MARTIN IV, POPE

Pontificate: Feb. 22, 1281 to Mar. 29, 1285; b. Simon de Brion, or Brie, near Angers; d. Orvieto. In 1260 he became chancellor of louis ix. As cardinal (1261) he was papal legate in France under Urban IV, Clement IV, and Gregory X and supported the advancement of Louis's brother, Charles of Anjou, to the Sicilian throne. It was to Charles that he owed his election to the papal throne at Viterbo (1281) and his coronation at Orvieto, where he resided since he was not allowed to enter Rome. Martin in turn reinforced Charles's position in Italy by making him Roman senator and endorsing his Eastern projects. In 1281 he excommunicated the Emperor michael viii paleologus, thereby ruining any chance for the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches before 1437. The anti–French rebellion in Sicily, the Sicilian Vespers (1282), forced Charles to abandon the hoped–for conquest of Constantinople in favor of the reconquest of Sicily. The Sicilians tried to place their League of Free Communes under papal suzerainty but later called in King Peter III of Aragon, who had long plotted to invade the island. Pope Martin reciprocated by excommunicating the Sicilians, declaring their new King deposed, and organizing a crusade gainst Peter under Philip III of France. Sicily and Aragon successfully resisted, but the papacy long remained committed to the reconquest of Sicily. Martin was deeply interested in the work of the franciscans, granting them the right of preaching and hearing confessions in the bull Ad fructus uberes (1281) and relaxing their rules on poverty in the Exultantes (1283).

Bibliography: martin iv, Les Registres de Martin IV, 3 pts. (Paris 1901–35). h. k. mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages from 590 to 1304 (London 1902–32) v. 16. j. haller, Das Papsttum (Stuttgart 1950–53) v. 5. j. r. strayer, "The Crusade against Aragon," Speculum 28 (1953) 102–113. h. wieruszowski, "Politische Verschwörungen … König Peters von Aragon …," Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 37 (1957) 136–191. d. j. geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 1258–1282 (Cambridge, MA 1959). e. boshof and f. r. erkens, Rudolf von Hapsburg (1373–1291). Eine Königsherrschaft zwischen Tradition und Wandel (Cologne 1993). e. biggi, "Un intervento inedito di Martino IV tra frati minori e clero di Piacenza nel 1282," Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (1997) 349–53. o. cartellieri, Peter von Aragon und die Sizilianische Vesper (1977). p.-v. claverie, "L'ordre du Temple au coeur d'une crise politique majeure: La 'Querela Cypri' des années 1279–1285," Le Moyen Âge (1998) 495–507. a. franchi, I Vespri Siciliani e le relazioni tra Rome e Bisanzio. Studio critico sulle fonti (Assisi 1997). r. kay, "Martin IV and the Fugitive Bishop of Bayeux," in Councils and Clerical Culture in the Medieval West (1997). k.b. mcfarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century (London 1981). e. pÁsztor, "Per la storia dell'amministrazione dello Stato Pontificio sotto Martino IV," in Onus Apostolicae Sedis. Curia romana e cardinalato nei secoli XI–XV (Rome 1999) 265–76. a. papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy of the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283–1289) (New York 1982). j. n. d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986) 202.

[h. wieruszowski]