CELESTINE III, POPE. - Giacinto Bobo-Orsini, born around 1106 into the noble Roman family that in the 13th century gave the Church of Rome illustrious cardinals, studied in Paris, where one of his teachers was Abelard, whose doctrines Giacinto defended at the Synod of Sens in 1140 alongside the pseudo-social reformer Arnaldo da Brescia, whose bold ideas Giacinto soon abandoned. Created cardinal by Pope Celestine II in 1144, he always worked for peace between the Church and the Empire. During the conflict between Pope Adrian IV and Emperor Barbarossa, Giacinto and Cardinal Henry succeeded in maintaining peace through a conciliatory message sent to the emperor, who had been offended at Besançon, and delivered to him at Augsburg in 1158. After the death of Pope Adrian IV in 1159, Giacinto, as a man of peace, interceded on behalf of Pope Alexander III. To avert a schism, he accepted, at the age of 85, the grave burden of supreme governance of the Church in 1191, following the death of Pope Clement III.
The personality of C. has been the subject of controversy in recent times among various historians. After the diligent researches on the cardinalate of C. conducted by G. Leineweber, G. Haller examined the relations between the elderly Pope and the very young Emperor Henry VI, emphasizing especially the Pope’s strength of will, his firmness, and prudence in the great dangers threatening the Church of that time, since C. had rejected the emperor’s bland but cunning offers. C. Wenck, with profound knowledge of the sources and an objective and calm interpretation, particularly contested these judgments of Haller. The entire pontificate of C. was dominated by the tension between Pope and Emperor; the ninety-year-old pontiff met the thirty-year-old emperor (in 1195), to whose policy of force he could only oppose passive resistance. Certainly the person of Pope C. was beyond all measure venerable, and his authority immense, when, after a cardinalate of nearly half a century, he was called to the supreme dignity.
Numerous and eminent witnesses speak to us of the incorruptible probity, peaceful disposition, gentle eloquence, venerable appearance, and theological learning of this Pope. Among these are Baldric of Trier, who in his biography of Archbishop Alberone of Montreuil (q.v.) extolled the cardinal Giacinto, whom he had seen in 1147 at Trier in the retinue of Pope Eugenius III; Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury; Peter of Blois; and Henry of Clairvaux. But his religious-political actions meet with some criticism on account of his vacillation. In 1192 he wavered in the face of the English factions, for on one side stood the vigorous King Richard the Lionheart and Archbishop Walter of Rouen, and on the other the chancellor and papal legate William Longchamp. Three years later, the papal legate was not received with the due respect by King Philip Augustus II of France in his unfortunate matrimonial affair. Against King Alfonso of León and King Sancho of Portugal he swiftly employed spiritual weapons, a point already noted by Hurter in his work Pope Innocent III with regard to Norway and Hungary. According to the biographer Vita Albert, bishop of Liège, he ought to have favored in Rome a larger party that would courageously defend the liberty of the Church, against a weak party favorable to the emperor, to which he opposed only passive resistance. The report of the Marbach Annals that C. had been aware of the conspiracy in Apulia and Sicily against the emperor cannot be confirmed with certainty.
Among the seven cardinals created by C., two were from his own family of the Bobones: the cardinal deacon Nizzolo of S. Maria in Cosmedin and the cardinal deacon of S. Teodoro, his nephew. In 1193 he created cardinals other distinguished men: Cencio, general treasurer, the future Pope Honorius III; Master Peter of Capua; and John of S. Paolo, cardinal priest of S. Prisca, whom the Pope, at Christmas 1197, as death approached, wished to designate as his successor, but against the unanimous resistance of the college of cardinals, which on 8 January 1198 elected the youngest of all the cardinals, Lothair of Segni, as Pope Innocent III.