PIETRO di 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 held a council at Lenczig to regulate clerical celibacy and promote among the laity the concept of the holiness of Matrimony with its celebration in church (Hefele-Lecercq, 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 discord caused by King Philip Augustus over his divorce from his wife Ingeburga, sister of Canute III of Denmark (Hefele-Lecercq, V, 1219); at the same time he also dealt with the affairs of the new Crusade, for which at the Synod of Vernon in 1199 he succeeded in concluding an armistice between Philip Augustus and Richard the Lionheart, King of England, though it did not last. He presided over other councils in France until 1201 to deal with these matters (Hefele-Lecercq, V, 1126-28) and with ecclesiastical discipline. In 1203 P. informed Innocent III of the Pact of Zara made by the Crusaders for the enterprise against Constantinople; he was at S. Giovanni d’Acri in 1203; in 1204 he presided over a council at Antioch for negotiations with the Armenians and in the autumn embarked with Goffredo Gaetani for Constantinople. In 1211 efforts were made for him to become patriarch.