Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/36

 preacher Saint Bonayentura, they were induced to endow six out of their body with the absolute power of nominating a Pope, whom the others stood pledged to acknow- ledge. This is the earliest precedent we believe for a Pope made by the electoral process technically termed compromise—a process that has been put in practice repeatedly, and which is still held not to have become obsolete. On the 1st September 1271, the choice of these six Grand Electors fell on Theobald Visconti, Archdeacon of Liege, and not a Cardinal, who assumed the style of Gregory X.-a man worthy of his august position, and whose conscientious nature was painfully affected with a sense of the spectacle which the Church had been exhibiting during the interregnum. He at once called together at Lyons a General Council to regulate abuses, and make provisions for securing harmony in Christendom. The assembled fathers of the Church solemnly promulgated a Constitution, 1272, wherein, with elaborate minuteness, are prescribed forms to be observed in Papal elections, that were manifestly suggested by the sad occurrences of the last Conclave, and the desire to establish safe-guards against their