Pope Innocent V
Innocent V,
pope from
January 21 to
June 22,
1276, was a native of Tranatsia in
Burgundy, where he was born in 1225. In early life he joined the
Dominican order, in which he acquired great fame as a preacher. 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
Eastern Roman Emperor in connexion with the recent decisions of the Second Council of Lyons when he died.
He was the author of several works in philosophy, theology, and canon law, including commentaries on the Pauline epistles and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and is sometimes referred to as "famosissimus doctor".