page_title: Pope Nicholas I
section_title: Marriage laws
hierarchical_section_title: Pope Nicholas I / Papacy / Marriage laws
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: tiré de "nouveau traité de diplomatique...'.
context_page_description: Nicholas I, called Nicholas the Great, was the pope from 24 April 858 until his death. He is remembered as a consolidator of papal authority, exerting decisive influence on the historical development of the papacy and its position among the Christian nations of Western Europe. Nicholas I asserted that the pope should have suzerainty over all Christians, even royalty, in matters of faith and morals.
  Nicholas refused King Lothair II of Lotharingia's request for an annulment of his marriage to Teutberga. When a council pronounced in favor of annulment, Nicholas I declared the council deposed, its messengers excommunicated, and its decisions invalid. Despite pressure from the Carolingians, who laid siege to Rome, his decision held. During his reign, relations with the Byzantine Empire soured because of his support for Patriarch Ignatios of Constantinople, who had been removed from his post in favor of Photius I.
  Since the seventeenth century, Nicholas has been venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, with his feast on 13 November.
context_section_description: Nicholas showed the same zeal in other efforts to maintain ecclesiastical discipline, especially as to the marriage laws. Ingiltrud, wife of Count Boso, had left her husband for a paramour; Nicholas commanded the bishops in the dominions of Charles the Bald to excommunicate her unless she returned to her husband. As she paid no attention to the summons to appear before the Synod of Milan in 860, she was put under the ban.
  The pope was also involved in a desperate struggle with the bishops of Lotharingia over the inviolability of marriage. King Lothair II, not having any children by his wife, Teutberga, had abandoned her to marry his mistress, Waldrada. At the Synod of Aachen on 28 April 862, the bishops of Lotharingia approved this union, contrary to ecclesiastical law. At the Synod of Metz, June 863, the papal legates, bribed by the king, assented to the Aachen decision, and condemned the absent Teutberga, who took refuge in the court of Lothair's uncle, Charles the Bald, and appealed to the Pope. Upon this the pope brought the matter before his own tribunal. The two archbishops, Günther of Cologne and Thietgaud of Trier, both relatives of Waldrada, had come to Rome as delegates, and were summoned before the Lateran Synod of October 863, when the pope condemned and deposed them as well as John of Ravenna and Hagano of Bergamo. Emperor Louis II took up the cause of the deposed bishops, while King Lothair advanced upon Rome with an army and laid siege to the city, so that the pope was confined for two days in St. Peter's without food. Yet Nicholas did not waver in his determination; after Engelberga arranged a reconciliation with the pope, the emperor withdrew from Rome and commanded the former archbishops of Trier and Cologne to return to their homes. Nicholas never ceased his efforts to bring about a reconciliation between Lothair and his wife.
  Another matrimonial case in which Nicholas interposed was that of Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, who had married Count Baldwin I of Flanders without her father's consent. Frankish bishops had excommunicated Judith, and Hincmar of Reims had taken sides against her, but Nicholas urged leniency in order to protect freedom of marriage.
caption: Seal of Lothair II
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