Gregory IX
| Gregory IX | |
|---|---|
| |
| Birth name | Ugolino di Conti |
| Papacy began | March 19, 1227 |
| Papacy ended | August 22, 1241 |
| Predecessor | Honorius III |
| Successor | Celestine IV |
| Born | between 1145 and 1170 Anagni, Italy |
| Died | August 22 1241 Rome, Italy |
| Other popes named Gregory | |
Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.
The successor of Pope Honorius III (1216–27), he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII (1073–85) and of his cousin Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.
Biography
Early years
Ugolino was born in Anagni around 1145 and was the nephew of the future Pope Innocent III. He received his education at the universities of Paris and Bologna. After Innocent's accession to the papal throne in January 1198, Ugolino was appointed papal chaplain, then archpriest of Saint Peter's Basilica, and finally Cardinal Deacon of the Roman church of Sant Eustachio in 1198. In May, 1206, he was promoted to Cardinal Bishop of Ostia. A year later he became a papal ambassador to Germany during the succession struggle following the death of Emperor Henry VI.
After the death of Innocent III in 1216, Ugolino was instrumental in the election of Pope Honorius III. He became dean of the College of Cardinals in 1219 and was also archpriest of the Vatican Basilica and the first Cardinal Protector of the Order of Franciscans.
During Honorius' papacy, Ugolino became a leading preacher of the Crusade. In January, 1217, Honorius III made Ugolino plenipotentiary legate for Lombardy and Tuscia and entrusted him with preaching the Crusade in those territories. At the coronation of Emperor Frederick II in Rome in 1220, the emperor accept the cross from Ugolino and made the vow to embark soon for the Holy Land. On March 14, 1221, Honorius commissioned Ugolino to preach the Crusade also in Central and Upper Italy.
After the death of Honorius III on March 18, 1227, the cardinals could not immediately reach a decision on a new pope and decided on a compromise procedure empowering three cardinals to act as electors. Two of the three were Ugolino and Conrad of Urach. The other two cardinals apparently nominated Conrad, but he refused to accept since it might appear that he had elected himself. After this, on March 19, the cardinals unanimously elected Ugolino, alhough he was already more than 80 years of age. He took the name of Gregory IX.
Papacy
Struggles with Frederick II
On of Gregory IX's first acts as pope was to move against Frederick II for failing to fulfill his vow to lead the Sixth Crusade. The emperor made a half-hearted attempt to comply but quickly returned to port, pleading illness. Gregory placed him under the ban of the Church and threatened him with excommunication. Frederick II appealed to the sovereigns of Europe concerning Gregory's harsh treatment of him. His imperial manifesto was read publicly on the steps of the Capitol in Rome, and the imperial party in Rome rose in protest against the pope. Gregory IX then publicly declared the emperor to be excommunicated on March 23, 1228. As a result, the pope was openly insulted and threatened by a pro-imperial mob, and was forced to flee from Rome to Perugia.
Determined to prove that he had intended to go on Crusade all along, Frederick now embarked for the Holy Land with a small army. The pope, however, denied that an excommunicated emperor had a right to undertake a holy war. He refused his blessing and released the crusaders from their oath of allegiance to him. The emperor, who was now in the Holy Land, now acknowledged the justice of his excommunication and began to take steps towards a reconciliation. Meanwhile, however, Rainald, the imperial Governor of Spoleto, had invaded the Papal States during the emperor's absence, causing Gregory to suspect the emperor's sincerity.
In Germany, the pope's actions had little effect. Only one bishop published his decree of excommunication against the emperor, and nearly all the princes and bishops remained faithful to Frederick.
Meanwhil Gregory sent his own army to invade the imperial territory of Sicily. In June, 1229, Frederick II returned from the Holy Land, routed the papal army in Sicily, and made new overtures of peace to the pope. Gregory IX, sill a fugitive in Perugia since 1228, returned to Rome in February, 1230. A treaty was concluded at San Germano between the pope and the emperor, and on August 28 the two leaders met at Anagni and soon completed their reconciliation.
In the long term, however, the papacy as conceived by Gregory IX and the empire as conceived by Frederick II could not exist together in peace. The pope was again driven from his own capital by a pro-imperial revolt in June 1232. He compelled to take refuge at Anagni and beg for the mercy of Frederick II. A truce was arranged, but when Frederick II defeated the Lombard League in 1239, the possibility that he might dominate all of Italy became a very real threat. A new outbreak of hostility led to a fresh excommunication of the emperor and to a prolonged war.
Gregory IX denounced Frederick II as a heretic and summoned a council at Rome to give point to his anathema. To frustrate these plans, Frederick II attempted to capture or sink as many ships carrying prelates to the synod as he could. The struggle was only terminated by the death of Gregory IX on August 22, 1241. He died before events could reach their climax. it was his successor, aptly named Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) who declared a crusade in 1245 that would finish the Hohenstaufen threat.
Other activities
A remarkably skillful and learned lawyer, Gregory IX initiated the Nova Compilatio decretalium (New Compilation of Decretals), which was promulgated in numerous copies in 1234. This work was the culmination of a long process of systematizing the mass of papal pronouncements that had accumulated since the early Middle Ages, a process that had been under way since the first half of the twelfth century and had come to fruition in the Decretum, compiled and edited by Gratian and published in 1140. Gregory's supplement completed this work, and helped provide the foundation for the mature papal legal theory.
His bull Parens scientiarum of 1231 resolved differences between the philosophically minded professors of his alma mater, the University of Paris, and more conservative local authorities. He warned the professors against the growing tendency of subjecting theology to philosophy by making the truth of the mysteries of faith dependent on philosophical proofs. On the other hand, he removed the prohibition of Aristotelean physics and metaphysics from as the basis of basis of scholastic philosophy.
Gregory IX believed the problem of heresy needed serious attention and was not content with leaving it to the bishops, but extended central control over this subject. In 1231, he established the papal Inquisition to deal with it. Unlike some other popes, he did not approve the use of torture as a tool of investigation or for penance.
Gregory IX appointed ten cardinals and canonized saints Elisabeth of Hungary, Dominic, Anthony of Padua, and Francis of Assisi, of whom he had been an early patron. His encroachments upon the rights of the English Church during the reign of Henry III of England (1216-72) are well known; similar attempts against the liberties of the national church of France were supposedly the occasion of the Pragmatic Sanction of Louis IX of France (1226-70), now generally thought to be a 14th-century forgery.
Gregory also endorsed the Northern Crusades and theTeutonic Order's attempts to conquer Orthodox Russia. In 1232, he requested the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to send troops to protect Finland, whose semi-pagan people were fighting against Novgorod Republic in the Finnish-Novgorodian wars.
CE material
The mendicant orders which began to shed great lustre over the Christian Church in the first half of the thirteenth century found a devoted friend and liberal patron in Gregory IX. In them he saw an excellent means for counteracting by voluntary poverty the love of luxury and splendour which was possessing many ecclesiastics; a powerful weapon for suppressing heresy within the Church; and an army of brave soldiers of Christ who were ready to preach His Gospel to the pagans even at the risk of their life. When still Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, Gregory IX would often don the dress of St. Francis, walk about barefoot with the saint and his disciples, and talk of holy things. Saint Francis loved him as his father and in a prophetic spirit addressed him at times as "the bishop of the whole world and the father of all nations". Upon the special request of Saint Francis, Pope Honorius III appointed him protector of the order in 1220. He was also a devoted friend of St. Dominic and promoted the interests of his order in many ways. At the death of St. Dominic he held the funeral services and buried the saint at Bologna in 1221. St. Clare and her order stood likewise under the protection of Gregory IX, as is attested by the convents he founded for the order in Rome, Lombardy, and Tuscia. However, despite his great liberality towards the rising mendicant orders he did not neglect the older ones. On 28 June, 1227, he approved the old privileges of the Camaldolese, in the same year he introduced the Premonstratensians into Livonia and Courland, and on 6 April, 1229, he gave new statutes to the Carmelites. He financially and otherwise assisted the Cistercians and the Teutonic Order in the Christianization of Prussia and the neighboring countries of the North. On 17 January, 1235, he approved the Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives. With the help of the religious orders he planned the conversion of Asia and Africa and sent missionaries out of their ranks to Tunis, Morocco, and other places, where not a few suffered martyrdom. He also did much to alleviate the hard lot of the Christians in the Holy Land, and would have done still more, if his plans to recover the Holy Land for the Christians had not been frustrated by the indifference of Frederick II. The calendar of saints was enriched with some of the most popular names by Gregory IX. On 16 July, 1228, he canonized St. Francis of Assisi, and on the next day he laid the cornerstone of the church and monastery which were erected in honour of the saint. He took part in the composition of the Office of St. Francis and also wrote some hymns in his honour. It was also at his command that Thomas of Celano wrote a biography of the saint (latest and best edition by d'Alencon, Rome, 1906). On 30 May, 1232, he canonized St. Anthony of Padua, at Spoleto; on 10 June, 1233, St. Virgil, Bishop of Salzburg and Apostle of Carinthia; on 8 July, 1234, St. Dominic, at Rieti; and on 27 May, 1235, St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, at Perugia.
Gregory IX was very severe towards heretics, who in those times were universally looked upon as traitors and punished accordingly. Upon the request of King Louis IX of France, he sent Cardinal Romanus as legate to assist the king in his crusade against the Albigenses. At the synod which the papal legate convened at Toulouse in November, 1229, it was decreed that all heretics and their abettors should be delivered to the nobles and magistrates for their due punishment, which, in case of obstinacy, was usually death. When in 1224 Frederick II ordered that heretics in Lombardy should be burnt at the stake, Gregory IX, who was then papal legate for Lombardy, approved and published the imperial law. During his enforced absence from Rome (1228-1231) the heretics remained unmolested and became very numerous in the city. In February, 1231, therefore, the pope enacted a law for Rome that heretics condemned by an ecclesiastical court should be delivered to the secular power to receive their "due punishment". This "due punishment" was death by fire for the obstinate and imprisonment for life for the penitent. In pursuance of this law a number of Patarini were arrested in Rome in 1231, the obstinate were burned at the stake, the others were imprisoned in the Benedictine monasteries of Monte Cassino and Cava (Ryccardus de S. Germano, ad annum 1231, in Mon. Germ. SS., XIX, 363). It must not be thought, however, that Gregory IX dealt more severely with heretics than other rulers did. Death by fire was the common punishment for heretics and traitors in those times. Up to the time of Gregory IX, the duty of searching out heretics belonged to the bishops in their respective dioceses. The so-called Monastic Inquisition was established by Gregory IX, who in his Bulls of 13, 20, and 22 April, 1233, appointed the Dominicans as the official inquisitors for all dioceses of France (Ripoil and Bremond, "Bullarium Ordinia Fratrum Praedicatorum", Rome, 1729, I, 47).
For a time Gregory IX lived in hope that he might effect a reunion of the Latin and Greek Churches. Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople, after a conversation on the religious differences between the Greeks and the Latins, which he had with some Franciscans at Nice, in 1232, addressed a letter to Gregory IX, in which he acknowledged the papal primacy, but complained of the persecution of the Greeks by the Latins. Gregory IX sent him a cordial answer and commissioned four learned monks (two Franciscans and two Dominicans) to treat with the patriarch concerning the reunion. The papal messengers were kindly received both by the Emperor Vatatzes and by Germanos, but the patriarchs said that he could make no concessions on matters of faith without the consent of the Patriarchs of Jersusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. A synod of the patriarchs was held at Nympha in Bithynia, to which the papal messengers were invited. But the Greeks stubbornly adhered to their doctrine concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost and asserted that the Latins could not validly consecrate unleavened bread. Thus Gregory IX failed, like many other popes before and after him, in his efforts to reunite the two Churches. In 1237 the Patriarch of the Syrian Monophysites and many of his bishops and monks renounced their heresy and submitted to the pope (Raynaldus ad annum 1237, n. 87 sq.), but their conversion was only temporary.
During the thirteen years and four months of his pontificate he created about fourteen cardinals, many of whom were members of religious orders. The best known among them are Sinibald of Fiesco, a learned canonist, who afterwards ascended the papal throne as Innocent IV; Raynald of Segni, a nephew of Gregory IX, who succeeded Innocent IV as Alexander IV; Otto of Montferrat, who spent over three years (1237-1240) as papal legate in England; Jacob of Vitry, an author, confessor of St. Mary of Oignies, whose life he wrote (Acta SS., June, IV, 636-66); St. Francis Nonatus; and the learned and pious Englishman, Robert of Somercote, who, it is said, would have succeeded Gregory IX on the papal throne had he not died during the conclave (26 Sept., 1241). Gregory IX was also a man of learning, which he encouraged in various ways. He bestowed many privileges on the University of Paris, his Alma Mater, but also watched carefully over its professors, whom he warned repeatedly against the growing tendency of subjecting theology to philosophy by making the truth of the mysteries of faith dependent on philosophical proofs. He also possesses the great merit of having again made Aristotelianism the basis of scholastic philosophy, after the Physics of Aristotle had been prohibited in 1210; and his Metaphysics in 1215. The prohibition of Aristotle was meant only for the perverted Latin translation of his works and their Averroistic commentaries. Gregory IX commissioned William of Auvergne and other learned men to purge the works of Aristotle of their errors and thus made them again accessible to students. Among the greatest achievements of Gregory IX must be counted the collection of papal decretals, a work with which he entrusted Raymond of Pennaforte and which was completed in 1234 (see DECRETALS). The numerous letters of Gregory IX were first collected and published by Pamelius (Antwerp, 1572). Rodenburg edited 485 letters of Gregory IX, selected by Perts from the papal registers of the thirteenth century, and published them in "Mon. Germ. Epist. Rom. Pontif." (Berlin, 1883), I, 261-728. Lucian Auvray began (Paris, 1890) to edit "Les Registres de Gregoire IX, recueil des bulles de ce pape, publiées ou analysées d'après les manuscrits originaux du Vatican", of which the eleventhfasccle appeared in 1908.
See also
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
External links
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Pope Gregory IX
| Roman Catholic Popes | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Honorius III |
Bishop of Rome 1227–41 |
Succeeded by: Celestine IV |
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