The Conclave: A Sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody History of Papal Elections (7 page)

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The Conclave

around the house of the archdeacon Theophylact and acclaimed him as the new Bishop of Rome – but this protest, if such it was, was so short-lived that Theophylact is not even counted among the antipopes. At Paul’s death, however, the situation was very di
ff
erent.

Paul had been a very firm ruler. By now the pope fully control- led both administrations in Rome, the civil as well as the ecclesias- tical, and Paul had favored the clerics over the lay nobility, though like most popes at this period he himself came from one of the aristocratic families. Had he not, he would have found it almost impossible to govern. Even before he died, the Duke of Nepi, near Viterbo, was planning to seize control of the papacy. He (Theodore, but often called Toto) and his brothers Constantine, Passivus, and Pascal entered Rome with armed retainers. As soon as Paul was dead – he died on 29 June 767 – the brothers took over the Lateran and proclaimed the eldest, Constantine, as pope. He was still a layman and was promptly raised through all the ranks of the clergy and consecrated bishop. It was all highly illegal.

Constantine’s illicit pontificate lasted just over a year. A leading cleric from the papal administration, the chief notary Christopher, fled Rome and with his son Sergius made his way to the Lombard court at Pavia. There he enlisted the help of the Lombard king to overthrow Constantine. The Lombards responded readily; their king was eager to have someone on the papal throne who would be more sympathetic to them than to the Franks. They entered Rome and in the ensuing battle Theodore and many others were killed. Constantine was arrested, paraded through the streets of Rome on the back of an ass, and then duly deposed on 6 August 768. He was imprisoned in a monastery and his eyes were gouged out. A year later all his acts were rendered invalid.

But that was not the end of the story. Christopher had not arrived in Rome with the Lombard troops. He arrived later to find that on 31 July the Lombards, at the instigation of a priest called Waldipert, had elected a Roman monk called Philip as pope and

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installed him in the Lateran – where he promptly gave the custom- ary banquet. When Christopher finally arrived he simply refused to recognize the election of Philip, who protested that he had never really wanted to be pope anyway and was allowed to return to his monastery. Waldipert, on the other hand, was dragged from the church of Santa Maria Maggiore where he had taken refuge, and assassinated.

With both Constantine and Philip out of the way it was possible for Christopher to proceed with the election process, which brought to the papal throne Stephen III (IV), whom Christopher apparently hoped to dominate. The election was rigged by Christopher, who gathered the leading clergy, the leading o
ffi
cers and their troops, the leading citizens, and, according to the
Liber Pontificalis
, the whole community, not in the Lateran but in the ancient Forum, next to the statue of the Three Fates. Pope Stephen, says the
Liber Pontificalis
, was chosen with complete unanimity.

As soon as he was satisfactorily ensconced in the Lateran, Stephen called a synod whose chief purpose was to regulate future papal elections. The gathering took place on 12 April 769 and decreed that, in future, only cardinal priests and deacons were to be the elec- tors of the pope. “Cardinals” had been in existence for some time, but their exact role is unclear. It is thought that they were the senior clergy, priests, and deacons, though there is also, slightly later, men- tion of cardinal bishops who were attached to the major churches of Rome. The term “cardinal” is thought to be derived from “cardo,” meaning a hinge – either they were the hinges on which the Roman church turned, or they rotated round the hinge which was the pope. This etymology, which may seem a touch far-fetched, was proposed in 1049 by Pope Leo IX in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople

• though the primary hinge, he suggested, was the pope himself. Whatever the precise origin of the term, the synod decreed that these cardinals were to be the only ones competent to choose the pope – no lay people were to be involved in the decision-making
  

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  The Conclave
  

  process, no soldiers, none of the Roman nobility. However, these groups were not left out entirely. Once the new pope was installed in the Lateran Palace they were allowed to come along to confirm the election and take an oath of allegiance. While all this was going on, no one was to be allowed to enter the city.
  

  These rules seem to have been followed to the letter at the election of Stephen’s successor, Hadrian I. The clergy even went further: they expelled potential troublemakers from the city and only let them back after the election was all over. Leo III’s election in 795 was similarly trouble-free, though possibly only by subterfuge: he was chosen on the very day that Hadrian died, per- haps to outmaneuver possible opponents. He had a long career in the Roman clergy but, untypically for the period, was not of aristocratic birth. It was indeed not long before he had entirely alienated the nonclerical Roman aristocracy and been forced to turn to the Frankish King Charles (Charlemagne) for help. This help was cemented when, in St. Peter’s on Christmas Day 800, Leo crowned Charlemagne as emperor. Leo and Charlemagne between them had created a new imperial power which, under the title of “the Holy Roman Emperor” was to play a part in papal elections for a thousand years to come. Though Leo survived with the support of the Franks, he became increasingly unpopular and there were plots against his life. When Leo discovered these he personally sat in judgment over those accused; it was recorded that some 300 people were executed, and when Leo died shortly afterward, there was an uprising. The Roman electors chose Stephen IV (V) as Leo’s suc- cessor; he had been close to the late pope but by reason of his noble birth was acceptable to the noble families of the city. His was the first election after what was regarded as the reestablishment of the Roman Empire in the West. Pope Stephen did not ask the Emperor Louis the Pious to approve the Roman choice of pope, but he did take care to inform him that he had been chosen.
  

  Stephen did not survive long – just six months. The election of his successor, Paschal I, followed a similar pattern: he was elected
  

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  the day of Stephen’s death, 23 January 817, and consecrated the following day, probably to give the emperor no time to interfere – but he then punctiliously informed the Emperor Louis of his con- secration. Paschal wanted to keep the emperor at arm’s length, so as not to undermine his own control over Rome. After a visit to the city by the co-Emperor Lothair, Paschal suspected two of the high- est o
  ffi
  cials in his entourage of conniving with Lothair to put lim- its to his sovereignty: he had them blinded and beheaded. Lothair sent a commission back to Rome to investigate, but before they could do so Paschal had died. The Roman mob was so hostile to the memory of the late pope, however, that they would not let him be buried in St. Peter’s. It was not until his successor was safely installed that he was interred, though still not in St. Peter’s.
  

  His successor was Eugenius II. Paschal had died on 17 May 824. Eugenius was not installed until fi months later because of disturbances in the city. That Eugenius, Archpriest of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, was elected at all is probably the result of the machinations of the emperor’s adviser on papal a
  ff
  airs, a monk called Wala, who was already in Rome trying to sort out the problems a
  ff
  licting the city when Paschal became ill and died. There was clearly need to try to regulate papal elections. A “Constitution” was drawn up by Lothair and imposed on the papacy. It insisted that all Romans, lay as well as clerical, had a right to take part in the elections of the popes, and no one else. Such elections were to be carried out “justly and canonically,” which meant without interference from the emperor; on the other hand the emperor would ensure that the regulations were properly observed. Troublemakers were to be expelled from the city. But although he was not going to inter- vene, the emperor required the pope to take an oath of loyalty to him before he was consecrated. This was not as in the days of the Byzantine Empire, when the Eastern emperor claimed the right to ratify the people’s choice of bishop. The Western emper- or, under the “Constitution” of 824, demanded a pledge of
  

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  The Conclave
  

  friendship between Rome and the Empire. It was to be received by the imperial legate in Rome itself.
  

  Valentine, the one and only pope of that name, was apparently elected according to this formula when Eugenius died in 827, but just when Eugenius died, and how long Valentine was pope, is not recorded: it was probably only a couple of months. But he, like his successor Gregory IV, was almost certainly chosen because he was a member of the aristocracy. They fulfilled all the requirements as far as the emperor was concerned. At the death of Gregory in 844 the nobility again promoted their own candidate, the archpriest Sergius, but there was an attempt by a deacon, John, to get himself elected, apparently with the help of distinctly nonaristocratic country folk. So, at least, the
  Liber Pontificalis
  says. The nobility of Rome, however, came riding – the text is very explicit on the presence of mounted soldiers – to the defense of Sergius and promptly ousted John from the Lateran. Sergius’s supporters wanted to put John to death, but the new pope spared his life and got himself consecrated as swiftly as possible, without waiting for confirmation from the emperor.
  

  That was a mistake. The Emperor Lothair was distinctly annoyed and sent an army (which set about pillaging the outskirts of Rome) and a troop of ecclesiastics to debate the validity of Sergius’s election. He was finally vindicated, but he had after all to swear allegiance to Lothair, though he refused point-blank to swear it to Lothair’s son Louis, who was King of the Lombards. To have sworn allegiance to Louis would have compromised the inde- pendence of the city of Rome from the Lombard kingdom surrounding it. This act of defiance, which Louis and Lothair accepted, much encouraged the Romans, but Sergius’s support melted away in the last part of his pontificate when his brother Benedict, of whom the papal chronicler does not have a good word to say (a boor, it said, always chasing after prostitutes, and a tra
  ffi
  cker in ecclesiastical o
  ffi
  ces), came to dominate the papacy. As Sergius lay dying in August 846, a party of Muslim invaders from
  

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  North Africa, later known as Saracens, landed at Ostia, the port of Rome, and came so far into the city that they sacked St. Paul’s, and even St. Peter’s itself, two churches just outside the city walls. When they had recovered from their terror, the citizens of Rome thought that this incursion of Muslims was a visitation from God to punish them for the sins committed by Benedict.
  

  But the Saracen raid taught another, long-term, lesson. People in Rome believed that King Louis had left the city to its fate. The Muslim invaders were put to flight not by him but by the troops of the Duke of Spoleto. Italians, the lesson went, had to look after themselves. Leo IV, elected unanimously possibly even before Sergius had died, waited for confirmation from the emperor, but when it was slow in coming went ahead with his consecration anyway. There was, he believed, another Saracen raid imminent, and he built the Leonine Walls, as they are still called, to safeguard St. Peter’s from future attack.
  

  Leo was clearly in charge of the city and eager to preserve its independence. There were those, however, who thought other- wise, who wanted to have Rome incorporated into the Empire. They were men of learning, who dreamed of a restoration of the ancient Roman Empire; there was much talk of the myths of Rome’s foundation and the ancient vocabulary of senators and consuls came back into use. Not surprisingly the group had the backing of the Emperor Louis. They were mainly members of the lay nobility, but their leader was a Bishop Arsenius whose nephew, Anastasius, was a distinguished scholar. When Leo died there was an attempt by Louis to put Anastasius on the papal throne, which was forestalled by the Roman clergy, who proceeded promptly to an election of their own. Unfortunately for them their favored can- didate, the cardinal priest Hadrian, turned down the papacy, but they then chose Benedict III, who was also a cardinal priest and renowned as a man of learning.
  

  Imperial approval was needed and envoys were sent to Louis. On their way, however, they were intercepted by Bishop Arsenius,
  

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  The Conclave
  

  who persuaded them to back Anastasius instead of Benedict. More recalcitrant supporters of the pope were arrested, including Hadrian. So Anastasius arrived back in the city from which he had been exiled by Leo and proceeded to wreak vengeance on those who had backed Benedict. He also had the mosaic erected in St. Peter’s by the late Pope Leo, depicting Anastasius’s condemnation, torn down. This proved to be a mistake. The mosaics contained images of Christ and Mary and pulling them down smacked of iconoclasm – the destruction of images which had occurred in the East and which Rome had steadfastly opposed. Moreover, the bishops who traditionally consecrated the Bishop of Rome firmly refused to do so for Anastasius. Though Benedict had been seized in the Lateran and imprisoned, it became clear to the imperial representatives who were backing Anastasius that their cause was lost. Benedict was released from custody, mounted on the horse which had belonged to his patron Pope Leo, and returned to the papal quarters. The disgraced Anastasius might have expected at the very least imprisonment, if not having his eyes gouged out, but the imperial representatives managed to spare him that fate. He became abbot of the monastery attached to Santa Maria in Trastevere and was eventually rehabilitated, becoming the pope’s librarian and adviser, especially on the fraught relations with the church in Constantinople.
  

  Benedict died on 17 April 858 after a pontificate lasting two and a half years. He was succeeded by Nicholas I, one of the most powerful personalities to govern the Western Church in the first millennium. Nicholas, however, was not the Romans’ first choice – that had again been Hadrian, who had for the second time turned down the o
  ffi
  ce. The Emperor Louis had hurried to Rome when he heard of Benedict’s demise; he was anxious to get a pope who was sympathetic to the imperial power, which he might have expected Nicholas to be after the “full and frank discussions” which the two held outside the city. Nicholas said he would not intervene in polit- ical matters, but such was his high conception of the papal o
  ffi
  ce
  

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  and its authority, or “primacy” as ecclesiastical vocabulary puts it, over the Church that conflicts were inevitable. He also, in the Roman synod of November 861, condemned anyone who dared to deny that the election to the bishopric of Rome should not be left to the clergy and aristocracy of the city – no mention, by now, of the majority of Roman citizens.
  

  Though it was peaceful enough, at least in Rome, Nicholas’s reign was strict, and his passing was greeted by disturbances in the city, which included an incursion into Rome by troops of the Duke of Spoleto and the plundering of the treasury in the Lateran by the leader of the Roman militia, who absconded with the papal funds. Bishop Arsenius, uncle of Anastasius the Librarian, once more intervened. He persuaded the emperor to back Cardinal Hadrian as his candidate for the papacy. Hadrian had already turned the o
  ffi
  ce down twice, but this time he accepted. He was old and mild mannered, but proved more intractable than Arsenius had expected. Supporters of Pope Nicholas, among them one Formosus, Bishop of Porto, persuaded Hadrian to follow the poli- cies of the late ponti
  ff
  rather than the pro-imperial strategy of Arsenius. Eleutherius, a nephew of Arsenius and brother of Anastasius, decided on drastic action to influence the new pope. When a deacon, Hadrian had married, and his wife and daughter apparently lived in the Lateran with him. Eleutherius proposed marriage to the pope’s daughter, but she refused. He then raped her and murdered both Hadrian’s daughter and his wife; the pope himself was wounded in the attack. Eleutherius was captured and executed; Arsenius fled to the safety of the emperor’s entourage; Anastasius was yet again excommunicated, though he protested his innocence in the a
  ff
  air and was soon returned to papal favor.
  

  After one aged pope came another. Before his election in December 872, John VIII was the archdeacon of Rome. Old he might have been, but he was in good health and conducted an energetic pontificate for ten years. He was not unopposed – the opposition was led by Bishop Formosus – but at first Formosus
  

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  and his supporters appeared to ally themselves with the new pope. The crisis came only after the death of the Emperor Louis in 875. The Empire devised by Charlemagne was itself splitting apart, the French and the Germans both going their own ways. When it came to choosing a new emperor, Pope John favored Charles the Fat of France, but there was a powerful group of interconnected families in Rome which favored Charles’s brother, the German-oriented Carloman. They were a fairly dissolute group, though Formosus, around whom they rallied, had been an outstanding missionary and was not personally corrupt. The more militant group was led by George of the Aventine (the Aventine is one of Rome’s seven hills), who had risen in status by marrying a niece of Pope Benedict whom he deserted to live with the daughter of Gregory, a Lateran o
  ffi
  cial whom John dismissed. They rose unsuccessfully against John early in 876 and then fled the city – taking much of the papal treasury with them – to the pro-German Duke of Spoleto. John survived this particular storm, but his death on 15 December 872 may have been by assassination, an attack carried out by a disgruntled cleric in his service. The forces – and the people – which came to the fore in his pontificate were to dominate the papacy for years to come.