Pope Urban V
POPE URBAN V. (Guillaume Grimoard or Grimaud de Beauvoir), pope from the 28th of October 1362 to the 19th of December 1370, was born in 1309 near Lozere in Languedoc, and entered the Benedictine priory of Chiriac. After receiving orders he became successively professor of canon law at Avignon and Montpellier, vicar-general of the dioceses of Clermont and Uzes, abbot of St Germain d'Auxerre, abbot of St Victor at Marseilles, administrator of the bishopric of Avignon, and papal legate to Naples. He was returning from his mission to Italy when news reached him at Corneto that he had been chosen to succeed Innocent VI. He announced his acceptance from Marseilles, and was consecrated at Avignon on the 6th of November 1362. Urban witnessed the completion of the work of tranquillizing Italy under the able Cardinal Albornoz, and hi 1364, in the interests of peace, made heavy concessions to Bernabo Visconti. Moved by Peter of Lusignan, king of Cyprus, and by the celebrated Carmelite Peter Thomas, who had come to Avignon in February 1363, the pope proclaimed another crusade, which found some echo in France and resulted in the temporary occupation of Alexandria (1365). Urban, yielding to the entreaties of the Emperor Charles IV. and of Petrarch, left Avignon on the 30th of April 1367, despite the opposition of the French cardinals, and made his entry into Rome on the 16th of October. The following year he was visited by Charles IV., and crowned the Empress Elizabeth (ist of November); and in 1369 he received the Greek emperor, John Palaeologus, who renounced the schism but for whom the pope was unable to secure assistance. Urban sanctioned the order of Jesuates and founded the medical school at Montpellier. On account of the poor repair of Rome, the restlessness of the Romans and the discontent of the French cardinals in Italy, he at length announced his intention of returning to France, avowedly to settle trouble between France and England. He took ship at Corneto on the sth of September 1370, and, arriving at Avignon on the 24th of the same month died on the 1pth of December. Urban was serious and humble, opposed to all nepotism, simony, and secular pomp. He was himself of blameless morality and reformed many abuses in the curia. He was honoured as a saint immediately after his death, and beatified by Pius IX. in 1870. Urban's successor was Gregory XI.
See H.T. Tomaseth, " Die Register u. Secretare Urbans V. u. Gregors XI." in Mittetiungen des Instituts fur osterreichische Geschichtsforschung (1898) ; Baluzius, Vitae Pap. Avenion., vol. I (Paris, 1693); L. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. I, trans, by F. I. Antrobus (London, 1899); F. Gregoroyius, Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 6, trans, by Mrs G. W. Hamilton (London, 1900-2) ; J. P. Kirsch, Die Riickkehr der Pdpste Urban V. u. Gregor XI. von Avignon nach Rom (Paderborn, 1898); J. H. Alban^s, Actes anciens concernant le bienheureux Urbain V. (Paris, 1897); J. B. Magnan, Histoire d' Urbain V. (2nd ed., Paris, 1863); H. J. Wurm, Cardinal Albornoz (Paderborn, 1892); H. H. Milraan, Latin Christianity, vol. 7 (London, 1896); J. B. Christophe, Histoire de la papaute pendant le XIV em siecle, vol. 2 (Paris, 1853).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
