HONORIUS IV, POPE. — Giacomo Savelli, cardinal deacon of the title of S. Maria in Cosmedin, pope from 1285 to 1287. He was elected unanimously, only four days after the death of Martin IV, on 2 Apr. 1285, ordained priest on 19 May and crowned the following day. Nephew of Honorius III, brother of one of the two Savelli senators, he enjoyed the friendship of the Romans and resided peacefully first in the Vatican, then on the Aventine. His knowledge of Italian affairs (Urban IV had appointed him prefect in Tuscany and captain of his army) enabled him to obtain from Florence and Bologna the repeal of laws against the clergy; he lifted the interdict launched by Martin IV against Venice, which was hostile to Charles I of Anjou.
By temperament and also on account of his frail health (he suffered from gout), he was a conciliatory type. While on the one hand he annulled the renunciation of Sicily signed by Charles I of Anjou in prison as contrary to the rights of the Holy See, and encouraged the war against the Aragonese; on the other hand he granted the Sicilians a constitution milder than the Angevin regime, and accepted the mediation of Edward I in favour of Alfonso of Aragon.
Reserved in his dealings with the Empire, he postponed indefinitely the coronation of Rudolph of Habsburg.
The mendicant orders had their privileges confirmed by him, despite the hostility of the secular clergy, gathered in a national council in Paris; the University took no position. The Pope, grateful to his former teachers, promoted the creation of chairs of Oriental languages, to facilitate the union of the Eastern Churches and the conversion of the infidels. Thus he continued the work of Gregory X, whom he had accompanied at the Council of Lyons.