Summer 2005

Research Profile:
The Pallium & The Papacy
Steve Schoenig, History

Every year on the feast of St. Agnes (January 21), two lambs are blessed in the church of St. Agnes-outside-the-Walls in Rome . The name of this virgin martyr means "pure" in Greek, but a word-play on Latin agnus, "lamb," makes it a fitting locale for the rite. When the animals have grown and are shorn, Benedictine nuns weave their wool into small stoles called "pallia." On the eve of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29), the pope blesses these vestments and places them overnight in an alcove below the high altar in St. Peter's Basilica. This niche lies directly above the purported tomb of St. Peter himself, and so the pallia are thought to become contact relics, blessed by the apostle whom Jesus commanded to "tend his sheep" and "feed his lambs." The pope, as successor to Peter's ministry, already wears the pallium as a sign of his pastoral authority. (After a papal election, the most solemn moment of the new pope's installation is his investiture with the pallium.) But the next day, on St. Peter's feast itself, the pope also invests new archbishops from throughout the world with the garment. To receive the pallium is a gesture of their allegiance to the see of Peter. It is also a sign of their participation, for the individual provinces that they serve as metropolitans, in the pope's universal jurisdiction as vicar of Christ, the Good Shepherd.

Steve Schoenig, a doctoral student in medieval history, has chosen this arcane artifact as the topic of his dissertation, under the direction of Professor Robert Somerville. The pallium is a band of white wool that encircles the shoulders and falls in two strips that hang down in front and back. It is usually embroidered with crosses and affixed with jewelled pins. Its origin goes back to late antiquity, but its heyday was arguably the central Middle Ages (800-1200). During this period in the Latin Church, the pallium meant many things and touched on many spheres of medieval culture. It was the subject of documents, such as petitions and grants of the privilege of wearing it; it carried legal effects, such as the right to consecrate bishops and hold synods; it became a tool in political relations among popes, kings, and bishops, who used it to further their own interests; it was an iconographical feature in artworks that portrayed popes and prelates. The Pallium was seen as a mark of holiness, taken from the tomb of St. Peter and offering a share in his power. It could be worn only as a liturgical vestment, in church on specific feast days and within a specific jurisdiction. And it was charged with theological meaning, as witnessed by the many symbolic interpretations of the garment. In a culture that took symbols seriously, as both signifying realities and bringing them about, the pallium both reflected and created status and authority for the chief shepherds of Christendom. Schoenig plans to examine all these overlapping aspects, but he will focus on the papacy as the thread that ties them together. The pallium can be called a papal instrument, because the popes effectively used it to bind the far-flung provinces to the Roman bishop and to promote a vision of a papally directed Church. As such it was one factor in the rise of the highly centralized, Rome-focused Catholic Church we know today.

Schoenig, a priest of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), a Catholic religious order, grew up in St. Louis and received a B.A. in Latin from Creighton University ( Omaha , NE ) in 1991. After several years teaching Latin and theology at St. Louis U. High School ( St. Louis , MO ), he earned an M.A. in Medieval Studies from Fordham University ( Bronx , NY ) in 1999, an M.Div. from Weston Jesuit School of Theology ( Cambridge , MA ) in 2001, and an M.Phil. in History from Columbia in 2004. He began his studies at Columbia in 2001 and has concentrated on medieval ecclesiastical, religious, and cultural history, especially the papacy, the cult of the saints, liturgy, and monasticism.