HONORIUS II, POPE. - He reigned from 1124 to 1130. The Sacred College, casting its votes (21 Dec. 1124), not without difficulty, for the name of Lamberto, cardinal bishop of Ostia, one of the negotiators of the Concordat of Worms of 1122 and one of the promoters of the Ninth Ecumenical Council of the Lateran (1123), steered the new pontificate toward the effective realization of ecclesiastical reform. Good relations with nearly all the kings of the West secured for Honorius II a peaceful and fruitful pontificate.
The election of Lothar of Saxony as king of Germany, which took place in 1125 through the efforts of Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, against the final wishes of Henry V, placed upon the imperial throne a prince amenable to the influence of the Church. Episcopal elections proceeded regularly, and the king left to the papal legate the task of deciding in cases of dispute, as in the succession to the see of Würzburg. In return, the Pope and the episcopate supported Lothar III against his rival Conrad, excommunicating the latter and his partisans, for example, the ambitious Archbishop Anselm of Milan, who had already conferred the Iron Crown upon the pretender (1128).
The moderation and long-suffering of Honorius, which even St. Bernard admired, led to the submission of Louis VI the Fat, who had been in conflict with the bishop of Paris, Stephen of Senlis, and with the archbishop of Sens, Henry Sanglier, and the king allowed elections to proceed freely. The same occurred in England, where the episcopate was entirely in the hands of the Pope. In every kingdom there was a papal legate who transmitted the will of Rome.
Only in Italy was the pontificate of Honorius not equally fortunate. He was unable to arrange as he wished the succession of William of Apulia, grandson of Robert Guiscard, nor to prevent Roger II of Sicily from seizing II. The Papacy, reconciled with the Empire, had no need at that time of a refuge; nevertheless, in Rome the rivalry between the Frangipani and the Pierleoni, latent during the pontificate of Honorius, broke out violently in the last days of the Pope, who died in the monastery of St. Gregory on the Caelian Hill, on the night between 12–13 Feb. 1130.