Papal Conclaves: Histories and Mysteries
- Gerriann Brower
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
The Middle Ages hold the answer to the history and mystery of papal conclaves and their rituals. The origins of voting under lock and key in the Sistine Chapel, the practice of burning ballots, and the tradition of cardinals clad in red date back over five hundred years. How did a two-thirds majority come to be the standard to elect a pope? How did the Sistine Chapel become the place to elect popes?
The Election
Papal elections took on their present form in the 1100s and 1200s. Rules were established to suppress dissention, decrease outside influence, and to eliminate long periods without a pope. Prior to these reforms, elections were contentious and bitterly fought. One of the earliest reforms changed the voting process.
In 1179 Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) led the Lateran Council to abolish electing a pope unanimously, requiring instead two-thirds majority. Imagine requiring one hundred percent agreement on any type of election. The result was constant electoral crisis, elections of a pope and anti-pope among factions of electors. Pope Alexander contended with four anti-popes during his reign. A total of thirty-one anti-popes or “alternative popes” were recognized by competing factions prior to 1122. However, electing an alternative pope occasionally persisted, with the last anti-pope Felix V in the fifteenth century.
The use of qualified-majority rule was an innovative procedure designed to reduce in-fighting, promote compromise, and protect the church hierarchy. Most of the time, it worked. One drawback was that qualified-majority rule resulted in long conclaves. When there were additional variables in the cardinal’s nationalities and differences of opinions it took longer to reach a two-thirds majority. In other words, compromise took more time.
One very long conclave lasted for forty months in Viterbo, outside of Rome. There was little organized structure to the conclave. Electors were not sequestered; they came and went. The public were outraged at the lengthy negotiations and stormed the palace in anger and removed the roof. Supposedly the roof removal started as a prank in order to let the Holy Spirit enter their hearts and minds more clearly. During the long conclave two cardinals died and one left ill. It finally ended in 1270 with Gregory X as pope. Burning ballots was first introduced about this time, primarily to avoid a recount and disputed elections. Only in the nineteenth century was smoke used to convey the results of a vote to the public.
In the sixteenth century French, German, and Spanish kings and their envoys were particularly vested in the outcome of papal elections and applied pressure to elect their favorite candidate, causing prolonged deliberations. Add in the Italian power families with their specific regional issues, and a stalemate often occurred, resulting in electing an unsuspecting winner. Frontrunners were not always successfully elected pope. A popular saying rings as true today as it did in the Middle Ages: “He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves as a cardinal.”
Sistine Chapel
Conclaves did not always take place in the Sistine Chapel. In early church history, papal elections were public, with complete transparency. Sometimes they were held in the Lateran Basilica with lay men and women voting for their favorite. Voting was not always a paper ballot, but verbal. Alexander III’s election was partially determined by lay votes. For many years the conclave was held in the city where the pope died. The 1268 conclave held in Viterbo, where the roof was removed, was where Pope Clement IV died.
Sistine Chapel, Rome, Wikimedia Commons, looking towards the high altar
with the Last Judgement; view from the high altar.
By the 1200s additional privacy was needed to lessen outside pressure on the cardinals’ voting. The Vatican Palace became the home for most conclaves by mid fifteenth century, ensuring greater measures to protect the cardinals from political pressure. The Sistine Chapel, built by Pope Sixtus IV, was finally complete in 1484. It became the home for conclaves, but not in the sense one might think.
The Sistine Chapel became the dormitory and voting place for the cardinals until 1559. The number of cardinals fluctuated depending on how many the pope appointed. In 1513, just after Michelangelo finished frescoing the vault, twenty-five cardinals made their temporary homes in makeshift cells under the Renaissance frescoes. By the seventeenth century there were too many cardinals to camp out in the chapel and they were housed throughout the Vatican Palace.
Cells were cramped wood structures with a small window above a door. The door displayed the cardinal’s family coat of arms. Cells were awarded by lottery, but some were considered “lucky,” like the cell under Perugino’s fresco of Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter, or the cell nearest the high altar. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s cell, placed below St. Peter receiving the keys, proved prophetic. He was elected pope Julius II in 1503.
Successive popes strengthened security and secrecy measures in the Sistine Chapel. Gregory XV reformed the process in 1621 by disallowing verbal voting, requiring two votes per day to speed things along, and sequestering the cardinals. Cardinals have been locked down for papal elections for more than 750 years. Conclave, from the Latin cum clave, means “with a key.”
The Cardinals
Ecclesiastical clothing has its origins in ancient Rome, modeled after what men would wear every day – a tunic-like loosely cut garment. By 400 CE vestments were beginning to look very similar to what a priest might wear today. A shorter tunic was worn over a longer tunic with elaborate decorations and standardized by the early Middle Ages. A hierarchy emerged to distinguish rank and authority by color. The richness of textile, decoration, and headgear marked a priest from a bishop, cardinal, or pope.
The tall pointed hat with two fabric streamers down the back, known as a miter, is associated with bishops, cardinals, and the pope. The color and size of the headgear differentiated the levels of authority. The miter we see the pope wearing today originated in the eleventh century, and only the size and decoration changed over time. Today the pope generally wears white garments while red is the color associated with cardinals. Red signifies the death of Christian martyrs.
Bright red-orange clothing differentiates cardinals – especially the zucchetto, biretta, and mozzetta. Bishops, cardinals, and the pope wear a zucchetto, a close-fitting skull cap. Magenta is reserved for bishops. The biretta cardinal’s hat has four corners or ridges. During their ritual appointment the pope places the biretta on the cardinal’s head. It is worn over the zucchetto. From the Middle Ages on for hundreds of years, wearing the red biretta was a sign of great wealth and power. A red elbow-length buttoned cape, called the mozzetta, completes the signature garments.
A seventeenth century painting of Cardinal Cerri shows how little has changed in hundreds of years. He holds his biretta in his left hand and wears his zucchetto. The hue of the red mozzetta in the oil painting has faded over time. Cardinal Cerri was dean of the supreme ecclesiastical church, the highest judicial tribunal. He was similar to a justice in a supreme court. He wears a crisp and pleated white robe rochet under his mozzetta, decorated with lace.
Since the time of Pope John XII in the tenth century, cardinals have changed their birth names upon election as pope. As the Vicar of Christ, the papal name is intended to reflect their piety and evoke Christian values. However, some chose curious names or their lifestyles veered far away from Christian examples. Julius II modeled himself more after Julius Caesar than a saint. Alessandro Farnese took the name Paul III (1534-49). He fathered four children and made three grandsons cardinals. Thirteen popes have taken the name Innocent, sixteen took the name Benedict, and John has been a papal name for twenty-five popes. Only the 266th pope took the name Francis.
Sources
Baumgartner, Frederic J. “‘I Will Observe Absolute and Perpetual Secrecy:’ The Historical Background of the Rigid Secrecy Found in Papal Elections.” The Catholic Historical Review 89, no. 2 (2003): vi–181.
Chambers, D. S. “Papal Conclaves and Prophetic Mystery in the Sistine Chapel.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 41, 1978, pp. 322–26.
Colomer, Josep M., and Iain McLean. “Electing Popes: Approval Balloting and Qualified-Majority Rule.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 29, no. 1, 1998, pp. 1–22.
Hayward, Jane. “Sacred Vestments as They Developed in the Middle Ages.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 29, no. 7, 1971, pp. 299–309.
Schimansky, Dobrila-Donya. “The Study of Medieval Ecclesiastical Costumes: A Bibliography and Glossary.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 29, no. 7, 1971, pp. 313–17.