The following is taken from a 1955 essay by Brian Tierney, “Grosseteste and the Theory of Papal Sovereignty,” published in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. It was republished in Church Law and Constitutional Thought in the Middle Ages, Variorum Reprints, London, 1979. Internal references are omitted.
“’Because of obedience by which I am bound to the Apostolic See . . . filially and obediently, I do not obey, I oppose, I rebel.’ The more we learn of Robert Grosseteste’s achievements as theologian and scientist the less likely does it seem that he will be remembered in the future–as he used to be in the past–principally for this letter of defiance concerning papal provisions in the diocese of Lincoln. Yet the letter itself remains something of an enigma in spite of all the attention it has received from a long line of scholars. . . .
The case can be called an extreme one both because of the status of the parties involved and because of the nature of the correspondence that passed between them. The pope was acknowledged to be Vicar of Christ, head of the Church on earth, and though there did exist, already by this time, trends of thought which sought to limit his absolute power by associating the cardinals with him in the exercise of plenitudo potestatis or by alleging the superior authority of a General Council, Grosseteste’s writings display no sympathy with such ideas. On the contrary, he accepted wholeheartedly and expressed in language that reflects his own metaphysical pre-occupations, the high doctrine of papal authority propounded by Innocent III, that the pope received plentitude of power directly from God, and was himself the source of all other authority in the Church. Grosseteste even admitted that the authority he exercised as bishop came to him through the pope.
* * *
These circumstances have led some critics to deny either the reality of Grosseteste’s devotion to the papacy or the authenticity of his letter of defiance.
* * *
One might observe at this point that, if the question at issue were one of disobedience to the unjust command of a temporal ruler, it would present no great problem or paradox, at least to the historian of political theory. We have been told so often and so emphatically–perhaps too emphatically–that the Middle Ages had no true conception of secular sovereignty, that the authority of a king was limited by custom and natural law, that the ruler who governed unjustly became a tyrant whose commands carried no obligation of obedience. Such limitations on kingship are familiar enough; but there has been no comparable enquiry into the influence of these medieval preoccupations on the theory of papal authority that was built up by Grosseteste’s contemporaries in the first half of the thirteenth century. It has usually been vaguely assumed that the powers attributed to the pope as Vicar of God [sic] were such as to exclude any possibility of legitimate disobedience to a papal command. As Fritz Kern put it, ‘. . . on the whole, the contrast between the ecclesiastical and the secular authorities was considered to lie in the fact that the former, being in the last resort infallible, was worthy of unconditional obedience, whilst the latter, being fallible, was not to be accepted without conditions’. It is this underlying assumption that has made Grosseteste’s letter seem illogical to some critics and unauthentic to others; some further enquiry into its validity may help explain both the position that Grosseteste adopted and the arguments by which he defended it.
* * *
Although the precise issue of resistance to papal commands has attracted little attention, it has sometimes been pointed out in standard histories of political theory that the authority attributed to medieval popes, even by their most enthusiastic supporters, was never wholly irresponsible nor wholly arbitrary. A pope could be deposed, at least in the one case of heresy, and he was bound by the ancient law of the Church, at least in two defined spheres of activity. . . . The commentators on the Decretum . . . evolved a doctrine that became generally accepted in the early thirteenth century. They held that, although the pope was not bound by every detail of the early canons and could normally grant special dispensations contrary to their general provisions, nevertheless he was bound by them in matters touching the Christian faith and also in matters touching the ‘general state of the Church’. . . . There was also much elaborate discussion concerning possible limitations on papal authority by the precepts of Scripture and by natural law . . . .
All this is relatively straight-forward. Maitland observed that, ‘As a matter of fact, popes do not attempt to repeal the ten commandments’; and we need not be surprised to find even the medieval canonists pointing out that it was improper for them to do so. Of course a pope was not expected to teach heresy or to issue unjust commands or to bring ruin on the Church. But what if he did? That is the crux of our problem–and Grosseteste’s; and it was a problem quite familiar to the medieval canonists as well. The whole question of unjust decisions by ecclesiastical superiors was raised by Gratian in the third Quaestio of Causa II of the Decretum. . . . However, all this argumentation dealt with obedience in general, not with the specific issue of disobedience to papal commands. If the question had been simply whether one should obey God or man, no medieval lawyer or theologian would have hesitated; the problem of disobedience to a pope was so difficult precisely because the pope was said to ‘stand in place of Jesus Christ who is true God and true man’, because, as the canonists were fond of pointing out, his edicts were promulgated not by human but by divine authority. If that dictum had been applied to every papal command, there could evidently have been no basis for licit disobedience in any circumstances, but the canonists did not in practice press it so rigorously. . . .
Grosseteste based his whole case on the assertion that not every command emanating from the pope was supported by the divine authority of the Apostolic See. . . . And this led him to his concluding declaration that, precisely in order to remain loyal and obedient to the Apostolic See, it was necessary for him to disobey that particular command of the pope. One might have expected that this sharp distinction between the person of the ruler and the institution that he represented would have attracted the attention of constitutional historians, coming as it does from a most influential bishop about half a century before the English barons declared that their allegiance was owed to the Crown, not to the person of the king, and that, in defence of the Crown, they might lawfully take up arms against the king. But Grosseteste’s argument has usually been passed over as a piece of ‘epigrammatic and paradoxical language’, ‘a strange form of words’, ‘a curious formula’. The distinction between the pope and the Apostolic See upon which he relied was in fact no invention of Grosseteste but was well established in the glosses of the preceding half century. . . . A good deal of the ‘illogicality’ of Grosseteste’s attitude disappears when one realized that, according to the prevailing opinion of the time, there was no certain presumption that every papal command was consistent with the divine will nor supported by divine authority. After all, the crimes and errors of several popes had been described in the Decretum; there were elaborate discussions concerning the steps to be taken against a pope who fell into heresy . . . .
One is left with the problem of whether, and in what circumstances, a subject could take it upon himself to assume that the pope was so grievously at fault that there was a duty to disobey his command. . . . .
* * *
Once again, however, the problem can be resolved by reference to the contemporary doctrine on canonical obedience. The prevailing opinion held that resistance to an ecclesiastical superior could be justified only by certain knowledge that he had commanded something evil; there was a strong presumption in favour of the superior, and if there was any trace of doubt in the mind of the subject it was his duty to obey. Grosseteste, one may suppose, was driven only very slowly and reluctantly to the conclusion that God’s own Vicar was using his plenitude of power for the ‘destruction’ of the Church. . . . As long as the pope’s demands seemed merely inconvenient and inconsiderate Grosseteste felt bound to obey. It was only when submissively worded letters of protest had been brushed aside, when even personal exhortation at the papal curia had proved ineffective, that he was forced to the certain conviction that further compliance would actually endanger the Church. But once Grosseteste was so convinced his proper course of action was clear; according to the common doctrine of the time . . . it was his duty to disobey the pope. We need not wonder that the letter recording his outraged decision was filled with grief and bitterness that set it apart from the rest of his correspondence.
These observations suggest two main conclusions. In the first place we ought not to accept without reservations the platitude that medieval canonistic theories of papal plenitudo potestatis provided an ‘archetype’ for later ideas of royal absolutism. A doctrine which sought to define in some detail the proper limits of a ruler’s authority (even though those limits were broad indeed), and which also imposed on subjects a duty of disobedience in certain circumstances when those limits were transgressed, was by no means identical with either Renaissance despotism or Stuart divine right. The more obvious conclusion is that, in disobeying the pope, bishop Grosseteste was neither rejecting his own inner convictions in a moment of anger nor formulating a novel principle of resistance to papal authority. He was acting in accordance with a widely accepted and well developed theory . . . . It is rare indeed to find the theory so uncompromisingly put into practice by a medieval bishop–but then Grosseteste was a man of rare courage. Perhaps one day he will be canonized after all.”