If you try to scroll through a popes list by year, you’re basically looking at a 2,000-year-old soap opera. It’s wild. Most people think of the papacy as this unbroken, serene line of holy men in white robes.
Honestly? It was often a mess.
We’ve had popes who were basically teenagers, popes who were murdered by jealous husbands, and a solid century where the "pope" didn't even live in Rome. If you’re looking for a dry Sunday school lesson, this isn't it. This is the grit of history.
Right now, as we sit in 2026, we are living through a massive historical pivot. Pope Leo XIV (formerly Robert Prevost) has been in the chair for about eight months now. He’s the first American to ever hold the job. That’s 267 popes—depending on how you count the "lost" ones—and it took two millennia to get a guy from Chicago.
The Early Days: Martyrs and Mysteries (32–590 AD)
The list starts with St. Peter. No surprise there. But the dates for the first few centuries are kinda fuzzy. Historians at places like the Oxford History of the Christian Church admit that the "unbroken chain" looks more like a web in the early days.
- St. Peter (c. 32–67): The fisherman. The rock.
- St. Linus & St. Cletus: The guys who had to keep the lights on while the Romans were literally trying to feed them to lions.
- St. Sylvester I (314–335): This is where it gets interesting. He was the pope when Constantine finally made Christianity legal. Suddenly, the Bishop of Rome went from a guy hiding in catacombs to a guy sitting in a palace.
You’ve gotta realize that for the first 300 years, being on the popes list by year was basically a death sentence. Almost all of them were martyred. It wasn't about power; it was about not getting caught.
The Weird Stuff: The Medieval Chaos (590–1303)
If you like drama, the Middle Ages is your era. This is when the papacy became a political football.
One of the most insane moments happened with Pope Stephen VI (896–897). He hated his predecessor, Formosus, so much that he dug up the guy's rotting corpse, dressed it in papal robes, and put it on trial. It’s called the Cadaver Synod. They actually found the dead guy guilty, chopped off his blessing fingers, and threw him in the Tiber River.
History is weird.
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Then you have the Pornocracy (real historical term, look it up). In the 10th century, a couple of powerful Roman noblewomen basically decided who got to be pope based on... well, personal favors. Pope John XII (955–964) was elected at age 18. He reportedly turned the Lateran Palace into a brothel and died when a man caught him in bed with his wife and beat him to death.
Not exactly "holy father" vibes.
The Avignon Gap
For a while (1309–1377), the popes didn't even live in Rome. They moved to Avignon, France. Seven popes in a row were French and stayed there because Rome was too dangerous and chaotic. This created the Western Schism, where at one point, three different guys all claimed to be the real pope at the same time.
Imagine checking the popes list by year in 1410 and seeing three names. Who do you follow? Europe basically picked sides like a football match.
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The Renaissance and Beyond: Gold and Reform
The Renaissance popes were basically kings who happened to wear miters. They commissioned the Sistine Chapel, but they also started wars.
- Alexander VI (1492–1503): The infamous Rodrigo Borgia. He had multiple kids and used the papacy to make his family the richest in Italy.
- Leo X (1513–1521): A Medici. He’s the one who sold indulgences (basically "pay to get out of hell" cards) to build St. Peter’s Basilica. This annoyed a monk named Martin Luther so much that he started the Protestant Reformation.
- Pius IX (1846–1878): He holds the record for the longest reign (31 years). He was also the one who lost the Papal States to the new country of Italy and spent his final years as a "prisoner" inside the Vatican.
The Modern Era: Popes in the Digital Age
Moving into the 20th and 21st centuries, the job shifted. It became less about land and armies and more about global influence.
John Paul II (1978–2005) was the first non-Italian in 455 years. He was a rockstar who traveled more than every other pope combined. Then we had Benedict XVI, who did the unthinkable: he quit. In 2013, he became the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years, paving the way for Pope Francis.
Francis was a massive shift—the first from the Americas. He lived in a simple guesthouse instead of the palace. And now, in 2026, we have Leo XIV.
The current Pope, Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), was elected on May 8, 2025. He’s 70 years old now and is trying to navigate a Church that is deeply divided between traditionalists and progressives. Taking the name "Leo" was a signal. He’s referencing Leo XIII, the "Pope of the Workers," trying to focus on social justice while keeping the institution from flying apart.
What Most People Get Wrong About the List
When you look at a popes list by year, you’ll see some names with "Antipope" next to them. These weren't "evil" popes. They were just guys who were elected by a different faction. If the "wrong" group of cardinals elected you, you got scrubbed from the official list later.
Also, the numbering is a mess. There is no Pope John XX. It goes from XIX (19) to XXI (21) because of a counting error in the Middle Ages that nobody ever bothered to fix.
Why the Timeline Matters Today
The papacy is the oldest continuous institution in the Western world. Looking at the list isn't just a religious exercise; it's a map of how power has shifted over 2,000 years. From Peter’s fishing boat to Leo XIV’s Twitter (X) account, the office has survived plagues, world wars, and its own internal scandals.
If you want to understand why the Vatican acts the way it does today, you have to look at the years where it almost fell apart.
Next Steps for You
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- Check the official Vatican website if you want the "sanitized" version of the list; it's great for dates but misses the juicy scandals.
- Look up the "Liber Pontificalis." It’s the ancient book where these records were first kept. It's fascinatingly biased and reads like a medieval tabloid.
- Watch the transition of Leo XIV. His first major encyclical is expected later this year, and it’s rumored to address the role of technology and AI in modern faith.
The popes list by year is more than just a list of names. It’s a record of human ambition, failure, and the weird way history keeps repeating itself.