In Solemn Conclave

CHAPTER  5

            Only three days remained before the conclave was to start, but the sound of hammering still reverberated through the halls of the Apostolic Palace as carpenters drove nails into the makeshift wooden cubicles that were to house the cardinal electors.  Some three dozen rooms of the Palace had been designated to be divided into cells for the cardinals.  Their furnishings were spare.  Each cell held a cot, a night table, a small writing desk, and a couple of chairs.  And on the wall above each cot a crucifix had been placed, meant to help the prelates draw closer to the Holy Spirit who was to guide their actions as they joined together to carry out their mission.

To hide the rough pine boards of each cell, the walls had been partially covered with cloth—purple if its occupant had been elevated to cardinal by Urban IX, green if he had been raised to that rank by his predecessor.  The cells could be locked, should a cardinal wish to contemplate, in undisturbed privacy, the fateful decision it was his to make.

This section of the Apostolic Palace, which occupied parts of three stories, was to be sealed off completely from the rest of the Palace, and one entrance that now led to it would be closed and locked from the outside.  Access to the cardinals’ quarters was guarded by the Marshal of the Conclave, a lay officer, traditionally the scion of one of Rome’s leading families.  Thus, during the conclave, the cardinals were to remain virtual prisoners.  Indeed, the very name of their gathering—conclave—from the Latin con, ‘with,’ and clave, ‘key,’ bore linguistic testimony to the rigid seclusion they would undergo.  The tradition of locking up the cardinal electors went back to the Middle Ages.  In 1268, upon the death of Clement IV, the papacy had remained vacant for the better part of three years while the cardinals, each comfortably quartered in his own see, wrangled at long distance about who was to succeed him in his office.

Finally, when a choice was made, Gregory X, the new pope, was determined that such an unconscionable delay would never occur again.  Accordingly, in his bull Ubi pariculum, issued in 1274, Gregory decreed that henceforth the cardinal electors would all gather in one place, in very modest quarters, and would be rigorously shut off from any contact or influence from the outside world.  Only after they had fulfilled their mission could they once more see the light of day.  Gregory also decreed that in order to avoid needless delays, the conclave should begin ten days after the death of the late pope.  This was sufficient time in medieval Europe, when most cardinals lived in Italy or in neighboring countries.  However, in view of the great distances some cardinals now had to travel, and the complexity of episcopal affairs that must be taken care of before a cardinal could leave