Pope Innocent V

Who was Pope Innocent V?

Pope Innocent V, born Pierre de Tarentaise, was the head of the Catholic Church from 21 January to 22 June 1276.

He was born around 1225 near Moûtiers in the Tarentaise region of the County of Savoy, but another hypothesis affirms he was born in La Salle. Both places were then part of the Kingdom of Arles in the Holy Roman Empire, but now the first is in southeastern France and the second in northwestern Italy. In early life, he joined the Dominican Order, in which he acquired great fame as a preacher.

In 1259 Peter took part in the General Chapter of the Dominican Order at Valenciennes together with Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonushomo Britto, Florentius, establishing a ratio studiorum or program of studies for the Dominican Order that featured the study of philosophy as an innovation for those not sufficiently trained to study theology. This innovation initiated the tradition of Dominican scholastic philosophy put into practice, for example, in 1265 at the Order's studium provinciale at the convent of Santa Sabina in Rome, out of which would develop the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum

At the papal conclave of January 1276 he became the first member of that order to become Pope. The only noteworthy feature of his brief and uneventful pontificate was the practical form assumed by his desire for reunion with the Eastern Church. He was proceeding to send legates to Michael VIII Palaeologus, the Byzantine emperor, in connection with the recent decisions of the Second Council of Lyons, when he died at Rome. Pope Innocent V was the author of several works of philosophy, theology, and canon law, including commentaries on the Pauline epistles and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. He is sometimes referred to as famosissimus doctor.