Berenger Fredoli

Fredoli, BERENGER, Cardinal–Bishop of Frascati; b. at Verune, France, c. 1250; d. at Avignon, June 11, 1323. He was canon and precentor’of Beziers, secular Abbot of Saint-Aphrodise in the same city, canon and archdeacon of Corbieres, and canon of Aix. He later held the chair of canon law at Bologna, and was appointed chaplain to Celestine V, who in 1294 consecrated him Bishop of Beziers. Fredoli was one of those entrusted by Boniface VIII with the compilation of the text of the Decretals, and afterwards known as the “Liber Sextus”. He took a prominent part in the negotiations then in progress between the pope and Philip the Fair, and attended the council held in Rome in 1302. In 1305 Clement V created him cardinal, with the title of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus, appointed him major penitentiary, and in 1309 raised him to the Cardinal-Bishopric of Frascati. The same pontiff employed him in investigating the charges made against the Knights Templars, and also in the enquiry into the peculiar tenets entertained at that time by a section of the Franciscan Order. On the death of Clement V, Fredoli was proposed by the French cardinals for the vacant chair, but without success. He continued in favor with the new pope, John XXII, by whose order he deposed the Abbot of Gerald and Hugo, Bishop of Cahors, for conspiring against the pope’s life. The works of Fredoli are chiefly concerned with canon law, and include “Oculus”, a commentary on the “Summa” of the Cardinal of Ostia, (Basle, 1573),—”Inventarium juris canonici”, and “Inventarium speculi judicialis”, abridged from a work of Durand, Bishop of Mendes.

A namesake and nephew of the preceding was Bishop of Beziers in 1309, and Cardinal–Bishop of Porto in 1317. He died in 1323.

H. G. WINTERSGILL