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Pope Innocent III: biography, legend, bulls

In the world, Pope Innocent III 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 years. His father Trazimono wore the title of count, and his mother was a Roman from the genus of patricians. Lothario was related by ties to two other popes. Clement III was his uncle, and Grigory IX was his nephew.

Youth

The future head of the Catholic Church, Innocent III, was distinguished from his youth by outstanding intellectual abilities. He studied jurisprudence in Bologna and theology in Paris. A year after the murder of Thomas Becket, Lothario went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

In 1190, the 30-year-old Italian has already become a cardinal. Celestine III, however, kept him away from his entourage. Therefore, a capable cardinal undertook literary activity. His treatise "On contempt for the world, or on the nonentity of the lot of the human" was sold in a significant circulation. Lothario liked curia members. In 1198, after the death of Celestine, they elected him a new pope, who adopted the name Innocent III.

The Pontiff and the Empire

From the first days in a new quality for himself, Innocent was lucky. For a long time the papacy was in conflict with the imperial power of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1197 the monarch Henry VI died, and his state mired in internal conflicts of the Ghibellines and Guelphs. Germany was completely immersed in the civil war. All this only strengthened the positions that Innokentii 3. occupied. His biography was connected with the most diverse European countries, which he visited for the sake of studies and pilgrimages. Now Innokenty as the head of the Catholics needed to contact with the monarchs of all these states.

The paralysis of imperial power allowed the Pope to regain control over 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 because of conflicts between aristocratic groups. Innocent himself was a patrician on the maternal line, and, using family ties, he was able to reconcile the nobility. The political success of the head of the Catholic Church in Italy was crowned with the fact that he became the 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 proposal.

Fourth Crusade

Not so lucky the Pope was in the fight against the Muslims. Following his predecessors, Innocent III attempted to win Jerusalem from the infidels and, for this purpose, blessed the Fourth Crusade. In 1198, a decree was issued, according to which a 2.5% tax on the income of the church was established for the organization of the military campaign. The money was collected for several years, but they were not enough. According to the plan, the crusaders were to cross the Mediterranean Sea on Venetian ships. However, after arriving in the trading republic, the princes and knights could not pay the required amount (84 thousand silver marks).

The enterprising doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, offered the crusaders to help him capture the Hungarian city of Zara on the Adriatic coast. In exchange for support, the elderly politician promised to still transport the army, which was striving to get to Palestine. As a result, Zara was captured and looted. The fall of the Christian city in the heart of Europe was accompanied by the looting and killing of civilians.

Having heard about the incident, Pope Innocent 3 was enraged. He excommunicated all the participants of the campaign. Soon, however, politics interfered in the matter. The universal anathema meant the ultimate failure of the campaign, which could still be saved. In addition, the pope did not intend to quarrel with feudal lords from all over Europe. Weighed 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 return, 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. The tempting proposal turned the plans of the crusaders and Venetians. In 1204 they captured and plundered one of the greatest cities of the Middle Ages, Constantinople. On the ruins of Byzantium, a Catholic Latin Empire was created, the power in which belonged to the Franks.

Pope Innocent 3 tried to stop the feudal lords who went to Constantinople. To do this he did not succeed. Moreover, there has been no unification of the churches. The split between Catholics and Orthodox has only become wider. However, Innocent 3, whose brief biography is an example of a pontiff, persistently persecuted apostates and infidels, did not lose faith in the effectiveness of the Crusader movement.

Fighting against heretics

At the beginning of the XI century, the Christian province of Albigensian appeared in the French province of Languedoc (in modern science they were called kathars). They denied the sacraments of the church, the sacred images and the saints themselves. Most of all Cathars concentrated in the south-west of France. They were assisted by some bishops dissatisfied with church orders, as well as by local rich aristocrats.

Having ascended the papal throne, Innocent began to eradicate the apostates. Curiously, he first sent to the heretics negotiators, among whom were St. Dominic and Abbot Sieve. In 1209, an attempt at a diplomatic settlement failed, and the pontiff announced the beginning of a new crusade, lasting for a total of twenty years.

The Legend of the Franciscans

In 1209, not only did the crusade against the Albigensians begin, but the first great mendicant Franciscan order was created . The history of his appearance formed the basis of the popular medieval legend. The preacher Francis of Assisi brought his followers to Rome, wanting to get 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 organize a meeting of the traveler with the pontiff.

According to legend, Innocent III established the Franciscan order only after he had a dream, in which St. Francis himself held the Lateran basilica with his own hands. Before this sign, he was suspicious of an unknown vagabond preacher, whom in Italy at that time was a great multitude. Many of them were no different from fools and sectarians.

Francis was not like the other false messiahs by preaching asceticism, love of neighbor, and the desire for poverty. His followers began to be called "small brothers". Innocent III established the Franciscan order only after his doubts were dispelled by a mystical dream. However, if there was a sign, it was providential. The Order quickly became extremely popular. Taking advantage of the protection of the Catholic Church, he consistently increased the ranks of his members. In just ten years it already had 3 thousand people, which for that time was a significant figure.

Dominican and Teutonic Order

The tendency to the emergence and expansion of new Catholic orders under Innocent was not limited to the Franciscans alone. In his era in Toulouse appeared the community of St. Dominic. It became the basis of another order. Innocent did not have time to bless his creation because of his sudden death. Instead, in 1216, he succeeded Honorius III. The Dominican order was enlightening - his monks engaged in theological studies in the monasteries and university towns throughout Europe.

In 1199, Innocent issued a bull, which gave autonomy to another community of defenders of pilgrims in Palestine. This was the beginning of the Teutonic Order, which later moved to the Baltic, where its knights fought with the pagans and the Russian principalities. The organization was subordinate not only to the head of the church, but also to the imperial power.

The Teutonic Order and Pope Innocent III collaborated for many years. The Pontiff sponsored Heinrich Valpot, the first Grand Master of this community. In 1215, Innocent initiated a crusade against the Prussians. The Teutonic Order became the driving force in that campaign. The eastern policy of Innocent himself was not confined to fighting the pagans. As far back as 1204 he suggested to the Volynian prince Roman Mstislavovich to accept Catholicism and receive the title of King of Galicia. These negotiations did not end with anything, since Ryurikovich did not want to change his faith.

Bulla Venerabilem

Important for their era, the papal bulls Innocent 3 diplomatically explained to the contemporaries the position of the Holy See on key religious and political issues. The most famous similar document of this pontiff was Venerabilem, published in 1202. Bulla contained the theses in which the head of the church explained his attitude to the imperial power thesis.

In Venerabilem Innocent confirmed the right of the German princes to elect the king. In the Holy Roman Empire, he became the emperor. In this case, anointed the kingdom and crowned him could only have a dad. If he considered the candidate unworthy for the emperor's title, then the princes were to elect another person. Innocent argued for his privilege by the fact that the church at all times needed a secular patron and protector. In the case of the inability of the princes to elect a worthy candidate, the pontiff left the decisive right to determine the new emperor. Soon he had to use these powers.

Castling of the Emperors

Bull Venerabilem was another stage in the struggle between secular and ecclesiastical power in Western Europe. Innocent sought to stop the growth of the influence of the emperors, including the annexation of their possessions of the Sicilian kingdom. On the throne then pretended infantile Frederick II, but he could not take the throne as a child. Meanwhile, half of the German princes wanted Philip of Swabia to become emperor, while the other half supported Otto Braunschweig. On the candidature of the latter, Innocent III also stopped. The pope anointed Otto to reign in 1209.

However, having received power, the new emperor refused to obey the policy of the pontiff. He began to restore his imperial influence in the forbidden for him Italy and Sicily. Then Innocent excommunicated Otto from the church. In 1212, the Pope promised the imperial dignity to the grown up Friedrich (he became emperor eight years later, after the death of his patron and guardian).

Otto also lost his monarchical influence after he was defeated in 1214 at the Battle of Buvin, when he was defeated by the French King Philip II Augustus. A few months later he resigned from his title of emperor. Deprived of the support of the Electors and the Pontiff, Otto IV died because of the dysentery that struck him in 1218. In all this political struggle that engulfed Europe in the beginning of the XIII century, a clear characteristic of the Pope of Innocent III can be traced. At him the institution of the papacy reached the peak of its secular influence on the monarchs of the Old World.

Conflict with John the Landless

Complicated at this time were the relationship of the Holy See with England. In 1207, Innocent appointed Stephen Langton as the new archbishop of Canterbury. English King John the Landless refused to recognize the protege of Rome. For this, the head of the Catholic world imposed an interdict on the country, forbidding the conduct of religious services in it. In response, John described all the church property in England, due to which he earned an incredible sum of 100 thousand pounds. It seemed that the conflict with the spiritual authorities only benefited him.

As the legend of Innocent 3 says, according to dreams he decided to approve the foundation of the Franciscan order, but in real politics the pontiff in his decisions was guided by far more objective reasons. Seeing the stubbornness of the English monarch, the pope excommunicated him from the church. The British bishops voluntarily went into exile.

The conflict lasted for several years. Finally, in 1213, John, who also fought with his feudal lords, apologized to Innocent. After that, the pope began to protect the king. He forbade the French monarch Philip II Augustus to declare England a war because of the claims to Normandy. In addition, Pope Innocent 3, whose biography was connected with a long pilgrimage to Canterbury, excommunicated the barons who attempted to deprive John Greene, the signatory of the "Magna Carta" of John Lackland.

The Fourth Lateran Cathedral and Death

The culmination of the pontificate Innocent III was the Fourth Lateran Cathedral. It opened in November 1215. The epoch-making event was attended by 400 archbishops and bishops, as well as several patriarchs of the Eastern churches. At the same time, there were no Greek hierarchs. Even after eleven years, the horror of plundering Constantinople scared the Byzantines from any cooperation with the Catholics.

The Council published more than seventy canons, devoted to a variety of issues relating to religious life. For example, he forbade Christians to have commercial relations with the Jews. Discrimination of Jews was a characteristic feature of the era, and Innocent and his entourage were people brought up by their time.

The pope left behind him not only the decisions of the Lateran Cathedral and the bull, but also thousands of letters. Many of them were devoted to the law: 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, a photo of medieval images of which shows yet a fairly young man, died July 16, 1216 in Perugia at the age of 55 years. The reason for the early death of the pontiff was malaria. Innocent suffered a fatal illness on the road to the north of Italy, where he went after the completion of the Lateran Cathedral to settle disputes between Pisa and Genoa. The Pope hoped for the help of the two republics in organizing the new Fifth Crusade. He was buried in Perugia. The remains of Innocent were transferred to Rome in 1891.

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