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The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages #1
The History of the Popes, From the Close of the Middle Ages: Drawn From the Secret Archives of the Vatican and Other Original Sources; Volume 1
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
488 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1891
About the author
Ludwig von Pastor
436 books3 followersLudwig Pastor, later Ludwig von Pastor, Freiherr von Campersfelden (31 January 1854 – 30 September 1928), was a German historian and a diplomat for Austria. He became one of the most important Roman Catholic historians of his time and is most notable for his History of the Popes. He was raised to the nobility by the Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1908. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 17, 2020
Volume 1 starts in Avignon and concludes with Eugenius IV. A nice, general overview that happily takes time to introduce several fascinating personalities.
June 14, 2026
A jaunty pace through an extreme age of crisis in the Church. Comprehending the history of the Church is simply daunting; this is volume one of forty and it covered a time period of about half of our nation's history. People all but blink in and out of existence; individuals of genius and holiness I had never heard of get a couple of paragraphs.
The general theme of this volume is the Crisis and the Renaissance. The former is why I read this book; a bit too much nostalgia out there for an imaginary "Christendom" rather than recognizing what it actually was. It runs the risk of millenarianism and the consequent disappointment that follows. The Church is made up of men who live in this world, all of whom need the Sacrament of Penance; her prayers (of antiquity, not modern constructions) constantly ask for the grace to focus on the heavenly and off of the temporal, because we need that grace. The time periods covered in this book, the end of the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism, are perhaps the nadir of the Church. By any earthly measure, she had failed; a whole generation grew up with multiple men claiming the papacy. National politics played a huge role in this. The chaos of this time led to some truly extreme theories popping up reminiscent of the French Revolution.
Nothing about these two eras should be a cause for nostalgia. But they do have things to teach us. Bad prelates are a scourge of society, both spiritual and temporal. God, however, is ultimately in control. The reform of the Catholic Church, that she could ever return from the morass of the Schism to the glory of the age after Trent, is simply a miracle. We learn better lessons by knowing what did happen than by becoming depressed over not living in a time that never happened.
The second theme is the Renaissance and how the Church both fostered and reacted to it. In many ways, it is a continuation of the sometimes strained relation between Faith and Philosophy that even the early Christians encountered. As a support for the Faith, it has its uses; when knowledge of an Academic sort becomes grounds for criticizing all that came before, it fails. A similar process is suffocating the Catholic Church right now. But again, this is not new. That there is this struggle is not proof of failure of ourselves or of our Church.
I enjoyed this book. I doubt I'll get to all 40 volumes, especially as I have just started Horace Mann's 22 volume addition to it that tries to complete the story from Gregory the Great up until the time period Pastor started with. The timescale is simply daunting, especially for one who grew up with American history as a standard.
The general theme of this volume is the Crisis and the Renaissance. The former is why I read this book; a bit too much nostalgia out there for an imaginary "Christendom" rather than recognizing what it actually was. It runs the risk of millenarianism and the consequent disappointment that follows. The Church is made up of men who live in this world, all of whom need the Sacrament of Penance; her prayers (of antiquity, not modern constructions) constantly ask for the grace to focus on the heavenly and off of the temporal, because we need that grace. The time periods covered in this book, the end of the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism, are perhaps the nadir of the Church. By any earthly measure, she had failed; a whole generation grew up with multiple men claiming the papacy. National politics played a huge role in this. The chaos of this time led to some truly extreme theories popping up reminiscent of the French Revolution.
Nothing about these two eras should be a cause for nostalgia. But they do have things to teach us. Bad prelates are a scourge of society, both spiritual and temporal. God, however, is ultimately in control. The reform of the Catholic Church, that she could ever return from the morass of the Schism to the glory of the age after Trent, is simply a miracle. We learn better lessons by knowing what did happen than by becoming depressed over not living in a time that never happened.
The second theme is the Renaissance and how the Church both fostered and reacted to it. In many ways, it is a continuation of the sometimes strained relation between Faith and Philosophy that even the early Christians encountered. As a support for the Faith, it has its uses; when knowledge of an Academic sort becomes grounds for criticizing all that came before, it fails. A similar process is suffocating the Catholic Church right now. But again, this is not new. That there is this struggle is not proof of failure of ourselves or of our Church.
I enjoyed this book. I doubt I'll get to all 40 volumes, especially as I have just started Horace Mann's 22 volume addition to it that tries to complete the story from Gregory the Great up until the time period Pastor started with. The timescale is simply daunting, especially for one who grew up with American history as a standard.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews