Celestine V Resigned After Election

After the cardinals spent more than two years failing to elect a pope, a hermit monk named Pietro da Morrone sent the Church a furious warning demanding that it choose one. The cardinals responded by electing him pope in 1294, but Pietro refused and reportedly tried to flee into the woods before becoming Pope Celestine V. His brief papacy became chiefly notable for establishing rules that allowed popes to resign. He then used those rules himself, stepping down after only five months. He then hid in the woods while trying to resume his solitary life, but his successor, Pope Boniface VIII, eventually captured and imprisoned him.

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