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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Liber Pontificalis</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09224a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="A history of the popes beginning with St. Peter and continued down to the fifteenth century, in the form of biographies"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="09224a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/l.htm">L</a> > Liber Pontificalis</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Liber Pontificalis</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>(BOOK OF THE POPES).</p> <p>A history of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> beginning with St. Peter and continued down to the fifteenth century, in the form of biographies. The first complete collection of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> biographies in the original form of the Liber Pontificalis reached to <a href="../cathen/14289c.htm">Stephen V</a> (885-91). They were afterwards continued in a different style as far as <a href="../cathen/05601a.htm">Eugene IV</a> (d. 1447) and <a href="../cathen/12126c.htm">Pius II</a> (d. 1464). The individual biographies are very unequal in extent and importance. In most cases they exhibit a definite symmetrical form, which in the old Liber Pontificalis is quite uniform. These brief sketches give the origin and birthplace of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, the length of his pontificate, the decrees issued by him on questions of <a href="../cathen/05030a.htm">ecclesiastical discipline</a> and liturgy, civil and <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> events, the building and renovation of Roman churches, donations to churches of land, <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">liturgical</a> furniture, <a href="../cathen/12762a.htm">reliquaries</a>, valuable tapestries and the like, transfer of <a href="../cathen/12734a.htm">relics</a> to churches, the number of the principal ordinations (<a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacons</a>), the burial-place of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, and the time during which the <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">see</a> was vacant.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>Historical criticism has for a long time dealt with this ancient text in an exhaustive way, especially in recent decades after Duchesne had begun the publication of his classic edition. In most of its <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> copies there is found at the beginning a spurious correspondence between <a href="../cathen/04613a.htm">Pope Damasus</a> and <a href="../cathen/08341a.htm">Saint Jerome</a>. These letters were considered genuine in the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a>; consequently, in those times <a href="../cathen/08341a.htm">St. Jerome</a> was considered the author of the biographies as far as Damasus, at whose request it was believed Jerome had written the work, the subsequent lives having been added at the command of each individual <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>. When the above-mentioned correspondence was <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> entirely <a href="../cathen/01601a.htm">apocryphal</a>, this view was abandoned. In the sixteenth century <a href="../cathen/11450a.htm">Onofrio Panvinio</a> on quite insufficient grounds attributed to Anastasius Bibliothecarius in the ninth century the continuation of the biographies as far as <a href="../cathen/11054a.htm">Nicholas I</a>. Although <a href="../cathen/02304b.htm">Baronius</a> in great measure corrected this <a href="../cathen/05781a.htm">false</a> impression, the earlier editions, which appeared in the seventeenth century, bear the name of Anastasius as the author of our book of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>. The investigations of <a href="../cathen/03766b.htm">Ciampini</a> ("Examen Libri Pontificalis seu Vitarum Rom. Pont. quæ sub nomine Anastasii circumferuntur", Rome, 1688), <a href="../cathen/13526c.htm">Schelstrate</a> ("Dissertatio de antiquis Romanorum Pontificum catalogis", Rome, 1692), and other scholars, disprove any possible claim of Anastasius to the authorship of this work. The conclusive researches of Duchesne have established beyond a <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a> that in its earlier part, as far as the ninth century, the Liber Pontificalis was gradually compiled, and that the later continuations were added unsystematically. In only a few cases is it possible to ascertain the authors.</p> <p>Modern criticism deals chiefly with two points, the period in which the Liber Pontificalis, in its earliest part, was compiled, and the sources then available to the author of this oldest division of the Liber Pontificalis. Duchesne has <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> exhaustively and convincingly that the first series of biographies from St. Peter to <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Felix III</a> [IV (d. 530)], were compiled at the latest under Felix's successor, <a href="../cathen/02660a.htm">Boniface II</a> (530-2), and that their author was a contemporary of Anastasius II (496-8) and of Symmachus (498-514). His principal arguments are the following. A great many biographies of the predecessors of Anastasius II are full of <a href="../cathen/05525a.htm">errors</a> and historically untenable, but from Anastasius II on the information on the ecclesiastico-political history of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> is valuable and historically certain. In addition, some <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> offer a summary of the earlier part of the Liber Pontificalis as far as <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Felix III (IV)</a> whence the name "catalogus Felicianus"; consequently, the Liber Pontificalis must have been accessible to the author of this summary in a recension that reached to the above-mentioned <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Felix III (IV)</a>. This observation tallies well with the aforesaid fact that the biographies from Anastasius II on exhibit accurate historical information. Duchesne defended successfully this opinion against Waitz and Mommsen, who placed the first edition of the Liber Pontificalis in the beginning of the seventh century. To bear out this view they suppose that from the time of Anastasius II to that of the author a genuine and reliable historical source, since lost, was at his disposal. Since, moreover, they cannot explain the summary ending with <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Felix III (IV)</a>, as easily is done by the hypothesis of Duchesne, the latter's opinion meets with the general approval of historians, and has recently been perfected by investigators like Grisar. The first part therefore, to the death of <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Felix III (IV)</a> i.e. to 530, should be considered a complete work, the compilation of some author who wrote shortly after the death of <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Pope Felix</a>; later biographies were added at different times in groups or separately by various authors.</p> <p>The compiler of the first part made use of two ancient catalogues or lists of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> taking from them the order of succession, the chronological data, and also certain historical notes; these lists were: (a) the so-called "Catalogus Liberianus", and (b) a list of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> that varies in length in the <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a>, and perhaps depends on the "Catalogus Liberianus" for the period before the middle of the sixth century. The "Catalogus Liberianus" is so called, because it terminates with <a href="../cathen/09217a.htm">Pope Liberius</a> (352-66). It has reached us in the so-called Chronographus anni (354), an ancient <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> that contains the valuable lists of the "Depositio martyrum" and the "Depositio episcoporum". In the "Catalogus Lberianus" there are already short historical notices of some <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> (Peter, <a href="../cathen/12126b.htm">Pius</a>, Pontianus, Fabianus, <a href="../cathen/04375c.htm">Cornelius</a>, Lucius, <a href="../cathen/14031b.htm">Xystus</a>, Marcellinus, Julius), which were taken over by the author of the Liber Pontificalis. For its list of the earliest <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> the "Catalogus Liberianus" was able to draw on the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> catalogue given by <a href="../cathen/07360c.htm">Hippolytus of Rome</a> in his "Liber generationis", though even this list is not the oldest list of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>. It is probable that from the beginning of the second century there was already a list of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a>, which contained short historical notices and was afterwards continued. <a href="../cathen/05617b.htm">Eusebius</a> and later chroniclers used such lists in their works [Lightfoot, "The Apostolic Fathers", Part I; "St. Clement of Rome", I (2nd ed., London, 1890), 201 sqq.; Harnack, "Gesch. der altchristl. Litt.", Part II: "Die Chronologie", I (Leipzig, 1897), 70 sqq.; Segna, "De Successione Romanorum Pontificum" (Rome, 1897)]. Such a catalogue of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> has reached us, as above stated, in the "Catalogus Liberianus", and forms a basis for the earliest recension of the work.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>The compiler of the Liber Pontificalis utilized also some historical writings, e.g. <a href="../cathen/08341a.htm">St. Jerome</a>, ("De Viris Illustribus"), a number of <a href="../cathen/01601a.htm">apocryphal</a> fragments (e.g. the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions), the "Constitutum Silvestri", the spurious Acts of the alleged Synod of 275 <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> under Silvester etc., and fifth century Roman Acts of <a href="../cathen/09736b.htm">martyrs</a>. Finally the compiler distributed arbitrarily along his list of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> a number of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> decrees taken from unauthentic sources; he likewise attributed to earlier <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">liturgical</a> and disciplinary regulations of the sixth century. The building of churches, the donations of land, of church plate and furniture, and many kinds of precious ornaments are specified in great detail. These latter items are of great value, since they are based on the records of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> treasury (<em>vestiarium</em>), and the conclusion has been drawn that the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis in its earliest form must have been a clerk of the treasury. It is to be noted that the actual Liber Pontificalis that we have was not the only work of this kind. There existed a similar collection of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> biographies, executed under Pope Hormisdas (d. 523), of which a lengthy fragment has reached us (Fragmentum Laurentianum); it gives the end of the life of Anastasius II (d. 498) and the life of his successor Symmachus. The text of the early Liber Pontificalis (first half of the sixth century), as found in the <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> that exhibit the later continuations, is not the original text. Duchesne gives a reconstruction of the earliest text of the work. After <a href="../cathen/06031a.htm">Felix III (IV)</a> the Liber Pontificalis was continued by various authors at intervals, each writer treating a group of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> lives. Duchesne recognizes a first continuation as far as Pope Silverius (536-7), whose life is attributed to a contemporary. The limits of the next continuation are more difficult to determine; moreover in its earliest biographies several inaccuracies are met with. It is <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certain</a> that one continuation ended with <a href="../cathen/04258a.htm">Pope Conon</a> (d. 687); the aforesaid summary ending with this <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> (Catalogus Cononianus) and certain lists of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> are <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of this.</p> <p>After <a href="../cathen/04258a.htm">Conon</a> the lives down to <a href="../cathen/14289c.htm">Stephen V</a> (885-91) were regularly added, and from the end of the seventh century usually by contemporaries of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> in question. While many of the biographies are very circumstantial, their historical value varies much; from a literary point of view both style and diction are, as a rule, of a low grade. Nevertheless they are a very important historical source for the period covered. Some of these biographies were begun in the lifetime of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">Pope</a>, the incidents being set down as they occurred. The authors were Roman <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">ecclesiastics</a>, and some of them were attached to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> court. In only two cases can the author's name be discovered with any probability. The life of <a href="../cathen/14288c.htm">Stephen II</a> (752-7) was probably written by the <a href="../cathen/12426a.htm">papal "Primicerius"</a> Christopher. Anastasius Bibliothecarius perhaps wrote the life of <a href="../cathen/11054a.htm">Nicholas I</a> (858-67), a genuine, though brief, history of this <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>; this author may also have worked at the life of the following <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>, <a href="../cathen/01156a.htm">Adrian II</a> (867-72), with whose pontificate the text of this Liber Pontificalis, as exhibited in the extant <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a>, comes to an end. The biographies of the three following <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> are missing and that of <a href="../cathen/14289c.htm">Stephen V</a> (885-91) is incomplete. In its original form the Liber Pontificalis reached as far as the latter <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>. From the end of the ninth century the series of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> lives was long interrupted. For the whole of the tenth and eleventh centuries there are only lists of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> with a few short historical notices, that usually give only the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope's</a> origin and the duration of his reign.</p> <p>After <a href="../cathen/09160c.htm">Leo IX</a> (1049-54) detailed biographies of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> were again written; at first, however, not as continuations of the Liber Pontificalis, but as occasion offered, notably during the Investitures conflict. In this way <a href="../cathen/02673a.htm">Bonizo of Sutri</a>, in his "Liber ad amicum" or "De persecutione ecclesiæ", wrote lives of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> from <a href="../cathen/09160c.htm">Leo IX</a> to <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a>; he also wrote, as an introduction to the fourth book of his "Decretals", a "Chronicon Romanorum Pontificum" as far as <a href="../cathen/15210a.htm">Urban II</a> (1088-99). Cardinal Beno wrote a history of the <a href="../cathen/07424b.htm">Roman Church</a> in opposition to <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a>, "Gesta Romanæ ecclesiæ contra Hildebrandum" (Mon. Germ. Hist., Libelli de lite, II, 368 sqq.). Important information concerning the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> is contained in the "Annales Romani", from 1044 to 1187, and is utilized, in part, by Duchesne in his edition of the Liber Pontificalis (below). Only in the first half of the twelfth century was a systematic continuation again undertaken. This is the Liber Pontificalis of Petrus Guillermi (son of William), so called by Duchesne after the <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> written in 1142 by this Petrus in the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> of St. Gilles (Diocese of <a href="../cathen/07356b.htm">Reims</a>). But Petrus Guillermi merely copied, with certain additions and abbreviations, the biographies of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> written by Pandulf, nephew of Hugo of <a href="../cathen/01251a.htm">Alatri</a>. Following the lines of the old Liber Pontificalis, Pandulf had made a collection of the lives of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> from St. Peter down; only from <a href="../cathen/09160c.htm">Leo IX</a> does he add any original matter. Down to <a href="../cathen/15210a.htm">Urban II</a> (1088-99) his information is drawn from written sources; from Paschal II (1099-1118) to Honorius II (1124-30), after whose pontificate this recension of the Liber Pontificalis was written, we have a contemporary's own information. Duchesne holds that all biographies from <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a> on were written by Pandulf, while earlier historians like Giesebrecht ("Allgemeine Monatsschrift", Halle, 1852, 260 sqq.) and Watterich (Romanorum Pontificum vitæ, I, LXVIII sqq.) had considered Cardinal Petrus Pisanus as author of the lives of <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a>, <a href="../cathen/15410a.htm">Victor III</a>, and <a href="../cathen/15210a.htm">Urban II</a>, and had attributed to Pandulf only the subsequent lives--i.e. those of Gelasius II, <a href="../cathen/03185a.htm">Callistus II</a>, and Honorius II. This series of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> biographies, extant only in the recension of Petrus Guillermi, is continued in the same <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscripts</a> of the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monastery</a> of St. Gilles as far as Martin II (1281-5); however, the statements of this <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> have no special value, being all taken from the Chronicle of Martinus Polonus.</p> <p>On the other hand the series of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> lives written by the <a href="../cathen/03333b.htm#p">cardinal priest</a> Boso (d. about 1178), has independent value; it was his intention to continue the old Liber Pontificalis from the death of <a href="../cathen/14289c.htm">Stephen V</a>, with which life, as above said, the work ends. For the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> from <a href="../cathen/08426b.htm">John XII</a> to <a href="../cathen/06791c.htm">Gregory VII</a> Boso drew on <a href="../cathen/02673a.htm">Bonizo of Sutri</a>; for the lives from Gelasius II (1118-19), to <a href="../cathen/01287a.htm">Alexander III</a> (1179-81) under whom Boso filled an important office, the work has independent value. This collection, nevertheless, was not completed as a continuation of the Liber Pontificalis and it remained unnoticed for a long time. Cencius Camerarius, afterwards <a href="../cathen/07457a.htm">Honorius III</a>, was the first to publish, together with his "Liber Censuum", the "Gesta Romanorum Pontificum" of Boso. Biographies of individual <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> of the thirteenth century were written by various authors, but were not brought together in a continuation of the Liber Pontificalis. Early in the fourteenth century an unknown author carried farther the above-mentioned continuation of Petrus Guillermi, and added biographies of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> from <a href="../cathen/09724a.htm">Martin IV</a> (d. 1281) to <a href="../cathen/08431a.htm">John XXII</a> (1316-34); but the information is taken from the "Chronicon Pontificum" of Bernardus Guidonis, and the narrative reaches only to 1328. An independent continuation appeared in the reign of <a href="../cathen/05601a.htm">Eugene IV</a> (1431-47).</p> <p>From <a href="../cathen/15214a.htm">Urban V</a> (1362-70) to <a href="../cathen/09725a.htm">Martin V</a> (1417-31), with whom this continuation ended, the biographies have special historical value; the epoch treated is broadly the time of the <a href="../cathen/13539a.htm">Great Western Schism</a>. A later recension of this continuation, accomplished under <a href="../cathen/05601a.htm">Eugene IV</a>, offers several additions. Finally, to the fifteenth century belong two collections of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papal</a> biographies, which were thought to be a continuation of the Liber Pontificalis, but nevertheless have remained separate and independent collections. The first comprises the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> from <a href="../cathen/02430a.htm">Benedict XII</a> (1334-42) to <a href="../cathen/09725a.htm">Martin V</a> (1417-31), and in another <a href="../cathen/09614b.htm">manuscript</a> to <a href="../cathen/05601a.htm">Eugene IV</a> (1431-47); the second reaches from <a href="../cathen/15216a.htm">Urban VI</a> (1378-89) to <a href="../cathen/12126c.htm">Pius II</a> (1458-64). For the last <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> in each case they exhibit valuable historical material. In consequence of the peculiar development of the Liber Pontificalis as a whole, it follows that, in order to obtain the full value of the historical sources used in the Liber Pontificalis, each particular life, each larger or smaller group of lives, needs separate critical treatment. The Liber Pontificalis was first edited by J. Busæus under the title "Anastasii bibliothecarii Vitæ seu Gesta Romanorum Pontificum" (Mainz, 1602). A new edition, with the "Historia ecclesiastica" of Anastasius, was edited by Fabrotti (Paris, 1647). The best of the older editions of the primitive Liber Pontificalis (down to <a href="../cathen/01156a.htm">Hadrian II</a>), with edition of the life of Stephen VI, was done by <a href="../cathen/02541a.htm">Fr. Bianchini</a> (4 vols., Rome, 1718-35; a projected fifth volume did not appear). Muratori added to his reprint of this edition the lives of later <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> down to <a href="../cathen/08431a.htm">John XXII</a> (Scriptores rerum Italicarum, III). The edition of <a href="../cathen/02541a.htm">Bianchini</a> with several appendixes is found also in <a href="../cathen/10290a.htm">Migne</a> (P.L., CXXVII-VIII). For a classic edition of the early Liber Pontificalis, with all the above-mentioned continuations, we are indebted to the tireless industry of Louis Duchesne, "Liber Pontificalis. Texte, introduction et commentaire" (2 vols., Paris, 1886-92). Mommsen began a new critical edition of the same work under the title "Gestorum Pontificum Romanorum pars I: Liber Pontificalis" (Mon. Germ. hist.); the first volume extends to 715 (Berlin, 1898).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>On the plan of the Roman Liber Pontificalis, and in obvious imitation, Agnellus, a <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> of <a href="../cathen/12662b.htm">Ravenna</a>, wrote the history of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of that city, and called it "Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiæ Revennatis". It began with St. Apollinaris and reached to about 485 (see <a href="../cathen/01202d.htm">AGNELLUS OF RAVENNA</a>). This history of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of <a href="../cathen/12662b.htm">Ravenna</a> was continued, first by the unknown author to the end of the thirteenth century (1296), and afterwards to 1410 by Petrus Scordilli, <a href="../cathen/12517a.htm">provost</a> of <a href="../cathen/12662b.htm">Ravenna</a>. Other <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> chroniclers have also left collections of biographies of the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a> of particular sees, arranged on the lines of the Liber Pontificalis. Thus in 1071-2, at the order of Bishop Gundecharus of <a href="../cathen/05364a.htm">Eichstätt</a>, the "Liber Pontificalis Eichstettensis" (ed. Bethmann in "Mon. Germ. hist., script.", VII, 242-50). Many <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> <a href="../cathen/01694b.htm">archiepiscopal</a> and <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">episcopal sees</a> possess, under the title of "Gesta", histories of the occupants of these <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">sees</a>. Most of them offer very important original material for local <a href="../cathen/05001a.htm">diocesan</a> history (for a list of them consult Potthast, "Bibliotheca historica medii ævi", 2nd ed., I, 511, 514-6).</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">Besides the learned Prolegomena to the editions of DUCHESNE and MOMMSEN, see DUCHESNE, Etude sur le Liber Pontificalis in Bibl. des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome (1st series, Paris, 1877); IDEM, La date et les récensions du Liber Pont. in Revue de quest. hist., XXVI (1879), 493-530; IDEM, Le premier Liber Pont., Ibid., XXIX (1881), 246-62; IDEM, La nouvelle édition du Liber Pont. in Mélanges d'archéol. et d'hist., XVIII (1898), 381-417; GRISAR, Der Liber Pontif. in Zeitschr. für kath. Theol., XI (1887), 417-46; IDEM, Analecta Romana, I (Rome, 1899). 1 sqq.; WAITZ, Ueber die italienischen Handschriften des Liber Pont. in Neues Archiv. X (1885), 455-65; IDEM, Ueber den sogennanten Catalogus Felicianus der Päpste, ibid., XI (1886), 217-99; IDEM, Ueber die verschiedenen Texte des Liber Pont., ibid., IV (1879), 216-73; BRACKMANN, Reise nach Italien, ibid., XXVI (1901), 299-347; GIORGI, Appunti intorno ad alcuni manoscritti del Liber Pont. in Archivio della Soc. romana di storia patria, XX (1897), 247 sqq.; WATTERICH, Vitæ Pontif. Roman. (2 vols., Leipzig, 1862); LIGHTFOOT, The Apostolic Fathers. Part I: S. Clement of Rome, I (London, 1890). 303-25; FABRE: Etude sur le Liber Censuum de l'Église romaine in BIBL. des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, n. lxii (1st series, Paris, 1899); GLASSCHRÖDER, Des Lucas Holstenius Sammlung von Papstleben in Römische Quartalschr., IV (1890), 125 sqq.; IDEM. Vitæ aliquot Pontificum Sæc. XV, ibid., V (1891), 178 sqq.; IDEM, Zur Quellenkunde der Papstgesch. des XIV. Jahrhunderts in Historiches Jahrbuch, XI (1890), 240 sqq.; HARNACK, Ueber die Ordinationes im Papstbuch in Sitzungsber. der Akad. der Wiss. Zu Berlin (1897), 761 sqq.; MOMMSEN, Ordo et spatia episcoporum Romanorum in Libro Pontificali in Neues Archiv., XXI (1894), 333 sqq.; SÄGMÜLLER. Dietrich von Niem und der Liber Pontificalis in Hist. Jahrbuch. XV (1894), 802 sqq.; ROSENFELD, Ueber die Komposition des Liber Pontificalis bis zu Konstantin. Dissert. (Marburg. 1896); SCHNÜRER, Der Verfasser der Vita Stephani II (752-757) im Liber Pontificalis in Histor. Jahrbuch. XI (1890). 425 sqq.; POTTHAST, Bibl. hist. medii ævi, I, 737-9; DE SMEDT, Introductio generalis ad historiam eccl. critice tractandam (Ghent, 1876), 220 sqq.</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Kirsch, J.P.</span> <span id="apayear">(1910).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Liber Pontificalis.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09224a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Kirsch, Johann Peter.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Liber Pontificalis."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 9.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1910.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09224a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Wm Stuart French, Jr.</span> <span id="dedication">Dedicated to Rev. Anselm Biggs, O.S.B.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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