This pope's life presents an interesting paradox. Defied and set at naught in
his own city by the turbulent Romans, he found his fingers on the pulse of
Europe. Gerard Caccianemici was a native of Bologna. His was the standard
successful career in the papal service. Canon of St. John Lateran, papal
librarian, chancellor of the Apostolic See, and cardinal, he rose steadily under
Popes Honorius II and Innocent II.
There are no extant details of his election to the papacy. Gerard was
consecrated March 12, 1144. He took the name Lucius II. Though he ruled less
than a year and was forced to fight to control his own city, Pope Lucius yet
found time to send legates to and receive embassies from the far corners of
Europe. The king of Portugal sent to Lucius to commend Portugal to the Pope as a
feudal fief. Historians consider that when Lucius accepted the homage of Alfonso
Henriquez the independence of Portugal was assured. The City of Corneto, once
papal territory, returned voluntarily to the Pope's lordship in the time of
Lucius. Humbert, lord of Pringins, a castle near Lake Geneva, came to Rome to
offer feudal homage to the pope. But what a different picture at home! At first
indeed the Romans accepted the Pope.
Relations between Celestine and King Roger of Sicily had been badly strained,
but Lucius was a personal friend of Roger's--indeed, had stood godfather to one
of his children. And so when Pope Lucius and Roger met at a conference at
Ceprano, there was good hope for peace. But in spite of the friendship of the
principals, peace did not come. The cardinals and the Romans were quite
anti-Norman, and through their efforts the conference broke up. Roger, enraged,
sent his mail-clad knights against the Pope and soon even the Romans had to
agree to a truce. But if the Normans subsided, the Romans did not. Angry at the
Pope's peace policy and filled with delusions of grandeur, they set up the
republic. Jordan of the Pierleoni family, a brother of the old antipope
Anacletus, was made Patrician. Pope Lucius, in distress, turned to Emperor
Conrad, but Conrad was deaf to his appeals even when St. Bernard added his voice
to that of the Pope. Finally, Lucius turned to those natural enemies of the
Pierleoni, the Frangipani, and soon Rome rang with the clash of steel and the
hoarse war cries of barons and burghers. Jordan had fortified the Capitol. The
Frangipani operated from the Circus Maximus. According to one chronicle, Pope
Lucius, leading an assault on the Capitol, was struck down by enemy stones. The
silence of most chronicles leads historians to-doubt this, but at any rate
Lucius did die on February 15, 1145.
Excerpted from "Popes
Through the Ages" by Joseph Brusher, S.J.
