At the heart of this splendid study on Cardinal Boso's treatment of the eighteen-year schism (1159–77) between Pope Alexander iii (1159–81) and a series of three anti-popes (‘Victor iv’ 1159–64, ‘Paschal iii’ 1164–8 and ‘Calixtus iii’ 1168–78), who were supported by the Romano-German emperor Frederick i Barbarossa (1155–90),Footnote ¹ is a probing but not unsympathetic examination of Boso's presentation of the history of the schism, to which he had devoted virtually the whole of his Vita Alexandri pape. Although partly echoing Peter Munz's interpretation in his introduction to G. M. Ellis's English translation (1973), this book introduces readers to the author and the Vita Alexandri with a much more in-depth discussion of Boso's modus operandi and purpose in writing, accompanied by a searching examination of the complex historical circumstances of the time. After a wide-ranging bibliographical introduction, entitled ‘History as argument’ (ch. i), Pongratz presents five substantial chapters: ‘Cardinal Boso and his work’ (ch. ii); ‘Underlying motifs’ (ch. iii), discussing the paradox of papal elevation and humility and the role of the pope as vicar of Christ (vicarius Christi); ‘Spiritual authority’ (ch. iv), examining the procedure of papal elections and the formal acts of acclamation, immantation, enthronement and consecration, papal councils, legations and Alexander's relationship with the cardinals; ‘Worldly authority’ (ch. v), examining Alexander's dealings with Henry ii of England, the kingdom of Sicily, the Greek emperor Manuel i Comnenus and the Lombards, with parallel examination of Frederick i's concept of his position as ‘advocate and defender’ of the papacy, his rôle in the schism and the key events leading to the peace of Venice; and ‘Territorial authority’ (ch. vi), encompassing papal lordship of the papal states and Rome; completed by the final chapter (vii), ‘Vindication through history’, which echoes chapter i, thus neatly rounding off the book.

On this reading, Boso's Vita was conceived both as vindication of Alexander's policy in regard to the city (Rome), the empire and the papacy, and also as a record to inform his successors. Furthermore, it throws light on Alexander's own conceptualisation of the papal office, in which the concept of the pope as successor to St Peter and vicar of Christ is balanced by the high degree of collegiality between himself and his brethren – the cardinal bishops, priests and deacons, of whom Boso was one – who shared the risks associated with their loyalty to him and whose counsel he sought before every important decision (pp. 197–203); and of course it was on them that he relied to notify regional kings and bishops about his election and secure their allegiance (pp. 188–91).

After quickly disposing (in ch. ii) of the tenacious myth that Boso was a nephew of Pope Adrian iv (Nicholas Breakspear) and thus English, Pongratz confirms his Pisan origins and traces his career from his first appearance in the circle of Eugenius iii's chancellor, Guido of Pisa, in 1135. He was successively scriptor Sancte Romane ecclesie, in which office he functioned as vice-chancellor for Eugenius iii (dating his privileges from 1149 to 1153), chamberlain of Adrian iv (1154/5–9), who appointed him cardinal deacon of SS. Cosma e Damiano (1156–66), in which rank he participated in Alexander's election in 1159, and finally cardinal priest of S. Pudenziana from 1166 to 1178. His last known subscription to a papal privilege was on 29 July 1178,Footnote ² and it is likely that he died soon afterwards. This would explain why Alexander's adventus in Rome, carefully timed for Easter Sunday (9 April 1178), to complete the traditional ceremonies from Laetare Sunday (19 March) to Holy Saturday (8 April), forms the triumphant culmination of the Vita, rather than the Third Lateran Council in March of the following year 1179, attended by at least three hundred bishops and countless abbots and other ecclesiastics from across the whole of the re-united Latin Church, which might have suited Boso's purposes even better, had he lived to record it.

Boso was thus extremely well-placed to write an account of Alexander's pontificate, having been at the heart of papal administration for at least thirty years since 1135 – a fact to which one of his English friends (John of Salisbury) alluded in 1173, when he sought Boso's support for Richard of Dover, archbishop-elect of Canterbury in succession to the martyred Becket: ‘you have learned more of the affairs of the Roman church than anyone else’ (The letters of John of Salisbury, ii. 775). It was on the basis of this intimate knowledge that Boso composed his Vita, which, Pongratz argues, and most readers will agree, was written with a purpose: to demonstrate the legitimacy of Alexander's position as pope, despite the election of the three anti-popes, a legitimacy which he saw confirmed by divine intervention at three critical points: his escape from Rome (following his election) to Ninfa, where the overwhelming majority of the cardinals, headed by four cardinal bishops (Ostia, Sabina, Porto, Albano) conducted the full Roman liturgy of anointing, crowning and acclaiming the new pope in the presence of notaries, nobles and a goodly number of Roman citizens on 20 September 1159, well before Cardinal Octavian's inauguration as ‘Victor iv’ (at Farfa Abbey) around 4 October; the pestilence (dysentery/malaria?) that afflicted the imperial troops encamped outside Rome in August 1167, which caused Frederick i's ignominious flight back to Germany; and the defeat of the imperial army at Legnano on 29 May 1176, which created the conditions that induced the emperor to enter into negotiations with Pope Alexander and other interested parties (Venice, the Lombard League, the king of Sicily, and the emperor of Constantinople), culminating in the spectacular celebration of the peace in Venice in 1177, following which Alexander made the ceremonial entry into Rome in the following year (1178), which formed the triumphant culmination of the Vita.

Much more than an examination of one papal biography, however, Gottes Werk und Bosos Beitrag is a profound study not only of authorial intent but also of papal theory and papal exercise of spiritual and secular authority in the twelfth century, set against the complex backgrounds of the Becket controversy, the eighteen-year schism and the all-but irreconcilable differences between the empire and the papacy at the time. Imperial power rested, ultimately, on physical force, usually armed, which could determine the outcome of disputes in the emperor's favour, irrespective of the theoretical legality of his position. Sometimes it was used to protect a pope from danger; more often, however, during Alexander's pontificate, it secured imperial objectives by force and fear, as in Lombardy, where some disaffected cities (e.g. Crema and Milan) were devastated. Had Frederick managed to capture Alexander, the outcome would have been very different. However, like his predecessors Urban ii (1095–6), Calixtus ii (1119–20), Innocent ii (1130–2) and Eugenius iii (1147–8), he and his cardinals were able to escape the imperial threat when he was most vulnerable by escaping to France (1162–5), where he was welcomed with open arms by Louis vii. There he met the kings of England and France, held the well-attended council at Tours (19 May 1163), whose nine decrees Boso transmitted, following which he was comfortably ensconced in the metropolitan city of Sens from 30 September 1163 to early April 1165. As Boso recorded, Sens was chosen because it was ‘easy of access for visitors’. ‘In which place’, he continued, ‘he devoted care and diligence to the affairs of the universal Church in accordance with the obligation of his office’ (‘In quo loco … universalis Ecclesiae negotiis pro sui officii debito curam et diligentiam iugiter habuit’).Footnote ³ Among the ‘affairs of the universal Church’ Boso almost certainly had in mind the mountain of legal and quasi-legal business appealed to the Curia, as litigants sought justice, religious institutions sought confirmation of their rights and privileges and bishops and archbishops from Trondheim to Salerno summoned papal authority to support their own. Jaffé-Loewenfeld's Regesta pontificum, ii (1888), records 530 papal responses to such appeals issued during his residence in France, and many more are being discovered. More than anything else, this routine recourse to the Apostolic See consolidated Alexander's position, in contrast with the narrow remit of the anti-popes, confined as it mostly was to imperial territories, and even there, there were exceptions.

During the late eleventh and twelfth centuries the popes were at a serious disadvantage. Rome itself was a tinder-box of competing families and tensions between the emerging commune and the Senate; the papal states were vulnerable to hostile attack from the Romano-German emperors in the north and the Norman kingdom in the south. That Alexander iii not only survived the schism to ‘star’ in the peace of Venice in 1177 – an event recorded on the walls of the Great Council Chamber in the city – but also to celebrate his return to Rome in 1178 in spectacular fashion, could readily be seen as the working of divine grace. Had Boso lived, he would certainly have recorded the Third Lateran Council (1179) in full, where the opening address by an unnamed bishop praised Rome: ‘city of the sun … the first and principal church … over which presides this great pontiff and supreme patriarch’.Footnote ⁴

Stephan Pongratz's penetrating and wide-ranging study adds greatly to our knowledge not only of Cardinal Boso, but also of the complex world of Alexander iii and Frederick i.