A History of the Medieval Church by Deanesly Margaret

Author:Deanesly, Margaret.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2011-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI INNOCENT III

Character and aims of Innocent III—His imperial policy —His Italian policy—Innocent and the national kings— Result of his policy in England— His spiritual policy— The fourth Lateran council

The pontificate of Innocent III, 1198–1216, may be taken as the most splendid period in the history of the medieval papacy. Gregory VII, Innocent III and Boniface VIII stand out as the three popes who stated most clearly the claims of the papacy both in spiritual matters and secular: but Innocent III alone made good the claim. He not only ruled the church, but he was a greater force in the secular politics of Europe than either emperor or national king. This end he achieved partly fortuitously, through a long schism in the empire, but also largely through devotion, ambition and ability. He belonged to a noble Roman house, and in his youth studied theology at Paris and law at Bologna, attaining distinction as a canonist and a writer. His uncle, pope Clement III, made him a cardinal before he was thirty, and at thirty-seven years of age, in January 1198, he was elected pope. One of the most briiliant of the Hohenstaufen emperors, Henry VI, had died four months previously: he had inherited and made his power real in Sicily and south Italy, as well as Germany, but he died leaving only a three-year-old child to succeed him. The Hohenstaufen dynasty, and Henry VI in particular, had dreamed of making their temporal sovereignty of Europe as real as their local rule in Germany: but the heir to their dreams of empire was Innocent III. The two aims dearest to his heart were those which he put forward when summoning the great council of 1215, the recovery of the Holy Land and the reform of the church, both rather spiritual than temporal ambitions: but like Gregory VII he found that temporal world power was needed to achieve spiritual reform, and he was more successful than any other pope in attaining it. In his temporal policy the points of greatest importance were his relations with the young emperor, Frederick II, with the national kings, and his success in building up the papal estates into a real Italian principality. His spiritual achievements included the launching of the fourth Crusade, the war against heresy, especially the Albigensian; the patronage of the new orders of friars; increased papal control of elections and appointments to benefices; and the great reforming council known as the fourth Lateran, 1215.

Innocent stated the claims of the spiritual power to supremacy over the temporal in famous and unfaltering language. “The sacerdotium is the sun, the regnum is the moon. Kings rule over their respective kingdoms, but Peter rules over the whole earth. The sacerdotium came by divine creation, the regnum by man’s cunning”—with a reference to theocracy and kingship in the Old Testament. “The Lord Jesus Christ has set up one ruler over all things as His universal vicar, and as all things in heaven, earth and hell bow the knee to Christ, so should all obey Christ’s vicar, that there be one flock and one shepherd.

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