Pope Gregory VIII

Pope Gregory VIII
Bishop of Rome
Dutch engraving, made c. 1650 Dutch engraving, made c. 1650
Church	Catholic Church
Papacy began	21 October 1187
Papacy ended	17 December 1187
Predecessor	Urban III
Successor	Clement III
Orders
Consecration	25 October 1187
Created cardinal	1156 by Adrian IV
Personal details
Born	Alberto di Morra c. 1100/1105 Benevento, Papal States
Died	17 December 1187 Pisa, Republic of Pisa
Other popes named Gregory

Pope Gregory VIII (Latin: Gregorius VIII; c. 1100/1105 – 17 December 1187), born Alberto di Morra, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States for two months in 1187. Becoming Pope after a long diplomatic career as Apostolic Chancellor, he was notable in his brief reign for reconciling the Papacy with the estranged Holy Roman Empire and for initiating the Third Crusade.

Early life

Alberto di Morra was born about 1105 in Benevento. His father was the nobleman Sartorius di Morra. He became a monk early in life, either as a Cistercian in Laon, or a Benedictine at Monte Cassino. Alberto later joined a new religious order, the Premonstratensian or Norbertine order, probably between the ages of 20–30. He was a canon at St. Martin's Abbey in Laon. He later became a professor of canon law in Bologna.

Cardinal

In 1156, Pope Adrian IV made him cardinal-deacon of Sant'Adriano, and on 14 March 1158 he became cardinal-priest of San Lorenzo in Lucina. As a papal legate of Pope Alexander III, he was sent to teach canon law throughout Europe in the 1160s, and was sent to Portugal to crown Afonso I. He also brought an offer of reconciliation in 1163 to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, whom Pope Alexander III had excommunicated in 1160. Alexander also sent him to England to investigate the murder of Thomas Becket, and he absolved King Henry II of the murder during the Council of Avranches. From 1177 to 1179, Alberto also served as a legate in Italy and in February 1178 was named Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church. As Chancellor he generally pursued a conciliatory line toward the Emperor; in the controversy over the disputed succession of the Archbishop of Trier he argued strongly in favor of setting aside both the pro-papal candidate Folmar of Karden and the pro-imperial Rudolf of Wied, and allowing the canons of Trier to hold a new election, but was overruled by Pope Urban III. It was in this position that di Morra "...compiled a Forma Dicendi, a collection of official papal acts, and also completed a codification of the cursus, a compilation of the very stringent rules governing the euphonious arrangements of sentence endings and phrasing in papal acts. In his honour, the cursus was called stylus gregorianus." These two documents were very influential in shaping the rhetoric used in papal documents. Shortly before his election to the papacy, Alberto founded a monastery in his hometown of Benevento.

Papacy

On 21 October 1187, the day after the death of Urban III, Alberto di Morra, at that time Protopriest of the College of Cardinals, was elected pope (after Henry of Marcy had withdrawn his name from consideration), and took the name Gregory VIII in honour of Gregory VII. He was consecrated on 25 October. His previous dealings with Frederick Barbarossa put the church back in a friendly relationship with the Holy Roman Emperor. In response to the defeat of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin, Gregory issued the papal bull Audita tremendi calling for the Third Crusade. Gregory travelled to Pisa in order to end Pisan hostilities with Genoa so that both seaports and naval fleets could join for the crusade. On the way to Pisa, he stopped at Lucca and ordered Antipope Victor IV's body to be removed from his tomb and his remains thrown out of the church.

Death

Gregory died in Pisa on 17 December 1187 of a fever after holding the papacy for only 57 days. He was buried in the Duomo in Pisa; the tomb and the papal remains were destroyed in the 1600 fire of the cathedral. He was succeeded by Clement III. According to Joseph S. Brusher, "His pontificate though brief was glorious."

See also

• List of popes
• October 1187 Papal election

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Gregory VIII — (ALBERTO DI MORRA).

Born about the beginning of the twelfth century, at Benevento; elected at Ferrara, 21 Oct., 1187; died at Pisa, 17 Dec., 1187, after a pontificate of one month and twenty-seven days. The year 1187 witnessed the almost complete obliteration of Christianity in Palestine. On 4 July, Saladin won the decisive victory of Hittin, near Lake Tiberias; on 3 October, the terrible sultan was master of Jerusalem. The news of the fall of the Holy City struck Europe like a thunderbolt. Urban III is said to have died of a broken heart (20 Oct.). The following day the cardinals elected the chancellor, Cardinal Alberto. He was a Beneventan of noble family; had received a good education; at an early age became a monk, some say a Cistercian, some a Benedictine of Monte Cassino. He was created cardinal-deacon in 1155, by Adrian IV, and in 1158 cardinal-priest with the title of San Lorenzo in Lucina. Alexander III, in 1172, made him his chancellor. It is interesting to notice that he was the last cardinal who used that title until it was revived in our own day by Pius X, succeeding chancellors of the Holy See, for some reason not satisfactorily explained, calling themselves vice-chancellors. Cardinal Alberto was one of the two legates dispatched to England by Alexander III to investigate the murder of St. Thomas a Becket. He also, in the pope's name, placed the royal crown on Alfonso II of Portugal. He was universally beloved for the mildness and gentleness of his disposition; and was no sooner seated on the pontifical throne than he confirmed the popular estimate of his character by making overtures to Barbarossa for a reconciliation with the Church. Since the dominate policy of his pontificate must be a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, he issued circular letters to all the faithful, enjoining prayers and fasts; and as peace between the rival seaports of Pisa and Genoa was an essential condition to the transportation of troops and supplies, he repaired to the former city, where he was overtaken by death. He was buried in the cathedral of Pisa with all possible honours, and was succeeded by Clement III.

Liber Pontificatis, ed. DUCHESNE, II, 451; WATTERICH, Vitoe Pont. Rom., II, 683-92; Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes (1881), XLII, 166; NADIG, Gregors VIII 57 tugiges Pontifikat (Basle, 1890).

Bibliography

• Brusher, Joseph S. (1959). Popes through the Ages. Van Nostrand.
• Delaney, John J., and James E. Tobin. Dictionary of Catholic Biography. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1961.
• Falconieri, Tommaso di Carpegna (2000). "Gregorio VIII". (in Italian) Enciclopedia dei Papi (Treccani 2000).
• Giesebrecht, Wilhelm von & Simson, Bernhard von (1895), Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, vol. VI, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, available at the Internet Archive here: Volume VI. (in German)
• Gregorovius, Ferdinand (1903). The Tombs of the Popes: Landmarks in Papal History. Archibald Constable & Co Ltd.
• Kelly, J. N. (1986). The Oxford Dictionary of Popes. Oxford UP. ISBN 9780192139641.
• Loughlin, James. "Pope Gregory VIII." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 7 December 2008.
• Reuss, Basil R. (1933). "A Norbertine Pope?". The Catholic Historical Review. 19 (2): 200–202. ISSN 0008-8080. JSTOR 25013158.
• Vones, Ludwig (2002). "Gregory VIII". In Levillain, Philippe (ed.). The Papacy: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 2: Gaius-Proxies. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92230-5.
• Walsh, Michael (2003). The Conclave: A Sometimes Secret and Occasionally Bloody History of Papal Elections. Sheed & Ward. ISBN 1-58051-135-X.

External links

• Media related to Pope Gregory VIII at Wikimedia Commons
• Works by or about Gregory VIII at Wikisource
• Quotations related to Pope Gregory VIII at Wikiquote