Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy

I was quite devastated when I leant of the death in 2018 of John Julius Norwich, my favourite purveyor of popular history for many years. His books on Byzantium, Venice and the Normans have been among my often-read favourites, and I still have one last unread pleasure waiting on my shelf, his final book on the history of France. The Popes has been on my must-read list for a few years, but somehow has evaded me until now. And its is quite as grand as his others. No other modern popular historian I know quite catches the sweep of history, the triumphs and tragedies of so many great figures across enormous spans of history, with such elegant grace. Norwich likes to deal in centuries and millennia rather than decades (Byzantium covered 1000 show more years, Venice 1200, The Normans was quite abbreviated by Norwich standards - not quite 200 years. This one covers a massive 2000 years, from St Peter to Benedict XVI, sweeping through the centuries, dotting down for periods of varying lengths depending on the perceived significance of the designated pontiff. The ever-changing nature of the papacy and its response to the changing world is always on show. From Peter through the shadowy popes of then pagan era, where being pope could and often did mean martyrdom, years after Constantine when a Church suddenly elevated to state religion struggled with questions of doctrine, through the collapse of the Empire and the influx of pagan tribes, the first fissures between Western and Eastern churches, the terrible debauchery of the so-called "pornocracy" of the 9th and 10th centuries, the final still unhealed schism between the Roman and Orthodox churches in 1054, the struggles between pope and the emperors of the church's own creation, the Holy Roman Empire, the nadir of the papacy in Renaissance Rome, when an era of artistic and scientific flowering coincided with the most infamous names in Church history - the Borgias, the della Roveres, the Farneses, which led directly to the shock of the Reformation and the fightback of the Counter-Reformation, the religious wars of Europe, the French Revolution, Napoleon, the Risorgimento, World War I, World War II and finally the modern era where the Church, despite being under attack from science, humanism and individualism, still commands the allegiance of a 6th of the world's population. A superbly readable book in its scale, its humanity, its occasionally caustic wit, the ironic touches and sometimes scathing criticism. Its an intensely human history, its 500 odd pages will fly by. Truly great reading. show less

A history of the Papacy is not an easy chore as the institution has been in existence in one form or another for 2000 years, but author Julius Norwich manages to do so in a coherent and entertaining fashion. The first 1000 years of the Papacy focused on getting the church established, its rivalry with the Eastern Orthodox Church and squabbles over arcane issues of doctrine that no one would care about today, but which often led to warfare between rival factions in the church. The next 500 or so dealt with the Pope trying to establish his power over the temporal powers of Europe with decreasing success as nation states became steadily more powerful than the church. The same period saw the rise of Islam and the Crusades against its power show more in the MidEast (highly unsuccessful) and the battle against its incursion into Europe (ultimately successful) And finally the last 400 or so years dealt with the rise of Protestantism, the Church's loss of temporal power and it's battle against modernism in almost any form.

With few exceptions, the Popes were mostly poor leaders and venal in the extreme. They were constantly looking to line their own (and their families') pockets with wealth and high office. Nepotism and simony were accepted practices, and vows of celibacy were largely ignored. Matters of faith seemed to take a decidedly second place to matters of temporal power.

Once the 19th Century was underway, the Papacy quickly lost any influence it once had over international events. Napoleon started things off with his Empire at the beginning of the century and the unification movements in both Germany and Italy finished the job, with the Papacy just left with Vatican City at the beginning of the 20th Century. Is it any wonder, the Popes weren't fond of the modern age?

Norwich does not spare the Popes of the last 100 years. Pius XI legitimizes Mussolini and Pius XII did virtually nothing to protest Hitler's extermination of the Jews. The one bright spot was Pope John XXIII who instituted the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI who carried on its work after the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963. Pope John Paul I in 1978 gave every indication that he would extend the reforms of Vatican II even farther, but he died just 33 days after taking office and Norwich heavily suggests that he was murdered by reactionary elements in the Curia. Certainly the next two Popes were far more traditional in their doctrinaire outlook.

The book, written in 2011 ends with Pope Benedict XVI, so we will have to leave it to another historian to judge the influence of Pope Francis. This is an interesting book that peels away the holy pomposity that surrounds the Papacy and shows the Popes as the men they were - warts and all. show less

Extremely and unnecessarily detailed. Surprisingly boring given the subject matter.
Understanding how power was established via the catholic church in rome is integral to understanding the rise of Europe and the tyranny, oppression and genocide that followed.
This has subtle and annoying sexist, xenophobic and racist undercurrents. Western Europeans are described more favorably than Eastern Europeans, Asians and the ever present and ever generic 'Muslims'. At one point the author goes into great detail describing an asian nation as unwashed, eating uncooked meat, etc. I laughed out loud. Europeans during this period and for the next THOUSAND years are famously unwashed and their food is shit. A major driver of colonialism is the hunt for show more cheaper spices with which to help their nasty ass food.
This continues into colonization where in addition to how to swim, grow cash crops for trade and eventually inoculate against illness West Africans and the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas will teach Europeans to wash their nasty asses. In fact we are living out the effects of the carelessness and nastiness of Europeans. As global warming continues to be driven to by colonialism: which equates to theft and genocide. By Europeans of all flavors.
Just don't be an asshole dude🤷🏽‍♀️ show less

Like all books by Norwich, this was a pleasure to read. In one big swoop from Saint-Peter to Ratzinger, the author provides the reader with clarity (not obvious with all those popes and their numerals), expansive historical background, anecdotes and more - all beautifully written. Norwich is more sure-footed when talking about the Middle Ages, and hence some later passages (like the ones about the Italian Risorgimento) feel a bit soulless; but that is more than compensated by brilliant chapters on Napoleon's attitude towards the Catholic Church and an analysis of Pius XII's behaviour towards the Nazis. Highly recommended.

Perfectly good airport history. I'm stuck at around page 150 of Norwich's condensed history of the Byzantines, so I wasn't expecting much from this. But I've learned something very important about Mr. Norwich: if he's writing about things you know even reasonably well (e.g., for me, the early Byzantine emperors), he's almost insufferable. This might just be a by-product of Great Man history in general, which is that it has very little to say about anything. Also, he's very boring in short bursts.

However, if I can settle in for a couple of hours and read about things I don't know all that well (e.g., the Renaissance papacy), he's immensely entertaining. I have no idea how this is possible, but Norwich is somehow more readable over two show more hour stretches than he is over half an hour. He'll follow every narrative, no matter how tangential, if it promises to be amusing.

Other reviewers have complained that he's too much of a liberal, too this-worldly, to do justice to the popes; that's arrant nonsense. He's very even handed, except when dealing with popes who monstrosity leaves no room for even-handedness; or, naturally, when dealing with Pius XII. Pius XII, like almost every other Pope (and non-Jewish person) before him, was a rabid anti-Semite, but had the misfortune of being the last rabid anti-Semite to hold a position of power. Thus, the holocaust is somehow his fault. This is not to excuse his anti-semitism, nor anyone else's. It is to suggest that, as an airport historian, Norwich might be a little too easily swayed by contemporary political imperatives.

Anyway, highly enjoyable, provided you know little to nothing about the topic at hand; immensely irritating, however, if you do more than a smidgeon. show less

A very interesting, highly engaging, and well-researched book about every single Pope, from the "first Pope" St. Peter to the first days of Pope Benedict XVI. No Pope is omitted, even the anti-popes make it in. It's fascinating how each of the men who held this high office were different. Each brought their own approach to the Papacy and were in varying degrees either successes or failures. Some used the office to get what they could out of it, while others genuinely sought to make a positive difference in the world.

Mixed in with the statistics of each Pope's reign are nuggets of biographical gold, stories that make each Pope human. At times, some of the history could get a bit stale. However, if you press on, you'll be show more rewarded.

Recommended for those interested in Popes, the history of Catholicism, and history in general. show less

This is a very ambitious project—attempting to cover some 2000 years of history and more than 250 pontificates in less than 500 pages. While it's very readable, and Norwich did fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge (pretty much from the end of the Middle Ages to Vatican II), Absolute Monarchs isn't a successful book overall. Norwich writes well and with occasional bursts of the wry humour which made his history of Byzantium so enjoyable to read, but perhaps unsurprisingly given its scope, the book does drag at points and is very much confined to considering the papacy as a political institution.

That this isn't an area of Norwich's particular expertise is also evident just from looking at the bibliography, which relies heavily on show more older scholarship, largely English-language monographs. Why does Norwich use the Cambridge Medieval History (1911-36), one wonders, rather than the New Cambridge Medieval History (1995-2005), its updated successor, which would provide him with much more up-to-date scholarship upon which to draw? Why Kantorowicz on Frederick II, and not Abulafia? I was left with the impression that Norwich's research for Absolute Monarchs was confined to whichever books he had to hand in his own private collection and didn't stray very far from that. So a relatively quick read if you're interested in the history of the papacy over the longue durée, but not one which can be regarded as authoritative. show less