1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Paschal (popes)

PASCHAL (Paschalis), the name of two popes, and one anti-pope.

Paschal I., pope from 817 to 824, a native of Rome, was raised to the pontificate by the acclamation of the clergy, shortly after the death of Stephen IV., and before the sanction of the emperor (Louis the Pious) had been obtained — a circumstance for which it was one of his first cares to apologize. His relations with the imperial house, however, never became cordial; and he was also unsuccessful in winning the sympathy of the Roman nobles. He died in Rome while the imperial commissioners were investigating the circumstances under which two important Roman personages had been seized at the Lateran, blinded and afterwards beheaded; Paschal had shielded the murderers but denied all personal complicity in their crime. The Roman people refused him the honour of burial within the church of St Peter, but he now holds a place in the Roman calendar (May 16). The church of St Cecilia in Trastevere was restored and St Maria in Dominica rebuilt by him; he also built the church of St Prassede. The successor of Paschal I. was Eugenius II.  (L. D.*) 

Paschal II. (Ranieri), pope from the 13th of August 1099 to the 21st of January 1118, was a native of Bieda, near Viterbo, and a monk of the Cluniac order. He was created cardinal priest of S. Clemente by Gregory VII. about 1076, and was consecrated pope in succession to Urban II. on the 14th of August 1099. In the long struggle with the emperors over investiture, he zealously carried on the Hildebrandine policy, but with only partial success. In 1104 Paschal succeeded in instigating the emperor’s second son to rebel against his father, but soon found Henry V. even more persistent in maintaining the right of investiture than Henry IV. had been. The imperial Diet at Mainz invited (Jan. 1106) Paschal to visit Germany and settle the trouble, but the pope in the Council of Guastalla (Oct. 1106) simply renewed the prohibition of investiture. In the same year he brought to an end the investiture struggle in England, in which Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, had been engaged with King Henry I., by retaining himself exclusive right to invest with the ring and crozier, but recognizing the royal nomination to vacate benefices and oath of fealty for temporal domains. He went to France at the close of 1106 to seek the mediation of King Philip and Prince Louis in the imperial struggle, but, his negotiations remaining without result, he returned to Italy in September 1107. When Henry V. advanced with an army into Italy in order to be crowned, the pope agreed to a compact (Feb. 1111), by the terms of which the Church should surrender all the possessions and royalties it had received of the empire and kingdom of Italy since the days of Charlemagne, while Henry on his side should renounce lay investiture. Preparations were made for the coronation on the 12th of February 1111, but the Romans rose in revolt against the compact, and Henry retired taking with him pope and curia. After sixty-one days of harsh imprisonment, Paschal yielded and guaranteed investiture to the emperor. Henry was then crowned in St Peter’s on the 13th of April, and after exacting a promise that no revenge would be taken for what had passed withdrew beyond the Alps. The Hildebrandine party was aroused to action, however; a Lateran council of March 1112 declared null and void the concessions extorted by violence; a council held at Vienna in October actually excommunicated the emperor, and Paschal sanctioned the proceeding. Towards the end of the pontificate trouble began anew in England, Paschal complaining (1115) that councils were held and bishops translated without his authorization, and threatening Henry I. with excommunication. On the death of the countess Matilda, who had bequeathed all her territories to the Church (1115), the emperor at once laid claim to them as imperial fiefs and forced the pope to flee from Rome. Paschal returned after the emperor’s withdrawal at the beginning of 1118, but died within a few days on the 21st of January 1118. His successor was Gelasius II.

The principal sources for the life of Paschal II. are his Letters in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Epistolae, vols. 3, 6, 7, 13, 17, 20–23, 25, and the Vita by Petrus Pisanus in the Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne (Paris, 1892). Important bulls are in J. A. G. von Pflugk-Harttung, Die Bullen der Päpste bis zum Ende des zwölften Jahrhunderts (Gotha, 1901), and a valuable digest in Jaffe-Wattenbach, Regesta pontif. roman. (1885–1888).

See J. Langen, Geschichte der römischen Kirche von Gregor VII. bis Innocenz III. (Bonn, 1893); K. J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. V. (2nd ed., 1873–1890); E. Franz, Papst Paschalis II. (Breslau, 1877); W. Schum, Die Politik Papst Paschals II. gegen Kaiser Heinrich V. im Jahre 1112 (Erfurt, 1877); I. Röskens, Heinrich V. und Paschalis II. (Essen, 1885); C. Gernandt, Die erste Romfahrl Heinrich V. (Heidelberg, 1890); G. Peiser, Der deutsche Investiturstreit unter Kaiser Heinrich V. his zu dem päpstlichen Privileg vom 3 April 1111 (Berlin, 1883); and B. Monod, Essai sur les rapports de Pascal II. avec Philippe I. (Paris, 1907). There is an exhaustive bibliography with an excellent article by Carl Mirbt in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed., 1904).  (C. H. Ha.) 

Paschal III., anti-pope from 1164 to 1168, was elected the successor of Victor IV. on the 22nd of April 1164. He was an aged aristocrat, Guido of Crema. Recognized at once by the emperor Frederick I. he soon lost the support of Burgundy, but the emperor crushed opposition in Germany, and gained the co-operation of Henry II. of England. Supported by the victorious imperial army, Paschal was enthroned at St Peter’s on the 22nd of July 1167, and Pope Alexander III., became a fugitive. Sudden imperial reverses, however, made Paschal glad in the end to hold so much as the quarter on the right bank of the Tiber, where he died on the 20th of September 1168. He was succeeded by the anti-pope Callixtus III.

See A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, Bd. IV. (Leipzig, 1903, 259-276); H. Böhmer in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie , Bd. XIV., 724 seq.; and Lobkowtiz, Statistik der Päpste (Freiburg, i. B. 1905).  (W. W. R.*)