10 Strange Facts About Popes Throughout History

Over the past 2,000 years, there have been 267 popes, starting with Saint Peter in the 1st century AD. With so many centuries of papal history and so many men having held the high religious office, a few strange things have inevitably occurred over the years. From the accidental election of a pope who no one wanted to the pontiff who allegedly watched a bizarre sex show involving chestnuts, here are 10 of the weirdest facts about popes.

Related: Top 10 Popes Who Made The World A Better Place

10 The Father-and-Son Popes

Although it is often believed that popes should be celibate—and many of them were—there have been a fair few who were sexually active. You might think that the chances of one of these popes siring a future pope are low, but it has happened at least once. Before Pope Hormisdas became pontiff in 514, he was married and raised a son. In 536, that son became Pope Silverius, making them the only official father and son duo to have sat on the Chair of Saint Peter.

Although Hormisdas and Silverius are the only confirmed pair to have achieved this, there are a few other alleged father and son popes. For instance, 16th-century theologian and historian John Foxe wrote that Pope John X was thought to be the son of Pope Lando and “Theodora, a famous harlot of Rome.”^[10]

9 The Myth of Pope Joan

It’s well-known that women aren’t in the running for the papacy, but for hundreds of years, it was believed that a woman had once sneaked her way into the position. During the medieval period, it was thought that Pope Joan sat on the papal throne disguised as Pope John VIII. Her reign was alleged to have lasted from 855 to 858, and her ruse was apparently only discovered when she gave birth during a public procession (and she was then stoned to death).

The story got off the ground during the 13th century thanks to various Dominican writers, and it wasn’t long before her existence was accepted as a historical fact. A bust of her head was even displayed alongside other popes in Siena Cathedral, and Protestants sometimes used her as an argument against Catholicism.

It wasn’t until the 16th century that the story of Pope Joan started to be debunked as a myth. In reality, records show that Leo IV and Benedict III ruled during the period she was supposedly pontiff. And the real Pope John VIII didn’t begin his reign until 872.^[9]

8 The Pope Who Never Was

Another fictional pope who was believed to be real for many years is Pope Donus II. For around two centuries, it was thought that Donus II was the pontiff for a very brief period between the reigns of Benedict VI and Benedict VII during the 970s. There’s even a mosaic portrait of him in the gallery of popes in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Wall in Rome.

But Donus II never actually existed and only made it into papal history thanks to a Latin mistake. During the medieval period, a chronicler was going over the papal list and saw the phrase “Domnus de Sutri”—meaning lord or master of Sutri—next to Benedict VI’s name. The scribe mistook “domnus” for a proper name, rather than one of Benedict VI’s titles, and Pope Donus II was born.

Donus II was a legitimate pope in the eyes of the Holy See until 1947, when Vatican archivist Monsignor Angelo Mercati finally caught the error.^[8]

7 The Confusing Johns

John is the most popular papal name, with 21 popes having chosen the name so far. But the numbering of Pope John is rather confusing. The most recent Pope John is XXIII, which, if you know your Roman numerals, is 23—not 21 as might be expected. This is due to two reasons. Firstly, Pope John XVI was later declared antipope, so he isn’t included in the count, but his number wasn’t reused. Secondly, Pope John XXI skipped XX because, for many years, it was mistakenly thought that there was another John between XIV and XV. However, it turned out to be a clerical error.

To make matters even more confusing, there have actually been two pontiffs called Pope John XXIII. The first one reigned from 1410 to 1415, but was later declared an antipope. His number was then reused by Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli when he became pope in 1958.^[7]

6 The Hermit Pope Who Quit

Many Catholics see becoming pope as the highest possible honor, but Pope Celestine V had to be forced into the job. Celestine was born Pietro Angelerio and lived a hermetic existence in a cave on Mount Morrone. In 1292, Pope Nicholas IV died, and the conclave found itself unable to agree on his successor. For two years, they were in a deadlock between two candidates.

Angelerio grew tired of the situation and sent a strongly worded letter telling them to pick a pope or face divine punishment. Unfortunately, that put him on the Cardinals’ radar, and he seemed like the perfect solution to break the stalemate. Angelerio really didn’t want the job and even tried to run away, but the King of Naples and the Prince of Hungary found him and begged him to reconsider.

Angelerio relented and became Pope Celestine V, but his ascetic sensibilities didn’t match the ostentatious trappings of the papacy. Just five months later, he decreed that the pope had the right to resign and then promptly resigned.^[6]

5 The Accidental Pope

It can often take days—and sometimes even months and years—to select a new pope, with the cardinals in the conclave going through many rounds of voting before reaching the required two-thirds majority. However, in 1334, the conclave accidentally ended after just one round of voting.

In early rounds, cardinals sometimes deliberately vote for someone who has no hope of winning just so they can gauge which candidate is favored by others. But this voting method went awry when 11 of the 16 cardinals had the same idea and all coincidentally ended up choosing the same candidate who wasn’t seriously in the running: Jacques Fournier. None of them actually wanted him to be pope, but there’s no going back once that majority has been reached, so he became Pope Benedict XII.^[5]

4 The Triple Pope

Becoming pope tends to be a once-in-a-lifetime deal, but one pope—Benedict IX—managed to claim the title three separate times. He is also thought to have been the youngest person to be bestowed the title, becoming pope in 1032 at the age of just 20.

His first term ended in 1044 when he was deposed by a crowd who accused him of living an immoral lifestyle. His replacement, Sylvester III, only lasted four months because Benedict decided to retake the title by force (he had an army at his disposal). After going to all that effort to sit on the Chair of Saint Peter again, it only took Benedict a few weeks to decide that he’d actually rather get married. Instead of letting the conclave choose his successor, he offered the role to his godfather—who became Gregory VI—in exchange for money (which definitely isn’t allowed).

It wasn’t long before Benedict then decided that he’d quite like to be pope again, but Gregory didn’t want to move aside, and Sylvester was also back in the picture, claiming that he was pope. Holy Roman Emperor Henry III decided to depose all three of them and start fresh with Pope Clement II in 1046. But when he died in 1047, Benedict was ready to pounce and once again used force to take the papacy for the third time. He didn’t last long before he was finally excommunicated.^[4]

3 The Pope Who Wrote Smut

Before Enea Silvio Piccolomini became Pope Pius II in 1458, he was a politician and writer. Along with penning, in the words of historian John Julius Norwich, “a quantity of mildly pornographic poetry,” he also wrote an erotic novel, titled The Tale of Two Lovers. Although the book was finished in 1444, it wasn’t published until 1467—three years after he had died.
The story follows an affair between Lucretia, a married Italian noblewoman, and Euryalus, a member of the Duke of Austria’s entourage. It’s thought that the plot may have been based upon the real-life escapades of Pius II’s friend, Chancellor Kaspar Schlick.

The Tale of Two Lovers was fairly racy for its day—not only did it contain a woodcut image of the couple having sex (although it’s not explicit as they’re under the covers), it also included descriptions such as “generous breasts with swollen nipples like two pomegranates whose palpitations awakened desire.”^[3]

2 The Cadaver Synod

Posthumous trials are fairly rare occurrences, but the most famous example of such an event involved the corpse of Pope Formosus, whose gruesome trial is popularly known as the Cadaver Synod.

Formosus died on April 4, 896, and nine months later, Pope Stephen VI had his body exhumed so that it could sit on a throne in court during the trial that he had brought against him. The deceased pope’s corpse was even dressed up in ecclesiastical garb for the occasion. Stephen VI accused Formosus of usurping the papacy and, unsurprisingly, he was found guilty.

Everything that Formosus had done while in office was nullified (which is partly why Stephen VI held the trial in the first place), the fingers he used to perform blessings were cut off, and his body was thrown into the Tiber River.^[2]

1 The Banquet of Chestnuts

On October 31, 1501, a sex party—now known as the Banquet of Chestnuts—was hosted in the papal residence, the Apostolic Palace. The event was arranged by Pope Alexander VI’s eldest son, Cesare Borgia, and also took place in his chambers.

A first-hand account of the event from Johann Burchard, the pope’s master of ceremonies, explained that after dinner, “fifty honest prostitutes” danced for them, first clothed and then naked. He then wrote that “chestnuts were strewn around, which the naked courtesans picked up, creeping on hands and knees between the chandeliers, while the Pope, Cesare, and his sister Lucretia looked on.” The night then ended with prizes being announced “for those who could perform the act most often with the courtesans.”

The scandalous event was kept secret for several centuries, until Pope Leo XIII opened the Vatican Secret Archive in 1884. For the first time, Burchard’s diary was publicly available. Catholic historian Peter de Roo claimed that the description of such a “truly bestial” orgy was a lie that was “calculated to ruin the character of all the Borgias at once.” But historian Giles Milton argues that such a lascivious event is perfectly in keeping with the Borgias’ reputation. The family was known for corruption, incest, and murder. Alexander VI himself had five illegitimate children and even kept one of his mistresses in the papal palace.^[1]