In A-level History earlier today, we were covering the Catholic threat to Queen Elizabeth I (as part of the module 1C. The Tudors), and having outlined the Pope’s excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570, we somehow got onto the question of who was the actual head of the Catholic Church at that time. Well, my standard response to this question generally is:

“Popes are coming and going throughout the Tudor period, and we don’t need to delve into that.”

I remember many years ago attempting a list of popes on a ridiculously detailed spreadsheet which also outlined all the various monarchs of Europe during the years 1485 to 1603, but I then realised that it simply bogged students down with un-needed info. But, of course, my standard response is very unsatisfying. So, we took a little digressive route away from the lesson content to instead Google a list of popes during the Tudor period.

The short summary is – my initial, standard response is largely a correct one; popes are very much coming and going throughout the period. Of the three generations of Tudor monarchs (Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I – sorry, Lady Jane Grey) there were 19 popes in the 1485-1603 period (almost five popes for each Tudor ruler). Some only lasted a handful of weeks, such as poor Pius III (26 days), Marcellus II (22 days), Gregory XIV (315 days), and the woefully short time in office of Urban VII (a mere 12 days!). Whilst others were more notable, such as Innocent VIII who confirmed Henry VII’s arrival as monarch in 1485, Leo X who provided Henry VIII with the title “Defender of the Faith”, and Paul IV who had a run-in with Queen Mary I and her chosen archbishop of Canterbury Reginald Pole.

The one pope to particularly catch my eye was the 12-day service of Urban VII. No, it wasn’t just the brevity of his time in power (he remains the shortest reigning pope), but rather the additional contextual information within the Wikipedia page which stated that he:

‘set the first worldwide smoking ban, banning smoking in and near all churches.’

The reason why this particularly struck a chord was because of my current research into the writing of a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh, who infamously popularised smoking in England in the late 16th Century. The ban suggests that smoking became such a problem by 1590 (the year of Urban VII’s time in office) that strong action from the very top was needed to counteract it. And what is even more stunning is how it came centuries before the UK initiated a smoking ban in the early 21st Century.

Urban’s actual name was Giovanni Battista Castagna, and he was born in 1521. Prior to becoming pope he appears to have enjoyed a reputable career within the Catholic Church, as well as serving as a governor of the Italian towns of Fano, Perugia, and Bologna. By 1583, he was made a cardinal, and in 1590 he made it to the top job of the Church, before then dying less than two weeks later of malaria.

His hatred of smoking can be seen in the following statement, in which he condemned the taking of:

‘tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose.’

The penalty for smoking was a strong one: excommunication from the Catholic Church. However, such a threat didn’t stifle the explosion in popularity of smoking, and it wouldn’t be until the 20th Century when the dangers of tobacco were fully outlined by doctors and scientists.

I do wonder what Sir Walter Raleigh would have made of this ban. No doubt, already contemptuous of Catholics, as well as a believer in his liberties, he would have scoffed at such a notion.