Gripla - 2019, Page 172

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their judgement on a statute issued by the papal legate William of Sabina
(discussed in more detail below) they concluded that Illugi was at fault and
had already brought himself under a “papal ban.” Their judgement was the
recognition of a sanction that had already fallen automatically.
Papal Absolution and Delegation
The above case highlights a peculiar feature of automatic excommunica-
tions: there was a gap between who could identify these excommunica-
tions and who had the authority to do anything about them once they had
fallen, unless an offender was in urgent mortal peril. There were simply
more people who brought these excommunications on themselves than
any pope, however efficient, could ever manage to address. Sometimes, as
in the earliest letters cited above, the pope directly delegated his authority
in individual cases.71 Lára Magnúsardóttir has argued that this power was
delegated to the bishops of Niðaróss generally by the Cardinal Bishop
William of Sabine in a letter dating to 1247.72 William of Sabina (also
known as William of Modena) was an Italian cleric who worked as a papal
diplomat late in his career. He came as a papal legate to the archdiocese
of Niðaróss in connection with the coronation of Hákon Hákonarson in
1247.
The letter in question focuses on who has jurisdiction over different
cases and excommunicates those who do not respect judgements, those
who rise up against the Norwegian king, and those who attempt to rape
nuns. This is almost certainly the statute cited in the Grenjaðarstaðir case.
This letter also gives bishops the power to absolve the excommunica-
tions that the cardinal calls for. It states that: “Concerning these pains of
excommunication and all the other [excommunications] which we give in
Norway, we give our authority to the bishops of those people who fall into
such grievous cases that they [i.e. the bishops] may absolve them if they
71 This was common. Pope Innocent III delegated these types of absolutions to the Danish
archbishop Anders Sunesen for example. See Torben K. Nielsen, “Archbishop Anders
Sunesen and Pope Innocent III: Papal Privileges and Episcopal Virtues,” Archbishop Absalon
of Lund and his World, ed. by Karsten Friis-Jensen and Inge Skovgaard-Petersen (Roskilde:
Roskilde Museums Forlag, 2000), 119–120.
72 Lára Magnúsardóttir, Bannfæring, 430–31.