316Mikhāʾīl Mishāqah (1800–1888 or 1889): first historian of later Ottoman Lebanon, who converted from Greek Catholicism to Protestantism in 1848.
317“the Mutawālīs”: the Twelver Shiites of Lebanon.
318“the Anṣārīs”: a Shiite sect with distinctive teachings and cosmology, with followers in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere in the region.
319“Some of them… have written histories”: the material that follows, even though attributed below by the author to several writers, appears to be taken mostly — and in some cases word for word — from Voltaire’s Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations, chaps. 35–37 (see, e.g., http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Essai_sur_les_mœurs, accessed 6 March 2013).
320“Pope Amadeus VIII, known as the Duke of Savoy”: the name and number refer, in fact, not to a pope but to Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy (1383–1451), who did, however, become antipope, assuming the papal name of Felix V, when elected by the dissident rump of the Council of Basel. The spelling Armadiyūs in the Arabic is an error.
321“the Council of Basel was convened specifically to depose Pope Eugene”: the Council of Basel was convened in 1431 to limit the powers of the papacy. Pope Eugene IV (r. 1431–47) sought to disband the council, a rump of which remained at Basel and elected the antipope Felix V.
322Nicholas I (r. 858–67) excommunicated the Bishop of Cologne over the latter’s support for Emperor Lothar II’s petition for an annulment of his marriage that would allow him to marry his mistress.
323“Ambrose, governor of Milan”: Aurelius Ambrosius (Saint Ambrose) (ca. 340–97) became Bishop of Milan after originally being governor of Emilia and Liguria, with headquarters at Milan. The author’s reference to his “unsoundness” of belief may derive from the fact that Ambrose was neither baptized not formally trained in theology when elected bishop by popular acclaim, but his later contributions to theology resulted in his being numbered among the four Latin Fathers of the Church.
324“Pope John VIII… Photius”: Pope John VIII (r. 872–82) recognized the reinstatement of Photius as the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople after he had been condemned by Adrian VII. Photius (ca. 810–93) gained, lost, and regained the patriarchate of Constantinople against a background of the struggle between rival candidates for the Byzantine throne, a struggle in which the Western church attempted to intervene. The Western church eventually anathematized Photius, while the Eastern canonized him.
325“Pope Stephen VII… Formosus”: under pressure from a leading Roman family supportive of Pope John VIII and opposed by Formosus, then Bishop of Porto, Stephen VI (r. 896–97) had the remains of Formosus (pope, r. 891–96, and Stephen’s last predecessor but one) exhumed, put him on trial, and sentenced him to the punishments described.
326i.e., Pope Sergius III (r. 904–11).
327Marozia (ca. 890–936): a Roman noblewoman who, with her mother Theodora, was actively involved in the affairs of the papacy, as described in what follows. The accession to the papacy of her bastard son, grandson, two great grandsons, and a nephew has led hostile commentators to refer to the period of her ascendancy as a “pornocracy” (rule by prostitutes).
328According to most accounts, it was Pope John X rather than Sergius III who awarded Marozia, rather than her mother Theodora, the unprecedented title of senatrix (“senatoress”) of Rome.
329Later, Pope John XI (r. 931–35).
330“Hugh, King of Arles”: i.e., Hugh of Arles (before 885–948), who was elected King of Italy.
331Pope John X (914–28) was a protégé of Theodora (see n. 327) and perished as a result of the intrigues of her daughter Marozia.
332i.e., Leo VI (reigned for seven months in 928).
333i.e., Stephen VII (r. 928 (?) to 931), hand-picked by Marozia as a stopgap until her son could assume the papacy as John XI.
334“her husband”: Alberic I, Duke of Spoleto; it is not usually reported that she poisoned him.
335i.e., the aforementioned Hugh of Arles, King of Italy.
336i.e., Alberic II (912–54), who had his mother imprisoned until her death.
337Stephen VIII: reigned 939–42.
338“disfigured his face”: perhaps a reference to the claim that Stephen VIII was the first pope to shave and that he ordered the men of Rome to do likewise.
339John XII reigned from 955 to 964, dying at the age of twenty-seven.
340i.e., Otto I (912–73), who in 962 made a pact with Pope John XII that made the Western Roman Empire guarantor of the independence of the Papal States. Soon, however, the pope, fearful of the power thus bestowed, began to intrigue with the Magyars and the Byzantines against the Western Empire. Otto returned to Rome in 963, convened a synod of bishops, and deposed the pope.
341Leo VIII was an antipope from 963 to 964, when he was illegally elected by the 963 synod that illegally deposed John XII, and a true pope from 964 to 965, having been legally re-elected following the death of John XII.
342Crescentius: i.e., Crescentius II (d. 992), son of Crescentius I and not, as the author states, of John X and Marozia, was a leader of the Roman aristocracy who made himself de facto ruler of Rome, was deposed by Otto III, rose again in rebellion, appointed an antipope (John XVI), and was eventually defeated and executed.
343Benedict: Pope Benedict VII (d. 983); other sources do not confirm that he died in prison; the author appears to have confused him with John XIV (see below).
344John XIV: pope from 983 to 984, who was imprisoned by the antipope Boniface VII in Sant’Angelo, where he died.
345Boniface VII: ruled as antipope (974, 984–85) under the patronage of Crescentius and the Roman aristocracy.
346Gregory: i.e., Pope Gregory V (ca. 972–99), cousin and chaplain of Otto III; although he consistently supported the emperor, his death was not without suspicion of foul play.
347Otto III (980–1002): son of Otto II, in 996 he came to Rome to aid Pope John XV (985–96) (see below) against Crescentius, whom he eventually killed.
348“played a trick on him”: Otto III promised Crescentius the right to live in retirement in Rome but reneged and had him murdered and hung from the walls of Sant’Angelo.
349Pope John XV (r. 985–86) succeeded Pope Boniface VII; according to other accounts he died of fever, while it was the antipope John XVI, appointed by Crescentius, who, on the latter’s defeat, had his eyes put out and nose cut off before banishing him to a monastery.
350Benedict VIII: reigned 1012 to 1024.
351John XIX: succeeded his brother Benedict VIII and reigned from 1024 to 1032.
352Benedict IX: said by most sources to have been between eighteen and twenty years of age when he succeeded his uncle, John XIX, he is the only pope to have reigned three times (1032–44, 1045, 1047–48) and to have sold the papacy (to Gregory VI in 1045), although he later attempted to reclaim it.
353Meaning presumably Sylvester III and the restored Benedict IX.
354“with his concubine” (maʿa surriyyatihi): thus the Arabic, although one wonders if maʿa sariyyatihi (“with his detachment of soldiers”) is not what is meant.
355“one of the kings of France”: i.e., Robert II (972–1032), who was excommunicated by Pope Gregory V when he insisted on marrying his cousin, a marriage denied by the pope on grounds of consanguinity.
356Gregory VII: reigned from 1073 to 1085. His attempts to strengthen papal hegemony against the Holy Roman Empire culminated in the Investiture Controversy (over the right to appoint bishops), which led, in 1076, to his excommunication of Emperor Henry IV, who was accused of being behind his brief abduction.