History of Papal State(s)

Interested about finding out more about the history of the Papal States and Popes.
Was it the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor in fact the head of the Papal State? Did the Papal state ever maintain a regular army? Were the Swiss the primary(or only) mercenaries within the Papal State's army?
Which Pope(s) were the "Holiest of Fathers" and which should(if any) be considered the least holy of them all?

daft said:

Interested about finding out more about the history of the Papal States and Popes.
Was it the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor in fact the head of the Papal State? Did the Papal state ever maintain a regular army? Were the Swiss the primary(or only) mercenaries within the Papal State's army?
Which Pope(s) were the "Holiest of Fathers" and which should(if any) be considered the least holy of them all?

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To answer your question, for a good portion of it's early history, the Papal States were a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Now what constitutes actual rule by the emperor up in Aachen or whatnot is not easy to define. He certainly didn't rule the Papal States as it's ruler directly, the Pontiff of Rome did as a matter of fact. The whole thing comes down to reading about the Investitute Controversy if you want to know more. For that, I suggest some reading of Oscar Darlington's writings on the early church. It's pretty old stuff, but it's still very relevant in understanding the church of the 8th-12th centuries (You even get to read about how Sylvester II only listened to a broken gargoyle head that would advise him!).

Much like many states of the period, the Papal States did not maintain a professional army and hired mercenaries, or simply just requested aid from fellow Italian city-states. The Battle of Civitate and the Lombard League wars are good examples of how this happened. The Swiss Guard could I guess be considered a "professional army" of some sorts, but the commanders of the guard were often hired as mercanaries, this largely happened until Julius II came to power.

daft said:

Interested about finding out more about the history of the Papal States and Popes.
Was it the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor in fact the head of the Papal State? Did the Papal state ever maintain a regular army? Were the Swiss the primary(or only) mercenaries within the Papal State's army?
Which Pope(s) were the "Holiest of Fathers" and which should(if any) be considered the least holy of them all?

Click to expand...

You need to be more specific since the Papal States lasted over 1,000 years it obviously had different governmental and military structures. The earliest "Papal States" were ruled by essentially the Roman aristocracy, most notably in the awesomely named period "pornocracy."

In 962 when Otto I conquered the Kingdom of Italy, the HRE obviously became interested in the Papal States. The Otto-Papal treaty, Privilegium Ottonianum made things dodgy, the Papal States were made kind of like an independent client state. The actual influence varied with the Emperor's power projection. In nomine Domini in 1059 began the process of breaking Imperial authority which "ended" with the Concordat of Worms in 1122.

Warfare again changes through the ages. Pope John X is the first known pope to personally command and fight in a war though others (Leo IV comes to mind) were present during wars as a kind of morale support/figurehead. Generally the rule of thumb was that Cardinals would lead the papal armies. Especially early on the Roman militias provided the core supplemented by various allies. John X's campaign, for example had the allied army consisting of Lombards, Byzantines, and various independent Italians.

Even in their heyday the Swiss were never the only mercenaries. The Corsican Guard is one of the more (in)famous of these. Italians were always a significant presence among the mercenaries.

The relative "holiness" or lack thereof of individual popes is dependent upon who is making the judgment. The Catholic Church thinks 81 of the 265 popes were sufficiently holy to be named saints. On the opposite side, I know Pope Liberius and Pope Honorius were declared heretics. Several popes were involved in various sexual exploits and power politics which depending on your moral code might not seem that bad.