Los legados pontificios en la Península Ibérica hasta Inocencio IIIgénesis y evolución de una institución

Abstract

The object of study of this work is the institution of the pontifical legate, and, specifically, the presence of papal legates in the Iberian Peninsula until the pontificate of Innocent III, with whom a new rythm of the institutional development of the Church commenced. The origins of the legatine institution have been throughly investigated, not only in a diachronic sense, but also trying to identify the constitutive genesis of the legatine powers. That search led to studying the Roman primacy and its earlier manifestations in the Iberian Peninsula, both in its doctrinal and jurisdictional aspects. The interaction of the political processes within the Hispanic territories and the evolution of the Papacy, internal as well as in connection to the secular powers, has marked a series of stages throughout this study, which have been considered to the extent that they affected the relations between the Spanish churches and the Church of Rome. Thus, the conversion to the catholic faith of the Visigothic elites, the Bizantine 19 presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the muslim invasion of and the new political realities of the Reconquest, the degradation of the Apostolic See during the 10th century, the Gregorian Reform, and the promotion of the Crusade, are among the milestones which influenced the way that personal communications were established between Rome and the Spaniards...