Innocent VI

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Innocent VI d. 1362, pope (1352–62), a Frenchman named Étienne Aubert; successor of Clement VI. He was a well-known jurist and was created cardinal in 1342. He lived at Avignon. He was one of the few reforming popes of his age, doing his best to eliminate venality from church administration. His major quarrel was with Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV over the Golden Bull. Innocent sent Cardinal de Albornoz into Italy to pacify the Papal States and liberated Cola di Rienzi to go with him. He was succeeded by Urban V.

Innocent VI (18 Dec. 1352–12 Sept. 1362). Although it only lasted two days, the conclave at Avignon following Clement VI's death made a determined attempt to restrict the pope's autocracy and augment the influence of the sacred college. All twenty-five cardinals present swore, several with reservations, that the pope should not create cardinals until the total fell below sixteen, that there should not be more than twenty, and that the choice of new cardinals should require the consent of at least two-thirds of the existing ones. Such consent should also be necessary for proceedings against a cardinal or for the alienation of any part of the papal state; half the revenues of the holy see, as allotted by Nicholas IV in 1289, should be guaranteed to the college. These and other provisions having been agreed, the conclave, anxious to preclude interference by the French king, speedily elected Étienne Aubert, a Limousin born in 1282 at Monts, near Pompadour, a distinguished jurist who had been professor of law at Toulouse and later chief judge of the city. After taking orders, he rose to become bishop of Noyon (1338) and then of Clermont (1340). His fellow-countryman Clement VI named him cardinal priest in 1342, cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1352, and appointed him grand penitentiary and administrator of the see of Avignon in the absence of a bishop.

Fifth of the Avignon popes, Innocent was prematurely old, shaky in health and sometimes indecisive, but showed his independence by soon (6 July 1353) declaring the compact or capitulation agreed by the conclave, to which he himself had assented subject to its being lawful, null as violating the rule restricting business during a conclave to the election and as infringing the plenitude of power inherent in the papal office. Meanwhile, reviving the spirit of Benedict XII, he set about reforming the curia and eradicating abuses. The papal household was reduced and its life-style simplified (changes which in any case his parlous finances made necessary); clergy were obliged to reside in their benefices and pluralities were discouraged; aspirants to offices had to produce evidence of their fitness; to ensure impartiality the auditors, i.e. judges, of the Rota were assigned fixed stipends. His reforming zeal embraced the orders too: he gave strong support to the grand master of the Dominicans in restoring discipline, and took severe measures with the Knights of St John. He was particularly harsh on the Spiritual Franciscans, and on his orders the Inquisition sent several of them to prison or the stake. Because of his sternness the saintly Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373), who was then in Rome and had hailed his election with enthusiasm, turned against him and denounced him as a persecutor of Christ's sheep. Nevertheless, while listening in consistory in 1357 to the attacks of Archbishop FitzRalph of Armagh (1347–60) on the privileges of the mendicants, he refrained from publicly endorsing them.

Envisaging as he did the return of the papacy to Rome, Innocent was constantly preoccupied with the pacification of the papal state, dominated by petty tyrants, and its restoration to allegiance to the holy see. He was able to achieve this through the brilliant campaigns of the Spanish cardinal Gil de Albornoz (c. 1295–1367), who as his legate in Italy subdued most of the territories by mid-1357 and modernized their administration. Taken in by the intrigues of the Visconti of Milan, to whom Albornoz would not cede Bologna, Innocent weakly replaced him in 1357, but had to reappoint him in Sept. 1358, when he recovered Bologna for the holy see. In response to appeals from Rome Innocent also decided to use Cola di Rienzo (c. 1313–54), the visionary populist tribune whom Clement VI had excommunicated but who had recently been acquitted after trial at Avignon, to assist Albornoz in re-establishing papal authority in Rome itself; he hoped that he would win over the masses and lead the opposition to the nobles. He therefore released Cola, who on 1 Aug. 1354 entered Rome in triumph with the title of senator which the pope had granted him. But the move proved a failure; Cola's reinstatement was brief, and he died ingloriously in a riot on 8 Oct. 1354. With Charles IV of Bohemia (1346–78), who had been elected king of the Romans in 1346, Innocent's relations were friendly. With his consent, as stipulated in undertakings made to Clement VI, the king crossed the Alps in autumn 1354, was crowned king of Lombardy on 6 Jan. 1355, and on Easter Sunday (5 Apr.) received the imperial crown, by the pope's mandate, from the cardinal bishop of Ostia at Rome. Again as laid down in his undertakings to Clement VI, Charles left Rome for Germany that very evening. His hasty visit caused mocking comment, but the following year, after consultations at the diets of Nürnberg and Metz, he published the so-called Golden Bull, which regulated definitively the election of German kings but made no mention of the pope's right to approve the man elected and by implication excluded his right to act as vicar of the realms during a vacancy. It is significant that Innocent raised no objection to it, and did not allow it to alter his warm relations with Charles.

In other fields Innocent met with repeated disappointments. Negotiations at Avignon in 1354 between English and French plenipotentiaries failed to prevent the resumption of the Hundred Years War in 1355; and when King John II of France (1350–64) was captured by the Black Prince at Poitiers in Sept. 1356, he was unable to prevail upon Charles IV, to whom France's weakness offered advantages, to use his influence to secure his release. He at least had the satisfaction of arranging the treaty of Brétigny (1360), which halted the conflict for a decade. Time and again, but always in vain, he imposed ecclesiastical penalties on Peter I of Castile (1350–69), who repudiated his wife, while the efforts of the curia to mediate peace between Castile and Aragón proved equally fruitless. Nothing came of his plans for a crusade or of his negotiations for reunion with the Greeks, which he made conditional on total subjection to the papacy. He also had financial worries, for the wars in Italy consumed vast sums, and by Nov. 1358 he was reduced to selling papal treasures. On top of everything Avignon was becoming a dangerous city, exposed to plundering raids by companies of mercenary troops set free from the wars by the truces of Bordeaux and, still more, Brétigny (1357 and 1360). For protection strong walls and extensive fortifications were constructed from 1357, but even so one of the so-called free companies seized Pont-Saint-Esprit in late Dec. 1360, cutting the communications of Avignon with the outside world, and Innocent had to buy the marauders off. When he died two years later, he had had his fill of anxieties and blighted hopes, and had been disappointed in his frequently expressed wish to return to Rome.

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