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 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.
Coat of arms of Pope Gregory XIII.
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 did not 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 was not 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 the Desmond Rebellions of 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 under
the command of Fitzmaurice, accompanied by Sanders as papal legate. The resulting
Second Desmond Rebellion was equally unsuccessful. 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.
A shameful moment for the Papacy was the Massacre of Huguenots in France, although it is
commonly held that the Pope was ignorant of this at the time. 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[1], 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.
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Footnotes
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