[4] In 1327, Guillaume Grimoard became a Benedictine monk in the small Priory of Chirac, near his home,[5] which was a dependency of the ancient Abbey of St. Victor near Marseille.

[9] Guillaume was named abbot of the monastery of Saint-Germain en Auxerre on 13 February 1352 by Pope Clement VI.

In order to keep a hold on the territory for the Catholic Church, the Pope had hit on the scheme of making Archbishop Visconti his vicar of Bologna for the present.

The Visconti, on their part, had no intention of observing the terms of the pact, one of which was the return of the Legation of Bologna to the Papacy, despite the fine words and promises they made in Avignon.

Azzo Manzi da Reggio, the Dean of the Cathedral of Aquileia, were presented with written instructions by Pope Clement to go to northern Italy as apostolic nuncios to deal with the situation.

[citation needed] Cardinal Gil Álvarez Carrillo de Albornoz had been sent to Italy in 1353, to bring under control the notorious Giovanni di Vico of Viterbo, as well as the Malatesta of Rimini and the Ordelaffi family of Forlì.

Their confrontation was so hostile and threatening that the Abbot left immediately and reported back to Pope Innocent the treachery of his vassal.

The Pope sent him back to Italy immediately, but happily the utter defeat of Visconti's army which was besieging Bologna by Cardinal Albornoz eased the situation considerably.

[22] During his trip to the south, he visited the great Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, where he was saddened to see the state into which it had fallen, both physically and organizationally, both from earthquakes and episcopal neglect.

As soon as he became Pope he undertook to repair the situation,[23] and on 31 March 1367 he abolished the diocese of Cassino and restored the monastery to the complete control of its Abbot.

The Conclave to elect his successor opened on 22 September, the Feast of Saint Maurice, in the Apostolic Palace in Avignon.

This was done on 6 November by Cardinal Andouin Aubert,[32] the Bishop of Ostia, a nephew of Grimoard's predecessor, Innocent VI.

[33] In addition to the management of the papal household, the office made Aubert the temporal vicar for the Pope in the diocese of Avignon and the administrator of the Comtat-Venaissin.

[34] In 1363–1364 the winter was so cold, especially in January, February and March, that the Rhone froze over to the extent that people and vehicles could travel across the ice.

[39] In Montpellier, he restored the school of medicine and founded the College of Saint Benedict, whose church, decorated with numerous works of art, later became the cathedral of the city.

On a hilltop near Bédouès, the parish in which the Château de Grisac is situated, he built a church where the bodies of his parents were buried, and, we are informed by a papal bull of December 1363, he instituted a college of six canon-priests, along with a deacon and a subdeacon.

[citation needed] He imposed the penalty of excommunication on anyone who molested the Jews or attempted forcible conversion and baptism.

[43] The great feature of Urban V's reign was the effort to return the papacy to Rome and to suppress its powerful rivals for the temporal sovereignty there.

[45] However, Pope Urban found it necessary to purchase peace in March of the following year, sending the newly created Cardinal Androin de la Roche, former Abbot of Cluny, as apostolic legate to Italy to arrange the business.

[citation needed] In May 1365 the Emperor Charles visited Avignon, where he appeared with the Pope in full imperial regalia.

[48] It was Urban and Peter who were most eager for the crusade; the French were exhausted by recent losses in the Hundred Years' War, and some of their leaders were still being held prisoner in England.

The Pope held a special ceremony on Holy Saturday, 1363, and bestowed the crusader's cross on the two kings, and on Cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand as well.

Additional support was not forthcoming, however, and seeing that the enemy vastly outnumbered the crusaders, he ordered the sacking and burning of the city, and then withdrew.

[53] Continued troubles in Italy, as well as pleas from figures such as Petrarch and Bridget of Sweden, caused Urban V to set out for Rome, only to find that his Vicar, Cardinal Albornoz, had just died.

He was greeted by the clergy and people with joy, and despite the satisfaction of being attended by the Emperor Charles IV in St. Peter's, and of placing the crown upon the head of the Empress Elizabeth (1 November 1368),[54] it soon became clear that by changing the seat of his government he had not increased its power.

In Rome he was nonetheless able to receive the homage of King Peter I of Cyprus, Queen Joan I of Naples, and the confession of faith by the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologus.

[57] Unable any longer to resist the urgency of the French cardinals, and despite several cities of the Papal States still being in revolt, Urban V boarded a ship at Corneto heading for France on 5 September 1370, arriving back at Avignon on the 27th of the same month.

Feeling his death approaching, he asked that he might be moved from the Papal Palace to the nearby residence of his brother, Angelic de Grimoard, whom he had made a cardinal, that he might be close to those he loved.

[61] His body was initially placed in the Chapel of John XXII in the Cathedral of S. Marie de Domps in Avignon.

The Western Schism caused the process to stop, but it was revived centuries later, and led to the beatification of Urban V on 10 March 1870 by Pope Pius IX.