Papal Corporality and the Papacy's Immortality

The Pope's Body. By Agostino Paravicini-Bagliani. Translated by David S. Peterson. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2000. Pp. xxii, 396. $28.00.)

This translation of II corpo del papa (Turin, 1994) contains an introduction, eleven thematic chapters grouped in four parts, and an epilogue. In his introduction Paravicini-Bagliani notes the pioneering work of Ernst Kantorowicz and Reinhard Elze concerning the bodies of medieval rulers. The former charted the development of the doctrine that the medieval king has two bodies (a physical one and a metaphysical political one), and observed in passing that medieval popes and emperors, by contrast, seemed to possess only their physical bodies, which by their very nature suffer corruption. Elze concluded likewise that the pope had but one natural body that would eventually die, but added that what the pope represented—the papal office, the Apostolic See, the Roman church, Christ on earth—lived on or remained in being. The author proposes to pick up the discussion at this point to chart how the concept of the pope's body—in its ritual presentation, visual/iconographic expression, and natural physicality—became a concern during the roughly 250 years from the beginning of Leo IX's pontificate to the end of Boniface VIII's. In short, how did one reconcile an individual pope's mortality with the papacy's immortality? Paravicini-Bagliani draws on many types of sources (ecclesiological treatises, theological treatises, medical and scientific treatises, letters, canon law texts, sculpture, and physical artifacts), but gives special emphasis to ceremonial books (ordines) of the Roman church and to thirteenth-century developments.

The volume's first part contains three chapters that address various carnal metaphors regarding the pope's body. The first and longest chapter of the book establishes the beginning of discussion of the pope's corporeity in Peter Damian's mid-eleventh-century epistolary treatise De brevitate vitae Romanorum pontificum, where it was noted that popes did not, as a rule, live long, usually a few years, and none longer than the first pope Peter's twenty-five years. Subsequently the recurring maxim of "Peter's years" not only represented a warning to humanity of mortality and the emptiness of worldly vanity, but also expressed the debilitating intensity of the pope's life in service to the Church. Other themes also came into play with this topos, namely, the admonitions that despite his august office the pope should practice personal humility and lead amoral lifestyle while accomplishing much in the brief time yet allotted him. Paravicini-Bagliani observes how the maxim of "Peter's years" held true for many centuries and received regular attention by observers whenever a pontificate approached (but did not exceed) the twenty-five-year "limit." The late nineteenth-century pontificate of Pius IX (1846-1878) was the first to breach the limit and surpass "Peter's years," but by then the maxim had lost its didactic purpose.

The author next discusses several papal-humility rituals that also addressed the pope's mortality: the pope's reception on Ash Wednesday of a piece of papyrus that had been dipped in candle wax, the reception and distribution by the pope of ashes on the same feast day, and the presentation (at various times) of a strip of flax to the pope which is set alight and quickly consumed. All three rituals made their point by stressing the transience of the pope's mortal condition. As for the first—the pieces of papyrus were to cushion the pope's head in his tomb. Paravicini-Bagliani notes that this practice, first attested in the mid-twelfth century, seemed to have lapsed subsequently, its symbolism perhaps no longer decipherable.

The second and third rituals had more staying power. Distribution of ashes on the heads of the faithful had been proposed first by Urban II in 1191. The variations of the ritual over the next several centuries when the pope was involved (i...