Calixtus Ii1119-1124 ─ A Pope Born to Rule

Calixtus was from a noble family in Burgundy that functioned as virtual royalty, says Stroll (history, U. of California-San Diego), and when he became pope, he fashioned himself more as the ruler of Christendom than its spiritual leader. She explains that he arrived on the scene at a low point of the papacy and aggressively dealt with immediate issues in such a way as to strengthen the political and weaken the moral position of the office. Among the tasks she describes are ecclesiastical reform, the imposition of papal authority on the western kingdoms and the empire, the pacification of Rome, the establishment of the Latin church in Norman Italy, and the campaign to repulse the Muslims in Spain and the Holy Land. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Mary Stroll, Ph.D. (1975) in History, the University of California, San Diego, is a Visiting Scholar at UCSD. She has published three books with Brill, the last of which was The Medieval Abbey of Farfa (1998).