Chapter 4 - The Library of Iberian Resources Online

in the novella plantatio, (53) there too he was hardly less concerned about the economic foundations of
the recently established frontier parishes. (54) For all this, though, Pedro was a realist and was prepared,
as John of Abbeville had not been, to make concessions to human frailty as a means of coaxing the
clergy towards a better life. Thus, while both in his own cathedral church and at Valencia he penalised
canons for absence from choir, he did allow them one morning each week when they might lie in and
miss matins without loss of income. (55)
Tireless though the archbishop seems to have been in visiting the sees of his province, it was upon the
bishops that he had to rely if his reforms were to have any permanent significance. The task of
admonishing, removing local anomalies and bringing the liturgical practice of each church into line
with that of the cathedral of Tarragona, 'que ipsius est metropolis et magistra', (56) weighed upon them.
So, [64] too, did the duty of attending the annual provincial councils and of passing on the message to
their clergy at diocesan synods. By 1242 they seem to have been beginning to wilt under the strain, or
perhaps the lack of a council in the previous year had broken the spell. For only three of them appeared
at the council that May: a performance which elicited a characteristically firm warning for the future
from Pedro. Bishops absent thereafter, 'excusationes frivolas pretendentes', would incur durance vile at
Tarragona. (57) This had its effect, and, with the exception of the incorrigible Ponce of Urgel, they all
either came or sent representatives to the 1243 Council. (58) Gradually, as the incumbents died, Pedro
was able to safeguard the future by filling the sees with -- or, rather, by influencing the electors to
appoint -- churchmen who shared his outlook. Before investigating this group of prelates, however, it
may be as well to consider the situation in the three sees which did not present the archbishop with
such an opportunity: those of Tarazona, Tortosa and Urgel, the bishops of which survived from before
1238 until after his death.
Admittedly, none of them remained entirely apart from the mainstream of activity. Even García Frontón
of Tarazona (1219-54 (59) ), was represented at two of the councils, although he attended none of them in
person, (60) and it may have been a similar anxiety to that of Pedro for parochial organisation which
prompted him in July 1251 to seek papal permission to deal with the disorder of the Calatayud area,
and three years later to implement Innocent IVs commission in pleno capitulo. (61) But, equally, this
may have been an instance of mere acquisitiveness rather than of disinterested pastoral zeal. In the [65]
absence of the Tarazona documentation, destroyed long ago, there are no means of knowing. More,
however, may safely be claimed for the second of the trio, Ponce of Tortosa, who by 1239 had already
been bishop for a quarter of a century, having survived both his chapter's attempt to oust him for
simony and perjury in 1218-19, and his own request to be relieved of office in 1237. (62) In spite of his
years, he was the most assiduous of Pedro's suffragans, attending all but one of the councils, (63) and
possessing a good business brain, as he himself claimed in December 1252 when he instituted an
annual vestiarium payment of 150 solidi jaccenses for each of the canons of Tortosa. (64) In February
1250 the archbishop gained entrée to his church when the chapter invited him and the bishop jointly to
prepare an ordinatio congrua of their rents and rations; and although their deliberations centred largely
on the question of cakes and ale, joints of meat and jugs of wine, it was at least possible to oblige the
dignitaries of the chapter to publish their accounts twice yearly in imitation of John of Abbeville's
Tarragona statute. (65) That, though, seems to have been the extent of Pedro's influence at Tortosa. The
wider dissemination of reforming practices and the holding of synods there had to await Ponce's death,
and even then progress was not made without an extremely bitter struggle. (66)
If the shortcomings of Ponce of Tortosa consisted in the very soundness of a pedestrian character long
set in his ways, those of his namesake the bishop of Urgel, the third of the prelates who preceded and
outlived the archbishop and whose election in 1230 had so concerned both John of Abbeville and Pedro