ABSTRACT
Although, as far as we know, Celestine had been trained as a theologian, not as a lawyer,1 there is uncertainty about his precise whereabouts during Innocent II’s exile from Rome (1130-37), and an unrecorded period of legal study cannot be excluded from his curriculum vitae. Moreover, he had spent much of his life as a papal diplomat and the obligations of his office as cardinal and legate drew him inexorably into the minefield of the law. It was not possible for a man to have spent more than 45 years (1144-91), not only as a member of the sacred college but as a representative of the papacy in various regions of Latin Christendom, without acquiring some knowledge of the canon law which was being refined in academic and judicial environments across Europe, and which he was expected to apply in the often tortuous disputes brought before him for settlement. A cardinal travelled with his own learned entourage, who drafted his letters and gave whatever professional legal advice was necessary. The jurist Master Vivian accompanied him on his first mission to Spain and Provence in 1154-55,2 for example, and the clerk and notary Magister Rodbertus may have been another legal eagle, although his subsequent history has not been traced.3 There is documentary evidence, moreover, that his legal advisers were fully au fait with the learned law. Stefan Weiss has drawn attention to an echo of a phrase in Gratian’s Decretum in the arenga of Hyacinth’s confirmation of an exchange between the monastery of Quarante and the cathedral of narbonne, which was issued by Master Vivian on 31 March 1154.4 This example led Weiss to challenge Walther
1 Above, Ch. 1, at n. 10. 2 Above, Ch. 1, at n. 15. That he acted in a legal capacity on this mission, see M.
