# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Paul (popes)

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​PAUL (Paulus), the name of five popes.
Paul I., pope from 757 to 767, succeeded his brother Stephen III. on the 29th of May 757. His pontificate was chiefly remarkable for his close alliance with Pippin, king of the Franks, to whom he made a present of books highly significant of the intellectual poverty of the times; and for his unsuccessful endeavours to effect a reconciliation with the iconoclastic emperor of the East, Constantine Copronymus. He died on the 28th of June 767. His successor was Stephen IV.
Paul II. (Pietro Barbo), pope from the 30th of August 1464 to the 26th of July 1471, was born at Venice in 1417. Intended for a business career, he took orders during the pontificate of his uncle, Eugenius IV., and was appointed successively archdeacon of Bologna, bishop of Cervia, bishop of Piacenza, protonotary of the Roman Church, and in 1440 cardinal-deacon of Sta Maria Nuova. He was made cardinal-priest of Sta Cecilia, then of St Marco by Nicholas V., was a favourite of Calixtus III. and was unanimously and unexpectedly elected the successor of Pius II. He immediately declared that election “capitulations,” which cardinals had long been in the habit of affirming as rules of conduct for future popes, could affect a new pope only as counsels, not as binding obligations. He opposed with some success the domineering policy of the Venetian government in Italian affairs. His repeated condemnations of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges resulted in strained relations with Louis XI. of France. He pronounced excommunication and deposition against King George Podiebrad on the 23rd of December 1466 for refusal to enforce the Basel agreement against the Utraquists, and prevailed on Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, to declare war against him on the 31st of March 1468. Matthias was not particularly successful, but George Podiebrad died on the 22nd of March 1471. The pope carried on fruitless negotiations (1469) with the emperor Frederick III. for a crusade against the Turks. Paul endeavoured to make drastic reforms in the curia, and abolished the college of abbreviators (1466), but this called forth violent protests from the historian Platina, one of their number and subsequently librarian under Sixtus IV., who is responsible for the fiction that Paul was an illiterate persecutor of learning. It is true that the pope suppressed the Roman academy, but on religious grounds. On the other hand he was friendly to Christian scholars; he restored many ancient monuments; made a magnificent collection of antiquities and works of art; built the Palazzo di St Marco, now the Palazzo di Venezia; and probably first introduced printing into Rome. Paul embellished the costume of the cardinals, collected jewels for his own adornment, provided games and food for the Roman people and practically instituted the carnival. He began in 1469 a revision of the Roman statutes of 1363—a work which was not completed until 1490. Paul established the special tax called the quindennium in 1470, and by bull of the same year (April 19) announced the jubilee for every twenty-five years. He began negotiations with Ivan III. for the union of the Russian Church with the Roman see. Paul was undoubtedly not a man of quick parts or unusual views, but he was handsome, attractive, strong-willed, and has never been accused of promoting nephews or favourites. He died very suddenly, probably of apoplexy, on the 26th of July, 1471, and was succeeded by Sixtus IV.
The principal contemporary lives of Paul II., including that by Platina, are in L. Muratori, Rerum ital. scriptores, iii. pt. 2, and in Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici (1464–1471). The inventory of his personal effects, published by E. Müntz (Les Arts, ii., 1875), is a valuable document for the history of art. See also L. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. iv.; trans, by F. I. Antrobus (London, 1898); M. Creighton, History of the Papacy, vol. iv. (London, 1901); F. Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. vii. (trans, by Mrs G. W. Hamilton, London, 1900–1902); H. L’Epinois, Paul II.: F. Palacky, Geschichte von Böhmen, Bd. IV.–V. (Prague, 1860–1865); Aus den Annalen-Registern der Päpste Eugen IV., Pius II., Paul II., u. Sixtus IV., ed. by K. Hayn (Cologne, 1896). There is an excellent article by C. Benrath in Hauck’s, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.), vol. xv. (C. H. Ha.)
Paul III. (Alessandro Farnese), pope from 1534 to 1549, was born on the 28th of February 1468, of an old and distinguished family. As a pupil of the famous Pomponius Laetus, and, subsequently, as a member of the circle of Cosmo de’ Medici, he received a finished education. From Florence he passed to Rome, and became the father of at least two children, later legitimized. Upon entering the service of the Church, however, he lived more circumspectly. His advancement was rapid. To the liaison between his sister Giulia Farnese Orsini and Alexander VI. he owed his cardinal’s hat; but the steady favour which he enjoyed under successive popes was due to his own cleverness and capacity for affairs. His election to the papacy, on the 13th of October 1534, to succeed Clement VII., was virtually without opposition.
The pontificate of Paul III. forms a turning-point in the history of the papacy. The situation at his accession was grave and complex: the steady growth of Protestantism, the preponderant power of the emperor and his prolonged wars with France, the advances of the Turks, the uncertain mind of the Church itself—all conspired to produce a problem involved and delicate. Paul was shrewd, calculating, tenacious; but on the other hand over-cautious, and inclined rather to temporize than to strike at the critical moment. His instincts and ambitions were those of a secular prince of the Renaissance; but circumstances forced him to become the patron of reform. By the promotion to the cardinalate of such men as Contarini, Caraffa, Pole and Morone, and the appointment of a commission to report upon existing evils and their remedy, the way was opened for reform; while by the introduction of the Inquisition ​ into Italy (1542), the establishment of the censorship and the Index (1543), and the approval of the Society of Jesus (1540), most efficient agencies were set on foot for combating heresy.
But in the matter of a general council, so urgently desired by the emperor, Paul showed himself irresolute and procrastinating. Finally on the 13th of December 1545 the Council assembled in Trent; but when the victories of Charles V. seemed to threaten its independence it was transferred to Bologna (March 1547) and not long afterwards suspended (Sept. 1549). He concluded the truce of Nice (1538) between Charles and Francis, and contracted an alliance with each. But the peace of Crespy and the emperor’s negotiations with the Protestants (1544) turned him against Charles, and he was suspected of desiring his defeat in the Schmalkaldic War. The most deplorable weakness of Paul was his nepotism. Parma and Piacenza, states of the Church, he bestowed upon his natural son Pier Luigi (1545). But in 1549 Pier Luigi was assassinated by his outraged subjects, and the emperor thereupon claimed the two duchies for his son-in-law Ottavio Farnese, Paul’s grandson. This led to a family quarrel which greatly embittered the last days of the pope and hastened his death (Nov. 10, 1549). Parma and Piacenza continued to be a bone of contention for two hundred and fifty years.
Paul was gifted and cultured, a lover and patron of art. He began the famous Farnese Palace; constructed the Sala Regia in the Vatican; commissioned Michelangelo to paint the “Last Judgment,” and to resume work upon St Peter’s; and otherwise adorned the city. Easy-going, luxurious, worldly-minded, Paul was not in full sympathy with the prevailing influences about him.
See Panvinio, continuator of Platina, De vitis pontiff, rom.; Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff, rom. (Rome, 1601–1602, both contemporaries of Paul III.); Quirini, Imago optimi . . . pontif. expressa in gestis Pauli III. (Brixen, 1745); Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans., Austin), i. 243 seq.; v. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom., iii. 2, 471 seq., 716 seq.; Brosch, Gesch. des Kirchenstaates (1880), i. 163 seq.; Ehses, “Kirchliche Reformarbeiten unter Paul III. vor dem Trienter Konzil,” Röm. Quartalschrift (1901), xv. 153 seq.; Capasso, La Politica di papa Paolo III. e l’Italia (Camerino, 1901); and also the extensive bibliography in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, s.v. Paul III.”
Paul IV. (Giovanni Pietro Caraffa), pope from 1555 to 1559, was born on the 28th of June 1476, of a noble Neapolitan family. His ecclesiastical preferment he owed to the influence of an uncle. Cardinal Oliviero Caraffa. Having filled the post of nuncio in England and Spain, he served successive popes as adviser in matters pertaining to heresy and reform. But he resigned his benefices, and, in conjunction with Cajetan, founded the order of the Theatines (1524) with the object of promoting personal piety and of combating heresy by preaching. In 1536 Paul III. made him cardinal-archbishop of Naples and a member of the reform commission. After the failure of Contarini’s attempt at reconciliation with the Protestants (1541) the papacy committed itself to the reaction advocated by Caraffa; the Inquisition and censorship were set up (1542, 1543), and the extermination of heresy in Italy undertaken with vigour. Elected pope, on the 23rd of May 1555, in the face of the veto of the emperor, Paul regarded his elevation as the work of God. With his defects of temper, his violent antipathies, his extravagant notion of papal prerogative, his pontificate was filled with strife. Blinded by ungovernable hatred he joined with France (1555) in order to drive the “accursed Spaniards” from Italy. But the victory of Philip II. at St Quentin (1557) and the threatening advance of Alva upon Rome forced him to come to terms and to abandon his French alliance. He denounced the peace of Augsburg as a pact with heresy; nor would he recognize the abdication of Charles V. and the election of Ferdinand. By insisting upon the restitution of the confiscated church-lands, assuming to regard England as a papal fief, requiring Elizabeth, whose legitimacy he aspersed, to submit her claims to him, he raised insuperable obstacles to the return of England to the Church of Rome.
Paul’s attitude towards nepotism was at variance with his character as a reformer. An unworthy nephew, Carlo Caraffa, was made cardinal, and other relatives were invested with the duchies of Paliano and Montebello. It was Paul’s hope in this way to acquire a support in his war with the Spaniards. But the defeat of his plans disillusioned him, and he turned to reform. A stricter life was introduced into the papal court; the regular observance of the services of the Church was enjoined; many of the grosser abuses were prohibited. These measures only increased Paul’s unpopularity, so that when he died, on the 18th of August 1559, the Romans vented their hatred by demolishing his statue, liberating the prisoners of the Inquisition, and scattering its papers. Paul’s want of political wisdom, and his ignorance of human nature aroused antagonisms fatal to the success of his cause.
See Panvinio, continuator of Platina, De vitis pontiff. rom.; Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff. rom. (Rome, 1601–1602, both contemporaries of Paul IV.); Caraccioli, De vita Pauli IV. P.M. (Cologne, 1612; for criticism see Hist. Zeitschr., xliv. 460 seq.), whose rich collection of materials was used by Bromata, Vita di Paolo IV. (Ravenna, 1748), and Samm, Une Question ital. au seizième siècle (Paris, 1861). See also Castaldo, Vita del pontifice Paolo Quarto (Modena, 1618); Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans, by Austin), i. 286 seq. (an excellent sketch); v. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom., iii. 2, 513 seq. and Benrath, “G. P. Caraffa u. d. reformatorische Bewegung seiner Zeit.,” in Jahrb. für prot. Theol. (1878), vol. i.; Ancel, Disgrace et procès dès Caraffa (1909); Riess, Politik Pauls IV. (1909).
Paul V. (Camillo Borghese), successor of Leo XI., was born in Rome on the 17th of September 1552, of a noble family. He studied in Perugia and Padua, became a canon lawyer, and was vice-legate in Bologna. As a reward of a successful mission to Spain Clement VIII. made him cardinal (1596) and later vicar in Rome and inquisitor. Elevated to the papacy, on the 16th of May 1605, his extreme conception of papal prerogative, his arrogance and obstinacy, his perverse insistence upon the theoretical and disregard of the actual, made strife inevitable. He provoked disputes with the Italian states over ecclesiastical rights. Savoy, Genoa, Tuscany and Naples, wishing to avoid a rupture, yielded; but Venice resisted. The republic stood upon her right to judge all her subjects, and by her demands touching benefices, tithes and papal bulls showed her determination to be supreme in her own territory. Excommunication and interdict (April 17, 1606) were met with defiance. The cause of the republic was brilliantly advocated by Fra Paolo Sarpi, counsellor of state; the defenders of the papal theory were Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine. The pope talked of coercion by arms; but Spain, to whom he looked for support, refused to be drawn into war, and the quarrel was finally settled by the mediation of France (March 22, 1607). Notwithstanding certain concessions, the victory remained with the republic (see Sarpi).
Paul became involved in a quarrel with England also. After the Gunpowder Plot parliament required a new oath of allegiance to the king and a denial of the right of the pope to depose him or release his subjects from their obedience. Paul forbade Roman Catholics to take the oath; but to no purpose, beyond stirring up a literary controversy. By his condemnation of Gallicanism (1613) Paul angered France, and provoked the defiant declaration of the states general of 1614 that the king held his crown from God alone.
Paul encouraged missions, confirmed many new congregations and brotherhoods, authorized a new version of the Ritual, and canonized Carlo Borromeo. His devotion to the interests of his family exceeded all bounds, and they became enormously wealthy. Paul began the famous Villa Borghese; enlarged the Quirinal and Vatican; completed the nave, façade and portico of St Peter’s; erected the Borghese Chapel in Sta Maria Maggiore; and restored the aqueduct of Augustus and Trajan (“Acqua Paolina”). He also added to the Vatican library, and began a collection of antiquities. Paul died on the 28th of January 1621, and was succeeded by Gregory XV.
See Bzovius (Bzowski), De vita Pauli V. (Rome, 1625; contained in Platina, De vitis pontiff, rom., ed. 1626), who depicts Paul as a paragon of all public and private virtues; Vitorelli, continuator of Ciaconius, Vitae et res gestae summorum pontiff, rom. (a contemporary of the pope); Goujet, Hist. du pontifical de Paul V., ​(1765); Ranke, Popes (Eng. trans, by Austin), ii. 330 seq., iii. 72 seq.; V. Reumont, Gesch. der Stadt Rom, iii. 2, 605 seq.; Brosch, Gesch. des Kirchenstaates (1880), i. 351 seq. The Venetian version of the quarrel with the pope was written by Sarpi (subsequently translated into English, London, 1626); see also Cornet, Paolo V. et la repub. veneta (Vienna, 1859); and Trollope, Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar (London, 1860). An extensive biography will be found in Herzog-Hauck, Realencylkopädie, s.v. “Paul V.”  (T. F. C.)