MARTIN I., succeeded Theodore in 649, but was deposed by the emperor, and banished, after suffering great indigni ties, to the Sarmatian Chersonese, where he died in 655, being afterward numbered, for his suffering, among the saints. MARTIN II. succeeded John in 882, but died within 18 months of his election. MARTIN III. ascended the papal chair on the death of Stephen VIII., in 943, and died three years after. MARTIN IV. (Nicholas de la Brie), a Frenchman, suc ceeded Nicholas III. in 1281. Having been, from the time of his election, a devoted adherent of Charles of Anjou, he supported that monarch with all his influence, and even by the spiritual cen sures which he had at his command, in his effort to maintain French domination in Sicily; and it is to his use of the censures of the Church in that cause that many Catholic historians ascribe the decline and ultimate extinction of the authority in temporals which the papacy had exercised under the distinguished pontiffs who preceded him. It is in his
time that took place the memorable tragedy known as the "Sicilian Vespers." He died in 1285. MARTIN V. (Otto Co lonna), was elected after the abdication of Gregory XII., and the deposition of John XXII. and Benedict XII., his elec tion finally extinguishing the great West ern Schism. Martin presided at the last sessions of the Council of Constance, and the Fathers having separated without discussing the questions of reform, at that period earnestly called for in the Church, Martin undertook to call a new council for the purpose. The council was summoned accordingly, after several years, to meet at Siena, and ultimately assembled at Basel in 1431. Martin died in the same year.