The Bad Popes
1969 book
The Bad Popes is a 1969 book by E. R. Chamberlin documenting the lives of eight of the most controversial popes (papal years in parentheses):
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who exhumed and tried his dead predecessor Pope Formosus.
Pope John XII (955–964), who murdered several people.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who was accused of selling the Papacy.
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who regularly interfered in the politics of neighboring kingdoms.
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who tortured cardinals who had conspired against him.
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), who, besides being openly promiscuous, was found guilty of nepotism.
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), who once spent 1⁄7 of the Papal reserves on a single ceremony, leading Martin Luther to publish the 95 Theses and spark the Protestant Reformation.
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), whose power-politicking led to the Sack of Rome.
Reviews
Milligan, Sam (August 24, 1969). "'Bad Popes' and Era Examined by Writer".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Bad Popes” is 1969 book. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Popes and book, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1969 book” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11004942. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1032, 1044 and 1045.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “The Bad Popes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.