Pataria
Encyclopedia
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milan
The Archdiocese of Milan is a metropolitan see of the Catholic Church in Italy. It has long maintained its own rite: the Ambrosian rite. It is led by the Archbishop of Milan who serves as metropolitan to the dioceses of Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Mantova, Pavia, and Vigevano.The...
in northern Italy, aimed at reforming the clergy and ecclesiastic government in the province and supportive of Papal sanctions against simony
Simony
Simony is the act of paying for sacraments and consequently for holy offices or for positions in the hierarchy of a church, named after Simon Magus , who appears in the Acts of the Apostles 8:9-24...
and clerical marriage
Clerical marriage
Clerical marriage is the practice of allowing clergy to marry. Churches such as the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox exclude this practice for their priests, while accepting already married men for ordination to priesthood...
. Those involved in the movement were called patarini (also patarines or patarenes, from singular patarino), a word chosen by their opponents, which means "ragpickers", from Milanese patee, the equivalent of the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
stracci, "rags". In general the patarini were tradesmen motivated by personal piety. The conflict between the patarini and their supporters and the partisans of the simoniacal archbishops eventually led to civil war by the mid 1070s, the Great Saxon revolt
Great Saxon Revolt
The Great Saxon Revolt was a civil war between 1077 and 1088 early in the history of the Holy Roman Empire led by a group of opportunistic German princes who elected as their figurehead the duke of Swabia and anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfeld, a two-way brother-in-law of the young Henry IV, Holy Roman...
. It received its most dependable contemporary chronicler in Arnulf of Milan
Arnulf of Milan
Arnulf of Milan, or Arnulfus Mediolanensis was a chronicler of events in Northern Italy in the work in five books by which he is known, Liber gestorum recentium, a "book of the deeds of recent times"...
.
The pataria was partially the result of church reform movements like the Peace and Truce of God
Peace and Truce of God
The Peace and Truce of God was a medieval European movement of the Catholic Church that applied spiritual sanctions in order to limit the violence of private war in feudal society. The movement constituted the first organized attempt to control civil society in medieval Europe through non-violent...
and partially of the social situation in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. The influence of southern French
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
movements, such as the Peace and Truce and Catharism, affected the pataria. The subsequent popularity of the Cathar movement in Milan during the twelfth century was resultant of the pataria. The chief targets of the patarini were the rich, saecular, aristocratic landowners and the simoniacal and nicolaitan clergy. They contested the ancient rights of the cathedral clergy of Milan and supported the Gregorian reform
Gregorian Reform
The Gregorian Reforms were a series of reforms initiated by Pope Gregory VII and the circle he formed in the papal curia, circa 1050–80, which dealt with the moral integrity and independence of the clergy...
s. They joined with the lesser clergy in opposition to the practices of simony and of clerical marriage and concubinage. The morals of the clergy were attacked, too, as was monastic discipline. The contrast between the impoverished lesser clergy and the magnates of the Church resurfaced as a point of contention.
The archbishop Guido da Velate
Guido da Velate
Guido da Velate was the Archbishop of Milan from 1045 until his death, though he had simoniacally abdicated in 1067...
was a particular victim of the patarini. On the death in 1045 of the warrior and prince-bishop Ariberto da Intimiano, the Milanese requested the Emperor Henry III
Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor
Henry III , called the Black or the Pious, was a member of the Salian Dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors...
, who controlled the election of bishops in his realms, to choose from among four candidates deemed retti ed onesti (upright and honest): Anselmo da Baggio, Arialdo da Carimate, Landolfo Cotta, and Attone. The Emperor's choice, however, fell upon the thoroughly worldly Guido, known for his support of the practice of clerical marriage and concubinage, which was generally accepted in rural areas and which was now being given the name "nicolaism", recalling a passage in the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
(2:6, 14–15).
Guido, however, did not fulfill his vows to fight simony and was forced to resign. The patarini initially protested the abuse by their refusal to accept communion at the hands of priests with unofficial wives or concubines. Some churches were emptied while others were packed with the faithful. The movement formed behind its leaders, the four rejected "upright and honest" priests. To defuse the situation the emperor named Anselmo da Baggio bishop of Lucca, which carried him securely away from Milan, and the archbishop excommunicated the intractable Arialdo da Carimate and Landolfo Cotta.
Following the pontificate of Benedict IX
Pope Benedict IX
Pope Benedict IX , born Theophylactus of Tusculum, was Pope on three occasions between 1032 and 1048. One of the youngest popes, he was the only man to have been Pope on more than one occasion and the only man ever to have sold the papacy.-Biography:Benedict was born in Rome as Theophylactus, the...
, the papacy too began to sense the urgency of reform and Pope Leo IX
Pope Leo IX
Pope Saint Leo IX , born Bruno of Eguisheim-Dagsburg, was Pope from February 12, 1049 to his death. He was a German aristocrat and as well as being Pope was a powerful secular ruler of central Italy. He is regarded as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, with the feast day of April 19...
condemned both the practice of simony and concubinage among priests. When Landolfo Cotta attempted to present the position of the Milanese patarini before Pope Stephen IX
Pope Stephen IX
Pope Stephen IX was Pope from August 3, 1057 to March 1058.His baptismal name was Frederick of Lorraine , and he was a younger brother of Godfrey III, Duke of Lower Lorraine, who, as Marquis of Tuscany , played a prominent part in the politics of the period.Frederick, who had...
, the archbishop's ruffians caught up with him at Piacenza
Piacenza
Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...
and came near to killing him. A second attack in 1061 was successful. In 1060 Pope Nicholas II
Pope Nicholas II
Pope Nicholas II , born Gérard de Bourgogne, Pope from 1059 to July 1061, was at the time of his election the Bishop of Florence.-Antipope Benedict X:...
sent a delegation to Milan under the direction of Peter Damiani and Anselmo da Baggio, and calm was restored to the city.
After Landolfo's death, his brother Erlembald
Erlembald
Saint Erlembald was the political and military leader of the movement known as the pataria in Milan, a movement to reform the clergy and the church in the Ambrosian diocese.He was the brother of Landulf, subdeacon of Milan...
stepped in to take his place. He transferred the movement from one primarily socioreligious to principally military. The pataria at this moment received the support of Popes Alexander II
Pope Alexander II
Pope Alexander II , born Anselmo da Baggio, was Pope from 1061 to 1073.He was born in Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand of Sovana in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy...
and Gregory VII
Pope Gregory VII
Pope St. Gregory VII , born Hildebrand of Sovana , was Pope from April 22, 1073, until his death. One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor affirming the primacy of the papal...
while the Ambrosian see fell into schism and war until the archiepiscopate of Anselm III
Anselm III, Archbishop of Milan
Anselm III was the archbishop of Milan from his consecration on 1 July 1086 to his death on 4 December 1093. He reestablished order in the Ambrosian see after more than a decade of fighting between the pataria and the religious authorities and confusion over the succession to the bishopric.Anslem...
reestablished order.
The Occitan word pataric later became a synonym for Cathar
Cathar
Catharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries...
. The wife of the troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
Raimon Jordan
Raimon Jordan
Raimon Jordan was a Toulousain troubadour and the viscount of Saint-Antonin in the Rouergue near the boundary with Quercy ....
was a reported pataric. There were also rumours, emanating from a Christian prisoner in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, that the Patarenes had made an alliance with the Muslims against the Crusaders
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
. These rumours captivated Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore , was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore . He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist...
, who built on it an apocalyptic theory of the union of the "beast from the sea" and the "beast from the land".