Marozia had papal ambitions for her bastard son by Sergius III, but alas the lad was too young—even by the loose standards of the day—so she allowed two other insignificant pontiffs of her choosing to keep her son’s future throne warm for him. Then, in A.D. 931, when he was about twenty years old, the boy was deemed ready to rule as Pope John XI.
With this ambition satisfied, Marozia next determined to marry Hugo, king of Italy, who happened to be the half brother of her second husband, Guy, and who was himself already married. These marital ties were simple to untangle with her son sitting at the head of the Church. John XI dutifully proffered the necessary dispensations and then presided over his mom’s third marriage to Hugo. Everything would have been perfect except for one problem. In addition to the pope, Marozia had another son, by her first husband Alberic. Alberic Junior, bitter at having been left out of his family’s good fortune, stormed Rome and put his half brother Pope John in prison, where he died four years later. Alberic also jailed his mother. Marozia would remain in a dark cell in the papal fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo for the next half century, though she did live to see her grandson, Alberic Junior’s son, installed as the infamous John XII.
4
King of Kings
Looking back on the dark century of his predecessors, Gregory VII might have hung his head in shame. He didn’t. Instead, he exalted the papacy to levels it had never dared claim before. “The Roman Church has never erred, nor can it err until the end of time,” the dwarfish pope boldly asserted after he came to the throne in 1073. As if the likes of Sergius III and John XII had never existed, Gregory further pronounced that “a rightly elected pope is, without question, a saint, made so by the merits of Peter.”
Gregory clearly felt himself set above ordinary monarchs, decreeing that they could be dethroned at the pope’s command. Christendom could have only one boss, and he was it. “Who does not know that kings and rulers are sprung from men who are ignorant of God,” Gregory thundered, “who by pride, robbery, perfidy, murder, in a word, by almost every crime at the prompting of the devil, who is the prince of this world, have striven with blind cupidity and intolerable presumption, to dominate over their equals, that is over mankind? . . . Who can doubt that the priests of Christ are to be considered the fathers and masters of kings and princes and all the faithful?”
The papacy had long been dominated by the powerful Holy Roman Emperors who ruled over Germany and Northern Italy, manipulating popes and deposing them at will. Gregory, who had seen his own hero and namesake Gregory VI driven into exile by Emperor Henry III, was determined to bring these arrogant monarchs to their knees. He got his chance with Henry IV, whom he accused of interfering in the affairs of the Church. In an unprecedented demonstration of papal power, Gregory deposed the emperor: “On the part of God the omnipotent, I forbid Henry to govern the kingdom of Italy and Germany. I absolve all his subjects from every oath they have taken or may take; and I excommunicate every person who shall serve him as king.”
To Henry’s surprise, the edict was actually having an effect as his vassals began to withdraw their allegiance. He quickly saw he would have to come to an accommodation with the pope, though perhaps he never realized just how humiliating it would be. Humbling himself before Gregory at a castle outside Parma, the emperor was stripped of all his imperial insignia and ordered to remove his clothes as well. In the midst of the severe winter, Henry IV stood shivering and naked as a coarse woolen tunic was tossed to him by the pope who did not deign to speak to him. With a broom in one hand and a pair of shears in the other—symbols of his willingness to be whipped and shorn—the degraded monarch stood out in the cold for three days waiting for the pope to show some mercy.
“Henry was the first prince to have the honor of feeling the sharp thrust of spiritual weapon,” Machiavelli wrote. He would not be the last. Though Henry IV eventually prevailed over Pope Gregory, deposing him and sending him into exile, a new precedent of papal dominance over kings had been set. Gregory was canonized for his efforts in 1606.
5
Innocent Proven Guilty
A century after the reign of Gregory VII, Innocent III took the concept of a monarchical papacy to even greater heights. The richly adorned pope—who reportedly suggested to Francis of Assisi, the great saint of the poor, that he go root along in a pig pen with his fellow swine—declared himself to be not only master of Christendom, but ruler of the world as well.
When King John of England had the audacity to defy him on a number of issues, including the appointment of the archbishop of Canterbury, Innocent excommunicated the surly monarch and deprived him of his throne. He also put England under an interdict that lasted more than six years. The churches of England were all shut down, babies went unbaptized, the dead were buried without ceremony, and the people were denied sacramental comfort.
Although King John profited from the harsh penalty his kingdom endured, absorbing for himself Church property and revenue, he came to realize that an excommunicated monarch was particularly vulnerable when King Philip II of France prepared an invasion of England with the pope’s encouragement and blessing. With his throne at stake, John submitted to the pontiff. In 1213, he signed a document handing over his kingdom “to God and to our Lord Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors.” The agreement made John a mere vassal and he had to pay a steep annual rent for the privilege of ruling Innocent’s new domain.
The pope was indignant when two years later John was forced to put his seal on the Magna Carta, considered to be the very foundation of English liberty. How dare these English barons interfere with his kingdom! “By Saint Peter, we cannot pass over this insult without punishing it,” Innocent roared before condemning the Magna Carta as “contrary to moral law.” The king, he explained, was answerable only to the pope—not these foolish Englishmen. In a papal decree, Innocent, “From the plentitude of his unlimited power and authority, which God has committed him to bind and destroy kingdoms, to plant and uproot,” annulled the Magna Carta and absolved King John from observing it. He also warned that excommunication awaited “anyone who should continue to maintain such treasonable and iniquitous pretensions.”
Besides humbling kings and threatening nobles, Innocent III presided over an era of Christian intolerance that was approaching its most murderous. His targets were infidels and heretics. Christians had long been called to slaughter Muslims since Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095 to force them out of the Holy Land. More than 70,000 people were massacred when Jerusalem was taken in that venture. Succeeding popes enticed the flock with promises of a special place in heaven and the automatic absolution of sins on earth if they would join the holy cause.
Innocent III continued the tradition, instigating the Fourth Crusade in 1202. This particular venture was highlighted by the sacking of Constantinople and the destruction of the old cathedral of Santa Sophia. The tombs of emperors were desecrated, relics stolen, and women, including nuns, raped and murdered. The Eastern Orthodox Church had split with Rome a century before, so from Rome’s point of view, they got what they deserved.
The Children’s Crusade was a particularly inspired movement against the infidels during Innocent’s reign. Tens of thousands of faith-filled tykes embarked on a vast, unsupervised mission across Europe to free Jerusalem. The first group of some 30,000 little ones, led by a French shepherd boy named Stephen, fell victim to a gang of disreputable merchants before they ever left France. They were shipped off to the slave markets in North Africa. A second group of 20,000 made it all the way over the Alps and as far as Italy before they too were captured. Some were killed; others sold. Innocent graciously released the few survivors from their crusade vows.
Though crusades against Muslims were nothing new, Innocent III became the first pope to order one against fellow Christians. The Cathars, or Albigensians as they also are known, were a well-established sect in the southeast corner of France with a different take on Christian doctrine.36 Innocent hated them
and wanted them eradicated. “Death to heretics,” he thundered as he inaugurated the holy war against the Cathars, offering the same indulgences crusaders were promised for fighting Muslims. Inspired by the pope, his eager generals embarked on a grotesque massacre.
The papal army first attacked the town of Beziers, a Cathar stronghold. Catholics there had been warned to hand over any heretics in their midst lest they be killed, too. Many resisted and took their Cathar brethren into the age-old sanctuary of the church. Then came the command: “Kill them all; the Lord will look after His own.” Inside the church of Mary Magdalene, thousands of Catholics and Cathars huddled together as their town was destroyed outside. Two priests were saying Mass when the doors of the church were smashed open and the papal army poured in. Not one soul was spared—not even the priests performing the sacred service.
With Beziers in ruins, the papal legate on the scene wrote the pope. “Today, Your Highness, twenty thousand citizens were put to the sword, regardless of age or sex.” Far from being offended or outraged by the sheer brutality of the cleansing, Innocent rejoiced and called for more. In the town of Bram, the noses of Cathars were chopped off and their eyes cut out. One of them was allowed to keep an eye to lead the blinded and bloody remainder to Cabaret to serve as a warning to the people there.
Next came the town of Minerve, where 140 Cathar religious leaders were led out of town into a meadow. There a giant funeral pyre awaited them. As a chronicler loyal to the pope noted, “There was no need for our men to cast them in; nay, all were so obstinate in their wickedness as to cast themselves in of their own free will.” Thus, the grand tradition of burning heretics had begun.
For Innocent, there was no irony in the fact that he was now responsible for more accumulated Christian deaths than the most savage Roman emperor. He was tickled with the outcome. In a letter to a knight in his service, the pope wrote “praise and thanks to God for that which He hath mercifully wrought and through these others whom zeal for the orthodox faith hath kindled to his work against His most pestilential enemy.”
6
Feel the Burn
Innocent III’s nephew, Pope Gregory IX, made his uncle’s persecution of heretics an official function of the church when he established the Inquisition in 1232. “It is the duty of every Catholic to persecute heretics,” he proclaimed. For centuries to come, legions of merciless inquisitors would promulgate this campaign of terror against anyone who strayed from official church teaching or dared question it.
Catholics were encouraged, on pain of excommunication, to expose any heresy in their midst. Children were made to testify against parents; mothers against children. Anyone holding a grudge could make an accusation and efficiently do away with an enemy. The accused were dragged before papal inquisitors to answer charges in total secrecy. No defense witnesses were permitted and prosecution witnesses remained anonymous. Acquittals were rare and there was no appeal. Once condemned, a victim was handed over to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake.
To get his fledgling Inquisition off to a good start, Gregory IX personally issued verdicts in open meetings for almost a year. He also appointed the first two full-time inquisitors, Peter Seila and William Arnald, the forerunners of a long line of papally blessed murderers like Tomas de Torquemada, the infamous enforcer of the Spanish Inquisition. Another inquisitor, Robert le Bougre, went to Champagne in France to investigate charges that the local bishop there was allowing heresy to prosper in his diocese. The whole town was put on trial and 180 people, including the bishop, were condemned to the stake.
Not long after Gregory’s death in 1241, Pope Innocent IV added his own imprint on the Inquisition when he approved the use of torture. Now confessions could be elicited from even the most stubborn heretic. Witnesses could be tortured, too, although boys under fourteen years of age and girls under twelve were exempt. The pope benevolently forbade inquisitors to maim or kill when applying torture, but mistakes were made. He also mandated that a person could be tortured only once, but that was subject to interpretation. One torture session could last for weeks.
A guide for inquisitors, popularly known as the Book of the Dead, was eventually published. It was not a hallmark of jurisprudence:
“Either the person confesses and he is proved guilty from his own confession, or he does not confess and is equally guilty on the evidence of witnesses. If a person confesses the whole of what he is accused of, he is unquestionably guilty of the whole; but if he confesses only a part, he ought still to be regarded as guilty of the whole since what he has confessed proves him to be capable of guilt as to the other points of the accusation. . . .
“Bodily torture has ever been found the most salutary and efficient means of leading to spiritual repentance. Therefore, the choice of the most befitting mode of torture is left to the Judge of the Inquisition, who determines according to the age, the sex, and the constitution of the party. . . .
“If, notwithstanding all the means employed, the unfortunate wretch still denies his guilt, he is to be considered as a victim of the devil; and, as such, deserves no compassion from the servants of God, nor the pity and indulgence of Holy Mother Church: he is a son of perdition. Let him perish among the damned.”
7
Papal Bully
Cardinal Benedict Gaetani was not an especially religious man, but this never stopped anyone from becoming pope, and he desperately wanted the job. The papal throne was the most glorious in the world and Gaetani was determined to have all the power and wealth that went along with it. After the death of Pope Nicholas IV in 1292, he saw his chance.
There was at the time a bitter rivalry between the two leading families of Rome, the Orsinis and the Colonnas, and the sharp divisions were reflected in the College of Cardinals who gathered to elect the next pope. Half of them wanted an Orsini pope; the other half a Colonna. With the electors hopelessly deadlocked, months went by without a new pontiff emerging.
Benedict Gaetani was loyal to neither Orsini nor Colonna and positioned himself as an alternative to both. Biding his time as the cardinals squabbled endlessly among themselves, he was convinced they would eventually turn to him as a compromise. But what happened next stunned him. One of the cardinals, perhaps facetiously, suggested that they end the standoff once and for all and elect a renowned hermit known as Peter of Morone. Whether the proposal was made in jest or not, the idea quickly caught on among the other cardinals, who were by this time absolutely sick of one another. Trudging up to the mountain cave that was Peter’s home, they proclaimed the bewildered man pope.
After a long history of worldly pontiffs plucked from the richest Roman families, many people believed the Holy Spirit may have actually had a hand in the election of this simple and holy man. Not Benedict Gaetani. Denied the plum he felt sure was his, he was outraged by the farce he saw unfolding. Nevertheless, he had no choice but to go along with it. But he did have a plan.
Peter of Morone, who took the name Celestine V, was clearly out of his element amidst the cynical papal politics that swirled around him. He was used to living in a cave, not ruling Christendom. In his confusion he turned to Gaetani, a trained lawyer, who was only too eager to help him navigate his way—right out of the papacy. By some accounts, Gaetani installed a hidden tube in Celestine’s room. During the night as the pope slept, he would whisper into it, “Celestine, Celstine, lay down your office. It is too much for you.” Only too glad to oblige what he believed was the voice of God, Celestine V dutifully resigned and Benedict Gaetani was immediately elected Pope Boniface VIII.
Before he could enjoy his new throne, Boniface had to do away with his predecessor. The ex-pope Celestine—now just plain old Peter of Morone again—enjoyed wide support even after his abdication and Boniface could not afford to have him around as the focus of any misplaced loyalty. Though Peter wanted nothing more than to retire quietly to his cave and pray in peace, he was arrested and imprisoned. He died several months later in the filthy hole that was his cell.
Peter’s followers made much of the fact that while their hero was rotting away in his squalid prison, “he to whom he had left the Papacy reposed like a god on a couch adorned with purple and gold.” Peter himself made a remarkably accurate prophecy after his capture. “You have entered like a fox,” he told Boniface. “You will reign like a lion and you will die like a dog.”
Boniface wasn’t listening. With his rival out of the way, the new pope was ready to enjoy life as the greatest monarch in the world. He certainly played the part well, dressing in the finest robes of purple and erecting statues of himself all over Rome. His imperial arrogance alienated nearly everyone who came into contact with him. “The cardinals all desire his death and are weary of his devilries,” wrote Gerald of Albalato, an envoy from the king of Aragon. “Cardinal Lanbulf says that it is better to die than to live with such a man. He is all tongue and eyes but as the rest of him is rotten, he won’t last much longer.”
As the last of the great medieval popes in the line of Gregory VII and Innocent III, Boniface VIII made claims of papal supremacy that rivaled his predecessors in sheer pomposity. “The breast of the Roman Pontiff is the repository and fount of all law,” he decreed. “This is why blind submission to this authority is essential to salvation.” But the pope who could say without blushing, “We declare, announce and define that it is altogether necessary for salvation for every creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” was lacking in any religious or moral beliefs himself. What he had to say privately was in distinct contrast to his grand public pronouncements.
A Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories History's Wickedest Weirdest Most Wanton Kings Queens Page 19