Peter of Capua

PETER OF CAPUA. - Cardinal deacon of S. Maria in Via Lata in 1192, then priest of S. Marcello in 1201. In 1192 he was entrusted with a mission to Poland, Bohemia and Silesia to promote the work of reform, and he held a council at Lenczig to regulate the celibacy of the clergy and to promote among the laity the concept of the holiness of Matrimony through celebration in Church (Hefele-Leclercq, V, 1178).

On his return he was imprisoned near Piacenza by Marquis Guglielmo Pallavicino, for which the city was placed under interdict by the pope. In 1198 he was sent to France to settle the discords stirred up by King Philip Augustus on account of his divorce from his wife Ingeborg, sister of Canute III king of Denmark (Hefele-Leclercq, V, 1219); at the same time he also handled the affairs of the new Crusade, for which at the Synod in Vernon in 1199 he succeeded in concluding an armistice between King Philip Augustus and Richard the Lionheart, king of England, which however did not last. He presided over other councils in France until 1201 to provide for these affairs (Hefele-Leclercq, V, 1126-28) and for ecclesiastical discipline. In 1203 P. informed Innocent III of the pact of Zara concluded by the Crusaders for the expedition to Constantinople; he was at S. Giovanni d'Acri in 1203; in 1204 he presided over a council at Antioch for the negotiations with the Armenians, and in the autumn he embarked with Goffredo Gaetani for Constantinople. In 1211 negotiations were held for him to become patriarch.