Guy of Boulogne, (1313Setton p. 647, n. 7. In the papal letter dated 11 October 1340 appointing him archbishop of Lyon it is expressly stated that he was "in the 27th year of his age". – 25 November 1373) a statesman and cardinal, served the Avignon Papacy for 33 years. He participated in the papal conclaves of 1352, 1362 also in 1370 while being the Subdean of the Sacred College of Cardinals. His diplomatic postings were extensive, including Hungary, Italy, and Spain. He headed an effort to end the Hundred Years' War. The historian Kenneth Setton called him, "one of the commanding figures of his day, and the letters of Petrarch abound with references to him".
Family Guy was the third son of Count Robert VII of Auvergne and Boulogne (1317–1325), and Marie, niece of Robert III, Count of Flanders. Guy's family was well-connected to the greatest houses in France and the Empire. His sister Matilda married Count Amadeus III of Geneva, making Guy uncle of four successive counts of Geneva and of antipope Clement VII. The daughter of Guy's eldest brother, Count William XII of Auvergne, Joan Countess of Auvergne, married John Duke of Normandy, later King of France, who thus called Guy by the courtesy title "uncle".
Being a younger son, he was destined for the Church, and therefore Guy was sent to Paris, where he devoted himself to theology. He was especially close to the Dominicans of Paris.D. Saint-Marthe, Gallia christiana IV (Paris 1728), p. 164. Cardinal Guy left the Dominicans of Paris 50 gold florins in his Testament. In his youth he was made Canon of Amiens.Baluze, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium I (1693), p. 836 ed. Mollat, II, p. 344]. Guy held the post of Archdeacon of Flanders in the Church of Therouanne.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 50, no. 235. He was also, at some point made Canon and Prebend of Liège, which he resigned by 27 January 1344.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 148, no. 643. On 11 October 1340, Pope Benedict XII approved Guy's election as Archbishop of Lyon,Saint-Marthe, Gallia christiana IV, pp. 164-166. and he was duly consecrated,Berlière, Suppliques, p. 7, no. 29. but he held the Archbishopric for less than two years, surrendering it when he became a cardinal and moved to Avignon.Eubel, p. 316.
Cardinal
In the Consistory of 20 September 1342, Pope Clement VI (Pierre Roger) named ten new cardinals, among them Archbishop Guy de Boulogne.Eubel I, p. 18. He was appointed Cardinal Priest tituli S. Caeciliae, of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. On 6 and 7 November, he was present in Consistory when the financial obligations of the newly appointed Archbishop of Narbonne, the Papal Chamberlain Gasperto du Val, were settled by the Pope. In 1342 he was also provided benefices in the Dioceses of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz by Clement VI.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 80, no. 376. H. Sauerland, Urkunden und Regesten zur Geschichte der Rheinland III (Bonn 1905), no. 71 (October 5, 1342). On 20 August 1343, Pope Clement provided Cardinal Guy to the Priory of Duyssell in the diocese of Soissons and the Priory of Calidomonte in the diocese of Terouanne.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 109, no. 489. On 23 October 1343 he was granted the office of Prévôt of Bruges in the diocese of Tournay, and next day the Priory of Fieves in Tournay. On 17 November the Pope gave him a canonry and prebend in the Cathedral of Terouanne.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 124, no. 554; p. 125 no. 557; p. 132, no. 581. On 19 December the Pope granted Guy the right to grant the benefices once belonging to the late Bernard de Bensewilre to whomever he wished.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 138, no. 607. On 18 March 1344, Cardinal Guy was granted the Priory of Papineloe in the diocese of Terouanne.Berlière, Suppliques, p. 160, no. 683. All of these grants were for the sake of income; the spiritual care of those involved was left to subordinates. They also extended the influence of Guy's family in the territories over which they were secular rulers.
On 22 April 1346, Cardinal Guy was present in Avignon, along with Cardinal Élie de Talleyrand and ten other cardinals, to witness the pact between King John of Bohemia, his son, the future Emperor Charles IV, and Pope Clement VI.Baronio (ed. Theiner), Vol. 25, p. 379, under the year 1346, § 19, and p. 382, § 26.
Legate in Hungary and Lombardy On 30 November 1348 Pope Clement appointed Cardinal Guy de Boulogne his Apostolicae Sedis Legatus (ambassador) to the King of Hungary (whose wife was a relative of Cardinal Guy) and in other territories under the control of the King of Hungary, in particular the province of Salzburg. Guy departed from Avignon on 15 January 1349.Eubel, I, p. 18, n. 2. On March 9, 1349, Cardinal Guy took up residence in Padua.Baronio, Vol. 25, under the year 1349, § 8, p. 462. A full list of the areas of his mandate is given in his own letter to the Patriarch of Aquileia, given in: J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio Volume 26 (Venice 1784), p. 222. The bishop of Padua, Ildebrandino Conti, was to accompany him to Hungary.Maléth (2019), p. 101 On 26 April, Pope Clement wrote to the Cardinal, acknowledging a letter from him with enclosures of a letter of Cardinal Guy to King Louis and a letter from King Louis to the Cardinal. In 1349 Cardinal Guy travelled extensively in Hungary, his job being to negotiate peace between the former kingdom and the Kingdom of Naples. The two kingdoms had been at war since the murder of the Hungarian prince Andrea, Duke of Calabria, husband of the Angevin Queen of Naples, Joanna I, in 1345. Naples had been conquered by Andrew's elder brother Louis I of Hungary, and Joanna was forced to flee to Provence, her ancestral home. But when the Black Death drove Louis out of Naples, Joanna was able to return home. The overlord of Naples and Sicily, Pope Innocent VI, was eager to find a solution to the succession crisis, which was made worse by a Hungarian invasion of Naples in late 1349 and again in April 1350.
On 25 January 1350 the Pope again acknowledged receipt of a letter from the Cardinal, as well as a packet containing exchanges between the Cardinal and King Louis. The Pope was doubtful that either King Louis or Queen Joanna would carry out their promises and commitments, though they both said that they were willing to turn over captured towns to the Cardinal on behalf of the Pope. The Pope advised the Cardinal not to go south just yet to receive the territories; he also expressed his longing to see the Cardinal again to enjoy his company.Theiner (1859), pp. 778-779: Desideramus enim admodum te videre, ut tua grata nobis, qua teste Deo caremus inviti, frui presencia valeamus. Cardinal Guy was back in Padua on 14 February 1350, when he participated in the translation of the relics of Saint Anthony of Padua to their current resting place in the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua.Baluze, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium I (1693), p. 837 [ed. Mollat, II, p. 345]. The reliquary containing the jawbone of St. Anthony bears the arms of Cardinal Guy de Boulogne. He also met and had conversations with Petrarch, whom he had known well in Avignon. He was given a mandate by the Pope to visit Rome and participate in the Great Jubilee of 1350. He was instructed, along with Cardinal Bertrand de Déaulx (who had been Legate in Sicily for several years and who had investigated Cola di Rienzi), to investigate the attempted assassination of Cardinal Annibaldo di Ceccano, the Pope's special Legate for the Jubilee.Baronio, Vol. 25, under the year 1350, § 4, p. 479-480. There in Rome he met his mother, who was making the jubilee pilgrimage.Baronio Vol. 25, under the year 1350, § 2, p. 478. Cf. Baluze, I, p. 837-838 [ed. Mollat, pp. 345-346], who argues that she had died, based on his interpretation of the chronology of a letter of Petrarch. He returned to Padua in May, where he conducted a synod, which opened on 8 May 1350; his decree promulgating the decisions of the Synod was signed on 20 May.Baronio Vol. 25, under the year 1350, § 13-14, p. 484; J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio Volume 26 (Venice 1784), p. 221, 236. On 25 May, Pope Clement wrote a letter to King Louis of Hungary, in the belief that Cardinal Guy was still in Italy; he had not yet returned to Avignon.Theiner (1859), pp. 785-786. He had returned to Avignon by 7 June 1350.An unpublished sermon of Clement VI in the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève indicates this. Setton, p. 647, n. 7. King Louis of Hungary, on his way home from his failed Neapolitan campaign, visited Rome for the Jubilee, and was back in Buda on 25 October 1350.
Avignon
Later that year, following the death of Cardinal Bernard d'Albi of Pamiers on 13 (or 23) November 1350, Cardinal Guy was translated to the suburbicarian diocese of Porto and Santa Rufina.Eubel, p. 37. Baluze remarks that Cardinal Guy was only the second senior Cardinal-priest, but that his senior, Cardinal Guillaume d'Aure, had never been a bishop, whereas Cardinal Guy had been consecrated ten years earlier. Preference at that time was given to cardinals who had been bishops, and therefore Cardinal Guy was promoted.Baluze, Histoire généalogique (1708), pp. 123-124. He notes as well that Cardinal Guillaume d'Aure also lost out on the vacancies that occurred at Ostia and Sabina.
In 1351, from his prison in Prague, where he had gone to seek support from the Emperor Charles IV, Cola di Rienzi wrote a letter to Guy requesting his assistance in obtaining his freedom and leading a crusade. The title calls it an "Oratio". Baluze, I (1693), p. 837 [ed. Mollat (1927), II, p. 345]. He was instead brought as a prisoner to Avignon, where he was put on trial for heresy. Somewhat surprisingly he was acquitted.
On 15 May 1352, Cardinal Guy was present at the Curia in Avignon, where he presided over the blessing of the new Abbot of l'Isle-Barbe near Lyon, Jean Pilfort de Rabastencs.Baluze, Histoire de la maison d' Auvergne, p. 124; Gallia christiana IV, p. 230. On 12 November 1352, he was appointed Dean of S. Martin in Tours, which he held for life.B. Hauréau (ed.), Gallia christiana XIV, p. 182.
Pope Clement died in Avignon on 6 December 1352. The Conclave to elect his successor opened on Sunday, 16 December 1352 in the Apostolic Palace in Avignon, with twenty-six cardinals in attendance, including Guy de Boulogne. At mid-morning on 18 December they elected Cardinal Étienne Aubert, who took the name Innocent VI. He was crowned on 30 December 1352.J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante 1352. Retrieved: 2016-05-28.
Immediately after his coronation on 30 December 1352, the new Pope, Innocent VI, appointed Cardinal Guy as the principal facilitator in negotiations between the English and the French for an end to the war. Frequent meetings took place at Calais and Boulogne. Cardinal Guy was attempting to use all of his credit with the French monarchy to bring about a peace with England, which would greatly enhance his prestige. He seems to have gone somewhat too far and he nearly succeeded in alienating the French King, who was disappointed at the proposed concessions. At the same time Cardinal Guy did succeed in arranging a peace between the French King and Navarre.Perroy, p. 150. But then King Edward III of England also made a treaty with the French claimant to the Duchy of Brittany, to the great discomfort of King John. During the negotiations, when he was in Paris, on 16 September 1353, the Cardinal dedicated the Carmelite Church in Paris, with the King, John II, and Queen Jeanne attending.Baluze, I (1693), p. 839 [ed. Mollat (1927), II, p. 347]. On 6 April 1354 at Guînes, Cardinal Guy de Boulogne witnessed the signing by representatives of France and England of a preliminary accord for ending the Hundred Years' War. The preliminary accord had no lasting effect. The Battle of Poitiers took place on 19 September 1356, and King John II was captured by the Black Prince. The government of France collapsed.
Legate in Spain