§ 49. Chronological Table of the Popes, Anti-Popes, and Roman Emperors from Gregory I. to Leo XIII

We present here, for convenient reference, a complete list of the Popes, Anti-Popes, and Roman Emperors, from Pope Gregory I. to Leo XIII., and from Charlemagne to Francis II., the last of the German-Roman emperors:²¹⁰

a.d.

POPES.

ANTI-POPES.

EMPERORS.

a.d.

(Greek Emperors)

590-604

St. Gregory I

Maurice

582

(the Great)

Phocas

602

604-606

Sabinianus

607

Boniface III

608-615

Boniface IV

Heraclius

610

615-618

Deusdedit

619-625

Boniface V

625-638

Honorius I

638(?)-640

Severinus

640-642

John IV

Constantine III

Constans II

641

642-649

Theodorus I

649-653⁶⁵⁵

St. Martin I

Constantine IV

654-657

Eugenius I

(Pogonatus)

668

657-672

Vitalianus

672-676

Adeodatus

676-678

Donus or Domnus I

678-681

Agatho

682-683

Leo II

683-685

Benedict II

685-686

John V

Justinian II

685

686-687

Conon

687-692

Paschal

Leontius

694

687

Theodorus.

Tiberius III

697

687-701

Sergius I

Justinus II restored

705

701-705

John VI

Philippicus Bardanes

711

705-707

John VII

Anastasius II

713

708

Sisinnius

Theodosius III

716

708-715

Constantine I

Leo III. (the Isaurian)

718

715-731

Gregory II

731-741

Gregory III

(Charles Martel, d. 741, defeated the Saracens at Tours 732.)

741-752

Zacharias

(Pepin the Short,

752

Stephen II

Roman(Patricius).

741

752-757

Stephen III (II)

757-767

Paul I

767-768

Constantine II

Roman Emperors.

768

Philippus

768-772

Stephen IV

772-795

Adrian I

* Charlemagne

768-814

795-816

Leo III

Crowned emperor at Rome

800

816-817

Stephen V

817-824

Paschal I

* Louis the Pious (le Débonnaire)

814-840

824-827

Eugenius II

Crowned em. at Rheims

816

827

Valentinus

827-844

Gregory IV

* Lothaire I (crowned 823)

840-855

844

John (diaconus)

844-847

Sergius II

(Louis the German, King of Germany, 840-876)

847-855

Leo IV

The mythical papess Joan or John VIII

855-858

Benedict III

855

Anastasius.

* Louis II (in Italy)

855-875

858-867

Nicolas I

867-872

Adrian II

872-882

John VIII

* Charles the Bald

875-881

882-884

Marinus I

* Charles the Fat

881-887

884-885

Adrian III

885-891

Stephen VI

* Arnulf

887-899

891-896

Formosus

Crowned emperor

896

896

Boniface VI

896-897

Ste

897

Romanus

897

Theodorus II

898-900

John IX

(Louis the Child)

899

900-903

Benedict IV

903

Leo V

Louis III of Provence (in Italy)

901

903-904

Christophorus (deposed)

904-911

Sergius III

911-913

Anstasius III

Conrad I (of Franconia) King of Germany.

911-918

913-914

Lando

914-928

John X

Berengar (in Italy).

915

928-929

Leo VI

Henry I. (the Fowler) King of Germany. The House of Saxony.

918-926

929-931

Stephen VIII

931-936

John XI

936-939

Leo VII

939-942

Stephen IX

* Otto I (the Great)

936-973

942-946

Marinus II

Crowned emperor

962

946-955

Agapetus II

955-963

John XII (deposed)

963-965

Leo VIII

964

Benedict V (deposed)

965-972

John XIII

972-974

Benedict VI

* Otto II

973-983

974-983

Benedict VII

(Boniface VII?)

983-984

John XIV (murdered)

* Otto III

983-1002

984-985

Boniface VII

Crowned emperor

996

985-996

John XV

996-999

Gregory V

997-998

Calabritanus John XVI

*Henry II (the Saint, the last of the Saxon emperors).

1002-1024

998-1003

Silvester II

Crowned emperor

1014

1003

John XVII

1003-1009

John XVIII

1009-1012

Sergius IV

1012-1024

Benedict VIII

1024-1039

1012

Gregory

* Conrad II, The House of Franconia.

1024-1033

John XIX

Crowned emperor

1027

1033-1046

Benedict IX (deposed)

1044-1046

Silvester III

* Henry III

1039-1056

1045-1046

Gregory VI

Crowned emperor

1046

1046-1047

Clement II

1047-1048

Damasus II

1048-1054

Leo IX

1054-1057

Victor II

* Henry IV

1056-1106

1057-1058

Stephen X

Crowned by the Antipope Clement

1084

1058-1059

Benedict X (deposed)

1058-1061

Nicolas II

1061-1073

Alexander II

1061

Cadalous (Honorius II)

(Rudolf of Swabia rival)

1077

1073-1085

Gregory VII (Hildebrand)

1080-1100

Wibertus (Clement III)

(Hermann of Luxemburg rival)

1081

1086-1087

Victor III

1088-1099

Urban II

1099-1118

Paschal II

1100

Theodoricus

1102

Albertus

* Henry V

1106-1125

1105-1111

Maginulfus (Silvester IV)

1118-1119

Gelasius II

1118-1121

Burdinus (Gregory VIII)

* Lothaire II (the Saxon

1125-1137

1119-1124

Calixtus II

1124

Theobaldus Buccapecus (Celestine)

* Conrad III, The House of Hohenstaufen. (The Swabian emperors.)

1138-1152

1124-1130

Honorius II.

Crowned Em. at Aix

1130-1143

Innocent II

1130-1138

Anacletus II

1138

Gregory (Victor IV)

1143-1144

Celestine II

1144-1145

Lucius II

1145-1153

Eugenius III

*Frederick I (Barbarossa)

1152-1190

1153-1154

Anastasius IV

Crowned emperor

1155

1154-1159

Adrian IV

1159-1181

Alexander III

1159-1164

Octavianus (Victor IV)

Guido Cremensis (Paschal III)

1164-1168

Johannes de Struma (Calixtus III)

1168-1178

1178-1180

Landus Titinus (Innocent III)

1181-1185

Lucius III

1185-1187

Urban III

1187

Gregory VIII

1187-1191

Clement III

*Henry VI

1190-1197

1191-1198

Celestine III

1198-1216

Innocent III

Philip of Swabia and Otto IV (rivals)

1198

*Otto IV

1209-1215

1216-1227

Honorius III

*Frederick II.

1215-1250.

1227-1241

Gregory IX

Crowned emperor

1220

1241

Celestine IV

(Henry Raspe rival)

1241-1254

Innocent IV

(William of Holland rival)

Conrad IV

1250-1254

1254-1261

Alexander IV

Interregnum

1254-1273

Richard (Earl of Cornwall)

1261-1264

Urban IV

Alfonso (King of Castile) (rivals)

1257

1265-1268

Clement IV

1271-1276

Gregory X

1276

Innocent V

Rudolf I (of Hapsburg)

1276

Adrian V

House of Austria

1272-1291

1276-1277

John XXI

1277-1280

Nicolas III

1281-1285

Martin IV

1285-1287

Honorius IV

1288-1292

Nicolas IV

Adolf (of Nassau)

1292-1298

1294

St. Celestine V (abdicated)

1294-1303

Boniface VIII

Albert I (of Hapsburg)

1298-1308

1303-1304

Benedict XI

1305-1314

Clement V²¹¹

*Henry VII (of Luxemburg)

1308-1313

1316-1334

John XXII

*Lewis IV (of Bavaria)

1314-1347

1334-1342

Benedict XII

(Frederick the Fair of Austria, rival 1314-1330)

1342-1352

Clement VI

1352-1362

Innocent VI

1362-1370

Urban V

*Charles IV (of Luxemburg)

1347-1437

1370-1378

Gregory XI

(Gunther of Schwarzburg, rival)

1378-1389

Urban VI

1378-1394

Clement VII

1389-1404

Boniface IX

Wenzel (of Luxemburg)

1378-1400

1394-1423

Benedict XIII

(deposed 1409)

1404-1406

Innocent VII

Rupert (of the Palatinate)

1400-1410

1406-1409

Gregory XII (deposed)

1410-1415

Alexander V

1410-1415

John XXIII (deposed)

Sigismund (of Luxemburg)

1410-1437

(Jobst of Moravia rival)

1417-1431

Martin V

Clement VIII

1431-1447

Eugene IV

1439-1449

Felix V

Albert II (of Hapsburg)

1438-1439

1447-1455

Nicolas

*Frederick III.²¹²

1440-1493

1455-1458

Calixtus IV

Crowned emperor

1452

1458-1464

Pius II

1464-1471

Paul II

1471-1484

Sixtus IV

1484-1492

Innocent VIII

Maximilian I

1493-1519

1492-1503

Alexander VI.

1503

Pius III.

1503-1513

Julius II.

* Charles V

1519-1558

1513-1521

Leo X.

Crowned emperor at Bologna not in Rome

1530

1522-1523

Hadrian VI

1523-1534

Clement VII

1534-1549

Paul III

1550-1555

Julius III

1555

Marcellus II

Ferdinand I

1558-1564

1555-1559

Paul IV

1559-1565

Pius IV

1566-1572

Pius V

1572-1585

Gregory XIII

Maximilian II

1564-1576

1585-1590

Sixtus V

1590

Urban VII

1590-1591

Gregory XIV

1591

Innocent IX

1592-1605

Clement VIII

Rudolf II

1576-1612

1605

Leo XI

1605-1621

Paul V

Matthias

1612-1619

1621-1623

Gregory XV

Ferdinand II

1619-1637

1623-1644

Urban VIII

1644-1655

Innocent X

Ferdinand III

1637-1657

1655-1667

Alexander VIII

1667-1669

Clement IX

Leopold I

1657-1705

1669-1676

Clement X

1676-1689

Innocent XI

1689-1691

Alex'der VIII

1691-1700

Innocent XII

1700-1721

Clement XI

Joseph I

1705-1711

1721-1724

Innocent XIII

Charles VI.

1711-1740

1724-1730

Benedict XIII

Charles VII (of Ba

1730-1740

Clement XII

varia)

1742-1745

1740-1758

Benedict XIV

Francis I (of Lorraine)

1745-1765

1758-1769

Clement XIII

Joseph II

1765-1790

1769-1774

Clement XIV

1775-1799

Pius VI

Leopold II

1790-1792

Francis II

1792-1806

1800-1823

Pius VII

Abdication of Francis II

1806

1823-1829

Leo XII

1829-1830

Pius VIII

(Francis I, E

§ 50. Gregory the Great. a.d. 590-604.

Literature.

I. Gregorii M. Opera.: The best is the Benedictine ed. of Dom de Ste Marthe (Dionysius Samarthanus e congregatione St, Mauri), Par., 1705, 4 vols. fol. Reprinted in Venice, 1768-76, in 17 vols. 4to.; and, with additions, in Migne's Patrologia, 1849, in 5 vols. (Tom. 75-79).

Especially valuable are Gregory's Epistles, nearly 850 (in third vol. of Migne's ed.). A new ed. is being prepared by Paul Ewald.

II. Biographies of Gregory I

(1) Older biographies: in the "Liber Pontificalis;" by Paulus Diaconus ( 797), in Opera I. 42 (ed. Migne); by Johannes Diaconus (9th cent.), ibid., p. 59, and one selected from his writings, ibid., p. 242.

Detailed notices of Gregory in the writings of Gregory of Tours, Bede, Isidorus Hispal., Paul Warnefried (730).

(2) Modern biographies:

G. Lau: Gregor I. nach seinem Leben und nach seiner Lehre. Leipz., 1845.

Böhringer: Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen. Bd. I., Abth. IV. Zurich, 1846.

G. Pfahler: Gregor der Gr. und seine Zeit. Frkf a. M., 1852.

James Barmby: Gregory the Great. London, 1879. Also his art. "Gregorius I." in Smith & Wace, "Dict. of Christ. Biogr.," II. 779 (1880).

Comp. Jaffé, Neander, Milman (Book III., ch. 7, vol. II., 39 sqq.); Greenwood (Book III., chs. 6 and 7); Montalembert (Les moines d'Occident, bk. V., Engl. transl., vol. II., 69 sqq.); Baxmann (Politik der Päpste, I. 44 sqq.); Zöpffel (art. Gregor I. in the, new ed. of Herzog).

Whatever may be thought of the popes of earlier times," says Ranke,²¹³ "they always had great interests in view: the care of oppressed religion, the conflict with heathenism, the spread of Christianity among the northern nations, the founding of an independent hierarchy. It belongs to the dignity of human existence to aim at and to execute something great; this tendency the popes kept in upward motion."

This commendation of the earlier popes, though by no means applicable to all, is eminently true of the one who stands at the beginning of our period.

Gregory the First, or the Great, the last of the Latin fathers and the first of the popes, connects the ancient with the mediaeval church, the Graeco-Roman with the Romano-Germanic type of Christianity. He is one of the best representatives of mediaeval Catholicism: monastic, ascetic, devout and superstitious; hierarchical, haughty, and ambitious, yet humble before God; indifferent, if not hostile, to classical and secular culture, but friendly to sacred and ecclesiastical learning; just, humane, and liberal to ostentation; full of missionary zeal in the interest of Christianity, and the Roman see, which to his mind were inseparably connected. He combined great executive ability with untiring industry, and amid all his official cares he never forgot the claims of personal piety. In genius he was surpassed by Leo I., Gregory VII., Innocent III.; but as a man and as a Christian, he ranks with the purest and most useful of the popes. Goodness is the highest kind of greatness, and the church has done right in according the title of the Great to him rather than to other popes of superior intellectual power.

The times of his pontificate (a.d. Sept. 3, 590 to March 12, 604) were full of trouble, and required just a man of his training and character. Italy, from a Gothic kingdom, had become a province of the Byzantine empire, but was exhausted by war and overrun by the savage Lombards, who were still heathen or Arian heretics, and burned churches, slew ecclesiastics, robbed monasteries, violated nuns, reduced cultivated fields into a wilderness. Rome was constantly exposed to plunder, and wasted by pestilence and famine. All Europe was in a chaotic state, and bordering on anarchy. Serious men, and Gregory himself, thought that the end of the world was near at hand. "What is it," says he in one of his sermons, "that can at this time delight us in this world? Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds. We see what has become of her who was once the mistress of the world .... Let us then heartily despise the present world and imitate the works of the pious as well as we can."

Gregory was born about a.d. 540, from an old and wealthy senatorial (the Anician) family of Rome, and educated for the service of the government. He became acquainted with Latin literature, and studied Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin, but was ignorant of Greek. His mother Sylvia, after the death of Gordianus her husband, entered a convent and so excelled in sanctity that she was canonized. The Greek emperor Justin appointed him to the highest civil office in Rome, that of imperial prefect (574). But soon afterwards he broke with the world, changed the palace of his father near Rome into a convent in honor of St. Andrew, and became himself a monk in it, afterwards abbot. He founded besides six convents in Sicily, and bestowed his remaining wealth on the poor. He lived in the strictest abstinence, and undermined his health by ascetic excesses. Nevertheless he looked back upon this time as the happiest of his life.

Pope Pelagius II. made him one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church, and sent him as ambassador or nuntius to the court of Constantinople (579).²¹⁴ His political training and executive ability fitted him eminently for this post. He returned in 585, and was appointed abbot of his convent, but employed also for important public business.

It was during his monastic period (either before or, more probably, after his return from Constantinople) that his missionary zeal was kindled, by an incident on the slave market, in behalf of the Anglo-Saxons. The result (as recorded in a previous chapter) was the conversion of England and the extension of the jurisdiction of the Roman see, during his pontificate. This is the greatest event of that age, and the brightest jewel in his crown. Like a Christian Caesar, he re-conquered that fair island by an army of thirty monks, marching under the sign of the cross.²¹⁵

In 590 Gregory was elected pope by the unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people, notwithstanding his strong remonstrance, and confirmed by his temporal sovereign, the Byzantine emperor Mauricius. Monasticism, for the first time, ascended the papal throne. Hereafter till his death he devoted all his energies to the interests of the holy see and the eternal city, in the firm consciousness of being the successor of St. Peter and the vicar of Christ. He continued the austere simplicity of monastic life, surrounded himself with monks, made them bishops and legates, confirmed the rule of St. Benedict at a council of Rome, guaranteed the liberty and property of convents, and by his example and influence rendered signal services to the monastic order. He was unbounded in his charities to the poor. Three thousand virgins, impoverished nobles and matrons received without a blush alms from his hands. He sent food from his table to the hungry before he sat down for his frugal meal. He interposed continually in favor of injured widows and orphans. He redeemed slaves and captives, and sanctioned the sale of consecrated vessels for objects of charity.

Gregory began his administration with a public act of humiliation on account of the plague which had cost the life of his predecessor. Seven processions traversed the streets for three days with prayers and hymns; but the plague continued to ravage, and demanded eighty victims during the procession. The later legend made it the means of staying the calamity, in consequence of the appearance of the archangel Michael putting back the drawn sword into its sheath over the Mausoleum of Hadrian, since called the Castle of St. Angelo, and adorned by the statue of an angel.

His activity as pontiff was incessant, and is the more astonishing as he was in delicate health and often confined to bed. "For a long time," he wrote to a friend in 601, "I have been unable to rise from my bed. I am tormented by the pains of gout; a kind of fire seems to pervade my whole body: to live is pain; and I look forward to death as the only remedy." In another letter he says: "I am daily dying, but never die."

Nothing seemed too great, nothing too little for his personal care. He organized and completed the ritual of the church, gave it greater magnificence, improved the canon of the mass and the music by a new mode of chanting called after him. He preached often and effectively, deriving lessons of humility and piety, from the calamities of the times, which appeared to him harbingers of the judgment-day. He protected the city of Rome against the savage and heretical Lombards. He administered the papal patrimony, which embraced large estates in the neighborhood of Rome, in Calabria, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Dalmatia, and even in Gaul and Africa. He encouraged and advised missionaries. As patriarch of the West, he extended his paternal care over the churches in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and sent the pallium to some metropolitans, yet without claiming any legal jurisdiction. He appointed, he also reproved and deposed bishops for neglect of duty, or crime. He resolutely opposed the prevalent practice of simony, and forbade the clergy to exact or accept fees for their services. He corresponded, in the interest of the church, with nobles, kings and queens in the West, with emperors and patriarchs in the East. He hailed the return of the Gothic kingdom of Spain under Reccared from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith, which was publicly proclaimed by the Council of Toledo, May 8, 589. He wrote to the king a letter of congratulation, and exhorted him to humility, chastity, and mercy. The detested Lombards likewise cast off Arianism towards the close of his life, in consequence partly of his influence over Queen Theodelinda, a Bavarian princess, who had been reared in the trinitarian faith. He endeavored to suppress the remnants of the Donatist schism in Africa. Uncompromising against Christian heretics and schismatics be was a step in advance of his age in liberality towards the Jews. He censured the bishop of Terracina and the bishop of Cagliari for unjustly depriving them of their synagogues; he condemned the forcible baptism of Jews in Gaul, and declared conviction by preaching the only legitimate means of conversion; he did not scruple, however, to try the dishonest method of bribery, and he inconsistently denied the Jews the right of building new synagogues and possessing Christian slaves. He made efforts, though in vain, to check the slave-trade, which was chiefly in the hands of Jews.

After his death, the public distress, which he had labored to alleviate, culminated in a general famine, and the ungrateful populace of Rome was on the point of destroying his library, when the archdeacon Peter stayed their fury by asserting that he had seen the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovering above Gregory's head as he wrote his books. Hence he is represented with a dove. He was buried in St. Peter's under the altar of St. Andrew.

Note. Estimates of Gregory I.

Bishop Bossuet (as quoted by Montalembert, II. 173) thus tersely sums up the public life of Gregory: "This great pope ... subdued the Lombards; saved Rome and Italy, though the emperors could give him no assistance; repressed the new-born pride of the patriarchs of Constantinople; enlightened the whole church by his doctrine; governed the East and the West with as much vigor as humility; and gave to the world a perfect model of ecclesiastical government."

To this Count Montalembert (likewise a Roman Catholic) adds: "It was the Benedictine order which gave to the church him whom no one would have hesitated to call the greatest of the popes, had not the same order, five centuries later, produced St. Gregory VII .... He is truly Gregory the Great, because he issued irreproachable from numberless and boundless difficulties; because he gave as a foundation to the increasing grandeur of the Holy See, the renown of his virtue, the candor of his innocence, the humble and inexhaustible tenderness of his heart."

"The pontificate of Gregory the Great," says Gibbon (ch. 45), "which lasted thirteen years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even his faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily suited to his station and to the temper of the times."

Lau says (in his excellent monograph, pp. 302, 306): "The spiritual qualities of Gregory's character are strikingly apparent in his actions. With a clear, practical understanding, he combined a kind and mild heart; but he was never weak. Fearful to the obstinate transgressor of the laws, on account of his inflexible justice, he was lenient to the repentant and a warm friend to his friends, though, holding, as he did, righteousness and the weal of the church higher than friendship, he was severe upon any neglect of theirs. With a great prudence in managing the most different circumstances, and a great sagacity in treating the most different characters, he combined a moral firmness which never yielded an inch of what he had recognized as right; but he never became stubborn. The rights of the church and the privileges of the apostolical see he fought for with the greatest pertinacity; but for himself personally, he wanted no honors. As much as he thought of the church and the Roman chair, so modestly he esteemed himself. More than once his acts gave witness to the humility of his heart: humility was, indeed, to him the most important and the most sublime virtue. His activity was prodigious, encompassing great objects and small ones with equal zeal. Nothing ever became too great for his energy or too small for his attention. He was a warm patriot, and cared incessantly for the material as well as for the spiritual welfare of his countrymen. More than once he saved Rome from the Lombards, and relieved her from famine .... He was a great character with grand plans, in the realization of which he showed as much insight as firmness, as much prudent calculation of circumstances as sagacious judgment of men. The influence he has exercised is immense, and when this influence is not in every respect for the good, his time is to blame, not he. His goal was always that which he acknowledged as the best. Among all the popes of the sixth and following centuries, he shines as a star of the very first magnitude."

Rud. Baxmann (l.c., I. 45 sq.): "Amidst the general commotion which the invasion of the Lombards caused in Italy, one man stood fast on his post in the eternal city, no matter how high the surges swept over it. As Luther, in his last will, calls himself an advocate of God, whose name was well known in heaven and on earth and in hell, the epitaph says of Gregory I. that he ruled as the consul Dei. He was the chief bishop of the republic of the church, the fourth doctor ecclesiae, beside the three other powerful theologians and columns of the Latin church: Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome. He is justly called the pater ceremoniarum, the pater monachorum, and the Great. What the preceding centuries had produced in the Latin church for church government and dogmatics, for pastoral care and liturgy, he gathered together, and for the coming centuries he laid down the norms which were seldom deviated from."

To this we add the judgment of James Barmby, the latest biographer of Gregory (Greg., p. 191): "Of the loftiness of his aims, the earnestness of his purpose, the fervor of his devotion, his unwearied activity, and his personal purity, there can be no doubt. These qualities are conspicuous through his whole career. If his religion was of the strongly ascetic type, and disfigured by superstitious credulity, it bore in these respects the complexion of his age, inseparable then from aspiration after the highest holiness. Nor did either superstition or asceticism supersede in him the principles of a true inward religion-justice, mercy, and truth. We find him, when occasion required, exalting mercy above sacrifice; he was singularly kindly and benevolent, as well as just, and even his zeal for the full rigor of monastic discipline was tempered with much gentleness and allowance for infirmity. If, again, with singleness of main purpose was combined at times the astuteness of the diplomatist, and a certain degree of politic insincerity in addressing potentates, his aims were never personal or selfish. And if he could stoop, for the attainment of his ends, to the then prevalent adulation of the great, he could also speak his mind fearlessly to the greatest, when he felt great principles to be at stake."