Pope boniface viii: Did you mean...?

Galla Placidia (388-450 CE), the future empress, was the half-sister of the Westen Roman emperor Flavius Honorius (r. 395-423 CE), and the daughter of Theodosius the Great (r. 379-395 CE). She was taken hostage by Alaric during the sack of...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/history-vs-henry-viii-mark-robinson-and-alex-gendler He was a powerful king whose break with the church of Rome would forever change the course of English history. But was he a charismatic reformer...

A statue of Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099 CE) who called for the First Crusade (1095-1202 CE). Clermont-Ferrand, France.

A medieval manuscript illustration showing Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216 CE) and the crusaders of the Albigensian Crusade in southern France (1209-1229 CE). (Chronicles of Saint-Denis, British Library, London)

Stained glass window of Pope Gregory VII (1015-1085) at the Pitigliano Cathedral, Italy.

Pope Leo IX (r. 1049-1054), illustration from an illuminated manuscript, 11th century.

Wax effigy of Pope Gregory VII (c. 1015-1085). Cathedral of Salerno, Italy.

A manuscript depicting Frederick II (l. 1194-1250 CE) being excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV.

Robert Guiscard (c. 1015-1085) is proclaimed Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily by Pope Nicholas II, illustration from the Nuova Cronica of Giovanni Villani, 14th century.

A 1775 portrait by Pompeo Batoni of Pope Pius VI (r. 1775-99). (National Gallery of Ireland)