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From a letter to Antonio da Canossa, duke of Toscana, from Theodoric, His Holiness Pope Urban II (c. 1093):
Urban, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his faithful prince and son in Christ, Antonio da Toscana, at Modena; greeting and blessing.
Your pious and humble prince has now had forces in Egypt four years, in reverent subservience to our plea for Crusade against the barbarians there, who had deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the regions of the Orient. More than this, blasphemous to say, those followers of the Enemy had even grasped in intolerabe servitude its churches and the Holy City of Christ, glorified be His passion and resurrection. Grieving with pious concern at this calamity, we visited the regions of Italia and Germania and Gaul and devoted ourselves largely to urging the princes of the land and their subjects to free the churches of the East. We solemnly enjoined upon them at the council of Koln such an undertaking, as a preparation for the remission of all their sins. And we had constituted our most beloved son, Anno, bishop there, leader of this expedition and undertaking in our stead, so that those who, perchance, might wish to undertake this journey should comply with his commands, as if they were our own, and submit fully to his loosings or bindings, as far as shall seem to belong to such an office.
We write you now upon reports that Holy Alexandria has been siezed through your arms but not kept in subjugation to your own dread self but rather given over to the dark and errant king of Nubia and his Eutychian and heretic church. Certain this could have been permitted neither by your devout and devoted person nor by our son Anno, we are most curious whether this was whether this malignity was forced upon you by strength of the Nubian forces, or whether some errant commander caused this calamity, grevious to Christendom, to Christ, and to His holy church.
We are also curious as to the location and possessor of the relics of the city, most especially the Holy Saint Marcus. Our prayers are with you and all those of your subjects who lie at rest, crowned with so glorious a martyrdom. Farewell.
Your pious and humble prince has now had forces in Egypt four years, in reverent subservience to our plea for Crusade against the barbarians there, who had deplorably afflicted and laid waste the churches of God in the regions of the Orient. More than this, blasphemous to say, those followers of the Enemy had even grasped in intolerabe servitude its churches and the Holy City of Christ, glorified be His passion and resurrection. Grieving with pious concern at this calamity, we visited the regions of Italia and Germania and Gaul and devoted ourselves largely to urging the princes of the land and their subjects to free the churches of the East. We solemnly enjoined upon them at the council of Koln such an undertaking, as a preparation for the remission of all their sins. And we had constituted our most beloved son, Anno, bishop there, leader of this expedition and undertaking in our stead, so that those who, perchance, might wish to undertake this journey should comply with his commands, as if they were our own, and submit fully to his loosings or bindings, as far as shall seem to belong to such an office.
We write you now upon reports that Holy Alexandria has been siezed through your arms but not kept in subjugation to your own dread self but rather given over to the dark and errant king of Nubia and his Eutychian and heretic church. Certain this could have been permitted neither by your devout and devoted person nor by our son Anno, we are most curious whether this was whether this malignity was forced upon you by strength of the Nubian forces, or whether some errant commander caused this calamity, grevious to Christendom, to Christ, and to His holy church.
We are also curious as to the location and possessor of the relics of the city, most especially the Holy Saint Marcus. Our prayers are with you and all those of your subjects who lie at rest, crowned with so glorious a martyrdom. Farewell.
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From the History of Makuria of His Holiness Pope of Alexandria and Nubia Benjamin II (c. AD 1140):
Georgios did not mobilize nor declare war upon the news of the summoning of the Crusade\\ which was grevious to his heart\\ the news being brought south unto him by the many Christians fleeing from the infidel lands of Lower Egypt//
For the lisping Caliph and Imam Ma'd Abu Tamim now held but little power\\ whereas the Turkic lord of the army and the vile wretch Badr al-Jamali even in the extremity of his age took occasion to persecute those faithful from whom he had come\\ albeit in distant Armenia • So that all the length of the Nile from Holy Alexandria to graceful Syene the churches all were broken and all their congregations slaughtered\\ or else herded to distant wastes around the oases\\ their lands and property all confiscated\\ their daughters taken by the soldier slaves as wives\\ their sons by the madrasas as forced converts\\ or else by the gravekeepers • And so many became martyrs for their faith and found their final home beneath the throne of God Almighty there to wait til the Day of His Judgment\\ while Georgios waited and his cities swelled by the refugees their children and their illnesses//
For the lisping Caliph and Imam Ma'd Abu Tamim now held but little power\\ whereas the Turkic lord of the army and the vile wretch Badr al-Jamali even in the extremity of his age took occasion to persecute those faithful from whom he had come\\ albeit in distant Armenia • So that all the length of the Nile from Holy Alexandria to graceful Syene the churches all were broken and all their congregations slaughtered\\ or else herded to distant wastes around the oases\\ their lands and property all confiscated\\ their daughters taken by the soldier slaves as wives\\ their sons by the madrasas as forced converts\\ or else by the gravekeepers • And so many became martyrs for their faith and found their final home beneath the throne of God Almighty there to wait til the Day of His Judgment\\ while Georgios waited and his cities swelled by the refugees their children and their illnesses//
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From a letter of Pietro del Antelminelli, Bishop of Pelusia, to His Holiness Pope Urban II (1095):
...and so while I understand the condemnations of Eutyches himself, I can find no justification in my readings for the idea that the African church now or indeed ever in the past has held to the Docetist heresy, viz. that the nature of Christ is one and solitary in its divinity. As it was explaned to me by King Georgios and their pope and a monk of the city somewhat infelicitously yclept Abdul the Goatherd, rather they hold just as do all good Christians that Christ is one and complete within Himself man and God, just as God is one and complete with Himself Father and Son and also Holy Spirit. They have been known as monophysites because of their rejection since the time of Chalcedon of the term physis itself but their Christology differs in no substantive manner from our own.
That manner settled, the rest was the simple issue of being overranked by a king present with his host on the field, although there are yet more reasons I might list for permitting local control over governance from Italy...
That manner settled, the rest was the simple issue of being overranked by a king present with his host on the field, although there are yet more reasons I might list for permitting local control over governance from Italy...
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From the History of Makuria of His Holiness Pope of Alexandria and Nubia Benjamin II (c. AD 1140):
And so under the guidance of his marshal Murtaza ibn-Ziri\\ who was father of the present chronicler\\ Georgios remained constrained and patient//
Many misdeeds and many errors weakened Egypt in those times\\ chief among them the long famine of the preceeding decades and the decades-long civil war\\ first between the Nubian and Turkic soldiers\\ then between the various Turkic factions themselves\\ and finally between the heirs to the throne\\ and all the while rebellious emirs declaring themselves independent of Babylon//
Still Murtaza knew Nubia must need wait til enough kings committed to the Crusade and enough soldiers had actually arrived within Egypt that the Fatimid power could be crushed forever\\ For if not it would seek vengeance and Nubia could count no force on earth Yea even Constantinople or Abyssinia its true ally but would need to position herself to maintain herself\\ securing the Copts and the long Nile valley and her riches//
Many misdeeds and many errors weakened Egypt in those times\\ chief among them the long famine of the preceeding decades and the decades-long civil war\\ first between the Nubian and Turkic soldiers\\ then between the various Turkic factions themselves\\ and finally between the heirs to the throne\\ and all the while rebellious emirs declaring themselves independent of Babylon//
Still Murtaza knew Nubia must need wait til enough kings committed to the Crusade and enough soldiers had actually arrived within Egypt that the Fatimid power could be crushed forever\\ For if not it would seek vengeance and Nubia could count no force on earth Yea even Constantinople or Abyssinia its true ally but would need to position herself to maintain herself\\ securing the Copts and the long Nile valley and her riches//
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The letter of the excommunication of Bishop Pietro by His Holiness Pope Urban II (1095):
Within all the lands subject to this sinner, let all the churches be closed; let no one be admitted to them, except to baptize infants. We permit Mass to be celebrated once a week, on Friday, early in the morning, to consecrate the host for the use of the sick, but only one clerk is to be admitted to assist the priest. Let the clergy preach on Sunday in the vestibules of the churches, and in place of the Mass let them deliver the word of God. Let them recite the canonical hours outside the churches where the people do not hear them and let them not permit the dead to be interred, nor their bodies to be placed unburied in cemetaries. Let them, moreover, say to the laity that they sin and transgress grievously by burying bodies in the earth, even in unconsecrated ground, for in so doing they assume to themselves an office pertaining to others. Let instead the bodies to rot before the gates of his palace, that their stench might bring to his mind his fate which to come.
Let them forbid their parishioners to enter churches that may be open in the sinner's territory, and let them not bless the wallets of pilgrims, except outside the churches. Let no vessel of holy water be placed outside the church, nor shall the priest carry them anywhere. Extreme unction, which is a holy sacrament, may not be given.
And truly, let this man be accursed in his body, and let his soul be delivered to destruction and perdition and torture. Let him be damned with the damned; let him be scourged with the selfish; let him perish with the proud. Let him be accursed with the Jews who, seeing the incarnate Christ, did not believe but sought to crucify Him. Let him be accursed with the heretics who labor to destroy the church. Let him be accursed with those who blaspheme the name of God. Let him be accursed with those who despair of the mercy of God. Let him be accursed with those whom He in His mercy damns in Hell.
Let him be accursed with the impious and sinners unless he amend his ways, and confess himself in fault towards St. Peter and St. Marcus and the Holy Church and make repentence and truly restitution. Let him be accursed in the four quarters of the earth: in the East be he accursed and in the West disinherited, in the North interdicted and in the South excommunicate. Be he accursed in the day-time and excommunicate in the night-time. Accursed be he at home and excommunicate abroad, accursed in standing and excommunicate in sitting. Be he accursed in eating, accursed in drinking, accursed in sleeping, and excommunicate in waking. Be he accursed when he works and excommunicate when he rests. Let him be accursed in the spring time and excommunicate in the summer, accursed in the autumn and excommunicate in the winter. Let him be accursed in this world and excommunicate in the next. Let his lands pass into the hands of the stranger, his mother and sister be given over to perdition, and his children fall before the edge of the sword. As the psalmist wished, let them be thrown down upon the rocks and be crushed utterly thereon. Let what he eats be accursed, and accursed be what he leave, so that he who eats it shall be also accursed. May he cry "Peace! Peace!" and yet find no peace.
Accursed and excommunicate be the priest who shall give him the body and blood of the Lord, or any who shall visit him in sickness. Accursed and excommunicate be he who shall carry him to the grave and shall dare to bury him.
Let him be excommunicate, and accursed with all curses if he does not make amends and render due satisfaction. And know this for truth, that after our death no bishop nor count, nor any secular power shall usurp the seigniory of the blessed St. Marcus nor the lands of Pelusia. And if any presume to attempt it, borne down by all the foregoing curses, they never shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, for the blessed St. Marcus is beneath the lordship of the blessed Peter.
This we will all in the name of our Risen Lord, the Merciful Christ.
Amen.
Let them forbid their parishioners to enter churches that may be open in the sinner's territory, and let them not bless the wallets of pilgrims, except outside the churches. Let no vessel of holy water be placed outside the church, nor shall the priest carry them anywhere. Extreme unction, which is a holy sacrament, may not be given.
And truly, let this man be accursed in his body, and let his soul be delivered to destruction and perdition and torture. Let him be damned with the damned; let him be scourged with the selfish; let him perish with the proud. Let him be accursed with the Jews who, seeing the incarnate Christ, did not believe but sought to crucify Him. Let him be accursed with the heretics who labor to destroy the church. Let him be accursed with those who blaspheme the name of God. Let him be accursed with those who despair of the mercy of God. Let him be accursed with those whom He in His mercy damns in Hell.
Let him be accursed with the impious and sinners unless he amend his ways, and confess himself in fault towards St. Peter and St. Marcus and the Holy Church and make repentence and truly restitution. Let him be accursed in the four quarters of the earth: in the East be he accursed and in the West disinherited, in the North interdicted and in the South excommunicate. Be he accursed in the day-time and excommunicate in the night-time. Accursed be he at home and excommunicate abroad, accursed in standing and excommunicate in sitting. Be he accursed in eating, accursed in drinking, accursed in sleeping, and excommunicate in waking. Be he accursed when he works and excommunicate when he rests. Let him be accursed in the spring time and excommunicate in the summer, accursed in the autumn and excommunicate in the winter. Let him be accursed in this world and excommunicate in the next. Let his lands pass into the hands of the stranger, his mother and sister be given over to perdition, and his children fall before the edge of the sword. As the psalmist wished, let them be thrown down upon the rocks and be crushed utterly thereon. Let what he eats be accursed, and accursed be what he leave, so that he who eats it shall be also accursed. May he cry "Peace! Peace!" and yet find no peace.
Accursed and excommunicate be the priest who shall give him the body and blood of the Lord, or any who shall visit him in sickness. Accursed and excommunicate be he who shall carry him to the grave and shall dare to bury him.
Let him be excommunicate, and accursed with all curses if he does not make amends and render due satisfaction. And know this for truth, that after our death no bishop nor count, nor any secular power shall usurp the seigniory of the blessed St. Marcus nor the lands of Pelusia. And if any presume to attempt it, borne down by all the foregoing curses, they never shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, for the blessed St. Marcus is beneath the lordship of the blessed Peter.
This we will all in the name of our Risen Lord, the Merciful Christ.
Amen.
"Well, that sucks... What's for dinner?"
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