(r. 1198–1216). Pope. The period between the death of Alexander III and the election of Lotario dei Seigni as Innocent III in 1198 was comparatively peaceful for the papacy. A series of elderly popes, some members of a party conciliatory to the Hohenstaufen, concentrated on ecclesiastical business, on responding to Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem (1187), and on combating the rise of Cathar and Waldensian heresy in southern France. The coronation of Innocent inaugurated a new phase of political activity by the papacy, coupled with further efforts to reform the clergy and launch a crusade.
Lotario, a member of the Roman nobility, had studied theology at Paris and had gained a grounding in canon law. These studies made him a competent theologian, exegete, and preacher; on this traditional basis, he would build new interpretations of old texts, expanding papal jurisdiction “by reason of sin” (ratione peccati) into an ability to supervise the princes of Christendom. Lotario’s most famous theological work, De miseria conditionis humanae, emphasized the brevity and pain of human life; but this may help explain his concept of the clergy, especially the pope, as mediating between God and humanity, able to work for peace and justice, as well as for orthodoxy and reform. Innocent III adopted Bernard of Clairvaux’s description of the Roman pontiff as the “vicar of Christ,” which became a key papalist term, replacing an older emphasis on the Roman pontiff as vicar of Peter.
Innocent benefited from a crisis of leadership in both the ecclesiastical and secular spheres. Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa’s son, Henry VI, had died young, leaving his son, Frederick, heir to Sicily and to a claim on the empire, as the pope’s ward. Philip II Augustus of France and John Lackland of England were at odds, and the English nobility was restive. The Byzantine empire was weak, and the crusader states were under siege. The bishops of France were unable to deal with the Cathars, and the Cistercians were losing the influence they had enjoyed when Bernard was alive.
The Roman pontiff intervened in these situations with adroit and persistent efforts, supported by well-reasoned papal letters. Even the legitimation of a French nobleman’s bastard could be the occasion for a declaration, in the decretal Per venerabilem, that the French kingdom was not subject to the empire. A dispute over the imperial succession in Germany allowed Innocent to keep the Hohenstaufen weak, while establishing a claim that the pope could review the election of a king of the Romans. Frederick II was supported in Sicily but with an intention of keeping the Regno separate from the empire. Efforts to reconcile Philip and John were unsuccessful, as the Capetians gained control of Normandy, and Philip refused to take back Ingeborg of Denmark as his wife. On the one hand, through the imposition of an interdict, Innocent was able to compel John to accept Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury and to become a vassal of the Holy See. On the other hand, Innocent supported his new vassal by declaring Magna carta void, helping embroil John in a civil war in which the French intervened.
Innocent’s crusading policy had mixed fortunes. A Spanish army defeated the Muslims of Spain and North Africa at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), but the Fourth Crusade went awry, being diverted to Constantinople by Venice and a refugee prince. The storming and sack of that city in 1204 permanently embittered Byzantine relations with the West, but Innocent, although displeased, agreed to establish a Latin emperor and patriarch there. A less traditional crusade was that against the Cathars, launched by Innocent after the murder of one of his legates by a vassal of the count of Toulouse in 1208. At first, this campaign was led by Simon de Montfort; only after his death would the Capetian monarchy take over, using the crusade to gain control of Languedoc.
A more adventurous policy was implemented in ecclesiastical affairs. Numerous decretals expanded the role of Rome as the arbiter of justice for the clergy. New religious orders, the more mobile mendicant friars, were favored as teachers of sound doctrine in opposition to heresy. Dominic’s Order of Preachers (Dominicans) arose in southern France to combat the Cathars; Francis’s Friars Minor (Franciscans), dedicated to poverty, arose in urban Italy, which had its own problems with heresy. The secular clergy resented these friars, whose reception of alms diminished the income of parish priests and whose papal privileges undermined old lines of authority. Much of medieval ecclesiology was evolved in disputes over the limits of such interventions in local sees and parishes.
Innocent’s last achievement was the great Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which was intended to promote yet another crusade. The assembly legislated for all Christendom. Orthodox doctrine was reaffirmed; preaching was encouraged, even as the proliferation of new orders was discouraged. One canon compelled all believers to confess their sins to their own priests at least once a year, during Lent or Eastertide, and to receive communion, the Easter duty that has remained a part of canon law. These canons and Innocent’s numerous decretals became important parts of the first official collection of canon law, the Gregorian decretals (1234).
Lotario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III). On the Misery of the Human Condition (De miseria humane conditionis), trans. Margaret Mary Dietz. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.
——. Die Register Innocenz’ III, ed. Othmar Hageneder and Anton Haidacher with Herta Eberstaller et al. 2 vols. Graz: Böhlau, 1964–79.
Tanner, Norman P., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. 2 vols. London: Sheed and Ward, 1990, Vol. 1, pp. 227–71. [Fourth Lateran Council—1215.]
Barraclough, Geoffrey. The Medieval Papacy. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968.
Hamilton, Bernard. The Medieval Inquisition. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981.
Imkamp, Wilhelm. Das Kirchenbild Innocenz’ III. (1198–1216). Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1983.
Morris, Colin. The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
Pennington, Kenneth. “The Legal Education of Pope Innocent III.” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 4(1984):70–77.
Tierney, Brian. The Crisis of Church and State, 1050–1300. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964, pp. 127–38.
Tillmann, Helene. Papst Innocenz III. Bonn: Röhrscheid, 1954.
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