If you look at the official Vatican yearbook, the Annuario Pontificio, you’ll see a nice, clean line. It starts with a fisherman from Galilee and ends with a Jesuit from Argentina. 266 names. It looks perfect. But honestly? History is rarely that tidy. When people go searching for a list of popes since Peter, they usually expect a simple genealogy, like a royal family tree. What they actually find is a two-thousand-year saga filled with periods where nobody knew who the pope was, times when three different guys claimed the job at once, and a few centuries where the "list" was basically written by whoever had the biggest army in Rome.
It’s a wild story.
The Papacy is the world's oldest continuous functional institution. That's a fact. But the transition from Simon Peter—a man who probably didn’t even use the title "Pope"—to the modern global figurehead we see today was anything but a straight line. It was a jagged, often bloody, and deeply human process. To understand the list, you have to understand the gaps, the overlaps, and the sheer grit it took to keep the chair of St. Peter from falling apart during the Dark Ages.
The Early Days and the "Linus" Mystery
The beginning of the list of popes since Peter is surprisingly foggy. We know Peter was in Rome. We know he was martyred under Nero. But the immediate "succession" wasn't a formal election with white smoke and red shoes. It was a clandestine handoff in a persecuted underground church.
Early historians like Irenaeus and Eusebius tell us that a man named Linus took over after Peter. Then came Cletus. Then Clement. But here’s the kicker: some early sources swap the order. Others suggest they might have been leading different "house churches" in Rome simultaneously. It wasn’t until the mid-2nd century that the "Monarchical Episcopate"—the idea of one single Bishop of Rome ruling over everyone—really solidified.
You’ve got guys like Pope Sixtus I (the sixth pope, hence the name, though that's a bit of a historical pun) and Alexander I. These were men living on the edge. Most of the first 30 names on the list ended up as martyrs. They weren't living in palaces; they were hiding in the suburbs of Rome, trying to keep a tiny religious movement from being snuffed out by the Empire.
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When the List Gets Weird: The Middle Ages
Fast forward a few hundred years. The Church is now the official religion of Rome. The Bishop of Rome is a power player. This is where the list of popes since Peter starts to look less like a roster of saints and more like a political thriller.
Take the 9th and 10th centuries. Historians call this the Saeculum Obscurum, or the "Dark Age" of the papacy. It was a mess.
One of the most bizarre moments in the entire list is the "Cadaver Synod" of 897. Pope Stephen VI was so angry at his predecessor, Pope Formosus, that he had the guy’s rotting corpse dug up, dressed in papal robes, sat on a throne, and put on trial. Unsurprisingly, the corpse "lost" the trial. Stephen had the body's three blessing fingers hacked off and threw it into the Tiber River. This wasn't a one-off insanity; it reflected a period where the Papacy was a prize for the local Roman nobility. Families like the Theophylacti basically treated the throne like a family heirloom for decades.
The Problem of the "Anti-Popes"
If you see a list of popes today, you’ll notice some names are missing or relegated to footnotes. These are the "Antipopes." Basically, these were guys who claimed the title but were later deemed illegitimate by the Church.
The Great Western Schism (1378–1417) is the peak of this confusion. At one point, you had a pope in Rome, a pope in Avignon (France), and a third pope in Pisa. Everyone was excommunicating everyone else. If you lived in Europe at the time, your "official" list of popes depended entirely on which King you happened to serve. It took the Council of Constance to finally fire all three guys and start fresh with Martin V.
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- Pope Gregory XII: The Roman claimant who eventually resigned to end the schism.
- Benedict XIII: The Avignon claimant who refused to quit and ended up living out his days in a castle in Spain, still insisting he was the real Pope.
- John XXIII: (The first one, not the 1960s saint). He was the Pisan pope who was later scrubbed from the "official" list, which is why the name was available again in the 20th century.
The Renaissance and the Great Power Shift
By the time we hit the 1400s and 1500s, the list of popes since Peter includes some of the most famous names in world history. We’re talking about the Borgias and the Medicis. These men were patrons of Michelangelo and Raphael, but they were also secular princes.
Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) is the one everyone remembers. He had children, he ran the Papal States like a conquest, and he was a brilliant, if utterly ruthless, politician. Then you have Leo X, the Medici pope who famously said, "Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it." It was his tenure that triggered Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.
This era changed the nature of the list forever. The Pope wasn't just a "pastor" anymore; he was a head of state with an army. This continued until 1870, when the Italian unification movement finally stripped the Church of its lands, leaving the Pope as the "Prisoner of the Vatican."
The Modern Era: From 1846 to Today
The last 150 years of the list of popes since Peter have been defined by a move back toward the "spiritual" role of the office. Starting with Pius IX (the longest-reigning pope after Peter himself), the papacy transitioned into a moral authority rather than a territorial one.
- Pius XII (1939-1958): The Pope during WWII. His legacy is still debated by historians—some call him "Hitler’s Pope" for his perceived silence, while others point to his behind-the-scenes efforts to save thousands of Jews.
- John XXIII (1958-1963): The "Good Pope" who shocked the world by calling the Second Vatican Council, dragging the Church into the modern world.
- John Paul II (1978-2005): The Polish Pope. He was a global superstar, the most traveled pope in history, and a key figure in the fall of Communism in Europe. He reigned for 26 years, making him the third longest-serving pope on the list.
- Benedict XVI (2005-2013): A brilliant theologian who did something almost unheard of in the history of the list of popes since Peter: he resigned. Before him, the last pope to voluntarily quit was Celestine V in 1294.
- Francis (2013-Present): The first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit. His focus has been on "the smell of the sheep"—getting the Church out of the palace and into the streets.
Why the Numbering is Sometimes Weird
You might notice gaps or weird jumps in the names. For example, there is no Pope John XX. Why? Because a medieval historian made a mistake in the numbering and skipped a digit. By the time they realized it, they just kept going with John XXI to avoid more confusion.
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And then there’s the case of "Pope Joan." You’ve probably heard the legend—a woman who disguised herself as a man and was elected Pope in the 9th century, only to give birth during a procession. While it makes for a great movie, most serious historians agree she never existed. She was likely a satirical "urban legend" created to mock the perceived weakness of the papacy during the Saeculum Obscurum.
Navigating the List Today
When you look at a list of popes since Peter, don't just see it as a dry document. It's a reflection of Western civilization. It’s a record of how humans have tried (and often failed) to bridge the gap between the divine and the political.
Whether you're looking at it for religious reasons or just pure historical curiosity, the list is a testament to institutional survival. It has outlasted every Empire, every Kingdom, and every political ideology of the last two millennia.
Actionable Ways to Explore Papal History
If you want to dig deeper into this history without getting bogged down in dense academic texts, here are the best starting points:
- Visit the Vatican Museums' Online Archive: They have digitized records of the "Liber Pontificalis" (The Book of the Popes), which is the primary source for early papal biographies.
- Check the "Annuario Pontificio": If you want the "official" Vatican stance on the list, this is the book. It’s updated every year and settles the debate on who counts as an "official" pope versus an "antipope."
- Read "Saints and Sinners" by Eamon Duffy: This is widely considered the best single-volume history of the popes ever written. It’s fair, historically rigorous, and avoids the "hagiography" (blindly praising the saints) that ruins most religious history books.
- Trace the Names: Notice the patterns. Why did "John" become the most popular name (23 times)? Why has no one taken the name "Peter II"? (Hint: It’s considered a bit too bold to claim the name of the first Apostle).
The list isn't just a record of men. It's a record of how power, faith, and bureaucracy interact. From the catacombs to the Vatican, the succession remains one of the most fascinating threads in the human story.