The Conclave: A Sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody History of Papal Elections (12 page)

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delay in undertaking the crusade to recapture Jerusalem as he had promised; then because he went on the crusade (and did indeed win back Jerusalem) when excommunicated; and finally because Frederick seemed determined to establish his sovereignty over the whole of Italy. The dispute was unresolved when Gregory died on 22 August 1241.

At the time of Gregory’s death there were only twelve cardinals, two of whom had been captured by the emperor as they made their way to a council summoned by Gregory to discuss the conflict between the papacy and the emperor. They were still in Frederick’s hands when the conclave met, and the remaining ten were deeply divided between support for Gregory’s stance and sympathy for the emperor. Gregory had been conscious of this division. He recalled what a professor of canon law, an Englishman, had once said to him: the cardinals should be locked up until they had made their choice. He summoned a leading Roman layman and asked him to do just that. After Gregory’s death, therefore, Matteo Orsini rounded up the cardinals, imprisoned them in the Septizonium Palace with the co
ffi
n of the late pontiff, and kept them there until they had decided. They were there deliberating for seventy days, suffering extreme privations – the weather was extremely hot, as it would be in any Roman August. Some collapsed, one even died (Robert of Somercotes, an English cardinal who was one of the favorites). One cardinal complained that whenever he tried to sleep a soldier would poke him with his spear. On the first ballot Goffredo da Castiglione, a pro-imperial candidate, won but not with the two-thirds majority that was now required. Then they wanted to elect a non-cardinal, but Orsini would not let them. And so it dragged on. Eventually they decided on Goffredo after all, presumably because he was old and ill. He was so ill that he died a fortnight later – he was elected on 25 October, taking the name Celestine IV, and died on 10 November 1241 in Anagni, where pope and remaining cardinals had fled immediately after the elec- tion in the hope of acquiring more freedom of action.

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They may indeed have had marginally more freedom, but it took them eighteen months to choose a new pope; Innocent IV was not elected until 25 June 1243. It was not that the cardinals spent all that time at Anagni debating their choice. At first they tried to negotiate with Frederick II to free the two cardinals he still held captive on the island of Giglio. They failed, and the cardinals were not released for the election. Then they had to resist the emperor’s efforts to persuade them to elect a pope who would be sympathetic to himself. The cardinals agreed among themselves that whoever was elected would indeed attempt to establish peace with the emperor, and reform the Church. This task then fell to Sinibaldo Fieschi, who took the name Innocent IV. Although he was elected in June, it was October before he was able to enter Rome, when Frederick, believing that Innocent was more sympa- thetic to the Empire than earlier popes had been, allowed him to return. But Innocent, feeling the need to put more distance between himself and Frederick, secretly fled to France in December and stayed there until 1251, settling his court at Lyons. In November 1245, while on a visit to Cluny, he permitted the car- dinals to don for the first time the “red hat” which, more than any other sign of o
ffi
ce, has come to mark the cardinalatial dignity, even though it is now only a symbol and is never worn; red was chosen because one of the symbols of the papal o
ffi
ce was a red cloak, worn in imitation of the emperors.

Innocent never managed to settle the struggle with Frederick, though it settled itself when Frederick died in 1250. Central to the struggle had been the Kingdom of Sicily (which included Southern Italy). Frederick’s bastard son Manfred was appointed by his father as the kingdom’s regent, and accepted the pope as his liege lord. Innocent traveled in triumph to the kingdom and established him- self in Naples, but died soon afterward, shortly after hearing that Manfred had risen in revolt and defeated the papal army. He had spent nearly 90 percent of what had been for the period a relatively long pontificate outside Rome.

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The cardinals, however, wanted to return there for the election, but the podestà (mayor) of Naples, Bertolino Taverneri, would not let them. He was afraid of the damage that might be done to his city if there were a prolonged vacancy, so he locked the city’s gates until the cardinals could come up with a new pontiff. They chose Rinaldo da Ienne, count of Segni and a nephew of Gregory IX. He took the name Alexander IV and proved to be a man of no great distinction. He was able to establish only a toehold in Rome, and spent over three-quarters of his papacy outside the city – Viterbo was his favorite place of residence, and it was there he died in 1261, leaving only eight cardinals to choose his successor – and one of the eight was in Hungary and unable to attend.

The cardinals were deeply divided, both by family loyalties – the Annibaldis against the Orsinis – and by attitudes to the succession to the throne of Sicily. They eventually chose a non-cardinal, Jacques Pantaléon, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who just happened to be visiting the papal curia on diocesan business. He was a man of wide experience, a reformer and a lawyer, an astute politician, and, above all, a Frenchman not entangled in the intricacies of Italian politics. In the course of his three-year pontificate he was never able to enter Rome, dominated as it was by the violent opposition of the people to the nobility on the one hand, and on the other by struggles to control the succession to the Roman senate which could give whichever of the rival candidates to the throne of Sicily (Frederick’s son Manfred and Charles of Anjou, brother of the king of France) an edge in establishing his claim to the kingdom.

Manfred’s hostility to the pope obliged Urban to leave Viterbo for Orvieto and then, when Orvieto was threatened, for Perugia, where he died in October 1264. He had created fourteen new cardinals, so there were twenty-one electors, although only eight- een of them were present. But he had also carefully maintained the balance between the parties within the college of cardinals, which was now divided between French and Italian members, as well as, within the Italian group, between the Orsinis and Annibaldis. The

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result was that, once again, the electors could not decide. After three months of deliberation they eventually chose one of the three cardinals absent from Perugia, the Frenchman Gui Foucois, who took the title Clement IV. Like his predecessor, he never resided in Rome but, after just over a year in Perugia, he moved to Viterbo, which was much nearer the papal city, and built there a palace which can still be seen, dominating the town.

Clement died in Viterbo on 29 November 1268 and his succes- sor was not chosen until 1 September 1271, after one of the most curious elections of all. The cardinals discussed for a year and a half before the “captain of the people,” Raniero Gatti, locked them up in the palace and then had the roof taken off. To protect themselves from the elements the cardinals were forced to construct a little wooden lean-to shed, though even then the poetical cardinal John of Toledo said they should take the roof off the shed to let in the Holy Spirit. Their diet was restricted, the palace was surrounded by soldiers. Some of the cardinals were taken ill. The problem was once again the Kingdom of Sicily. One group of Italians wanted to reverse the policy of papal support for Charles of Anjou’s claim to the kingdom; an opposing group of French cardinals wanted to continue papal support for Charles. Eventually a committee was set up with three from each side. Their choice fell on Tebaldo Visconti, who was not a member of the College or even a priest, though he had gone on a crusade as a sort of chaplain in the entourage of King Louis IX of France – Charles’s brother – and when Louis died, took up with Prince Edward of England. He heard that he had been cho- sen as pope in the crusader stronghold of Acre. With such a back- ground he might have been thought to be reasonably neutral in the conflicts which were tearing apart the college of cardinals.

Gregory X, as Tebaldo called himself, returned first to Viterbo, arriving there almost six months after his election. He was ordained priest just over a month later and, a week after that, on 27 March 1272, he entered Rome. Neither of his two predecessors as pope had set foot in the city, and he himself stayed only for a very

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short time. As he abandoned his crusade, Gregory had vowed never to forget the Holy Land. He had also determined to work toward the reunion of the Latin and Greek churches, and he had to do something about the process of papal elections. For all these purposes he called a general council of the Church to meet at Lyons on 7 May 1274. Its decrees were published on 1 November that year and one of them,
Ubi periculum
(“Where there is danger”) regulated conclaves.

It is a long document. It starts by recalling the damage that is done to the Church by a prolonged vacancy, and then makes the following provisions:

1. The election is to take place in the city where the pontiff has died;
   

2. The cardinals are to wait ten days for any cardinal not pres- ent to arrive – but only ten days;
   

3. The cardinals are then to gather in the palace in which the pope lived;
   

4. Each cardinal is to have one attendant only, though anyone in real need may have two;
   

5. They are all to live in common in one room, with no parti- tion or curtain;
   

6. They are allowed one separate room, opening off the common room – evidently a lavatory;
   

7. They are to be completely locked in, and no one may enter;
   

8. No one may communicate with them, or they with anyone else;
   

9. If, after three days, there has been no election, they are allowed only one dish at lunch and supper, then after five days only bread, wine, and water are to be given them until they come up with a pope.
   

There were a number of provisos to all this, about cardinals being taken ill or urgent Church business having to be dealt with, but

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these were the main stipulations approved by the Second Council of Lyons. They were soon to be put to use because, on his slow way back from Lyons, Gregory died at Arezzo on 10 January 1276.

The conclave – for the first time this term can be properly applied

met at Arezzo and elected, on the first ballot and eleven days after Gregory’s death, the French cardinal Pierre of Tarentaise. He took the name Innocent V and was the first member of the Dominican Order, founded at the beginning of the century, to become pope. He was chosen because he was neither pro-imperial nor pro- French. Innocent went immediately to Rome, where he was crowned in St. Peter’s and then took up residence in the Lateran. His return to Rome, however, meant reaching an understanding with Charles of Anjou, whom he confirmed in his o
ffi
ce as senator of Rome.

Innocent’s pontificate, however, was short. He died on 22 June 1276 after only six months in o
ffi
ce and the cardinals were back in conclave, this time in Rome under the oversight of none other than Charles of Anjou in his capacity as senator of the city. It was summer and the heat oppressive. It took the electors gathered in St. John Lateran three weeks to make their choice and Charles of Anjou applied the rules of
Ubi periculum
rigorously. Given his presence, it is hardly surprising that a candidate favorable to him was elected: Ottobono Fieschi, who took the title Hadrian V. As soon as he was on the throne, however, he announced to the cardi- nals that he was going to rescind Gregory’s election decree. Before he could do so formally, however, he died – at Viterbo, where he had gone to escape the heat. His pontificate had lasted little over a month, only a week or so longer than it took to elect him. He was never even ordained priest.

So now there had to be a conclave in Viterbo. The podestà proposed locking the cardinals in the papal palace in accordance with
Ubi periculum
, but he was firmly told by them that the decree had been rescinded by the late pontiff. This caused uproar, with the result that although the college of cardinals was, as always in this

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period, deeply divided, they fairly promptly chose Cardinal Peter of Spain (he came in fact from Lisbon), who was a learned man and not much given to the political intrigues of his day. The confusion which surrounded the opening of the conclave carried over into Peter’s choice of title: he called himself John XXI, though there had never been a John XX. Before his election John had written a treatise on the eye, and what might be called a family medical guide called
A Poor Man’s Treasury
, and he had every intention of continuing his researches. He built a study onto the back of the papal palace in Viterbo. It was built in a hurry and the roof fell in on him. He died a few days after the accident, after only nine months in o
ffi
ce.

However, even in that short time John had been able formally to rescind
Ubi periculum
so that the next election did not follow its prescriptions. Only six cardinals took part in the conclave, the smallest number in the history of papal elections (there were two more who were absent), and the parties were evenly divided between pro– and anti–Charles of Anjou. The man elected on 25 November 1277 was Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, long one of the most powerful men in the curia and an opponent of Charles. It can only have helped his candidature that the podestà of Viterbo, where the conclave was held, was a nephew. As Nicholas III, and unlike his recent predecessors, he spent the greater part of his pontificate in Rome; he was the first pope to make the Vatican palace his residence in the city. He did not, however, die there but at his summer residence near Viterbo, so it was again at Viterbo that the cardinals gathered – in accordance with the prescription of
Ubi periculum
.

Nicholas had died in August 1280; Martin IV was not elected until the following February. The Orsinis, the most powerful family in Rome, had consolidated their hold on power under Nicholas, but Charles of Anjou was determined to have a more sympathetic personality as pope. Of the Orsini supporters, two were arrested, another not allowed to attend the conclave, and

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even the podestà of Viterbo was replaced with someone from a family at odds with the Orsinis. (It was even suggested that the English cardinal Robert Kilwardby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been poisoned to remove him from the scene, but he died in Viterbo before the conclave opened.) In the end Charles got his way. Martin IV was a Frenchman, Simon de Brie. He had been created a cardinal in 1261, and this was only the second papal elec- tion he had attended of the seven which had taken place since then. Martin was never able to enter Rome and was crowned at Orvieto, where he spent most of his pontificate, though he died in Perugia in March 1285, just three months after the death of Charles of Anjou. Cardinal Giacomo Savelli, of a noble Roman family, was promptly elected. There was no question of waiting ten days, and three of the eighteen cardinals were absent, but those present were determined that this time there would be no outside interference. The choice of Savelli, who took the name Honorius IV, was wel- comed by the Romans, so he could be crowned in St. Peter’s and he made Rome his place of residence, building a new palace on his family’s property on the Aventine Hill, near Santa Sabina. The

Romans made him senator for life.

But his life as pope was fairly short – almost exactly two years. He died in April 1287 and his successor was not elected until February the following year. The cardinals in the palace on the Aventine, as ever hopelessly divided, were unable to produce a candidate with the necessary two-thirds majority. They argued into the hot summer months. There was plague in Rome and no less than six of the sixteen electors died in the course of the conclave, including Hugh of Evesham (or Hugh the Black), the late pope’s physician; many of the others were taken ill. They decided to adjourn. All left the palace and only one, a Franciscan named Girolamo Masci, stayed behind. When the cardinals reassembled in February 1288 they voted for him unanimously. Masci demurred out of humility. Another vote was taken exactly a week later, on 22 February, with the same result. This time he accepted,

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and took the title of Nicholas IV. He was the first member of the Friars Minor, the Franciscans, to be elected to the papacy.

Nicholas died in Rome on 4 April 1292. His successor was not elected until 5 July 1294 after an extraordinary and, luckily for the health of the Roman Church, unique series of events. There were twelve cardinals at the time of Nicholas’s death, but one of them died halfway through the protracted conclave. The electors met first in the palace on the Aventine and then in the monastery of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. At one point they even moved to Perugia. There was an obvious candidate, Benedetto Caetani, but he was an isolated figure within the college of cardinals. They were otherwise divided into two family factions, the Orsinis and the Colonnas, apart from a couple of French cardinals who belonged to neither side. At one point the Colonna faction tried to organize an election of their own, but did not succeed. For once they were not divided by politics, for all supported Charles II of Anjou, the king of Sicily and Naples.

Charles, however, was not too happy with the cardinals. He needed a pope to ratify a secret treaty he had agreed with the king of Aragón to settle the battle for control of Sicily. He tried to persuade them to come to a decision. He even drew up a list of names. But the cardinals, who resented his interference, declined to be pressured, despite growing unrest in Rome and elsewhere. Charles went off back to Naples, but en route called upon a hermit he knew, the eighty-fi Pietro del Morrone. He proposed to Pietro that the hermit write a letter to the cardinals upbraiding them for dilatoriness in leaving the Church without a head for so long. This Pietro did. He sent it to Cardinal Latino Malabranca, who was a member of the Orsini clan but, more importantly, dean of the college of cardinals. On 5 July 1294 Malabranca read out the letter, then gave his vote for its author. One by one the cardinals voted likewise. Pietro del Morrone was elected unanimously – which is quite possibly what Charles had intended.

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Morrone was – is – a mountain. On it Pietro had built a monastery for the order he created, though he himself lived in a hermitage called San Onofrio. It was to San Onofrio that a delegation of cardinals went to persuade him to accept the papacy