This book is, essentially, a straightforward single-volume history of the Papacy. It is an idea that I have had at the back of my mind for at least a quarter of a century, since my daughter Allegra first suggested it, and I have been running up against various individual popes for a good deal longer than that. Several of them played a major part in my history of Norman Sicily, written forty years ago, and a good many more played equally important roles in my histories of Venice, Byzantium, and—most recently—the Mediterranean. I can even claim some personal experience of the Vatican, having worked in its library and having had two private audiences—with Pius XII and Paul VI—the latter when I was lucky enough to attend his coronation in 1963 as dogsbody to the Duke of Norfolk, who was representing the queen. In addition, I well remember the future John XXIII—who was nuncio in Paris while my father was ambassador there—and the future John Paul I, when he was Patriarch of Venice.
But we are talking about a history, not a personal memoir. As such, it clearly cannot hope to tell the whole story, which is far too long for one volume and all too often stultifyingly boring. Many of the early popes are little more than names, and one of them—Pope Joan, to whom I have nevertheless been unable to resist devoting a short chapter—never existed at all. We naturally begin at the beginning, with St. Peter, but after him for the better part of the next millennium the story will be episodic rather than continuous, concentrating on those pontiffs who made history: Leo the Great, for example, protecting Rome from the Huns and Goths; Leo III, laying the imperial crown on the head of the astonished Charlemagne; Gregory the Great and his successors, manfully struggling with emperor after emperor for supremacy; or Innocent III and the calamitous Fourth Crusade. Later chapters will deal with the “Babylonian Captivity” in Avignon; with the monstrous popes of the High Renaissance, notably the Borgia Alexander VI, Julius II, and the Medici Leo X (“God has given us the Papacy, now let us enjoy it”); with those of the Counter-Reformation, above all Paul III; with the luckless Pius VII, who had to contend with Napoleon; and with his still more unfortunate namesake Pius IX, who steered—or more often failed to steer—the Papacy through the storm of the Risorgimento.
When we reach the turn of the twentieth century, we shall look particularly at the remarkable Leo XIII, and then at the popes of the two world wars, Benedict XV and the odiously anti-Semitic Pius XII, to whom the beloved Pope John XXIII came as such a welcome contrast. Then, after a brief glimpse of the unhappy Paul VI, we come to the greatest papal mystery of modern times, the death—after a pontificate lasting barely a month—of John Paul I. Was he murdered? At the start of my investigations it seemed to me more than likely that he was; now I am not so sure. Finally we shall discuss the astonishing phenomenon of John Paul II. As for Benedict XVI, we shall just have to see.
Papal history can, like other varieties, be written from any number of points of view. This book is essentially political, cultural, and, up to a point, social. There are moments, from time to time, when basic matters of doctrine cannot be avoided—in order to explain the Arian heresy, the Great Schism with the Orthodox Church, the Albigensian Crusade, the Reformation, even infallibility and the Immaculate Conception—but as far as possible I have tried to steer well clear of theology, on which I am in any case utterly unqualified to pronounce. In doing so, I have followed in the footsteps of many of the popes themselves, a surprising number of whom seem to have been far more interested in their own temporal power than in their spiritual well-being.
Let me protest once again what I have protested on countless occasions before: I am no scholar, and my books are not works of scholarship. This one probably contains no significant information that any self-respecting church historian will not be perfectly well aware of already, but it is not designed for church historians. It is intended, like everything else I have written, for the average intelligent reader, be he believer or unbeliever, who would simply like to know a little more about the background of what is, by any account, an astonishing story.
I have tried, as always, to maintain a certain lightness of touch. Historical accuracy must never, of course, be knowingly sacrificed in the cause of entertainment—even though, particularly in the early centuries, it is all too often impossible to guarantee—but there remain countless fascinating and well-authenticated stories and anecdotes which it would have been sad indeed to omit. Some of these are to the credit of the Papacy, others not; I can only say that as an agnostic Protestant I have absolutely no ax to grind, still less any desire either to whitewash it or to hold it up to ridicule. My task has been simply to look at what is perhaps the most astonishing social, political, and spiritual institution ever created and to give as honest, as objective, and as accurate an account of it as I possibly can.
JOHN JULIUS NORWICH