Pope Honorius IV: Encyclopedia II - Pope Honorius IV - Other Work

Pope Honorius IV - Other Work

Honorius IV inherited plans for another crusade, but confined himself to collecting the tithes imposed by the Council of Lyons, arranging with the great banking-houses of Florence, Siena, and Pistoia to act as his agents.

The two largest religious orders received many new privileges from Honorius IV, documented in his Regesta. He often appointed them to special missions and to bishoprics, and gave them exclusive charge of the Inquisition.

He also approved the privileges of the Carmelites and the Augustinian hermits and permitted the former to exchange their striped habit for a white one. He was especially devoted to the order founded by William X of Aquitaine (d. 1156), and added numerous privileges to those which they had already received from Alexander IV and Urban IV. Besides turning over to them some deserted Benedictine monasteries, he presented them with the monastery of St. Paul at Albano, which he himself had founded and richly endowed when he was still cardinal.

Salimbene, the chronicler of Parma, asserted that Honorius was a foe to the religious orders. This may reflect the fact that he opposed the Apostolic Brethren, an order embracing evangelical poverty that had been started by Gerard Segarelli at Parma in 1260. On 11 March, 1286, he issued a bull condemning them as heretics.

At the University of Paris he advocated the establishment of chairs for Eastern languages in order to give an opportunity of studying these languages to those who intended to labour for the conversion of the Muslims and the reunion of the schismatic churches in the East.

He raised only one man to be cardinal, his cousin Giovanni Boccamazza (or Boccamiti), archbishop of Monreale, 22 December, 1285.

The tomb of Honorius IV is in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Other Work", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki