HE was of an illustrious family, born at Placentia, and at his baptism
was called Theobald. In his youth he was distinguished for his
extraordinary virtue, and his progress in his studies, especially of the
canon law, which he began in Italy, and pursued at Paris, and lastly at
Liege. He was archdeacon of this last church when he received an order
from the pope to preach the crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land.
Incredible were the pains which he took in executing this commission,
and in reconciling the Christian princes, who were at variance. The
death of St. Lewis, in 1270, {421} struck a damp upon the spirits of the
Christians in the East, though the prince of Wales, soon after Edward
I., king of England, sailed from Sicily, in March, 1271, to their
assistance, took Jaffa and Nazareth, and plundered Antioch. A tender
compassion for the distressed situation of the servants of Christ in
those parts, moved the holy archdeacon of Liege to undertake a dangerous
pilgrimage to Palestine, in order to comfort them, and at the same time
to satisfy his devotion by visiting the holy places. The see of Rome had
been vacant almost three years, from the death of Clement IV. to
November, 1268, the cardinals who were assembled at Viterbo not coming
to an agreement in the choice of a pope, till, by common consent, they
referred his election to six among them, who, on the 1st of September,
in 1271, nominated Theobald, the archdeacon of Liege. Upon the news of
his election, he prepared himself to return to Italy. Nothing could be
more tender and moving than his last farewell to the disconsolate
Christians of Palestine, whom he promised, in a most solemn manner,
never to forget. He arrived at Rome in March, and was first ordained
priest, then consecrated bishop, and crowned on the 27th of the same
month, in 1272. He took the name of Gregory X., and, to procure the most
effectual succor to the Holy Land, called a general council to meet at
Lyons, where pope Innocent IV. had held the last in 1245, partly for the
same purpose of the holy war, and partly to endeavor to reclaim the
emperor Frederick II. The city of Lyons was most convenient for the
meeting of those princes whose succors were principally expected for the
holy war; and was most unexceptionable, because at that time it
acknowledged no other sovereign than its archbishop. Henry III., king of
England, died on the 16th of November, 1272, and Edward I., who had
concluded a peace of ten years with the Saracens, in the name of the
Christians in Syria and Palestine, returned for England, and on the road
at Trapani, in Sicily, met the news of his father's death. In the same
place he received most obliging letters from pope Gregory X. The
fourteenth general council, the second of Lyons, was opened in that city
in May, 1274, in which were assembled five hundred bishops and seventy
abbots. In the fourth session, the Greek ambassadors (who were,
Germanus, formerly patriarch of Constantinople, Theophanes, archbishop
of Nice, and the senator, George Acropolita, great logothete, or
chancellor) were admitted. The logothete abjured the schism in the name
of the emperor Michael Palaeologus; and the pope, while Te Deum was sung,
stood with his cheeks all the time bathed in tears. St. Thomas Aquinas
died on the 7th of March, before the opening of the council, and St.
Bonaventure at Lyons, on the 15th of July. The council was closed by the
fifth and last session, on the 17th of July. The more our holy pope was
overwhelmed with public affairs, the more watchful he was over his own
soul, and the more earnest in the interior duties of self-examination,
contemplation, and prayer. He spoke little, conversing assiduously in
his heart with God; he was very abstemious in his diet, and most
rigorous to himself in all things. By this crucified life, his soul was
prepared to taste the hidden manna which is concealed in the divine
word, with which he continually nourished it in holy meditation. After
the council he was taken up in concerting measures for carrying its
decrees into execution, particularly those relating to the crusade in
the East. By his unwearied application to business, and the fatigues of
his journey, in passing the Alps in his return to Rome, he contracted a
distemper, of which he died at Arezzo, on the 10th of January, in 1276,
three years and nine months after his consecration, and four years, four
months, and ten days after his election. His name is inserted in the
Roman Martyrology, published by Benedict XIV., on the 16th of February.
See Platina, Ciacconius, St. Antoninus, Hist. part 3, it. 20, c. 2. The
account of his life and miracles in {422} the archives of the tribunal
of the Rota, and in Benedict XIV. de Canoniz. l. 2, t. 2, Append. 8, p.
673; the proofs of his miracles, ib. p. 709; also, ib. l. 2, c. 24, sec.
37 and 42; and l. 1, c. 20, n. 17. See likewise his life, copied from a
MS. history of several popes, by Bernard Guidonis, published by
Muratori, Scriptor. Ital. t. 3, p. 597, and another life of this pope,
written before the canonization of St. Lewis, in which mention is made
of miraculous cures performed by him, ibid. pp. 599, 604.