Bishop and archbishop Thomas was appointed
bishop of Bethlehem and
papal legate in the
Holy Land by
Pope Alexander IV in 1259. He thus became the first member of a
mendicant order to become a bishop in the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. He arrived there in the spring of 1259. Because he came with legatine powers, Thomas outranked the
Latin patriarch of Jerusalem,
James Pantaleon, to whom he should otherwise have been subordinate as a
suffragan. The indignant patriarch left the kingdom and travelled to Rome. At the same time, the kingdom had no
secular ruler present. This left Thomas as the ultimate authority in the land. During his episcopate the Diocese of Bethlehem continued to receive
endowments in Europe but no new land in the
Latin East. Thomas received the pope's permission to exchange distant properties with those that would be easier to manage. When the
Mongols invaded the Levant in 1260, Thomas requested help from Count
Charles I of Anjou. Thomas
excommunicated all
Latin Christians who submitted to the Mongols or aided them, including Prince
Bohemond VI of Antioch. The alliance of King
Hethum II of
Cilician Armenia with the Mongols irked the Latin clergy in Acre, and Thomas–acting as the papal legate–summoned the
Armenian catholicos,
Constantine I, to meet him in Acre. Such an order was unprecedented. Constantine replied that he was too old to make the journey from Cilicia, and sent the theologian
Mekhitar of Daschir and the
Armenian bishop of Jerusalem to represent him. Mekhitar was a staunch opponent of the
union between the
Armenian Church and the
Latin Church and vigorously attacked the notion of
papal supremacy over the other
apostolic sees, and the union effectively fell through. It was probably Thomas who prevailed on the
High Court to adopt a policy of neutrality in the Mongols' war against the
Mamluk Sultanate and to allow the Mamluk troops to pass through the kingdom to fight off the Mongols. This proved catastrophic for the kingdom because they came to be completely encircled by the Mamluks following the latter's victory against the Mongols. Afterwards Thomas and the other clergy mediated peace between the
Venetian and
Genoese communities in
Acre, the capital of the rump kingdom, though their war continued elsewhere in the Latin East for years to come. James Pantaleon was elected
pope in 1261 and took the name Urban IV. As his successor in the patriarchate of Jerusalem he appointed
William of Agen. While William stayed in Europe, Thomas's position remained unchanged. In order to spare William the familiar humiliation of being outranked by a suffragan, the pope ordered Thomas to return to Europe in September 1263. Yet the pope did not resent Thomas, and appointed him his
vicar in Rome and had him preach a
crusade against King
Manfred of Sicily. Thomas stayed in Europe after the death of Urban IV and the election of
Clement IV in 1264. Charles of Anjou deposed Manfred and became
king of Sicily in 1266. Thomas was appointed
archbishop of Cosenza by Clement IV on April 18, 1267.
Patriarch The papacy became vacant in November 1268 and so after the death of William of Agen there was no pope who could appoint a new patriarch of Jerusalem. Finally,
in 1271,
Gregory X was elected pope. Gregory was staying in Acre at the time with the
Lord Edward's crusade and likely conferred with the new
king of Jerusalem,
Hugh III of Cyprus, about the appointment of a new patriarch of Jerusalem. Thomas was chosen, having proven himself capable and informed about the issues of the Latin East. His powers as papal legate were renewed and extended to Jerusalem, north
Syria,
Cilicia, and
Cyprus. Thomas met with Charles of Anjou in the summer of 1272, then sailed from Messina and arrived in Acre in October 1272.
Edward Longshanks had just left the kingdom, having concluded a truce with the Mamluks, and Thomas thus found the kingdom at peace. Perhaps under King Hugh's influence, Thomas's patriarchate saw an increase in the promotion of local clergy to episcopal offices. Thomas mediated in the dispute between Hugh and Hugh's aunt
Maria of Antioch, who claimed that she was the rightful heir to the throne Jerusalem. In 1276, he exhorted King
Rudolf I of Germany to come to the Latin East on crusade. That same year King Hugh left the mainland kingdom, declaring it ungovernable, and moved back to Cyprus. Thomas took charge and procured the appointment of
Balian of Arsuf as the
bailiff. In 1277, Maria sold her rights to the throne of Jerusalem to Charles of Anjou and a Sicilian fleet under the command of
Roger of San Severino landed in Acre. Thomas died in Acre in September that year. == Works ==