In the world, Pope Innocent 3 was known as Lothario de Segni. He was born near the city of Anagni. The exact date of birth of the pontiff is not known. This is either 1160 or 1161. His father Trasimono bore the title of count, and his mother was a Roman from the patrician clan. Lothario was bound by kinship with two other popes. Clement III was his uncle, and Gregory IX was his nephew.
Youth
The future head of the Catholic Church Innocent 3 from a young age was distinguished by outstanding intellectual abilities. He studied law in Bologna and theology in Paris. A year after the assassination of Thomas Becket, Lothario went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.
In 1190, the 30-year-old Italian had already become a cardinal. Celestine III, however, kept him away from his entourage. Therefore, a capable cardinal took up literary activity. His treatise "On contempt for the world, or On the insignificance of the lot of humanity" was sold in a significant circulation. Lothario liked the members of the curia. In 1198, after the death of Celestine, they elected him the new pope, who took the name Innocent III.
Pontiff and empire
From the first days, Innokenty was noticeably lucky in his new quality. For a long time, the papacy has been in conflict with the imperial power of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1197, the monarch Henry VI died, and his state was mired in internal conflicts of the Ghibellines and Guelphs. Germany and completely plunged into a civil war. All this only strengthened the position occupied by Innocent 3. The biography of his youth was connected with the most diverse European countries, which he visited for the sake of study and pilgrimages. Now Innocent, as the head of the Catholics, had to contact the monarchs of all these states.
The paralysis of imperial power allowed the pope to regain control of the papal state, expanding its borders to the Adriatic Sea after the annexation of the Ancona mark and Spoleto. Under Celestine, the Eternal City suffered from anarchy due to conflicts of aristocratic groups. Innocent himself was a maternal patrician and, using family ties, was able to make peace with the nobility. The political successes of the head of the Catholic Church in Italy were crowned with the fact that he became regent of the Sicilian kingdom, located in the south of the Apennine Peninsula. Shortly before his death, his ruler Constance asked the pontiff to become the guardian of her young son Friedrich until his coming of age. Innocent 3 accepted this offer.
Fourth Crusade
Not so lucky was the pope in the fight against Muslims. Following his predecessors, Innocent 3 tried to conquer Jerusalem from the infidels and for this purpose blessed the Fourth Crusade. In 1198, a decree was issued according to which a tax of 2.5% of church income was established on the organization of a military campaign. Money was collected for several years, but it was not enough. According to the plan, the crusaders were to cross the Mediterranean Sea in Venetian ships. However, having arrived in the commercial republic, the princes and knights could not pay the amount required from them (84 thousand silver marks).
The entrepreneurial doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo invited the crusaders to help him capture the Hungarian city of Zara on the Adriatic. In exchange for support, the elderly politician promised to transport troops who were trying to get to Palestine. As a result, Zara was captured and plundered. The fall of the Christian city in the heart of Europe was accompanied by robberies and killings of civilians.
Pope Innocent 3, who learned about the incident, was furious. He excommunicated all participants in the campaign. Soon, however, politics intervened. Universal anathema meant the final failure of the campaign, which could still be saved. In addition, the pope was not going to quarrel with feudal lords from all over Europe. After weighing the pros and cons, the pontiff canceled the anathema, leaving the curse only on the initiators of the attack on Zara, the Venetians.
The fall of Constantinople
The worst, however, was yet to come. The crusaders established contact with the deposed Byzantine emperor Alexei, who asked them to help him regain his throne. In exchange for this, the applicant promised to support the Catholics in their war against Muslims with reinforcements and money. He also agreed to subordinate the Greek Church to the West. A tempting offer turned upside down the plans of the Crusaders and the Venetians. In 1204, they captured and plundered one of the greatest cities of the Middle Ages, Constantinople. On the ruins of Byzantium, the Catholic Latin Empire was created, in which power belonged to the Franks.
Pope Innocent 3 tried to stop the feudal lords heading to Constantinople. He failed to do this. Moreover, no association of churches has happened. The split between Catholics and Orthodox has become wider. However, Innocent 3, whose brief biography is an example of a pontiff who unceasingly pursued apostates and infidels, did not lose faith in the effectiveness of the crusader movement.
The fight against heretics
At the beginning of the XI century, the Christian sect of the Albigensians arose in the French province of Languedoc (in modern science they began to call them Cathars). They denied the sacraments of the church, sacred images, and the saints themselves. Most of the Cathars concentrated in the south-west of France. They were assisted by some bishops dissatisfied with church orders, as well as local rich aristocrats.
Having ascended the papal throne, Innocent set about eradicating the apostates. It is curious that for a start he sent negotiators to heretics, among whom were St. Dominic and Abbot Sito. In 1209, an attempt at a diplomatic settlement failed, and the pontiff announced the start of a new crusade, which lasted for twenty whole years.
The legend of the Franciscans
In 1209, not only the crusade against the Albigenses began, but the first great beggarly order of the Franciscans was created. The history of his appearance formed the basis of a popular medieval legend. The preacher Francis of Assisi brought his followers to Rome, wanting permission from the pope to create a new religious order. This man had no connections in the upper echelons of the church. However, the popularity among the poor and his own charisma helped him convince the Catholic bishops to arrange a meeting between the traveler and the pontiff.
According to legend, Innocent 3 established the Franciscan order only after he had a dream in which St. Francis himself held the Lateran Basilica. Prior to this sign, he was suspicious of an unknown stray preacher, of whom there were a great many in Italy at that time. Many of them were no different from holy fools and sectarians.
Francis was not like the rest of the false messiahs in that he preached asceticism, love for one's neighbor, and the pursuit of poverty. His followers began to be called "little brothers." Innocent 3 established the Franciscan order only after his doubts were dispelled by a mystical dream. However, if the sign was, then it turned out to be visionary. The order quickly became extremely popular. Taking advantage of the patronage of the Catholic Church, he consistently increased the ranks of his members. In just ten years, there were already 3 thousand people in it, which for that time was a significant figure.
Dominican and Teutonic Order
The tendency for the emergence and expansion of new Catholic orders under Innocent was not limited to the Franciscans alone. In his era, the community of St. Dominic appeared in Toulouse. She became the basis of another order. Innocent did not have time to bless his creation because of his sudden death. Instead, in 1216, this was done by the successor of Honorius III. The Dominican Order was enlightening - its monks engaged in theological research in the cloisters and university cities throughout Europe.
In 1199, Innocent issued a bull, which granted autonomy to another community of pilgrim defenders in Palestine. This was the beginning of the Teutonic Order, which later moved to the Baltic, where its knights fought with pagans and Russian specific principalities. The organization was subordinated not only to the head of the church, but also to imperial power.
The Teutonic Order and Pope Innocent 3 have collaborated for many years. The pontiff patronized Heinrich Walpot - the first Grand Master of this community. In 1215, Innocent initiated a crusade against the Prussians. The driving force in that campaign was precisely the Teutonic Order. The oriental policy of Innocent himself was not limited only to the struggle against the pagans. As early as 1204, he invited Volyn prince Roman Mstislavovich to accept Catholicism and receive the title of King of Galicia. These negotiations did not end with anything, since Rurikovich did not want to change his faith.
Bull Venerabilem
Important for their era papal bulls Innocent 3 diplomatically explained to contemporaries the position of the Holy See on key religious and political issues. The most famous document of this pontiff was Venerabilem, published in 1202. Bull contained the theses in which the head of the church explained thesis with a thesis about the imperial power.
In Venerabilem Innocent confirmed the right of the German princes to elect a king. In the Holy Roman Empire, it was he who became the emperor. At the same time, only Papa could anoint and reign his kingdom. If he considered the candidate unworthy for the imperial rank, then the princes had to elect another person. Innocent argued his privilege by the fact that the church at all times needed a secular patron and protector. If the princes were unable to choose a worthy candidate, the pontiff reserved the decisive right to determine the new emperor. Soon he had to use these powers.
Castling Emperors
Bull Venerabilem became the next stage in the struggle of secular and ecclesiastical authority in Western Europe. Innocent sought to stop the growth of emperors, including the accession to their possessions of the Sicilian kingdom. Young Frederick II claimed the throne then, but he could not take the throne as a child. Meanwhile, half of the German princes wanted Philip of Swabia to become emperor, and the other half supported Otton of Braunschweig. Innocent 3 also stopped at the candidacy of the latter. Pope anointed Otto to the kingdom in 1209.
However, having received power, the new emperor refused to obey the pontiff's policy. He began to restore his imperial influence in the forbidden Italy and Sicily. Then Innocent excommunicated Otto from the church. In 1212, the pope promised imperial dignity to the grown-up Frederick (he became emperor eight years later, after the death of his patron and guardian).
Otton, on the other hand, lost his monarchical influence after being defeated at the Battle of Bouvin in 1214, when he was defeated by the French king Philip II Augustus. A few months later he resigned the title of emperor. Deprived of the support of the electors and pontiff, Otton IV died due to dysentery that struck him in 1218. In all this political struggle, which swept Europe at the beginning of the 13th century, there is a clear characteristic of Pope Innocent 3. Under him, the institution of the papacy reached the peak of its secular influence on the Old World monarchs.
Conflict with John Landless
The relations of the Holy See with England were also difficult at that time. In 1207, Innocent appointed Stephen Langton as the new archbishop of Canterbury. English King John Landless refused to recognize the protege of Rome. For this, the head of the Catholic world imposed an interdict on the country, forbidding to conduct religious services in it. In response, John described all the church property in England, thanks to which he earned an incredible amount of 100 thousand pounds. It seemed that the conflict with spiritual authority was only good for him.
According to legend Innocent 3, according to dreams, he decided to approve the foundation of the Franciscan order, but in real politics the pontiff was guided by much more objective reasons in his decisions. Seeing the stubbornness of the English monarch, the pope excommunicated him from the church. British bishops voluntarily went into exile.
The conflict lasted several years. Finally, in 1213, John, who also fought with his feudal lords, obeyed Innocent. After that, the pope began to defend the king. He forbade the French monarch Philip II Augustus to declare war on England because of claims to Normandy. In addition, Pope Innocent 3, whose biography was associated with a long pilgrimage to Canterbury, excommunicated the barons who tried to deprive the signatory of John the Landless Magna Carta.
Fourth Lateran Cathedral and Death
The culmination of the pontificate of Innocent III was the Fourth Lateran Cathedral. It opened in November 1215. At the landmark event, 400 archbishops and bishops arrived, as well as several patriarchs of the eastern churches. At the same time, there were no Greek hierarchs. Even eleven years later, the horror of the sack of Constantinople scared the Byzantines from any cooperation with the Catholics.
The council promulgated more than seventy canons on a variety of issues related to religious life. For example, he forbade Christians from doing business with Jews. The discrimination of Jews was a characteristic feature of the era, and Innocent and his entourage were people educated by their time.
The Pope left behind not only the decisions of the Lateran Cathedral and Bull, but also thousands of letters. Many of them were devoted to legal issues: as you know, the pontiff was an outstanding medieval lawyer. The original collection of his correspondence was deposited at the University of Bologna.
Innocent 3, whose photos of medieval images still show a fairly young man, died on July 16, 1216 in Perugia at the age of 55. The cause of the pontiff's early death was malaria. Innocent fell ill with a fatal illness on the way to the north of Italy, where he went after the completion of the Lateran Cathedral to resolve disputes between Pisa and Genoa. Pope hoped for help from the two republics in organizing a new Fifth Crusade. He was buried in Perugia. The remains of Innocent were transferred to Rome in 1891.