November 29, 1268. The Roman Catholic Church loses its pope. Frenchman Gui Foucault, says Clément IV, dies after three years and nine months like Sovereign Pontiff. They are 19 cardinals to enter the Palais des Papes de Viterbe, near Rome, seat of the popes between 1257 and 1281.
They did not know at that time that they would take almost three years, 1.006 days very exactly, to agree to elect the new Pope. The context of this conclave is tense. In 1266, Charles d’Anjou obtainson the proposal of the urban pope IV, The Kingdom of Sicily and NaplesFief Papal, after several years of war.
From then on, two clans compete : the French, ordained cardinal by the urban pope IV, influenced by the French monarchy and Saint-Louis, and open to a more global invasion of Italy by Charles d’Anjou, and the “non-French”, numerous enough for any French candidate to obtain the majority required to be elected.
The Cardinals locked up
Time passes and no name is found by the cardinals, especially since they are not locked up like today and can go about their occupations between two ballot towers. So much so that two cardinal voters die between the beginning and the end of the election: Giordano Pironti and ISTVán Bánca. After a year and a half of discussions, the inhabitants of Viterbe are exasperated. No pope is elected. At the end of spring 1270, They decide to enclose the cardinals in the Papal Palace.
But nothing helps, they don’t get along. The Viterbais then try to starve themby reducing them to bread and water, and would have removed the roof of the pontifical palace to let them debate the four winds. At the end of the summer of 1270, Saint-Louis died and Philippe III said the bold gave the throne of France. He puts pressure on the cardinals for a pope to be elected after almost three years of Vacant.
A solution is then found. A delegation of six cardinals will choose the future Pope. On September 1, 1271, they gathered and chose a non -cardinal: the Italian, Teobaldo Visconti, from Piacenza, pontifical representative during the ninth crusade. He arrived in Viterbe on February 12, 1272 and then in Rome the next day. Ordered priest then bishop, he was inducted on March 27, 1272 and became Grégoire X.
The conclave was born
From this endless election was born the modern conclave. For such a blockage to happen again, Grégoire X takes the lead. On July 7, 1274, during the second Lyon Council, he decided that the papal elections will now take place during a so -called “Ubi Périci” bubble. The conclave is established as an election method. The cardinals will now be locked in a room, cut off from the outside world, without being able to leave or communicate.
After five days, the cardinal menu is reduced to bread, wine and water. The menu is still lightened after nine days. Measures that were, over time, lightened. In 1276, Innocent V was the first pope elected with a modern conclave. The “Ubi PériCi” bubble was then suspended in July 1276 by John XXI before being reintroduced by Célestin V around 1294. It will not prevent the conclave of 1314 from lasting 808 days, after several interruptions, against a background of tensions between the Roman cardinals and those of Avignon. The conclave that will start this Wednesday, May 7, comes directly from this first conclave of 1268-1270.
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