Who he was
Giacomo Savelli came from a wealthy Roman family and was a grand-nephew of Honorius III; he studied at the University of Paris and was made a cardinal in 1261. Little is known of most of his life before he was elected, unanimously and at the first vote, at Perugia on 2 April 1285, only days after Martin IV's death. He was already old and so crippled by gout that he could not stand to say Mass. He died in Rome two years later.
What he is remembered for
He issued a constitution in 1285 to protect the people of Sicily from misrule by their king and his officials, while still upholding the claims of the House of Anjou. He favoured the mendicant orders, allowed the Carmelites to change their striped habit for a white one, and encouraged the teaching of Eastern languages at Paris.
Sources
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