Keeping Kings in Check 57performed the most dramatic deposition of all— that of Frederick II in 1245
at the Council of Lyon— although it only became eff ective aft er some years
of warfare. Frederick was not Innocent’s sole target at that gathering. He
also pronounced the deposition of King Sancho II of Portugal for failure to
provide appropriate protection to Catholic clergy in his country. In this case,
too, the action became eff ective only aft er Sancho’s military defeat and over-
throw by rival Portuguese factions.
An alternate device that popes could employ was to eff ectuate a de facto
removal of rulers from power by wielding a power to grant dispensations
from oaths— including oaths of loyalty by subjects to sovereigns. Th is had
been the means by which Pope Zacharias was said to have forced the last
Merovingian king from the French throne in the eighth century. Later, in
1324, Pope John XXII’s action against Louis of Bavaria included a general
instruction to his subjects to cease their obedience to him. Th is power could
also be exercised in support of monarchs. In 1215, for example, Pope Inno-
cent III (now reconciled with King John of En gland) sought, in eff ect, to an-
nul the En glish Magna Carta, by absolving King John of his oath to observe
it. Th is was partly on the ground that it had been extracted under duress, and
partly because it was prejudicial to John’s lawful rights as monarch.
Th e high point of assertion of the papal claims over secular monarchs
came with the pontifi cate of Boniface VIII at the end of the thirteenth and
beginning of the fourteenth centuries. So assertive was he that it was ru-
mored (quite possibly apocryphally) that, during the Jubilee of 1300, he ap-
peared decked out in the imperial purple of the Roman emperors. Be that as
it may, he did issue a bull in 1301 entitled Ausculta fi li (“Give ear, my son,”
referring to King Philip IV of France), which asserted the universal jurisdic-
tion of the popes over all kings. Philip IV, however, ostentatiously refused
to “give ear” as ordered. Several years later, in 1304, he forestalled a bull of
excommunication by arranging for the storming of the papal quarters and
arresting of Boniface. Boniface managed to escape but died several weeks
later.
On many occasions in the Middle Ages, popes played the less confronta-
tional role of arbitrator in disputes between states. Since these generally did not
involve claims to jurisdiction over secular princes, they led to comparatively
little controversy. But here too, the record of success was a mixed one. In the
late eleventh century, Pope Urban II mediated between Holy Roman Emperor