LEST THE KEYS BE SCORNED: THE IMPLICATIONS OF INDULGENCES FOR THE CHURCH HIERARCHY AND THIRTEENTH-CENTURY CANONISTS’ RESISTANCE TO THE TREASURY OF MERIT

Abstract

Recent scholarship on indulgences has focused on the shared concepts theologians and canonists drew on to explain these remissions and advantageous effects of indulgences on popular piety, the mendicant orders, and the papacy. A closer examination of the work of thirteenth-century canonists reveals an uncertainty about the mechanism by which indulgences worked and concerns that diverged from those of theologians. While the treasury of merit was a popular theological explanation, it was generally ignored by most canonists, who preferred explanations based on jurisdiction, the power of the keys, and suffrages. A key distinction between suffrages, good works done with the intent of spiritually benefitting others, and the treasury of merit is that the former burdens the living while the latter does not, since it draws on merit stored from already completed actions. Since it makes granting indulgences burdensome, the suffrage theory offers a disincentive to granting indiscrete or excessive remissions. Abuse of indulgences underlined the tensions between the authority of God and the church, the penitential and public forums, and the overlapping jurisdictions of prelates. Unlike the suffrage theory of indulgences, the treasury of merit theory offers little incentive for restraint. This may explain its relative absence in the writings of thirteenth-century canonists.