Vatican Secret Archives

Hidden Records from the Early Church

Oct 7, 2009

The Vatican Secret Archives contain the oldest records in Christendom. But are they as secret as people think?

Once a part of the Vatican library, the Vatican Secret Archives were officially separated during the reign of Pope Paul V Borghese. The Vatican Library, like most libraries, contains mostly monographs, books on one subject, while the archives are actually a working file of the Vatican's important documents.

The Vatican Secret Archives contains over fifty-two miles of fondi, which loosely translates as "files." These files contain all of the Vatican's correspondence, contracts, diplomatic papers, papal bulls and encyclicals, dogmas and various petitions, along with records from the Sacred Rota (so-called because of the round bench they sat on), the congregations, and all papal conclaves.

The layout of the archives has changed significantly over the years, particularly after access to the archives was liberalized in 1881. At that point, the documents and holdings were lumped together in conditions that put the great collection at risk.

According to the Vatican’s official website, the archives today consists of “two reading rooms…an index room, an internal library, a laboratory for preservation, restoration and bookbinding, a laboratory for the restoration and the study of seals, a laboratory for photography and digital reproduction, a data processing centre and a computer laboratory, and an administration service.”

Secret Vatican Archives?

The archives, as far as anyone has been able to determine, do not contain many secrets. The name "secret" probably came from the "100-year rule" that keeps most of the Vatican's correspondence and documents closed for one hundred years, to protect them from being released to the public during the lifetime of those concerned. There are also strict rules for the records of congregation and conclaves.

While the Vatican says there are no documents that are deliberately hidden, the archive may still hold some unexpected secrets, as more and more scholars, working on their own research, uncovered previously overlooked texts. One such document recently found shed some light on an old mystery.

The Case Against the Knights Templar

In 2001, Professor Barbara Fraley, working in the archives, discovered a document called the Chinon parchment, which had been misfiled for centuries. This parchment described the proceedings of the actions taken against the Knights Templar, another of the more infamous cases in Vatican history.

The Knights Templar were an order of warrior-monks founded in 1099. In 1307, King Phillip of France decided to overthrow the order and confiscate their immense wealth for himself. Phillip enlisted the help of Pope Clement, who directed that on Friday, October 13, 1307, all the members of the order in every country be arrested and imprisoned on charges of heresy, blasphemy, sodomy, and other trumped up charges.

The Grand Master of the Order, Jacques deMolay, was put on trial, found guilty and burned at the stake in 1314, and, according to common belief, the Order was disbanded. But for years rumors persisted that the Pope had actually conducted a secret trial and absolved the Knights, reinstating them to full communion.

The newly discovered Chinon Parchment demonstrated that Pope Clement V never disbanded the order, but merely suspended it. Furthermore, it also proves that he ultimately reinstated the entire Order back into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In 2007 the Vatican released a limited edition of the Chinon Parchment, called Processus contra Templarios, or "The Process Against the Templars."

Galileo and the Vatican

Not all historical mysteries associated with the Vatican have been resolved. In the archives, people have only been able to locate one of the known three volumes of documents pertaining to the inquisition and trial of Renaissance scientist Galileo Galilei.

The volumes of documents were collected after Galileo’s conviction by the Vatican's Index Congregation, in order to explain and justify banning the publication and sale of his books and the teaching of his doctrines. According to the Vatican's official website, just one of these volumes had at least 560 folios, or about 1120 pages.

For centuries the Index congregation kept these volumes in their archives. However, in 1810 Napoleon seized the contents of the Vatican archives and moved them to France. During that time, two of the volumes of the Galileo papers disappeared. The remaining volume became the property of the Duke of Blacas; his widow returned it to the Vatican in 1843.

The Vatican's Historical Treasures

These files contain a wealth of historical records, which are priceless. The oldest document in the archives is the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum. This book contains information from the Papal Chancery that dates to the 8th century.

As a result of the overlap of temporal and religious affairs, the archives contain many documents that are extremely important to the secular community. For example, the oldest example of written Mongolian language is preserved in the archives on a stone called the Stone of Genghis Khan, which commemorates a bow contest held in 1225 in East Mongolia.

The valuable historic contents of the archives are too extensive to list. Some of the most well-known include a number of letters from Michaelangelo Buonorotti, one of which asks the Bishop of Cesena to help Michaelangelo obtain money to pay the soldiers guarding materials for work on St. Peter's Basilica; a number of original works by Galileo, including copies of The Starry Messenger, Letters on Sunspots, and Dialogue; contracts for Bernini's most influential sculptures; and extensive correspondence pertaining to the Martin Luther and the "Lutheran problem," which resulted in a church schism and the beginning of Protestantism.

The copyright of the article Vatican Secret Archives in Catholicism is owned by Holly Beth Anderle. Permission to republish Vatican Secret Archives in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.