Pope Innocent III
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He was the son of Count Trasimund of Segni and nephew of Pope Clement III. His father was a member of the famous house of Conti, which has produced nine popes, including Gregory IX, Alexander IV and Innocent XIII. His mother, Claricia, belonged to the noble Roman family of Scotti.
He was educated in Rome, Paris (under Peter of Corbeil), and Bologna (under Huguccio); he was considered an intellectual and one of the greatest canon lawyers of his time.
After the death of Pope Alexander III, he returned to Rome and held office during the short reigns of Lucius III, Urban III, Gregory VIII, and Clement III, reaching the rank of Cardinal Deacon in 1190. During the reign of Pope Celestine III (1191–1198), a member of the House of Orsini, enemies of the counts of Segni, he left Rome to live in Anagni.
Celestine III died in 1198. On the day he was buried, de' Conti was elected pope and took the name of Innocent III, at only thirty-seven years of age. The Imperial throne had become vacant by the death of Henry VI in 1197, and no successor had as yet been elected. Innocent took advantage of this vacuum to lessen German influence in Italy—his first act was the restoration of the papal power in Rome. The Prefect of Rome, who reigned over the city as the emperor's representative, swore allegiance to Innocent. He demanded the restoration of the Romagna and the March of Ancona to the Church from Markwald of Anweiler, and used papal troops to bring this about. In a similar way, the Duchies of Spoleto, Assisi and Sora were taken from the German Conrad von Uerslingen.
The pope made use of the weakness of Frederick II (who was four years old) to reassert papal power in Sicily, and acknowledged Frederick II as king only after the surrender of the privileges of the Four Chapters, which William I of Sicily had previously extorted from Pope Adrian IV. The pope then invested Frederick II as King of Sicily in November, 1198. He also induced the young king to marry the widow of King Emeric of Hungary in 1209.
After the death of the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI in 1197, the Ghibellines and the Guelfs had elected different emperors—Philip of Swabia and Otto of Wittelsbach. In 1201 the pope openly supported Otto IV, announcing that Otto had been approved as Roman king and threatened with excommunication all those who refused to acknowledge him.
Innocent III made clear to the German princes by the Decree Venerabilem in May, 1202, how he considered the relationship between the Empire and the Papacy (this decree was afterwards embodied in the Corpus Juris Canonici). The chief points of the decree were: the right to decide whether a king is worthy of the imperial crown belongs to the pope; in case of a double election the electors must ask the pope to arbitrate or pronounce in favour of one of the claimants.
Innocent changed his mind and declared in favour of Philip in 1207, and sent cardinals to Germany to induce Otto to renounce his claims to the throne. Otto murdered Philip on June 21, 1208 and at the Diet of Frankfurt of November 11, 1208, Otto was acknowledged as king and the pope invited him to Rome to receive the imperial crown. He was crowned emperor in Rome, October 4, 1209. Before his coronation Otto promised to leave the Church in possession of Spoleto and Ancona and to grant the freedom of ecclesiastical elections, unlimited right of appeal to the pope and the exclusive competency of the hierarchy in spiritual matters; he also promised to assist in the destruction of heresy (the stipulation of Neuss, repeated at Speyer, 1209).
But soon after he had been crowned, Otto seized Ancona, Spoleto and other property of the Church, giving it to some of his vassals. He also invaded the Kingdom of Sicily. Otto was excommunicated on November 18, 1210.
The pope managed to get most of the princes to renounce the excommunicated emperor and elect in his place Frederick II of Sicily, at the Diet of Nuremberg in September, 1211. Frederick made the same promises as Otto IV and his election was ratified by Innocent and he was crowned at Aachen on July 12, 1215.
Otto allied with England (he was nephew of King John 'Lackland' of England) to fight Philip Augustus of France, but he was defeated in the Battle of Bouvines in what is now Belgium, July 27, 1214. Then he lost all influence (and died on May 19, 1218), leaving Frederick II, the undisputed emperor.
Innocent played a further role in the politics of France, Sweden, Bulgaria, Spain and especially England.
Innocent was a strenuous opponent of heresy. He had the Papal States cleared of the Manichean heretics, and under the leadership of Simon de Montfort a campaign was started against the Albigenses. The Church also took on the role of organising the Crusades. They were to be launched against heretics at the direction of the Pontiff and were to be used to impose the rule of the Church on the unbeliever. This was a prelude to the legitimisation of the Inquisition in 1233. Heresy was to be punished for the spiritual good of the individual as well as for the preservation of the Church.
Innocent called for the Fourth Crusade in 1198, directing the call towards the knights and nobles of Europe, rather than the kings (he preferred that neither Richard I of England and Philip II of France, who were still engaged in war, nor his German enemies, participate). This call was generally ignored until 1200, when a crusade was finally organized in Champagne, which the Venetians re-directed into the sacking of Zara in 1202 and Constantinople in 1204. Innocent excommunicated the Venetians in return, and although he was not pleased with the means by which it was done, he accepted the end result of the temporary reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox churches after the Great Schism of 1054.
He also summoned the Fourth Lateran Council (12th ecumenical council), in November, 1215. It decided on a general crusade to the Holy Land (the Fifth Crusade), as well as issuing seventy reformatory decrees.
Innocent died at Perugia. He was buried in the cathedral of Perugia where his body remained until Pope Leo XIII had it transferred to the Lateran in December, 1891.
See also: list of popes named Innocent