Innocent VI
Innocent VI
(Etienne d'Albert or Aubert), a Frenchman, succeeded Clement VI in 1352. He resided at Avignon, like his immediate predecessors; but, unlike them, he put a check to the disorders and scandals of that court, which have been so strongly depicted by Petrarch, Villani, and other contemporary writers. He reformed the abuses of the reservations of benefices, and enforced the residence of bishops on their sees. His immediate predecessors having lost their influence in the States of the Church, Innocent VI determined on re-conquering these territories, and successfully reoccupied, with the assistance of the warlike cardinal Egidius Albornoz, the various provinces of the papal state which had been seized by petty tyrants. He then sent back to Rome the former demagogue Cola di Rienzo, who, being still dear to the people, repressed the insolence of the lawless barons, but who, becoming himself intoxicated with his power, committed acts of wanton cruelty, upon which the people rose and murdered him in 1354. In 1358 the emperor Charles IV was crowned at Rome by a legate deputed by pope Innocent for the purpose. Innocent died at Avignon, at an advanced age, in 1362. It was during his pontificate that the mendicant orders were persecuted in England, and declined to be an unchristian order by Richard, archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, in a book which he published in defense of the curates or parish priests, entitled Defensorium Curatorum. Of course Innocent rallied to the defense of the mendicants. He reprimanded the archbishop, and confirmed anew all the privileges which had been granted by his predecessors to men of that order. A letter of his is given by Labbe, Concilia, 11, 1930; four by Ughelli, Italia Sacra; and two hundred and fifty by Martene, Thesaurus novus Anecdotorulm, 2, 843-1072. See Duchesne, Hist. des Papes, 2, 261; Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, I. 20, chap. 86; Sismondi, Hist. des Fralais, 10:397-596; Herzog, Real Encyklop. 6, 670; Engl. Cyclop.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biogr. Géneralé, 25:910; Neander, Hist. of the Christian Religion and Church, 5, 44; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. cent. 14:pt. 2, ch. 2; Schlosser, Weltgesch. bk. 4:ch. 1, 408, 618; Bower, Hist. of the Popes, 6:482 sq.
