Framing (anti)pope Clement III, 1080-1100

The Middle Ages produced any number of figures now considered ‘antipopes.’ What was an antipope, however, and what impact did the antipopes have on history, religion, and art? This conference considers one of the most important of all antipopes, Clement III (Wibert of Ravenna), who exercised substantial power in Rome and in Italy during the final decades of the eleventh century. Elected by a synod of imperial bishops at Brixen (Bressanone) in 1080, Clement was solemnly enthroned and consecrated at St. John Lateran in 1084, following the siege in which Henry IV, the German king and future emperor, took Rome from the forces of his arch-adversary, Gregory VII. After his consecration in 1084, Clement III resided in Rome intermittently for fifteen years, acting as pope and simultaneously serving as archbishop of the large and important archdiocese of Ravenna, with the support of Emperor Henry IV and of other powers. In the meantime, three alternative popes now considered the canonical line—Victor III, Urban II, and Paschal II—were elected by cardinals loyal to the memory of Gregory VII and to the so-called ‘Reform’ party. After Clement’s death in 1100, a cult of miracles grew up around his tomb at Civita Castellana, the town in northern Latium where he died. Paschal II put an abrupt end to the cult, however, by having Clement’s remains exhumed and thrown into the Tiber. Our conference focuses upon the image and historical afterlife of Clement III with attention to the different perspectives recoverable from the study of medieval literature, art, and religious and political practice. Several broader questions will constitute leitmotifs. How is history written and rewritten? How are long-term collective memories established and perpetuated? How do the winning parties in a struggle make their defeated and often deceased enemies into villains, when the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate, right and wrong, was not always so clear during the actual struggle?