CHAPTER SIX

GREGORY X AND THE END OF IMPERIAL AMBITIONS

1. Alfonso X and Gregory X

On September 1, 1271, almost three years aft er Clement IV’s death, a new , Gregory X (1272–1276), was fi nally elected. Teobaldo Visconti was an Italian from Piacenza, and at the time of his elec- tion he was in Tolemaida (Saint John of Acre) with Prince Edward of England’s crusade. He was not a priest, but he traveled immediately to Italy to be ordained in Rome on March 19, and crowned pope on the 27th of the same month, 1272. When he ascended to the throne of St. Peter, this simple man, a friend of concord, order, and charity, decided to launch his ideals for Christendom: the liberation of Jerusa- lem, the union of the Greek and churches, and the reconciliation of Guelfs and Ghibellines in Italy.1 Th e new pope quickly realized that he still faced another problem left pending by his predecessor, and a great part of the cause of the divisions among Christians: the succession crisis, or , in the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire that had been vacant for 20 years and still did not have a solution. From the decisions he would soon make, it was obvious that for Gregory, neither Alfonso X nor Richard, elected “ of the Romans,” deserved pontifi cal support. Th e selec- tion suddenly became easier when Richard died April 2, 1272. When he learned of his rival’s death in the midst of the crisis provoked by the rebellion of the nobles, Alfonso thought it would not be long before his imperial because he was the only elected candidate left . Flattered by the new prospects, Alfonso sent a very aff ectionate letter to the pope that year in which he described himself as a model king, ready to defend the interests of the Holy See.2 Th e letter was followed

1 On the brief but fruitful papacy of Gregory X, cf. Rinaldi, Annales, y.1273, n. 28; and Leonardo Bruni d’Arezzo, Historiarum fl orentinarum lib.12, especially, book 3. Cf. L. Gatto, Il pontifi cato di Gregorio X, 1271–1276, Rome, 1959. 2 Alfonso writes to the pope saying every king will “do whatever he can” to help the new pontiff in devotion to the Holy See, but that he, following the steps of his ances- tors on the Castilian throne, will go much further than any other. Letter in Archive of 190 chapter six by an envoy headed by the Dominican friar Ademaro. Alfonso’s repre- sentatives requested the pope to acknowledge the rights of the king of Castile, and following instructions, they even requested a coronation date. Among other demands, Alfonso asked the pope to prohibit the German elector princes from holding another election that would only jeopardize his rights. Th is request was the response to a rumor that the pope himself supported a new election by the German princes. Alfonso could not imagine what Gregory had in store for him. From Orvieto, on September 16, 1272, the pope sent a rejection of all of Alfonso’s requests, insisting they had no legal basis, because he still needed to prove he had been legitimately elected. So he had no more right to the crown aft er the death of his rival, than the day they were both elected. Th e pope also accused him of having delayed assuming the too long aft er his election as “King of the Romans,” which had happened many years earlier.3 Th e new pope must have thought it was not timely but rather rash to impose a foreign monarch on the German people, who, even if a , had hardly set foot in Germany. So for the time being he ignored the request of the king of Castile, and around the same time also ignored the entreaties of his favorite, Charles of Anjou, who also requested the crown for his nephew, Philip III, known as the Bold. At the same time as he rejected Alfonso’s candidacy, Gregory X sent a letter to his wife, Violante, asking her to convince her husband to accept the pope’s decision.4 Gregory, a pious man and a true cru- sader, apparently had no esteem or admiration for the king of Castile, whom he considered a kind of magician, in the tradition of his uncle Frederick II. Alfonso, for his part, as a result of the 1275 fi nal decision,

the Toledo Cathedral, published by P. Linehan, Histories and the Historians of Medi- eval Spain, p. 509, note 11. 3 Th e pope’s extremely harsh letter can be seen in J. Guiraud and L. Cardier, Les Registres de Grégoire X (1271–1276), Paris: Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 1892–1906, I, pp. 65–67, no. 192 (September 16, 1272); and in S. Domínguez Sánchez, Documentos de Gregorio X (1272–1276) referentes a España, León, 1997, pp. 140–144. Cf. CAX, chaps. 18–21, pp. 68–84. Ballesteros, Alfonso X, pp. 674–677; and W.F. Schoen, Alfonso X de Castilla, pp. 168–179. 4 For Ballesteros, the letter to Violante must have been written much later, for the name of the famous “magister Fredulum, capellanum nostrum,” who was not named until much later, is mentioned there. Cf. Alfonso X, p. 676.