Alphabetical list of Popes

The Popes, in chronological order

AD 1200-1300

176. Honorius III. b. Rome as Cencius Savelli;  elected 24 July 1216; d. 18 March 1227, aged 76. A cardinal priest who had tutored the young Frederick II he crowned him emperor in 1220 on the latter's promise (unkept) to lead a crusade, and later contested his attempts to restore imperial rule over Italy. He had trained as a lawyer and one of his first acts as pontiff was the establishment of the Dominican Order. Honorius  organized the support of England and France for the fifth crusade--which nevertheless was unsuccessful--and collaborated with France's Louis VIII in a further campaign against the Albigenses and in strengthening the Inquisition. His Compilatio Quinta  is regarded as the first book of canon law.
Fresco by Giotto at Assisi; Terra cotta in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

177. Gregory IX. b. Anagni; elected 21 March, 1227; d.  22 Aug, 1241, aged 93.  A nephew of Pope Innocent III who had  created him cardinal bishop of Ostia, he  excommunicated  emperor Frederick II who,  ridiculing the Virgin Birth,  declared "that man ought to believe nothing but what he can understand and prove by reason". Insisting that his power was superior to that of the papacy, Frederick detained 100 prelates enroute to a General Council called by the pope and it took intervention by the French king to get them released. Although Gregory later lifted the sentence, relations between pope and emperor continued to be shaky (although they were agreed on the necessity of torturing heretics).
   Renewing his excommunication of "the so-called emperor", Gregory called him "this beast", urging his subjects to "protect your unsullied hearts from its wiles". Frederick advanced on Rome,  but the pope died before he attacked. Gregory reopened the university of Paris, founded another at Toulouse and extended the influence of the poverty-embracing Poor Clare order. During his pontificate, the Liber extra was published--an exhaustive collection of papal decretals which for centuries formed the basis of canon law.
Fresco by Giotto at Assisi.

178. Celestine IV.  b. Milan as Goffredo da Castiglione; elected 28 Oct, 1241; d. 10, Nov. 1241. With two cardinals imprisoned by the emperor, the remaining 10 were in disagreement until brutalized and locked in (conclave  means "with key") by  Rome's governor Matteo Rosso Orsini. In abominable conditions, with no roof to shelter them from blazing sun or pouring rain, the cardinals nevetheless took seven weeks to agree on a candidate.  Once elected,  Pope Celestine was in office for only two weeks before he died. The cardinals fled the city.

179. Innocent IV. b. Genoa as Sinibaldo Fieschi; elected 28 June, 1243; d. 7 Dec, 1254, aged 46. With  Emperor Frederick II disinclined to release a pair of imprisoned  cardinals until he got a sympathetic pope, the election was delayed for 18 months until  Fieschi who had been lawyer, judge and latterly vice chancellor was chosen at Anagni. The dispute continued with Pope Innocent calling a council at Lyons where he bewailed the loss of Jerusalem (the previous year) to Islam, and at which the absent Frederick II was deposed for sacrilege and heresy, with the Germans instructed to elect another king. After five years of arguments about whether the pope had the authority to depose an emperor, Frederick died with the issue unresolved whereupon Innocent, ignoring the emperor's son Conrad, took over the kingdom from his stepbrother Manfred who had been acting as regent. As Manfred prepared to respond the pope died (poisoned says PRW) but not before endorsing the Inquisition's use of torture. He lowered the prestige of the papacy, says ODP, "because he used his spiritual powers...to raise money, buy friends and injure foes". Innocent introduced the Red Hat as symbolic of the cardinal's office, the red symbolizing the blood that  leaders of the church should be prepared to shed for their faith.
13th c. marble cenotaph in Naples Cathedral; 13c. miniature, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

180. Alexander IV. b. Anagni as Rinaldo; elected  12 Dec 1254; d. 25 May 1261. Pope Gregory IX's nephew, he was cardinal bishop of Ostia and protector of the Franciscans, and when elected promptly excommunicated bastard son Manfred who thereupon proclaimed himself King of Sicily and appropriated most of the papal territory. (S&S says England's King Henry III paid to have his son Edmund declared king of Sicily) From his sanctuary in Viterbo, the pope dabbled in foreign affairs and founded an Order of hermits modeled on St Augustine.
Painting by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Louvre.

181. Urban IV. b. France as Jacques Pantaleon; elected 4 Sept. 1261; d. 2 Dec. 1264. A shoemaker's son who had become patriarch of Jerusalem, he proceeded to create six French cardinals plus eight others. Urban won  back most of the papal state from Manfred who had by now become a Roman senator, but when he tried to set up the French king's brother, Charles, as Italy's overlord, Manfred drove the pope out of Rome to Perugia where he died. In 1261, Constantinople was retaken by the Byzantines.

182. Clement IV. b. France as Guido Foulques; elected 15 Feb, 1265, d. 29 Nov. 1268, aged 73. Cardinal bishop of Sabina and a papal legate to England he was the second successive French pope and was  enroute back to Italy when elected as a compromise candidate because of fierce arguments among  the now-21 cardinals about Sicily's political future. Married before ordination, Clement had two daughters. With the aid of a French army headed by Charles, now proclaimed King of Sicily,  the pope  took on Manfred who was killed at the battle of Benevento. King Charles then went on to defeat  and execute Conradin, a German challenger to his throne, causing the pope some anxiety about  his ally's increasing authority. An unsatisfactory exchange of letters with Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus about church union ended with the pope's demand for submission to the Holy See. The hostile atmosphere in Rome confined the pontificate to Viterbo where, after his death,  the hopelessly divided cardinals argued incessantly over his successor.

183. Gregory X b. Piacenza as Teobaldo Visconti; elected 27 March, 1271; d. 10 Jan 1276, aged 66.  After  three years of squabbling, cardinals were--under  rules propagated by the Council of Lyons-- locked in a roofless room and restricted to bread and water until finally they agreed to elect the archdeacon of Liege, then absent on a crusade. On his return the new Pope Gregory made plans for another crusade, tried to reconcile the pro-papal Guelphs with the imperialist Ghibellines and approved the new German king over rival candidates. He reopened negotiations with the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus for a reunion with the Greek church ("a fragile reunion"--S&S) and laid down strict rules for future conclaves which included reducing the rations of debating cardinals whenever future conclaves should drag on.  Gregory and his successor, Innocent V, were both canonized 'Blessed', a process "not concerned with social rank or intellectual brilliance" (ACD) "but rather demanding "proof of eminent  virtue".
Painting by Francesco de Zurbaran in the Louvre. Sculptured tomb in Arezzo cathedral

184. Innocent V. b. Savoy as Pierre of Tarentaise; elected 22 Feb 1276; d. 22 June 1276, aged 51. Cardinal bishop of Ostia and the first Dominican to become pope, he had collaborated with Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus in laying out the Order's rules. He was elected by a conclave which obeyed the new requirement of a 10-day delay after the previous pope's death. Innocent, author of ethical and ecclesiastical tomes, diplomatically fended off his political rivals and peacefully resolved the Guelph/Ghibeline dispute. ISPR say he baptized the ambassadors who arrived from the Great Khan and thus extended Christianity to Mongolia.
Fresco by Fra. Angelico in S. Marco, Florence.

185. Hadrian V. b. Genoa; elected 11 July 1276; d. 18 Aug 1276, died aged 71. Sicily's king Charles, now a Roman senator, pressured the cardinals to follow the Blessed Gregory's mandate to agree on a pope before their rations were progressively cut. They settled on Cardinal Ottobono Fieschi, a cardinal deacon who had been Pope Clement IV's legate to England. He died within a month, his tomb in  S. Franceso "a sumptuous masterpiece" according to ODP.

186. John XXI. b. Portugal as Pedro Julião; elected 20 Sept 1276; d. 20 May 1277. A doctor's son who had taught medicine at Siena University and become Pope Gregory X's personal physician, he wrote widely about philosophy and science and produced a much-used medical manual. Retiring to a newly-built study in his Viterbo palace he started to initiate more peaceful relations with neighboring countries when the roof collapsed on him and he died of his injuries. Seeking to concentrate their power, the College of Cardinals had managed to rdue their ranks to a mere handful.

187. Nicholas III. b. Rome as Giovanni Gaetano; elected 22 Dec 1277; d. 22 Aug 1280, aged 63. A member of Rome's aristocratic Orsini family, his election was opposed  by the partisans of Sicily's King Charles whose position  as Roman senator he took over, decreeing that in future the office be barred to foreign royalty. He became the first pope to live in  the Vatican palace. Restoring the borders of the papal state through alliances, he offended many with his "nepotism and avariciousness" (ODP) for which he was included in "hell" in Dante's Inferno .
13th c. miniature in the Vatican Library.

188. Martin IV. b. France as Simon de Brie; elected 23 March 1281; d. 28 March 1285. Pressure from Sicily's King Charles brought about the selection of this French cardinal priest who had served two earlier popes as a foreign legate.  "The most French of 13th century popes" says ODP, "he completely reversed his predecessor's policies". He remained at Viterbo, where he was crowned, because Rome refused him entry.  He excommunicated Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, terming him a schismastic. His bull,  Ad fructus uheres, "exasperated the secular clergy" (ODP) by enhancing the rights of the mendicant orders. Martin uncritically backed Charles' campaign to march on Constantinople but this was thwarted by an uprising against the French in Sicily, heralded by the tolling of vesper bells. The stabbing of a French soldier in Palermo, was an early incident in what became a 20-year war. Giuseppi Verdi composed an opera about the so-called Sicilian Vespers. 

189. Honorius IV. b. Rome as Giacomo Savelli; Elected 20 May 1285; d. 3 April 1287, aged 76. A cardinal dean who was  grand nephew of Pope Honorius III, he was welcomed by fellow-Romans and improved the lot of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. He inherited the continuing Sicilian problem, excommunicating Sicily's new King James over disputed ownership of  that fateful land, despite having earlier crowned him. Honorius pacified the squabbling papal states and worked at  improving foreign relations with the eastern empire.
Painting by Pietro Lorenzetti in  the Pinacoteca, Siena

190. Nicholas IV. b. Ascoli as Girolamo Maschi; elected 22 Feb 1288; d. 4 April 1292, aged 65. The first Franciscan pope,  he was cardinal bishop of Palestrina. His partiality to the Colonna family brought him the scorn of Romans, although he became a patron of many artists and enhanced the Lateran palace and Sta. Maria Maggiore. Allied with Genoa to fight the Saracens, he  died on the eve of announcing a crusade to recover parts of the Holy Land recently captured by the Sultan of Egypt. At his death, the cardinals were deadlocked for two years mainly over family rivalries,  finally compromising on a 85-year-old hermit, Pietro del Morrone whose poverty-embracing followers called themselves Spirituals.
Mosaic by Iacomo Torriti in S. Maria Maggiore.

191. St. Celestine V. b. Isernia as Peter Murrone; elected 5 July, 1294; d. 19, May, 1296.  Naive and unworldly, the octogenarian pope became (says tS) "the tool" of Naples' King Charles for whom he appointed a dozen cardinals, seven of them French. His election, says S&S, "fed apocalyptic hopes  of a holy amd unworldly pope who would cleanse the Church...". In a role that was well over his head ("naive and incompetent"--ODP) he confessed to the manipulative Cardinal Benedetto Caetani he wanted to resign and return to his native village. (PRW says he was tricked into resigning by  Caetani who became his successor as Boniface VIII, and--wary of Celestine's supporters--kept him imprisoned for the rest of his life).
   The French chronicler Jean Froissart quoted Celestine as telling Caetani, his successor, "You have entered like a fox; you will reign like a lion; you will die like a dog").  Reverting to being plain Brother Pietro he died, aged 90, in 1296 supposedly of an infection caused by an abcess. Rumors have pesisted that he was murdered and in 1988 a CAT scan of his mummified body revealed a half-inch hole in his left temple consistent with a nail being hammered into his head. Seventeen years after his death, Celestine was canonized by Pope Clement V.
Painting (unattibuted.) in the Louvre.

192 Boniface VIII. b. Anagni as Benedetto Caetani; elected 24 Dec, 1294; d. 11 Oct, 1303,  aged 68.  From his coronation at which his horse was led by the kings of Naples and Hungary, to his decree (Unam Sanctam ) that "We declare it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature  to be subject to the Roman Pontiff", he took every opportunity to flaunt his power. "It is to us that the world is entrusted, not to you" he reprimanded Parisian power brokers. France's King Philip  responded: "You must know, you arrant blockhead (maxima tua fatuitas ) that we are subject to nobody in temporal things". In response to the pope's bull Clericis laicos  promising to excommunicate all clergy who paid the king's new tax, Philip threatened to deprive him of revenues from the French church and the bull was withdrawn.
   A brilliant lawyer, Boniface sponsored many artists including Giotto, founded Rome's Sapienza University, mediated between the warring French and English and in 1300 celebrated the first Holy Year which pardoned sinners who made visits to various Roman churches in the course of the Jubilee. Earlier accused of heresy and rape, he had escaped punishment by avoiding his trial. D&F says he "reconciled the vices of ambition and avarice". Nepotistically Boniface devoted one quarter of all papal revenues to acquiring land for his relatives, at the same time continuing a family vendetta against the rival Colonnas. While at  Anagni, he was captured by his enemies led by King Philip's adviser, Guillaume de Nogaret. He was rescued but died--violently, according to some chroniclers--soon after. A patron of learning and founder of a university (he neverthless was) "feared and hated, he could not keep a friend" (ODP)
Fresco attr. to Giotto in St John Lateran.