Abstract
Rarely in a lifetime of reviewing have I taken so many notes on a book yet been less clear as to its thesis. This may be a personal failing, for Dr Pattenden makes occasional efforts to describe his purpose. ‘The book’s overarching thesis’, he writes on p. 179, ‘is that electing the pope caused significant problems for Rome’s political elite and that the authority of popes was never sufficiently well-established to allow the arbitrary exercise of power over the polity.’ ‘Like many other lame-duck rulers, a pope was often in office but not in power’ (p. 210), his ability to coerce others into doing his will seriously restricted by what might happen after his death. A hereditary prince would not have had this problem, the succession being predetermined, nor would a prince usually be faced with an empty treasury, whereas an incoming pontiff would discover the papacy’s wealth had been distributed to his predecessor’s family.
While this last sentence is evidently true, before one can evaluate the other arguments one needs to know how a non-lame-duck pontiff differed from those less fortunate. The people of Rome, he says, were ‘perpetually disappointed’ with their bishops, but that disappointment was ‘structural rather than personal’ (p. 210). As most popes were quite elderly when elected, and their abilities inevitably waned as they neared their deaths, this is hardly surprising, but what Pattenden is saying is that the manner of choosing the bishop of Rome, the conclave in other words, was deeply flawed as far as both the electors, and the one elected, were concerned. It is this range of problems, for pontiffs and cardinals alike, that he examines in fascinating, and extremely well-researched, detail. It is a study of the making of popes that no future historian of the papal office can afford to ignore.
The period covered by the book is from the election of Martin V in 1417 to the end of the 18th century, encompassing 44 conclaves. Martin V’s election was, of course, untypical, and there was no desire among the European powers to make fundamental changes, only to ensure that no one national group of cardinals could dominate as the French once had done. Clearly there were power struggles inside conclaves—the French, Spanish, and Imperial cardinals were regularly at loggerheads—though, argues Pattenden, the college did not want these divisions widely known for fear the princes might once again take over papal elections as they had done at the Council of Constance. The princes were nonetheless allowed their say not only by way of the cardinals from their own countries but through the right to nominate a cardinal, the Crown Cardinals, to represent their interests. By the mid-18th century the Emperor and the Kings of Spain, Portugal, France, and Poland, together with the Republic of Venice and the Duke of Savoy enjoyed this prerogative. So in theory, thinks Pattenden, did the Kings of England, though it was obviously not a right they ever exercised. After 1622 some princes also enjoyed the right of veto, though Pattenden reckons it was exercised only a dozen times—the last, famously, by a Polish cardinal representing the interests of the Emperor Franz Josef, against Cardinal Rampolla in 1903: Pius X promptly abolished the practice.
‘Few cardinals could have enjoyed being present at a conclave for whatever rules and practices were followed the electors were likely to end up exhausted, impoverished, and at odds with a number of their peers’ (p. 59), remarks Pattenden. And, he might have added, in a surprisingly large number of cases, dead. It is perhaps paradoxical they did not enjoy the conclave, for the period of the Sede Vacante was in principle the time of their greatest involvement in the administration of the Church. Plenitudo Potestatis, however, was invested in the person of the pontiff, not transferable to the College of Cardinals even though they liked to think of themselves as the Church’s senate. The chapter on the Sede Vacante was, for me, the most illuminating. Books were written advising the electors how to conduct themselves. Do not put any promises down in writing, one such advised, and ‘avoid rupture [with fellow cardinals] because once enmity was formed it was hard to dissipate’ (p. 162). Betting was rife during a conclave—how long it would last, who would be elected and so on. It was a custom clearly open to what might be called ‘insider trading’, and Sixtus V attempted to create a papal monopoly by selling licences to the ‘bookies.’ Not only were the cardinals anxious about who might be elected—it was important to keep on his right side as whoever it was would become the source of patronage—they were anxious about the safety of their property in the city. The period of the Sede Vacante was a time of great unrest, with palaces and churches devastated by rioting mobs.
For a book so thoroughly researched it is odd that the first chapter contains two quite significant slips. Nicholas II did not include all cardinals among the electors, a fact which Pattenden clearly knows, giving the correct version on a later page (cf. pp. 14 and 60). And it was not Stephan Kuttner who proposed that the title cardinal derives from cardo, a hinge, but Pope Leo IX, writing to the Patriarch of Constantinople. (Strictly speaking the Pope says he is the hinge, but the cardinals are hinged on to him!) Finally, I join Dr Pattenden in paying tribute to Salvador Miranda who has produced, and his institution, Florida International University has made available, a searchable database of all known cardinals and their biographies. I keep the URL for this extremely valuable resource on the speed dial of my browser.