Centralization and the Importance of Legatine Activity under the Pontificate of Alexander III (1159-1181)

Abstract

By the end of the eleventh century the Church, leaving behind its provincial epoch, became a centralized institution, a Papal Church which certainly helped the Holy See to develop into a dangerous rival of the im perial “model” of lay power . Although the faithful in the West were subjected to the authority of the pope, enormous geographical distances and political conflicts made it difficult for the curia to enforce this authority on its subjects. The papal legates offered not only the opportunity of continuous correspondence but they, as representatives of the pope, were also important means of the centralized government. The present paper aims at studying the role of papal legates through a case study on the archb ishopric of Spalato in the time of Pope Alexander III (1159-1181).