Wardship

Abstract

In the first decades of the thirteenth century, Popes Innocent III and Honorius III found themselves bound to support the succession of three young kings—Henry III of England, James I of Aragon, and Frederick II of Sicily. Although a supposed feudal right of wardship has often been supposed to have motivated the popes, actually, papal letters changed and altered their justifications for papal solicitude depending on the circumstances of the time. In practice, papal involvement in these royal minorities was reactive: the pope replied to petitions he received. Consequently, papal mandates and instructions were often variable and even contradictory. Papal instructions—rather than being a medium for a centralized papal will to be expressed—were more often the means through which local power struggles were fought.