The canonist told ACI Prensa that “in later centuries, the Pontiff had to wait for imperial consent to be consecrated,” and in 769, with the Lateran Council, all lay people were excluded from consecration, “granting them only the right of acclamation of the elected.
Later, with Pope Nicholas II and precisely with the bull In the name of God of 1059, “the election of the Pope was reserved only to the cardinals and especially to the cardinal-bishops, while the clergy and people of Rome only had the right of acclamation.”
This, according to Vitale, “only became a practice in 1179, when Alexander III managed to abolish the privileges of the emperors and established that the College of Cardinals be called to elect the Pope, for which there must be a two-thirds majority of those present. ”.
“It was at the request of Gregory X, with the Apostolic Constitution Where is the danger? of 1274, when the Conclave was instituted: the cardinal electors had to be locked in a room (cum clave) and after three days they were to be deprived of food, and even more so after five days.”