INNOCENZO III, POPE. — Named Lotario, born at Gavignano (Segni) in 1160 or 1161 to Trasmondo, belonging to the local nobility (hence the name Conti given to the family), and to the noble Roman Clarice Scotti; elected pope on 8 January 1198, he died at Perugia on 16 July 1216. Rome, where he received his first education, was his true homeland; he was then sent to study theology in Paris and canon law in Bologna (there he had as his teacher the great decretalist Uguccione da Pisa). Returning to Rome, he was ordained subdeacon by Gregorio VIII, and by Clemente III was promoted cardinal deacon of SS. Sergio and Bacco. In the Curia, including under his successor Celestino III, he distinguished himself through his ability and diligence.
At the same time he composed two short works that remained famous: the De miseria humane condicensis, better known under the later title De comptemptu mundi, (PL 217, 701-46), an ascetical treatise describing the state of man from birth to the afterlife (its influence until the 16th century was very great, as demonstrated by the more than 400 surviving manuscripts), and the De sacro altaris mysteria (PL 217, 763-915), a lengthy commentary on the Mass, important for sacramental theology and the history of the liturgy. As pope, too, I. continued his literary activity, composing short works and numerous sermons (e.g.: De vita et passione Domini N. J. C. [PL 217, 815-18]; De omnibus Sanctis [PL 217, 917-18]; De quadripartita specie nuptiarum liber [PL 217, 921-68]; Commentarium in septem psalmos poenitentiales [PL 217, 967-1129]; Regula Ordinis S. Spiritus de Saxia [PL 217, 1129-1158]; Sermones de tempore [PL 217, 313-450]; Sermones de Sanctis [PL 217, 451-691]) and addressing questions of theology and law in his letters. In 1210 he had the most important letters collected and sent them to the University of Bologna, the first official collection of decretals.
At the death of the aged Celestino III, Lotario was elected pope. He immediately began at the Lateran a remarkable and extraordinarily intense activity in every field and in every part of Christendom. Two motives dominated and directed it from the beginning of his pontificate: the reform of the Church and the Crusade. A true disciple of s. Bernardo, his favorite author, he began with the reform of the Curia, seeking to combat venality there; he worked for the formation of a better episcopate and clergy, while also promoting decentralization by strengthening the authority of bishops and metropolitans, suppressing abusive appeals to Rome, and encouraging provincial and national councils (the one held at Paris in 1212 was important). He also promoted the reform of male and female monasteries and favored the new foundations that were emerging, as they responded more closely to the needs of the time: thus he approved the Order of the Holy Spirit for the care of the poor sick (he summoned its founder Guy of Montpellier to Rome and had the great hospital of S. Spirito built), the Trinitarians for the liberation of prisoners, and the Umiliati in Lombardy, and he encouraged the establishment of regular canons. He authoritatively assisted s. Domenico and s. Francesco in their beginnings; to the former he suggested the idea of an Ordo Praedicatorum against the heretics of France, and to the latter he granted permission to preach, orally approving his way of life. It may be said that it was precisely the spirit and work of reform of I. III that prepared the two great mendicant Orders and their establishment. The general Council held at Rome in November 1215 (the Fourth Lateran Council) sanctioned the reform of the Church undertaken by the great Pope, promulgating
extensive canonical legislation in the fields of dogma, morality, discipline, and ecclesiastical organization, the most important before the Council of Trent.
I.’s efforts to organize a new Crusade (Jerusalem had fallen in 1187, and the Third Crusade had ended disastrously) were conducted with great constancy and energy. The hopes formed in 1202, when, under his impetus, the crusading army was assembled, were frustrated by the Venetians, who used the Crusaders against Zara and then against the Empire of Constantinople. I. strongly deplored the Crusaders’ excesses, yet rejoiced in the new Latin Empire that arose in the East (1204), hoping—too optimistically—that unity with the Eastern Church might finally be achieved; negotiations toward this end had already begun in 1198. After 1204 his efforts for a new Crusade resumed, and the Lateran Council had as its principal purpose the preparation of the great undertaking, planned for 1217.
I.’s zeal was also directed toward combating the Cathar and Waldensian heresies, which by the end of the 12th century had taken root and appeared particularly dangerous in southern France, in Languedoc. The Pope first sought to combat the causes that favored them, undertaking to reform the morals of the clergy and episcopate, encouraging groups that had converted (he approved the « Poor Catholics » of Durando di Huesca), and promoting preaching in poverty, to which he urged the Cistercians and later s. Domenico and his companions. The meager results of this action, and the fateful killing of the papal legate Pietro di Castelnau (1208), induced him to seek the aid of the secular arm, in order to suppress by force the evil threatening the unity of the Church. The barons of northern France, led by Simone di Montfort, who wished to deprive Raimondo VI, count of Toulouse, of his territories, answered the call to the Crusade against the Albigensians. The Crusade thus became a bloody war of conquest, which the Pope was unable to control, partly because he was poorly served by his legates, who favored Simone; at the Lateran Council, I. succeeded in having part of Raimondo’s domains preserved for his son. He proclaimed another, more successful Crusade against the Muslims of Spain, in aid of the kings of Castile, which led to the victory of Las Navas di Tolosa (1212). In northern Europe, in the still pagan regions of Finland, Prussia, and especially Livonia, he sent missionaries and organized the Church; he also turned to Russia, seeking its union with Rome, but without practical results. Instead, union was restored, for a short time, with Bulgaria, whose ruler, Joannitza, asked the Pope for the crown, offering him his kingdom as a vassal.
In relation to the sovereigns of Europe, I. pursued an extremely energetic policy, governed by the idea of Christian peace and unity for the Crusade. After the death of Enrico VI (1197), the Empire was divided between two contenders, Ottone di Braunschweig and Filippo di Svevia, the brother of Enrico VI. I. maintained an attitude of waiting and prudence, and only in 1201 recognized Ottone; after Filippo’s assassination, he crowned him emperor in 1209. But he soon had to oppose him, because he was invading the territories of the Church and aimed to conquer all Italy. He then turned to the young Federico II, king of Sicily, of whom he had been guardian, who promised that he would keep the crown of Sicily separate from the imperial crown (1213).
Thus circumstances compelled I. to favor the rise to the Empire of the son of Enrico VI, whose policies he had so strongly deplored. Relations with France were good, but he was extremely firm toward King Filippo Augusto, eventually placing the kingdom under interdict in order to induce him to take back his lawful wife Ingeburga. Moreover, when war broke out between France and England in 1203 with the invasion of Normandy, he intervened authoritatively with the two sovereigns so that they might restore peace, specifying the spiritual nature (ratione peccati), rather than the political nature, of his intervention. A complicated question concerning the appointment
of the Archbishop of Canterbury, followed by Giovanni Senza Terra’s hostilities towards the Church, led in 1208 to the interdict upon the English dominions and to the deposition of the King. Threatened with an invasion by Filippo Augusto, Giovanni sought absolution from I. and offered his Kingdom as a fief of the Holy See. Other sovereigns as well, such as Pietro II of Aragon, offered their Kingdoms in fief to the Pope, in order to obtain the protection of his lofty spiritual authority. In Italy, finally, I. worked extensively to strengthen his dominion in Rome and in the lands of the Church, in Tuscany and in the north in order to bind the Communes to himself, and in southern Italy, seeking to make the Kingdom a vassal of the Holy See, as the Empress Costanza had provided in her will. The extension of his political authority over almost all Europe has led to I. being portrayed as a “distributor of crowns,” wholly intent upon establishing a universal political dominion, improperly called theocracy. In reality, this was not his political conception: from the genuine foundations of papal primacy, he developed the doctrine of the unity of the Church and of the plenitudo potestatis of the pontiff as vicar of Christ; a disciple of Uguccione and of the Bolognese school of canon law, he maintained the traditional doctrine of the distinction and independence of the two powers, while emphasizing the superiority of the spiritual. On the other hand, his intense activity for peace and for the union of Christian princes with a view to the Crusade, as well as his defense of the liberty and rights of the Church, led him to manifold and profound interventions in temporal affairs, which in fact extended the political authority of the papacy, undoubtedly contributing to bind the temporal ever more closely to the spiritual. The subsequent doctrine of Innocenzo IV, which affirms the supreme dominion of the pope, vicar of Christ, over both powers, was to be a development of this, but it does not yet appear in I. III.
Death overtook him at the age of 55, after more than 18 years of pontificate, while he was in Perugia preparing the Crusade. - Vedi tav. III.