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Several popes are regarded by historians as illiterate, including:

• Pope Zephyrinus (199–217) — The Refutation of All Heresies includes the observation that "Pope Zephyrinus was illiterate."
• Pope Adrian IV (1154–1159) — George Washington Dean writes: "Adrian IV., the only English Pope, had been an illiterate servant in a monastery at Avignon."
• Pope Celestine V (1294) — The Lanercost Chronicle records: "On the commemoration day of S. Paul , Celestinus the Fifth was created Pope, who, albeit illiterate, was the priest and confessor of his predecessor."

Wrongly regarded as illiterate

Ludwig von Pastor has shown that Pope Julius II (1503–1513) was not illiterate, although he is poetically referred to as such by Desiderius Erasmus.

Notes

1. Refutation of All Heresies, collected in Emmanuel Miller (1851). Origenis Philosophumena. p. 284.
2. Christopher Wordsworth (1887). Church History. Vol. 1. p. 290.
3. George Washington Dean (1890). Lectures on the Evidences of Revealed Religion. New York: James Pott & Co. p. 459.
4. Herbert Maxwell (1913). The Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272–1346: Translated, with Notes. Glasgow: University Press. p. 107.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
5. Association Amici Thomae Mori. 1971. Moreana. p. 103.
6. Philip C. Dust. 1987. Three Renaissance Pacifists: Essays in the Theories of Erasmus. p. 129.

• History of the papacy
• Literacy
• Lists of Catholic popes