Research Project

Unity and diversity in the papal courts of the early modern period

My research project analyses the jurisdictional power that the Papacy exercised during the early modern period in several European states and in their non-European territories through the tribunals of the Apostolic nuncios. The goal of the research is twofold. On the one hand, it investigates the layered legal arrangements with secular authorities and different components of the Catholic Church (religious orders, bishops, etc.) that led to the foundation of this network of legal courts. Through a well calibrated policy, the Papacy managed to establish worldwide tribunals which were peripheral in their composition—they were convened in the European capitals, recruited their members on site, and operated according to customary procedures and laws—and universal in their source of legitimacy. On the other hand, it aims to shed light on the role that different social actors played in consolidating such a judicial apparatus. The exponential expansion of administrative and judicial responsibilities that these courts subsumed was primarily due to the flow of pleas and requests for intervention that historical actors of different provenance and social status addressed to the nuncios’ tribunals in order to foster their political and legal struggles. Through these two focal points, the project sets out to understand how early modern Papacy asserted an allegedly universal and absolute power within different legal regimes and legal demands.