Difficult gifts: gifts to and from the popes in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England

ABSTRACT This article explores how gifts, and stories about gifts, to and from the popes were treated and discussed in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. The first part explores the intellectual context in which these stories were written, namely scriptural and classical ideas about the gift that circulated in the period, and the practical challenges faced by the papacy. The second part explores how English clerks and aristocrats utilised these gifts and stories about them. The exchange of gifts, the article argues, presented the papacy and its partners with mutually incompatible practical and ideological pressures. Despite the efforts of skilled actors such as Pope Innocent III, these challenges could only be navigated, never resolved.