Head of the Catholic Church from 1227 to 1241
"Gregory IX" redirects here. For the Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia in 1439?1446, see
Gregory IX of Cilicia
.
Gregory IX
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Gregory IX in a manuscript miniature
c.
1270
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Church
| Catholic Church
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Papacy began
| 19 March 1227
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Papacy ended
| 22 August 1241
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Predecessor
| Honorius III
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Successor
| Celestine IV
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Consecration
| c. 1206
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Created cardinal
| December 1198
by
Innocent III
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Born
| Ugolino di Conti
1145
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Died
| (
1241-08-22
)
22 August 1241 (aged 95-96)
Rome
, Papal States
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Previous post(s)
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Coat of arms
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Other popes named Gregory
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Pope Gregory IX
(
Latin
:
Gregorius IX
; born
Ugolino di Conti
; 1145 ? 22 August 1241)
[1]
was head of the
Catholic Church
and the ruler of the
Papal States
from 19 March 1227 until his death in 1241. He is known for issuing the
Decretales
and instituting the
Papal Inquisition
, in response to the failures of the episcopal inquisitions established during the time of
Pope Lucius III
, by means of the
papal bull
Ad abolendam
, issued in 1184.
He worked initially as a
cardinal
, and after becoming the successor of
Honorius III
, he fully inherited the traditions of
Gregory VII
and of his own cousin
Innocent III
, and zealously continued their policy of
papal supremacy
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Ugolino (Hugh) was born in
Anagni
. The date of his birth varies in sources between
c.
1145
[1]
and 1170.
[2]
He is said to have been "in his nineties, if not nearly one hundred years old" at his death.
[3]
He received his education at the Universities of Paris and Bologna.
He was created
Cardinal-Deacon
of the church of
Sant'Eustachio
by his cousin
[4]
Innocent III in December 1198. In 1206 he was promoted to the rank of
Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri
. He became
Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals
in 1218 or 1219. Upon the special request of Saint Francis, in 1220, Pope Honorius III appointed him
Cardinal Protector
of the order of the
Franciscans
.
As
Cardinal Bishop of Ostia
, he cultivated a wide range of acquaintances, among them the
Queen of England
,
Isabella of Angouleme
.
[5]
Papacy
[
edit
]
Gregory IX was elevated to the papacy in the
papal election
of 1227.
[1]
He took the name "Gregory" because he formally assumed the papal office at the monastery of Saint Gregory ad Septem Solia.
[6]
That same year, in one of his earliest acts as pope, he expanded the
Inquisition
powers already assigned to
Konrad von Marburg
to encompass the investigation of heresy throughout the whole of Germany.
Gregory's bull
Parens scientiarum
of 1231, after the
University of Paris strike of 1229
, resolved differences between the unruly
university scholars of Paris
and the local authorities. His solution was in the manner of a true follower of Innocent III: he issued what in retrospect has been viewed as the
magna carta
of the university, assuming direct control by extending papal patronage: his bull allowed future suspension of lectures over a flexible range of provocations, from "monstrous injury or offense" to squabbles over "the right to assess the rents of lodgings".
In October 1232, after an investigation by legates, Gregory proclaimed a
crusade against the Stedinger
to be preached in northern Germany. In June 1233, he granted a plenary indulgence to those who took part.
[7]
In 1233 Gregory IX established the
Papal Inquisition
to regularize the prosecution of
heresy
.
[8]
The Papal Inquisition was intended to bring order to the haphazard episcopal inquisitions which had been established by
Lucius III
in 1184. Gregory's aim was to bring order and legality to the process of dealing with heresy, since there had been tendencies by mobs of townspeople to burn alleged heretics without much of a trial. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX appointed a number of Papal Inquisitors (
Inquisitores haereticae pravitatis
), mostly
Dominicans
and
Franciscans
, for the various regions of France, Italy and parts of Germany. Contrary to popular belief, the aim was to introduce due process and objective investigation into the beliefs of those accused to the often erratic and unjust persecution of heresy on the part of local ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions.
[9]
Gregory was a remarkably skillful and learned lawyer. He caused to be prepared
Nova Compilatio decretalium
, which was promulgated in numerous copies in 1234 (first printed at
Mainz
in 1473). This
New Compilation of Decretals
was the culmination of a long process of systematising the mass of pronouncements that had accumulated since the
Early Middle Ages
, a process that had been under way since the first half of the 12th century and had come to fruition in the
Decretum
, compiled and edited by the papally commissioned legist
Gratian
and published in 1140. The supplement completed the work, which provided the foundation for papal legal theory.
In the
1234 Decretals
, he invested the doctrine of
perpetua servitus iudaeorum
? perpetual servitude of the Jews ? with the force of canonical law. According to this, the followers of the
Talmud
would have to remain in a condition of political servitude until
Judgment Day
. The doctrine then found its way into the doctrine of
servitus camerae imperialis
, or servitude immediately subject to the Emperor's authority, promulgated by
Frederick II
. The Jews were thus suppressed from having direct influence over the political process and the life of
Christian
states into the 19th century and the rise of
liberalism
.
[10]
In 1234, Gregory issued the papal bull
Rachel suum videns
calling for a new crusade to the Holy Land, leading to the
Crusade of 1239
.
In 1239, under the influence of
Nicholas Donin
, a Jewish convert to Christianity, Gregory ordered that all copies of the Jewish Talmud be confiscated. Following a
public disputation between Christians and Jewish theologians
, this culminated in a mass burning of some 12,000 handwritten Talmudic manuscripts on 12 June 1242, in Paris.
Gregory was a supporter of the mendicant orders which he saw as an excellent means for counteracting by voluntary poverty the love of luxury and splendour which was possessing many ecclesiastics. He was a friend of
Saint Dominic
as well as
Clare of Assisi
. On 17 January 1235, he approved the
Order of Our Lady of Mercy
for the redemption of captives. He appointed ten cardinals
[11]
and
canonized
Saints
Elisabeth of Hungary
,
Dominic
,
Anthony of Padua
, and
Francis of Assisi
, of whom he had been a personal friend and early patron. He transformed a chapel to Our Lady in the church of
Santa Maria del Popolo
in Rome.
Gregory IX endorsed the
Northern Crusades
and attempts to bring
Orthodox
Slavic peoples
in
Eastern Europe
(particularly
Pskov Republic
and the
Novgorod Republic
) under the
Papacy
's fold.
[12]
In 1232, Gregory IX asked the
Livonian Brothers of the Sword
to send troops to protect
Finland
, whose semi-
pagan
people were fighting against the Novgorod Republic in the
Finnish-Novgorodian wars
;
[13]
however, there is no known information if any ever arrived to assist.
Struggle with Frederick II
[
edit
]
At the coronation of Frederick II in Rome, 22 November 1220, the emperor made a vow to embark for the Holy Land in August 1221. Gregory IX began his pontificate by suspending the
Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II
, for dilatoriness in carrying out the promised
Sixth Crusade
. Frederick II appealed to the sovereigns of Europe complaining of his treatment. The suspension was followed by
excommunication
and threats of deposition, as deeper rifts appeared. Frederick II went to the
Holy Land
and in fact managed to take possession of
Jerusalem
. Gregory IX distrusted the emperor, since Rainald, the imperial Governor of Spoleto, had invaded the Pontifical States during the emperor's absence.
[1]
In June 1229, Frederick II returned from the Holy Land, routed the papal army which Gregory IX had sent to invade Sicily, and made new overtures of peace to the pope. The war of 1228?1230 is known as the
War of the Keys
.
Gregory IX and Frederick came to a truce, but when Frederick defeated the
Lombard League
in 1239, the possibility that he might dominate all of Italy, surrounding the
Papal States
, became a very real threat. A new outbreak of hostilities led to a fresh excommunication of the emperor in 1239 and to a prolonged war. Gregory denounced Frederick II as a
heretic
and summoned a council at Rome to give point to his
anathema
. Frederick responded by
trying to capture or sink
as many ships carrying prelates to the synod as he could. Eberhard II von Truchsees,
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg
, in 1241 at the Council of
Regensburg
declared that Gregory IX was "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his extravagant boasting says, 'I am God, I cannot err'."
[15]
He argued that the Pope was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:
[16]
A little horn has grown up with eyes and mouth speaking great things, which is reducing three of these kingdoms ? i.e. Sicily, Italy, and Germany ? to subserviency, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with intolerable opposition, is confounding things human and divine, and is attempting things unutterable, execrable.
[17]
The struggle only ended with of Gregory IX's death on 22 August 1241. The pope died before events could reach their climax; it was his successor,
Innocent IV
, who in 1245 declared a
crusade
that would finish the Hohenstaufen threat.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
Ott, Michael (1909).
"Pope Gregory IX"
.
Catholic Encyclopedia
. Vol. 6.
- ^
Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz (1990). "Gregor IX., Papst". In Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (ed.).
Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL)
(in German). Vol. 2. Hamm: Bautz. cols. 317?320.
ISBN
3-88309-032-8
.
[
dead link
]
- ^
Brett Edward Whalen (2019),
The Two Powers: The Papacy, the Empire, and the Struggle for Sovereignty in the Thirteenth Century
, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 122
.
- ^
Werner Maleczek,
Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216
, (Vienna: Verlag der Oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984), 126?133.
- ^
David Abulafia,
Frederick II: a Medieval Emperor
1992. 480 pages. Oxford University Press, USA (1 November 1992)
ISBN
0-19-508040-8
- ^
"De Montor, Artaud.
The Lives and Times of the Popes
, The Catholic Publication Society of New York, 1911"
. Archived from
the original
on 2015-09-24
. Retrieved
2014-07-24
.
- ^
Carsten Selch Jensen, "Stedinger Crusades (1233?1234)", in Alan V. Murray (ed.),
The Crusades: An Encyclopedia
, 4 vols. (ABC-CLIO, 2017), vol. 4, pp. 1121?1122.
- ^
Vizzier, Anne r., "Gregory IX",
Dictionary of World Biography
, Vol. 2, Frank Northen Magill, Alison Aves ed., Routledge, 1998
ISBN
9781579580414
- ^
Thomas Madden
,
"The Real Inquisition"
,
National Review
, June 18, 2004.
- ^
Dietmar Preissler,
Fruhantisemitismus in der Freien Stadt Frankfurt und im Großherzogtum Hessen (1810 bis 1860)
, p.30, Carl Winter Universitatsverlag, Heidelberg 1989,
ISBN
3-533-04129-8
(in German)
. The doctrine's Vatican indexing is
liber extra ? c. 13, X, 5.6, De Iudaeis: Iudaeos, quos propria culpa submisit perpetua servituti
; the
Decretum online
(in Latin)
- ^
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani,
Cardinali di Curia e "Familiae" cardinalizie dal 1227 al 1254
2 vols. (series "Italia Sacra", Padua: Antenori) 1972
(in Italian)
. A
prosopography
that includes Gregory's ten cardinals and their
familiae
or official households, both clerical and lay.
- ^
Christiansen, Eric.
The Northern Crusades.
New York: Penguin Books, 1997.
ISBN
0-14-026653-4
- ^
"Letter by Pope Gregory IX"
. Archived from
the original
on 2007-08-14.
. In Latin.
- ^
Jong, Jan L. de (2012).
The power and the glorification : papal pretensions and the art of propaganda in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 140?141.
ISBN
9780271062372
.
- ^
The Methodist Review Vol. XLIII
, No. 3, p. 305.
- ^
Daniel
7:8
- ^
Article on "Antichrist" from Smith and Fuller,
A Dictionary of the Bible
, 1893, p. 147
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Pietro Balan,
Storia di Gregorio IX e suoi tempi
3 volumes (Modena 1873).
- Kathleen Brady,
Francis and Clare The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi
. (New York: Lodwin Press, 2021).
ISBN
978-1565482210
.
- Joseph Felten,
Papst Gregor IX
. (Freiburg i.B. 1886).
- Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt,
The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147?1254
(Leiden, Brill. 2007) (The Northern World, 26).
- Guido Levi,
Registri dei Cardinali Ugolino d' Ostia e Ottaviano degli Ubaldini
(Roma 1890).
- Damian J. Smith, ed.
Pope Gregory IX (1227?1241): Power and Authority
(Amsterdam University Press, 2023).
- Jeffrey M. Wayno. "
Governing through influence at the thirteenth-century papal court
".
Journal of Medieval History
(2022).
External links
[
edit
]
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