Pope Clement IV (1265-1268)

Saint Louis' Jurist Who Became Pope

Few popes, before wearing the tiara, had lived so fully in the world. Gui Foucois was a great lawyer, trained in Roman and canon law, then one of the most trusted advisers of Saint Louis IX - the most respected king in Christendom.^[9] His rise reminds us that holiness and service to the Church do not always begin in the cloister: they may pass through a lawyer's office, public office, marriage, and fatherhood before reaching the summit of the Church.

The Pope Who Refused to Enrich His Family

At a time when many pontiffs placed their nephews, distributed benefices, and granted lordships to their relatives, Clement IV did the opposite. His first act as pope was to forbid his relatives to come to the Curia or seek the slightest temporal advantage there.^[10] This rectitude, attested by the earliest sources, gives his pontificate an exemplary value: ecclesiastical power is not a family inheritance.

The Pope of the Sicilian Decision

Finally, Clement IV was the man of a decision heavy with consequences: the appeal to Charles of Anjou to break Hohenstaufen domination in Italy. This policy sealed the fall of a dynasty, installed the house of Anjou in Naples for two centuries, and drew the papacy into a web of alliances for which it would pay dearly. It is here that Clement IV's pontificate touches one of the great questions of the Middle Ages: how far may the Church rely on the arms of princes to defend her freedom?^[11][12]

A Birth in Languedoc, in a Century of Fire

Gui Foucois was born at Saint-Gilles, on the Rhone in Languedoc, toward the end of the 12th century - tradition places his birth around 1190-1200.^[13][14] He is not the only pope to have come from this southern land: Urban V — Guillaume de Grimoard, born around 1310 at Grisac, in Gévaudan — was also a Languedoc pope.^[15] Yet the Languedoc of his youth was precisely the theater of the Albigensian Crusade and of the slow reassertion of Capetian royal authority over the region. Gui therefore grew up in a world marked by Cathar heresy, war, and the birth of a new royal and ecclesial administration - an ideal setting for a future man of law.

His father, the knight Foucois (Foulquois), was himself a remarkable figure: widowed, he withdrew to the Carthusian order, where, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he ended "a holy life."^[16] The son would follow the same path as the father: from the world to God, through widowhood.

The Great Lawyer and Adviser of Saint Louis

Gui Foucois studied law - Roman law and canon law - and gained a national reputation as an advocate.^[17] He first served the counts of Toulouse, then his legal skill brought him to the court of the king of France. Saint Louis IX took him into his council and made him one of his trusted legal advisers.^[18]

This detail is not minor. The reign of Saint Louis was the moment when royal justice took shape, when law became the instrument of Christian government. Gui Foucois belonged to that generation of clerks and jurists who placed law at the service of order and peace. Once pope, he remained what he had always been: a legal mind, attentive to procedure, exact registers, and orderly government.

The Widower Who Gave Everything to God

Married, Gui Foucois had two daughters.^[19][20] At the death of his wife, around 1256, his life changed course. Like his father before him, he renounced the world and received sacred orders. The lay jurist became a cleric; the king's lawyer became a servant of the Church.

"His daughters," he wrote to them, "are the children not of the pope, but of Guy the Fat."

• Clement IV, refusing every advantage for his family, according to the tradition reported by the Catholic Encyclopedia^[21]

This saying, pronounced once he had become pope, takes on its full meaning in light of his conversion: the man who had renounced his own household to follow Christ would not turn the Church into the household of his heirs. Widowhood was for Gui Foucois the door to a second life, wholly given to God.

A Dazzling Rise in the Church

Once he entered the clergy, Gui Foucois' rise was rapid. Archdeacon of Le Puy, he became:

• Bishop of Le Puy on 19 October 1257;^[22]
• Archbishop of Narbonne in 1259 - one of the most important sees in the south of France;^[23]
• Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina in December 1261, the first cardinal created by the new pope Urban IV.^[24][25]

In less than ten years, the Languedoc lawyer had risen to the summit of the hierarchy. This ascent owed nothing to nepotism - he had no papal uncle - and everything to his legal competence and to the trust placed in him by both the court of France and the court of Rome.

The Legate Prevented from Entering England

In 1262, Urban IV entrusted the Cardinal of Sabina with a delicate mission: the legation in England, Wales, and Ireland, to pacify the conflict between King Henry III and the rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort.^[26][27] But after Montfort's victory at Lewes (May 1264), the legate was refused entry into the kingdom: Simon and the bishops who supported him did not want a Roman arbiter favorable to the king.^[28]

This episode marked Gui Foucois deeply. Once pope, he remained implacable toward Simon de Montfort: he ordered his legate to conclude no "false peace" until Montfort and his line had been "rooted out of the kingdom of England."^[29] The jurist had retained his sense of legitimate authority violated.

A Four-Month Conclave at Perugia

Urban IV died on 2 October 1264. The cardinals met at Perugia, but the conclave dragged on for nearly four months, a sign of the divisions already paralyzing the Sacred College.^[30] On 5 February 1265, their choice fell on Cardinal Gui Foucois - then absent, detained on the road back from his legation. He was elected despite himself, without his knowledge, and learned of his elevation only later.

The Clandestine Journey Through Italy

The newly elected pope then had to reach central Italy. But the peninsula was in the midst of war: the Ghibellines, supporters of the Hohenstaufen, held large stretches of territory. To cross without being recognized or captured, Gui Foucois traveled disguised as a monk.^[31][32] The image is striking: the pope of Christendom, forced to hide beneath a habit in order to reach his own see, says enough about the violence of the age.

Coronation at Viterbo and the Refusal of Nepotism

He was crowned at Viterbo on 22 February 1265 and took the name Clement IV.^[33] Unable to establish himself in Rome, which was turbulent and unsafe, he would spend most of his pontificate at Viterbo and Perugia - he never truly governed from the Eternal City.

His very first gesture set the tone. Where favors for his relatives might have been expected, Clement IV forbade his family to appear at the Curia. He refused to marry his daughters above their condition and required that their dowries remain "extremely modest."^[34] For a 13th-century pope, this was a considerable moral break.

Urban IV's Legacy: Dislodging the Hohenstaufen

Clement IV did not choose the great dossier of his pontificate: he inherited it. For decades, the papacy had feared the house of Hohenstaufen, which held the imperial crown in the north and the Kingdom of Sicily in the south - enclosing the Papal States in a vice. After the death of Emperor Frederick II (1250), his illegitimate son Manfred seized the Kingdom of Sicily and threatened to reunify all Italy under the Ghibelline banner.^[35][36]

To break this threat, Urban IV had, as early as 1263, secretly negotiated an appeal to a prince capable of taking Sicily by arms: Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence and younger brother of Saint Louis.^[37] At Urban's death, the project had not yet been completed. Clement IV, a compatriot and former servant of the Capetians, would bring it to completion.

Charles of Anjou Invested with the Kingdom of Sicily

By a bull of 4 November 1265, Clement IV confirmed the investiture of Charles of Anjou with the Kingdom of Sicily, a fief of the Church.^[38] The pope imposed conditions - an annual tribute, guarantees for the freedom of the Sicilian Church - but the principle was established: to expel the Hohenstaufen, the Church armed the hand of a French prince.

The decision was not self-evident. To call in a foreign prince and hand him a kingdom was to replace one domination with another. The sources themselves note that Clement IV was not naive: he would later reproach Charles for his "rapacity" and severity.^[39] Yet in the pope's eyes, the freedom of the Church was worth that risk: better a turbulent vassal than a Hohenstaufen neighbor determined to subject Rome.

Benevento (1266): The Fall of Manfred

Charles of Anjou entered Italy, was crowned king of Sicily in Rome, and then marched against Manfred. The decisive clash took place at Benevento on 26 February 1266.^[40] Manfred's army was destroyed: of his 3,600 horsemen, barely 600 escaped. Manfred himself, abandoned by part of his men, exchanged his royal insignia and threw himself into the melee to find death there.^[41]

"The destruction of Manfred's army marked the collapse of Hohenstaufen power in Italy."

• Historical synthesis on the Battle of Benevento^[42]

The victory was complete. Within weeks, Charles of Anjou took possession of the Kingdom of Sicily almost without resistance. Clement IV's policy seemed to triumph.

Tagliacozzo (1268) and the Tragedy of Conradin

The triumph was short-lived. In 1267, the young Conradin - grandson of Frederick II, the last legitimate Hohenstaufen heir, barely sixteen years old - came down from Germany to reconquer his family's inheritance. Part of Ghibelline Italy rose up. Clement IV, loyal to Charles, excommunicated him and compared him to a lamb led to the slaughter.^[43]

On 23 August 1268, the two armies met at Tagliacozzo. Conradin, at first apparently victorious, was finally crushed by Charles of Anjou's stratagem.^[44] Captured while fleeing, the young prince was tried for treason and beheaded in the public square of Naples on 29 October 1268.^[45] With him, the Hohenstaufen dynasty came to an end.

Did Clement IV Want Conradin's Death?

Here lies the most delicate question of the pontificate. A persistent legend claims that Clement IV advised the execution with a sinister formula: "Vita Conradini, mors Caroli; mors Conradini, vita Caroli" - "the life of Conradin is the death of Charles; the death of Conradin is the life of Charles."^[46]

This attribution, however, is highly contested historically. The Catholic Encyclopedia is categorical: this fable "is of later date, and contrary to the truth."^[47] The best established sources show instead that Clement IV pleaded for Conradin's life, even begged Saint Louis to intercede with his brother Charles, and severely reprimanded Charles after the execution.^[48][49][50]

"It has been conclusively shown that Clement not only pleaded for Conradin's life [...] but also severely reprimanded Charles for his cruel act."

• Catholic Encyclopedia, article Pope Clement IV^[51]

It remains true that the pope's policy had made the tragedy possible: by arming Charles of Anjou, Clement IV had opened the way to a power he no longer controlled. This is the shadowed part, lucidly acknowledged, of a pontificate that sought to save the freedom of the Church and had to deal with the hardness of princes.

Licet ecclesiarum: The Centralization of Benefices

A jurist above all, Clement IV left his most lasting mark on the law of the Church. Through the constitution Licet ecclesiarum (1265), he laid down a principle heavy with consequences: ecclesiastical benefices that became vacant at the Holy See were reserved to papal collation.^[52][53]

"By the constitution Licet ecclesiarum (1265), Clement succeeded in strengthening papal control of the Church by reserving to the pope all benefices vacant at the Curia."

• Based on studies of the development of papal provisions^[54]

In other words, to understand the issue, one must remember that in the Middle Ages appointment to Church offices - bishoprics, prebends, canonries - was a coveted power, a source of revenue and influence. By reserving these appointments to the pope, Clement IV centralized the government of the Church around Rome. This measure, continued by his successors, would make papal reservations one of the great instruments - and one of the great controversies - of the Church in the later Middle Ages.^[55]

The Legate Who Became Pope: England and Simon de Montfort

Clement IV's past as legate continued to weigh on his English policy. After the death of Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham (1265), the pope firmly supported the restoration of King Henry III's authority against the last supporters of the barons.^[56] Nearly two years later, however, he would have an inquiry opened to determine whether Montfort had died absolved, a sign that the jurist knew how to distinguish political struggle from the judgment of souls.^[57]

Toward Union with the Greeks and Openness to the Mongols

Clement IV's gaze was not limited to the West. He continued negotiations with the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos for the union of the Greek and Latin Churches - a project that would come to fruition only after him, at the Second Council of Lyon (1274), under Gregory X.^[58] Farther east, he opened contacts with the Mongols: he exchanged with the ilkhan Abaqa, in the perspective of an alliance against Muslim powers and the defense of the Holy Land.^[59] These openings sketch a papacy as wide as the known world.

The Pope and Roger Bacon

One of the most modern traits of the pontificate is Clement IV's interest in emerging science. Even before his election, Cardinal Gui Foucois had noticed the English Franciscan Roger Bacon, an encyclopedic mind and pioneer of the experimental method, then constrained by the rules of his order.

Once pope, Clement IV sent him, by a mandate of 22 June 1266, an urgent request: that he send him, secretly and as quickly as possible, his writings and his "remedies" for the reform of knowledge, notwithstanding the prohibitions of his order.^[60] This papal invitation gave rise, in less than two years, to Bacon's three great works: the Opus maius, the Opus minus, and the Opus tertium, sent to Rome in 1267-1268.^[61][62]

"Reveal to us your remedies for the important matters that you have recently brought to our attention, as quickly and confidentially as possible."

• Clement IV to Roger Bacon, mandate of 22 June 1266^[63]

This simple fact is enough to overturn the cliche of a medieval Church hostile to science. It was, on the contrary, a pope who, against the timid caution of a religious order, encouraged a scholar to deliver his research. Without this papal request, Roger Bacon's major work might never have been written.

Thomas Aquinas and the Papal Court

The pontificate of Clement IV coincided with the height of scholasticism. It was the period when Thomas Aquinas was teaching in Italy and composing the first parts of his Summa Theologiae. Tradition reports that Clement IV wanted to make Thomas archbishop of Naples, a dignity that the Dominican, out of humility and love of study, declined.^[64] The detail, even reported cautiously, says much about this jurist pope's esteem for the highest theological intelligence of his time.

Viterbo, 29 November 1268

Barely a month after Conradin's execution, Clement IV died at Viterbo on 29 November 1268, after a pontificate of three years and nine months.^[65][66] In keeping with his stripped-down life, he was buried without pomp in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria in Gradi, at Viterbo; his remains would be transferred in 1885 to the church of San Francesco alla Rocca.^[67]

The Conclave of 1268-1271 and the Birth of the Modern Conclave

The death of Clement IV opened one of the most extraordinary episodes in Church history. Gathered at Viterbo, the cardinals, divided between French and Italian factions, could not elect a successor. The vacancy stretched on - two years, nine months, and two days, more than a thousand days: it was the longest vacancy of the Holy See in all history.^[68]

Exasperated, the inhabitants of Viterbo eventually locked the cardinals inside the episcopal palace, put them on bread and water, and even removed part of the roof to force them to decide.^[69] On 1 September 1271, they finally elected, by compromise, the archdeacon of Liege Tedaldo Visconti, who took the name Gregory X.^[70]

"The vacancy lasted two years, nine months, and two days - the longest in the history of the Catholic Church."

• Synthesis on the papal election of 1268-1271^[71]

The effect was lasting. So that such a deadlock would never happen again, Gregory X promulgated at the Second Council of Lyon (1274) the constitution Ubi periculum, which invented the rules of the conclave: electors enclosed cum clave ("with a key"), isolated, subjected to an increasingly strict regime until they had elected.^[72] Thus, from the death of Clement IV was born the modern conclave - the same institution that still elects the pope today.

The pontificate of Clement IV resists simple judgments. Politically, his alliance with Charles of Anjou destroyed the Hohenstaufen but installed in Naples a power that would weigh heavily on the freedom of the papacy - to the point of leading, two generations later, to the Avignon exile. The jurist who wanted to protect the Church by law also set in motion a centralization of benefices whose abuses would nourish many criticisms.

But spiritually and morally, his figure remains elevated. Here is a man who left the world after having lived in it fully, who refused to enrich his own family when everything invited him to do so, who pleaded for clemency when it would have been easier to remain silent, and who encouraged the search for truth when others distrusted it. Gui Foucois remains the portrait of a Christian torn away from the age, faithful to his duty in the hardest hour of an iron time - and his very name, Clemens, "the clement one," preserves something of that inner line which the hardness of events never entirely erased.^[73]

• Pope Urban IV - his predecessor, initiator of the Sicilian policy and of the appeal to Charles of Anjou.
• Pope Gregory X - his successor after the longest vacancy in history, who created the modern conclave.
• The Second Council of Lyon (1274) - short-lived union with the Greeks and birth of the rules of the conclave.
• Pope Gregory IX - another great jurist pope, codifier of Church law and adversary of the Hohenstaufen.
• Is the Church Against Science? - the pope who urged Roger Bacon to publish his work.