c. 1210–1276 · Pope (1271–1276)
Pope Gregory X
Elected pope while at Acre with Lord Edward; at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 he decreed a new general crusade for the Holy Land and a six-year crusade tax.
BIOGRAPHICAL DOSSIER
Life and historical role
Life and political setting
Teobaldo Visconti of Piacenza had served in papal diplomacy as a cleric but had not been made cardinal. After a long papal vacancy he was elected pope in September 1271 while on pilgrimage in the Holy Land.
Role in the Crusades
Having seen the plight of the Latin East at first hand in Acre, Gregory declared the recovery of the Holy Land the central aim of his pontificate as he returned West in November 1271. At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 the decree Zelus fidei adopted a six-year church tax; church union with Byzantium was proclaimed and Mongol envoys were received. King Philip III of France and other rulers took the cross.
Historical significance and source problems
Gregory's death in January 1276 halted the organisation of the planned crusade, and much of the tax collected was spent on other purposes. Reports prepared for the council, especially Humbert of Romans's Opus tripartitum, discuss the problems of the crusading movement at the time in detail.
Biographical information is linked to the sources shown on the page and to the connected event records. Disputed dates are given as approximate, gaps are not filled by conjecture, and later literary or visual depictions are not treated as contemporary portraits.