In September 1362, Grimoard was apostolic nuncio in Italy when
Pope Innocent VI died. Exactly where he was when the news reached him summoning him to Avignon is unknown. Naples is just a guess; other possibilities are Florence and Lombardy. Pope Innocent VI died on 12 September 1362. The Conclave to elect his successor opened on 22 September, the Feast of
Saint Maurice, in the Apostolic Palace in Avignon. Twenty of the twenty-one cardinals were in attendance. Only Cardinal Albornoz remained at his post in Italy. Of the twenty cardinals eighteen were French in origin, six of them Limousin. Ten of the twenty-one cardinals were papal relatives. The influence of the Limousin cardinals was somewhat diminished since their homeland had recently become subject to English occupation, which frightened the thirteen cardinals who were subjects of the King of France. Both Cardinals Hélie de Talleyrand and Guy de Boulogne considered themselves to be electable. Matteo Villani, the Florentine chronicler, says that fifteen cardinals were prepared to elect, or actually elected, Hugues Roger, OSB, a Limousin and the brother of Pope Clement VI, who was Chamberlain of the College of Cardinals. Cardinal Hugues declined the offer. Villani is the only source that reports this version of events. This story, moreover, contradicts the report of Jean de Froissart, who claims that a stalemate developed between Talleyrand and Guy de Boulogne, such that members of neither party could get the required two-thirds of the votes. It was apparently one of the Limousin Cardinals, Guillaume d'Aigrefeuille, who directed the attention of the cardinals to Abbot Guillaume Grimoard. On 28 September, they elected Grimoard as the new Pope. He was not initially informed of the result; instead, he was requested to return immediately to Avignon to "consult" with the Conclave. The cardinals feared the reaction of the Romans to the election of another French pope, and so kept the results of the election secret until Grimoard's arrival a month later, at the end of October. The Romans had been clamoring for some time for a Roman, or at least Italian, pope, and it was feared they would interfere with Guillaume's travel had they known of his election. Upon his arrival, Grimoard accepted his election and took the pontifical name of Urban V. When asked the reason for the selection of his new name, Grimoard was alleged to have said: "All the popes who have borne this name were saints". Grimoard was not even a bishop at the time of his election, and had to be
consecrated before he could be crowned. This was done on 6 November by Cardinal
Andouin Aubert, the Bishop of Ostia, a nephew of Grimoard's predecessor, Innocent VI. The Bishop of Ostia had the traditional right to consecrate a pope as a bishop. At the conclusion of the consecration Mass, Urban V was crowned. There is no record of who it was who placed the crown on his head. The right to do so belonged to the cardinal protodeacon, who was Cardinal Guillaume de la Jugié, a nephew of Pope Clement VI. Urban V was the sixth pope in the
Avignon Papacy. Urban V kept on another papal nephew, Arnaud Aubert, the nephew of Pope Innocent VI. He had been given the very important position of papal chamberlain, the head of the church's financial department, by his uncle in 1361. He continued in that office throughout the reign of Urban V and also that of Gregory XI, until 1371. In addition to the management of the papal household, the office made Aubert the temporal vicar for the Pope in the diocese of Avignon and the administrator of the Comtat-Venaissin. In 1363–1364 the winter was so cold, especially in January, February and March, that the Rhone froze over to the extent that people and vehicles could travel across the ice. The Pope, however, announced that he would excommunicate anyone who attempted to do so, fearing that people might accidentally fall in and be drowned. Near Carcassonne, a man froze to death while travelling on his horse, though the horse was able to make it back to its accustomed stable with the dead man on its back. Many of the poor, women, and children died of the cold. '' of Urban V
Reformer and patron of education As pope, Urban V continued to follow the discipline of the
Benedictine Rule and to wear his
monastic habit. Urban V worked against absenteeism, pluralism and simony, while seeking to improve clerical training and examination. It must be kept in mind, however, that, with the training of a monk, reform was a matter of return to ideal values and principles through discipline, not a matter of striking out with new solutions. With the training of a lawyer, reform was a matter of codifying and enforcing established decisions and precedents. Pope Urban V introduced considerable reforms in the administration of justice and liberally patronized learning. He founded a university in
Hungary. He granted the University of Pavia the status of Studium Generale (14 April 1363). In
Toulouse, he granted the Theology Faculty the same rights as possessed by the University of Paris. In
Montpellier, he restored the school of
medicine and founded the
College of Saint Benedict, whose church, decorated with numerous works of art, later became the cathedral of the city. He founded a collegiate church in
Quézac, and a church and library in
Ispagnac. On a hilltop near
Bédouès, the parish in which the Château de Grisac is situated, he built a church where the bodies of his parents were buried, and, we are informed by a papal bull of December 1363, he instituted a college of six canon-priests, along with a deacon and a subdeacon. Urban V issued a preliminary consent for the establishment of the university of
Kraków, which by September 1364 had gained full papal consent. He provided books and the best professors to more than 1,000 students of all classes. Around
Rome, he also planted
vineyards. He imposed the penalty of excommunication on anyone who molested the Jews or attempted forcible conversion and baptism.
Military campaigns The great feature of Urban V's reign was the effort to return the
papacy to Rome and to suppress its powerful rivals for the temporal sovereignty there. He began by sending his brother, Cardinal Angelicus Grimoard, as
legate in northern Italy. In 1362 Urban ordered a crusade to be preached throughout
Italy against Bernabò Visconti, Giangaleazzo Visconti and their kindred, accused as robbers of the church's estate. In March 1363 Bernabò was declared a heretic. However, Pope Urban found it necessary to purchase peace in March of the following year, sending the newly created Cardinal
Androin de la Roche, former Abbot of Cluny, as apostolic legate to Italy to arrange the business. Then, through the mediation of
Emperor Charles IV, Urban lifted his excommunication against Bernabò, obtaining Bologna only after he signed a hasty peace that was highly favorable to Bernabò. In May 1365 the Emperor Charles visited Avignon, where he appeared with the Pope in full imperial regalia. He then proceeded to Arles, which was one of his domains, where he was crowned King by the Archbishop,
Pierre de Cros, OSB. Urban V's greatest desire was that of a crusade against the Turks. In 1363,
King John II of France and
Peter I, the King of Cyprus, came to Avignon, and it was decided that there should be a war against the Turks. It was Urban and Peter who were most eager for the crusade; the French were exhausted by recent losses in the Hundred Years' War, and some of their leaders were still being held prisoner in England. The Pope held a special ceremony on Holy Saturday, 1363, and bestowed the crusader's cross on the two kings, and on Cardinal
Hélie de Talleyrand as well. John II was appointed Rector and Captain General of the expedition. Cardinal de Talleyrand was appointed apostolic legate for the expedition, but he died on 17 January 1364, before the expedition could set out. Assembling the army proved an impossible task, and King John returned to prison in England. He died in London on 8 April 1364. King Peter of Cyprus, disappointed by King John's return to captivity in England and the death of Cardinal de Talleyrand, collected whatever soldiers he could, and in 1365 launched a successful attack on
Alexandria (11 October 1365). Additional support was not forthcoming, however, and seeing that the enemy vastly outnumbered the crusaders, he ordered the sacking and burning of the city, and then withdrew. He continued to harass the coasts of Syria and Egypt until he was assassinated in 1369. Urban, however, played no part in the crusade or its aftermath. Amadeus of Savoy and Louis of Hungary also put together a crusade in Urban's reign in 1366. Initially they were successful, and Amadeus even captured
Gallipoli. But despite initial successes, each was forced to withdraw.
To Rome and back Continued troubles in Italy, as well as pleas from figures such as
Petrarch and
Bridget of Sweden, caused Urban V to set out for
Rome, only to find that his Vicar, Cardinal Albornoz, had just died. He conducted the remains of the Cardinal to Assisi, where they were buried in the Basilica of Saint Francis. The Pope reached the City of Rome on 16 October 1367, the first pope in sixty years to set foot in his own diocese. He was greeted by the clergy and people with joy, and despite the satisfaction of being attended by the
Emperor Charles IV in
St. Peter's, and of placing the crown upon the head of the
Empress Elizabeth (1 November 1368), it soon became clear that by changing the seat of his government he had not increased its power. In Rome he was nonetheless able to receive the homage of King
Peter I of Cyprus, Queen
Joan I of Naples, and the confession of faith by the Byzantine Emperor
John V Palaeologus. Bridget of Sweden, who was living in Rome and attempting to get approval for a new religious order, the
Bridgettines, had actually appeared before the Pope at
Montefiascone in 1370 as he was preparing to return to France, and, in the presence of Cardinal
Pierre Roger de Beaufort, the future pope, predicted the death of the Pope if he should leave Rome. Unable any longer to resist the urgency of the French cardinals, and despite several cities of the Papal States still being in revolt, Urban V boarded a ship at
Corneto heading for France on 5 September 1370, arriving back at
Avignon on the 27th of the same month. A few days later he fell severely ill. Feeling his death approaching, he asked that he might be moved from the Papal Palace to the nearby residence of his brother,
Angel de Grimoard, whom he had made a cardinal, that he might be close to those he loved. He died there on 19 December 1370. He had been pope for eight years, one month, and nineteen days. His body was initially placed in the Chapel of John XXII in the Cathedral of S. Marie de Domps in Avignon. On 31 May 1371 his remains were transferred to the monastery of Saint-Victor in Marseille, where he had built a splendid tomb for himself. ==Beatification==