Pope Honorius IV (1285-1287)

The pope who brought the papacy back to Rome

For much of the thirteenth century, popes had abandoned turbulent Rome for Viterbo, Orvieto, or Perugia. Martin IV, a Frenchman disliked by the Romans, had never been able to reside there. Honorius IV, by contrast, was a son of Rome welcomed home in triumph.^[8] His election followed closely on that of his own brother, Pandolfo Savelli, elected the previous summer as one of the city's two annual senators.^[9] The pope immediately restored papal authority in Rome and in the Patrimony of Saint Peter. This return holds for his pontificate: some twenty years later, the Curia would again leave Rome for Avignon (1309).^[10]

A disabled man at the head of Christendom

The most striking feature of Honorius is his illness. About seventy-five at his election, he was so deformed by gout or arthritis that he could neither walk nor raise his arms.^[11][12] Far from paralysing his government, the disability makes his case exemplary: Honorius IV showed that a physically diminished pontiff could govern the Church with undiminished energy, through letters, law, and legates, where others might have abdicated.

The pope of the Sicilian question

The centre of his pontificate was diplomatic and juridical: the struggle for the Kingdom of Sicily, divided since the Sicilian Vespers of 1282 between the House of Anjou, supported by the papacy, and the House of Aragon. Honorius IV committed his full authority to the conflict — protecting Sicilians from abuses, excommunicating the Aragonese king, and rejecting compromises he believed violated the rights of the Church.^[13] This is where, for him, the essential was at stake.

A great Roman family: the Savelli

Giacomo Savelli was born in Rome around 1210 into one of the wealthiest and most influential families of the Roman nobility.^[14] His father, Luca Savelli, was a senator of Rome before his death in 1266; his mother, Vanna degli Aldobrandeschi, belonged to a powerful Tuscan lineage.^[15] Above all, Giacomo was the great-nephew of Pope Honorius III (Cencio Savelli, 1216-1227), a dynastic link he recalled by choosing his papal name.^[16]

This membership in Rome's high aristocracy was no incidental detail: it explains his roots in the city, his political skill, and the welcome Rome gave him at his election.

Studies in Paris and early benefices

Like many future prelates, the young Savelli studied at the University of Paris, then the intellectual centre of Christendom.^[17] While studying, he held a prebend and canonry at the cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne, followed by the rectory of Berton in the diocese of Norwich, England — a benefice he never visited, as was customary at the time.^[18] His Parisian education left its mark: as pope, he defended learning and sacred scholarship.

The cardinal protodeacon

On December 17, 1261, Pope Urban IV created him cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin.^[19][20] Cardinal Savelli became a central figure of the Curia: as papal prefect in Tuscany and captain of the papal army, he administered and defended the lands of the Church.^[21] As protodeacon of the Sacred College — the senior cardinal-deacon — he exercised the privilege of crowning two popes: Nicholas III on December 26, 1277, and Martin IV on March 23, 1281.^[22]

More than twenty-three years as a cardinal — from 17 December 1261 to 2 April 1285 — made him, at Martin IV's death, the college's most experienced member and the natural candidate for the tiara.^[23]

"At the first vote taken, Giacomo Savelli was unanimously elected and took the name of Honorius IV." — Catholic Encyclopedia, “Pope Honorius IV”, 1910^[24]

The election at Perugia (1285)

Martin IV died at Perugia on March 28, 1285. A few days later, on April 2, the cardinals unanimously elected Giacomo Savelli on the first ballot, without even resorting to a formal conclave.^[25][26] The choice was unsurprising: Savelli was effectively the senior cardinal, Roman, experienced, and expected to restore the papacy to its capital.

The pope-elect was not yet a priest, having remained a cardinal-deacon. On May 19, 1285, Cardinal Latino Malabranca Orsini, bishop of Ostia, ordained him priest; the following day, May 20, he was consecrated bishop and crowned pope in St Peter's Basilica.^[27][28]

A disabled pope: gout and the mechanism at Mass

The best-known detail of his life is also the most human. Honorius IV ascended Peter's throne already old and seriously disabled. Gout — or deforming arthritis — had crippled him so severely that he could neither stand nor walk.^[29] At Mass he sat on a stool; because his hands could no longer rise, a mechanical device lifted his arms at the elevation of the Host.^[30]

The scene — an immobilised old man raising the Eucharist with the aid of an apparatus — captures the man: his flesh failed, but nothing diverted him from his office. Far from being a ceremonial figure, Honorius IV governed with a firmness made more admirable by his weakness.

A Roman welcomed by his own people

Honorius IV's election was a celebration for Rome. After the unpopular Martin IV, forced to live outside the city, the Romans welcomed one of their own. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that they rejoiced in a citizen of Rome and the brother of Pandolfo, who had been elected one of the city's two annual senators the previous summer.^[31]

"The Romans were greatly elated at the election of Honorius IV, for he was a citizen of Rome and a brother of Pandulf, who had during the preceding summer been elected one of the two annual senators of Rome." — Catholic Encyclopedia, “Pope Honorius IV”, 1910^[32]

This dual authority — a Savelli as pope and another as senator — gave Honorius a command of Rome that no pope had enjoyed for a long time.

The Aventine palace

Initially lodged in the family palace near Santa Sabina on the Aventine, the pope moved in autumn 1285 into a magnificent new palace built on the same hill, the hereditary Savelli stronghold.^[33] The choice was symbolic: the papacy no longer took refuge in a foreign city; it resided at home on one of Rome's seven hills.

Restoring order in the Papal States

Honorius IV immediately set about pacifying the Patrimony of Saint Peter, troubled by brigands and turbulent lords. In particular, he curtailed the power of Guido da Montefeltro, the formidable Ghibelline leader and enemy of the Church.^[34] The old, gout-ridden pope proved an energetic administrator, concerned with road safety and papal authority in the cities of the state.

Bankers and papal finances

A man of order and accounts, Honorius IV used the great family banking houses of central and northern Italy to collect papal revenues.^[35] According to Wikipedia, he was allegedly the first pope to entrust them with this role — an isolated claim, absent from both the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) and Miranda.^[36] This administrative modernisation anticipated the sophisticated papal taxation of later centuries.

The Sicilian Vespers and the stakes

The central issue began in 1282, when the island of Sicily rose against the French rule of Charles I of Anjou in the Sicilian Vespers. The Sicilians appealed to Peter III of Aragon, who seized the island. A long war followed between the Angevins — backed by the papacy, which held the Kingdom of Sicily as a fief of the Holy See — and the Aragonese.^[37]

By Honorius IV's election, the balance had shifted: Charles I had died in January 1285, while his son Charles of Salerno, the future Charles II, was an Aragonese prisoner. The pope thus inherited a vacant, contested kingdom over which he was suzerain — that is, the overlord from whom the king held his kingdom as a fief.

The Constitution of September 17, 1285

Honorius IV's first major act in the affair was not a declaration of war, but a measure of justice. On September 17, 1285, he promulgated a constitution regulating the government of the Kingdom of Sicily — designated in the Roman Bullarium as the Constitutio super ordinatione regni Siciliae, that is, “constitution on the organisation of the Kingdom of Sicily” — comprising forty-five ordinances intended to protect subjects from royal arbitrariness and the abuses of Angevin administration.^[38]

The document reveals the pope's mind: as overlord of the kingdom, he meant to defend not only the rights of the Church but also the liberties and common good of its people. It is the voice of a jurist-pope, attentive to law as well as power.

The excommunication of James of Aragon (1286)

Justice was followed by firmness. In defiance of papal claims, James, son of Peter III of Aragon, was crowned king of Sicily at Palermo. Honorius IV answered solemnly: on April 11, 1286, he excommunicated King James and the bishops who had taken part in his coronation.^[39] The pope refused to recognise Aragonese control of a kingdom he regarded as a fief of the Church and the lawful possession of the Angevins.

The following table summarises the principal actors in the Sicilian conflict under Honorius IV.

Charles of Salerno and the rejected agreement (1287)

In the final move of this diplomatic chess game, Charles of Salerno signed an agreement with the Aragonese on February 27, 1287 to secure his freedom in exchange for concessions over Sicily.^[40] Honorius IV, an uncompromising guardian of the Holy See's rights, declared the agreement invalid: a captive claimant could not, in his judgment, alienate a kingdom held from the Church.^[41] The pope died a few weeks later without seeing the end of a conflict that continued far beyond his reign.

Mendicant orders and sacred learning

Faithful to the great thirteenth-century tradition, Honorius IV protected the mendicant orders — Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Carmelites, the four orders retained by the Second Council of Lyon (1274).^[42] A former student of Paris, he promoted their study and preaching as privileged instruments of urban ministry and the struggle against heresy.

Eastern languages in Paris and missionary vision

One of his most forward-looking acts was cultural and missionary. At the University of Paris, Honorius IV encouraged chairs in Eastern languages — Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean — to form missionaries able to preach the Gospel to Muslims and the peoples of the East.^[43] This was the insight the Council of Vienne (1311-1312) would in turn prescribe a quarter of a century later, ordering the teaching of Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean: evangelisation requires knowledge of languages and cultures.^[44]

Condemnation of the Apostolics (1286)

As guardian of the faith, the pope also had to suppress a deviation. By a bull of March 11, 1286, he condemned as heretical the sect of the Apostolics, or “false apostles”, founded around 1260 at Parma by Gerard Segarelli.^[45] The movement preached radical poverty and rejected every ecclesial structure, degenerating into a challenge to the Church's authority.

"On 11 March, 1286, he condemned the sect of the Apostolics or false apostles, which had been started by a certain Gerard Segarelli at Parma in 1260." — Catholic Encyclopedia, “Pope Honorius IV”, 1910^[46]

The distinction is clear: the Church, which had embraced the evangelical poverty of Francis and Dominic, did not condemn poverty, but the rejection of obedience and ecclesial communion that turned it into revolt.

One cardinal created

Honorius IV created only one cardinal during his brief pontificate: Giovanni Boccamazza, archbishop of Monreale, on December 22, 1285.^[47] The short reign and the stability of a still well-populated Sacred College explain this restraint.

Rudolf of Habsburg and the Empire

In imperial affairs, the pope supported Rudolf I of Habsburg, whom he hoped to crown emperor in Rome.^[48] But his efforts ran up against divisions in Germany — Rudolf's war against Count Eberhard of Württemberg and other dissensions — and the national council assembled at Würzburg from 16 March 1287 did not bring the projected imperial coronation to fruition.^[49] Honorius IV died soon afterwards without achieving it.

Arghun's Mongol embassy

The pontificate also witnessed a remarkable episode of global diplomacy. In 1285, Arghun, Mongol ilkhan of Persia — the Ilkhanate, that is, the Mongol kingdom that governed Persia — sent an embassy and a letter to Honorius IV proposing a military alliance between Mongols and Christians to reconquer Syria and Egypt from the Mamluks.^[50] This recurrent project of joint pressure by the Latin West and the Ilkhanate against Islam came to nothing, but it shows the papacy at the centre of a diplomatic field extending to Asia.

Death on April 3, 1287

Honorius IV died in Rome on April 3, 1287, almost exactly two years after his election.^[51] His death opened a long vacancy of the Apostolic See: the cardinals — six of whom (or five according to some lists) died of the Roman summer fevers — did not elect his successor, the Franciscan Nicholas IV, until nearly eleven months later, on 22 February 1288.^[52]

The tomb attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio

The pope was honoured with a monumental tomb attributed to the greatest Roman sculptor of his time, Arnolfo di Cambio, around 1287.^[53][54] Like several contemporary papal monuments, it bears witness to the rise of Gothic funerary sculpture in Italy.

From St Peter's to the Aracoeli

Honorius IV's tomb originally stood in Old St Peter's Basilica. When the old church was demolished for the present basilica, the pope's funerary effigy was transferred in the sixteenth century to Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline, where the Savelli family had its chapel.^[55][56] The old pope's marble effigy can still be seen there, placed near his mother's monument in the Savelli Chapel in the right transept.

A pope wrongly forgotten

History has ranked Honorius IV among the minor pontiffs: his reign was too brief for a great council or dogmatic definition, and it was overshadowed by the more brilliant figures of his century. Yet his record in two compressed years was substantial: the papacy's return to Rome, pacification of the Papal States, legal protection for the Sicilians, missionary promotion of Eastern languages, and doctrinal firmness — all accomplished from a disabled man's chair.

A brief but firm pontificate

In less than two years, Honorius IV showed that a short reign could be useful. An administrator trained in Paris and at the Curia, he knew how to govern Rome, defend the rights of the Church, and look towards distant missions, where others might merely have managed current affairs. His was the pontificate of a man of duty, without spectacular brilliance but without weakness.

The spiritual lesson: governing with a broken body

Honorius IV's deepest legacy lies not in his bulls but in his image: an old man pinned to his seat by gout, whose hands had to be raised so that he could elevate the Host, and who nevertheless carried the universal Church. It is a parable of the Christian condition. Grace does not depend on bodily strength, but on the docility of a will offered to God:

"I take pleasure in infirmities [...] for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful." — Saint Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:10^[57]

Honorius IV offers a papal illustration. His right hand could no longer rise to heaven unaided; a mechanism had to lift it. Yet that hand still offered the Eucharistic sacrifice for the whole world. Faithfulness sometimes needs no strength — only a will that does not bend.

• Pope Honorius III — Giacomo Savelli's great-uncle, whose name he adopted.
• Pope Martin IV — his French predecessor, whose death at Perugia opened the election of 1285.
• Pope Honorius I — another pope of the same name, with a very different posthumous fate.
• Pope Honorius II — yet another Honorius, not to be confused with him.
• The Crusades — the context for Arghun's proposed Mongol alliance.