February 25, 2013 • 39 mins
Long before Benedict XVI's resignation, Benedict IX resigned. Benedict IX was one of the youngest (and most notorious) men ever to become pope, and his abuse of power was legendary. He became pope three times and sold the title at one point.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello, Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Fair Dowdy, and we are
at an interesting times in the news because Pope Benedict
(00:23):
has resigned and he has been at sixteen and this
has made a lot of people have that magical question
of can popes do that? Has this happened before? Yeah,
the answers are yes and yes, well, and it's made
people look back at the past you in a way
that I'd say your average newspapers don't usually do. Right,
there have been a lot of interesting, you know, kind
(00:44):
of quickly put together news stories on No there have
been other popes that have resigned here they are, uh,
and they're usually very quick, sort of glossy versions because
they're trying to pack a quick sort of sound bite
into each one. But one of them, in particular, there
was also a Benedict and he is quite an interesting story. Uh.
(01:07):
You know, the Real Housewives have nothing on him. I
mean there's some serious depravity and drama at play to
wade through. And he was pope during what's considered a
really dark time of the papacy. Um, I think many
theologians and historians would be just as happy if they
(01:28):
didn't have to acknowledge that period. This period, it really
is not it has not nothing really to do with
religion at that point. It's all about politics and power.
There's really not much piety to be found. And we've
covered a few periods like that on the podcast, and
um oh you know the borgap Hope right, also not
a super great chapter, or the Senate of Corpses that
(01:52):
was a really bad time in the eight hundreds, and
they seem to produce some of the most interesting characters
and the most fascinating stories. But yes, clearly very dark
periods from time to time in papal history. Yeah, which
is I mean natural with any seat of power that
eventually people with less than ideal goals and interests are
(02:13):
going to want those seats of power. And so at
this time, uh, you know, simony was really rampant, and
most wealthy families like their whole goal was just to
secure a seat for one of their family members in
the hierarchy of the Catholic Church because it wasn't just
a powerful religious position, it's a powerful ruling position. Yeah. Uh,
(02:36):
and Benedict the ninth is the pope we're gonna talk
about today, and his resignation is sometimes cited as the first,
although in a fuzzy way. They're like, this is the
first we really have records of in terms of what happened.
There were some that are thought to have resigned prior
to that, but the records just aren't there. There's not
(02:57):
enough enough evidence, it's not enough writing has survived that
they can really pinpoint hard evidence on any of those.
So he kind of he Sometimes you'll see him referenced
in particularly like these new news articles that have popped
up because of the current pope's resignation. They'll say he
was the first to resign, but there's probably not the case.
This is a good, good guy to start the list with.
(03:21):
You got to really get in there with a bang.
But fortunately there is a lot of information, although information
that sometimes kind of controversial about dates and what exactly
went down. But there is a lot on Benedict the
Ninth personally, because he is so fascinating and revolting at
(03:41):
the same time. He's one of those and there's a
strong modern text on him. Reginald L. Pools text on
Benedict the ninth and also Gregory the six for the
British Academy in nine is considered basically the definitive source
on his life, right Yeah, and it's um available online.
(04:02):
You could even just google Reginald Pool and Benedict nine
and it'll probably come up there. Our PDFs available at
a few different places. And it's not long. It's about
fifty eight pages. It's kind of a two parter because
he ends up after he published his first big part
of it, or he completed it. There was another scholar
working on similar things and that caused him to kind
of revise some of his information based on new data.
(04:25):
But really Pool is what every newspaper writer that's trying
to dig up information goes to. And he was really
exhaustive in comparing different contemporary accounts that were going on
because different, you know, monks in different places were writing
this as an effort to keep the history well in
writing it with different motives to different motives. Different information,
(04:47):
I mean information had traveled to them often by word
of mouth, and that was colored by some of the
people carrying that information, whether the person that recounted it
in writing knew that or not, or was taking that
into account. We can't is now, so they're not all consistent.
But Pool, as I said, really went through all of them,
and he would even compare them to existing scientific logs
(05:09):
of the days, like in some they will um site
there was an earthquake that happened in the midst of
all of this, and if they get that date right,
he'll kind of give them a little more credence. But
if there are a couple that kind of use different events.
I think there was an eclipse at one point, and
there's one writer in particular that's a little sloppy with
the dates and kind of uses them to dramatic effect
(05:30):
and to say like, this is not a credible source.
This guy can't be trusted. You can trust you on
the crazy Yeah, almost exactly how he words it, just
slightly more stilted language. Uh. So he really did kind
of break it all down and analyze it. And according
to Pool, the Libre Pontificus, which may almost be called
(05:52):
The Lives of the Popes, is not at our disposal.
It ends abruptly in the last decade of the ninth century,
and is not resumed in a form deserving name of
an historical narrative until ten seventy three. So unfortunately, that's
right where Benedict was the dead zone where they're the
information was really not being recorded, and there have been
(06:16):
some theories that, um, some of that was expunged on purpose,
some of that has been destroyed purposely because it was
such a dark time. This is what exactly the kind
of stuff you would want to get rid of if
you did have the power to go back through that archive. Yes,
and as a consequence to you, even uh, some of
the there's not all that much information on some of
(06:36):
the things Benedict did while he held the position of pope. Now,
part of that is just like the power play of
you know, the next guys in line kind of want
to erase the work of a previous one. But most
of it really is kind of an embarrassment issue. They
want to let's forget some of those things that happened
because they're really not in the best interest of the church. Well,
(06:58):
part of the problem is that Benedict the Nine comes
to the papal throne at a remarkably young age. That's
probably the first shocking point in this story. He was
born the Aphilactus tusculum um and he was one of
(07:20):
the youngest popes. You'll see records saying that he was
only about eleven or twelve. That's according to a Benedictine chronicler,
when his father secured this post for him through bribery.
But that's fallen out of favor, and now historians generally
agree that he was between eighteen and twenty years old
when he became pope for the very first time in
(07:43):
ten thirty two. Still remarkably young. Yeah, that's an incredible
young age. I mean, we hear about kings and other
monarchs that are given of course they inherited tiny but
usually they have someone to sort of stand in for them,
whereas this is definitely a case where they were like, nope,
(08:05):
this is your son. I look how I arranged this
for you. I got you elected. I talked to the
right people and did some favors for for a position. Normally, uh,
normally one through a lifetime of work and making connections
and a certain seriousness that you would project that you're
not going to have at eighteen, but as we established,
(08:27):
not really in this period of the papacy, unfortunately. So
he also had some family connections. This was not an
out of the Blue. His father managed to bribe his
son into the papal throne because the preceding two popes
where his uncle's. It was Benedict the eighth and Pope
(08:48):
John the nineteen. So they were keeping it in the family.
They were, and like you were just saying, too with
kings or emperors or what not, inheriting a position. It
was very much being treated as though being pope were
a position similar to to being king that could be
passed on through the family. Yeah. Um, And so Benedict
(09:11):
first takes what's called the Sea of Peter by some
you'll hear the papacy referred to. I'm sure Mr our
listeners know is as with various names, the chair of Peter,
the throat of Peter, uh, the sea, sometimes sometimes just
the papacy, sometimes just the chair. There are a lot
of different names for it that come up in different texts. Um.
But this first run at the papacy, and we'll get
(09:34):
back to why this is only the first one. For
Benedict was really debaucherous. I mean, there are some that
say that he really kind of went out of his
way to hit all of the seven deadly sins. He
There are various accounts, not so much like direct chronicling
(09:55):
of things he did, but accusations and kind of derogatory remarks.
Quotes really speak for themselves. Uh yeah, Ferdinande Gregor Gregor,
Gregor rovious, I'm so sorry. Who was a later scholar.
He was in the eighteen hundreds when he was writing this,
but based on his studies, he chose to describe Benedict
(10:15):
as a demon from Hell in the disguise of a priest.
It's pretty bad. The Catholic Encyclopedia called him quote a
disgrace to the chair of Peter uh and Bishop Benno
of Piacenza accused him of many viole adulteries and murders.
And then in Pope Victor the Third's Book on Dialogues
(10:38):
he was pope shortly after this period ten eighties six
to ten eight seven um, he referred to quote his
rates murders and other unspeakable acts. His life as a
pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I
shudder to think of it. That's serious, juju, that's that's strong.
(10:59):
Where words all around, and there are a lot of
rumors about what kind of activities were going on to
produce quotes like this, to produce judgments like this. The
gentlest at the top of the list is that he
actively participated in simony, except except not too. I mean
we should we should make it clear too. That's about
(11:20):
as bad as it can get for a for a
pope to be selling off clerical positions, which is how
he got the position in the first place, in some ways,
you know, through bribery. It wasn't direct. But oh, we'll
get to the bigger chunk of simony later. If you've
listened to the Dante's Circle of Hell episode Dante Inferno
Dante's Inferno, there are quite a few folks in there
(11:42):
because of simony. So that's pretty serious. Um. Others are
just more shocking, m mainly that he was familiar with
many prostitutes across Italy. Yeah. Uh. He is also rumored
to have hosted frequent orgies and to have participated in bestiality.
(12:02):
And this one almost seems so extreme that you think
it has to be like the gossip columns of the day.
But he allegedly would curse God and toast the devil
at his meals. It does seem like that would be
pushing it even for the you know, the run up
of the other the other things he's rumored that makes
(12:23):
him such a sort of mustache twirling villain at that point.
But we don't know, because he clearly didn't seem terribly
interested in the religious role that he was supposed to
take his pope. That really wasn't his thing to be
religious leader. He just wanted the power, yeah, And ultimately
that offended people too much. It was it was too
wrong what he was doing. One or gy too many
(12:46):
pushed it over the edge, and toward the end of
ten four Roman townsman rose up against him and drove
him out of town. Um this left on the first
time this had happened. Now, there was a very brief
uprising in ten thirty six, but it really didn't have
much ground swell, and it was beaten down almost immediately.
(13:07):
I mean, they don't even most records don't even cite
that as as him leaving the papacy. He did leave Rome,
there's theoretically it was just too you know, for safety,
but he wasn't really removed from his seat at any point.
So the ten forty four rebellion was the real deal.
That for sure he was driven out of town and
(13:28):
a new pope was actually elected. John the Bishop of Sabina,
who became Sylvester the Third, was the new pope in
his place, although Sylvester is often referred to as an
anti pope because of course Benedict is still out there
um doing who knows what. But Sylvester only held the
(13:51):
title of pope for forty nine days and then was
deposed again Benedict was restored. It's a lot of back
and forth here, and sir, to shake up the confidence
people had in this most holy, very powerful office. Yeah,
and to further shake the ground if anyone had any
(14:13):
faith in Benedict as a pope. Uh. He didn't stick
around that second time. Very off, very long he um.
And there is some debate. A lot of times it
cited as a three week rain um. In pools analysis,
he ends up calling it one month and twenty one days,
and he bases that on some of the the rules
that happened at the time about when a pope could
(14:36):
actually be um, you know, through official ceremony seated. Uh So,
I think he calculated it one month and twenty one days,
but it's entirely possible that it was three weeks in
when he made the proclamation that he was out of
there again. Um, because the second time around is even
more extraordinary than just being to post. Yeah. So remember that,
(14:58):
simhy we talked about all ago. Uh, he sold the
seat of pope. You can't get more brazen than that.
It is very brazen. It's not to say it's right,
but it's one thing to like take a bribe under
the table for another seat, but to just say I
would like a large time of money so you can
(15:19):
be pope please. However, there is maybe not such a
level of yuckiness about this one. Well, it depends on
how you look at it. So he was exactly he
was selling it to his godfather again keeping things through
too close. Um, his his godfather, who ultimately became Gregory
(15:42):
the Six. But Gregory the Six is looked at from
a few different perspectives, and some suggest that he wasn't
doing this just because he wanted the power. He wanted
to be pope and while conveniently my godson is going
to be willing to sell it to me. Um. Some
suggest that he was doing this in as a noble attempt,
(16:04):
that he saw a chance. Oh I few you know,
we can get this important holy position out of this
completely unsuitable guy's hands. And this is not a great
way to go about it, but it works. And there's
actually one account that I read that suggested that Benedict
actually went to his godfather for advice because he was
(16:27):
tired of the papacy. He didn't want to rule anymore,
and he wasn't sure if he was allowed to just
step down, and that uh, his godfather suggested, no, no,
that's totally fine. But then Bennett, when Benedict was like, well,
what am I going to do? I don't I have
to continue living. I need an income. Hint hint, right,
(16:48):
and that that kind of was the genesis of this deal. Uh,
but yeah, there have there are some texts that suggests
that Gregory the sixth was in fact not so great
that he you know, he was accused of a lot
of crimes, but most of those have kind of been
discredited as gossip and jealousy rumors. Um, it's definitely as
(17:12):
the years have gone on and as it unfolds. Uh,
in just a few moments, you'll hear how his his
papacy unfolds, it does kind of seem like he maybe
was not the terror. You know, he was not continuing
the reign of terror that his godson had begun by
any means. Benedict's reason to leave, though, again falls into
(17:34):
his shocking life story, but it also seems so much
tamer too then and a lot of the earlier stuff.
It's because he wanted to get married. Um, although it
doesn't seem as though it was some star cross lovers story. No,
he wanted to marry one of his cousins. It sounds
seedy to us today, but it was much more common then,
(17:55):
keeping on. The families were huge, and sometimes cousins weren't
always like it wasn't as closely related as we think
of cousin's name. They would call people that were like
third and fourth cousins removed. Yeah, this was actually a
cousin's father had promised the daughter, so you know, some
sort of cousin relationship there. Um, he'd promised his daughter's
(18:16):
hand to Benedict on the condition that he resigned. He
seems obvious, right, um, but retracted that promise after Benedict
really did step down. Because of course, Benedict, who's not pope,
kind of just a guy with the bribe now well,
and I mean, this is strictly conjecture on my part,
but I have to wonder if that wasn't, you know,
(18:39):
possibly some other person that was trying to use any
leverage they had to get this horrible person out of
a seat of power. No, I will give you my
daughter if you step down. And then to the daughter,
he is probably like, I'm totally not doing this. We
just just play along for the next couple of months
and we'll see how this works out. Like it'll be fine.
This is our historical conjection. That's completely jecture on my part.
(19:01):
But I also have, like she said, it's so tame.
Why would this man who apparently you know, conduct these
huge theaters of sexual exploit suddenly be interested in basically
like a country made. It doesn't really make a lot
of sense. We don't know where I guess um. But
(19:22):
the end of Gregory's time on the chair of Peter
is pretty fuzzy too, and there's there's kind of a
take back. Possibly the marriage for whatever reason, didn't really
work out. The marriage plan fell through because the fathers
were sending the offer, and so, according to some accounts,
(19:43):
Benedict after that decided, well, I want to be Pope again,
take that back. Um. Some accounts also suggest that Sylvester
the Third still was laying claim to the pope's chair,
so he was still in the picture, was still a
faction supporting him um, and was still completely ready to
take the reins if opportunity presented itself. Uh. And in
(20:07):
the midst of this, Gregory when and met with King
Henry UM. And King Henry had not yet been crowned
the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He was still right,
he's uh king of Germany and was going to be crowned,
but it had not happened yet. Uh. And he Henry
crossed the Alps so that he could come and have
a pow wow and tried to restore some order in
(20:30):
Italy because news was reaching him all the time of
how corrupt things had become and how big of a
mess had happened in this whole crazy Benedict situation had
been playing out. So he crossed the Alps and went
down into Italy to meet with Gregory and Uh. In
Pool's research, reliable accounts relate that Gregory was received as
a pope honorably. You know. It was a very magnanimous
(20:54):
meeting of the minds, because there has been some speculation
that King Henry the Third just came in and was like,
wait a minute, you totally can't sell this office, like
you're out of here. But it wasn't quite as he
was treating. There wasn't a SmackDown on Gregory. It was
definitely much more of like, we have to figure this
situation out because it's not okay, but I'm willing to
(21:15):
meet you and discuss this. It's not okay to have
Benedict photogram Sylvester the third, and so now there are
three people laying claim to the papacy. It's not Although
some church in the timeline don't include Um Sylvester so
much in this Some it's like he just floated off
into the ether and was never heard from again. But
(21:36):
others say that he was indeed waiting in the wings
and still, you know, making noise that he would happily
take the share feeder if his faction were to you
come into power. So a synod was summoned, which is
a meeting of a council of high ranking church officials
(21:57):
UM near Rome, and they were just going to figure
the situation out, discussed the matter at hand, and talked
to all of the the men who were laying claimed
to the seat and figure out what was best for
the church. Benedict decided he wasn't going to show, you know,
any part of that noise because there was uh, you know,
(22:18):
the very high likelihood that he would be found guilty
of Simon. He clearly it was about his problems, so
he decided not to appear at that Uh. The result, though,
was that Sylvester was stripped of his rank, um, sent
into Exalis, sent to a monastery, UM, taken taken out
(22:40):
of the power map there and then Gregory did confess
to to the purchase of his place as the head
of the church UM and some records say that at
that point he resigned. He deposed himself. Yeah, like he
acknowledged that it was what he did was wrong, not right,
and sinful, but that he was trying trying to create
(23:01):
positive change, but that he couldn't legitimately be pope going forward. Others, though,
say that that was not his idea at all. He
was deposed by the council, right and there is um.
Some historians debate that that's just a matter of kind
of semantics, It's just the wording of the documents because
they have to rank it as a as the deposed,
(23:25):
and so whether he did it or not was kind
of neither here nor there in terms of the legal
ease of the documents, but that there are several accounts
that suggest that he was. He almost behaved stupidly by
going I totally bribed my way into the seat like
I did that. They're like, why would you say why,
I'm not really intending to do this. This is I'm
just trying to fix things. And that was the only
(23:46):
tool I had at hand. So those three guys, so
all three of them are out, They're all out, and
a new guy is then a German bishop this time. Yeah,
and King Henry the Third he was not concering to
the third first choice, and King Henry the Third could
not really uh participate in the election of the next
(24:08):
pope because he was not the emperor yet had a
strong interest in it, though he did and allegedly the
council members and even some reports suggest the people of
Rome kind of begged him, will you please, you know,
help us find the right person to this job. This
has been a mess, and you know, as part of
(24:28):
our efforts to clean things up, we would like you
to suggest somebody. His first choice was like, I don't
want to do this job. That helps a little too
intense for me. Um. Yeah, his first choice was aled Bert,
who was Archbishop of Bremen, but he refused and in
turn he suggested Um Switzer, who was a German bishop,
(24:51):
and he became the new pope. It does seem I mean,
you can't question somebody. Somebody's concerned over taking this at
this point, Um, despite the power that you might be
able to wield. Um. Just a side note, though, the
involvement of Henry, this German interest Um did give birth
(25:13):
to this whole series of other dramas, problems in fighting,
lots of topics for you and Tracy to handle. Sunday
going out down the road. Real popes the next the
next phase of people who wanted to reform how things
were done. We're like, wait, wait, wait, you can't get
government officials involved in how the churches run. The papacy
(25:34):
runs on its own. It's its own, you know, it's
kind of siloed. Um power seats and you should not
have kings telling you who becomes pope. So if some
people questioned UM at the time, I think it was
a little bit more accepted just because they were They
were breathing a sigh of relief, like, oh, okay, we
have this Benedict mess straightened out. Um, Clement too is
(25:57):
in and we're just going to move forward from here.
But that sewed the seeds though of some later problems. However, Yeah,
things aren't over yet. So this center was taking place
December by ten, Clement the Second is dead, possibly poisoned,
(26:18):
possibly Uh. There's no definitive proof. There has been some
uh postulation and rumor that Benedict the ninth may have
poisoned Clement. Uh. And in bone samples of Clement Too
were tested and there were really high levels of lead found,
which could be from poisoning or it could have been
(26:40):
inadvertent because at the time UM wine making involved the
use of something called letharge, which is a sweetener that's
a form of lead. Uh. And you could cumulatively have
been drinking wine and building up lead poisoning over the
course of years, well especially after of life in religious
(27:03):
orders dealing with UM. So, Clement died, whether from poison
or other reasons. UM Benedict the nine may have been involved.
We don't know what we do know is that he
seized Rome and the title of pope for himself yet again.
(27:24):
This is time number three after Clement. I mean, maybe
that's what he was hoping at this point, grown up
a little bit um, But he did that November of
ten seven, shortly after Clement died. Within a year though
driven out of town yet again, and finally a second
(27:44):
German pope, this time Densists. The second was installed into
the pit position November. So pretty high turnover rate in
these immediate years with benedict been up three separate times.
His second to see were very short. But even so, man,
(28:07):
that's some tenacity. Yeah, so keep going after that thing.
It's mine, it's mine, my dad got it for I
guess there's only one resignation in there, and that's the
middle one. But it's these final years that I've been
seeing some accounts of in the in the newspaper paper articles.
You're talking about detailing all the resigned popes. What did
(28:28):
he do in these final years, because that's what people
are clearly interested in in the current situation too. What
is the current Pope benedict Um doing. I think he's
announced to lead a life of seclusion, retirement um and
Benedict the nine. It depends again on on different accounts.
(28:48):
Some accounts say he never lost the desire, you know,
he was always hoping to get back in there. But
others say that he didn't turn to h to a
life of quiet reflection eventually. Yes, Abbot Luke, who was
an abbot at the Abbey of Grata Ferrata um I,
wrote an account that suggested that the pontiff turned from
(29:11):
his sin and he turned to Bartholomew, who was the
abbey's fourth abbot, for a remedy for what he perceived
to be his disorders that were driving him to you know,
all of this sort of really extreme living. And Bartholomew's
advice led Benedict to finally resign the pontificate and say,
I acknowledge, I acknowledge I'm not pope anymore. I'm not
(29:33):
going to be pope again. Um. And that the you know,
the former pope then allegedly died penitent, and that he
had spent the rest of his life kind of reflecting
and meditating and praying on everything that had gone wrong. Yeah,
and he died. He didn't die until ten sixty five,
(29:55):
So that puts him, um, right around fifty ish, So
we don't have a hard number on how old he
was when he took the throne in um the early
ten thirties, but you know, probably longer than you're expecting.
After that's almost half the rumor, that's almost twenty years
(30:16):
after the final outstaying, which is a long time to
think about what he'd done. I um uh, you know,
we always hope, but whether he reformed at the end
or not didn't really matter. Historically, his papacy is regarded
as like the most shameful in or one of the
(30:39):
most shameful in the history of the Chair of Peter
for all the obvious reasons we've discussed. Now, yeah, it's
quite clear drama. I'm surprised there haven't been more, um
you know, film adaptations and mores of it. I wonder
now with the with the b and the int ist
(31:00):
in that family, there will be renewed interest mining the
people history. People start taking a look at some of
these older popes with truly wild stories, um, because it
is fascinating and I always think that a position like this, um,
that the importance it has for so many people, um,
(31:23):
the the people of Rome rising up to drive this
guy out of town because it is so shameful and
so upsetting. Um, it's a pretty fascinating position to to
look at and to look at some of the people
who didn't live up to expectation. Yeah. Well, and I mean,
(31:44):
you know, we see it through the lens of modernity,
but they're more than a billion Catholics now. And I
think if a current pope suddenly like these sorts of
stories were circulating about really any significantly established religion and
their leader, there would be some crazy news coverage like
it would be insane. I mean, there are always instances
(32:07):
where you hear of like tiny little kind of cult
like groups that have bizarre things that going on that
are going on, but someone with that much power in
that followers and exactly a global influence. That's it's a
lot to think about someone that corrupt having that much
influence over so many people. And it wasn't a billion then,
but still the numbers of the world, it was a
(32:32):
set of significant influence. So yeah, I mean, it's a
it's an interesting story and it's something something to think
about too, and following the current resignation, uh and and
just the history behind that. I always find that really
fascinating to when, um, when a modern news story makes
(32:54):
everybody turn back and reflect a little bit on on
what's come before. And I think probably most of people
we could agree that resigning due to to age and
an understanding of mental and physical decline. It seems so
tame and it's completely reason when you see it against
(33:15):
this backdrop of I want to go marry my cousin. Yes,
also maybe take some money from some people. Don't think
that would fly, It really would not, So Benedict's fascinating. Uh,
thanks for the entertainment, Benedict. I'm glad I did not
live at a time when you were influencing my world.
So I also have a bit of a listener mail
(33:36):
for us, and this comes from listener Helena or Helena,
I don't know which one, but I hope one of
those is right, and it says dear missed in history.
The whole time I was listening to your podcast on
Walter Potter and Texidermy, I couldn't stop thinking about that
chartist bart Jensen's recent work in which he took his
beloved and recently deceased cat Orville and gave him a
(33:58):
new life as a Copter. I know this work. As
the article in Forbes points out, yes, there is a
connection between the name Orville and the Wright brothers. This
article also names drop name drops Damien Hurst with his
use of dead animals in art, and does a nice
quick job of pointing out our own human discrepancies and
how we decide what is appropriate use of animals in
their afterlives. I wonder what the Victorians would have thought
(34:20):
if Walter Potter made a flying cap. I'm actually from
North Carolina, home of the Rights, but have been living
in Amsterdam for the past three years. When Orville had
his first flight in the gallery here, the video went
viral and there was a lot of public opinion against it,
which boiled down to poor Kitty. While I could agree,
I think it's interesting how most people don't blink an
eye walking through the meat aisle of the grocery store,
(34:41):
or think of wearing a leather jacket as equal to
parading around in the flesh of a dead animal. Stone
together a bit of a gruesome description. Sorry, I really
think that part of what makes all orvile so threatening
and offensive to people is this idea of automating the dead,
but just fascinating. I mean, we have everybody sort of
has their own relationship with the afterlife and their own
sort of ways of dealing with the passing of things. Uh,
(35:06):
you know, I couldn't do that to one of my pets.
But tell us more, tell us more about the helicopter,
because oh so if you haven't seen this, um, now,
all the listeners right now are saying, now, wait, a
lot of them have seen it, because it really did
go everywhere. If you haven't seen this. Basically, he the
cat was sort of flat ish and he had his
(35:28):
legs splayed out and Jansen kind of hooked him up.
I think it was radio controlled, so he had an
RC unit that he could fly it on, and he
basically could fly the cat around like a remote control plane.
And it's a little bit startling. I mean it's one
he's not in like a normal cat position. And too,
(35:51):
I mean I think people kind of had that reaction
of that's profane because it's your deceased pet, and you know,
for some people, pets are like family and you wouldn't
do that to a family member. I saw lots of
that argument going on online. Um. Others were like, no,
this is his way of honoring his pet, and to
him this makes sense. And I mean, you can't dictate
(36:12):
how someone grieves for the loss of anything. So I
know it's because we just talked about popes now, but
I can't stop thinking about the cadavers in as a
as a universally considered bad idea something to do. Yeah,
I mean it's east person. I think for a lot
of a lot of people, it's just creepy too retain
(36:35):
the deceased in that manner. We talked about that with
Walter Potter, and yeah, how there is a creepy factor involved,
I don't know, because I will say this like when
I was first introduced to Walter Walter Potter, I remember
my first reaction being more one of fascination, and then
I had that moment of creepy but still really fascinating,
Whereas it kind of went opposite with Jansen's work, where
(36:57):
I went to creepy, wait a kind of I'm trying
to see what he's doing. Oh no, I still having
a hard time getting over the creepy. So I don't
know if it's just the use of small accessories and
tableau that makes Potter's work a little bit more palatable.
There's a sweetness to it, or is this is a
little bit more kind of I don't know. It's there's
(37:21):
an in your face element to it that is a
little bit harder. I think for people to kind of
cope with it's neat to be able to put this
thought at continuum sort of from Potter's work. Yeah, things
that disturbed but amazed people in this space. They're still
going on today. Oh yeah. Taxidermy, I think is going
to continue to be controversial for a long time. I
(37:44):
mean it happens in resorts even now, like they're hunting
lodges that have questioned some of their decor. That is
very natural to have in a hunting lodge, like when
you have mounted heads, but there are guests that will
complain and say that that's not what they're there for.
They're there for you know, cocyner cozy coco into noow
time and they don't want to look at dead things.
And it kind of comes down to everybody has their
(38:08):
own reaction and you can't dictate how someone is going
to feel about a thing like that. All you can
do is make your best decisions on how you handle
it and hope everybody else is okay or doesn't mind
just leaving you alone to do your thing. Well, thank
you Helena or Helena for passing on that note. That's
a really smart comparison. Yeah, it's a really astute point
(38:31):
to pull together. If you guys want to email anything
similar or your takes on the current pip or resignation
and how you're connecting that to history, you can email
us that. We're at History Podcast at Discovery dot com.
We're also on Twitter at mist in history, and we
are in Facebook and if you want to learn a
(38:54):
little bit more about popes in general, we do have
an article called how the pay to do work and
that'll give you pull rundown, So check that out on
our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
(39:16):
that how stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello, Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Fair Dowdy, and we are
at an interesting times in the news because Pope Benedict
(00:23):
has resigned and he has been at sixteen and this
has made a lot of people have that magical question
of can popes do that? Has this happened before? Yeah,
the answers are yes and yes, well, and it's made
people look back at the past you in a way
that I'd say your average newspapers don't usually do. Right,
there have been a lot of interesting, you know, kind
(00:44):
of quickly put together news stories on No there have
been other popes that have resigned here they are, uh,
and they're usually very quick, sort of glossy versions because
they're trying to pack a quick sort of sound bite
into each one. But one of them, in particular, there
was also a Benedict and he is quite an interesting story. Uh.
(01:07):
You know, the Real Housewives have nothing on him. I
mean there's some serious depravity and drama at play to
wade through. And he was pope during what's considered a
really dark time of the papacy. Um, I think many
theologians and historians would be just as happy if they
(01:28):
didn't have to acknowledge that period. This period, it really
is not it has not nothing really to do with
religion at that point. It's all about politics and power.
There's really not much piety to be found. And we've
covered a few periods like that on the podcast, and
um oh you know the borgap Hope right, also not
a super great chapter, or the Senate of Corpses that
(01:52):
was a really bad time in the eight hundreds, and
they seem to produce some of the most interesting characters
and the most fascinating stories. But yes, clearly very dark
periods from time to time in papal history. Yeah, which
is I mean natural with any seat of power that
eventually people with less than ideal goals and interests are
(02:13):
going to want those seats of power. And so at
this time, uh, you know, simony was really rampant, and
most wealthy families like their whole goal was just to
secure a seat for one of their family members in
the hierarchy of the Catholic Church because it wasn't just
a powerful religious position, it's a powerful ruling position. Yeah. Uh,
(02:36):
and Benedict the ninth is the pope we're gonna talk
about today, and his resignation is sometimes cited as the first,
although in a fuzzy way. They're like, this is the
first we really have records of in terms of what happened.
There were some that are thought to have resigned prior
to that, but the records just aren't there. There's not
(02:57):
enough enough evidence, it's not enough writing has survived that
they can really pinpoint hard evidence on any of those.
So he kind of he Sometimes you'll see him referenced
in particularly like these new news articles that have popped
up because of the current pope's resignation. They'll say he
was the first to resign, but there's probably not the case.
This is a good, good guy to start the list with.
(03:21):
You got to really get in there with a bang.
But fortunately there is a lot of information, although information
that sometimes kind of controversial about dates and what exactly
went down. But there is a lot on Benedict the
Ninth personally, because he is so fascinating and revolting at
(03:41):
the same time. He's one of those and there's a
strong modern text on him. Reginald L. Pools text on
Benedict the ninth and also Gregory the six for the
British Academy in nine is considered basically the definitive source
on his life, right Yeah, and it's um available online.
(04:02):
You could even just google Reginald Pool and Benedict nine
and it'll probably come up there. Our PDFs available at
a few different places. And it's not long. It's about
fifty eight pages. It's kind of a two parter because
he ends up after he published his first big part
of it, or he completed it. There was another scholar
working on similar things and that caused him to kind
of revise some of his information based on new data.
(04:25):
But really Pool is what every newspaper writer that's trying
to dig up information goes to. And he was really
exhaustive in comparing different contemporary accounts that were going on
because different, you know, monks in different places were writing
this as an effort to keep the history well in
writing it with different motives to different motives. Different information,
(04:47):
I mean information had traveled to them often by word
of mouth, and that was colored by some of the
people carrying that information, whether the person that recounted it
in writing knew that or not, or was taking that
into account. We can't is now, so they're not all consistent.
But Pool, as I said, really went through all of them,
and he would even compare them to existing scientific logs
(05:09):
of the days, like in some they will um site
there was an earthquake that happened in the midst of
all of this, and if they get that date right,
he'll kind of give them a little more credence. But
if there are a couple that kind of use different events.
I think there was an eclipse at one point, and
there's one writer in particular that's a little sloppy with
the dates and kind of uses them to dramatic effect
(05:30):
and to say like, this is not a credible source.
This guy can't be trusted. You can trust you on
the crazy Yeah, almost exactly how he words it, just
slightly more stilted language. Uh. So he really did kind
of break it all down and analyze it. And according
to Pool, the Libre Pontificus, which may almost be called
(05:52):
The Lives of the Popes, is not at our disposal.
It ends abruptly in the last decade of the ninth century,
and is not resumed in a form deserving name of
an historical narrative until ten seventy three. So unfortunately, that's
right where Benedict was the dead zone where they're the
information was really not being recorded, and there have been
(06:16):
some theories that, um, some of that was expunged on purpose,
some of that has been destroyed purposely because it was
such a dark time. This is what exactly the kind
of stuff you would want to get rid of if
you did have the power to go back through that archive. Yes,
and as a consequence to you, even uh, some of
the there's not all that much information on some of
(06:36):
the things Benedict did while he held the position of pope. Now,
part of that is just like the power play of
you know, the next guys in line kind of want
to erase the work of a previous one. But most
of it really is kind of an embarrassment issue. They
want to let's forget some of those things that happened
because they're really not in the best interest of the church. Well,
(06:58):
part of the problem is that Benedict the Nine comes
to the papal throne at a remarkably young age. That's
probably the first shocking point in this story. He was
born the Aphilactus tusculum um and he was one of
(07:20):
the youngest popes. You'll see records saying that he was
only about eleven or twelve. That's according to a Benedictine chronicler,
when his father secured this post for him through bribery.
But that's fallen out of favor, and now historians generally
agree that he was between eighteen and twenty years old
when he became pope for the very first time in
(07:43):
ten thirty two. Still remarkably young. Yeah, that's an incredible
young age. I mean, we hear about kings and other
monarchs that are given of course they inherited tiny but
usually they have someone to sort of stand in for them,
whereas this is definitely a case where they were like, nope,
(08:05):
this is your son. I look how I arranged this
for you. I got you elected. I talked to the
right people and did some favors for for a position. Normally, uh,
normally one through a lifetime of work and making connections
and a certain seriousness that you would project that you're
not going to have at eighteen, but as we established,
(08:27):
not really in this period of the papacy, unfortunately. So
he also had some family connections. This was not an
out of the Blue. His father managed to bribe his
son into the papal throne because the preceding two popes
where his uncle's. It was Benedict the eighth and Pope
(08:48):
John the nineteen. So they were keeping it in the family.
They were, and like you were just saying, too with
kings or emperors or what not, inheriting a position. It
was very much being treated as though being pope were
a position similar to to being king that could be
passed on through the family. Yeah. Um, And so Benedict
(09:11):
first takes what's called the Sea of Peter by some
you'll hear the papacy referred to. I'm sure Mr our
listeners know is as with various names, the chair of Peter,
the throat of Peter, uh, the sea, sometimes sometimes just
the papacy, sometimes just the chair. There are a lot
of different names for it that come up in different texts. Um.
But this first run at the papacy, and we'll get
(09:34):
back to why this is only the first one. For
Benedict was really debaucherous. I mean, there are some that
say that he really kind of went out of his
way to hit all of the seven deadly sins. He
There are various accounts, not so much like direct chronicling
(09:55):
of things he did, but accusations and kind of derogatory remarks.
Quotes really speak for themselves. Uh yeah, Ferdinande Gregor Gregor,
Gregor rovious, I'm so sorry. Who was a later scholar.
He was in the eighteen hundreds when he was writing this,
but based on his studies, he chose to describe Benedict
(10:15):
as a demon from Hell in the disguise of a priest.
It's pretty bad. The Catholic Encyclopedia called him quote a
disgrace to the chair of Peter uh and Bishop Benno
of Piacenza accused him of many viole adulteries and murders.
And then in Pope Victor the Third's Book on Dialogues
(10:38):
he was pope shortly after this period ten eighties six
to ten eight seven um, he referred to quote his
rates murders and other unspeakable acts. His life as a
pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I
shudder to think of it. That's serious, juju, that's that's strong.
(10:59):
Where words all around, and there are a lot of
rumors about what kind of activities were going on to
produce quotes like this, to produce judgments like this. The
gentlest at the top of the list is that he
actively participated in simony, except except not too. I mean
we should we should make it clear too. That's about
(11:20):
as bad as it can get for a for a
pope to be selling off clerical positions, which is how
he got the position in the first place, in some ways,
you know, through bribery. It wasn't direct. But oh, we'll
get to the bigger chunk of simony later. If you've
listened to the Dante's Circle of Hell episode Dante Inferno
Dante's Inferno, there are quite a few folks in there
(11:42):
because of simony. So that's pretty serious. Um. Others are
just more shocking, m mainly that he was familiar with
many prostitutes across Italy. Yeah. Uh. He is also rumored
to have hosted frequent orgies and to have participated in bestiality.
(12:02):
And this one almost seems so extreme that you think
it has to be like the gossip columns of the day.
But he allegedly would curse God and toast the devil
at his meals. It does seem like that would be
pushing it even for the you know, the run up
of the other the other things he's rumored that makes
(12:23):
him such a sort of mustache twirling villain at that point.
But we don't know, because he clearly didn't seem terribly
interested in the religious role that he was supposed to
take his pope. That really wasn't his thing to be
religious leader. He just wanted the power, yeah, And ultimately
that offended people too much. It was it was too
wrong what he was doing. One or gy too many
(12:46):
pushed it over the edge, and toward the end of
ten four Roman townsman rose up against him and drove
him out of town. Um this left on the first
time this had happened. Now, there was a very brief
uprising in ten thirty six, but it really didn't have
much ground swell, and it was beaten down almost immediately.
(13:07):
I mean, they don't even most records don't even cite
that as as him leaving the papacy. He did leave Rome,
there's theoretically it was just too you know, for safety,
but he wasn't really removed from his seat at any point.
So the ten forty four rebellion was the real deal.
That for sure he was driven out of town and
(13:28):
a new pope was actually elected. John the Bishop of Sabina,
who became Sylvester the Third, was the new pope in
his place, although Sylvester is often referred to as an
anti pope because of course Benedict is still out there
um doing who knows what. But Sylvester only held the
(13:51):
title of pope for forty nine days and then was
deposed again Benedict was restored. It's a lot of back
and forth here, and sir, to shake up the confidence
people had in this most holy, very powerful office. Yeah,
and to further shake the ground if anyone had any
(14:13):
faith in Benedict as a pope. Uh. He didn't stick
around that second time. Very off, very long he um.
And there is some debate. A lot of times it
cited as a three week rain um. In pools analysis,
he ends up calling it one month and twenty one days,
and he bases that on some of the the rules
that happened at the time about when a pope could
(14:36):
actually be um, you know, through official ceremony seated. Uh So,
I think he calculated it one month and twenty one days,
but it's entirely possible that it was three weeks in
when he made the proclamation that he was out of
there again. Um, because the second time around is even
more extraordinary than just being to post. Yeah. So remember that,
(14:58):
simhy we talked about all ago. Uh, he sold the
seat of pope. You can't get more brazen than that.
It is very brazen. It's not to say it's right,
but it's one thing to like take a bribe under
the table for another seat, but to just say I
would like a large time of money so you can
(15:19):
be pope please. However, there is maybe not such a
level of yuckiness about this one. Well, it depends on
how you look at it. So he was exactly he
was selling it to his godfather again keeping things through
too close. Um, his his godfather, who ultimately became Gregory
(15:42):
the Six. But Gregory the Six is looked at from
a few different perspectives, and some suggest that he wasn't
doing this just because he wanted the power. He wanted
to be pope and while conveniently my godson is going
to be willing to sell it to me. Um. Some
suggest that he was doing this in as a noble attempt,
(16:04):
that he saw a chance. Oh I few you know,
we can get this important holy position out of this
completely unsuitable guy's hands. And this is not a great
way to go about it, but it works. And there's
actually one account that I read that suggested that Benedict
actually went to his godfather for advice because he was
(16:27):
tired of the papacy. He didn't want to rule anymore,
and he wasn't sure if he was allowed to just
step down, and that uh, his godfather suggested, no, no,
that's totally fine. But then Bennett, when Benedict was like, well,
what am I going to do? I don't I have
to continue living. I need an income. Hint hint, right,
(16:48):
and that that kind of was the genesis of this deal. Uh,
but yeah, there have there are some texts that suggests
that Gregory the sixth was in fact not so great
that he you know, he was accused of a lot
of crimes, but most of those have kind of been
discredited as gossip and jealousy rumors. Um, it's definitely as
(17:12):
the years have gone on and as it unfolds. Uh,
in just a few moments, you'll hear how his his
papacy unfolds, it does kind of seem like he maybe
was not the terror. You know, he was not continuing
the reign of terror that his godson had begun by
any means. Benedict's reason to leave, though, again falls into
(17:34):
his shocking life story, but it also seems so much
tamer too then and a lot of the earlier stuff.
It's because he wanted to get married. Um, although it
doesn't seem as though it was some star cross lovers story. No,
he wanted to marry one of his cousins. It sounds
seedy to us today, but it was much more common then,
(17:55):
keeping on. The families were huge, and sometimes cousins weren't
always like it wasn't as closely related as we think
of cousin's name. They would call people that were like
third and fourth cousins removed. Yeah, this was actually a
cousin's father had promised the daughter, so you know, some
sort of cousin relationship there. Um, he'd promised his daughter's
(18:16):
hand to Benedict on the condition that he resigned. He
seems obvious, right, um, but retracted that promise after Benedict
really did step down. Because of course, Benedict, who's not pope,
kind of just a guy with the bribe now well,
and I mean, this is strictly conjecture on my part,
but I have to wonder if that wasn't, you know,
(18:39):
possibly some other person that was trying to use any
leverage they had to get this horrible person out of
a seat of power. No, I will give you my
daughter if you step down. And then to the daughter,
he is probably like, I'm totally not doing this. We
just just play along for the next couple of months
and we'll see how this works out. Like it'll be fine.
This is our historical conjection. That's completely jecture on my part.
(19:01):
But I also have, like she said, it's so tame.
Why would this man who apparently you know, conduct these
huge theaters of sexual exploit suddenly be interested in basically
like a country made. It doesn't really make a lot
of sense. We don't know where I guess um. But
(19:22):
the end of Gregory's time on the chair of Peter
is pretty fuzzy too, and there's there's kind of a
take back. Possibly the marriage for whatever reason, didn't really
work out. The marriage plan fell through because the fathers
were sending the offer, and so, according to some accounts,
(19:43):
Benedict after that decided, well, I want to be Pope again,
take that back. Um. Some accounts also suggest that Sylvester
the Third still was laying claim to the pope's chair,
so he was still in the picture, was still a
faction supporting him um, and was still completely ready to
take the reins if opportunity presented itself. Uh. And in
(20:07):
the midst of this, Gregory when and met with King
Henry UM. And King Henry had not yet been crowned
the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He was still right,
he's uh king of Germany and was going to be crowned,
but it had not happened yet. Uh. And he Henry
crossed the Alps so that he could come and have
a pow wow and tried to restore some order in
(20:30):
Italy because news was reaching him all the time of
how corrupt things had become and how big of a
mess had happened in this whole crazy Benedict situation had
been playing out. So he crossed the Alps and went
down into Italy to meet with Gregory and Uh. In
Pool's research, reliable accounts relate that Gregory was received as
a pope honorably. You know. It was a very magnanimous
(20:54):
meeting of the minds, because there has been some speculation
that King Henry the Third just came in and was like,
wait a minute, you totally can't sell this office, like
you're out of here. But it wasn't quite as he
was treating. There wasn't a SmackDown on Gregory. It was
definitely much more of like, we have to figure this
situation out because it's not okay, but I'm willing to
(21:15):
meet you and discuss this. It's not okay to have
Benedict photogram Sylvester the third, and so now there are
three people laying claim to the papacy. It's not Although
some church in the timeline don't include Um Sylvester so
much in this Some it's like he just floated off
into the ether and was never heard from again. But
(21:36):
others say that he was indeed waiting in the wings
and still, you know, making noise that he would happily
take the share feeder if his faction were to you
come into power. So a synod was summoned, which is
a meeting of a council of high ranking church officials
(21:57):
UM near Rome, and they were just going to figure
the situation out, discussed the matter at hand, and talked
to all of the the men who were laying claimed
to the seat and figure out what was best for
the church. Benedict decided he wasn't going to show, you know,
any part of that noise because there was uh, you know,
(22:18):
the very high likelihood that he would be found guilty
of Simon. He clearly it was about his problems, so
he decided not to appear at that Uh. The result, though,
was that Sylvester was stripped of his rank, um, sent
into Exalis, sent to a monastery, UM, taken taken out
(22:40):
of the power map there and then Gregory did confess
to to the purchase of his place as the head
of the church UM and some records say that at
that point he resigned. He deposed himself. Yeah, like he
acknowledged that it was what he did was wrong, not right,
and sinful, but that he was trying trying to create
(23:01):
positive change, but that he couldn't legitimately be pope going forward. Others, though,
say that that was not his idea at all. He
was deposed by the council, right and there is um.
Some historians debate that that's just a matter of kind
of semantics, It's just the wording of the documents because
they have to rank it as a as the deposed,
(23:25):
and so whether he did it or not was kind
of neither here nor there in terms of the legal
ease of the documents, but that there are several accounts
that suggest that he was. He almost behaved stupidly by
going I totally bribed my way into the seat like
I did that. They're like, why would you say why,
I'm not really intending to do this. This is I'm
just trying to fix things. And that was the only
(23:46):
tool I had at hand. So those three guys, so
all three of them are out, They're all out, and
a new guy is then a German bishop this time. Yeah,
and King Henry the Third he was not concering to
the third first choice, and King Henry the Third could
not really uh participate in the election of the next
(24:08):
pope because he was not the emperor yet had a
strong interest in it, though he did and allegedly the
council members and even some reports suggest the people of
Rome kind of begged him, will you please, you know,
help us find the right person to this job. This
has been a mess, and you know, as part of
(24:28):
our efforts to clean things up, we would like you
to suggest somebody. His first choice was like, I don't
want to do this job. That helps a little too
intense for me. Um. Yeah, his first choice was aled Bert,
who was Archbishop of Bremen, but he refused and in
turn he suggested Um Switzer, who was a German bishop,
(24:51):
and he became the new pope. It does seem I mean,
you can't question somebody. Somebody's concerned over taking this at
this point, Um, despite the power that you might be
able to wield. Um. Just a side note, though, the
involvement of Henry, this German interest Um did give birth
(25:13):
to this whole series of other dramas, problems in fighting,
lots of topics for you and Tracy to handle. Sunday
going out down the road. Real popes the next the
next phase of people who wanted to reform how things
were done. We're like, wait, wait, wait, you can't get
government officials involved in how the churches run. The papacy
(25:34):
runs on its own. It's its own, you know, it's
kind of siloed. Um power seats and you should not
have kings telling you who becomes pope. So if some
people questioned UM at the time, I think it was
a little bit more accepted just because they were They
were breathing a sigh of relief, like, oh, okay, we
have this Benedict mess straightened out. Um, Clement too is
(25:57):
in and we're just going to move forward from here.
But that sewed the seeds though of some later problems. However, Yeah,
things aren't over yet. So this center was taking place
December by ten, Clement the Second is dead, possibly poisoned,
(26:18):
possibly Uh. There's no definitive proof. There has been some
uh postulation and rumor that Benedict the ninth may have
poisoned Clement. Uh. And in bone samples of Clement Too
were tested and there were really high levels of lead found,
which could be from poisoning or it could have been
(26:40):
inadvertent because at the time UM wine making involved the
use of something called letharge, which is a sweetener that's
a form of lead. Uh. And you could cumulatively have
been drinking wine and building up lead poisoning over the
course of years, well especially after of life in religious
(27:03):
orders dealing with UM. So, Clement died, whether from poison
or other reasons. UM Benedict the nine may have been involved.
We don't know what we do know is that he
seized Rome and the title of pope for himself yet again.
(27:24):
This is time number three after Clement. I mean, maybe
that's what he was hoping at this point, grown up
a little bit um, But he did that November of
ten seven, shortly after Clement died. Within a year though
driven out of town yet again, and finally a second
(27:44):
German pope, this time Densists. The second was installed into
the pit position November. So pretty high turnover rate in
these immediate years with benedict been up three separate times.
His second to see were very short. But even so, man,
(28:07):
that's some tenacity. Yeah, so keep going after that thing.
It's mine, it's mine, my dad got it for I
guess there's only one resignation in there, and that's the
middle one. But it's these final years that I've been
seeing some accounts of in the in the newspaper paper articles.
You're talking about detailing all the resigned popes. What did
(28:28):
he do in these final years, because that's what people
are clearly interested in in the current situation too. What
is the current Pope benedict Um doing. I think he's
announced to lead a life of seclusion, retirement um and
Benedict the nine. It depends again on on different accounts.
(28:48):
Some accounts say he never lost the desire, you know,
he was always hoping to get back in there. But
others say that he didn't turn to h to a
life of quiet reflection eventually. Yes, Abbot Luke, who was
an abbot at the Abbey of Grata Ferrata um I,
wrote an account that suggested that the pontiff turned from
(29:11):
his sin and he turned to Bartholomew, who was the
abbey's fourth abbot, for a remedy for what he perceived
to be his disorders that were driving him to you know,
all of this sort of really extreme living. And Bartholomew's
advice led Benedict to finally resign the pontificate and say,
I acknowledge, I acknowledge I'm not pope anymore. I'm not
(29:33):
going to be pope again. Um. And that the you know,
the former pope then allegedly died penitent, and that he
had spent the rest of his life kind of reflecting
and meditating and praying on everything that had gone wrong. Yeah,
and he died. He didn't die until ten sixty five,
(29:55):
So that puts him, um, right around fifty ish, So
we don't have a hard number on how old he
was when he took the throne in um the early
ten thirties, but you know, probably longer than you're expecting.
After that's almost half the rumor, that's almost twenty years
(30:16):
after the final outstaying, which is a long time to
think about what he'd done. I um uh, you know,
we always hope, but whether he reformed at the end
or not didn't really matter. Historically, his papacy is regarded
as like the most shameful in or one of the
(30:39):
most shameful in the history of the Chair of Peter
for all the obvious reasons we've discussed. Now, yeah, it's
quite clear drama. I'm surprised there haven't been more, um
you know, film adaptations and mores of it. I wonder
now with the with the b and the int ist
(31:00):
in that family, there will be renewed interest mining the
people history. People start taking a look at some of
these older popes with truly wild stories, um, because it
is fascinating and I always think that a position like this, um,
that the importance it has for so many people, um,
(31:23):
the the people of Rome rising up to drive this
guy out of town because it is so shameful and
so upsetting. Um, it's a pretty fascinating position to to
look at and to look at some of the people
who didn't live up to expectation. Yeah. Well, and I mean,
(31:44):
you know, we see it through the lens of modernity,
but they're more than a billion Catholics now. And I
think if a current pope suddenly like these sorts of
stories were circulating about really any significantly established religion and
their leader, there would be some crazy news coverage like
it would be insane. I mean, there are always instances
(32:07):
where you hear of like tiny little kind of cult
like groups that have bizarre things that going on that
are going on, but someone with that much power in
that followers and exactly a global influence. That's it's a
lot to think about someone that corrupt having that much
influence over so many people. And it wasn't a billion then,
but still the numbers of the world, it was a
(32:32):
set of significant influence. So yeah, I mean, it's a
it's an interesting story and it's something something to think
about too, and following the current resignation, uh and and
just the history behind that. I always find that really
fascinating to when, um, when a modern news story makes
(32:54):
everybody turn back and reflect a little bit on on
what's come before. And I think probably most of people
we could agree that resigning due to to age and
an understanding of mental and physical decline. It seems so
tame and it's completely reason when you see it against
(33:15):
this backdrop of I want to go marry my cousin. Yes,
also maybe take some money from some people. Don't think
that would fly, It really would not, So Benedict's fascinating. Uh,
thanks for the entertainment, Benedict. I'm glad I did not
live at a time when you were influencing my world.
So I also have a bit of a listener mail
(33:36):
for us, and this comes from listener Helena or Helena,
I don't know which one, but I hope one of
those is right, and it says dear missed in history.
The whole time I was listening to your podcast on
Walter Potter and Texidermy, I couldn't stop thinking about that
chartist bart Jensen's recent work in which he took his
beloved and recently deceased cat Orville and gave him a
(33:58):
new life as a Copter. I know this work. As
the article in Forbes points out, yes, there is a
connection between the name Orville and the Wright brothers. This
article also names drop name drops Damien Hurst with his
use of dead animals in art, and does a nice
quick job of pointing out our own human discrepancies and
how we decide what is appropriate use of animals in
their afterlives. I wonder what the Victorians would have thought
(34:20):
if Walter Potter made a flying cap. I'm actually from
North Carolina, home of the Rights, but have been living
in Amsterdam for the past three years. When Orville had
his first flight in the gallery here, the video went
viral and there was a lot of public opinion against it,
which boiled down to poor Kitty. While I could agree,
I think it's interesting how most people don't blink an
eye walking through the meat aisle of the grocery store,
(34:41):
or think of wearing a leather jacket as equal to
parading around in the flesh of a dead animal. Stone
together a bit of a gruesome description. Sorry, I really
think that part of what makes all orvile so threatening
and offensive to people is this idea of automating the dead,
but just fascinating. I mean, we have everybody sort of
has their own relationship with the afterlife and their own
sort of ways of dealing with the passing of things. Uh,
(35:06):
you know, I couldn't do that to one of my pets.
But tell us more, tell us more about the helicopter,
because oh so if you haven't seen this, um, now,
all the listeners right now are saying, now, wait, a
lot of them have seen it, because it really did
go everywhere. If you haven't seen this. Basically, he the
cat was sort of flat ish and he had his
(35:28):
legs splayed out and Jansen kind of hooked him up.
I think it was radio controlled, so he had an
RC unit that he could fly it on, and he
basically could fly the cat around like a remote control plane.
And it's a little bit startling. I mean it's one
he's not in like a normal cat position. And too,
(35:51):
I mean I think people kind of had that reaction
of that's profane because it's your deceased pet, and you know,
for some people, pets are like family and you wouldn't
do that to a family member. I saw lots of
that argument going on online. Um. Others were like, no,
this is his way of honoring his pet, and to
him this makes sense. And I mean, you can't dictate
(36:12):
how someone grieves for the loss of anything. So I
know it's because we just talked about popes now, but
I can't stop thinking about the cadavers in as a
as a universally considered bad idea something to do. Yeah,
I mean it's east person. I think for a lot
of a lot of people, it's just creepy too retain
(36:35):
the deceased in that manner. We talked about that with
Walter Potter, and yeah, how there is a creepy factor involved,
I don't know, because I will say this like when
I was first introduced to Walter Walter Potter, I remember
my first reaction being more one of fascination, and then
I had that moment of creepy but still really fascinating,
Whereas it kind of went opposite with Jansen's work, where
(36:57):
I went to creepy, wait a kind of I'm trying
to see what he's doing. Oh no, I still having
a hard time getting over the creepy. So I don't
know if it's just the use of small accessories and
tableau that makes Potter's work a little bit more palatable.
There's a sweetness to it, or is this is a
little bit more kind of I don't know. It's there's
(37:21):
an in your face element to it that is a
little bit harder. I think for people to kind of
cope with it's neat to be able to put this
thought at continuum sort of from Potter's work. Yeah, things
that disturbed but amazed people in this space. They're still
going on today. Oh yeah. Taxidermy, I think is going
to continue to be controversial for a long time. I
(37:44):
mean it happens in resorts even now, like they're hunting
lodges that have questioned some of their decor. That is
very natural to have in a hunting lodge, like when
you have mounted heads, but there are guests that will
complain and say that that's not what they're there for.
They're there for you know, cocyner cozy coco into noow
time and they don't want to look at dead things.
And it kind of comes down to everybody has their
(38:08):
own reaction and you can't dictate how someone is going
to feel about a thing like that. All you can
do is make your best decisions on how you handle
it and hope everybody else is okay or doesn't mind
just leaving you alone to do your thing. Well, thank
you Helena or Helena for passing on that note. That's
a really smart comparison. Yeah, it's a really astute point
(38:31):
to pull together. If you guys want to email anything
similar or your takes on the current pip or resignation
and how you're connecting that to history, you can email
us that. We're at History Podcast at Discovery dot com.
We're also on Twitter at mist in history, and we
are in Facebook and if you want to learn a
(38:54):
little bit more about popes in general, we do have
an article called how the pay to do work and
that'll give you pull rundown, So check that out on
our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
(39:16):
that how stuff Works dot com.
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