4. URBAN IV, TO BENEDICT XL (1261-1305) This period comprises 13 pontificates, all short (three or four years at the most, and some only a few months), with the exception of that of Boniface VIII., who was pope for nine years. This accidental fact constitutes a prime difference in favour of the preceding period, in which there were only five pontiffs during the first 6o years of the 13th century.
Influence of France.—Although there was no theoretical restriction to the temporal supremacy and religious power of the papacy, certain historical facts of great importance contributed to the fatal diminution of their extent. The first of these was the preponderance of the French monarchy and nation in Europe. Founded by the conquests of Philip Augustus and Louis VIII. and legitimated and extended by the policy and moral influence of the crowned saint, Louis IX., the French monarchy enjoyed un disputed supremacy at the end of the 13th century and the begin ning of the 14th ; and this hegemony of France was manifested, not only by the extension of the direct power exercised by the French kings over all the neighbouring nationalities, but also by the establishment of Capetian dynasties in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies and in Hungary. From this time the sovereign of Rome, like other sovereigns, had to submit to French influence. But, whereas the pope was sometimes compelled to become the instrument of the policy of the kings of France or the adventurers of their race, he was often able to utilize this new and pervading force for the realization of his own designs, although he en deavoured from time to time, but without enduring success, to shake off the overwhelming yoke of the French.
It was the Frenchman Urban IV. (1261-1264) who called Charles of Anjou into Italy to combat the last heirs of Frederick II. and thus paved the way for the establishment of the Angevin dynasty on the throne of Naples. Under Clement IV. (1265 1268), an agreement was concluded by which Sicily was handed over to the brother of St. Louis, and the victories of Benevento (1266) and Tagliacozzo (1267) assured the triumph of the Guelph party and enabled the Angevins to plant themselves definitely on Neapolitan soil. Conradin's tragic and inevitable end closed the last act of the secular struggle between the Holy See and the empire. Haunted by the recollection of that formidable conflict and lulled in the security of the Great Interregnum, which was to render Germany long powerless, the papacy thought merely of the support that France could give, and paid no heed to the dangers threatened by the extension of Charles of Anjou's monarchy in central and northern Italy. The Visconti Gregory X. (1271
1276) made an attempt to bring about a reaction against the ten dency which had influenced his two immediate predecessors. He placed himself outside the theatre of French influence, and occu pied himself solely with the task of giving to the papal monarchy that character of universality and political superiority which had made the greatness of an Alexander III. or an Innocent III. He opposed the aggrandizing projects of the Angevins, intervened in Germany with a view to terminating the Great Interregnum, and sought a necessary counterpoise to Capetian predominance in an alliance with Rudolph of Habsburg, who had become an emperor without imperilling the papacy. The Orsini Nicholas III. pursued the same policy with regard to the independence and greatness of the Roman See, but died too soon for the cause he upheld, and, at his death in 1280, the inevitable current revived with overpower ing force. His successor, Martin IV. (1281-1285), a prelate of Champagne, brother of several councillors of the king of France, prebendary at Rouen and Tours, and one of the most zealous in favour of the canonization of Louis IX., ascended the papal throne under the auspices of Charles of Anjou, and undertook the government of the Church with the sole intention of furthering in every way the interests of the country of his birth. A French man before everything, he abased the papal power to such an extent as to excite the indignation of his contemporaries, often slavishly subordinating it to the exigencies of the domestic and foreign policy of the Angevins at Naples and the reigning house at Paris. But he was prevented from carrying out this policy by an unforeseen blow, the Sicilian Vespers (March 1282), an event important both in itself and in its results. By rejecting the Cape tian sovereign that Rome wished to thrust upon it to deliver it from the dynasty of Aragon, the little island of Sicily arrested the progress of French imperialism, ruined the vast projects of Charles of Anjou, and liberated the papacy in its own despite from a subjection that perverted and shook its power. Honorius IV. (1285-1287) and Nicholas IV. (1288-1292) were able to act with greater dignity and independence than their predecessors.