CELESTINE II, ANTIPOPE

Pontificate: Dec. 15/16, 1124. He died in 1125 or 1126. Born into a Roman family, Teobaldo Boccapecci (or Boccapecorini) was made cardinal deacon of St. Maria Nuova by Paschal II (1099–1118) c. 1100. Callistus II (1119–24) promoted him to cardinal priest of St. Anastasia in 1122. After Callistus' death there was a chaotic election in the church of St. Pancratius. First a Cardinal Saxo was put forward by the majority of cardinals, only to be dropped for Teobaldo, who was subsequently elected as Celestine II. Both candidates had been supported by the Pierleoni family. While Teobaldo-Celestine was being invested and after he had received the pallium, troops under the leadership of Robert Frangipani broke into the church and proclaimed Cardinal Lambert of Ostia as pope. Fighting broke out in which Celestine received serious wounds. He resigned as pope and Lambert became Honorius II (1124–30). Celestine is considered an antipope because his consecration was not completed and he was never formally enthroned. Nonetheless, he was canonically elected, even if he resigned immediately and under some duress. Nothing substantive is known of his last days; he was probably at least in his late fifties when he received his wounds and it is assumed that he died of them no later than 1126.

Bibliography: j. p. march, ed. Liber Pontificalis completus ex codice Dertusensi (Barcelona 1925) 204–11. i. m. watterich, Pontificum Romanorum (Leipzig 1862) 2.157–59. peter the deacon, Chronica monasterii Cassinensis 4.83; 4.108–09 in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores 34.546, 572–74 (also in older MGH SS edition, 7.804, 821–22). r. mols, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris 1953) 12.58–59. j. n. d. kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford 1986) 167.

[p. m. savage]