The legend of the hammer

A papal jubilee hammer

Also posted on my Substack

There is an old story that the death of a pope is verified by striking him on the head three times with a gold or silver hammer while calling him by his baptismal name, the name that his mother would have used to call to him.

The person who supposedly wields the hammer is the Cardinal Chamberlain (Camerlegno). This is a financial official who takes charge of the Vatican - but not the Catholic Church as a whole - while the papal throne is vacant. The position is currently occupied by an Irishman, Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

The hammer story has appeared in quite respectable sources. For example, the well-researched book Pontiff by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts reports that the ceremony was conducted when Paul VI and John Paul I died in 1978. Less edifyingly, the story was alluded to in Mario Puzo’s 1990 novel The Fourth K.

Other sources claim that the ceremony was discontinued as part of the broader reforms to Catholic ritual that followed the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It is sometimes said that it was last used when John XXIII died in 1963.

Snopes has an article on the story which is inconclusive as to whether or not it is true.

An article in the Skeptical Inquirer written by a member of the Church of Satan goes into the story in some detail. The earliest source that the article cites is a 1903 book which said that the ceremony was no longer in use at that time. The implication is that it was in use at some previous time.

Can we follow the trail back before 1903?

In a book published in Italy in 1873, the historical writer Nicola Roncalli described the story as a “popular tradition” (tradizione popolare) which was believed by “many” (molti). He did not, however, endorse it as true. (The book was Cenni storici e prammatici sulle funzioni della Curia Romana.)

The first mention of the story in print that I have been able to locate dates from the time of the death of Leo XII in 1829. The Morning Herald newspaper informed its readers as follows:

Soon after he has expired, the Lord Chamberlain, in the presence of the Cardinals, approaches the body [of the Pope], and, with a small silver hammer, knocks twice on his forehead, demanding if he be actually dead; and if the body gives no answer, which rarely happens, the Chamberlain seizes possession of the Crown, and the other insignia of office, and with them the supreme power, till the election of a new Pope.

The story therefore seems to have been formulated in the aftermath of Leo XII’s death. When Leo’s predecessor Pius VII died in 1823, there appears to have been no mention in contemporary news reports of the Chamberlain using a hammer to strike his head.

There does, however, seem to have been a (slightly) older version of the story in which the Chamberlain knocked on the pope’s door rather than his head. It looks like this version first appeared in a book about papal conclaves which was published in France in 1758: Description historique de la tenue du conclave by Pons Augustin Alletz. The relevant passage of the book reads, in eighteenth-century French:

Aussitôt que le S. Pere est expiré, le Cardinal Camerlingue en habit violet, se présente à la porte de sa chambre: il y frappe par trois fois avec un marteau d’or; & il appelle à chaque fois le Pape à haute voix par son nom de baptême, celui de sa famille, & celui qu’il portoit étant Pape. Après un petit espace de temps, il déclare, que le Pape n’ayant point répondu, il est donc mort.… On apporte au même Cardinal l’anneau du Pescheur, & il le casse avec le même marteau….

As soon as the Holy Father has died, the Cardinal Chamberlain comes to the door of his chamber dressed in violet: he knocks on it three times with a golden hammer; and each time he calls to the Pope in a loud voice, using his baptismal name, his family name and the name that he bore as Pope. After a short interval of time, he declares that, as the Pope has not responded, he is therefore dead…. The Ring of the Fisherman is brought to the same Cardinal, and he breaks it with the same hammer….

Alletz was apparently a reliable writer, but there seems to be no earlier source for the story. How it reached Alletz is a mystery.

In any event, the account of Alletz was picked up and recycled in other French works of the period. By this route, it found its way into popular understandings of papal customs.

The part about the Cardinal Chamberlain calling the name of the pope does seem to be true (or at least used to be). Likewise the part about the Ring of the Fisherman, the pope’s ring of office that was traditionally used to seal official documents. To this day, the ring is rendered unusable when a pope dies, although the modern custom is apparently to deface the design of the ring rather than to break it.

There is, however, no reliable evidence that any ceremony involving a hammer was ever carried out on the death of a pope. So where does the story come from?

There is one, and only one, situation in which a gold or silver hammer was historically used in a papal ritual to knock three times on something. This was in the periodic religious festival known as the Jubilee. The pope would use the hammer to knock three times on a sealed ‘holy door’ and break it open. This ceremony continued until at least 1975, when Paul VI injured himself and others while performing it.

It seems, therefore, that the hammer story is based on a French account from the 1750s that arose out of confusion with the Jubilee ritual; and that the legend mutated into the somewhat macabre version involving knocking on the pope’s head in the aftermath of Leo XII’s death in 1829.

Perhaps the camp, archaic nature of papal ritual is bound to attract stories of this kind.