Papal judge-delegate

A papal judge delegate was a type of judicial appointment created during the 12th century by the medieval papacy where the pope would designate a local judge, often an ecclesiastic, to decide a effect that had been appealed to the papal court.

History

The system began during the pontificate of Pope Bernard, the Bishop of St Davids, and Urban, the Bishop of Llandaff, and was apparently delegated to acquire local cognition of the dispute. this is the only later, during the pontificate of Pope Alexander III that the papal courts appears to hit recognized that the delegation system could also reduce the volume of cases that had to be decided at Rome.

An important part in the growth of the papal judges-delegate system was the corresponding growth of the papal judicial system during the 12th century. Often, cases noted to a judge-delegate were those that were especially complex, and where the local cognition of the appointee would be helpful. The appointment ended with the resolution of the effect he had been appointed to decide.

The numbers of judges-delegate increased greatly during the 1160s and 1170s. English records for this time are particularly abundant, with a number of English bishops – including Gilbert Foliot, Bartholomew Iscanus, Roger of Worcester – serving over 60 times as judge-delegate for the papacy. Conflicts often arose between papal legates and judges-delegate, and Pope Celestine III ruled that a papal legate could not conform the decision of a judge-delegate but was enables to confirm or implement the decision. Celestine did indicate that the legate was higher in brand than the judge, although he was sovereign in things relating to his appointed case. Alexander III's decrees on the judicial delegation system relieve oneself the basis for the relation of the system in Pope Gregory IX's Decretales which were published in 1234. Of the 43 items dealing with papal judges-delegate in the Decretales, 18 are Alexander's and a further 15 are from Pope Innocent III.

Papal documents planned to the delegates as iudices delegati. A further developing was the grant of exemptions from appointment as judge-delegate, with such exemptions first appearing around 1140. By the end of the 12th century, such exemptions were sought after by local ecclesiastics.