Pope Clement IV - Biography

Biography

Guy was born in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in the Languedoc region of France. After reaching adulthood, he was an unlikely candidate for holy orders: widowed and the father of two young women before taking orders, he was successively a soldier and a lawyer, and in the latter capacity had acted as secretary to King Louis IX, to whose influence he was chiefly indebted for his elevation to the cardinalate. Upon the death of his wife, he followed his father's example and gave up secular life for the Church. His rise was rapid: in 1257, he was appointed Bishop of Le Puy; in 1259, he was appointed Archbishop of Narbonne; and in December 1261, he became the first cardinal created by Pope Urban IV, for the See of Sabina. He was the papal legate in England between 1262 and 1264. He was named grand penitentiary in 1263.

In this period, the Holy See was engaged in a conflict with Manfred of Sicily, the illegitimate son and designated heir of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, but whom papal loyalists, the Guelfs, called "the usurper of Naples". Clement IV, who was in France at the time of his election, was compelled to enter Italy in disguise. He immediately took steps to ally himself with Charles of Anjou, his erstwhile patron's brother, the impecunious French claimant to the Neapolitan throne. Charles was willing to recognize the Pope as his feudal overlord (a bone of contention with the Hohenstaufens) and was crowned by cardinals in Rome, where Clement IV, permanently established at Viterbo, dared not venture, since the anti-papal Ghibelline party was so firmly in control there. Then, fortified with papal money and supplies, Charles marched into Naples. Having defeated and slain Manfred in the great Battle of Benevento, Charles established himself firmly in the kingdom of Sicily at the conclusive Battle of Tagliacozzo, in which Conradin, the last of the house of Hohenstaufen, was taken prisoner. Clement IV is said to have disapproved of the cruelties committed by his protégé, but there seems no foundation for the statement by Gregorovius that Clement IV became an accomplice by refusing to intercede for the unfortunate Conradin whom Charles had him beheaded in the marketplace of Naples.

Within months Clement IV was dead as well, and was buried at the Dominican convent, Santa Maria in Gradi, just outside Viterbo, where he resided throughout his pontificate. In 1885, his remains were transferred to the church, San Francesco alla Rocca, in Viterbo. Owing to irreconcilable divisions among the cardinals, the papal throne remained vacant for nearly three years.

Clement IV's private character was praised by contemporaries for his asceticism, and he is especially commended for his indisposition to promote and enrich his own relatives. He also ordered the Franciscan scholar Roger Bacon to write the Opus maius, which is addressed to him.

In 1264, Clement IV renewed the prohibition of the Talmud promulgated by Gregory IX, who had it publicly burnt in France and in Italy. Clement, though he did not assign to the stake those who harboured copies of it, and, responding to a denunciation of the Talmud by Pablo Christiani, assigned a Talmud censorship committee and ordered that the Jews of Aragon submit their books to Dominican censors for expurgation.

In 1267–68 Clement engaged in correspondence with the Mongol Ilkhanate rule Abaqa. The latter proposed a Franco-Mongol alliance between his forces, those of the West, and the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologos (Abaqa's father-in-law). Pope Clement welcomed Abaqa's proposal in a non-committal manner, but did inform him of an upcoming Crusade. In 1267, Pope Clement IV and King James I of Aragon sent an ambassador to the Mongol ruler Abaqa in the person of Jayme Alaric de Perpignan. In his 1267 letter written from Viterbo, the Pope wrote:

"The kings of France and Navarre, taking to heart the situation in the Holy Land, and decorated with the Holy Cross, are readying themselves to attack the enemies of the Cross. You wrote to us that you wished to join your father-in-law (the Greek emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos) to assist the Latins. We abundantly praise you for this, but we cannot tell you yet, before having asked to the rulers, what road they are planning to follow. We will transmit to them your advice, so as to enlighten their deliberations, and will inform your Magnificence, through a secure message, of what will have been decided." —1267 letter from Pope Clement IV to Abaqa

Although Clement's successors continued to engage in diplomatic contacts with the Mongols for the rest of the century, they were never able to coordinate an actual alliance.