A Canon Lawyer from Anagni
Benedetto Caetani was born around 1230 at Anagni, the hill town southeast of Rome that had already given the church Innocent III and Gregory IX. His family, the Caetani, were minor barons of the Papal States, and through his mother he was related to the Conti popes. He spent much of his youth at Todi in Umbria, where an uncle was bishop, and later studied law, probably at Bologna. He became one of the ablest canon lawyers of his generation.
His career was spent in the papal curia. As a young official he went with the legate Ottobono Fieschi to England in 1265–68, in the aftermath of the barons' war led by the younger Simon de Montfort, and later served on legations to France. In 1281 he was made a cardinal. Contemporaries describe him as brilliant, energetic, proud, and quick-tempered, a man who did not suffer opposition gladly.
Loading the rest of this biography