Pope Gregory XIII

Pope Gregory XIII is remembered for one reason only, namely his reform of the calendar which has subsequently borne his name. Had it not been for that, he would only have gone down in history for his vigorous attacks on Protestantism and for virtually bankrupting the Papacy.

Pope Gregory XIII

Ugo Boncompagni was born in Bologna in 1502 and was nearly 70 when he was elected to the papacy in 1572. His immediate goal was to turn back the Protestant tide and to promote the counter-Reformation that was initiated by the Council of Trent (1545-63).

One consequence of the counter-Reformation was violence meted out to Protestants throughout Catholic Europe, and one of the worst atrocities was the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in France in August 1572, when as many as 30,000 French Huguenot Protestants may have been killed. Pope Gregory celebrated this event by attending a mass of thanksgiving.

In order to further the reforms agreed at the Council of Trent, Pope Gregory needed a well-educated priesthood, and to this end he established several colleges, including an English seminary in Rome, from which priests were sent to England on the dangerous mission of supporting Catholics during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The Jesuit College at Rome was enlarged to become the Gregorian University. This extensive building programme, together with Gregory’s generous subsidies to Catholic rulers to bolster their anti-Protestant activities, was what led to the coffers being emptied.

A new calendar for the Catholic world

Gregory’s reform of the calendar came about in 1582. The old calendar had been instigated by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, and the problem was that the length of the year as measured by the calendar was not the same as the time taken for Planet Earth to complete one orbit of the Sun. Indeed, by 1582 it was ten days out. The solution declared by Pope Gregory was simply to cut ten days out of October in that year, so that the 4^th was followed by the 15^th. The error would have recurred in time had not Gregory also made it known that leap years (of 366 days) would not take place in the years that marked the turn of a century, so that 1700, which should have been a leap year, would not be. A further adjustment was that every fourth centenary year would still be a leap year. This is why the year 2000 was a leap year, although 2100 will not be.

Although this reform was timely and necessary, it was hardly going to go down well in those countries that had embraced Protestantism, or in those that practiced Orthodox Christianity. The result was that Europe was split for centuries to come. Great Britain and her colonies only adopted the new calendar in 1752, when there were vigorous protests about the “ten lost days” (it was actually eleven by the time of the change), and Russia only did so after the 1917 Revolution (which is why the “October Revolution” actually took place in November!)

Pope Gregory reigned for thirteen years and died in 1585 at the age of 83. Towards the end of his reign he had tried to restore the Papacy’s fortunes by confiscating property in the Papal territories for which the owners could not provide cast-iron title. This led to considerable unrest and, at his death, Rome was not only broke but in a state of near-anarchy. But at least the date was correct.

© John Welford

The legend of Pope Joan

Was there ever a female pope? Many people used to believe that there had been one, and no doubt there are still some today who prefer to accept ancient legends to modern evidence – or the lack of it.

The story of Pope Joan

A monk called Martin wrote in 1265 about a pope called John who was elected in the year 855 and died in 857. However, this apparently male pope turned out to be female when she unexpectedly gave birth when riding through the streets of Rome near the Colosseum. Thus was born the legend of Pope Joan.

Martin may have got this idea from earlier writers, although mentions in sources apparently written before Martin’s time have only survived in manuscripts that were copied later, and are therefore suspect for that reason. The legend is recounted in plenty of other mediaeval sources, but nearly all of them are clearly glosses on Martin’s work and some of them add extra details that are almost certainly inventions by those later writers.

There is one other source that recounts the legend somewhat differently, this having been written by another 13^th century monk, namely Jean de Mailly. He talks about the supposed childbirth being followed immediately by Joan’s stoning to death by the shocked populace. The main difference in Jean’s account is that he places it in the early 12^th century, although this seems perverse given that the sequence of popes during that period is well established in other sources and there is no gap into which “Pope Joan” could fall.

How the legend could have arisen

What seems to have happened is that an “old wives’ tale” started the rounds during a poorly documented period of Roman history, possibly occasioned by there being a pope who acted in a somewhat effeminate manner. As we all know, stories grow in the telling, especially when somebody writes it down and it gains the status of being on paper “in black and white”.

To add to the confusion, two customs evolved that seemed to confirm the truth of the legend. One was that popes refused to travel along the road in which Joan was supposed to have given birth. This was on the direct route that newly elected popes used to gain access to the church of St John Lateran which is the cathedral church of the city of Rome and where popes are traditionally enthroned as “Bishop of Rome”. A statue of Joan (also called Agnes in some sources) and her son stood at the spot until the late 15^th century.

The other custom, which is even stranger, was that newly elected popes had to be physically examined to ensure that they were actually men! This was done during the ceremony in the Lateran when the pope would sit or recline on a special seat that had a hole underneath through which a cardinal would insert a hand to feel the pope’s testicles, afterwards declaring (in Latin) “He has testicles” to which all present would respond “God be praised!”

This idea seems so extraordinary, not to mention revolting, that it is hard to believe. However, two “poping chairs”, made of marble, are known to have existed and one may indeed still do so, although kept well away from public view in the depths of the Vatican. It certainly seems probable that these chairs were used for papal examination for about 400 years, and belief in the legend of Pope Joan seems to be a likely explanation for that use.

However, modern scholarship does seem to have scotched the idea that Pope Joan ever existed. This is partly because of the unlikelihood of the events having taken place as described – could a woman in such a prominent public office really have concealed her sex for a matter of years, not to mention a pregnancy carried to full term? However, the most convincing evidence comes from the fact that the original dating for Joan’s “reign” was impossible, given that coins from the period make it clear that there was no gap between the preceding and succeeding popes into which Pope Joan would fit.

Much as one might like to believe the legend, a legend it must remain!

© John Welford

Nicholas Breakspear, Pope Adrian IV

Only one Englishman has ever been Pope. That was Nicholas Breakspear, who was elected in 1154 as Pope Adrian IV.

His exact origins are unknown, but he was probably born around 1100, his most likely birthplace being not far from St Albans, where he was educated at the Abbey school.

He travelled to southern France, where he entered the monastery of St Ruf near Avignon and eventually became its abbot. Pope Eugenius III elevated him to the status of cardinal and sent him to Scandinavia as papal legate. He was clearly successful in his mission to reorganise the Church in that region, leading to his election as Pope, in succession to Anastasius IV, in 1154.

His first concern as Pope was to defend the Papacy against Arnold of Brescia, a monk and would-be reformer who had caused problems for previous Popes through his support for the “Commune of Rome”, which was an attempt to govern the city on Republican lines. The Commune had managed to have Pope Eugenius III (predecessor of Anastasius) exiled from the city, and Arnold was still a thorn in the flesh of the Papacy. With the support of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Adrian was able to have Arnold arrested and executed.

The next problem was an invasion of southern Italy in 1155 by Manuel Comnenus, the Emperor of Byzantium. Adrian saw this less as a threat than an opportunity to establish friendly relations with Constantinople with a view to ending the “Great Schism” that had split the Eastern and Western Churches since 1054. An alliance was engineered to fight against the Norman rulers of Sicily, but this ended when Manuel was summoned back to Constantinople. Adrian’s terms for repairing the Schism also proved to be unacceptable to the Eastern Church.

Also in 1155, it is traditionally believed that Adrian issued a papal bull entitled “Laudabiliter” that conferred on King Henry II of England the right to rule over Ireland, a right that was retained by successive monarchs of England. However, no copy of this bull has been preserved and it has been doubted whether it ever existed.

Frederick Barbarossa’s relations with Pope Adrian later took a turn for the worse, especially after a letter from Adrian was interpreted as meaning that he regarded Frederick as his vassal, although this might well have been a misunderstanding. This led to Frederick taking troops into northern Italy in 1158, and his capture of Milan.

However, Frederick’s argument with the Papacy was put on hold in September 1159 when Adrian died suddenly. One story was that he choked on a fly in a glass of wine, although this is unlikely.

No other Englishman has ever become Pope, although Cardinal Pole came close in 1549, falling short by only two votes in the Papal Conclave.

© John Welford