MARTIN IV, Pope. - Simon de Bric (or de Brion), of French origin, d. at Perugia on 28 March 1285. He studied at the University of Paris; afterward he was canon and treasurer of the diocese of Tours, chancellor of France (1260) and cardinal (1261) of the title of St. Cecilia; Urban IV entrusted him with high offices, among which particularly important was the legation in France, which concluded with the appointment of Charles of Anjou as king of the Two Sicilies (1264).
He preached the crusade against the last Hohenstaufen and in favor of the Holy Land, successfully attending to the reform of the Church of France. On 22 February 1281, after six months of conclave, at Viterbo, Simon was elected to succeed Nicholas III under the name Martin IV, through the influence of Charles of Anjou, and was consecrated at Orvieto on 23 March of the same year. Since his election was not welcome to the Romans, Martin IV was forced to spend almost his entire pontificate far from Rome, living successively at Orvieto, Montefiascone, Città della Pieve and Perugia.
Martin IV was very favorably disposed toward King Rudolf of Germany, who renounced every claim to the Romagna, of which the Pope took possession with the help of the French. To please Charles of Anjou, to whom, despite the strong opposition of the Romans, he had conferred the dignity of senator of Rome, Martin IV excommunicated the emperor Michael Palaiologos, who was acting insincerely in the matter of the union of the Greek Church with the Latin one, and furnished aid to Charles for the planned enterprise against the Byzantine Empire. But from that enterprise Charles was diverted by the uprising of Sicily, which gave itself to the Aragonese on the occasion of the Sicilian Vespers (March 1282). Martin IV refused the homage of subjection offered him by the Sicilians and excommunicated Peter III of Aragon, against whom he proclaimed a crusade, which failed miserably because of the valor of the Aragonese King, who defeated the fleet of Charles of Anjou and repelled the army of Philip III the Bold, which had invaded Aragon. With the Romans, who had rebelled against Charles of Anjou, the Pope reconciled by appointing two other senators and distributing generous subsidies on the occasion of a severe famine.
Although blameless in his private life, Martin IV, who was a man of great charity, is reproached for having excessively favored the French, often inconsiderately using ecclesiastical penalties for political reasons. Dante places Martin IV among the gluttons (Purg., XXVI, 20-24); Villani (Cronica, VII, 58) calls him «magnanimous and of great heart in the affairs of the Church».