ABSTRACT
How were medieval popes supposed to deal with renegade kings? Indeed what authority did they have to deal with them at all? Such questions had been latent in Christian Europe ever since 751, the year in which Pope Zacharias had authorised the deposition of the last Merovingian king of the Franks, thereby ushering in their first Carolingian ruler. The influence of Joao Peculiar at Coimbra was ubiquitous, and it remained effective there even after his appointment as bishop of Oporto in 1136 and archbishop of Braga in the following year. His activity between then and his death in 1175 was by no means confined to the field of public relations and royal propaganda, however. For as well as reconciling his responsibilities as both royal counsellor and ecclesiastical primate, Joao Peculiar was also a man of action–as he needed to be. As chancellor, Juliao Pais has been cast as the eminence grise of the Portuguese court.
