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Papal conclave December 1294
Dates and location
23–24 December 1294 Castel Nuovo, Naples
Key officials
Dean	Gerardo Bianchi
Camerlengo	Tommaso d'Ocra
Protopriest	Benedetto Caetani
Protodeacon	Matteo Rosso Orsini
Election
Ballots	1
Elected pope
Benedetto Caetani Name taken: Boniface VIII
← 1292–941303 →

The 1294 papal conclave (23–24 December) was convoked in Naples after the resignation of Pope Celestine V on 13 December 1294. Celestine V had only months earlier restored the election procedures set forth in the papal bull Ubi periculum of Pope Gregory X, which had been suspended by Pope Adrian V in July 1276. Every papal election since then has been a papal conclave. It was the first papal conclave held during the lifetime of the preceding pontiff, an event not repeated until the 2013 papal conclave following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.

Abdication of Celestine V

Celestine V, founder of the Order of Celestines, widely esteemed and venerated for his holiness, was elected to the papacy on 7 July 1294, as a compromise choice after an over two-years long sede vacante. It quickly became clear that this saintly eremite was wholly incompetent and unsuited for a job as pope. Admitting his own incompetence soon after his election, Celestine expressed the wish to abdicate and return to his solitary cave in the Abruzzi Mountains. However, before doing so he issued two bulls. The first bull established the regulations concerning the abdication of a pope. The second bull (Quia in futurum, 28 September 1294) restored the constitution Ubi periculum, which established the papal conclave; the constitution had been suspended by Pope Adrian V in July 1276. During his short papacy, he also created 13 cardinals. Eventually, on 13 December 1294, Celestine V abdicated the papacy at Naples, three days after confirming the restoration of the institution of the papal conclave.

It has been widely stated that the alleged great influence of the ambitious Cardinal Benedetto Caetani and the pressure he applied on Celestine V were important factors in Celestine's decision to abdicate, but it seems nearly as certain that it was an entirely voluntarily step of the Pope, with the role of Caetani limited to participation in the solution of the legal problems connected with the resignation of a pope. In particular, there were doubts whether a pope could resign at all, and who would be authorized to accept such a resignation.

List of participants

All 22 living cardinals participated in the conclave; 12 of them were created by Celestine V, five by Nicholas IV, two by Nicholas III, one by Urban IV and one by Honorius IV:

Election of Pope Boniface VIII

On 23 December 1294, the cardinals assembled in the Castel Nuovo at Naples for the election of the successor of Celestine V. On the next day, Christmas Eve, Cardinal Benedetto Caetani received the required two-thirds majority and took the name of Boniface VIII. Caetani's nephew, who was an eyewitness, says that Caetani was elected after one scrutiny and an accessio: scrutinio accessioneque eligitur. Soon after his election he returned to Rome, where on 23 January 1295 he received his episcopal consecration from Cardinal Hugh Aycelin, Bishop of Ostia. He was crowned by Matteo Rosso Orsini, who was prior Diaconorum of the Sacred College.

Notes

1. Also known as Hughes of Billom, of the French province of the Dominican Order, former lector at the studium of Santa Sabina in Rome. He had been Cardinal-Bishop of the suburbicarian see of Ostia since 1294, and one role of that office was the episcopal consecration of a newly elected pope.

References

1. Salvador Miranda: Cardinals created by St. Celestine V
2. "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope Celestine V". newadvent.org. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
3. Salvador Miranda: The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. Guide to the events and documents, 13th Century
4. (The Catholic Encyclopedia: Pope Boniface VIII)
5. F. Burkle-Young: notes to the papal election of 1294 on The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church (by S. Miranda); and K. Eubel, p. 11–12. F. Bourkle-Young lists one additional cardinal Francesco Ronci, priest of the title of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, as the only absentee but he actually died on 13 October 1294, two months before the conclave was held (K. Eubel, p. 12)
6. F. Burkle-Young lists Cardinal Nicolas l'Aide as priest of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, but he opted for that title only in 1295. At the time of this conclave he occupied his original title of S. Marcello (K. Eubel, p. 43)
7. A. Theiner (ed.), Caesaris Baronii Annales Ecclesiastici Tomus 23 (Bar-le-Duc 1871), under year 1294, § 23, p. 147; Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores III pp. 616-617. There was another candidate (Matteo Rosso Orsini ?), according to Jacopo Caetani Stefaneschi, but Benedetto Caetani had a majority (but not the required two-thirds majority) on the first ballot. That would mean that at the scrutiny Caetani had at least twelve votes, but not the required fifteen. Several cardinals agreed to support him after the results of the ballot were announced.
8. "Cronica di San Domenico di Perugia" (in Latin). Retrieved 9 May 2011. Frater Hugo de Bidiliomo provincie Francie, magister fuit egregius in theologia et mul<tum> famosus in romana curia; qui actu lector existens apud Sanctam Sabinam, per papam Nicolaum quartum eiusdem ecclesie factus cardinalis" ; postmodum per Celestinum papain est ordinatus in episcopum ostiensem (Cr Pg 3r)
9. Bolgia, Claudia; McKitterick, Rosamond; Osborne, John (2011). Rome Across Time and Space: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas. Cambridge University Press. p. 275. ISBN 9780521192170. Retrieved 7 October 2011.
10. S. Miranda: Cardinal Benedetto Caetani (Pope Boniface VIII)

Sources

• Konrad Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica Medii Aevi, volumen I, 1913
• F. Burkle-Young: notes to the papal election of 1294 (The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church by S. Miranda)
• The Catholic Encyclopedia: Celestine V
• The Catholic Encyclopedia:Boniface VIII

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