__NOTOC__ Conrad of Urach (also named Conrad von Urach, , also known as Konrad or Kuno von Zähringen) (born in the 1170s; died 29 September 1227, probably in

Bari Bari ( ; ; ; ) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia Regions of Italy, region, on the Adriatic Sea in southern Italy. It is the first most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy. It is a port and ...

) was a

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

monk and abbot, and Cardinal Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina; he declined the papacy.Michael Ott (1908). " Conrad of Urach". In ''Catholic Encyclopedia''. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Infancy

Conrad was the second son of Count Egino IV of Urach and his wife Agnes, sister of Berthold V of Zähringen, in the early generations of the line of Dukes of Württemberg. His early education was entrusted to his great-uncle Rudolf of Zähringen, Bishop of Liège. At an early age he became a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

of St. Lambert's Cathedral in

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

. His parents married in 1181, and so it is thought his birthdate was around 1185. This makes his ecclesiastical career, starting as an oblate, coherent with the normal career of a secular child, who would have entered into a squireship at around the same age he seems to have entered the Church in Liège, putatively around 1196.

Becoming a cleric

In 1199 however he entered the

monastery of Villers in Brabant, whose abbot was another uncle. He soon became

prior The term prior may refer to: * Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery) * Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case * Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics * Prio ...

, and in 1209

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

. In 1214 he was chosen abbot of Clairvaux, and, in 1217, abbot of Cîteaux and general of his order, in succession to Arnaud Amaury, the first Legate of the

Albigensian Crusade The Albigensian Crusade (), also known as the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229), was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, what is now southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted pri ...

Missions as prelate

While he was in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

on the business of the order, Pope Honorius III created him cardinal, on 8 January 1219, and later charged him as

Papal legate 300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the Pope's legate. A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title '' legatus'') is a personal representative of the Pope to foreign nations, to some other part of the Catho ...

with two important missions: one in France (1220–23), to suppress the Albigenses; the other in Germany (1224–26), to promote the crusade which Emperor Frederick II had vowed to undertake (the eventual

Sixth Crusade The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actua ...

). Conrad's success in both these missions was modest, but he was more successful in the improvement of ecclesiastical and monastic discipline through the arrangement of synods and the foundation of monasteries, as well as in the advancement of the

Dominicans Dominicans () also known as Quisqueyans () are an ethnic group, ethno-nationality, national people, a people of shared ancestry and culture, who have ancestral roots in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican ethnic group was born out of a fusio ...

- their foundation-house in Toulouse (1214) was ideally placed as an anvil for his function as third Legate to the Albigensian crusade. During this period he also issued statutes to the medical faculty at the

University of Montpellier The University of Montpellier () is a public university, public research university located in Montpellier, in south-east of France. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous opera ...

(1220). While in Germany, Conrad was responsible for the declaration as a martyr of Engelbert II of Berg, Archbishop of Cologne, murdered on 7 November 1225. His pressure on the Holy Roman Emperor was aimed at containing Frederic II's increasing moslimisation as well as defending the interests of the Southern German nobility, of which he was a member.

Electing the pope

He returned to Rome in 1226, undertaking negotiations with the cities of the

Lombard League The Lombard League (; ) was an alliance of cities formed in 1167, and supported by the popes, to counter the attempts by the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman emperors to establish direct royal administrative control over the cities of the Kingdom of It ...

. After the death of Honorius III on 18 March 1227 he was appointed a member of a triumvirate of cardinals chosen to select the new pope the next day, and as a matter of courtesy was offered the papacy, which he refused out of concern he would be accused of self-aggrandisement. He died at Bari later that year and was buried, according to his own wishes, in the abbey at Clairvaux. Cistercian records refer to him as Blessed (liturgical feast on 30 September) but there is little if any evidence of a cult.

Notes

Sources