Pope Martin IV (1281-1285)

The French pope of Charles of Anjou

No thirteenth-century pontificate better illustrates the dangers of confusing the Church with a temporal power. Elected through Charles of Anjou's brutal intervention, Martin IV governed the Church as a man of the king of Sicily and of France. The great historian Giuseppe Galasso spoke of a "Carolingian vision" of the papal office in his case: the pope aligned himself behind the secular arm instead of judging it.^[11] Simon de Brion's pontificate is the clearest counterexample to the papal independence that Nicholas III had defended.

The pope who broke the union with the Greeks

The Second Council of Lyon (1274) had achieved, on paper, the union of the Greek and Latin Churches - one of the greatest ecumenical hopes of the Middle Ages. By excommunicating Michael VIII Palaiologos in order to serve Charles of Anjou's ambitions over Constantinople, Martin IV ruined that union and reopened the wound of schism for centuries.^[12][13] This was the most consequential - and the most contested - act of his pontificate.

The pope of the failed Aragonese Crusade

The revolt of the Sicilian Vespers (1282) tore Sicily away from the Angevins and delivered it to Peter III of Aragon. Rather than calm the conflict, Martin IV inflamed it: he excommunicated the king of Aragon, declared his kingdom devolved to the Holy See, and offered it to Charles of Valois, son of the king of France.^[14] The resulting Aragonese Crusade, led by Philip III in 1285, was a complete military fiasco. The use of crusade - instituted for the liberation of the Holy Places - in the service of a dynastic quarrel caused lasting scandal.

A birth in Touraine, in the service of the king of France

Simon de Brion was born at the castle of Mainpincien (sometimes Latinized as Montpensier), in the old province of Touraine, between 1210 and 1220.^[15][16] His family moved in the orbit of the counts of Champagne.^[17] Destined early for the Church, he obtained benefices at Rouen, then became canon and treasurer of the royal chapter of Saint Martin of Tours - a prestigious post linked to the most venerated saint of Gaul.^[18] That sanctuary of Saint Martin of Tours would later mark the choice of his papal name.

Chancellor and keeper of the seals of Saint Louis

From 1260, Simon de Brion entered the council of King Louis IX - the future Saint Louis. In 1260-1261, the king entrusted him with the offices of chancellor of France and keeper of the great seal, that is, the direction of the royal chancery and the custody of the kingdom's juridical authority.^[19][20] Few churchmen came closer to Capetian power at its height. This familiarity with the crown of France remained the key to his entire life: once pope, he thought and acted as a man of the most Christian kingdom.

Cardinal of Santa Cecilia (1261)

On 24 December 1261, Pope Urban IV - himself French, from Troyes - created Simon de Brion cardinal-priest of the title of Santa Cecilia (Santa Cecilia in Trastevere).^[21] The promotion of a great servant of the king of France to the Sacred College was not a neutral act: it sealed the alliance between the papacy and the Capetian house that would dominate the second half of the century.

"King Louis IX made him chancellor of France in 1260, and Urban IV created him cardinal-priest of the title of St. Cecilia." — Catholic Encyclopedia, article Pope Martin IV^[22]

The legate who installed the Angevins in Sicily

Simon de Brion's cardinalate was above all the career of a great papal legate. Appointed legate on 3 May 1264, he served in France from 1264 to 1269, then again from 1274 to 1279.^[23] His decisive mission was diplomatic and financial: under Urban IV and then Clement IV, he was charged with offering the kingdom of Sicily to Charles of Anjou, brother of Saint Louis, called by the papacy to expel the Hohenstaufen from southern Italy, and with financing the Sicilian enterprise.^[24][25]

Simon de Brion was therefore one of the architects of the installation of the house of Anjou on the Sicilian throne. The whole tragedy of his pontificate lies in this fact: the pope who would have to face the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers was the same man who, twenty years earlier, had put the Angevins in the saddle. During his second legation, he also presided over reform synods to correct abuses among the clergy of France, proof of his real pastoral zeal.^[26]

Six months of conclave at Viterbo

At the death of Nicholas III, on 22 August 1280, the See of Peter remained vacant for nearly six months.^[27] As at the previous election, the strict conclave rules instituted by Gregory X - which imposed severe seclusion on the cardinals to force quick elections - had been suspended; nothing therefore compelled the electors to deliberate quickly. The small college, gathered at Viterbo, was divided between an Angevin faction and a Roman faction, whose soul was the powerful Orsini cardinals, relatives of the late Nicholas III.

The Angevin coup: the abduction of the Orsini cardinals

The election was unblocked only by an act of violence. Charles of Anjou had the podesta of Viterbo, Orso Orsini, removed and installed in his place Riccardo Annibaldi, his partisan. On 2 February 1281, the feast of the Presentation, an armed crowd led by Annibaldi burst into the episcopal palace where the conclave was sitting and abducted the two Orsini cardinals, Matteo Rosso Orsini and Giordano Orsini, leaders of the Italian opposition.^[28][29] With the opposition thus decapitated, the conclave elected Simon de Brion on 22 February 1281.^[30]

"The election of Simon de Brion was due to the influence of Charles of Anjou, who caused the two most influential cardinals of the Italian faction to be imprisoned." — Catholic Encyclopedia, article Pope Martin IV^[31]

An election wrested by the force of a prince: the very birth of this pontificate already bore the mark of dependence.

A pope who could not be crowned in Rome

The newly elected pope immediately encountered a revealing obstacle: Rome was closed to him. The Romans, hostile to a pope of French nationality and to Angevin domination, refused to receive him.^[32] Martin IV had to be crowned at Orvieto on 23 March 1281, and he would never reside durably in the Eternal City, staying instead at Orvieto, Montefiascone and Perugia.^[33] A pope unable to enter his own cathedral of the Lateran: the sign was dark.

The name Martin and the confusion with Marinus

Simon de Brion chose to reign under the name Martin, probably out of devotion to Saint Martin of Tours, whose treasurer he had been.^[34] Yet he was only the second real Pope Martin in history. If he is counted as Martin IV, this is because of a catalogue error: from the beginning of the thirteenth century, Popes Marinus I (882-884) and Marinus II (942-946), whose Latin name Marinus was confused with Martinus, had been counted among the Martins under the numbers "Martin II" and "Martin III".^[35][36] This confusion explains why there is a Martin IV but no real Martin II or Martin III.

Charles of Anjou restored as senator of Rome

The first act of the new pope was a complete reversal of his predecessor's policy. Nicholas III had forced Charles of Anjou to renounce the senatorship of Rome in order to free the papacy from the Angevin grip. As early as 10 March 1281, Martin IV returned to Charles the title of senator of Rome, restoring his control over the city.^[37][38] Nicholas III's whole program of independence was thus undone in a few weeks.

"Dependent in everything on Charles of Anjou"

Historians are unanimous on this point: Martin IV systematically subordinated the Church's policy to the interests of the house of Anjou. The Catholic Encyclopedia is clear: he was "personally pious and well-meaning", but "dependent in everything on Charles of Anjou". ^[39] Britannica observes that he favored Charles's interests "even at the expense of the union with the Greeks". ^[40]

"Personally pious and well-meaning, he was nevertheless dependent in everything on Charles of Anjou." — Catholic Encyclopedia, article Pope Martin IV^[41]

This dependence was not only a weakness of character: it expressed a conception of the pontificate - that of a French pope working for the triumph of France and Anjou in Italy and in the East. It is precisely this confusion between the spiritual and temporal orders that the best pontiffs of the century had tried to avoid.

The union of Lyon, a fragile work

Seven years before Martin IV's election, the Second Council of Lyon (1274) had obtained an immense result: the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos had made his legates profess the Catholic faith - the procession of the Holy Spirit a Patre Filioque, purgatory, Roman primacy - thereby achieving the union of the Greek and Latin Churches.^[42] But this union, imposed from above for largely political motives (Michael VIII sought protection against an attack by Charles of Anjou on Constantinople), was fragile: the Greek clergy and people rejected it massively.

The excommunication of Michael VIII Palaiologos

Charles of Anjou had never renounced his dream of reconquering Constantinople and restoring the Latin Empire of the East. The union of Lyon, which placed Michael VIII under the pope's protection, stood in the way of that project. Martin IV removed the obstacle: on 18 November 1281, he excommunicated Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, accusing him of bad faith in the union, and in practice freed Charles of Anjou's hands.^[43][44] The union of Lyon was dead.

A break heavy with consequences

The act was disastrous on every level. On the ecumenical level, it reopened the wound of the Eastern schism for centuries: never again before the Council of Florence (1439) would union be so close. On the political level, it pushed Michael VIII to support secretly the enemies of Charles of Anjou - and that support has been seen as one of the roots of the Sicilian Vespers that broke out a few months later. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Martin IV "broke the union with the Greek Church that had been concluded at the Council of Lyon in 1274". ^[45] By sacrificing Christian union to a dynastic ambition, Martin IV's pontificate showed the spiritual price of political dependence.

The massacre of the Vespers (30 March 1282)

On 30 March 1282, Easter Monday (Easter fell on 29 March that year), Sicily rose against Angevin rule, felt as a foreign tyranny. In Palermo, before the church of the Holy Spirit, at the hour of vespers, an altercation between a French soldier and a Sicilian woman set the island ablaze: the crowd massacred the French, and this uprising became famous as the Sicilian Vespers.^[46][47] The insurgent Sicilians then gave themselves to King Peter III of Aragon, husband of Constance of Hohenstaufen, heiress of the old kings of Sicily, who landed and took possession of the island.

The excommunication of Peter III of Aragon

Instead of trying to calm the revolt or recognize the accomplished fact, Martin IV committed the whole authority of the Church to the service of Angevin reconquest. He excommunicated Peter III of Aragon on 18 November 1282, then pronounced his deposition on 21 March 1283, declaring his kingdom of Aragon confiscated and devolved to the Holy See.^[48] The pope based this on the debatable claim that Aragon was a papal fief since Peter II had once placed it under the Holy See.^[49]

The Aragonese Crusade and its disaster

Martin IV followed Angevin logic to the end: he offered the crown of Aragon to Charles of Valois, younger son of King Philip III of France, and proclaimed a crusade against Peter III - granting combatants the indulgences ordinarily reserved for the liberation of the Holy Places.^[50] In 1284-1285, Philip III invaded Catalonia at the head of an immense army.

The disaster was complete. The Aragonese admiral Roger of Lauria destroyed the French fleet at the battle of Formigues; dysentery ravaged the French camp before Girona; the retreating army was cut down at the Col de Panissars, and King Philip III died at Perpignan in October 1285.^[51] The Aragonese Crusade, one of the gravest misuses of the idea of crusade in the Middle Ages, sank in blood and shame - only a few months after Martin IV's death.

Ad fructus uberes and the mendicant orders

Amid his political enterprises, Martin IV made an ecclesial decision that weighed heavily on the life of the Church: the bull Ad fructus uberes, dated 13 December 1281.^[52] It granted the mendicant friars - Dominicans and Franciscans - broad powers to preach and hear confessions with only the bishop's authorization, without depending on the parish clergy. This favor triggered a long conflict between the secular clergy and the mendicant orders over parochial rights, a conflict that stirred the universities, especially Paris, for decades. It was one of the great canonical debates of the late thirteenth century.

The cause of canonization of Saint Louis

One happier act honors his pontificate: Martin IV advanced the cause of canonization of King Louis IX of France, who had died on crusade at Tunis in 1270. The pope, the king's former chancellor, accelerated the inquiry: from May 1282 to March 1283, the commission collected 330 testimonies about miracles attributed to the king and 38 about his life and virtues.^[53] This investigation prepared the canonization of Saint Louis, proclaimed in 1297 by Boniface VIII. The French pope thus helped give France its saintly king.

Death at Perugia

Martin IV died at Perugia on 28 March 1285, after a pontificate of four years, carried off by a short illness.^[54][55] He was buried in the cathedral of San Lorenzo in Perugia. Several testimonies recognize in him a reputation as a holy man, despite the political criticisms earned by his submission to Charles of Anjou.^[56] (The sources differ slightly on the exact day, some giving 29 March; the most commonly retained date is 28 March 1285.)

The eels of Bolsena and vernaccia

A savory legend soon attached itself to his memory. Martin IV was said to be fond of the eels of Lake Bolsena, which he allegedly had cooked in vernaccia, a white wine.^[57] Some chroniclers even attributed his death to an excess of eels. A satirical epitaph soon circulated:

"The eels rejoice, for here lies that man." — burlesque Latin epitaph attributed to Martin IV: "Gaudent anguillae, quia hic iacet ille"^[58]

This anecdote, whether true or amplified, shows how popular satire seized on a pope judged too French and too political and turned him into a figure of gluttony.

In Purgatory, among the gluttonous

In canto XXIV of Purgatorio, Dante visits the sixth terrace, that of the gluttonous, punished by hunger and thirst: thin to the bone, they purify by fasting the sin of gluttony. Among these souls, the poet Forese Donati points out a face more hollowed than the others: that of Martin IV, who "held the Holy Church in his arms" and who "was from Tours". ^[59]

"That face over there, more hollowed than the others, held the Holy Church in his arms: he was from Tours, and by fasting purges the eels of Bolsena and the vernaccia." — Dante, Purgatorio, canto XXIV, lines 20-24^[60]

The image is perfectly ironic: the pope who had feasted on eels now purges that sin by fasting. His gluttony is compressed into two lines that became proverbial in Italian culture.

Damned? No: a saved soul

A crucial difference from his predecessor must be underlined. Dante had cast Nicholas III into Hell, head down, among the damned simoniacs. Martin IV, by contrast, is in Purgatory - therefore among the saved souls, on the way to Heaven.^[61] The poet, so harsh toward the popes of his time, reproaches him only for a sin of gluttony — a fault bearing no comparison with simony —, and implicitly recognizes that he "held the Holy Church in his arms", that is, that he bore its legitimate charge.

The historian may retain the lesson without making any verdict on salvation, which belongs to God alone: Martin IV was a weak and overly political pope, whose major decisions - the break with the Greeks, the Aragonese Crusade - were grave errors; but he was a man whose personal piety was never seriously doubted, and whom even the severest tradition did not place among the reprobate.

Reference sources

• Treccani, Enciclopedia dei Papi, "Martino IV" — the most complete scholarly synthesis on his biography, legatine career, election, Angevin policy and break with Byzantium.^[62]
• Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent), "Pope Martin IV" (1910) — the classic factual framework and overall judgment on the figure.^[63]
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Martin IV (pope)" — concise notice on the pontificate, Anjou and the Greek rupture.^[64]

On the Sicilian Vespers and the Aragonese Crusade

On literary memory

• Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, canto XXIV — Martin IV among the gluttonous.^[65]
• Latin satirical epitaph on the eels of Bolsena.^[66]

• Pope Nicholas III (1277-1280) — the predecessor whose anti-Angevin policy Martin IV reversed.
• The Second Council of Lyon (1274) — the union with the Greeks that Martin IV broke by excommunicating Michael VIII.
• Pope Clement IV (1265-1268) — the pope under whom the legate Simon de Brion worked for Charles of Anjou's investiture.
• Pope Gregory X (1271-1276) — the author of the conclave rules suspended before Martin IV's election.
• The Papal States — the territorial and political framework of the thirteenth-century papacy.
• The Crusades — the ideal misused by the Aragonese Crusade of 1285.