Book Review: "The Bad Popes" by E. R Chamberlin

There's something about these books on the papacy, on Italian history and on the Catholic church that especially appeal to me. When it comes to Italian history, I recently read a book on The Borgia Family and was pleasantly surprised (my section of knowledge lies in the Medici and Machiavelli). This book teaches us about the 'bad popes' and why they were so controversial. We get stories and accounts, research and reports on the way in which popes were bought and sold, had legends and myths about them and most importantly, how they were slowly realised for what they really were.

One of the things the author teaches us is that the papacy, especially way back in the earlier eras, was a paradox. On one hand it is meant to be the highest of holy offices, only available to those who are the most religious of the Catholic faith. But on the other hand it was so often corrupted by human ambition, the want for power and control, and of course - the greed of the riches families in the country. Though I myself enjoyed the story of 'Pope Joan' contained within, there were others that I feel it more fitting to go through if you want to understand more about the book.

*the dates in brackets represent the length of their papacy, not their life span

Pope Stephen VI (896–897) is one of the most macabre cases in the history of the Medieval Papacy. He, horrifically, has the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, exhumed, dressed in papal robes, and put on trial. There is a violent political atmosphere surrounding this pope which is only exemplified by this grotesque spectacle of power and malicious intent. Honestly, it was just horrifying. The author definitely depicts Pope Stephen VI as embodying that terrifying pitch black humanity which we now associate with those in positions of power during the Dark Ages.

We then have the teenager - Pope John XII (955–964). A degenerate which reminded me of the stories of Caligula, invoking the pagan gods is probably not the best way of getting people on your side when you're 18 and the pope. A decadent court of power, incest, lust and evil - Pope John XII definitely represented maliciousness in a way that I don't think anyone else really did in this book. An entire moral collapse which probably would still shock readers today, the author definitely depicts this as a dark stain on the history of the papacy.

Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503) is one I have read about before, especially in the book The Borgias by Paul Strathern seeing as Alexander VI was the Borgia Pope. Apart from this, we also see one of the popes I already know quite a bit about: Pope Julius II (1503–1513), the warrior pope. He had his portrait painted by Raphael and commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistene Chapel ceiling. Besides that, he was well...evil. Pope Leo X (1513–1521) is another one I am familiar with as he was the Medici Pope, famously proclaiming that since God had given the Medici family the papacy, they were to 'enjoy it'. He thus became a symbol of absolute decadence so much so that Luther's 95 Theses concerning the requirement for Protestantism were all due to the behaviour of this one pope.

The fact that the church had so much power meant that it invited the rich to abuse the system. You have families like the Borgia and the Medici putting their own people into office and then attempting to live even larger than they already were. This happened with royalty as well, so it isn't surprising it happened with the one office that, during history, had placed itself above royalty. From popes who tortured their cardinals to those who contributed to the Sack of Rome, the author shows us that 'bad popes' aren't part of one small history, but a larger plain in which they abuse power at crucial times.

I adored this book and I really want to read others like it. Yes, I was reading it on a PDF on my phone, but that still counts. If you want to learn about the abuses of power in the Catholic Church but maybe you already know everything about the 'Spotlight' case - then this book is definitely for you.