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by Wolfgang Schöller, University of Regensburg, Institute
of Art History
As in all cultural and social phenomena,
the building of cathedrals was subject to changes during the long timeframe
of the Middle Ages - in organizational as well as in legal and economic respects.
Yet, this was not only because the administration
of cathedral-building worked differently between the 9th and 13th centuries,
due to changed power structures between the bishop and the cathedral chapter.
Changes were also due to differences in regional habits, not only between
northern and southern France, or between Germany and Italy, but even within
the smallest, well defined local units - concerning, for instance, the
institution of the fabrica ecclesiae (see glossary of related terms).
Obligations
of bishops in late antiquity: It is true that, beginning in
the 5th century, papal decretals (laws on ecclesiastical questions) imposed
on the bishops a division of the bishopric's income, in such a way that a
quarter of his income had to be allocated for the architectural/structural
maintenance of the public church buildings (pro fabricis ecclesiae)
of the diocese. Yet, aside from the exclusive effect of this regulation on
bishops of the Roman metropolitan district in Middle and Lower Italy, it
was no longer of any practical significance during the High Middle Ages.
Although still listed in 12th century canon compilations by medieval scholars
of ecclesiastical law known as decretalists, this Roman procedure was by
then simply outdated, if only because of a trend toward the economic independence
of cathedral chapters.
Fig.1: South façade of Strasbourg Cahedral
(photo: Athena Review).
Beneficiaries in France and Germany:
In Italy, as already noted, it was the bishops, who were legally
obligated to support public church building projects within their bishopric,
by transferring part of their income for the maintenance, restoration, and
décor of the buildings. In the case of the 8th-10th century Frankish
Empire and its territorial successors France and Germany, however, the obligation
to fund construction affected a different group of people. According to the
secular laws (capitularia) of the Frankish kings, it mainly affected
the beneficiaries or beneficati (owners of property which once belonged
to the church), particularly those royal vassals who repeatedly bore the
costs of maintaining the churches given them in fee.
Canons, bishops, and the
fabrica ecclesiae: What does this mean in practical terms?
As the scholar of ecclesiastical law Bernhard of Pavia stated in his Summa
decretalium (written 1191-1198), collapsed and destroyed churches were
to be renovated, to which all clerical beneficiaries had to give support
commensurate with their means. When Pope Innocent III notified the archbishop
and cathedral canons of Rouen (after internal quarreling in 1198) that each
would have to allocate equally a part of their income to restore the cathedral,
this regulation became generally valid. The law was first entered in the
so-called Compilatio IV of Johannes Teutonicus in AD 1216, and then
in the Liber Extra of Pope Gregory IX in 1234.
However, by this time, Goffredus of Trano
(1241/43) and decretalists succeeding him emphasized another aspect. According
to them, the main burden of building or maintaining a church should be borne
by a fund which specifically endowed the church works (fabrica
ecclesiae: "the building fund of a church"). Any additional financing
drawn from incomes of the beneficiaries (including bishops and canons) should
only take place if the money from the fund would not suffice for repairs.
Actually, the sporadic establishment of
such building funds (bona fabricae) had already occurred at ecclesiastical
institutions during the late 11th century, and then increased throughout
the 12th and, especially, 13th centuries. These building funds or endowments
served solely to construct the specific church, and to equip it with ritual
furnishings. The bona fabricae had nothing to do with the finances
connected with the office of the bishop, or the endowment of the chapter.
These funds were instead created, for example, by a larger donation earmarked
for church upkeep and maintenance (ad fabricam); or by separating
out a part of the daily donations of the faithful; or by the transfer of
any prebend properties which had become free. Thus, as no generally valid
canon law ordered the creation of such building funds (which were only
recommended or demanded by decretalists), the administration of these funds
at the cathedrals was handled in many different ways and had no consistent
canonical supervision.
In general, at most of the cathedrals,
but also at abbey and collegiate churches, the separate administration of
the bona fabricae became the rule during the 13th century. This process,
incidentally, did not go over smoothly everywhere, since the treasurers were
understandably not easily separated from those incomes, which in case of
smaller repair work may have even spun off a surplus. It must be emphasized
that this special administration of the building endowment was an internal
measure of the individual church institutions. Neither did a general
ecclesiastical law regulate its realization, nor do we now have any indications
in collegiate churches of the will of individual private donors as the primary
deciding factor. At the churches where a special official known as the
magister fabricae looked after the management of the building fund,
as a rule the special post of a fabrica ecclesiae was created (see
glossary).
Realities
of church construction in the High Middle Ages: What did this
change in practice? In the case of new building projects or major repair
work, certainly it changed little because the regular building endowments,
if there were any at all, could hardly have been sufficient. For example,
the bishop and the canons of Chartres
were compelled - according to the contemporary Miracula beatae Marie
Virginis in Carnotensi ecclesia facta (a report on the miracle of the
blessed Virgin Mary at the church of Chartres) - to make a "considerable
part" of their incomes available for the restoration of the cathedral after
the devastating fire of 1194.
Obviously, rules were established for
the effective enactment of the canon law. The fact that one felt obliged
to codify the proportionate burden over and over again by contracts, internal
statutes, and regulations, only confirms this state of affairs in a different
way. For instance, since the beginning of the 13th century there is evidence
for the taxation of incomes made by prebends and benefices of the cathedral
chapter and canons, intended for a whole series of building enterprises.
Yet even under these circumstances, refractoriness and opposition by the
canons was not precluded.
What about the contributions of the bishops?
Unlike the circumstances of the 10th and 11th centuries, the cathedral chapters
had now grown into independent legislative bodies. Every bishop experienced
this, as when the chapter claimed its right to have a say in the administration
of the episcopal income. Also, in a quarrel with the bishop, the cathedral
chapter could unceremoniously place him under an interdiction, an action
which some of the French cathedral chapters had an explicit right to
perform.
Much evidence points to this changed
situation, in which the chapter also  took over the status of owner-builders
of the cathedrals, so that the contribution of the bishop, whose office could
be understood as a beneficium ecclesiasticum ("ecclesiastical benefice"),
was now more clearly defined. Thus in 1283, a Parisian bishop was, among
other things, expected to contribute to the maintenance of the new cathedral belfries; while his colleague at Poitiers had to bear the costs for the entire
wooden construction of the cathedral towers.
Fig.2: View of the southeast façade
of St. Peter's Cathedral at Regensburg (photo:Athena Review).
Surely, a bishop was not necessarily
unconcerned with the control of the building funds office (fabrica
ecclesiae). At Cologne during the 14th century, a vehement quarrel flared
up on this subject between the archbishop and the cathedral chapter. We also
hear of fierce quarreling in Arras about the extent of the episcopal obligation
for church construction in the year 1253. In this case, Bishop Jacob refused
to pay for the repair or restoration of the belfries and cloister, as the
cathedral chapter demanded of him, since (from their point of view) the general
maintenance of the entire cathedral and of certain parts of its furnishings
should be incumbent upon the bishops. Of course we also know of bishops
who donated this or that sum of money for the building of the cathedral,
or those, such as Robert of Courtenay at Orléans, who gave building
materials and land for building sites.
The passion of a number of these conflicts
is surprising. There is little doubt that the greater the chapter's influence
became on the administration of the cathedral, the more the bishop became
estranged from any structural concerns of the cathedral. The latter still
held the bishop's seat (the cathedra), but in actuality it may have
no longer stood under the bishop's jurisdiction.
The role of the parish churches, and the 'harvesting' of alms:
In contrast, parish or parochial churches, which were most
intensely exposed to the jurisdiction of the cathedral chapter, were the
big losers. In this case, petitions were frequently replaced by mandates
(orders). Admonitions addressed to the parish priests remained comparably
moderate. These included demands to support the interests of cathedral building
in their sermons, to conscientiously administer the incoming means of the
parish, and to inform the bishop about the individual donors. Yet, who would
have wanted to risk dismissal or excommunication because of the slightest
unauthorized act, even if the local church needed the legates and offerings
of the members of the parish community just as much as the cathedral? With
such punishments - and this was certainly no isolated case - the vicar general
of Châlons-sur-Marne threatened in 1255 all those parish priests who
did not support the cathedral building enterprise, to the best of their
abilities, on all Sundays and religious festivals up until the next synod;
who did not make cathedral-building their top priority, thus putting back
or suspending all other matters; or who admitted non-local collectors of
alms into their churches, up until the mentioned date.
Additional mention should be made of the
collections of alms. Whether or not they were connected with an indulgence
by payment, their numbers were immense. Much to the displeasure of some of
the ecclesiastical authorities, in many places during the 13th century they
had fallen into the hands of professional collectors, the so-called
questuarii. All this not only proves the eminent importance of oblations
or donations from the congregation for the building of churches - which emerges
clearly in other sources - it also, of co urse, shows an undisguised amount
of commercialization.
Rather common during the Gothic period
was the planned 'harvesting' of the diocese by the questuarii, who
travelled around on behalf of the cathedral building office (fabrica
ecclesiae). In Cologne, collections in favor of the cathedral building
had priority over all others - if the latter were approved at all. Non-local
collectors, such as brothers of the order of St. Anthony of Vienne, who,
at the beginning of the 14th century, collected money in the Cologne diocese,
were obliged on penalty to surrender a part of their proceeds to the local
cathedral building fund.
Fig.3: The Pardoner from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1390)
is an English version of the questuarii, who has just returned from Rome
with a license to sell pardon and indulgences. He also sold fake "relics."
(Reproduced by permission of the Huntington Library, San
Marino, CA; 26 C9 f.138r). In an additional method of carefully-staged
planning, messengers would march into the parishes in advance and announce,
for this or that day, a specific collection. Frequently, the day of the
collector's arrival had to be observed as a holiday. If a parish church was
under interdiction (with a prohibition of official ecclesiastical acts),
this would be reversed, so that the collection could be carried out. The
parish priest had to assemble the congregation to explain the purpose of
the collection to them and to exhort them to donate something.
Anyone who really tries to probe fully
into the written sources of the Gothic era in terms of how individual characters
acted in connection with the funding of church building, will time and again
discover examples of calculation, indifference, ignorance, selfishness, and
hostility. For us, this behavior simply brings the process of late medieval
church building - and everywhere, that of cathedral building - from a sphere
of religious keenness and rapt theological symbolization, back to reality.
References:
Wolfgang Schöller. 1989. Die rechtliche Organisation des
Kirchenbaues in Mittelalter, vornehmlich des Kathesdralbaues.
Baulast-Bauherrenschaft-Baufinanzierung. Köln-Wien.
Pöschl, Arnold 1926. Die Enstehung des geistlichen Benefiziums.
In: Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, 106 (series 4, 14), pp.3-121,
363-471.
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[see glossary of related terms on cathedral building and administration]
This article appears on pages 48-52 of Vol.4 No.2 of Athena
Review.
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