Stephen
Stephen names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Stephen the name of several popes
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of several popes; some authorities reckon 9, and others 10, the discrepancy arising from the omission of a pontiff who died between election and consecration (752). (The table under POPE (q. v.) includes him, hence the numeration there is different.) STEPHEN I., ascended the pontifical chair after Lucius, in 253. He had a difference with St. Cyprian and Firmilian about rebaptizing repentant heretics, which practice this Pope condemned. He died in 257. STEPHEN II., a native of Rome; elected Pope in 752. Astolphus, King of the Lombards, having menaced the city of Rome, Stephen implored the aid of Emperor of the East; but he being engaged in a war recommended his cause to Pepin, King of the Franks, who marched into Italy and deprived Astolphus of the exarchate of Ravenna and several cities, which he gave to the Pope, thus laying the foundation of the temporal sovereignty of troduced Christianty into his kingdom. the Church of Rome. He died in 757. STEPHEN III., succeeded Paul I. in 768. Throughout his career he was at variance with the Lombards and threatened to excommunicate Charles (afterward Charlemagne) and Carloman, sons of Pepin, if they entered into an alliance with them, or intermarried with the daughters of the Lombard king. Charles, however, married Hermengarda, daughter of Desiderius, King of the Lombards, but put her away a year afterward. Stephen was succeeded by Adrian I. He died in 772. STEPHEN IV., succeeded Leo III. in 816, but died in the same year. STEPHEN V., elected in succession to Adrian III., in 885. He was a learned pontiff and greatly contributed to relieve the people of Rome from the effects of a terrible famine which had desolated the country shortly before his accession. He died in 891. STEPHEN VI., became Pope in succession to Boniface VI. in 896. He caused the body of Pope Formosus to be disinterred and cast into an ordinary grave, on the plea that the Pope had been excommunicated by John VIII. anterior to his elevation to the tiara. In 898 the partisans of Formosus burst into an insurrection, and having seized Stephen strangled him. STEPHEN VII., the successor of Leo VI., was elected to the papacy in 929. There are no reliable records of his pontificate. He died in 931. STEPHEN VIII., the successor of Leo VII. At the time of his election, 939, Rome was governed by Alberic, son of Marozia, who styled himself "Prince and Senator of all the Romans." The records of his papacy are extremely untrustworthy; but it is stated by one authority that Stephen VIII. was, during a revolt of the Roman populace, rendered a cripple for life. He died in 942. STEPHEN IX., elected to the papacy in succession to Victor II. in 1057. He had previously filled the office of papal legate at the court of Constantinople. After his elevation, he dispatched legates to Milan to enforce celibacy among the clergy of that church; the disputes on which decree lasted during a quarter of a century. He was a learned and energetic pontiff, but too ambitious of worldly influence. He died in 1058.
Stephen the name of several kings of Hungary
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of several kings of Hungary, viz.: STEPHEN I., succeeded his father Geisa in 997. He reformed the manners of his subjects, enacted excellent laws and in- He died in 1038. Stephen was canonized and his memory is held in great veneration throughout Southern Germany, where churches are met everywhere dedicated to his name. STEPHEN II., succeeded his father Koloman in 1114. He invaded Poland and Austria, and marched into Russia, but was unsuccessful everywhere. He abdicated, retired to a monastery, and died in 1131. STEPHEN III., crowned king in 1161; was almost immediately deposed by the nobles. He regained the crown, however, in 1165, and reigned till 1174. STEPHEN IV., ascended the throne in 1161, but was defeated by the preceding in 1163, soon after which he died at Semlin. STEPHEN V., reigned two years only, but gained an illustrious name by his victories over Ottocar, King of Bohemia, 1270-1272.
Stephen King of England
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
King of England; son of the Count of Blois by his wife Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror; born in Blois, France, in 1105. Being in England on the death of Henry I., he seized on the crown and royal coffers, to the prejudice of Henry's daughter, Matilda, the empress, and was crowned in 1135. Four years elapsed before Matilda was able to land with forces to dispute Stephen's possession of the throne, and after a long civil war that lasted nearly the whole reign and in which Stephen was once taken prisoner but released for Matilda's brother, the Earl of Gloucester, it was finally decided that Stephen should retain the crown for his own life, on condition that Prince Henry, Matilda's son by her first husband, should succeed. These terms were concluded in 1154. He died in Dover, England, Oct. 25, 1154.
Stephen SIR LESLIE, English author
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIR LESLIE, English author; born in London, Nov. 28, 1832. He was educated at Cambridge, and subsequently edited leading London periodicals. His greatest undertaking was the "Dictionary of National Biography" in about 60 volumes, of which he edited the first 26. He published: "Hours in a Library" (1871-1879); "Essays on Free Thinking and Plain Speaking" (1873); "History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century" (1876); "Science of Ethics" (1882); "Life of Henry Fawcett" (1885); "An Agnostic's Apology" (1893); "Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen" (1896); "Social Rights and Duties" (1896); and "Studies of a Biographer" (1898). He died in 1904.
Stephen King of Poland
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
King of Poland, surnamed BATHORI; a noble Hungarian; born in 1532, elected Prince of Transylvania, 1571, and succeeded to Henry of Valois as King of Poland, 1575. He died in Grodno, Poland, Dec. 12, 1586.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's noted in 1921 that authorities disagreed whether there were nine Stephens or ten, the doubt hanging on a pope who died in 752 between election and consecration; the Vatican settled the matter by dropping him from the official list in 1961, so the pope Collier's calls Stephen II (the ally of Pepin) is now normally styled Stephen II (III), and the later Stephens are similarly double-numbered. Two small factual points have also been corrected: the Prince Henry who succeeded King Stephen in 1154 was Matilda's son by her second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, not her first (the Emperor Henry V), and the settlement was sealed by treaty at Winchester in 1153; historians now routinely label Stephen's reign "the Anarchy". Leslie Stephen, who died in 1904, is today read less for "An Agnostic's Apology" than as the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, whose portraits of him appeared only after 1921, and his Dictionary of National Biography was wholly replaced by the 60-volume Oxford DNB in 2004, now maintained online.
Written for this edition, 2026.