The Bad Popes
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The Bad Popes
A dramatic account of some of the most notorious figures of medieval and Renaissance history who ruled from the Eternal City. It is sure to grip readers of John Julius Norwich, Tom Holland and Peter Ackroyd. The papal tiara has been worn by a number of infamous men through the course of its history. Some have been accused of murder, many have had mistresses, while others sold positions in the church to their followers or gave land and wealth to their illegitimate children. E. R. Chamberlin examines the lives of eight of the most controversial popes to have ruled over the Holy See, from the reign of Pope Stephen VI, who had his predecessor exhumed, put on trial and thrown in the Tiber, in the ninth century, through to Pope Clement VII, the second Medici pope, whose failed international policy led to the Sack of Rome in 1527. The Bad Popes explains how during these six centuries the papal monarchy rose to its greatest heights, as popes attempted to assert not only their spiritual authority but also their temporal power, only for it to come crashing down. "A magnificent piece of historic research and description" Los Angeles Times "A vital and important book" Washington Post "[Chamberlin] writes well, even elegantly. One fancies echoes now and then of Tacitus and Gibbon ... an interesting historical essay" Daily Telegraph "One is sincerely grateful to Mr Chamberlin for a vivid book" Catholic Herald "Mr Chamberlin's book strikes me as being as near to the ideal as is reasonably possible: scrupulously fair, meticulously documented and written with style, liveliness and wit" The Bulletin
The Bad Popes
Here is the colorful, panoramic story of seven men who ruled the Church of Rome at seven critical periods in the 600 years leading into the Reformation. It was an age of grandeur and corruption, of magnificent architecture and petty human foibles, of ecclesiastical heresy and moral degradation. Popes led armies, made love and war, conspired for power, and armed themselves with the techniques of assassination and seduction while clothed with the authority of the Church. Against the background of this turbulent era, E. R. Chamberlin explores the lives, both private and public, of John XII, the dissolute Roman prince, Benedict IX, who subjected the Papacy to its greatest indignity; Boniface VIII, who carried the temporal claims of popes to supreme heights and was destroyed by them; Urban VI, the wild man from Naples, whose grotesque savageries widened and maintained the scandalous gap of the Great Schism; Alexander VI, who brought to the See of Peter the intrigues of the Borgia; Leo X, civilized, urbane, indifferent to the pleas of the Augustinian preacher from the North, Martin Luther; and Clement VII, the unskillful fox, who fell, tricked by the Holy Roman Emperor, bringing down Rome itself. Profusely illustrated with architectural photographs and contemporary art from both Catholic and Protestant sources, The Bad Popes is a vital and important book that vividly depicts the ecclesiastical corruptions which led to the Reformation. Book jacket.
Good Pope, Bad Pope
Why did the author pick the popes you’ll meet in the pages of this book? Why not Gregory I, whom many would call the greatest pope of all time? Why not Leo X, who was pope at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation? Why not Leo XIII, who boldly stood up for the rights of workers? Every pope is by definition a remarkable man. But the popes whose stories you’ll read here were chosen because they reveal how the papacy developed. They show us how Christ kept his promise to his bride, the Church, not only in her health but also in her sickness. The great popes advanced our understanding of Christian doctrine. But even more remarkable, the worst popes could do nothing to damage the teaching of the Church. That’s why, even in its darkest moments, the story of the papacy is a story of triumph. And that’s why it’s worth knowing these twelve popes.