Innocent V. (Pierre de Champagni or de Tarentaise), pope from the 21st of January to the 22nd of June 1276, was born about 1225 in Savoy and entered the Dominican order at an early age. He studied theology under Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Bonaventura, and in 1262 was elected provincial of his order in France. He was made archbishop of Lyons in 1271; cardinal-bishop of Ostia and Velletri, and grand penitentiary in 1275; and, partly through the influence of Charles of Anjou, was elected to succeed Gregory X. As pope he established peace between the republics of Lucca and Pisa, and confirmed Charles of Anjou in his office of imperial vicar of Tuscany. He was seeking to carry out the Lyons agreement with the Eastern Church when he died. His successor was Adrian V. Innocent V., before he became pope, prepared, in conjunction with Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, a rule of studies for his order, which was accepted in June 1259. He was the author of several works in philosophy, theology and canon law, including commentaries on the Scriptures and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and is sometimes referred to as famosissimus doctor. He preached the funeral sermon at Lyons over St Bonaventura. His bulls are in the Turin collection (1859).
See F. Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 5, trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900–1902); A. Potthast, Regesta, pontif. Roman. vol. ii. (Berlin, 1875); E. Bourgeois, Le Bienheureux Innocent V (Paris, 1899); J. E. Borel, Notice biogr. sur Pierre de Tarentaise (Chambéry, 1890); P. J. Béthaz, Pierre des Cours de la Salle, pape sous le nom Innocent V (Augustae, 1891); L. Carboni, De Innocentio V. Romano pontifice (1894). (C. H. Ha.)
Innocent VI. (Étienne Aubert), pope from the 18th of
December 1352 to the 12th of September 1362, was born at
Mons in Limousin. He became professor of civil law at Toulouse
and subsequently chief judge of the city. Having taken orders,
he was raised to the see of Noyon and translated in 1340 to
that of Clermont. In 1342 he was made cardinal-priest of Sti
Giovanni e Paolo, and ten years later cardinal-bishop of Ostia
and Velletri, grand penitentiary, and administrator of the
bishopric of Avignon. On the death of Clement VI., the cardinals
made a solemn agreement imposing obligations, mainly in favour
of the college as a whole, on whichever of their number should
be elected pope. Aubert was one of the minority who signed
the agreement with the reservation that in so doing he would
not violate any law, and was elected pope on this understanding;
not long after his accession he declared the agreement null and
void, as infringing the divinely-bestowed power of the papacy.
Innocent was one of the best Avignon popes and filled with
reforming zeal; he revoked the reservations and commendations
of his predecessor and prohibited pluralities; urged upon the
higher clergy the duty of residence in their sees, and diminished
the luxury of the papal court. Largely through the influence of
Petrarch, whom he called to Avignon, he released Cola di Rienzo,
who had been sent a prisoner in August 1352 from Prague to
Avignon, and used the latter to assist Cardinal Albornoz, vicar-general
of the States of the Church, in tranquillizing Italy and
restoring the papal power at Rome. Innocent caused Charles IV.
to be crowned emperor at Rome in 1355, but protested against
the famous “Golden Bull” of the following year, which prohibited
papal interference in German royal elections. He
renewed the ban against Peter the Cruel of Castile, and interfered
in vain against Peter IV. of Aragon. He made peace between
Venice and Genoa, and in 1360 arranged the treaty of Bretigny
between France and England. In the last years of his pontificate
he was busied with preparations for a crusade and for the reunion
of Christendom, and sent to Constantinople the celebrated
Carmelite monk, Peter Thomas, to negotiate with the claimants
to the Greek throne. He instituted in 1354 the festival of the
Holy Lance. Innocent was a strong and earnest man of monastic
temperament, but not altogether free from nepotism. He was
succeeded by Urban V.
The chief sources for the life of Innocent VI. are in Baluzius, Vitae Pap. Avenion, vol. i. (Paris, 1693); Magnum bullarium Romanum, vol. iv. (Turin, 1859); E. Werunsky, Excerpta ex registris Clementis VI. et Innocentii VI. (Innsbruck, 1885). See also L. Pastor History of the Popes, vol. i. trans. by F. I. Antrobus (London, 1899); F. Gregorovius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 6, trans. by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900–1902); D. Cerri, Innocenzo Papa VI. (Turin, 1873); J. B. Christophe, Histoire de la papauté pendant le XIV e siècle, vol. 2 (Paris, 1853); M. Souchon, Die Papstwahlen (Brunswick, 1888); G. Daumet, Innocent VI. et Blanche de Bourbon (Paris, 1899); E. Werunsky, Gesch. Kaiser Karls IV. (Innsbruck, 1892). There is an excellent article by M. Naumann in Hauck’s Realencyklopädie, 3rd ed. (C. H. Ha.)
Innocent VII. (Cosimo dei Migliorati), pope from the 17th
of October 1404 to the 6th of November 1406, was born of middle-class
parentage at Sulmona in the Abruzzi in 1339. On account
of his knowledge of civil and canon law, he was made papal
vice-chamberlain and archbishop of Ravenna by Urban VI.,
and appointed by Boniface IX. cardinal priest of Sta Croce in
Gerusalemme, bishop of Bologna, and papal legate to England.
He was unanimously chosen to succeed Boniface, after each of
the cardinals had solemnly bound himself to employ all lawful
means for the restoration of the church’s unity in the event of his
election, and even, if necessary, to resign the papal dignity. The
election was opposed at Rome by a considerable party, but
peace was maintained by the aid of Ladislaus of Naples, in
return for which Innocent made a promise, inconsistent with
his previous oath, not to come to terms with the antipope
Benedict XIII., except on condition that he should recognize
the claims of Ladislaus to Naples. Innocent issued at the close
of 1404 a summons for a general council to heal the schism, and
it was not the pope’s fault that the council never assembled,
for the Romans rose in arms to secure an extension of their
liberties, and finally maddened by the murder of some of their
leaders by the pope’s nephew, Ludovico dei Migliorati, they
compelled Innocent to take refuge at Viterbo (6th of August
1405). The Romans, recognizing later the pope’s innocence of
the outrage, made their submission to him in January 1406.
He returned to Rome in March, and, by bull of the 1st of
September, restored the city’s decayed university. Innocent
was extolled by contemporaries as a lover of peace and honesty,
but he was without energy, guilty of nepotism, and showed no
favour to the proposal that he as well as the antipope should
resign. He died on the 6th of November 1406 and was succeeded
by Gregory XII.
See L. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. i., trans. by F. I. Antrobus (London, 1899); M. Creighton, History of the Papacy, vol. i. (London, 1899); N. Valois, La France et le grand schisme d’occident (Paris, 1896–1902); Louis Gayet, Le Grand Schisme d’occident (Paris, 1898); J. Loserth, Geschichte des späteren Mittelalters (1903); Theodorici de Nyem, De schismate libri tres, ed. by G. Erler (Leipzig, 1890); K. J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Bd. 6, 2nd ed.; J. von Haller, Papsttum u. Kirchenreform (Berlin, 1903). (C. H. Ha.)
Innocent VIII. (Giovanni Battista Cibo), pope from the
29th of August 1484 to the 25th of July 1492, successor of
Sixtus IV., was born at Genoa (1432), the son of Arano Cibo,
who under Calixtus III. had been a senator of Rome. His youth,
spent at the Neapolitan court, was far from blameless, and it
is not certain that he was married to the mother of his numerous
family. He later took orders, and, through the favour of
Cardinal Calandrini, half-brother of Nicholas V., obtained from
Paul II. the bishopric of Savona. Sixtus IV. translated him to
the see of Molfetta, and in 1473 created him cardinal-priest of
Sta Balbina, subsequently of Sta Cecilia. As pope, he addressed
a fruitless summons to Christendom to unite in a crusade against
the infidels, and concluded in 1489 a treaty with Bayezid II.,
agreeing in consideration of an annual payment of 40,000 ducats
and the gift of the Holy Lance, to detain the sultan’s fugitive
brother Jem in close confinement in the Vatican. Innocent
excommunicated and deposed Ferdinand, king of Naples, by
bull of the 11th of September 1489, for refusal to pay the papal
dues, and gave his kingdom to Charles VIII. of France, but
in 1492 restored Ferdinand to favour. He declared (1486)
Henry VII. to be lawful king of England by the threefold right
of conquest, inheritance and popular choice, and approved his
marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV. Innocent,
like his predecessor, hated heresy, and in the bull Summis
desiderantes (5th of December 1484) he instigated very severe
measures against magicians and witches in Germany; he
