Pope Urban IV

Urban IV was pope from 1261 to 1264 and governed largely from central Italian cities rather than Rome. He promoted the feast of Corpus Christi, pursued an alliance with the Mongols and sought a French ruler to remove Manfred from Sicily. His court at Orvieto is the political centre of The Saracen: Land of the Infidel.

Urban’s pontificate was closely tied to the struggle over Sicily after the collapse of Hohenstaufen power. He sought an external prince to remove Manfred and eventually offered the Sicilian crown to Charles of Anjou, although Urban died before Charles’s conquest. He is also associated with the extension of the feast of Corpus Christi to the universal Church, for which Thomas Aquinas composed liturgical texts.

In Robert Shea’s The Saracen Holy War, Daoud ibn Abdallah’s attempt to prevent a Christian–Mongol alliance enters its decisive phase as Pope Urban IV dies and Charles of Anjou prepares to invade the Kingdom of Sicily. In Robert Shea’s The Saracen Land of the Infidel, Sultan Baibars sends him to Italy to stop a proposed alliance between Pope Urban IV and Mongol envoys from the Ilkhanate.