If you can read medieval Latin script, I need your help

One of my professors at Quincy University once complained about having to read Merovingian shorthand script (which is apparently rather difficult to make out). I found his grumbles amusing at the time, but now have some sympathy for him.

Because of our shared devotion to il Volto Santo (the Holy Face) and our common desire to make it known far and wide, Mr. Paul Badde sent to me this image of an intriguing manuscript:

It is the letter of Sylvester of Adria, a scribe at the court of Pope Boniface VIII, written on 22 February 1300 in connection with the first Jubilee. The letter is divided into three parts:

1. the Bull of Pope Boniface VIII, Antiquorum habet fida relatio;
2. clarifications about the word "jubilee" being absent from the Bull; and,
3. answers to certain questions about the jubilee presented to Boniface VIII

I have been able to find the text and translation of the Bull itself, but I have not been able to find either the text or a translation of the second parts of the letter of Sylvester, the two parts which most interest me.

 

So it was that I sent an e-mail last night to the Biblioteca del Comune e dell'Accademia etrusca in Cortona, Italy where the letter is housed, asking if it might be possible for me to go and have a look at the letter, make a transcription of it, and take photographs of it.

Very early this morning - before 8:00 a.m. - I was quite surprised to have a response from the library indicating that I could go and study the letter, but that I could not take photographs of it. Instead, I could request a high resolution jpeg of the letter for the purposes of transcription and translation. I did so, and received this file early this afternoon (it was the most efficient and easiest request I've made yet to any Italian bureaucracy).

You can imagine my delight, then, when I opened the file, enlarged it enough to have a good look at the text, and my great disappointment when I realized what my college professor meant: I cannot make out the medieval script! If you can read these letters, I need your help:

Clicking on the image should enlarge it

Some of the characters I can make out, but enough of them for a transcription. If you are able to read this script and would be willing to make a transcription of the original letter for me (it measures 63cm in length, including the images at the top and bottom), please contact me via e-mail to dzehnle[at]gmail[dot]com. I should be able to work my way through the Latin from a transcription.

In the end, I should like to see what connections this jubilee bull might have with that of Pope Francis' Misericordiae Vultus (Face of Mercy), the possible connections of which should be somewhat obvious from the images on this letter: the Holy Face of Jesus between Saints Peter and Paul.

Historical trivia

Via Facebook, one of my friends reminded me that on this day in the year of our Lord 1302, Pope Boniface VIII (1235-1303) issued that famous Bull, Unam Sanctam. I've no idea why my friend knew this little tidbit. What can I say? I have strange friends.

It is a brief document, forever "enshrined" in the power struggle between Popes and Kings. Through it, Boniface asserted his sovereignty over King Philip IV (the Fair) of France. Philip's men beat Pope Boniface nearly a year later because of his continued insistence on the supremacy of the Pope; he died a month later. Not exactly what you might call a pleasant moment.

Here, an excerpt:

Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: 'Feed my sheep' [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John 'there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.' We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: 'Behold, here are two swords' [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered _for_ the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.

However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: 'There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God' [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.