Financing a Legation: Papal Legates and Money in the Later Middle Ages

From the 11th and 12th centuries onwards, the organisation of the Church was administered, apart from the local bishoprics and archbishoprics, more and more by the papal curia and the central offices that developed in the period. The system of these institutions is described in the historiography and the offices are more or less clearly defined. The most important of these would be, of course, the Apostolic Chamber, papal chancery, papal chapel and later (from the 13th century) the Apostolic Penitentiary and the audientia causarum. All these offices were active and could execute their authority thanks to the papal plenitude of power and its delegation (Barraclough, 1968, pp. 93–101; Schimmelpfennig, 1992, pp. 134–141, 159–166; Cushing, 2005, pp. 81–85; Robinson, 2004, pp. 368–460). The papal legates are usually described as one of the elements that supported the spreading of papal power along with the College of Cardinals, councils or canon law (Cushing, 2005, pp. 83–85; Robinson, 1990, p. 146); they were special envoys of the pope with extraordinary and exceptional powers given to them by the same authority of the pope. Even if they are usually not described as an integral part of the system of papal government, because they are not a stable, but rather an ad hoc part of it, as an office they might be regarded as such a part (Robinson, 1990, pp. 146–178).