Celestine V

Celestine V, born Peter of Murrone, was a hermit who reigned as pope for less than a year in 1294 before renouncing the throne and retiring to a hermitage. In the world of The Name of the Rose, his brief pontificate and his abdication become a contested symbol, invoked by the Spiritual Franciscans as the dawn of a new age and by the established church as a scandal that opened the door to heresy and disorder. His shadow falls across the abbey debates, linking the mystical hopes of Ubertino of Casale to the violent apocalypticism of Fra Dolcino, and his name recurs in the arguments about poverty, authority, and the coming of the Antichrist that drive the novel's theological conflicts.

Identity and Historical Background

Celestine V was a holy hermit who rose to the papal throne, and his election was welcomed with relief by the Spiritual Franciscans, who saw in him a saint who would follow the teachings of Christ and live an angelic life. The Spirituals had long hoped for a pope who would reform the church and embrace evangelical poverty, and Celestine seemed to fulfill that prophecy. During his brief reign, he founded with them the community known as the "fratres et pauperes heremitae domini Celestini," a direct institutional endorsement of their way of life. But Celestine could not bear the strain of the interminable conflict with the Emperor and the other kings of Europe, and he renounced his throne, retiring to a hermitage. His successor, Boniface VIII, promptly demonstrated scant indulgence for the Spirituals and the Fraticelli in general, signing the bull Firma cautela that condemned them. The abdication itself became a theological weapon: Ubertino of Casale, in his apocalyptic fervor, declared that "the abdication of Celestine was not valid" and that Boniface was the mystic Antichrist, the beast that rises up from the sea.

Role in the Spiritual Franciscan Narrative

For the Spiritual Franciscans, Celestine V was the first of a sequence of future popes—two good (the first and the last) and two wicked (the second and the third). Fra Dolcino, the heretical leader of the Apostolic Brethren, adopted this schema in his letters, naming Celestine as the first good pope, Boniface VIII as the second and wicked, and an unnamed third pope (whom Dolcino identified with Frederick of Sicily) as the third. The fourth pope, still unknown, was to be the Angelic Pope of whom the abbot Joachim of Fiore spoke, who would be chosen by God and would renew the church until the end of the world. This apocalyptic chronology gave Celestine a central place in the heretical imagination, transforming his brief reign from a historical failure into a prophetic sign. Ubertino, in his conversation with William of Baskerville in the abbey church, recited this very sequence, linking Celestine to the coming of the Antichrist and the final battle.

Connection to the Abbey's Conflicts

Celestine's name surfaces in the abbey not only through Ubertino's prophecies but also through the broader debates about poverty and authority that the novel dramatizes. The abbot, Abo, in his conversation with William, refers to the "Pseudo Apostles" and Fra Dolcino, and William himself notes that the Spirituals had been received by the Benedictine order when they incurred the Pope's wrath. The figure of Celestine stands behind these discussions as a reminder that the ideal of poverty, when embraced by a pope, could be a source of hope, but when abandoned, could become a justification for persecution. The novel's central conflict—between the Franciscan chapter of Perugia, which affirmed the poverty of Christ, and Pope John XXII, who condemned it—echoes the earlier drama of Celestine's rise and fall, in which a pope who seemed to embody reform was quickly replaced by one who crushed it.

Thematic Significance

Celestine V embodies the novel's preoccupation with the fragility of holiness and the ease with which spiritual aspirations are co-opted by political forces. His abdication, which the Spirituals saw as a betrayal, is reinterpreted by Ubertino as a nullity, a sign that the true pope never really reigned. This act of reinterpretation—turning historical failure into prophetic promise—is a key move in the novel's exploration of how truth is constructed and contested. Celestine also serves as a counterpoint to the figure of the Antichrist: where the Antichrist is the ultimate embodiment of pride and corruption, Celestine is the embodiment of humility and withdrawal, yet both are subject to the same forces of interpretation and manipulation. In the end, Celestine's name, like the rose of the novel's title, survives only as a name, a sign whose meaning is endlessly debated but never fixed.