Nicholas IV
1288-1292
Nicholas IV, named Tineus, of an obscure family in Alessiano, in the diocese of Ascoli, was a Minor Observantine, and became the first general of the Franciscans after Saint Bonaventure, and the first pope of that order. As legate from Gregory X to Constantinople, he contributed to bring the Greeks back for a moment to the Roman Church. We have seen that he alone would not leave the Palace of Saint Sabina, in which the conclave was assembled. This courageous conduct was not dictated by any paltry self-interest. When the tiara was offered to him, he rejected it and endeavored to put forth the greater merits other cardinals. On the 22nd of February, 1288, he was unanimously proclaimed, and he was obliged to submit to his coronation on the 24th. In the first year of his pontificate, Pope Nicholas granted privileges to the brethren of his order. Firstly, as many doubted their exemption, he declared them immediately subject to the Holy See and absolutely exempt from every other jurisdiction, adding that all the property, fixed or movable, of which they had the use, was the property of Saint Peter, in conformity to the bull Exiit qui seminat of Nicholas III. This bull of Nicholas IV, is dated at Rome, April 30, 1288. By another, of May 6, given at Rieti, he ordered that no Friar Minor who, after profession, should pass into another order, should be raised to any charge, dignity, or prelacy, without the express permission of the Holy See. In case the place of their abode should fall under interdict, he permitted them to confess each other, receive absolution, recite the office, and say Mass with closed doors, without the bells being rung, and without being obliged to admit any one but the members of the order; and, finally, to communicate on the accustomed days and in case of need to receive extreme unction. He also gave special privileges to some houses of the order, among others to that at Assisi. He forbade any other religious to settle in that city; if necessity compelled them to do so, establishment was to be four hundred yards from the walls. He intended thereby to prevent any diminution of the alms on which the brothers and sisters of the order of Saint Francis subsisted.
In 1289 Nicholas removed the interdict which, sixteen years before, Gregory X had laid upon the kingdom of Portugal, when Alphonso III had usurped the property of the Church and reduced all the ecclesiastics to beggary.
On the 29th of May the pope crowned, in the Vatican Basilica, Charles II, King of Sicily, on the same conditions that had been imposed on the father of that prince by Clement IV. In virtue of a constitution, he divided the income of the Roman Church into two parts, the one allotted to the pontiff and the other to the cardinals. This constitution has not been in force for many years; other arrangements are made for the income of the cardinals, which is very limited considering their high dignity.
To Nicholas is due the foundation of the University of Montpellier, which the founder, in his diploma of the 26th of October, calls "a city created for study." Subsequently he granted great privileges to the university established at Lisbon by King Denis.
Nicholas, ever watchful for the maintenance and propagation of religion, exhorted all the princes upon the earth, with unwearied zeal, to form a numerous crusade to arrest the progress of the victorious Sultan of Babylon, who in 1290 took the city of Tripoli from the Christians. As the aid was not sent as quickly as the Holy Father desired, the city of Acre, the last that the Christians still possessed in Syria, was attacked and taken by the same sultan. This deeply grieved Nicholas, who made new but still vain efforts to stimulate the zeal of the Catholic princes. The loss was irreparable. It was no longer Saladin who fought against the Christians; the Sultan Cahil was an odious barbarian. In spite of the efforts of Henry, King of Cyprus and of Jerusalem, of the Templars, Hospitallers, and the Christians in Palestine, the city of Acre was taken by storm.
The master of the Templars was killed fighting valiantly. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Nicholas, was urged to escape by open sea, the port being still free. The holy man was dragged against his will, by his people, to a boat, that they might convey him to a galley not far off. But he charitably received so many fugitives into the boat that she went down.
Thus perished the last Latin Pat