Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon: Medieval Warfare in Societies around the Mediterranean

Though Fernando IV of Castile-León (1295–1302) is a rather obscure and inconspicuous historical figure, his reign symbolizes the Castilian Church's necessity for reasserting possession of its libertas ecclesiastica. Liberties, meaning clerical rights, privileges and immunities such as exemption from royal taxation, the right to judgement in ecclesiastical courts, protection of ecclesiastical property and payment of tithes, apparently were only of minor concern for the Castilian clergy in the thirteenth century.¹ Then, clergy did not find it necessary to protect their liberties by regularly holding provincial and diocesan church councils, but instead relied upon their prerogative to demand the redress of their grievances in the Cortes.²

During the first half of the thirteenth century, until the death of Fernando III in 1252, church-state relations were relatively harmonious since they shared a “common Christian Mission, ” the reconquest.³ The Castilian Church supported the reconquest militarily, spiritually, and, especially, financially.⁴ The Spanish victory at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 would cost the Castilian clergy half their year's income.⁵ Later, in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, the papacy

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