Sicilian Monarchy

SICILIAN MONARCHY. - From the beginning of the 16th century the name m. s. was given to the right, claimed by the kings of Sicily, to exercise in their kingdom also the supreme ecclesiastical power, as representatives of the Holy See.

The claim was based on the privilege granted by Pope Urban II to Count Roger I of Sicily and Calabria, on 5 July 1098, for his merits in the struggle against the Saracens. In the bull the Pope assured Roger and his successors that he would not send any legate into Sicily against their will and that he would make use of them, as legates vice, for the execution of the pontifical dispositions, usually carried out by means of legates. They thus obtained the right of apostolic legation in their lands, without however having to consider the rights of the Holy See excluded in any place.

The exceptional concession gave rise, from the very beginning, to conflicts of interpretation. Paschal II, who succeeded Urban II, while confirming it, sought to restrict it (1117); but Adrian IV in 1136 had to recognize its broad extent. Innocent III (1198-1216), the great champion of pontifical authority, set it aside. It was the canonists of the Spanish court, in the age of state absolutism, who rediscovered the document and on its basis erected in favor of their kings, as successors to the rights of the Normans and the Hohenstaufen in Sicily, a fantastic edifice of ecclesiastical privileges. Baronio, Orsi and other writers cast doubt on its authenticity, but wrongly, as is held today. Thus it was that from the beginning of the 16th century the kings of Sicily considered themselves, by virtue of the apostolic privilege, legates born of the supreme pontiff, and claimed full and exclusive spiritual and ecclesiastical power in the island; the very acts of the Holy See could not have force without the executory letters of the viceroy, and even the internal discipline of the Church was subjected to royal competence. Ferdinand I the Catholic (d. 1516) claimed for himself also jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters; Philip II requested, but in vain, in 1578, the confirmation of the m. s. by the Apostolic See and instituted (1579) a permanent tribunal, called Judex monarchiae siculae, to which he delegated the exercise of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which was made to derive from the m. s., forbidding appeals from this tribunal to the Holy See. In the face of such open violations of apostolic rights and such a grave threat to the independence of the Sicilian bishops, Rome's reaction could not be lacking. The conflict was particularly violent under the pontificates of Pius V (1566-72), Gregory XIII (1572-85) and Clement VIII (1592-1605); Baronio's writing against the m. s. was prohibited by Philip III. The dispute became even more heated under Urban VIII (1623-44); the tribunal of the royal monarchy, completely dependent on the lieutenant, and the so-called letters of safeguard, whose holders were withdrawn from episcopal jurisdiction, threatened to annihilate what remained of the independence of the bishops of Sicily; who, in 1629, raised proud remonstrances, demanding observance of the decrees of the Council of Trent. The Pope then instituted a Congregation of cardinals to discuss remedies, and it was a near thing that it reached extreme measures against the m. s. These were reached instead in 1687, when Innocent XI had the Neapolitan officials excommunicated by the nuncio of Spain; but the government of Madrid succeeded in having the penalty removed. The most heated battle broke out when King Victor Amadeus II of Savoy obtained, in 1713, the crown of Sicily and was also explicitly granted the privilege of the m. s.: the Roman Curia was greatly impressed by this and Clement XI did not hesitate to suppress the tribunal of that monarchy with the constitution Romanus Pontifex of 20 Feb. 1715. When the emperor of Austria Charles VI then became king of Sicily, he strove with insistent pressure to obtain from Benedict XIII the revocation of the Clementine constitution, but in the face of the resolute attitude of the Pontiff he fell back on the request for a bull that would suitably settle the ecclesiastical matter in the island. The very laborious negotiations, in which card. Prospero Lambertini took an important part as trusted adviser of the Pope, concluded with the issuance of the bull Fideli of 30 Aug. 1728, in which Benedict XIII reserved to the Holy See the most important ecclesiastical affairs of Sicily, but granted to the sovereign, for the decision in third instance of other ecclesiastical causes, the institution of a supreme judge, who was for that very reason to be considered as a delegate of the Apostolic See. As was easy to foresee, the absolutism of the kings of Sicily did not keep within these limits: the tribunal granted was constituted as a rebirth of the one suppressed by Clement XI, assuming the name of "tribunal of the royal monarchy and apostolic legation," and there was a return to the other ancient claims of the full right of legation. Even Garibaldi in 1860 took advantage of the asserted privileges of the m. s.; but shortly afterward Pius IX put an end to the centuries-old dispute, definitively suppressing the apostolic legation with the bull Suprema of 28 Jan. 1864, published on 10 Oct. 1867. The Italian government did not fail to protest, but later, with the Law of Guarantees (art. 15), declared that it renounced that privilege.

Impartial authors such as P. Hinschius have recognized that in this centuries-old struggle "the right was without doubt on the side of the Roman Curia" (Kirchenrecht, I, Berlin 1869, p. 522).

Mario Castellano