The
Council of Nablus was a council of ecclesiastic and secular lords in the crusader
Kingdom of JerusalemThe Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks....
, held on January 16, 1120. It established the first written laws for the kingdom.
History
The council was convened at
NablusNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 134,000...
by
Warmund, Patriarch of JerusalemWarmund, also Garmond, Gormond, Germond, Guarmond, or Waremond, was a Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1118 to his death at Sidon in 1128. He was from Picquigny in Picardy....
, and King
Baldwin II of JerusalemBaldwin II of Jerusalem, formerly Baldwin II of Edessa, also called Baldwin of Bourcq, born Baldwin of Rethel was the second count of Edessa from 1100 to 1118, and the third king of Jerusalem from 1118 until his death....
. It established twenty-five
canonsCanon law is the body of laws and regulations made by or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
dealing with both religious and secular affairs. It was not quite a church council, but not quite a meeting of the royal court; according to Hans Mayer, due to the religious nature of many of the canons, it can be considered both a
parlementThe political institutions of the Parlement in ancien régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and deliberation. In the thirteenth century, judicial functions were added...
and an ecclesiastical
synodA synod is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application...
. The resulting agreement between the patriarch and the king was a
concordatA concordat is an agreement between the Holy See and the government of a country on religious matters This often included both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church in a particular country...
, similar to the
Concordat of WormsThe Concordat of Worms, sometimes called the Pactum Calixtinum by papal historians, was an agreement between Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V on September 23, 1122 near the city of Worms...
two years later.
The council was not mentioned in the chronicle of
Fulcher of ChartresFulcher of Chartres was a chronicler of the First Crusade. He wrote in Latin.- Life :His appointment as chaplain of Baldwin of Boulogne in 1097 suggests that he had been trained as a priest, most likely at the school in Chartres...
, who served in the retinue of Baldwin II and must have been present. This is probably because the nature of the canons, dealing as they do with the crimes and sins of the Latin population, contradicted Fulcher's portrayal of the Kingdom as a Christian utopia.
William of TyreWilliam of Tyre was Archbishop of Tyre and a chronicler of the Crusades and the Middle Ages. He is also known as William II to distinguish him from William of Malines, the first Archbishop of Tyre by that name...
, writing about sixty years later, included a detailed account of the proceedings, but neglected to record any of the canons themselves, which he felt were well-known and could be found in any local church; however, he also probably wanted to avoid the implication that the early Kingdom was not as heroic as his generation remembered it.
Although the canons may have been well-known in William's time, only one copy, located in a church in
SidonSidon,or Saïda, is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery...
, seemed to survive the Muslim reconquest of the Kingdom. This copy made its way to Europe where it was in the papal library at
AvignonAvignon is a commune in the Vaucluse department in south-eastern France with an estimated mid-2004 population of 89,300 in the city itself and a population of 290,466 in the metropolitan area at the 1999 census.The city is well known for its Palais des Papes , where several popes...
by 1330. It is now located in the
Vatican LibraryThe Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...
, MS Vat. Lat. 1345.
A copy was edited in the
Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio of
Giovanni Domenico MansiGian Domenico Mansi was an Italian theologian, scholar and historian, known for his massive works on the Church councils....
in the 18th century, and more recently a new edition has been published by Benjamin Z. Kedar in
SpeculumSpeculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies is a quarterly journal published by the Medieval Academy of America. According to JSTOR, it is the oldest journal devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages, having been published since 1926...
(Vol. 74, 1999). Kedar argues that the canons are largely derived from the
ByzantineByzantine Law was essentially a continuation of Roman Law with Christian influence, however, this is not to doubt its later influence on the western practice of jurisprudence...
Ecloga, promulgated by Leo III and
Constantine VConstantine V was Byzantine emperor from 741 to 775; ); .-Early life:...
in 741. Kedar believes that the canons were put into practise in the 12th century,, although Marwan Nader disagrees, since they were not included in the
Livre des Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois and other
Assizes of JerusalemThe Assizes of Jerusalem are a collection of numerous medieval legal treatises containing the law of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and Kingdom of Cyprus...
, which were written in the 13th century.
Content
The canons begin with the reasons for calling the council: Jerusalem had been plagued with locusts and
miceA mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. The American white-footed mouse and the deer mouse also sometimes live in houses. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common...
for the past four years, and the
Crusader statesThe Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th- and 13th-century feudal states created by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land . The Middle Eastern Islamic powers eventually conquered them...
in general were suffering from repeated attacks from the Muslims. It was believed that the sins of the people needed to be corrected before Jerusalem could prosper.
Canons 1-3 deal with tithes to the church. Canon 1 is a promise by King Baldwin to surrender the appropriate
titheA tithe is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a voluntary contribution or as a tax or levy, usually to support a religious organization. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes could be paid in kind, such as agricultural products...
s to the Patriarch, namely those from his own royal estates in
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
,
NablusNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 134,000...
and
AcreAcre also Akko, is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel. It is situated on a low promontory at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , Acre had a population of 46,000 at the end of 2007...
. In canon 2 Baldwin seeks forgiveness for the tithes he had previously withheld, and Warmund absolves him of this sin in canon 3. This shows that the church was able to assert its rights in the Crusader Kingdom, a victory in the Investiture Conflict still raging in Europe.
Canons 4-7 deal with
adulteryAdultery is referred to as extramarital sex, philandery, or infidelity, but does not include fornication. The term "adultery" for many people carries a moral or religious association, while the term "extramarital sex" is morally or judgmentally neutral....
. Canon 4 outlines punishments for a man who is suspected of committing adultery with the wife of another man; first, he is to be forbidden from visiting the woman, and if he visits her again, he is to come before the church and be subjected to
the ordeal of hot iron Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to a painful task. In some cases, the accused was considered innocent if they survived the test, or if their injuries healed; in others, only death was considered proof of innocence...
to prove his innocence. If he is proven to have committed adultery, canon 5 decrees that "eviretur" - he should have his penis cut off - and then he should be exiled. The punishment for the adulterous woman is mutilation of the nose, a familiar Byzantine punishment, unless her husband takes pity on her, in which case they should both be exiled. Canon 6 deals with a similar situation for clerics: if a man suspects a cleric from visiting his wife, the cleric should firstly be forbidden from visiting her; a second offense should be pointed out to a church magistrate, and a third offense will result in the deordination of the cleric. He will then be subject to the same punishments described in canon 5. Canon 7 forbids a pimp or a prostitute from "corrupting a wife with words" and causing her to become an adulterer. The punishments in canon 5 apply here as well.
Canons 8-11 establish punishments for
sodomySodomy is a term used today predominantly in law to describe the act of anal intercourse, oral intercourse, or bestiality.- Definitions :...
, the first appearance of such punishments in medieval law. According to canon 8, an adult sodomite, "tam faciens quam paciens" (both the active and the passive parties), should be burned at the stake. If, however, the passive party is a child or an elderly person, canon 9 says that only the active party should be burned, and it will suffice that the passive party repent, as he is presumed to have sinned against his will. If the sodomy is against his will but he keeps it hidden for whatever reason, canon 10 says that he too will be judged as a sodomite. Canon 11 allows for a sodomite to repent and avoid punishment, but if he is found to have participated in sodomy a second time, he will be allowed to repent again but will be exiled from the kingdom.
Canons 12-15 pertain to sexual relations with Muslims, an important question in the Kingdom, where Muslims far outnumbered their Latin overlords. Canon 12 states that a man who willingly has sexual relations with a Muslim woman should be castrated, and she should have her nose mutilated. If a man rapes his own female Muslim slave, according to canon 13 she should be confiscated by the state, and he should be castrated. If he rapes another man's female Muslim slave, canon 14 says that he should be subjected to the punishment for adulterers stated in canon 5, castration. Canon 15 deals with the same subject for Christian women - if a Christian woman willingly has sexual relations with a Muslim man, they should both be subjected to the punishment for adulterers, but if she was raped, then she will not be held accountable and the Muslim will be castrated.
Canon 16 prohibits Muslims from dressing like Christians. This canon foreshadows the similar canon 68 of the Fourth Lateran Council almost one hundred years later in 1215, which would prohibit both Jews and Muslims from adopting Christian dress. Similar laws were promulgated in
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims similarly intermingled.
Canons 17-19 deal with bigamy, another important subject, as many crusaders had abandoned their families in Europe. If a man takes a second wife, he should do penance until the first Sunday of
LentLent, in Christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter.The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus,...
, but if he hides his crime and is discovered, his property should be confiscated and he should be exiled. Canon 18 allows for bigamy to go unpunished if a man or woman unknowingly marries someone who is already married, as long as they can prove their ignorance. If a man has taken a second wife and wishes to divorce her, canon 19 states that he must prove that he is already married, either by the ordeal of hot iron, or by bringing witnesses to swear for him.
Canons 20-21 deal with clerics. Canon 20 says a cleric should not be held guilty if he takes up arms in self-defense, but he cannot take up arms for any other reason nor can he act like a knight. This was an important concern for the Crusader states; clerics were generally forbidden from participating in warfare in European law, but the Crusaders needed all the manpower they could find, and only one year before,
AntiochAntioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River...
had been defended by the
PatriarchThe Latin Patriarch of Antioch was an office created in 1098 by Bohemund, founder of the Principality of Antioch, one of the crusader states....
following the
Battle of Ager SanguinisIn the Battle of Ager Sanguinis, also known as the Battle of the Field of Blood, the Battle of Sarmada, or the Battle of Balat, Roger of Salerno's Crusader army of the Principality of Antioch was annihilated by the army of Ilghazi of Mardin, the Ortoqid ruler of Aleppo on June 28,...
, one of the calamities referred to in the introduction to the canons. Canon 21 says that a
monkA monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
or canon regular who
apostasizesApostasy is the formal religious disaffiliation or abandonment or renunciation of one's religion, especially if the motive is deemed unworthy. In a technical sense, as used sometimes by sociologists without the pejorative connotations of the word, the term refers to renunciation and criticism of,...
should either return to his order or go into exile.
Canon 22 simply forbids false accusations.
Canons 23-25 pertain to theft. Canon 23 says that anyone convicted of stealing property worth more than one
bezantBezant is a medieval term for a gold coin. The term is derived from the word Byzantium, the Latinized form of the original Greek name of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, where gold coins often came from, and were associated with, since the time of Constantine I.-History:Gold coins were not...
should have either a hand or foot cut off, or an eye removed. If the property was worth less than one bezant, he should be branded on the face and publicly whipped. The stolen goods should be returned, but if they are no longer in the thief's possession, the thief himself becomes the property of his victim. If the thief is caught stealing again, he should either have his other hand, foot, or eye removed, or he should be killed. If the thief was underage, canon 24 says he should be kept in custody and then sent to the royal court, but no further punishment is outlined. Canon 25 states that these punishments also do not apply to the barons, who should be subject only to the judgement of the royal court.
Signatories
Those who signed as witnesses to the canons were mostly ecclesiastics, with a few secular nobles:
- Warmund
Warmund, also Garmond, Gormond, Germond, Guarmond, or Waremond, was a Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1118 to his death at Sidon in 1128. He was from Picquigny in Picardy....
, Patriarch of JerusalemThe Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the title possessed by the Latin Rite Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem. The Archdiocese of Jerusalem has jurisdiction for all Latin Rite Catholics in Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus. In Jerusalem, the Catholic community is the largest Christian community,...
- Baldwin II
Baldwin II of Jerusalem, formerly Baldwin II of Edessa, also called Baldwin of Bourcq, born Baldwin of Rethel was the second count of Edessa from 1100 to 1118, and the third king of Jerusalem from 1118 until his death....
, King of Jerusalem
- Ebremar, Archbishop of Caesarea
The Archbishop of Caesarea was one of the major suffragans of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem during the Crusades.The diocese was an ancient one, established upon one of the first Christian communities ever created that which was formed by St. Peter and St. Paul. Records of the community are dated...
- Bernard, Bishop of Nazareth
The Archbishop of Nazareth was one of the major suffragans of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem during the crusades.The ancient diocese was located at Scythopolis, known as Bethsan to the crusaders. It was the metropolis of Palaestina Secunda. After Nazareth was captured following the First Crusade,...
- Ansquitinus, Bishop of Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank, approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
- Roger, Bishop of Ramla
Ramla , is a city in central Israel with a mixed Arab and Jewish population. Ramla was founded circa 705–715 CE by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abed al-Malik...
- Guildoinus, abbot-elect of St. Mary of the Valley of Josaphat
The Valley of Josaphat is mentioned in only one passage of the Bible, in Joel 3.2 : "I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations"...
- Peter, abbot of Mt. Tabor
- Achardus, prior of the Temple
The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to a series of structures located on the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem. Historically, two temples were built at this location, and a future Temple features in Jewish eschatology. According to classical Jewish belief, the Temple acts as...
- Arnaldus, prior of Mt. Sion
- Girardus, prior of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre , also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a Christian church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem....
- Pagan, chancellor of Jerusalem
There were six major officers of the kingdom of Jerusalem: the constable, the marshal, the seneschal, the chamberlain , the butler and the chancellor...
- Eustace Grenier
Eustace Grenier was an important crusader lord, and Constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem....
, Lord of Caesarea and SidonThe Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller seigneuries.-Introduction:According to the 13th century jurist John of Ibelin the four highest barons in the kingdom proper were:* the Count of Jaffa and Ascalon...
, constable of Jerusalem
- William de Buris
William of Bures was a French crusader from Bures-sur-Yvette, Ile-de-France.He arrived in the Kingdom of Jerusalem before 1115, with his brother Geoffrey. They were vassals of Joscelin I of Edessa....
- Barisan, constable of Jaffa
Barisan of Ibelin was an important figure in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and was the founder of the Ibelin family. His name was later written as "Balian" and he is sometimes known as Balian the Elder or Balian I....
- Baldwin, Lord of Ramla
Baldwin I was the castellan and lord of Ramla in the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1106 to his death. In 1120 he participated in the Council of Nablus. In 1126, the castellany, which controlled the surrounding countryside too, was given in fief the Count of Jaffa...
The signatories appear after the introduction, and before the list of canons begins.