List of popes by country

Last updated

Coat of Arms of the Holy See. Coat of arms Holy See.svg
Coat of Arms of the Holy See.

This page is a list of popes by country of origin. They are listed in chronological order within each section.

Contents

As the office of pope has existed for almost two millennia, many of the countries of origin of popes no longer exist, and so they are grouped under their modern equivalents.

Overview

There have been 266 popes:

Statistics table

NationalityNumber of popes
Africa Province (Roman Empire)3
Argentina 1
Asia Minor 2
Croatia (Kingdom of the Lombards)
Dalmatia
2
England 1
Kingdom of France (medieval)
French part of Holy Roman Empire
16
German part of Holy Roman Empire
Modern Germany
6
Roman Greece and Byzantine Greece 4
Italian Peninsula (see table below)217
Roman Galilee
Iudaea Province (Roman Empire)
Byzantine Palestine
3
Dutch part of Holy Roman Empire 1
People's Republic of Poland 1
Lusitania (Roman Empire) and Portugal 2
Roman Syria and Byzantine Syria 5
Spain (Valencia in the Crown of Aragon)2
Total266

Popes from the Western and Eastern Roman Empire

Byzantine Italy

Byzantine Sicily

Greece

Lusitania Province

Lusitania corresponds to present-day Portugal.

Roman Africa

Roman African Pope Miltiades. Pope miltiades.jpg
Roman African Pope Miltiades.

These popes are from the Roman province of Africa, which corresponds to the coastal parts of Tunisia, Libya and Algeria.

Roman and Byzantine Syria

Roman Dalmatia

Dalmatia was at the time part of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. It is now part of the modern Republic of Croatia.

Roman Galilee and Iudaea Province

Roman Italy

Roman Syria

Popes by nationality

The concept of nationality only arose during the Middle Ages.[ citation needed ]

Argentina

Austria

England

England is part of the modern United Kingdom.

France

French is the most common non-Italian papal ancestry. Sixteen popes have had French ancestry, all in the second half of the medieval era. The seven popes of the Avignon Papacy were French and are bolded. Since the end of the Avignon Papacy, no French person has been elected pope.

Kingdom of France (medieval)

French Pope Clement V. Clemente V cappellone degli Spagnoli.JPG
French Pope Clement V.

Holy Roman Empire

Germany

Holy Roman Empire

Federal Republic of Germany

Italy

The Italian Peninsula, from the beginning of the Middle Ages until the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, was divided into numerous city-states and other political entities. Among these, the Papal States was the birthplace of most of the popes. Other Italian states where more popes were born were the Republic of Venice, the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Milan and the Florentine Republic and its successor the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Ostrogothic Kingdom

Papal States

Kingdom of Naples

Italy in the Holy Roman Empire

Republic of Genoa

Republic of Venice

Venetian Pope Clement XIII. Anton Raphael Mengs - Portrait of pope Clement XIII, c. 1760.jpg
Venetian Pope Clement XIII.

Republic of Florence/Duchy of Florence/Grand Duchy of Tuscany

Duchy of Milan

Other Italian States

Kingdom of Italy (modern) and Italian Republic

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Spain

The Kingdom of Valencia was then part of the possessions of the Crown of Aragon; it is now part of modern Spain.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avignon Papacy</span> Period in the 14th century during which the Pope lived in Avignon, France

The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip forced a deadlocked conclave to elect the French Clement V as pope in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity" of the Papacy.

A jubilee is a special year of remission of sins, debts and universal pardon. In Leviticus, a jubilee year is mentioned to occur every 50th year; during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Schism</span> Split within the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417

The Western Schism, also known as the Papal Schism, the Great Occidental Schism, the Schism of 1378, or the Great Schism, was a split within the Roman Catholic Church lasting from 20 September 1378 to 11 November 1417, in which bishops residing in Rome and Avignon simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, and were eventually joined by a third line of Pisan claimants in 1409. The event was driven by international rivalries, personalities and political allegiances, with the Avignon Papacy in particular being closely tied to the French monarchy.

Decretals are letters of a pope that formulate decisions in ecclesiastical law of the Catholic Church.

<i>Patrologia Latina</i> 1841–1855 collection of Christian texts

The Patrologia Latina is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1841 and 1855, with indices published between 1862 and 1865. It is also known as the Latin series as it formed one half of Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus, the other part being the Patrologia Graeca of patristic and medieval Greek works with their medieval Latin translations.

A year of three popes is a year when the College of Cardinals of the Catholic Church is required to elect two new popes within the same calendar year. Such a year generally occurs when a newly elected pope dies or resigns very early into his papacy. This results in the Catholic Church being led by three different popes during the same calendar year. In one instance, in 1276, there was a year of four popes.

Papal coats of arms are the personal coat of arms of popes of the Catholic Church. These have been a tradition since the Late Middle Ages, and has displayed his own, initially that of his family, and thus not unique to himself alone, but in some cases composed by him with symbols referring to his past or his aspirations. This personal coat of arms coexists with that of the Holy See.

The Papal Mint is the pope's institute for the production of hard cash. Papal Mint also refers to the buildings in Avignon, Rome, and elsewhere that used to house the mint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cardinal-nephew</span> Nephew or relative of a pope appointed as a cardinal by him

A cardinal-nephew was a cardinal elevated by a pope who was that cardinal's relative. The practice of creating cardinal-nephews originated in the Middle Ages, and reached its apex during the 16th and 17th centuries. The last cardinal-nephew was named in 1689 and the practice was abolished in 1692. The word nepotism originally referred specifically to this practice, when it appeared in the English language about 1669. From the middle of the Avignon Papacy (1309–1377) until Pope Innocent XII's anti-nepotism bull, Romanum decet pontificem (1692), a pope without a cardinal-nephew was the exception to the rule. Every Renaissance pope who created cardinals appointed a relative to the College of Cardinals, and the nephew was the most common choice, although one of Alexander VI's creations was his own son.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto</span> Roman Catholic archdiocese in Italy

The Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church which received that name in 1986, when the two separate dioceses, which had been governed by one and the same bishop, were united in one diocese. The diocese of Chieti had become the Archdiocese of Chieti in 1526, when promoted by Pope Clement VII. Chieti is about 8 miles (14 km) south-west of the Adriatic port city of Pescara.

The term Extravagantes is applied to the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, to designate some papal decretals not contained in certain canonical collections which possess a special authority. More precisely, they are not found in Gratian's Decretum or the three official collections of the Corpus Juris Canonici.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orvieto and the popes</span>

Orvieto, Umbria, Italy, was the refuge of five popes during the 13th century: Urban IV (1261–1264), Gregory X (1271–1276), Martin IV (1281–1285), Nicholas IV (1288–1292) and Boniface VIII (1294–1303). During this time, the popes took up residence in the Papal Palace of Orvieto, which was adjacent to the Orvieto Cathedral and expanded onto the bishop's residence. None of these popes died in Orvieto, and thus no papal elections took place in there, nor are there any papal tombs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perugia Papacy</span>

Perugia was a long-time papal residence during the 13th century. Five popes were elected here: Pope Honorius III (1216–1227), Pope Clement IV (1265–1268), Pope Honorius IV (1285–1287), Pope Celestine V (1294), and Pope Clement V (1305–1314). These elections took place in the Palazzo delle Canoniche adjoining the Perugia Cathedral.

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted in the Bible. It is the largest religion in the world, with 2.4 billion people, known as Christians, that adhere to the religion.

This is a list of the lists of encyclicals which have been promulgated by Popes of the Catholic Church.

References

  1. western Libya, Tunisia, eastern Algeria
  1. "Crónica de los Papas": of P.G. Maxwell Stuart,
  2. "Vatican facts": of Nino Lo Bello,
  3. "Saints and Sinners": of historian Eamon Duffy
  4. Liber Pontificalis