Maurice (Latin ''Mauritius'', Italian ''Maurizio'') was the

cardinal-bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina A cardinal ( la, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae cardinalis, literally 'cardinal of the Holy Roman Church') is a senior member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. Cardinals are created by the ruling pope and typically hold the title for life. Col ...

from between 1095 and 1099 until 1102. Following the success of the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic r ...

, he was the

apostolic legate 300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the pope's legate. A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title ''legatus'') is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic ...

in the Holy Land from 1100 until his death in 1102. From late 1101 he was also the acting patriarch of Jerusalem. Nothing is known concerning Maurice's life before he became a cardinal. According to the modern papal historian

Gaetano Moroni Gaetano Moroni (17 October 1802, Rome – 3 November 1883, Rome) was an Italian writer on the history and contemporary structure of the Catholic Church and an official of the papal court in Rome. He was the author of the well-known ''Dizionario ...

, he was consecrated a cardinal by Pope

Urban II Pope Urban II ( la, Urbanus II; – 29 July 1099), otherwise known as Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 March 1088 to his death. He is best known for convening th ...

in 1088, but a bishop John is still recorded at Porto as late as 18 February 1095. Moroni, following Ferdinando Ughelli, also records that Maurice consecrated an altar dedicated to Saint Mammes in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere on 24 February 1098. The primary source for this claim is lost. The earliest conclusive attestation of Maurice as bishop comes from the '' Liber pontificalis'', which records him among the six cardinal-bishops who on 14 August 1099 consecrated Pope

Paschal II Pope Paschal II ( la, Paschalis II; 1050 1055 – 21 January 1118), born Ranierius, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 August 1099 to his death in 1118. A monk of the Abbey of Cluny, he was cre ...

.Marco Vendittelli
"Maurizio"
''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'', Volume 72 (Rome: 2008). On 4 May 1100, Paschal appointed Maurice as his

legate Legate may refer to: *Legatus, a higher ranking general officer of the Roman army drawn from among the senatorial class :*Legatus Augusti pro praetore, a provincial governor in the Roman Imperial period *A member of a legation *A representative, ...

to the Holy Land, responsible for bringing the church in the new Crusader states more firmly under papal control. He left for

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

, where in July he assisted in the consecration of the church of San Teodoro. He left with a Genoese army aboard a Genoese ship on 1 August, arriving outside Latakia no later than 25 September. There, probably in mid-October, he joined the entourage of Count Baldwin of Edessa and accompanied it to Jerusalem. On 25 December, Baldwin was crowned

King of Jerusalem The King of Jerusalem was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state founded in Jerusalem by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade, when the city was conquered in 1099. Godfrey of Bouillon, the first ruler of t ...

by Patriarch Daimbert of Jerusalem.J. G. Rowe, "Paschal II and the Relation between the Spiritual and Temporal Powers in the Kingdom of Jerusalem", ''Speculum'' 32, 3 (1957): 470–501, at 478–84. Following his coronation, Baldwin accused the patriarch before the legate of having betrayed the Crusaders and trying to have him (Baldwin) killed. The sources do not agree on how Maurice responded to these accusations. According to

Albert of Aachen Albert of Aix(-la-Chapelle) or Albert of Aachen; la, Albericus Aquensis; ''fl.'' c. 1100) was a historian of the First Crusade and the early Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was born during the later part of the 11th century, and afterwards became canon (p ...

, whose account is based on reports, the legate forbade Daimbert from officiating at the celebration of Easter and Maurice himself led the ceremonies. Caffaro di Rustico, a Genoese soldier who had travelled to the Holy Land in the same fleet as Maurice and was an eyewitness to these events, claims that Daimbert, with both Maurice and Baldwin present, preached a sermon at Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on 21 April 1101. The rivalry between Baldwin and Daimbert continued over the next year, with Maurice acting as a mediator with the goal of preserving Daimbert's position. Eventually, however, it had become untenable and the legate deposed the patriarch, assuming his duties ''ad interim'' in the fall of 1101. This situation lasted only until Maurice's death in the spring of 1102. By the fall he had been succeeded as legate by Cardinal

Robert of Paris Robert of Paris was the cardinal-presbyter of Sant'Eusebio from 1100 until his deposition in 1112. He was restored in 1119, but died shortly after. He served as an apostolic legate to the Holy Land in 1102 in the aftermath of the First Crusade, du ...

. By 29 July 1103 he had been succeeded as bishop of Porto by another John.

References

{{Authority control 1102 deaths Cardinal-bishops of Porto Christians of the Crusade of 1101