Early Modern England, in order to assess the peculiar reception of this text by Protestant intellectuals.