Honorius IV. (Giacomo Savelli): Pope 1285-87. He was a great-nephew of Honorius III.; and was born about 1210. He was educated at Paris, made a cardinal by Urban IV. in 1261, unanimously elected pope at Perugia Apr. 2, 1285, and crowned May 20. The most pressing question that confronted him was that of Sicily, where the famous "Vespers" of Mar. 30, 1282, had rent away half the kingdom from the Church and its vassal, Charles of Anjou; Peter of Aragon had been crowned at Palermo as the husband of Manfred's daughter, and the Ghibelline faction was becoming more audacious all over Italy. The war between France and Aragon ended with a precipitate withdrawal of the French, and Philip IV. thought more of strengthening his power at home than of foreign conquest; Charles II., for eighteen months a prisoner, was anxious to secure his freedom at the cost of renouncing his claims to Sicily. The power of Aragon was now divided, the Spanish kingdom going to Peter's eldest son, Alfonso, the Sicilian to his brother James. Honorius refused to recognize him and maintained the claims of the Church to the island, treating as invalid the renunciation of Charles II., made at Barcelona Feb. 27, 1287. Edward I. of England had brought about a truce between Alfonso and Philip IV. (July 25, 1286), which Honorius approved; and when Alfonso's envoys came to Rome at Christmas, though he nominally maintained his predecessor's policy of hostility to the house of Aragon, he showed himself ready for further negotiations. He did not, however, live to see the end of these troubles, which came in 1302 under Boniface VIII. He had better success in the Continental portion of the kingdom of Sicily, where he asserted his rights as suzerain, limited the royal power, and enacted important statutes for the protection of the people against arbitrary tyranny. In regard to the crusading plans which he had inherited, he confined himself to collecting the tithes imposed by the Council of Lyons, arranging with the great banking-houses of Florence, Sienna, and Pistoia to act as his agents. In his relations with the empire, where no more danger was to be apprehended since the fall of the Hohenstaufen, he followed the via media taken by Gregory X. Rudolf of Hapsburg sent Bishop Henry of Basel to Rome to request coronation. Honorius appointed the envoy archbishop of Mainz, fixed a date for the coronation, and sent Cardinal John of Tusculum to Germany to assist Rudolf's cause. But general
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In Rome Honorius established friendly relations with the citizens, who had been at daggers drawn with his predecessor, and his brother Pandulf maintained a strict but just government. Martin IV. had carried on a continual and almost hopeless conflict in the states of the Church with the Ghibellines, under the leadership of Guy of Montefeltro; but Honorius restored order here also, and by mild and considerate government of the cities on which Martin had laid an interdict succeeded in securing a greater degree of tranquillity and submission than any pope for some time before or after. Venice also was now released from the interdict laid upon it by the legate of Martin IV. because it had declined to fit out a fleet in behalf of Charles of Anjou against Peter of Aragon. Salimbene, the chronicler of Parma, asserted that Honorius was a foe to the religious orders, especially to the mendicant friars; but his Regesta, as published by Prou, affords proof of the contrary. As a matter of fact, he confirmed and enlarged their privileges, often appointed them to special missions and to bishoprics, and gave them exclusive charge of the inquisition. He had a special affection for the Williamites, to whom he gave the monastery which he had built at Albano when he was a cardinal. On the other hand, he gave orders in a bull of Mar. 11, 1286, that the Apostolic Brethren (q.v.), whom Segarelli of Parma was then attempting to organize, should be suppressed as heretics.
Bibliography: Les Registres d'Honorius IV., ed. M. Prou, Paris, 1887-89 (especially the Introduction, pp. 1-111); B. Pawlicki, Papst Honorius IV., Münster, 1896; O. Lorenz, Deutsche Geschichte im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, ii. 339 sqq., 366 sqq., 552 sqq., Vienna, 1867; A. von Reumont, GeeeAkAte der Stadt Rom, ii. 809 sqq., Berlin, 1807; W. H. Bliss, Calendar of Entries in the papal Registers, i. 479-491, in Roils Series, London, 1893; Hefele, COncilienoeeehiAtB, vi. 211, 245-253; F. Gregorovius, Hist. 01 the City of Rome, v. 503-507, 834-838, 843, London, 1897; B. Platina, Lives of the popes, ii. 115-118, ib. n.d.; Mil-, Latin Christianity, vi. 172; Bower, popes, iii. 35-37.
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