Clement IV

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Clement IV

Clement IV (* around 1200 in Saint-Gilles (Gard) ; † November 29, 1268 in Viterbo ) was Pope from February 5, 1265 until his death.

Clerical career

Gui Foucois , Guido Foucois also Fulcodi or Guido le Gros was born around 1200 in Saint-Gilles (Gard) on the Rhone . Before embarking on a spiritual career, he studied in Paris and was married. He was an advisor at the court of the Count of Toulouse and on the council of Louis the Saint . In 1256 he was ordained a priest after the death of his wife, in 1257 Bishop of Le Puy , 1259 Archbishop of Narbonne and in 1261 Cardinal Bishop of Sabina . As a cardinal and papal legate , he tried in vain to travel to England . Clemens was a fan of mysticism , as his poem about the "Seven Joys of Mary" testifies (Occitan: Los VII gauz da nostra dona ). He wrote the consultationes dealing with the practice of the Inquisition .

Four months after the death of Pope Urban IV , he was elected his successor on February 5, 1265 in Perugia .

pontificate

Coat of arms, modern tracing
Charles I of Naples and Clement IV

The previous popes stayed mostly outside of Rome because of the fighting within the Roman nobility , and Clement IV never entered Rome as pope. Thomas Aquinas lived at the Pope's court .

In 1265, Clemens wrote the bull Parvus fons , which strengthened the general chapter of the Cistercians . Another constitution , Licet ecclesiarum , strengthened papal power over the Church. In the bull Ea quae iudicio from 30 August 1266 he put the hermit Order of Wilhelmiten restores.

Like his predecessors, Pope Clement stood in opposition to the Staufers, who had become increasingly powerless . On June 28, 1268, Count Karl von Anjou was officially enfeoffed with the Kingdom of Sicily . The bull of enfeoffment forbade that a German emperor could ever again become ruler of the southern empire. It was only Leo X who overruled this bull by enfeoffing the German Emperor Charles V with the Kingdom of Naples on May 28, 1521 . After Count Karl was crowned King of Sicily by five cardinals on January 6, 1266 (the Pope did not enter Rome on this occasion either), the rule of the Hohenstaufen in northern Italy ended. In the decisive battle at Benevento on February 26, 1266, King Manfred of Sicily was defeated and fell against King Charles. Manfred's widow Helena of Epirus and their three sons died in the dungeons of Anjou.

In October 1266, the Augsburg Reichstag decided to send 14-year-old Konradin on a trip to Italy. Anjou's opponents linked their hopes to the heirs of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. However, Pope Clement took measures to stop Konradin. He declared Karl von Anjou to be the “general peacemaker ” (lat. Paciarus generalis ) and on November 18, 1267 pronounced the church ban against the non-submissive Konradin. The Italian campaign was initially so successful that Conradin was elected senator in Rome. In the battle of Tagliacozzo on August 23, 1268, however, he was defeated by Charles. He came under its control and was sentenced to death - presumably without a previous trial. On October 29, 1268, Conradin was beheaded in Naples.

Even before the events of Konradin, King Charles's interests turned to the east. He intended to rebuild the Latin Empire for Emperor Baldwin II together with the Pope . He also tried to take over the despotism of Achaia and Morea and the possessions of the imprisoned Queen Helena in return for his promise of help in the Treaty of Viterbo of May 27, 1267 . However, because the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII began negotiations with Clemens, the re-establishment of the empire was not pursued.

meaning

The life program of the Popes since Gregory IX. - Pope Clemens ended the disempowerment of the Hohenstaufen. After the death of King Manfred, he spoke hatefully of the "stinking corpse of that plague man Manfred". Even the death of his children after decades in the dungeons of Castel del Monte did not lead him to any Christian pity. He was silent about the beheading of Konradin, probably because he was basically happy that the Hohenstaufen dynasty had been eliminated. Clemens showed that even an otherwise honest, anti-nepotic Pope was not able to withstand the internal brutality that was extremely increased by King Charles.

That the Pope approved or even recommended the execution is probably not true.

Dante , who was born in Florence shortly after Clemens was elected, condemned him in his Divine Comedy .

death

Pope Clemens died in Viterbo on November 29, 1268 , just a month after Conradin's execution, which contemporary witnesses viewed as a divine judgment. He was buried in the local church of San Francesco . After his death, the subsequent vacancy lasted until 1271, as the College of Cardinals could not agree on his successor by that time.

Cardinal creations

In 1265 or 1268 Pope Clement IV created Bernhard Ayglerius ( Benedictine , abbot at the Montecassino monastery ), the only cardinal of his pontificate (1265–1268).

swell

literature

  • F. Bock: Clemens IV., Pope. In: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart , vol. 1, Tübingen 1957, p. 1831.
  • Matthias Thumser: On the transmission history of the letters of Pope Clement IV (1265-1268). In: Deutsches Archiv 51 (1995), pp. 115–168.

Web links

Commons : Clemens IV.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. See the monograph: Kaspar Elm : The bull "Ea quae iudicio" Clemens IV: 30.VIII.1266: Prehistory, tradition, text and meaning. Institut Historique Augustinien, Hervelee-Louvain 1966.
  2. Hubert Jedin (ed.): Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte. Vol. III / 2, Freiburg 1968, p. 256.
  3. Hubert Jedin (ed.): Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte. Vol. III / 2, Freiburg 1968, p. 156.
  4. Norbert Hölzl: The golden age. The dream of Emperor Maximilian 1502–2002. Emperor against Pope, Innsbruck against Rome, Michelangelo against Dürer. Edition Tirol, 2001, ISBN 978-3-85-361064-0
  5. FX Seppelt, K. Löffler: Papal history from the beginnings to the present . Munich 1933, p. 191.
  6. Dante Alighieri : Commedia , Hell, Nineteenth Canto, verses 73–75
  7. Annette Großbongardt, Dietmar Pieper: The Staufer and their time. Life in the High Middle Ages. DVA, 2011, ISBN 978-3-64-105203-4 .
predecessor Office successor
Urban IV. Pope
1265-1268
Gregor X.
Pierre II. De Bar Bishop of Sabina
1261–1268
Bertrand de Saint-Martin