Medieval Popes in Paradoxplace
Here are some of the Medieval Popes mentioned in Paradoxplace - more will join in as time goes on.
Links to other Paradoxplace pages relating to the Medieval Christian Church
Pope St Fabian (? - 236 - 250)
St-Denis (Dionysious in Latin) is thought to have been one of a group of seven or so Roman bishops sent by Fabian to convert Gaul to Christianity. Others in the group included Gatianus (Tours), Trophimus (Arles), Paul (Narbonne), Saturnin (Toulouse), Austromoine (Clermont), Martial (Limoges) and they joined Irenaeus who was already in Lyon.
Pope St Sylvester I (? - 314 - 335)
Lived in the shadow of the Emperor Constantine (c274 - 306 - 337 (63)) to the extent that he was not even present at the church's first Ecumenical Council at Nicea, which had been convened by the Emperor. A Pope whose importance was greatly exaggerated by history, in part because of the fiction that Constantine was so grateful after Sylvester cured him of leprosy by baptism (both statements untrue) that he gave him Rome - the so called "Donation of Constantine" - a fiction supported by forged documentation from the 700s and believed for a long time to be true. Constantine did however give the church the basilicas of St John Lateran, St Peters and St Pauls.
The donation fraud was still being promoted in 1246 - these frescos were painted in 1246 in the newly rebuilt Papal Chapel of St-Sylvester, in the convent church of SS Quattro Coronati in Rome, illustrate the grateful leprosy-free Emperor Constantine presenting Sylvester with a tiara, then leading the mounted and tiared Pope into the City which the Emperor had just "given" him (not).
Pope St Celestine I (? - 422 - 432)
Restored Santa Maria in Trastevere and built Santa Sabina. Pope at a time of strong personalities and heresies in the Eastern and African churches, tackled at the Council of Ephesus (431).
Pope St Sixtus III (? - 432 - 440)
Responsible for rebuilding Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome after the Council of Ephesus (431) reasserted that Mary was the Mother of God, and he also paid personally for the mosaics in the nave and on the triumphal arch (which are still there - see below).
The Triumphal Arch in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Rome) - Mosaic commemorating the Council of Ephesus (431) paid for by Pope St Sixtus III
Pope St Leo I (the Great) (? - 440 - 461)
Tuscan Pope who managed to stop Atilla the Hun invading Rome - which was when Romans started to realize that it was Popes and not Emperors who they had to look to for security and rulership.
476
The end of the Western Roman Empire - or rather Emperors, because much of the governance went on as before under the long reigns of Odoacer the Barbarian then Theoderic the Ostrogoth.
Pope St Gregory I (the Great) (540 - 590 - 604 (64))
The first monk Pope, which is maybe why he found it easy to (try to) impose celibacy on the priesthood for the first time. He also imposed a uniform "Gregorian" chanting system to try and bring some order to the huge miscellany of folk tunes being enjoyed in churches across Europe (though a full system of musical notation was another 400 years away - it was invented by Guido d'Arezzo around 990), and sent St Augustine to Canterbury to convert the English (who affectionately called the Pope "our Gregory") before the unromanized Irish / Celtic Christian church in the north got at them. And much much more, which is why he earned recognition as the major Papal mover and shaker of the early middle ages.
Pope Stephen II (? - 752 - 757) (also named Stephen III)
A Roman aristocrat who armwrestled and beat the Lombards, going to St- Denis (Paris) to consecrate the Frankish King Pepin (The Short) and his family in exchange for "the Donation of Pepin" - this time a genuine "donation" which established the Pope as temporal owner and leader of the Papal States.
Pope Hadrian I (? - 772 - 795)
Long serving (23 year) Roman aristocrat Pope who, like his namesake the Emperor Hadrian, was a great builder and restorer. Amongst others he restored the Rome churches of S Agnese fuori le Mura, S Croce in Gerusalemme, and S Giovanni in Laterano, and rebuilt S Maria in Cosmedin, S Pietro in Vincoli and S Prassede. In addition to the many churches he restored and rebuilt, he restored the infrastructure of the city of Rome by repairing aqueducts and building embankments along the Tiber.
Pope St-Leo III (? - 795 - 816)
Another successful and long serving Roman Pope (though this time of more lowly birth) who, on Christmas night 800, in front of a huge assembly in Rome, placed an Imperial Crown on the head of Charlemagne, investing him with the revived / new title of Holy Roman Emperor.
Pope St-Paschal I (? - 814 - 824)
Roman born monk. Rebuilt Santa Cecilia (Trastevere), Santa Maria in Cosmedin and Santa Prassede (of which he was titular priest and where he is buried). Rescued the remains of more than 2000 martyrs from the Roman catacombs and reinterred them in the safety of churches.
Contemporary mosaic (square halo = living) of Paschal I in the Basilica of Santa Prassede in Rome
Pope Sylvester II (c 940 - 999 - 1003 (63))
Gerbert d’Aurillac (aka "Gerbert le Musicien") - bright French churchman who learnt about Arab Numerals when serving in al-Andalus (Spain) but could not interest anyone in Rome in the attraction of easy multiplication. Also wrote the first known book of instructions - for the Astrolabe (Chaucer later undertook the same task).
Pope St Gregory VII (Hildebrand) (1023 - 1073 - 1085 (62))
A Rome educated Tuscan, who became a Clunaic monk on the way to the top job. His determined efforts at church reform were sidetracked by the major split between Pope and Emperor Henry IV. This went through the full medieval gamut of a synod (Worms - 1076), excommunications, false reconciliations, an anti-Pope, and eventually the 1084 "relief" of the Pope (by then barricaded in Castel Sant'Angelo) by the Norman forces of Robert Guiscard, who for good measure also sacked and burned to the ground most of Rome as the Pope himself retreated to the south - eventually dying and being buried in Salerno.
Besides launching the First Crusade (in France), the Frenchman Urban often visited Puglia, and organized church meetings there, partly because he was not welcome in Rome where the Antipope Clement III had strong connections. Urban was a Clunaic monk and he consecrated Cluny III.
Urban II preaches the First Crusade in Clermont (from a manuscript made 200 years later).
Pope Paschal II ( ?? - 1099 - 1118)
Another Clunaic monk, Paschal II restored the old Rome church of San Clemente and rebuilt nearby SS Quatro Coronati (previously burned to the ground by the Normans in their 1084 sack of Rome). Paschal also built a chapel by the Porta del Popolo which later grew into the church of Santa Maria del Popolo.
Pope Innocent II ( ?? - 1130 - 1143)
Tomb and mosaic portrait in Santa Maria in Trastevere. Consecrated St-Lazare (Autun) in 1130.
Pope Hadrian IV (?? - 1154 - 1159)
So far the only English Pope.
Pope Alexander III (c1101 - 1159 - 1181 (80))
Born Rolando Baldinelli in Siena. Had to compete with Barbarossa - Emperor Frederick I - three anti-Popes and a hostile Rome. Also had to handle the Becket Affair in England.
Pope Innocent III (Lotario de' Conti di Segni) (1161 - 1198 - 1216 (55))
Born in Anagni - the most powerful Pope of the Middle Ages.
This famous fresco of Innocent III is in Saint Bededict's Monastery near Subiaco.
Pope Gregory IX (Ugolono di Conti) (1143 - 1227 - 1241 (98))
Nephew of Innocent III and the second of the Anagni Popes. Canonized his friend Saint Francis (and the other great contemporary Franciscan Saint Anthony) and also Saint Dominic and Saint Elizabeth (of Hungary). It was also Gregory who took over the grind of arm wrestling with Frederick II, and he was on the way to winning this when he died, apparently aged 98 and probably exhausted.
Pope Gregory IX (then Cardinal Ugliano) (1143 - 1227 - 1241 (98)) in Saint Benedict's Monastery near Subiaco
Pope Urban IV (Jacques Pantaléon) (c1195 - 1261 - 1264 (69))
A Frenchman from Troyes. Introduced the Feast of Corpus Domini (Corpus Christi in the UK) into the church calendar in 1264, and also introduced the Anjou dynasty to the South of Italy, which led eventually to the extinction of Manfred and the Norman / Hohenstaufen dynasty at the battle of Benevento in 1266.
Pope Boniface VIII (Benedetto Caetani) (1235 - 1294 - 1303 (68))
The fourth of the Anagni Popes, who also left a statue there of himself (and one in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, and one in the Vatican Museums, and a Giotto fresco in Saint John Lateran in Rome). Successfully invented church doctors, jubilee years, and artists at the Papal court, but was politically a loser ........
Boniface VIII - by Arnolfo di Cambio in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence, and hanging off the west wall of Anagni Cathedral
Pope Clement V (Raymond Bertrand de Got) (1264 - 1305 - 1314 (50))
Another Frenchman who this time did doing French properly and moved the seat of the Papacy to France - firstly Poitiers then Avignon - where it stayed until tentatively returning to Rome in 1376, then seesawing during the Great Schism until definitely settling in Rome following the Council of Konstanz in 1417.
Pope Martin V (Odo Collona) (c1368 - 1417 - 1431 (63))
Resettles the Papacy in Rome.
A WIP page for Renaissance Popes including those below
Pope Pius II (Piccolomini) (1405 - 1458 - 1464 (59))
Sienese Renaissance Pope from Pienza
Bust of Pope Pius II (Piccolomini) in the Sala delle Arti Liberali in the Vatican. Attributed to Paolo di Taccone (aka Paolo Romano).
Pope Alessandro VI (Borgia) (1431 - 1492 - 1503 (72))
Highly sexed Spaniard - proud father of Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare and several others
Alessandro VI (Borgia) frescoed by Pinturicchio - Borgia Apartments of the Vatican.
Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere) (1443 - 1503 - 1513 (70))
A Franciscan, like his nepotistic uncle Pope Francesco (Pius III), who had ensured that Giuliano got in depth senior Vatican experiences from an early age. It was therefore surprising that Guiliano the Pope was actively anti-nepotistic and anti-simonistic - though at the same time he also raised the art of marketing indulgencies to dizzy heights. Known as "the Terrible", Julius was big, strong and had a legendary temper and was in his element at the head of the papal army going into battle. At the same time he was a leading patron of the arts, especially Michelangelo, Bramante and Raphael. A very Renaissance pope!
Julius II painted by Raphael - National Gallery, London.
Leo X (1475 - 1513 - 1521 (46))
Clement VII (1478 - 1523 - 1534 (56))
Pope Leo X - Leo painted by Rafaello (Raphael), Cardinals donw by someone else - Uffizi Gallery, Florence (and there is a copy in the Capodimonte Palace Museum if you are in Naples).
Pope Clement VII - painted by Sebastiano del Piombo - Getty collection
Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) (1468 - 1534 - 1549 (81)
Pope of the Counter-Renaissance and Council of Trent
Two paintings of Pope Paul III (Farnese) by the Venetian master, Titian. Left, in the Sacristy of Toledo Cathedral, Spain. Right, in the Capodimonte Palace Museum in Naples, with a copy in the Farnese Palace, Rome.
Links to other Paradoxplace pages ......
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