A History of Popes

Popes have shaped the history of the world. The Catholic Church has had a Pope for two thousand years, the first- tradition dictates- was St Peter, the fisherman turned disciple of Jesus. Pope 'Leo the Great' stared down Atilla the Hun at the gates of Rome while Pope Innocent III made it his mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons and spread Christianity across Europe. In this episode, Dan is joined by Jessica Wärnberg, author of City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, Its Popes and People, to examine the origins of the Pope's role, how the Pope became such a powerful and influential figure outside of the Catholic Church, and which popes, for better or worse, have shaped the course of history. This episode was first released in August 2023 Produced by James Hickmann & edited by Dougal Patmore Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

  Hey friends, if you love this podcast and want to decide what history we cover, then you need to become a Dan Snow's History Hit subscriber. Pitch your topic and if I like it, we'll make it into a subscriber exclusive episode. So far, we've covered the English Reformation, the Hudson Bay Company, the Trail of Tears, all of which have been decided by dedicated subscribers. So take the reins of your favourite podcast by heading over to historyhit.com/subscribe or sign up in your podcast player.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Everybody listen up!

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Edition terms apply for all offers.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm Pablo Torre, host of Pablo Torre Finds Out, and I have chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese. Hundred percent fresh beef, cooked right when you order it, hand-topped onions, plus cheese and pickles in every bite, and right now, you can get one with medium fries and a drink for just $8, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.

• 1:40Speaker 04

  Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. I've been writing about food and restaurants for almost 50 years, my whole career, really. And what I know is that the good restaurants all have something in common. They're busy, genuinely, chaotically busy. And somehow, in the last few years, the best of them have begun to make it look easy. And do you know why? Because they're running on Toast's technology. Toast is built for restaurant owners who are Understand that Toast's tools keep the line moving and keep their customers happy with fewer mistakes and hiccups in ordering and paying. For owners, that turns busy into business.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  To learn more, head to toasttab.com. That's T-O-A-S-T-T-A-B, toasttab.com. Toast, built for busy.

• 2:37Dan Snow?

  Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's history hit. The world is reacting to the news of the death of Pope Francis, the 266th head of the Catholic Church. He was 88 years old. People beyond what's said to be a global Catholic congregation of about 1.3 billion people seem to be mourning his loss. He was admired the world over for his down-to-earth humility, his humanity. He was the first pope ever to come from the Americas. He was not, obviously, the first pope to come from outside Europe, as is sometimes said, because the OG pope was from what we'd now call the Middle East. But he was the first to come through the Americas.

• 3:18Dan Snow?

  He was the first Jesuit. And throughout his life and career, he did break the mold. During his 12 years as pontiff, he challenged some of the traditional positions of the church. He appointed lots of cardinals from parts of the world and communities that hadn't been previously represented, the highest circles of church governance. He also criticized corporate greed. He spoke out on climate change. He called for economic justice for the world's poorest. And in his last days, his last hours, in fact, he was strident in his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. He washed the feet of refugees. He famously said that who was he to judge if someone was gay,

• 3:56Dan Snow?

  but sought to take part in the Catholic communion. He appointed women to senior positions in the Vatican, but there were limits to his liberalization. He stopped short of blessing same-sex unions, and he gave up on early attempts to reintroduce the position of a female deacon into the church.

• 4:18Dan Snow?

  While many people are mourning his death and thinking about that legacy, already behind closed doors, the wheels are turning. You don't survive through centuries and centuries of turbulent history by not working out your succession plan. The search for a new pope has begun, the electioneering and the politicking have certainly begun. The process of selecting a new pope is one of the most secretive, one of the most time-hallowed rituals anywhere in the modern world. It's called the papal conclave. It's a tradition that stretches back century and there is plenty of incense, there's plenty of prayer and oaths. There's usually plenty of ballots, a bit of smoke as well. First, you get the official period of mourning. That's nine days of prayer and remembrance.

• 5:02Dan Snow?

  Then all the eligible so-called cardinal electors, these are cardinals under the age of eighty, so these are people who can seek to become and vote for the next pope. They all gather in Rome and about a hundred and twenty men, they will enter the Sistine Chapel. And once they're inside, the doors are locked, cum clave, with a key, hence conclave. Then they all vote in secret, apparently up to four times a day, and they try and reach a supermajority, a two-thirds majority. And if no candidate receives enough votes, they just keep going. Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, and things have got a little bit out of hand in the past.

• 5:43Dan Snow?

  After each round, the ballots are burned in a stove and black smoke indicates no decision. White smoke signals that a new pope has been chosen. When that moment comes, they decide upon one of their number to be the next pope. The robes are donned, the balcony doors at St Peter's Basilica opens, and with the famous phrase, habemus papum, we have ourselves a pope, the church announces its new leader to the waiting crowds below.

• 6:12Dan Snow?

  The papacy is very nearly now 2,000 years old. And that lineage begins, according to tradition, with Saint Peter, one of Jesus's closest disciples. He'd been a fisherman, he turned apostle. He travelled to Rome. And from there, the line continues pretty much uninterrupted. Occasionally a little bit fuzzy, occasionally you can see double. But it goes despite the rise and fall of empires, the coming of plagues, the reformations, the revolutions. Pope Leo I, Leo the Great stared down a tiller to hunt at the gates of Rome. Pope Gregory I, he reformed the church. He sent missionaries to convert those strange Anglo Saxons, those people on far west of the world. He helped to proselytise, he helped to spread Christianity across Europe.

• 6:57Dan Snow?

  People talk about Pope Innocent III being one of the most powerful of the medieval popes, not imperial popes of the Middle Ages. He claimed supremacy over Christendom's kings. He would, he inspired crusades. And he rewrote the Church's laws as well. So these are just some of the men who, possibly alongside Pope Francis, left an indelible mark, not just on the Church, but on, on world history. So on this occasion, I'm going to reshare an episode that we released a good while back where I was joined by Jessica Warburg. She's author of City of Echoes, A New History of Rome, Its Popes and Its Peoples. Because I think it's quite timely and it'll answer some of the questions you might be having about why the Catholic Church has a Pope,

• 7:38Dan Snow?

  what exactly their role is, how some became more powerful than the emperors themselves, and how many of them have shaped the world, better for worse, that we still live in today. Enjoy.

• 7:50Speaker 05

  T minus 10. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king.

• 7:55Speaker 06

  No black, white unity till they're dispersed from black unity. Never to go to war with one another again.

• 8:01Speaker 05

  And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

• 8:08Dan Snow?

  Jessica, great to have you on the podcast.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  Great to be here.

• 8:12Dan Snow?

  This is the big question, but how does Rome, which is an empire famous for its people enjoying the spectacle of men and women killing each other in the Colosseum and other arenas, how does this giant, bloodthirsty, famously pagan empire end up Christian?

• 8:30Speaker 05

  So it's a huge question. And somebody asked me the other day, if St Peter went to Rome today, what would he think? Would he be happy? And at first I thought CBD oil shops, Zara, modern Rome, probably not. But then I realised, he'd be delighted. He was thrilled because Rome is utterly Christian in its architecture, its fabric, it's transformed from the time when he arrives there. And so when Peter, who's kind of the central figure in this transformation, arrived in Rome, he's an anonymous figure, he's a fisherman from the seas of Galilee, he's arriving in this pagan capital that's sort of thrusting with religion, where they're worshipping, you know, a multitude of gods, everything revolves

• 9:13Speaker 05

  around religion, you know, political decisions, a bit of pragmatism as well and sort of dynastic ambition, but there are sacrifices to all kinds of gods. And the god that Peter worships, the one Christian god, is the god of a minority cult, one of many minority cults. You've got kind of the cult of Mithras and the temple to Saul and all of these other cults. And they're unknown, they're seen as sort of a pesky offshoot of Judaism, if they're considered at all. And so the transformation of Rome is a remarkable and really unlikely story because it goes back to Peter and Paul, these two men from the Middle East coming to the Roman Empire. Now, Paul comes not because he's spreading the word of Jesus Christ,

• 9:56Speaker 05

  of Jesus of Nazareth, who's only recently died. He comes because he's on trial and he's decided to appeal to the emperor because he thinks he's going to get a Fearing trial in Rome, that doesn't work out for him. He ends up being executed in Rome. But he meets all these Christians who are there in their humble little house churches. Peter also dies in Rome, crucified, later sources say, on the Vatican Hill. The Vatican Hill is a dusty, remote place where there's a graveyard and where Nero had his racetrack. And when Peter died there, he died probably seen as, if seen by anybody, a kind of local pest. Somebody was causing unrest by spreading sort of anti or non pagan ideas or doing things which were non pagan, which are against the grain, a very few people would have taken notice.

• 10:39Speaker 05

  But the small, early group of Christians did take notice. And on that spot where he died, they started going, they started venerating his bones. And there, they sort of trace the first footsteps of what would one day be some pieces of basilica, but then was just a little tiny shrine. And it's in that story of Peter dying in Rome that we see the spark of this transformation. Because Peter had been chosen by Jesus to be the head of the church. And so when Peter dies in Rome, it gives anybody who comes after him the right to say, this is the head of the church. Now, even that, Dan, didn't happen for centuries, you know, that anybody was really listening. You know, these figures are unknown, these Christian figures and their leaders as they emerge,

• 11:23Speaker 05

  they're unknown for decades and decades. And then a major moment of transformation comes when Constantine, who's the son of a Roman emperor and wants to take over the Roman Empire as a sole ruler of the empire, prays the night before a battle, go to sleep and has a vision. And instead of seeing one of the pagan gods that he'd been praying to, he sees the son of God of the Christians, he sees Jesus, who tells him, look, if you go out to battle your foes in my sign, in the sign of my name, in the Cairo, you will win. He goes out to meet his foe, Maxentius, the next day, and he wins. So when he comes back to Rome, he doesn't make a sacrifice to Jupiter, but he starts honouring this Christian god.

• 12:07Speaker 05

  And there we really see this moment, along with his later legalisation of Christianity, where this malign- Shadowy cult who are talking about the death of a Galilean fisherman on the Vatican Hill, you know, something that these Romans who love triumph and conquest and winning are not interested in really at all, when that becomes endorsed by an emperor. And even though we're unsure if he even converted to Christianity, it becomes a state-sponsored religion and you start getting basilicas and the fabric of Rome starts changing. But it's grounded in this really strange story, if we think about it objectively.

• 12:42Dan Snow?

  Why is Constantine Christian, curious, like, why does it pop up in his dreams? We tend to dream about things that we're kind of familiar with in the first place, right? So what's been going on in the Roman world that means Christianity has been nibbling at the heels of people like Constantine?

• 12:56Speaker 05

  So even immediately after Jesus died, you know, you get figures who knew him and then later figures like Paul who didn't know him going out all over their known world and this sort of area of the Mediterranean basin, Greece, Turkey, Rome, and it follows the footprint of the empire more or less. So Christians are around and even by the second century, you know, it's not a dominant religion, but pagans are starting to turn Christian. And the allure of this is a bit puzzling, like you painted a picture early on of this place that's all about sort of gladiatorial compact, victory, fighting, conquest, winning. And these are people whose God died on a cross in the most humiliating way. But there is something compelling about this message and I think for a lot of people it's the stories, right?

• 13:39Speaker 05

  These people who are being persecuted for their religion, teenagers, like a Roman teenager called Agnes who was killed by the Roman government for being a Christian. And I think these stories make it really compelling. So people do start to convert, they get in a lot of trouble. You know, there's a story of a Roman woman who was, her husband found out she converted to become a Christian and her teachers put in prison and she's punished, you know, and a lot of people are punished and are killed for being Christians. And people for some reason start to be compelled by these stories. And start converting. And so you do get pagans who are converting, not just the Jewish community of Rome or people from these more sort of minor cults. And so it's on the radar

• 14:20Speaker 05

  of Constantine. It's part of his world. He's becomes familiar enough with it, as you say, for Christ to appear to him in a dream and him to think, do you know what? Jupiter, I'm not going to follow you today. I'm going to go out, you know, in the name of this guy. And then he wins and he's justified by it.

• 14:36Dan Snow?

  He wins the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. And then so you mentioned the Edict of Milan, where he granted religious tolerance. That effectively ends the persecution of Christians. That's not the end of it. The Christians had a few dodgy chapters after that, didn't they? It was not yet the kind of official religion of the empire, was it?

• 14:53Speaker 05

  No, I think he's sort of Constantine's really important because he basically opens up the door. But he doesn't make Christianity cool yet. You know, it's sort of is opening up the door to that it's becoming, you know, you've got popes now sitting in a palace, not living in some back quarter of Rome, you know, and trust every raise and all of this figure. They're sitting in the apps of a basilica. They've got public buildings. But even those buildings, like the Lateran, the first Christian Basilica, is outside the centre of Rome. St Peter's is in a remote place on the Vatican Hill. Constantine is not sort of ripping down the temple to Jupiter and putting up a temple to Christ or the Christian God in its place. But by the 380s, you get enough elite people who are becoming Christian for people like Jerome to get really angry about the way

• 15:36Speaker 05

  they're behaving. His letters are a great source for some of these stories. I feel bad sort of smiling as I say it, because he was so angry. But he'd go into St Peter's Basilica and there'd be women carried on litters, you know, surrounded by eunuchs with their faces sort of rouge, pretending to faint from fast, because Christianity had become the thing to associate yourself with. And he's saying, you know, 400 years or so, or less than 400 years after the death of Christ. No, this isn't what it was all meant to be about. But by that time, the 60, 70 years after Constantine has officially endorsed Christianity, it's becoming a more elite religion and it's becoming something that it's quite cool. It's quite prestigious to be associated with.

• 16:18Dan Snow?

  So what exactly does Pope mean? And who's the first one? Is it Peter technically? Is it the leader of Roman Christians? I'm sounding a bit like a Protestant in the Reformation here. Is it basically the Bishop of Rome?

• 16:28Speaker 05

  As far as we understand it now, the Pope was the Bishop of Rome. But Peter might upset people saying this, but Peter doesn't emerge as a Pope. You know, he's chosen by Christ. To be the head of his church, but nobody is sort of treating him as far as we know from any sources like the Pope, you know, putting him in a central position at the top of a hierarchy of a Roman church and making decisions. He's not even included actually as the first person in really early lists of popes. You get these figures like Linus, Anachates who pop up. And Pope just means father and lots of people are called Pope well into the seventh century, you know, and people all over bishops all over are called Pope. But popes as we know them, popes as an authoritative leader first of all in Rome, calling the shots,

• 17:11Speaker 05

  don't emerge until the sort of one fifty's, one eighty's. We have to remember this was an immigrant sort of church, they're mixing with these pagan elite. They disagreed on a lot of things and out of this disagreement, you get figures emerging who start laying down the law. So the bishops of Rome, the leaders of this church, this Roman church, figures like Victor, who's Pope in sort of the one eighty's, bishops of Rome in the one eighty's, have to start saying, no, no, no, this is the date that we celebrate Easter, not that day. And anyone who doesn't agree with me is excommunicated, kicked out the church. Now we're looking a bit more like a Pope, right? It's not just somebody who's maybe writing letters on behalf of the community. It's not really until much later, so in the kind of four hundreds that you get figures like Leo the Great,

• 17:55Speaker 05

  who really start asserting this really firmly and publicly to the rest of the Christian world globally. So there's a synod called the Gangster Synod. Now, synods aren't usually the most exciting prospect, right? Um, so please don't switch off, but it's called the Gangster Synod, right? For a reason. I mean, this is a meeting of all the sort of church leaders from across the Christian world in Ephesus, they called it the Second Council of Ephesus, not the Gangster Synod. And there, the Bishop of Alexandria tries to stop Leo's ambassadors, essentially his envoys, speaking because he says, look, we're just as important, I'm the Bishop of Alexandria, you know, other bishops of important places are here. Why does he think, why does the Bishop of Rome think that he should have this global authority?

• 18:38Speaker 05

  But Leo says, actually, I'm the successor of Saint Peter who was chosen by Christ. And um, after his envoys are shut down and the synod is stormed by these monks that Daskaris has waiting outside, ready to kind of beat up anybody who tries to stick up for the Bishop of Rome. Um, after that all dies down, Leo very firmly says,

• 18:59Speaker 05

  If you speak against me, you speak against Saint Peter. And he gets the last emperors who are in their kind of last gasps. People like Valentini in the third. This is about a couple of decades before the Western Roman Empire falls. He gets them backing him up and saying, look, you are the most supreme person out of all of these bishops. And this is where really firmly, really publicly, you get figures who are not only the leaders of the Church of Rome, but who are the leaders of the Church of Rome and therefore, in their eyes, the leaders of the kind of global church. And this is where they really start publicly asserting this and succeeding in asserting this.

• 19:37Dan Snow?

  And does Leo, you mentioned some of the slightly dodgy emperors at the end of the Western Roman Empire. Does Leo have a position of strength even compared to them? Doesn't he meet Attila the Hun? And he starts to look quite political in a very secular sense, doesn't he?

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Exactly. He goes out to meet Attila the Hun. He's sent out by the emperors. This time, the emperors aren't even in Rome. You know, the Western Roman emperors are often in Ravenna, on the eastern coast of Italy, where maybe the climate's a bit better. You're further away from all these invading barbarians. And people like Valentini are sending Leo out to meet people, to negotiate. And it's him who has to ride out to meet Attila and say, please turn back. You know, send your men back. Don't sack Rome. It's not the emperor. So you're right, in this power vacuum, even before the Western Empire has fallen, the Pope is stepping up as a figurehead. Leo is stepping up as a figurehead. He also, you know, goes out and meets Geyseric, another kind of barbarian invader, just as he's about to sack Rome and sort of sticks up for the Roman people.

• 20:36Speaker 05

  So he's taking on this global Christian Rome, but he's also becoming a de facto ruler in Rome. And he says something really, really interesting. It, I think, kind of sums up how he saw things and how he saw his political role. He said to the Roman people, apparently, as Rome is sort of... crumbling around their ears. Don't worry, you rule over a much vaster empire through Peter than you ever did through the emperors. So basically, you don't have to worry about having an army or being rich because through this prestige that the death of Peter has given Rome, you know, we've got an authority that nobody can take away. And I think he had a point, right? It survived for 2000 years as empires have fallen, dictators have come and gone.

• 21:21Speaker 05

  And so he really did see himself as a political figure, but but sort of tied to this, his religious role and his religious authority.

• 21:28Dan Snow?

  Okay, so Jessica, we're asking all the massive questions down. Let's just quickly deal with another one. We've already had Edward Gibbon. He suggested in his Declan for the Roman Empire that Christianity was a central part of that because you started loving thy neighbour and they started turning the other cheek, rather than just slaughtering their enemies on the battlefield and in sieges as their ancestors had done. What is the relationship between Christianity, do you think, and the decline of the Western Roman world?

• 21:54Speaker 05

  I think that the popes step into, as I said, a power vacuum and not to be creating all kinds of sort of early modern and modern figures, but Hobbes said that the popes were crowned on the grave of empire, right? That they're really kind of stepping in and taking advantage of this. In terms of their responsibility for it, I don't think we can lay that at their door. I mean, if you just take something like the ending of the gladiatorial games, something that seemed to embody that sort of fighting spirit. You know, a lot of people say this is because of the Christians and they didn't like the fighting and the bloodshed. And a lot of Christians say that. There's a horrific story of somebody who came to Rome and he is a young man. He comes to Rome to have an austere, pious life and to live in this holy city.

• 22:35Speaker 05

  And he's there when they're sort of celebrating a triumph and he goes to a gladiatorial games and he starts protesting and he gets beaten up and killed. And the emperor says, oh, this is awful. We can't possibly have gladiatorial games. But at that time, they were already running out of money to perform these games. So often, you know, the games gladiatorial combats were funded by politicians who wanted to make themselves popular with the people. They don't have the money for that. They don't have the resource. They're fighting, losing battles. And so I think that there is a coincidence of time, but I don't think that we can sort of blame the emergence of Christianity for weakening the Roman Empire. Even if the popes did maybe take advantage or step into that role, there is a shift in in what's important, though. You get sort of nobles who hold these great feasts for the poor and there's no.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Really anything like that, that kind of arms giving, giving away your wealth, turning the other cheek. That's sort of softer rhetoric or softer teachings. It's not really much like that in the pagan world. So you do get a transformation of values, but it's just a different sort of culture. So you've still got nobles, but they're not showing their greatness by getting to great big men to have a fight to the death in the auditorium. They're showing their greatness by feeding the poor. So, yeah, I think the weakness had already begun much before, you know, the elite anyway caught on to Christian charity.

• 23:53Dan Snow?

  So I think, yeah, the Christians, I think blaming them for the fall of the Western Empires is pretty punchy. But the other question is, have, given that fall, and this is where lots of early modern historians will be fidgeting. Given that transfer or that change of regimes, the sort of end of Roman rule, the beginning of something different. How does Christianity make that extraordinary leap and survive and almost flourish into the beginning of the medieval period? Whereas Roman imperial rule sort of, well, it changes into something completely different.

• 24:26Speaker 05

  I think Lysistrand Leo was right, you know, you've got a much greater empire now built on Peter. This idea that, well, if your authority is tracing something divine, nobody can take it away. Nobody can fight you for it. And actually, as more and more people become Christian, they're willing to defend it. So you have some remarkable stories, actually, of popes going out to meet invaders. And the invaders saying, so quite often the Lombards, so you get into kind of late antiquity. The invaders saying, okay, we'll leave Rome alone because that's Peter's lands and you're the popes. But all this other land that belongs to the Roman Empire that's then been ruled by that time by, from Byzantium.

• 25:07Speaker 05

  That's just land. We'll invade that or take them. Sorry, we're not leaving Ravenna alone. That's just a place. Rome, we'll leave it. So the popes are able to kind of use their religious role to transcend normal politics. They're able to use the fact that their successors of Peter, who are ruling over this patch of land around Rome and Rome. To say, we're different and they survive. And they're very smart about this. There's a really remarkable pope from the late fourth century. He's not so well known, but I think his Netflix material, Demasus. So he's the first sort of socialite pope. He's in with all of the patricians. So much so that he gets the nickname, the earpick of great ladies. Like he's cozying up to people who can help the church to get the money it needs.

• 25:51Speaker 05

  And he's also a politician, right? He fights literally for the papacy against a rival. They're chucking tiles off the roofs of basilicas. He's getting his hands dirty in order to get this position. But once he's Pope, he doesn't rely on politics. He doesn't even rely on the Emperor, and that's before the Empire's fallen. He relies on the martyrs. And he writes poetry, which might seem slightly surprising, seeing as I painted him as this kind of socialite thug. But he writes poems about all the Christians who've been persecuted and killed. And he gets them carved into sites all around Rome. And in doing this, he's saying, look, this is the basis of our power. Rome, this place where all these holy things happen, where we've got all these bones, we've got all

• 26:33Speaker 05

  these bodies of all these holy people. This is important land. And that's what these later popes can capitalize on when they're getting invaded, to get these invaders to turn around. Because a lot of them are Christian, even if they're not followers of the Pope. And they are willing to leave Rome alone, to survive, to continue right into the medieval period. Because, ooh, that's Peter's land. We're not going to touch that. There might be repercussions.

• 27:00Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History, your special podcast here on Hopes. More coming up.

• 27:09Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail. But suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what will baffle historians about us. Mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Everybody, listen up.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 28:23Speaker 06

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese is made with 100% fresh beef, cooked when you order it. Add hot crispy fries and an ice cold Coke, and hopefully, a lot of napkins. All for $8. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Business is booming. Is your fulfillment ready for peak season? Switch to ShipStation now and handle more volume with confidence when it counts. ShipStation connects Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and over 200 more integrations with one platform that does it all. You can manage orders, sync inventory, track returns, all automatically. Everything your operation needs, all in one place. Right now, qualified shippers get a real dedicated person to get you set up and switched over for free. So when peak season hits, you're ready to go. Switch today at shipstation.com code AUDIO.

• 29:17Dan Snow?

  How do they convince people like the kings of the Ostrogoths and the successor states to Rome, whether it's in Gaul, whether it's in Italy or Spain? How do they convince them to eventually embrace Christianity? What does Christianity offer these people? These supposedly barbarians or one or two generations removed from kind of barbarians? Why do they all support and accept the role of the Pope and accept Christianity, embrace it? So, there are two important things here. They're not necessarily accepting the

• 29:50Speaker 05

  Role of the Pope. Okay, so a lot of them are, for example, Arian Christians who believe very different things about the nature of Christ and all these kind of issues that they're debating about at places like the Gangster Synod. They're not all people who say, okay, the Pope is on high and so we have to listen to what he said. But even those people who don't believe that he's the supreme power in the Christian world, believe that he's the successor of Peter. They don't necessarily think that gives them the right to tell them what to do, but they believe he's somebody a bit special. And you see this going through all the way into the early modern period where you get Ethiopians coming to Rome to ask the Pope for blessings. So you think, well, the Ethiopians don't believe that he is the supreme leader of the Church.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Not everybody believes that, but they do believe that he's something special. So for the Pope side of things, that's something special, which sounds a little bit vague and a little bit hard to put your finger on. There's notion that he is the successor of Peter and that means something, even if it doesn't mean that he can tell everybody what to do, is very powerful. In terms of why Christianity appeals, I mean, that is sort of not just a big question, it's a million dollar question, because when you look at the pagan religion, sometimes people say Christianity offered people who were the poor and lowly and women an opportunity to be involved. But you know, you look at books, I mean, at Mary Beard's book on Roman religion and you see there were women involved, you know, Roman religion, the cult of Magna Mater.

• 31:17Speaker 05

  There were ex-slaves who were playing music, you know, as part of religious ceremonies in the pagan world. And there were other groups where you got some of the perks like joint burial. There are Jewish catechisms in Rome. You get that fraternity, the cult of Mithras. You get sort of this sense of fraternity and fellowship. Personally, I think that what's compelling about the Christian message is all of these stories of people, ordinary people, who are made extraordinary by clinging to their faith. How else could you get, you know, a 13-year-old girl in the church of St. Agnes? Has a shrine built to her, a Roman teenager. Well, she has a shrine built to her because she was willing to die for her faith. I think that's quite appealing because it means that

• 32:02Speaker 05

  any of us could be made extraordinary. And I know some emperors became gods, but for most people, it was kind of out of the question, right? So saints aren't the same as being a god. But if you can see, yeah, somebody's an ordinary person who is able to make themselves extraordinary by being faithful. I think it's quite compelling. But yeah, I think lots of people would have other answers to that question.

• 32:23Dan Snow?

  And does Christianity become a vehicle, a kind of safety deposit box for Romanitas, for learning, for the poetry, for the history and the culture? As Rome's armies are destroyed, these, you know, Theodoric, the barbarians, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, they can tap into, or something of Rome can survive through the church. Is that true? Is that kind of vehicle for, for Roman values?

• 32:47Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And if we get to a period like the Renaissance, as we jump forward, the popes, you know, have left Rome for decades and decades and been in Avignon, and they come back, and there's this revival of interest in kind of the classical Roman world and Greek world, and they make that their own. They're building churches with elements of classical architecture in them. Cardinals are, you know, putting up sculptures of classical figures in their vineyards. And the popes, by being heads of Rome, figureheads of Rome, leaders of Rome, are also the owners of a lot of ancient Roman stuff and ancient Greek, or some copies of ancient Greek things. And so when they're digging up statues like the Loacorn, or the Apollo Velvadare, then becoming owners of this, they're becoming custodians

• 33:31Speaker 05

  of the actual stones and leftover bits of fabric of the ancient Roman world. So there certainly isn't an idea that they are kind of custodians of those values. And, and they're not shy about co-opting them and making them part of Christian culture. There are popes who imprisoned, you know, Renaissance humanists, who seem to be going a little bit too far, or maybe going a bit back to the kind of pagan ways, a little bit too close to the boat. But other than that, they're employing the humanists who want to get back to the ancient values as secretaries and saying, yeah, like, write nice classical Renaissance Latin, but write about Christianity, because there's prestige in it. And they're not afraid of that, always.

• 34:08Dan Snow?

  And it strikes me that, just going a little bit further back to this transitional period of the fifth and the sixth centuries, where if you're an invading army, you topple the Roman state, great, but you can then enjoy all the benefits of Romanness, the bureaucracy, the learning, the culture, the art and the religion, because you keep hold of the church. So that it's not a military or even a massive political threat. You're still, you know, well done you, you're the king of Spain, congratulations, you Austrogoth, Visigoth, whoever you are, but you get to enjoy Romanness because there's an intact institution there. So you can kind of have your cake and eat it.

• 34:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. And what's fascinating about some of the Goths, barbarians who become kings of Italy, they go to Rome and they start acting like Roman emperors, but they also go to St Peter's. So you've got access to all of these things that you can use to legitimise yourself. One of these barbarian leaders, he says, you know, an able Goth doesn't want to be like a Goth at all. He wants to be like a Roman. And so they've got this kind of cake and mix of imperial tropes, wearing the purple garb of the emperor, but then very quickly, in the scale of this long history, going to St Peter's to venerate the tomb of the fisherman, as they refer to it, becomes a key part of this legitimisation that you see all the way through until the medieval period, as a man called Colli D'Enzo

• 35:29Speaker 05

  tries to take over Rome as this kind of demagogue, this charismatic leader. And he goes in the purple garb, tossing out coins, but on his way to St Peter's, they become the hallmarks of legitimacy and power. And as you said, with not much of a threat. Usually the popes have to ask for outside help to fight off these people when they won't play ball. So it is a really good point. I hadn't thought about that, like that before.

• 35:52Dan Snow?

  It's just such a match made in heaven for people. And obviously, as Roman Christianity's reintroduced to parts of South East England, kings like it because they can tap into clever monks and an international network of useful ideas and letter writing and diplomacy. And they get this kind of validation for their reign in a world in which the crown rested on the head fairly, it was quite vulnerable when you had the crown on the head in many parts of Europe in this period, right? So, and then popes and bishops like too, they got, well, they got the protection. State, they got royal protection. It's clever stuff.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  It's the birth of the Holy Roman Emperor. Yeah, the Holy Roman Emperor, the first one, Charlemagne, is exactly that dynamic. I'll protect you, I'll protect your lands. His dad did as well, Pep in the short. But please legitimise my rule and crown me Holy Roman Emperor. And that dynamic continues, ripples down centuries of, I'll back you up, but give me a little bit of that prestige.

• 36:42Dan Snow?

  And I really noticed that even in Protestant Britain during the king's coronation, I really was struck. The main takeaway from the coronation was, wow, a coronation is priests bossing the king around. Come over here, we're going to do another blessing. Right now, take that clothes on, put these clothes on. And it's like, all right, mate, come on. And that is why amazingly Napoleon crowned himself. I love that moment. He grabbed the crown in 1804, Napoleon crowned himself. He grabbed the crown off the pope and stuck it on his own head going, listen mate, you can come and be part of it, but I am crowning myself Emperor of the French. And I thought that was fascinating, a moment in Napoleon history. Listen, because I've got you, we've talked about the transition of pagan Rome to Christian Rome, and I feel, I know, I'm kind of understanding a lot more now.

• 37:24Dan Snow?

  There's a lot more popes to come, right down to the present day. In fact, we had two popes at the same time again recently. Just while you're here, give me some of your favourite popes, or popes that you feel have helped to ensure that this institution has survived. Is it the oldest continually running institution on earth, do we think?

• 37:40Speaker 05

  So I think the oldest is a coast to its original form. So I think the Japanese emperors, I've got into that fight before about whether actually that's an older institution. But I would say the pope is still sovereign of state. It might be the smallest state in the world, the Vatican state, but he is an independent sovereign. He still claims to be, you know, successor of Peter and head of the global Christians. And he's head of the Roman Catholic Church. So I think for being intact, it's the oldest. I always get slightly nervous when people ask me about favourite popes because it's such a mixed bag and and they're all a bit good and a bit bad. And we don't want to get into trouble endorsing historical figures. I think we've covered a lot of them. Another really great figure, who really understands what it is to be figurehead in Rome is Gregory the Great.

• 38:25Speaker 05

  Known for the missions, but you know, there's a one Wonderful moment that's recorded in sources and in contemporary chronicles of Gregory the Great. He's around the sixth century and Rome's had the worst year ever. There's been a plague, the plague has killed the Pope, snakes have come up the Tiber. A monster came up the Tiber. I'm not sure if that was a bit of exaggeration, but they're exaggerating because they've had a terrible year. And Gregory the Great walks with Romans through the centre of Rome on a pilgrimage to St Peter's, praying. And at this moment, when they're crossing the bridge and they see the old Mausoleum of Hadrian, they see an angel appear on top of it. Now, whether we believe that they saw an angel or not is sort of irrelevant.

• 39:07Speaker 05

  But I think it's an amazingly important moment because it shows the Pope acting as a figurehead and actually causing miracles in Rome for those people having a terrible year that transform Rome. Because the Muslim of Hadrian then becomes the Castile San Angelo, so the castle of the Holy Angel. And I think he's an important figure because he really understands that to be this powerful figure, to be this global figure, to be the Pope of Rome, you have to have a connection with the city, you have to have a connection with the people, you have to keep this pastoral role. And I think that's the kind of problem the papacy has in a way. Popes have got to be religious leaders who are seen to do the right thing and care about people.

• 39:48Speaker 05

  But at the same time, in order to do that, they've got to be head of this institution that's political, that at one time had to deal with trade, tax, waste, but has to meet heads of state. And they're sort of slightly contradictory roles at times. And I think that Gregory understood the importance of the pastoral aspect of that, of looking after people whilst also being a very powerful sort of political figurehead. So he's a fascinating character and a really important one we haven't talked about yet.

• 40:18Dan Snow?

  More popes after this, don't go away.

• 40:29Dan Snow?

  Most AI knows data. Toast IQ knows restaurants. It helps turn Detroit 75's numbers, plus what?

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Works across thousands of restaurants into insights we can actually use. That's AI that's worked a double without a lunch break. Visit toastapp.com to learn more. Pay testimonial from an actual toast customer.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day. Military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 41:26Dan Snow?

  He's a big one. He's a big one. What about just go through some of the famously terrible ones? I love a terrible pope.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  Oh, my gosh. So in the eighth, ninth century, 10th century, it gets really, really bad. And sadly, for better or for worse, it's a period that's not necessarily well known. And it's called the Seculum Obscurum by people, or the Pornocracy, which gives you a flavor. And so you get figures like Formosus. And Formosus the first, he was trying to become bishop all over Europe. He then sets his sight on the papacy and he offends so many people with his politicking. That seven months after he's dead, his successor digs him up and puts him on trial in the Lateran Palace. He's tried, he has a deacon defending him and he's found guilty. Surprise, surprise of all of these crimes. I know saying his successor is probably a pretty appalling one as well. I mean, digging up a dead pope and then trying him and then dumping him in the Tiber.

• 42:17Speaker 05

  It's not exactly exemplary behavior. But you get other figures like John the 12th, who was a very young pope. And he got the help of emperors in defending the city. And then when the emperor came and saved him, he then thought, oh, the emperor's too powerful. I don't want to rely on him. And he actually ended up siding with the person that the emperor had helped fight off. And he also ends up dying in bed with another man's wife. I mean, it's really seedy, some of this stuff. If you want the really bad popes, the eighth, ninth. Intense century is the place to go. But you also get sort of later down the line, even after the Renaissance, popes like Paul the Fourth, who puts the Jewish community of Rome, who predate Christians, into a ghetto where they stay for 300 years, you know, confined,

• 43:00Speaker 05

  limited to really lowly jobs and has a lasting, very negative legacy in the city in his quest to retain the purity, quote unquote, of Rome. So he's, he's a pretty extreme one. He has somebody boiled in a pot of oil in the Piazza Navona. You get popes who do really quite appalling things throughout the history of the church. And it really is this curse of being an institution where people are going to join for the wrong reasons. And also their religious body, they're to take care of people, apparently.

• 43:27Dan Snow?

  So hard for scholars like you, because I can't think of many other roles where you've got a figure who's a temporal leader. So they end up controlling Rome and the so-called Papal States, like they have a bit of an empire in central Italy at various periods. And then also leader of a global spiritual movement. I mean, it's complicated stuff.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, a bit of a curse, I'd say. I feel bad saying that because of course it's, it's remarkable and, and much good has come of it as well. But I think this is the real problem they face. Mussolini gave the Pope the Vatican State because the Pope said, I need to have my own state. I can't be subject to anyone else. So this role as a political figure is for the popes tied to their role as a religious figure. The vicar of Christ can't be told what to do by a King of Italy. Otherwise, he can't be the vicar of Christ. What if the King of Italy decides to change religion or just to disagree? And so the two are intertwined and it's a problem. I think it's a real challenge.

• 44:23Dan Snow?

  Well, in fact, I've been the last person to praise Mussolini, but in a way, wasn't that kind of a, quite a good decision from the church's point of view? Because they don't, although they are sovereign, it's the smallest possible scrap of territory. And they've been allowed to concentrate on their global religious role, their sacral role, rather than like making sure the bins get collected and you're sort of building roads and stuff, right? I mean, presumably that some people in the Catholic Church might miss those days. But from a sort of PR, from a, from a messaging point of view, is it rather nice that they can now concentrate on just being the vicar of Christ?

• 44:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it certainly saves them a lot of protest. There's a statue in Rome called Pasquino, or known as Pasquino, where Romans for centuries have posted little notes slagging off the popes and other people as well. Napoleon gets a few nasty mentions on there. And today, if you look at Pasquino, Romans still post little notes on there. He's just off the Piazza Navona. It's all about politicians, it's not about the popes. But it doesn't totally save the popes from the ire of Romans and people living in Rome, because it wasn't posted on Pasquino, but when Pope Francis made a decision that upset a certain sort of traditional group in the church a few years ago, there were posters overnight all over Rome saying, you know, how could you do this? Where's your mercy gone? You're trading our mercy.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  But it happens much less often, because there are fewer people who are engaged with the Pope in the same way, in any way. And also, as you say, it's spiritual. He gets to be a pastor, he gets to be all the nice stuff. And I'm sure it's not easy, but it's a lot easier than trying to defend your borders, control trade, keep people fed and not rising up, and being global head of Christians at the same time. So, yeah, I think there's definitely some truth in that.

• 46:06Dan Snow?

  Let's finish off, Jessica, by just thinking about the, some of the impact the Pope has had on the modern world. Not just, of course, the fact that I think Christianity is the biggest global religion, but things like the division of the Americas with the Papal Bulls. You know, like actually the Papacy has made gigantic decisions throughout history, some of which endure presumably, and you will have studied them all. But I mean, dividing up the new world between Spain and Portugal, and hence the Brazilians speaking Portuguese and much the rest of the Americas speaking Spanish. I mean, those are things that really matter.

• 46:39Speaker 05

  And it all comes down to that idea that the Pope's a useful figure, right? If you can get the Pope to endorse what you want to do, then you've got a bit of legitimacy there. I mean, Henry VIII takes a different course, but he asked Clement VII, first of all, can I get my marriage annulled? And he doesn't get the right answer, but people are going to the Pope in the 16th, 15th, 16th century. The Vatican, that hill, that dusty hill where Peter died, is the kind of hub of global diplomacy. People asking for the Pope's blessing for political decisions. And that moment where the Pope is legitimising, ratifying this colonisation of a land thousands and thousands of kilometres from Rome is a moment where you say, okay, wow, this prestige

• 47:23Speaker 05

  of Peter that Leo said will make Rome a much greater empire than it ever was when it relied on armies and triumphs and worldly prestige sort of is coming true. And it's remarkable. And I think that we see that legacy today where Emmanuel Macron recently went to the Vatican to talk to the Pope. He's the head of a secular republic, went there to talk to the Pope about the Ukraine war. I mean, most Catholics now live outside of Europe. You know, most people are not Catholic, they're not even practising Christians in Europe. And yet, people are still appealing to the Pope to say something. Trump wanted to present an image of friendship with the Pope, it mattered to him.

• 48:03Dan Snow?

  Well, that was astonishing. I don't think it's talked about enough. Trump's first foreign visit, well, he went to the Middle East, he went to Saudi Arabia weirdly, and then on that same first foreign visit, he went to see the Pope. It was astonishing. It was like William the Conqueror asking for the papal banner when he was invading England in 1066. Like, there is still this, it's this weird relationship where the Pope somehow confers some kind of spiritual stamp of approval. And in return, I guess, the papacy gets to look like a major world player. I mean, it's a strange symbiotic relationship.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  Exactly. And even Napoleon, who crowned himself, really, really wanted that blessing. And he got really angry with Pius VI and Pius VII because they said, no, we're not just going to unilaterally bless everything you do. But he recognised the power of that. And then he sort of chucks his toys out of the pram and says, I don't need the Pope anyway, you know, I didn't want it in the first place. But he really did want it. You know, it was only when the Pope didn't play ball and said, I'm successor of Peter, I don't need to approve every little thing you do, that he said, fine, I don't need you. But he wanted it, you know. And that's really why I wrote this book, is how did we get to this moment where we still care a little bit in a vague way? We might not shape our lives around it, but we still for some reason care. And what are the roots of that? And how did that start?

• 49:15Speaker 05

  And it started in Rome, in a pagan empire on a dusty hill. It's a good story, I think.

• 49:21Dan Snow?

  The Death of a Former Fisherman. It's an amazing story. It's an amazing story, beautifully told in your new book. Tell everyone what it's called.

• 49:27Speaker 05

  It's called City of Echoes.

• 49:30Dan Snow?

  Jessica, warmly, thank you very much for coming on Talking Mountain.

• 49:33Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  The Quarter Pounder with Cheese is made with 100% fresh beef, cooked when you order it. Then comes the melted cheese, the slivered onions, the pickles, the ketchup, and the mustard. Add hot crispy fries and an ice cold Coke, all for $8. And if things go well, one loose fry at the bottom of the bag. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, now $8. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

• 50:45Dan Snow?

  Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.