Das Alexandrinische Schisma in Briefen und Ideenwelt des Arnulf von Lisieux und Johannes von Salisbury

The thesis centres on how the Norman bishop and royal confidant Arnulf of Lisieux and the political philosopher John of Salisbury received, interpreted, and reacted to the Alexandrine Schism (1159–1177). Based on over 100 of their letters and for the first time focusing on the English perspective of the schism, it reveals how both men committed themselves to the promotion of the recognition of pope Alexander III. in the kingdom of England. It sheds light on their individual church political positions and their ideas on the course of the schism or its agents – like the papal rivals, the emperor Fredrick I Barbarossa or king Henry II of England – by also considering their previous works like John’s Policraticus and Historia pontificalis or Arnulf’s Invectiva and his sermon of the Council at Tours. The study shows that even after Alexander’s official recognition by the king and the national church of England at Beauvais (1160) members of the political and intellectual elites regarded the schism not as a mere imperial phenomenon but as one interdepending with the Becket dispute. Arnulf of Lisieux, who was still rooted in the ideas and routines of the schism of 1130, proactively and by papal mission furthered the recognition of Alexander III at the Angevin court and the Synod of London. John of Salisbury applied his ethical and political theories (i.e., theories of the Tyrant and the good ruler, court criticism) to the schism while pragmatically propagating suggestions for action aiming at putting an end to the crisis within his network. On this theoretical basis, John saw the Alexandrine schism as a problem in society as a whole and a depraved social order led by a priestly tyrant corrupting the fragile balance of the body politic. In the wake of the Council of Pavia (1160) John regarded the struggle for the papal throne as a conflict aggravated by the Roman emperor whose encroachment in spiritual matters and refusal of corrective apostolic authority made him a tyrannical svengali. The respective antipopes were ready instruments in John’ eyes. In this, the Anglo-Saxon’s idea of the current schism differed from the interpretative traditions of the schism of 1130. To John’s mind, Henry II and the emperor had failed in carrying out their duty to work against detrimental elements like the overwhelming influence of clerical familiares at court in the body politic. Therefore, John sought to thwart the bad influence of Rainald of Dassel – whom he considered as the embodiment of the amoral, schismatic counsellor – by recruiting an intercessor and informant at the archdiocese of Cologne. Apart from this, Barbarossa’s Fourth Italian Campaign and its aftermath catalysed John’s endeavours to positively impact on the Becket dispute and the schism since they allowed him to use an optimistic future perspective as main instrument of mobilizing support. Since the propagandistic altercation between Becket’s supporters and royalists following the Vézelay excommunications (1166) the church policy of Henry II and emperor Frederick I were correlated each to another for polemical reasons. By way of example, the dynastic alliances between Henry and the German ‘schismatics’ at the Diet of Würzburg (1165) – including the loyalty oaths on the anti¬¬pope Paschalis III which had only been turned into a church political affair by a trick of the emperor – were polemically related to imperial schism politics and used as means of discrediting Henry II and his legate John of Oxford who acted as the mastermind of Angevin church and foreign politics in schism and Becket conflict alike