Everything about Pope Gregory Xiii totally explained
Pope Gregory XIII (
January 7,
1502 –
April 10,
1585), born
Ugo Boncompagni, was
Pope from 1572 to 1585.
Early biography
Youth
He was born in the city of
Bologna, where he studied law and graduated
in 1530. Afterwards, he taught jurisprudence for some years; his students included notable figures such as
Alexander Farnese,
Reginald Pole and
Charles Borromeo.
Career before Papacy
At the age of thirty-six he was summoned to Rome by
Pope Paul III (1534–1549), under whom he held successive appointments as first judge of the capital,
abbreviator, and vice-chancellor of the
Campagna; by
Pope Paul IV (1555–1559) he was attached as
datarius to the suite of
Cardinal Carafa; and by
Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) he was created
cardinal priest and sent to the
council of Trent.
He also served as a legate to
Philip II of Spain (1556–1598), being sent by the Pope to investigate the Cardinal of
Toledo. It was here that he formed a lasting and close relationship with the Spanish King, which was to become a very important during his foreign policy as Pope.
Election as Pope
Upon the death of Pope Pius V (1566–1572), the
conclave chose Cardinal Boncompagni, who assumed the name of Gregory XIII, in homage to the great reforming Pope,
Gregory I (590–604), surnamed the Great. It was a very brief conclave, lasting less than 24 hours, presumed by many historians to have been due to the influence and backing of the Spanish King. His character seemed to be perfect for the needs of the church at the time. Unlike some of his predecessors, Gregory XIII was to lead a faultless personal life, becoming a model for his simplicity of life. Additionally, his legal brilliance and management abilities meant that he was able to respond and deal with the major problems quickly and decisively, although not always successfully.
Pontificate
Reform of the Church
Once in the chair of
Saint Peter, Gregory XIII's rather worldly concerns became secondary and he dedicated himself to reform of the Catholic Church. He committed himself to putting into practice the recommendations of the
Council of Trent. He allowed no exceptions for cardinals to the rule that bishops must take up residence in their
sees, and designated a committee to update the
Index of Forbidden Books. A new and greatly improved edition of the
Corpus juris canonici was also due to his concerned patronage. In a time of considerable centralisation of power, Gregory XIII abolished the Cardinals
Consistories, replacing them with Colleges, and appointing specific tasks for these colleges to work on. He was renowned for having a fierce independence; with the few confidants noting there were interventions that were not always welcomed nor advice sought for. The power of the papacy increased under him, whereas the influence and power of the Cardinals substantially decreased.
Formation of clergy and promotion of the arts and sciences
A central part of the strategy of Gregory XIII's reform was to apply the recommendations of Trent. He was a liberal patron of the recently formed
Society of Jesus throughout
Europe, for which he founded many new colleges. The Roman College, of the Jesuits, grew substantially under his patronage, and became the most important centre of learning in Europe for a time, a University of the Nations. It is now named the
Pontifical Gregorian University. Pope Gregory XIII also founded numerous
seminaries for training priests, beginning with the
German College at
Rome, and put them in the charge of the
Jesuits.
In 1575 he gave official status to the Congregation of the Oratory, a community of priests without vows, dedicated to prayer and preaching (founded by Saint Filippo Neri).
The Gregorian Calendar
Gregory XIII is best known for his reformation of the calendar, producing the
Gregorian calendar with the aid of Jesuit priest/astronomer
Christopher Clavius. The reason for the reform is that the average length of the year in the
Julian Calendar was too long, and the date of the actual
Vernal Equinox had slowly slipped to March 10, whereas the
computus (calculation) of the Easter date of Easter still followed the traditional date of March 21.
This was rectified by following the observations of Clavius and
Johannes Kepler, and the calendar was changed when Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day after
October 4,
1582 would be
October 15,
1582. He issued the
papal bull Inter gravissimas to promulgate the new calendar on
February 24,
1582. On
October 15,
1582, this calendar replaced the
Julian calendar, in use since 45 BC, and has become universally used today.
The switchover was bitterly opposed by much of the populace, who feared it was an attempt by landlords to cheat them out of a week and a half's rent. However, the Catholic countries of Spain, Portugal, Poland, and Italy complied. France, some states of the
Dutch Republic and various Catholic states in Germany and Switzerland (both countries were religiously split) followed suit within a year or two, and Hungary followed in 1587.
Because of the Pope's decree, the reform of the Julian calendar came to be known as the Gregorian calendar. However, the rest of Europe didn't follow suit for more than a century. Denmark, the remaining states of the Dutch Republic, and the
Protestant states of the
Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland adopted the Gregorian reform in 1700-1701. By this time, the calendar trailed the seasons by 11 days. Great Britain (and its American colonies) finally followed suit in 1752, and Wednesday,
September 2,
1752 was immediately followed by Thursday,
September 14,
1752; they were joined by the last Protestant holdout, Sweden, on
March 1, 1753.
The Gregorian Calendar wasn't accepted in eastern Christendom for several hundred years, and then only as the civil calendar. The Gregorian Calendar was instituted in
Russia by the
communists in 1917, and the last Eastern Orthodox country to accept the calendar was
Greece in 1923.
While some Eastern Orthodox national churches have accepted the Gregorian Calendar dates for "fixed" feasts (feasts that occur on the same date every year), the dates of all movable feasts (such as
Easter) are still calculated in the
Eastern Orthodox Churches by reference to the Julian Calendar.
Foreign policy
Though he expressed the conventional fears of the danger from the
Turks, Gregory XIII's attentions were more consistently directed to the dangers from the
Protestants.
He encouraged the plans of Phillip II to dethrone
Elizabeth I of England (1558–1603) thus succeeded in developing an atmosphere of subversion and imminent danger among English Protestants, who looked on any
Roman Catholic as a potential traitor.
In 1578, to further the plans of exiled English and Irish catholics such as
Nicholas Sanders William Cardinal Allen and
James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, Gregory outfitted adventurer
Thomas Stukeley with a ship and an army of 800 men to land in
Ireland to aid in the hoped for overthrow of Elizabeth's rule through the Catholic leader and former leader of the first Desmond rebellion, Fitzmaurice. To his dismay Stukeley joined his forces with those of King
Sebastian of Portugal against Emperor
Abdul Malik of Morocco instead. Another papal expedition sailed to Ireland in 1579 with a mere 50 soldiers under the command of Fitzmaurice, accompanied by Sanders as
papal legate. The resulting
Second Desmond Rebellion was equally unsuccessful. Gregory's greatest success came in his patronage of colleges and seminaries which he founded on the Continent for the Irish and English, among others. Pope Gregory XIII had no connection with the plot of
Henry, Duke of Guise, and his brother,
Charles, Duke of Mayenne, to assassinate Elizabeth I in 1582, and most probably knew nothing about it beforehand.
An embarrassing moment for the Papacy was the Massacre of
Huguenots in France, although it's commonly held that the Pope was ignorant of the nature of the plot at the time, having been told the Huguenots had tried to take over the government but failed. He celebrated the
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres in 1572 with a
Te Deum, three frescoes depicting the events in the Sala Regia of the Vatican Palace commended to painter
Giorgio Vasari and a commemorative medal, with his portrait and on the obverse a chastising angel, sword in hand and the legend
UGONOTTORUM STRAGES ("Slaughter of the
Huguenots ")
Note 53
.
Cultural patronage
In Rome Gregory XIII built the magnificent Gregorian chapel in the
Basilica of St. Peter, and extended the
Quirinal Palace in 1580. He also turned the
Baths of Diocletian into a granary in 1575.
He appointed his illegitimate son
Giacomo, born to his mistress at
Bologna before his papacy,
castellan of St. Angelo and
gonfalonier of the Church; Venice, anxious to please, enrolled him among its nobles. Philip II of Spain appointed him general in his army. Gregory also helped his son to become a powerful feudatary through the acquisition of the
Duchy of Sora, on the border between the
Papal States and te
Kingdom of Naples.
In order to raise funds for these and similar objects, he confiscated a large proportion of the houses and properties throughout the states of the Church – a measure which enriched his treasury, indeed, for a time, but by alienating the great body of the nobility and gentry, revived old factions, created new ones, and ultimately plunged his temporal dominions into a state bordering upon anarchy. Such was the position of matters at the time of Gregory XIII's death, which took place on
April 10,
1585.
Gregory XIII was succeeded by
Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590).
The oldest
Papal tiara still in existence dates from the reign of Gregory XIII.
Sources and external links
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Pope Gregory Xiii'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://pope_gregory_xiii.totallyexplained.com">Pope Gregory XIII Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
