The New Pope

This chapter explains the difficulties facing a new pope after his election. Once the shine had worn off his elevation he had to find ways to assert his authority over his former peers. The principle routes were: symbolic display, patronage, and coercion. All had shortcomings which were greater in an elective monarchy like the papacy than in hereditary institutions. Different popes tried different balances of the three, with varying degrees of success. However, none found a winning formula for long because the nature of the pope’s authority—diminishing constantly from the moment of election—meant that all reigns ultimately ended in failure. A new pope may have been powerful but an old pope was often most decidedly not—and that had a major effect on the papacy’s evolution as a political institution during these centuries.