GREGORIUS XI, POPE. — Pierre Roger de Beaufort, son of William of Beaufort and of Mary Chambon, was born in 1329.
At the age of 42, he was elected pope unanimously on 30 December 1370, taking the name GREGORIUS XI. He was crowned on 5 January 1371, the last of the seven French popes of Avignon. At the age of 12 he was canon of Rodez and Paris; at 19 his uncle, CLEMENT VI, created him cardinal deacon with the title of S. Maria Nova. As cardinal, rather than living amid the splendor of the Avignonese court, he preferred to devote himself to studies: he went to Perugia, where he studied law under the guidance of Pietro Baldo degli Ubaldi.
As pontiff, he reformed monastic orders, among them the Fratelli Pescatori; he intervened in the East to defend pilgrims, conceiving the idea of a Crusade, though it was never carried out. His policy succeeded in bringing about peace between Charles IV and Louis of Hungary and between the Duke of Bavaria and the Count of Savoy. He attempted, in vain, to reconcile France and England, for he realized that only Anglo-French peace would make possible the realization of two great designs: the return of the Holy See to Rome and the Crusade; but his efforts in this regard were opposed by the king of France himself, Charles V.
Petrarch had already repeatedly hoped for this return, and the Romans themselves had sent G. earnest invitations accompanied by the vow and prophecy of St. Bridget; but in Italy two great powers opposed the return: the Visconti and Florence. G. vainly attempted to overthrow the Visconti lordship, and against Florence, which viewed with disfavor the consolidation of the Papal States on its borders, so well begun by Albornoz, on 31 March 1376 he launched the interdict. Soon many cities, until then faithful to the Pope, began to rebel, joining the Florentine League. G. realized that temporal power in Italy was slipping away if he remained any longer in Avignon; St. Catherine of Siena, whom the Florentines had meanwhile sent to the Pope as mediator, overcame the last resistances of his soul, and on 13 September 1376 G. left Avignon, entering Rome, where he was welcomed by the jubilant populace on 17 January 1377. Death overtook him on 27 March 1378. He was buried in S. Maria Nova, where Pier Paolo Olivieri, by order of the Roman Senate, erected a monument to him in 1589.