Clement III, Pope

CLEMENT III, Pope. - The Roman Paolo Scolari, cardinal from 1179 and bishop of Palestrina from 1181, was elected pope at Pisa on 19 Dec. 1187 and took the name C. III. His first concern was to make peace with the Roman Republic, which had been in conflict with the popes since the time of Arnold of Brescia. He was able to establish himself in the city (Feb. 1188) and to conclude with the Commune an agreement that secured the rights of the Holy See (31 May 1188). In the preceding year Saladin had wrested Jerusalem from the Christians (3 Oct. 1187). C. worked to organize a Crusade, the third, with such energy that the three most powerful sovereigns of Europe also took the Cross: Philip Augustus, Richard the Lionheart and Frederick Barbarossa. C. could not see its outcome, which was, moreover, not very encouraging. In the meantime William II of Naples had died (1189). The only legitimate heir was Constance, wife of Henry, son and heir of Barbarossa. C., in order to prevent the union in a single hand of the two kingdoms of Naples and Germany, favored the election of Tancred of Lecce, natural son of Roger II. Henry did not resign himself to this, having become emperor after the wretched end of his father in the East, but he soon descended into Italy to be crowned there and to occupy Naples. Death relieved C. of the trouble of resolving this further affair.

There remains from him a vast correspondence, a document of his intense activity in the brief years of his pontificate: he granted and confirmed to monasteries privileges and protection, resolved matrimonial questions, settled complicated disciplinary affairs, freed the Scottish Church from English primacy in order to subject it directly to the Holy See, constituted the ecclesiastical province of Bremen-Hamburg; he canonized Otto of Bamberg and Stephen of Thiers, put an end to the discord with the emperor concerning the election of the bishop of Trier. He died on 20 March 1191 and was buried at the Lateran.

Ireneo Daniele