The relationship of Catholic hierarchies with the medium of printing has always been multifarious, and even in early modern times it was far more complex than most current studies maintain. This chapter attempts to draw a concise and unbiased picture of the papacy’s publishing and censoring practices from the 1460s to the 1630s. It starts with the arrival of the first printers in Italy on the outskirts of Rome and ends with the Galileo Galilei affair, analyzing all intervening attempts to use moveable type in support of papal policy and the development of the Index of Forbidden Books. Highlighting the interconnections between prohibition and promotion, it proposes a unified interpretation of these two lines of action rather than present them in opposition, as is often the case.

The Christian community of Rome, since its origins, was adamant in preserving written texts. Documents and books of multiple kinds were treated as important, precious objects. The history of the popes’ libraries exemplifies this approach. In addition to spreading Christianity and keeping records of discussions and decisions taken by the Church, the library was intended as a repository not only of religious books but also of literary and scientific texts of non-Christian traditions, including pagan classics and others. The mission of ensuring the conservation and spreading of the knowledge was clearly stated during humanism, when the current Vatican Apostolic Library was founded. Books were there made accessible “for the common benefit of the learned.” Such a mission continues today. The papacy considers the Library and its books to be the “heritage of mankind,” one that needs to be made available for generations through continuous technological innovations and cutting-edge preservation strategies.

This chapter examines the role of the papacy in the history of marriage regulation in a long-term perspective. The core theme of corporeality is investigated between doctrine and practice. On the one hand, the body is a central good whose rights of use are mutually exchanged by the spouses within the framework of the marriage contract; on the other hand, it is a deadly burden, the place where the flesh manifests itself with its law that contradicts reason. In the light of this tension, the position of papal authority – in particular the power to bind and dissolve – is addressed by examining its pronouncements, especially the Decretales, conciliar legislation, and the publication of encyclicals and apostolic exhortations up to the most recent on the subject: Amoris laetitia, by Pope Francis I. Finally, some cases that have been dealt with by courts such as the Penitentiary, the Holy Office, and the Rota are examined.

For nearly two centuries after the French Revolution, papal attitudes towards Judaism remained rooted in theological notions of the Jews as deicidal “others” whose salvation would only be achieved through repentance and conversion to Catholicism. Enlightenment notions of religious freedom and tolerance offered Jews an emancipation based on secular citizenship and assimilation, a development which repudiated the Church’s theological and eschatological views of Judaism. As a result, papal attitudes towards the Jews hardened through the nineteenth century, as popes associated emancipated Jews with liberalism, freemasonry, socialism, and democracy, the very ideologies which had undermined papal authority. It was not until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) that the Church definitely repudiated its negation of the Abrahamic Covenant and the Jewish people. The council document Nostra aetate disavowed anti-Semitism in all forms and recognized Judaism as the wellspring from which the Church emerged, creating a template of interfaith kinship and cooperation which the modern papacy has embraced and expanded upon.

The chapter examines the intricate relationship established between the papacy and pre-university education in the early modern age, roughly spanning from 1400 to 1800. The focus lies on the connection between the pontiffs who most promoted the educational activities of the religious teaching orders during the centuries when Catholic identity was primarily defined by its educational dimension. This gave rise to a pedagogical experimentation that was, perhaps, unprecedented in Western history.

The emergence of religious teaching orders, including the Jesuits, Somascans, Barnabites, and Piarists, to mention only the most renowned, wasn’t always directed solely towards educational pastoral work. Instead, it was often at the direct behest of the popes that these congregations embraced the educational path. A similar argument can be applied to female education, which is also addressed in this chapter and is a fundamental part of Catholic education in the early modern age.

This chapter sketches the philological and codicological work on Gratian’s Decretum and how that work is being employed in new ways. It begins by briefly touching on the collection’s wider dissemination as a way of placing it within an overall context of the Corpus iuris canonici. It then sketches the contributions of Stephan Kuttner and Peter Landau followed by the Redaktionsgeschichte of the text. The role the Decretum played in the transmission and fluidity of legal knowledge is analyzed through the lens of two case studies: Gratian’s balancing of the spiritual and secular roles of the feudal bishop, first, and, second, a unique case found only in one manuscript.

Pope Gregory VII and his personal views as expressed in the Dictatus papae and his references to the forged “Donation of Constantine” opened the way for the debated papal monarchy of the twelfth century. The gradual reversal of the ancient Gelasian doctrine of the relationship between spiritual and worldly powers was achieved and furthered by division within the Salian dynasty and the general social evolution and feudalization of Western society. It was not a revolution. Against the background of the council of Sutri of 1046, when Emperor Henry III arranged for the settlement of disputed papal elections, this chapter focuses on the internal changes – especially since the time of Leo IX (d.1054) – leading to a reformed papacy prior to Gregory VII (including monastic and clerical renewal as well as eventually organizational changes within the Church, such as, in no particular order: the College of Cardinals, the use of legates, the use of privileges, revival of ancient canon law, a camera along the pattern of Cluny, oaths of obedience, etc.). These changes enabled the papacy to challenge in particular the claims to sacrality first of all by the Salian monarchy but eventually of all monarchies.

The Cambridge History of the Papacy is organized to provide readers with a critical–historical survey of the structural development of the papacy as an institution and as an actor in Church history, and in world history. It is hard to imagine a sphere of human activity over the past two millennia that has not been influenced by, and influenced in turn by, papal action – be it in the domains of religious belief and practice; social, cultural, and political thought; art, science, medicine, ethics, diplomacy, and international relations. Four questions – each addressed throughout the three volumes of the present work – have framed that vision across vast chronological and geographical expanses: the pope’s centrality within the Catholic Church, the primacy of papal power as an instrument of governance, the papacy’s cultural influence in society and culture, and the implications of secularity for its place in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. Each question – and the search for answers – converges around the fundamental question of papal authority: its original claims; the ebbs and flows of its effective reach; and the numerous ways in which claims, and expressions of papal authority and supremacy, have been contested within the Catholic tradition, and from without.

Beginning in 1492, two years before the outbreak of the Italian Wars (1494–1559), Rodrigo Borgia’s papacy was dominated by conflict and a consequent need to focus on temporal matters. While the Borgia popes are prominent among those who used Rome as a power base for securing family dynasties, they were far from alone in that: in a sense they were the pioneers whose eventual failure in Italy illustrated how others might succeed. This chapter reassesses Alexander VI’s papacy in comparison to those of his predecessors and successors, considering four interrelated issues that confronted him: his response to the rise of Girolamo Savonarola in Florence; his management of the defense of the Papal States; expectations of patronage; and European encounters with the New World. It considers to what extent this papacy should be regarded as a turning-point in the history of the popes. Finally, it addresses the Borgia mythology.

Mutual estrangement characterised the relationship between the popes and the Protestant Churches for centuries after the Reformation. Despite occasional ecumenical stirrings, the creation of Protestant state Churches removed formal contact between popes and Protestants from a theological to a diplomatic plane. The concurrent development of Protestant ideas of history, which styled the pope as the Antichrist of prophecy and the consolidation of the Catholic understanding of him as the steward of an exclusive tradition, further eroded the space for dialogue. Only from the nineteenth century onwards did significant changes alter these patterns of understanding. The growth of developmental historicism began to relativise doctrinal differences; whilst the retreat of the confessional state created renewed possibilities for papal–Protestant contact. These shifts prepared the way for the twentieth-century ecumenical movement, which since the 1960s has transformed relations for the better. Whether formal reconciliation can proceed any further, however, remains to be seen.

This chapter articulates, first, the power of Catholic popes to punish the sin of clerical sexual abuse. It examines their ability to use canon law, executive orders, and other religious means to reorganize the Church’s infrastructure and reform the governance of its hierarchy and priests. On a second level, it analyzes the popes’ limited role in sanctioning the crime of clerical sexual abuse. It examines the historical right of popes to punish its clerical personnel, protect its privacy, and maintain its sphere of religious authority, matters that have been challenged by the imposition of criminal law, civil lawsuits, and state investigations. Finally, it concludes that papal governance on clerical sexual abuse has often been ineffective, that social and management problems still exist, and that they will impact the papacy’s future moral quandary in Catholic Church–state relations

The modern papacy emerged from the clash with the values of Enlightenment and the pope’s loss of temporal power. In a way, popes established themselves as a renovated source of moral authority on bioethics. This chapter aims to trace the history of papal pronouncements on contraception and abortion. It examines the historical roots of Christian sexual ethics from antiquity. It focuses on the early modern origin of the questions concerning the beginning of life and on the modern idea of immediate ensoulment. It shows how modern medical knowledge and eugenics contributed to a new view of reproduction as separate from sexuality, which called into question the traditional sense of marriage and gender roles. In this context, in which anti-modernism certainly played a role, popes condemned birth control, abortion, and women’s emancipation, revealing a huge hiatus between the experience of laity and the inflexible authority of the Catholic Church.

Papal tombs are a primary source for the study of papal politics. This chapter gives a chronological overview of papal burials, from early Christendom to the end of the fifteenth century. It addresses questions of burial preferences, church topography (especially in St. Peter’s and St. John Lateran in Rome), as well as the individual appearance of each monument. For the late Middle Ages, the importance of artists to formal innovation is underlined (Arnolfo di Cambio) and set in relation to the patron’s choice of traditions the monument is meant to refer to in its placement and appearance – to antique, French, or Italian models. The increasing number of funeral monuments for members of the Church hierarchy, as well as for laymen, kings, and nobles, starting in the thirteenth century, stiffened the competition in monumental burial and increased the need to develop appropriate papal features.

This chapter delves into the intricate social, political, and theological mechanisms that progressively linked the historical figure of Saint Peter the Apostle to the city of Rome, and, more specifically, the Roman Church, from the late fourth to the late sixth centuries. The central argument posits that the escalations of papal authority during this era, especially those rhetorically justified by ties to the historical Peter, were predominantly aspirational. These escalations often surfaced as a direct counter-response to local or international humiliations. Consequently, this chapter challenges the traditional historiographical narrative of a perpetually powerful and assertive late-ancient papacy that ushered the Church into the Middle Ages from a vantage point of strength and acknowledged authority. It presents a nuanced perspective that acknowledges the complexities and realities of the time.

This chapter traces the conflicting history of the relationship between the popes and the Inquisitions from the early modern period onwards, with a prologue on the late Middle Ages. Its scope embraces the Roman Holy Office alongside the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, with their offshoots in the colonies, since to suppose that these latter were institutions entirely dependent on the Iberian monarchies is over-simplistic. The Roman court and the Index are treated more extensively, especially since the Holy Office was considered the most eminent Congregation of the Curia. The text also seeks to determine the extent to which the Roman Inquisition impinged on the autonomy of the popes or the development of Catholic dogma and orthopraxy on a global scale. Lastly, it looks at the later evolution of the Holy Office up until its mutation into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the twentieth century.