ABSTRACT
In the course of chronicling the popes’ lives, Werner, canon of Bonn, came to discuss Pope Urban V (1362-1370). After recounting the pope’s life and deeds, he described the circumstances of his passing in this way:
In the same year [1370], in the month of November, our lord pope, who had returned to Avignon, weakened by his malady asked to be moved out of the papal palace to the house of his brother the cardinal of Albano, who was then in Bologna, where he died on 19th December. And his body was put in the chapel of Pope John XXII, which is in the church of Notre-Dame des Doms; and he remained there, where God worked many miracles for those who invoke his name, until the last day of May the following year. And on that day his bones were translated to the monastery of Saint Victor of Marseilles, of which he had formerly been the abbot, accompanied by a great multitude of people thanking God for all the things they had heard he had done. Because God works many miracles. And the great number of wax images hanging in front of his tomb and throughout the church of the monastery brought by those freed from danger or malady after invoking his name bear witness to this. Few churches in the world are so honored with vigils, and offerings. And he sat in St. Peter’s Throne for 8 years, 1 month, and 17 days. The see remained vacant for 13 days.1
